EDUCATION REPORTER - STAFF - NOV, 2022
Despite the efforts of transgender activists to pretend that with hormones and surgeries, men can become women and women can become men, gender is assigned at conception and cannot be changed after birth. Most people recognize that gender is an immutable trait like race.
A recent article in The Daily Signal by author and researcher, Ryan T. Anderson, Ph.D., who penned the 2018 book When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment, stated: “The medical evidence suggests that sex reassignment does not adequately address the psychosocial difficulties faced by people who identify as transgender. Even when the procedures are successful technically and cosmetically, and even in cultures that are relatively ‘trans-friendly,’ transitioners still face poor outcomes.”
This is because, says Anderson “sex is a bodily reality that can be recognized well before birth with ultrasound imaging. The sex of an organism is defined and identified by the way in which it (he or she) is organized for sexual reproduction.” He quoted neuroscientist Maureen Condic and her philosopher brother, Samuel Condic, who pointed out that in organisms, natural organization is “the defining feature … Organisms can exist at various levels, from microscopic single cells to sperm whales weighing many tons, yet they are all characterized by the integrated function of parts for the sake of the whole.”
Inconvenient study conclusions
In his Daily Signal piece, Anderson cited a 30-year Swedish study that followed up on a large number of people after sex reassignment surgery. While the Swedish population is culturally supportive, the study found “lifelong mental unrest” among the study subjects. Ten to 15 years after surgical reassignment,” Anderson writes, “the suicide rate of those who had undergone sex-reassignment surgery rose to 20 times that of comparable peers.” Although this study was the most ambitious, others conducted since then have shown similar results.
A new review of the scientific literature was conducted in 2014 by Hayes, Inc., “a research and consulting firm that evaluates the safety and health outcomes of medical technologies,” including transgender treatments and surgeries. Hayes found that “the evidence on long-term results of sex reassignment was too sparse to support meaningful conclusions and gave these studies its lowest rating for quality,” based on the fact that “statistically significant improvements have not been consistently demonstrated by multiple studies for most outcomes...”
Anderson also quoted a 2015 article published on Public Discourse by the former head of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University Hospital, Paul McHugh, MD. Dr. McHugh wrote that the notion of one’s sex being determined by a feeling rather than a fact, “has permeated our culture and is leaving casualties in its wake. Gender dysphoria should be treated with psychotherapy, not surgery.” Editor’s Note: See more on Dr. McHugh and his work in next month’s issue of Education Reporter (December 2022).
Federal legislation introduced
On September 20, U.S. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) held a press conference to introduce her Protect Children’s Innocence Act H.R. 8731, which would “criminalize genital mutilation and chemical castration of minor children.” The intent of this legislation is to shield kids from “gender affirming care,” meaning puberty blockers, hormone therapy, sterilizations, and castration.
Greene says a federal law is needed because of legislation in states like California that would usurp parents’ rights to protect their children from such procedures, and would essentially put in place “state sanctioned child abuse.” Just nine days after Greene’s press conference, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law the bill referenced by Greene. (See Education Reporter, October 2022.)
She then introduced Chloe Cole as her special guest. Cole is an 18-year-old “former transgender child” who spoke on behalf of others who, as minors, received “gender affirming care” only to regret it as young adults. Greene described Cole as “one of the very brave young people who are speaking out against these procedures as they try to detransition.”
Cole told the press conference audience that she began transitioning at the age of twelve until she was sixteen, when she realized “all was a lie.” Calling her story a “cautionary tale,” she said children and parents across the country are being caught off guard by “a doctrine that has invaded nearly every academic, medical, and educational institution, seemingly overnight.”
Describing herself as “a shy tomboy who never really fit in,” Cole was a poster child for vulnerable kids most likely to fall victim to the radical transgender agenda. She had an Instagram account at 11 along with unrestricted access to the internet. She said that in no time she was exposed to “the gamut of LGBTQ propaganda” online, and thought to herself: “You mean that all I have to do is subscribe to this ideology and I’m an accepted, celebrated, and valued member of the most talked about and celebrated community on earth?” She admitted she “yearned to have a piece of it.” She disclosed that with every step in her transition, she received more and more attention. She “felt like a celebrity” when students approached her in the halls and asked to be her friend. “Being a kid, I didn’t understand how superficial these relationships were,” she said, “until they all abandoned me when I decided to become who I am.”
She now believes Americans deserve to know about this radical and perverse ideology, which is marketed as necessary and life-saving care. “When I was twelve years old,” she said, “I told my parents I was a boy. They didn’t have a clue what to do. They were scared, and desperate for answers. They wanted what every parent wants for their child; for me to be okay and to thrive.”
At thirteen, she was put on puberty blocking medication and just one month later, she began receiving testosterone injections. She said the gender clinic presented her parents “with a false dichotomy regarding children with gender dysphoria.” They asked: “Would you rather have a dead daughter or a living son?” She said her parents “were frightened out of their wits, and willing to sign anything the doctors asked. This was not informed consent,” she added. “It was a decision forced under extreme duress.”
At fifteen, Cole suffered a sexual assault by a boy at school, which intensified her hatred of her breasts, and she underwent a double mastectomy. But as she matured: “I realized I wanted to be what I always was and always will be – a woman. A child does not know who she is at twelve years old.”
Cole’s change of heart shocked and devastated her parents, who felt they had failed her in every way possible. Her friends turned against her, she said, “because I was proof that their beliefs were a lie. I was a joke; I was a fraud, incapable of feeding my future children, and worst of all, I was completely alone.”
She knew she had to get off the drugs she was taking, but says the medical professionals “who got me into this mess refused to help me.” She said the experience “almost killed me as it has many who regret their transition.”
Cole noted that the media only seeks to “affirm, affirm, affirm,” and that the only media person interested in her story “was a Forbes journalist, who wrote a hit piece” on her, calling her “transphobic” for invoking basic human biology.
She ended her tragic story by stating the obvious: “There are no second chances at childhood. No child deserves to suffer under the knife of a gender-affirming surgeon. America’s children; all children, deserve better.”
Following Cole’s testimony, Rep. Greene observed: “These are the things nightmares are made of. Children should not be sexualized. They should be going to school and learning the basic fundamentals, and then they should be thinking about who and what they want to be [when they grow up].”
With the mid-term elections behind the nation and a Republican majority about to assume control in the U.S. House, Greene’s bill may have a chance to advance.