Willie R. Tubbs, FISM News
A pair of recent occurrences — one in Texas and the other in Connecticut — stand as the latest and perhaps most profound examples of the magnitude of the national divide on the matter of gender-affirming care for minors.
Last week in Texas, as first reported by the Post Millenial, a woman who has “detransitioned” urged lawmakers to finalize a new law that would ban medical treatments for minors with gender dysphoria.
Prisha Mosley, a resident of Michigan, told the Texas Senate Health Committee that it was unconscionable to allow parents to permit their minor children to receive gender-affirming surgeries.
“I don’t believe any parent has the right to mutilate and sterilize their child,” Mosley said in response to a question about parental rights.
Mosley told the Texas lawmakers that she had initially been convinced she was “born in the wrong body” at age 15 and, by 17 and with the help of medical professionals, had pressured her parents into first prescription and then surgical treatment.
“I remember my gender therapist looking them in the eyes and asking, ‘would you rather have a dead daughter or a live son? Do you want to pick up her hormones or her body from the morgue?’” Mosley said.
She added, “The medical professionals who did this to me have abandoned me, and the trans community, has abandoned me. Doctors assisted me in mutilating myself and then left me in the cold when I wanted the harm to stop.”
‘HIGHEST SUPPORT’
Moseley’s remarks were quite different from those made a few weeks ago by Dr. Rachel Levine, an assistant secretary of health under President Joe Biden.
Levine, who was speaking to a gathering at Connecticut Children’s Medical Center, predicted so-called “gender-affirming” care for minors would soon be normalized and indicated the Biden administration offered the “highest support” for minors receiving gender-affirming treatments.
Although Levine made these remarks in late February, they did not become widely known until last week, when the Daily Fetch ran an article revealing the doctor’s statement.
“I’m a positive and optimistic person, and I choose to be positive, optimistic,” Levine said. “And I think that the wheels will turn on this,” Levine said, adding, “so I think that as we look to all the different elections in 2024, I think the next two years are going to be challenging. But I am positive and optimistic and hopeful that the wheel will turn after that and that this issue won’t be as politically and socially such a minefield.”
Levine also stated that offering prescription care, such as puberty blockers, is a safe method of treatment.
NO MIDDLE GROUND
Taken together, Mosley and Levine’s comments show that there truly is no middle ground upon which one can stand. One is either for or against minors receiving hormone and surgical treatment for gender dysphoria and other similar ailments.
Even the thought that one can be against surgeries, but okay with children receiving pharmaceutical care, is a false common ground. Conservatives largely reject puberty blockers as well.
“There is no good evidence that children treated with gender-altering hormones or puberty blockers have improved mental health assessments,” Dr. Stanley Goldfarb of Do No Harm, an organization whose aim is combating identity politics in the medical field, told the Daily Fetch. “Despite assertions to the contrary, a recent study from the University of Washington showed that there was absolutely no change in the psychological well-being of children with gender dysphoria treated with these medications.”
Goldfarb added, “There can be irrevocable harm being done to children by those pushing for these radical, ideologically driven, treatments. Treatment for minors needs to be based on rigorous scientific inquiry, not on dubious, agenda-driven studies or the demands of activists.”
Mosley, who said she suffered from numerous psychological issues prior to transitioning, says her mental state never improved.
“What I don’t understand is why they never offered me counseling, to help me with the depression, the trauma, the personality disorder, or my ongoing self-harm,” Mosley said.