The American Society of Plastic Surgeons broke the alleged public consensus in the medical community about how to treat gender-confused kids. They admitted that there is “considerable uncertainty as to the long-term efficacy for the use of chest and genital surgical interventions for the treatment of adolescents with gender dysphoria, and the existing evidence base is viewed as low quality/low certainty.”
As a registered nurse, I am overjoyed that one medical association is taking a commonsense and compassionate stance.
Given how the United States’ medical community and leadership at the Department of Health Human Services dogmatically denies the existence of any reservation toward the affirmation-only treatment model, the ASPS’s statement took bravery.
Bravery shouldn’t be required to state a position which is the consensus of much of the Western world. Over the last year, the United Kingdom and much of Europe has reversed course and now restricts access to puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and “gender-affirming” surgeries for minors because evidence suggests that these treatments may result in worse outcomes for patients.
Prisha Mosley, a 26-year-old woman and detransitioner, can speak to this firsthand. Prisha, now an ambassador at Independent Women’s Forum, wrote in the June 16 Sunday Journal: “I was a minor who identified as transgender and irreversibly changed my body through drugs and surgery under the misconception that it was possible to change sex and that this would cure my real mental struggles. Back then, I was confident that I knew what I was doing and wanted this ‘treatment.’ I thought I would never want children or change my mind about wanting to appear like a man.
“But then I grew up a little and realized I had made a terrible mistake and wanted my healthy feminine body back. I detransitioned as an adult and today have to live with the serious, permanent physical consequences of decisions I made as a confused teenager, under the guidance of a medical community that ‘affirmed’ me.”
I met with Prisha this year as she advocated for the protection of women’s rights in New Mexico. Prisha was pregnant and anxiously expecting her first child. Her journey to motherhood has been a dangerous and difficult one for her detransitioned body.
Trusted adults failed Prisha, and countless other vulnerable teenagers. We have age restrictions on tattoos, piercings, marriage, consent to sexual activity, alcohol, cigarettes, and plastic surgery. So why is it that the medical community is trying to convince us that children can fully grasp what it means to become life-long medical patients by permanently altering their bodies to present as the opposite sex?
Here in New Mexico, our laws are particularly cruel and misguided: the Reproductive and Gender-Affirming Health Care Act prohibits “public bodies” — this includes schools and any local municipalities — from “directly or indirectly” taking action to ”interfere” with someone’s pursuit of “gender-affirming health care.”
This means that a teacher or counselor could face penalties of $5,000 and more in damages if they encourage a confused teenager to wait and reassess before attempting a medical transition. Teachers fear that providing information that speaks to the severe physical risks of gender-affirming treatments, like lost sexual function and fertility, or heightened risk of tumors, might be considered outlawed by this state gag requirement.
Informed consent about any medical treatment is paramount, especially those as experimental as the current protocols for giving kids and teenagers cross-sex hormones and other “affirming” treatments. Still, New Mexico is seeking to keep information from parents and patients by threatening legal punishment.
I won’t be silent. New Mexicans deserve the full truth; giving it to them shouldn’t require bravery.