President Biden signed forty executive orders his first ten days. One of the more troubling was his reversal of Trump’s Transgender Military Ban, with Biden remarking he believes,“that gender identity should not be a bar to military service.” President Tump imposed the ban in 2018, which stated, “transgender persons with a history or diagnosis of gender dysphoria” could not serve in the in the military “except under certain limited circumstances.” In 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court permitted the ban to remain in place in a 5-4 ruling. Following Biden’s signature, a White House spokesman stated, “Transgender service members should know that they are accepted throughout the U.S. military.” According to the National Center for Transgender Equality, there are 15,000 transgender Americans in active military service.
In May, 2014, a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services review board ruled that Medicare can pay for the “reassignment” surgery sought by the transgendered-those who maintain they can’t identify with their biological sex. Most of us know that’s the sex assigned on one’s birth certificate. God identifies only two. Many of these individuals seek not just society’s tolerance of their “personal truth,” but demand we affirm it, thus the dictate for the government payment for medical and surgical treatments, plus access to all sex-based public roles and privileges. Some states advocate for the transgendered, asking legislators to pass laws barring psychiatrists, even with parental permission, from attempting to restore natural gender understanding to minors. Other states are crafting anti-Transgender legislation simultaneously.
A handful of researchers challenged this veneer thin narrative. Among them is world renown, former Chief Psychiatrist at Johns Hopkins University, Dr. John McHugh, a leading mental health expert speaking out against radical “gender ideology.” He’s the most celebrated mental health researchers in the past forty years on the subject. Drawing fire and criticism because he debunks the transgender ideology as “biological meme.” A lone voice crying in this contemporary “psychiatric wilderness.”
Johns Hopkins, in the 1960’s, was the first American medical center to venture into “sex-reassignment surgery.” In the 1970’s it launched a study comparing outcomes of transgendered people who had surgery with the outcomes of those who didn’t. Most of the surgically treated patients described themselves as “satisfied.” But their subsequent psycho-social adjustments were no better than those who didn’t have surgery, according to McHugh. Johns Hopkins halted doing sex-assignment surgery, since producing a “satisfied, but troubled patient,” was a woefully inadequate reason for surgically amputating normal organs.
Dr. McHugh cites it as evidence, to give pause to such surgery, a 2011, study at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, that produced the most illuminating results yet regarding the transgendered. The thirty year study, followed 324 individuals who had sex-assignment surgery. It revealed that commencing about ten years after surgery, the transgendered began to suffer increasing mental difficulties. Most shockingly, “Their suicide mortality rate rose almost twenty-fold above non-transgender comparable population.” You’re unlikely to find this critique in current literature. It’s counter to their narrative, no matter the cost, to mute the medical professionals who know otherwise.
McHugh reminds us, “Transgendered men don’t become women, they become feminized men ‘impersonators.’ Nor do transgendered women become men.” Whether it’s “Renee” Richards, former tennis player, who underwent male-to-female surgery, “Caitlyn” Jenner, or Private Bradley Manning, convicted national security leaker, who now prefers “Chelsea” Manning. Observably uglier “women” with baritone voices, and feminized “men” are the outcomes. Have you seen Dr. Rachel Levin, Biden’s choice for assistant health secretary? You’ll understand McHugh’s phrase, “Observably uglier.” Few are shocked that this generation of young gender-confused adolescents, spawned by internet chat rooms are falsely duped, believing a drastic change will banish their psycho-social dilemma. Regardless of how they feel, they’ve been duped to embrace a lie, that most will drag to their grave.
Tragically, those with gender confusion, seeking help, rarely find therapists wiling to help them work out their conflicts psychologically efficaciously. Instead, they and their families find only “gender counselors” whose mission is to “encourage them in their sexual misassumptions.” McHugh added, “Both the state and federal governments are actively seeking to block any treatments that can be construed as challenging the assumptions and choices of transgendered youngsters.” Valerie Jarrett, former senior advisor to Obama, advocated this radical social agenda, “As part of our dedication to protecting America’s youth, this administration supports efforts to ban the use of conversion therapy for minors.” They forbid youth under federal programs, to be offered alternative approach to their social dilemma. McHugh and like-minded medical professionals maintain there’s a preponderance of evidence that “transgenderism” is psychological rather than a biological matter. Biden’s ambitious “equality doctrine” and LGBTQ agenda perpetuates this mainstream myth of normality.
A June, 2014, Times Magazine cover, displayed a transgender male in a red dress and high heels, titled, The Transgender Tipping Point. It’s biologically false that anyone can change one’s sex. The LGBTQ advocates are well funded and politically savvy. However, within their own ranks, there’s division on embracing transgenders, despite their public rhetoric otherwise. They’ve funded LGBTQ research at Vanderbilt University to counter Dr. McHugh’s views, with support from “600 experts on LGBTQ health.”
In a 2015, Vanity Fair, glossy cover photo of Bruce Jenner, with a caption, “Call me Caitlyn,” displays a false premise that persists, that one’s sexual nature is misaligned with one’s biological sex, and can be treated with therapy and medication, is squarely challenged by Dr. McHugh. He insists, “What is needed now is public clamor for coherent science-biological and therapeutic science-examining the real effects of those efforts to support transgendering.” He cautions, when opposing this prevailing cultural myth, “But gird your loins if you would confront this matter,” warning, “Hell hath no fury like a vested interest masquerading as a moral principle.”
McHugh believes medical accommodation to a transgender child is, “Like performing liposuction on an anorexic child.” One more casualty of our wayward culture, driven by visceral fancy, with cavalier disregard for medical boundaries or predictable consequences to mentally fragile lives. The Far Left’s strategy to create a tertium quid fails again. Evangelicals offer compassion for the youth, trapped in this web of lies, floundering to fill a void only Jesus can fill. What do you think?
Mike Pyatt’s a Natrona County resident. His email is roderickstj@yahoo.com
