Sex Reassignment Surgeries and Hormones are Dangerous and Medically Unnecessary

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DETRANSITION AWARENESS DAY: TRANSITION REGRET

Gender Transition is Dangerous

Sex reassignment surgeries and hormone therapies (so-called “gender-affirming medical care”) are dangerous and often irreversible procedures intended to alter a person’s body to match the person’s self-professed “gender identity.” These procedures include the following:

1. 1. Puberty blockers: hormones that pause normal pubertal development.
2. 2. Cross-sex hormones: testosterone for females and estrogen for males.
3. 3. Sex reassignment surgeries: facial surgeries, “top surgeries” removing or implanting breasts, and “bottom” surgeries that refashion genitals and reproductive organs.

Hormonal therapies (examples 1 & 2 above) are linked to reduced bone density, stunted growth, infertility, blood clots, sterilization, and cancer. Proponents falsely characterize puberty blockers as “safe” and “fully reversible.” In reality, the following is actually true:

• Puberty blockers—drugs also used to castrate sex offenders chemically—can cause brain swelling and vision loss, according to the Food and Drug Administration.
• Evidence does NOT support activists’ claims that puberty blockers are “fully reversible.”
• Evidence does NOT support activists’ claims that puberty blockers improve mental health or relieve gender dysphoria symptoms.
• 98% of children prescribed these drugs proceed to (irreversible and sterilizing) cross-sex hormones.

Sex reassignment surgeries are barbaric procedures that permanently debilitate patients.

• Bottom surgeries are associated with high rates of complications (e.g., infections), chronic pain, incontinence, and bowels leaking into and from artificial sex organs.
• Male patients who undergo vaginoplasty—the creation of an artificial vagina—must dilate (force open) the resulting wound cavity for the rest of their lives.

Gender Transition is Unnecessary

Until 2013, the American Psychiatric Association defined “gender identity disorder” as “a persistent and strong cross-gender identification and a persistent unease with one’s sex.” At the time, counseling for gender-confused children focused on resolving their confusion. It worked:

In 80% or more of cases, children overcame gender confusion and went on to live normal lives.

Reinforcing childhood gender confusion is not compassionate. The current “social affirmation” fad contributes to the epidemic of childhood gender confusion and children accessing sex reassignment surgeries and hormones. Other contributors to this crisis include the following:

• Pressure from radical activists in professional medical associations and major corporations.
• Fringe academic theories trickling down to K-12 school policies and curricula.
• Unscrupulous organizations like Planned Parenthood and some pharmaceutical companies seeking to capitalize on a lucrative new market.
• A peer-group social contagion enabled by social media.
• Concerted efforts by radical politicians, including in the previous administration.

Detransitioners Speak Out On Detransition awareness day

March 12 is Detransition Awareness Day, a day to recognize individuals who have reverted to living in accordance with their biological sex after previously transitioning. Detransitioners are raising awareness of the dangers of childhood sex reassignment surgeries and hormones. They are joined by a growing chorus that includes not only Christians and conservatives but also progressives, gay rights advocates, and feminists. A recent poll found strong public support for prohibiting puberty blockers for children aged 10–14 (68%) and cross-sex hormones for children aged 15 to 17 (58%).

To protect vulnerable children from sex reassignment and hormonal therapies, states can enact legislation to do the following:

• Prohibit the performance of these procedures on children, as 27 states have now done.
• Prohibit gender ideology indoctrination and pornographic materials in K-12 schools, as Florida has done (H 1557, 2022).
• Create a private civil liability for providers who medically or socially transition children, resulting in their “castration, sterilization, or mutilation,” as Texas is now considering (HB 2258).
• Define sex in law in terms of reproductive function at birth and protect access for female students to sex-segregated intimate facilities, as Kansas has done (SB 180, 2023).
• Create school choice options to empower parents to be in the driver’s seat regarding their child’s health and education.

States should also enact legislation to ensure detransitioners receive appropriate medical care and legal restitution for the harms they suffered as children.