A New Jersey school district, Princeton Public School (PPS), partnered with the sex education group HiTOPS to provide “gender-affirming” kits, including items like chest binders and devices allowing girls to pee standing up. Parents Defending Education (PDE) obtained documents revealing the partnership and instructional materials. HiTOPS, a leftist sex education nonprofit, sent lesson plans promoting inclusive sex education and LGBTQ+ support. Critics argue the materials encourage secrecy from parents and present controversial views on gender. PPS Superintendent Carol Kelly stated the partnership aimed to comply with New Jersey’s LGBT inclusion and diversity law. Neither PPS nor HiTOPS responded to requests for comment.
LGBTQ+ Issues
How medical transition marked a young woman for life (Rhode Island)
Isabelle Ayala, a twenty-year-old woman, is suing her doctors and the American Academy of Pediatrics for allegedly promoting radical sex-change treatments. At fourteen, she was hospitalized for suicidal thoughts, where Dr. Jason Rafferty recommended hormonal transition. Despite negative effects leading to a suicide attempt, treatments continued. The lawsuit accuses the American Academy of Pediatrics of promoting a fraudulent model of treatment for children, contributing to Ayala’s suffering and claiming a conspiracy within the organization. Critics argue the Academy has been influenced by leftist activists, with a policy statement described as a “trans activism manifesto.” Isabelle is now marked for life and longs to have her healthy female body back.
Bill to ban acts such as drag queen shows (USA)
The Florida Senate passed a Protection of Children bill, which targets venues with a liquor license that allows children to be present during an “adult performance” where sexually explicit acts have occurred. Democrats argued that the bill specifically targeted drag shows and the LGBT community, and it would lead to violence and curtail freedom of expression. The bill is still going through the committee process in the House of Representatives, but Gov. Ron DeSantis is expected to sign it into law after conducting an investigation into drag shows where children were present and exposed to sexually explicit acts.
Request for listing as “neutral sex” has been turned down (France)
In the question of whether it should be allowed to add other sexes than male and female on civil documents, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) states that it is important to preserve the consistency and security of civil status records, keeping the status either male or female. A request from an intersex person to change the official gender to “neutral sex” was turned down. The European Court of Human Rights supports France in their decision to keep the sexes binary and also said that each country should decide how it wants to handle the issue of gender on birth certificates.
Bill passed to ban transgender health care for minors (USA)
In the afternoon of Thursday, the bill was able to secure a 15-6 vote in favour during the House committee session, causing visible outrage among many. It was promptly forwarded to the full House for further deliberation and underwent several hours of debate before eventually receiving approval and being returned to the Senate for concurrence.
Here’s what the amended version of the bill includes:
- School districts must create explicit bathroom policies
- Bans gender-affirming care for anyone under the age of 18, including surgical and non-surgical procedures like puberty blockers
- Schools can’t discuss sexual orientation or gender identity with students regardless of age
- If healthcare providers provide gender-affirming care to minors their licenses will be revoked
- The school district would notify parents of any mental health services relating to human sexuality
Tavistock gender clinic to close down (UK)
Established in 1989, Gender Identity Development Services of Tavistock Clinic had to close down in April 2022. Their services prescribed puberty blockers to more than 1000 children, many under 16 years of age, questioning their gender identity. A book written by Hannah Barnes, examines how the clinic shifted from examining distressed teenagers, using therapy to work out how best to help them, to becoming a conveyor belt to puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and drastic surgery. The book is a cautionary tale about the dangers of institutions putting profit over patient welfare and the importance of collecting and scrutinizing evidence. It also exposes the nervousness of clinicians in speaking up, despite growing concerns about the clinic’s direction, and the wilful failure to safeguard the wellbeing of children seeking help.
Children can decide (USA)
A proposed bill in Oregon would allow children of any age to obtain abortion, contraception, sterilization, and treatment for sexually transmitted diseases without parental consent. Oregon HB 2002 defines “reproductive health care” to include family planning, contraception, pregnancy termination services, fertility care, sterilization services, treatments for sexually transmitted infections and reproductive cancers, and any other health care and medical services related to reproductive health. Children, 15 or older, can also consent to gender-affirming treatment, including facial feminization surgery, which would be paid for by the Oregon Health Authority. Parents of children under 15 may be notified, but such communication would not be required. This bill is considered a blatant cultural imperialism and may lead to secession movements in some conservative eastern counties of Oregon.
Survey on parents of children experiencing rapid-onset gender dysphoria (USA)
Rapid onset gender dysphoria (ROGD) is a controversial term used to describe a sudden and intense desire to transition gender during adolescence or young adulthood, without any prior history of gender dysphoria or other indicators of a gender identity issue. In the survey, the results show that many of the children had pre-existing mental health issues such as anxiety, depression, and autism spectrum disorder. Parents felt pressurised by therapists and medical professionals to affirm their child’s gender dysphoria. The article highlights the controversy surrounding the concept of ROGD. The medical community should approach the treatment of gender dysphoria with caution and not rush to affirm a child’s gender identity without fully understanding the underlying cause of their dysphoria. The mental health of the child and the concerns of their parents need to be taken into account in further research.
The Medical Opinion on Gender Dysphoria on Minors (Press Release)
Gender dysphoria refers to persistent, significant distress that an individual experiences due to a perceived difference between their gender identity and their biological sex.
Normalising gender fluidity causes psychological trauma to those suffering from Gender Dysphoria and even more so to those who are not confused about their gender identity. In various countries in America and Europe, this ideology is already promoted at schools and kindergarten.
The claim that a child with gender dysphoria is born with a brain that is of the opposite sex is simplistic, biologically impossible and therefore scientifically incorrect. Every cell in an individual contains identical sex chromosomes, either XX for female or XY for male. There is little supportive evidence for the different opinions about prenatal hormone exposure and structural brain differences that cause gender dysphoria. Infants’ brains are already exposed to their own sex hormones within a few weeks of conception.
The concept of transgender identity is based purely on subjective experience, and the so-called “gender affirmative” approach to gender dysphoria (i.e., supporting social, medical, and surgical transition to a transgender identity) is based on very low certainty evidence – therefore many experts do not agree that it is appropriate.
Doctors for Life is convinced that teaching the prepubertal child about gender dysphoria and then affirming its belief that their gender differs from their biological sex and playing along with a child’s imprinted confusion, leads them to psychological and social dysfunction.
Children who “feel like the opposite sex” or “somewhere in between” do not comprise a third sex; they remain biological boys or girls. Gender ideology has little basis in science and causes more harm than good, especially in minors. Unquestioningly affirming gender dysphoric students’ social transition, harms them by impairing their chances of aligning their gender identity with physical reality; it may propel them down the dismal path of medical transition, firstly puberty blockers are prescribed to prepubertal children with gender dysphoria. The so-called aim of puberty blockers is to arrest the process of puberty. This is supposed to allow the child enough time to explore their gender without the “distress” of onsetting secondary sex characteristics. It is supposed to help the child to decide, whether it should grow into an adult according to their biological sex or according to the imaginary gender, for which they will need cross-sex hormones. However, as their peers grow into normal young men and young women, firstly these children stay stagnant and secondly start feeling more psychosocially isolated and left out.
This approach is not supported by solid scientific research results. Medical professors state that confused children get chemically castrated through the treatment of puberty blockers and will be sterile for life having to consume cross-sex hormones permanently. Taking it to the extreme, sex reassignment surgeries (SRS) are performed on children as young as 13 years. This means that these adolescents can have their healthy breasts cut off or their penises transformed into look-alike vaginas. Clearly, such surgeries cause permanent sterility and transform the child to a patient for the rest of its life.
Neuroscience shows that the development of the brain is not completed until the mid-twenties. This should immediately bring up the question why children under the age of 18 years are allowed to decide on life-changing procedures that are harmful and dangerous.
It is proven, that the general population’s health is better than that of transitioned people’s health. Moreover, it shows that the suicide rate amongst post-operative transgender adults is 20 times greater compared to the general population.
The vast majority of pre-pubertal youth with gender dysphoria will accept their biological sex by late adolescence, even without medical intervention. It is unlawful and unconstitutional to push an ideology onto children through the school system. If this is not child abuse, then what is? Our children need to be protected and given the opportunity for a prosperous future.
(Sources available on request)
Incredible numbers and figures of the transgender generation (USA)
Dr Lisa Littmann mentions Gender Dysphoria (GD) “has become a catch-all explanation” for any psychological problem and the promoted treatment is transitioning.
The fact is, however, that years of professional research confirms that 85% of children, suffering from GD, over time become comfortable with their birth-given bodies. In a study conducted in Finland in 2015, results show up to 75% of individuals who claim to have GD are also receiving other psychiatric treatment. In a study done in 2018, 62% of the parents of the affected children, suffer from psychiatric or neuro-developmental disorders prior to GD. In the same year, a study searched 8.8 million electronic medical records and found that there were high rates of psychiatric disorders and suicidal ideation and behaviour in youth six months prior to any sign of gender incongruence.
In a study conducted in Sweden in 2011, after a 30 year follow up, 324 gender reassigned patients showed a suicide rate 1900% higher than the constant population. Nonetheless, both parents and physicians are increasingly bullied and pushed into accepting the transition affirming therapy as they are being confronted with shaming questions like: “Do you want a dead son or a live daughter?”
“Consider the ethics of permanently medicalising a minor for a thought process with an over 85 percent rate of desistance by adulthood and doing so based on a self-diagnosis”. Children being given the right to make life changing decisions at an age where they cannot be expected to grasp the consequences thereof, is not scientifically based and opposes the fundamental base of medical practice.