<![CDATA[transgender surgery]]>

This summer in Great Britain, some significant changes to that country’s medical approach to transgender surgeries and treatments took place. Based on medical studies, new data arrived that basically shook the foundations of transgender care, and it led to deeply serious alterations of the practice in that country. This should be an area of extreme focus, but instead, we have been met largely with radio silence as the Biden administration pushes forward with an accelerated transgender agenda.

The ongoing, ever-present pressure for Americans to adopt a blanket acceptance of the physical transitioning of pre-teens has been a case of propaganda over propriety. Most would agree that the issue of drastic surgical alterations to the physiology of developing youths should be a cautious and well-researched endeavor. Instead, we have seen our government and the compliant press rushing headlong into the matter. Those calling for caution or suggesting alternative avenues for these cases frequently come under attack as being transphobic and wanting to violate the rights of others.

Gradually, we are seeing signs of pragmatic thought seeping into the discourse on this topic. Brandon Morse recently covered how Washington University in St. Louis was halting the administration of puberty blockers to transitioning youths. Broader than that was Denmark announcing it was pulling back from its policies of transitioning children through surgery and hormone therapies. Yet this news was not delivered energetically in our news outlets. Our media complex is negligent in providing what they perceive to be contradictory details on matters as grave as the health and well-being of children; the press is rather defiant in delivering one side in a favoritism display. 

That brings us to England, where significant changes came about but were lightly reported on here. In June, the country curtailed its practice of administering puberty blockers to minors. Then, in a more significant move, the country shuttered its only gender-transitioning clinic set up for minors. These stories were granted slight exposure, and what little there was included slanted coverage. In the New York Times story, it implies this closure was done as an operational need.

The closure followed an external review of the Tavistock clinic in London, which has served thousands of transgender patients since the 1990s. The review, which is ongoing, has raised several concerns, including about long wait times, insufficient mental health support and the surging number of young people seeking gender treatments.

To see the falsehood at play, just consider the absence of logic. If this decision resulted from wait times and an inability to service a surging number of patients, how does closing the facility make sense?! You would open more such facilities to meet the demand. Instead, the reality is that the medical data caught up to the medical practitioners.

That facility – The Tavistock Fertility Clinic – had been conducting a number of studies as it was ramping up its services and taking in a swelling number of patients, and when the results of those studies came in, it was a record-scratch moment for the medical professionals. One review conducted showed that the doctors felt an overwhelming pressure to push forward with the treatments or surgeries, to the detriment of the long-term health of the patients.

Report author Dr. Hilary Cass wrote: 

Primary and secondary care staff have told us that they feel under pressure to adopt an unquestioning affirmative approach – and that this is at odds with the standard process of clinical assessment and diagnosis that they have been trained to undertake in all other clinical encounters.

Then came another study that cast a more dire light on the practices of these doctors, more than the agenda-driven procedure schedules. This was a study on the administration of puberty blockers to the youths, and the results were in direct contradiction to some of the primary claims that have been made regarding the administering of these hormone treatments.

• There was no significant effect on the mental or emotional well-being of the patients.

• The hormone therapy was shown to have adverse effects on their physiology.

• The National Health Service declared the effects of puberty blockers were not reversible.

It is important to reiterate these are not claims made by activists, politicians, or special interest groups. The study was conducted by physicians at this transgender facility, with data collected from their patients. The decision to close this clinic was made by the NHS. Also important is the move to have the facility change its services to administering other types of treatment for these prospective patients, whether it is with mental or emotional therapies or to address other possible physical treatments.

Those new applications are notable, as they are the very methodologies cited by many of those who have opposed transgender surgeries and the administering of puberty blockers to those youths who are still developing, both physically and emotionally. Activists in this country have claimed those are proposals that endanger youths, as they are prone to emotional distress and self-harm if they are not permitted to transition.

Now we have medical experts in this very field saying there is no measurable change in the emotional state of the patients, that there are physical ramifications previously not seen, and these are irreversible once administered. Those run counter to the narratives we often hear in this country. 

And we do not hear these details from our media. It is very serious and revealing how our press is unwilling to present sober reports and deliver all of the facts on this topic. Their narrative is more important than the health of our children.