First, Do No Harm

“Gender affirming care” is an irreversible abuse of children and if we are going to stop it—we must be willing to really understand it.

“When I was 16, I thought that being a boy [she was born a girl] was more important to me than having kids. But now at 21, I wonder why I was allowed to make that decision so young.” 

This quote from a detransitioner — a person who reverts to their birth sex after attempting to transition to the opposite via lifestyle, medication, and/or surgery — is both heartbreaking and infuriating. It’s one of many horror stories from young women and men bravely stepping forward to expose the lies and harm caused by the radical trans agenda (RTA) and the predatory media, Big Pharma, medical, and political establishments. We must actively seek out, listen to, and internalize their stories in order to save our children from the same destructive path they were deliberately led down.

But first, we need to understand what is driving the recent surge in “trans” children and youth. Superficially, proponents of RTA appear to make a compelling argument for childhood transitioning. They claim kids can experience “gender confusion” and that medical intervention can be used to safely “pause puberty and give [them] time to explore their true, authentic selves.” They promote and glamorize a “safe and effective” solution to both common childhood anxieties and potentially serious mental illnesses—first cross-dressing and opposite pronouns, then “puberty blockers,” followed by cross-sex hormones and finally, cross-sex surgical intervention. To many well-meaning people and scared parents of vulnerable, confused children, the message comes across as kind, compassionate, and reasonable. But the reality is that it’s manipulative, pseudo-scientific, and, frankly, utter nonsense.

According to Planned Parenthood, which itself has ironically transitioned from just killing babies to also destroying the future of children who are able to be born:

“Transitioning is about making changes so that you can live in your gender identity. People often transition to reduce gender dysphoria and/or increase gender euphoria.”

This entire euphemism-filled statement is garbage. Most insidious is the idea that “gender identity” is a real thing. It might sound innocuous — in addition to our biological sex, we also have a “gender identity” that’s separate and lives entirely within our heads, can be claimed as “truth,” and must be accepted by people around us. The whole idea is ludicrous, and frankly dangerous. It’s a false reality that drives confusion in children who are just beginning to understand who they are and offers a fake, dangerous “solution” to the natural discomfort and angst of youth.

Several months back, I wrote an article for The Flame USA, one of very few print publications that allows truth to be told, explaining my family’s personal experience with the RTA and my awakening to the lies that are being used to recruit and control children and parents across our country. Some of the truths I came to understand include:

- “Transition” is pushed as a solution to the entirely normal anxiety around fitting in socially. In fact, one study of kids who chose to detransition showed nearly half were under the assumption that they would be “treated better” if they were “perceived as the [other] gender.”

- Gender dysphoria is almost always temporary and resolved after puberty, with studies indicating that 87.8% of boys with gender-related distress in childhood desist from the concern by age 20.

- The natural desire for peer acceptance fuels confusion in adolescents and teens (particularly in girls), with two thirds of those claiming to be “trans” having one or more friends doing the same.

- Our girls are being dramatically impacted, with the demographics of those seeking “transition” shifting from overwhelmingly middle-aged men to predominantly adolescent girls. In fact, there is hardly any scientific literature before 2012 that shows girls ages 11 to 21 ever having developed gender dysphoria.

- There is huge money to be made by doctors, hospitals, and Big Pharma. Just a decade ago there were only a handful of “pediatric gender clinics” in the US that prescribed puberty blockers and surgery. Now there are more than 60. By 2030, the “market” for puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and child-mutilation surgery is projected to grow to $5B, up nearly 1500% from 2019.

With all that in mind, let’s talk about what the euphemistically-entitled “gender affirming care” (GAC) actually involves. It’s awful, graphic, gory and barbaric. For kids, there are the gateway drugs of “puberty blockers.” These are promoted to children and parents as a safe and easy way to “pause” puberty to help children cope with their (often completely normal) bodily concerns. They’re typically given to girls as young as 8 and boys 9, at the onset of puberty. The Cleveland Clinic, one of America’s (supposedly) best hospitals, markets these life-altering drugs directly to confused kids by saying:

“You don’t feel righta [sic] being there, you can’t relate to anything that’s going on and nothing reflects who you truly are.  What if that space was your own body? What would you do and how would you cope?”

This is followed with the oft-repeated lie that puberty blockers only pause puberty and that it can be restarted at any time. “Puberty blockers are a short-term solution,” they’re told, without defining what “short-term” means. “It’s more like a pause. If we stop the medicine, puberty can restart.”

What kids and their parents’ aren’t told by these charlatan doctors, hospitals, and Big Pharma,  is that even if puberty does restart, the time lost and the resulting developmental impact will never be completely recovered. These “safe and effective” drugs can forever stunt the child’s sexual development, which can lead to underdeveloped breasts and genitals (e.g. micropenises), anorgasmia (inability to orgasm), infertility, and more. This is backed up by both medical research and doctors like Susan Bradley, who helped pioneer GAC in Canada, but who now speaks out loudly against the practice. “We were wrong. They’re not as reversible as we always thought, and they have longer term effects on kids’ growth and development, including making them sterile and quite a number of things affecting their bone growth.”

For adolescents and teens, GAC includes the use of potent cross-sex hormones. For girls, these can result in amenorrhea (lack of menstruation), infertility, early menopause, and promotion of masculine traits such as body hair growth, voice lowering, and an abnormal, and physically painful, growth of the clitoris. For boys, medications are the same as those given to men with advanced prostate cancer or used to “chemically castrate” sex offenders. These medications not only stunt boys’ growth in height and strength, they stop the natural development of their genitals, leaving them with micropenises, non-functional testes, and infertility. As horrible as these are, they are but a few of the physical issues caused by the use of hormones on developing bodies.

Beyond medications, there are surgical procedures which are frighteningly becoming ever-more common. For girls, it includes “top surgery,” a term used to reduce the idea of performing double mastectomies—removing the breasts of healthy young women and destroying their ability to ever breastfeed—to a non-offensive TikTok hashtag. And “bottom surgery,” a freakish menu of surgical procedures, including the removal of the uterus and ovaries, suturing closure of the vagina, elongation of the urethra, and  horrifyingly, the removal of skin and musculature from the forearm to craft a freakish, non-functional phallus. For boys, procedures include castration, penile “inversion,” vaginoplasty (creating a non-functional “vagina”), and breast implants with relocation of nipples.

Let’s be very clear: There is nothing “affirming,” kind, or compassionate about any of this. An irreversible abuse of children. A frankensteinian reconstruction of the bodies and souls of our beautiful children. Confirmed by the brave women and men who are part of a growing legion of detransitioners exposing and fighting back against the abuse they’ve experienced. And that an ever-growing number of our precious, innocent kids do every day.

The following testimonies, many highlighted by Sara Vaci (@SarahVaci), an artist who paints portraits of detransitioners and shares their stories online, are both heartbreaking and horrifying. And while most will struggle for the rest of their lives with the irreversible consequences of a decision they made as minors, way before they were equipped to understand, their experiences shine a light into the darkness for us to follow. Their bravery inspires me, but also fills me with profound sadness and anger of the wrongs done to them. Here are but a few (names redacted):

“I decided that I didn’t want to be a women before I had ever even experienced being a woman. I had no idea what being a woman was like, because I was a child…they really, really target the most vulnerable of us.”

“When I was 18, I took male hormones so I could fit in better with my group. My group encouraged me to take TRT [testosterone replacement therapy] and ruin my body, and it destroyed me.”

“I sacrificed my voice, my health, my breasts, my integrity to my transition. I really want to emphasize that transition is irreversible.”

“I started to question my testosterone treatment and it became so clear to me that I was really just trying to be somebody else. And I will never forget the moment when I realized that I was never a man. I had always been a woman just really struggling to love and accept herself.”

“I still have long term health issues from being on hormones, least of which is potential infertility. I told every medical professional I saw that I planned to be a parent some day and I’m angry at them for saying it would be possible if that isn’t the case.”

In closing, it’s painful to acknowledge how dark a place our society is in. We are constantly bombarded with bad news about the purposeful decline of our country—the border invasion, increasing partisan division, looming economic collapse, impending World War III, and on and on. Truthfully, I struggled to come to terms with the fact that an article like this even has to be written. Children convinced that their very God-given existence is a lie? Adolescents being coerced into unknowingly sacrificing their future for a false sense of temporary relief? Teenagers being supported in their peer-pressured belief that they can become whole by cutting off parts of themselves? How the hell did we get here? How the hell do we get out? But as I wrote, it became crystal clear that this article must be written and must be read. I hope you agree. It won’t be easy, and it won’t be comfortable, but we must acknowledge that our “live and let live” philosophy is not going to stem the tsunami of insanity destroying our kids, and thus our future. We need to realize that it’s our fear of being called out as closed-minded, as bigots, as (strangely) homophobes, that is being used as a weapon against us, at the expense of our children. We have to understand that these false smears hold no power — but that We, the People, do.

So, stop being afraid. Stop turning the channel when the latest “trans icon” is photographed as a hero and applauded as a symbol of diversity and strength. Stop scrolling past that post of a lone voice trying to raise awareness of the dangers that this radical agenda is having on our children. Stop letting Hollywood, the media, and Big Pharma gaslight you and use your values against you. Stop letting politicians gloss over the topic in their speeches about “school choice.” Stop letting candidates get away with pithy catch phrases but no actual resolve. Stop feeling that you are wrong for knowing in your gut that something is very, very wrong. Stop worrying about what your neighbors think. Just stop.

Instead, start worrying about what an entire generation of children will think of us soon—because they will (rightfully) blame us for abandoning them. For not protecting them. For being too afraid to stop what is happening to them.

And they’ll be right.

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