Child Gender Cases Belong in Criminal Court, Not SCOTUS

Abuse by any other name is still abuse.

Mainstream news sources were enraged at the Supreme Court’s recent decisions limiting sex change operations gender-affirming care for minors. Among other rulings, the court let stand a Tennessee law banning puberty blockers and hormone treatments for minors.

NPR raged…“Supreme Court delivers major blow to transgender rights”,

Proponents of the life-altering ‘care’ claimed the decisions “violate the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.”

The ACLU attorney who argued the case warned this is…

“…a blunderbuss ban overriding the very careful judgment of parents who love and care for their children and the doctors who have recommended the treatment.”

But how reasoned is this judgment?

For decades medical professional have known that transgenders have higher odds of dying earlier than the general population. A 2021 study confirms that transgender people face twice the odds of early death.

From the study:

This observational study showed an increased mortality risk in transgender people using hormone treatment, regardless of treatment type. This increased mortality risk did not decrease over time.

If a child is depressed and unhappy, there are better solutions, including traditional therapy, rather than relying on government-run schools and health personnel to care for your child’s behavioral well-being.

Promoting Gender Confusion

The sudden explosion of youths identifying as the opposite sex appears to have more in common with political propaganda and classroom activism than any biological imperative.

The Biden Administration mandated definition changes that conflate gender identity with sex discrimination. Though as you will see in a minute, there is no scientific support for the alterations, they were reflected in the influential Health and Human Services guidance document titled, Gender-Affirming Care and Young People.

The bulleting supports adopting gender-affirming hairstyles, clothing, name, gender pronouns, and restrooms and other facilities.

The Trump Administration attempted to remove the document but was blocked by a court order. To comply, RFK, Jr’s. HHS left the form intact, but precedes it with the following warning which affirms there are only 2 sexes:

Per a court order, HHS is required to restore this document as of February 14, 2025, at 11:59 p.m. Any information on this page promoting gender ideology is extremely inaccurate, and disconnected from the immutable biological reality that there are two sexes, male and female. The Trump Administration rejects gender ideology and condemns the harms it causes to children, by promoting their chemical and surgical mutilation, and to women, by depriving them of their dignity, safety, well-being, and opportunities. This page does not reflect biological reality and therefore the Administration and this Department rejects it.

Normalizing Madness

Social and Emotional Learning and related health curricula, rather than encourage self-awareness used the mantra of diversity and inclusion to introduce children to terms like non-binary, genderqueer, and pansexual.

Today children learn why body parts don’t define whether they are a boy or girl and what it means to be transgender, all in the name of mental health education. Youths are told there are dozens genders and they can pick any pronoun they chose to represent theirs.

To bolster this madness, children are trained to think of sex and gender as separate categories.

Gender, they learn, is a social construct created by a white male, Eurocentric society whose purpose is to maintain patriarchy and heteronormativity. Sex is determined by whom you go to bed with.

By manipulating definitions, classrooms are erasing 1000 years of medical learning. According to Dr. Leonard Sax, author of Why Gender Matters,

“Today it is politically correct to pretend that gender identity and sexual orientation are two separate entities. While that may be politically correct, the notion is contradicted by the evidence. In reality, sexual orientation is inextricably tied up with sexual identity.”

Rather than concentrate on math, reading, and critical thinking, teachers introduce gender ideology and non-binary lifestyles.

Teens and pre-teens are indoctrinated with ‘gender affirmation,’ philosophy, the notion that whatever gender a child thinks she is must be accepted as reality. Suddenly, your child’s natural curiosity about the opposite sex, a normal step in the maturation journey, is instead frozen in time and labeled gender dysphoria.

For example, if one day Abby decides she is a boy, a social transitioning begins in which the teacher urges the class to respect ‘his’ chosen pronoun. Abby quickly gets recognition and acceptance for ‘his’ bravery in coming out. If ‘he’ has difficulties winning parental acceptance, Abby can speak to a supportive mental health counselor who explains that ‘gender dysphoria’ is quite normal. The social transition often includes encouragement to make subtle changes in clothing and hairstyles.

Many parents see the changes as just normal phases children pass through. What they do not realize is that instead of being treated as transient, the schools are promoting the phase as a signal for the fundamental life-changing transformation of their child.

Promoting Puberty Blockers

Once a child is diagnosed with gender dysphoria, increasingly schools recommend puberty blockers to “save teen transgender lives.” The argument goes, “since transgender children have higher rates of depression and suicide, we must act now.”

According to the Mayo Clinic puberty or hormone blockers function differently in males and females,

“In males decrease the growth of facial and body hair, prevent voice deepening, and limit the growth of genitalia.” While in those born female, “the blockers limit or stop breast development and stops menstruation.”

Health professionals point out the blockers are safe and work well. The Mayo Clinic agrees,

“If an adolescent child decides to stop taking GnRH analogues [puberty blockers], puberty will resume and the normal progression of the physical and emotional changes of puberty will continue.”

Hormone blockers are considered so safe, many doctors debate if it is even necessary to provide counseling for teens before prescribing them.

Even the American Academy of Pediatrician accepts the sudden explosion of transgender and gender diverse (TGD) and supports transitioning.

In a show of support, the Biden administration went to court to force doctors to perform transition surgeries regardless of their religious exemptions. While that attempt failed, he went on to propose changes to Title IX regulations that label gender ideology as an anti-discrimination issue. Under the change, schools could begin the transition of children without parental knowledge.

Rachel Levin, Biden’s Asst. Secretary of Health claimed,

“Gender affirming care is life-saving, medically necessary, age-appropriate, and a critical tool for health care providers.”

Puberty Blockers, Are They Really Safe?

Sweden

Sweden is one of the most progressive nations in the world. It is a leader in environmental activism, gender equality, and one of the first to recognize gender ideology.

A recent Swedish report showed an alarming 1500% increase in gender dysphoria among teenage girls between 2008 and 2018. More shockingly, 32.4% of these girls suffered from anxiety disorder and 28.9% were clinically depressed. The government wanted to know why this was happening.

On April 26, 2019 the Swedish National Council on Medical Ethic instructed government agencies to research global data and learn more about the causes and treatments for child and adolescent gender dysphoria.

After reviewing thousands of studies over an 8-month period, the Swedish Agency for Health Technology concluded:

• They could find no study explaining the rapid increase in incidence of gender dysphoria in children and adolescents.

• Few studies on gender affirming surgery in general in children and adolescents were found, and only one on gender affirming genital surgery

• There are few studies on long-term effects of gender affirming treatment in children and adolescents are few, especially for the recent groups

• Almost all identified studies are of lower quality observational type, and no relevant randomized controlled trials in children and adolescents were found.

The Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare changed their guidance:

• The guidance has changed from a previously strong recommendation to treat youth with hormones, to new caution to avoid hormones except for “exceptional cases.”

• A more cautious approach that prioritizes non-invasive interventions is now recommended, due to recognition of the importance of allowing ongoing maturation and identity formation of youth.

• Psychological and psychiatric care will become the first line of treatment for all gender dysphoric youth <18.

• Access to hormonal interventions for youth <18 will be tightly restricted.

• Treatment eligibility will be based on the criterion of “distress,” and not “identity.”

That last bullet is revealing. Swedish authorities officially recognize that children mature differently and the generally fleeting curiosity about the opposite sex is part of normal maturation.

The original report was issued in 2019. A 2022 follow-up reported that not only is evidence supporting hormonal interventions of low quality, increasingly youths are regretting the decision to transition:

Following a comprehensive review of evidence, the NBHW concluded that the evidence base for hormonal interventions for gender-dysphoric youth is of low quality, and that hormonal treatments may carry risks. NBHW also concluded that the evidence for pediatric transition comes from studies where the population was markedly different from the cases presenting for care today. In addition, NBHW noted increasing reports of detransition and transition-related regret among youth who transitioned in recent years.

Finland

The Swedish government is not alone in their conclusions.

• After their reviews, Finland revised their recommendations for treating gender dysphoria to focus more on therapy and psychological interventions over medical treatments.

• Based on the existing literature, the Astrid Children’s Hospital in Sweden altered their guidelines for hormonal gender dysphoria treatments to they will no longer initiate hormonal treatment for gender dysphoria. These cases must take place in a clinical setting with approval of ethical review.

Still the U.S. Government remains insistent on advancing gender ideology.

When the FDA warned that hormone blockers are related to brain swelling, the Biden administration continued to promote them arguing they save children from suicide.

CDC quotes this study, claiming that changing pronouns reduces depression. Unfortunately, it was a small observational study of just 129 people completed in 2011 – 2012 years before the sudden explosion of youthful transgenders.

The Dutch Study

Transition proponents point to the Dutch Study as proof hormone blockers are safe and together with transition surgery save lives.

The Dutch study of 6793 transitioned subjects between 1972 and 2015 concluded that gender dysphoria was increasing and the percentage of people who regretted having a sex change “remained small and did not show a tendency to increase.” A follow up showed no increase in suicide rates for transgender women.

But little in these studies applies to what is happening to our children in school today.

The Dutch participants often underwent years of therapy prior to taking blockers. The median age group was 28. Today schools are introducing hormone blockers before children reach puberty, often with little counseling, and in response to an innocent classroom comment.

This rush to proclaim gender dysphoria plus the pressures of the former administration to promote gender ideology through federal agencies is enough to explain the sudden explosion of children identifying as transgender here in America.

Dutch Doctors Don’t Buy the Dutch Study

Ironically, even in Netherlands, the home of the Dutch Study, doctors who provide gender care say they are pressured by long lists of people waiting for gender treatments. Yet we “know too little about the target group and the long-term effects.”

When asked how these hormone blockers would affect the fertility of boys and girls, Dr. Thomas Steensma, of the Center for Gender Expertise on Gender Dysphoria in Amsterdam, said,

“We just don’t know. Little research has been done so far on treatment with puberty blockers and hormones in young people. That is why it is also seen as experimental.”

There are many fine, healthy, and happy members of the transgender community who are grateful they made the transition. But these are not representational of what occurs in schools today. Children are being coaxed into alternative lifestyles, plied with experimental protocols, and robbed of the opportunity to mature in their own way. This may be the greatest annihilation of hope for the future we have ever known.

SCOTUS Decision Protects Equal Rights

Rather than erase equal rights, as trans-surgery proponents complain, SCOTUS’ decisions embrace them.

Any child who parents suspect might be misgendered has the right not to have their lives prematurely snuffed out because of politically-driven, risky, medical decisions. The overwhelming evidence supports restraint in helping children through what most often is a transient part of normal maturation.

What We Can Do

The first step is to realize that the government is not your ally. While there are good people in classrooms and in government, they are not fully able to protect your child. The gender ideology and trans obsession we see in schools started in Washington and, if it is not in your school now, it will be soon.

With that understanding, there is much we can do to help our next generations.

1. Homeschool your children or grandchildren. Chances are there are homeschooling families in your own neighborhood. Reach out and ask them for help with your journey.

2. Know what your child is learning. If your children are in public school, attend school board meetings, meet with the principal, mental health professionals, and teachers to discuss their attitudes toward gender topics. If you have concerns, take your child out of the school. You are not going to be able to change their minds. This is a constant effort as new guidelines are breaking every day.

3. Maintain a close trust relationship with your children. Remain a strong influence in your children’s lives. I know this sounds obvious, but increasingly schools, movies, entertainers, games, libraries, colleges, medical associations are influencing the way your child thinks and behaves. In many cases transition is taking place without parents’ knowledge.

4. Interview your doctors and other caregivers. Find out where they stand on gender dysphoria, puberty blockers, and social transitioning. If their position conflicts with yours, find other providers.

5. Build community networks of like-minded people. This allows the comfort of having others around you and offers a trusted social network for your children. Working together multiplies resources for helping children, keeps people informed about what is happening in schools, and can be the foundation for forming groups to educate more parents.