Why can’t we let children be children?
Kaylee McGhee White
Back when I was growing up, girls who enjoyed playing sports and roughhousing and disliked feminine activities, including dolls and dress-up, were allowed to go through their tomboy phase without being pressured to fit in. They were girls who might not have gotten along well with other girls, but they were girls — that much was certain.
Nowadays, those girls are lucky to make it to puberty without having their breasts cut off.
Gender ideologues have convinced an alarming number of young children and teenagers that if they feel out of place with their sex or feel uncomfortable in their bodies, it’s because they were born into the wrong gender. Changing one’s gender, both socially and physically, is the only solution, according to transgender activists.
Unfortunately, the medical field has adopted this narrative unquestioningly, even though it violates every single norm and ethical standard on the books. Doctors are prescribing puberty blockers and other hormonal treatments to children as young as 8 if they think they are confused about their gender, knowing full well that the long-term consequences of these drugs are unknown and very likely irreversible.
An in-depth report from the New York Times, for example, found that puberty blockers can damage the development of children’s bones and brains permanently.
“There’s going to be a price. And the price is probably going to be some deficit in skeletal mass,” said Dr. Sundeep Khosla, the leader of a Mayo Clinic bone research lab.
Putting gender-confused children on these treatments also tends to cement their new “gender identity” into their heads, making it much more difficult for them to desist and grow into their own bodies as they mature — which is what the vast majority of gender-confused children will do if given enough time, according to multiple studies. One detransitioner with whom the New York Times spoke, for example, recalls consulting with her doctors about a breast removal when she was 17 and realizing that she was making an enormous mistake.
“I believe it was an issue with my identity, accepting who I was, and not just the physical female portion of it,” Jacy Chavira said.
Over the next several years, there are going to be thousands of young adults just like Chavira who regret the decisions they made when they were young and confused. But for many, the consequences of those decisions will be permanent because of the medical intervention pushed on them by adults who knew better.