by Mike Pyatt
In 1953, Ex-GI, George Jorgensen, departed on a plane from New York City, to his ancestral home in Denmark. He later returned as “Christine”Jorgensen, following transgender surgery, becoming an overnight celebrity. Jorgensen insisted, “No one is a 100 percent male or female.” Generations later, the LGBTQ lobbyist declared war on world-renowned Johns Hopkins, former Chief Psychiatrist, 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 thirty years on the subject. Drawing their fire because he debunks the transgender ideology as a “biological meme.” A lone voice in the contemporary “psychiatric wilderness.”
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. Past Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said that he was “open” to reviewing the ban on transgender individuals serving in the military. Current Defense Secretary James Mattis said earlier this year that he was “studying”the issue. President Trump’s recent tweet ended further speculation. According to Dr. McHugh, the transgender argument holds that one’s feeling of “gender” is a conscious, subjective sense that, couched in one’s mind, cannot be questioned by anyone.
Many individuals seek not just society’s tolerance of this “personal truth,” but demand we affirm it, thus the dictate for the government payment for medical and surgical treatments, and for access to all sex-based public roles and privileges. Advocates for the transgendered have persuaded several states, including California, New Jersey and Massachusetts, to pass legislation barring psychiatrists, even with parental permission, from attempting to restore natural gender understanding to minors. McHugh, and other researchers, challenged this veneer thin narrative.
Johns Hopkins, in the 1960’s, was the first American medical center to venture into “sex-reassignment surgery.” In 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 hadn’t had surgery, according to McHugh. Johns Hopkins halted doing sex-assignment surgery, since producing a “satisfied, but still troubled patient,” was inadequate reason for surgically amputating normal organs. He cited a 2011, study at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden that produced the most illuminating results yet regarding the transgendered. McHugh cites it as evidence to give pause to such surgery. The 30 year study, followed 324 individuals who had sex-reassignment surgery. It revealed that commencing about 10 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.”
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, the convicted national security leaker, who now prefers “Chelsea” Manning-each are who they were biologically at birth. Observably uglier “women” with baritone voices, and feminized “men.” Few are shocked that this generation of young gender confused adolescents spawned by Internet chat rooms are falsely duped, believing a drastic physical change will banish their psycho-social dilemma.
Tragically those with gender confusion, seeking help, rarely find therapists willing 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.” Former senior advisor to our 44th President, Valerie Jarrett, advocated this radical social agenda, saying, “As part of our dedication to protecting America’s youth, this administration supports efforts to ban the use of conversion therapy for minors.” No matter how dangerous, they wouldn’t permit youth under federal programs to be offered an alternative approach to their social dilemma. There’s a preponderance of evidence that “transgenderism” is psychological rather than a biological matter. The Huffington Post ardently dismissed McHugh’s claims as “delusional and transphobic.” Some former Johns Hopkins colleagues disagreed with his conclusions.
A recent Time 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 exchange 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 LGBTI Research at Vanderbilt University to counter Dr. McHugh’s views, with support from “600 experts on LGBT health.”
Hawking a glossy cover photo of Jenner on Vanity Fair, with a caption, “Call me Caitlyn,” the false premise persists that one’s sexual nature is misaligned with one’s biological sex can be treated with therapy and medication, is squarely challenged by Dr. McHugh, insisting, “What is needed now is public clamor for coherent science-biological and therapeutic science-examining the real effects of these efforts to support transgendering.”
President Trump challenged conventional pandering when it comes to transgenders serving in the military, and sustaining associated medical costs. The American Psychological Association, the titular head for advancing a leftist social health agenda, oppose Trump’s call to bar transgenders from military service. In 2008, the APA adopted a resolution supporting full equality for transgenders. The same body that removed homosexuality from the DSM, as deviant behavior, in 1973, not from scientific research, but caved to influential Bay Area homosexual lobbyist.
McHugh offered sage advice, when opposing a 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.” He believes medical accommodation to a transgender child is, “Like performing liposuction on an anorexic child.” If a plumber switches the hot and cold water line, isn’t it still hot and cold water at the tap? Another casualty of a wayward culture driven solely by visceral fancy, absent any absolute boundaries. There may be debate on therapeutic science and methodology, as McHugh suggested. However, for most Evangelicals, transgenderism is abnormal, morally repugnant, and tragically doomed psychologically and socially, as they flounder to fill a vacuum-that only Jesus can fill. What do you think?
Mike Pyatt’s a Natrona County resident. His email’s roderickstj@yahoo.com
