Long-time readers of The Free Press may recall how Bari Weiss, Abigail Shrier, and their cohorts exposed the “factory” treatment of minors who thought they might be trans some years ago. A cottage industry sprung up in the early days of the transgender mania that gave teens and tweens paths to getting “gender affirming care,” including hormones, puberty blockers, and even surgery, sometimes without their parents’ permission or awareness, and oftentimes with false assurances that such treatments could be reversed.
Some reports indicated that kids were put on transitioning programs after the most minimal evaluation, sometimes as little as an hour of psychological consultation, and without proper assessment of other mental health issues.
At the time, my conclusion for this grotesque level of negligence was that the trans-activists were playing a numbers game. The more trans persons they could point at, the bigger the tally, the greater pressure on society to accept them and all they demanded.
My position on trans persons then was the same as it is now: Adult? Do what you want, not my business, and I will treat you with the same (note: “same”) baseline respect that I offer every other individual. Not-adult, on the other hand? We don’t let kids get tattoos, join the military, sign contracts, or do countless other things that have far less impact than chemical or surgical alteration, so, no, I do not support “gender affirming care” for minors. As to the hot-button issues? Men and women are different, so women’s spaces and sports should remain the realm of women. If you’re a trans woman? Sorry the roll of the genetic dice didn’t go as you would have liked, but that’s reality. Again, I will afford you respect as a human being, but please don’t insist that people with penises should have access to women’s locker rooms, prisons, and women-only spaces, and please stop with the nonsense that a couple years of chemicals can erase the inherent physical advantages men have. You don’t warrant treatment that supersedes that of others simply because you are a smaller group.
Back to the story. My earlier conclusion - that trans-activism was a cynical numbers game that subordinated individuals’ welfare to a “collective benefit,” with mistakes being the price paid for social progress - wasn’t cynical enough. Reports are now coming out about how much money hospitals and other entities billed and collected by transitioning minors.
North of a hundred million dollars.
Meaning that, yet again, my mantra that everything is about Other People’s Money (OPM) gets affirmed. Pun intended.
The evidence that transitioning minors is vital or necessary simply isn’t there. Suicide rates do not change pre- vs post-transitioning, for one thing. Mental health co-morbidities don’t abate, either. Suggesting a minor wait until age of majority to decide on such a permanent course of action falls well within the “first, do no harm” precept.
Fortunately, the trans social contagion has ebbed. A number of European nations have ceased transitioning minors entirely, and more have sharply curtailed their programs. In the US, chemical transitions last year dropped by two-thirds from their 2023 peak. Twenty-seven states have banned or severely restricted transitioning minors. The culture warriors, sensing the public sentiment swing away, have moved on to other causes.
Unfortunately, many young people have been permanently harmed. Many who are detransitioning are now dealing with the permanent consequences of “gender-affirming care,” including irreversible physical alterations and sterility. As unfortunately, some of the de-transitioners who have gone public in order to raise awareness are facing social pressure for daring to speak out against the woke-virus and progressive orthodoxy.
All in the name of feeding their fanaticism. As George Santayana noted, a fanatic redoubles his efforts when he has forgotten his aim.
In this case, the stated aim was to help children with gender dysphoria. That very quickly devolved into perpetuating an industry rather than actually serving the children, and once it became a business, the next step - a racket involving Other People’s Money - became inevitable.
I am pretty cynical when it comes to politics and culture wars. My cynicism has been validated time and time again. In this instance, I wasn’t cynical enough. A movement that is willing to sacrifice children’s futures in order to bolster its numbers is bad enough, but one that does so for money is even worse.
Who are the true protectors of trans kids? Those who rush them into permanent physical alterations in the name of OPM, or those who say “first, do no harm, it’s better you wait until you are an adult?”
Restricting chemical and surgical intervention does not prevent anyone from living as they “feel,” by the way. Saying “no transitioning of minors” does not deprive those who believe they are a gender other than that “assigned at birth” from embracing that gender. And, if they get to eighteen and still feel the same, they can do as they wish in terms of transitioning. Not my place to deny an adult’s freedom to make such a choice.
Two points on the specifics of the OPM in this case: first, the OPM is insurance money - since the AAP "affirmed" these procedures as "necessary", guess who paid? Oooh, that's right: all of us paid higher premiums to enable this Mengele-adjacent grotesquery. And guess what else? They cheated. That's right - widespread insurance fraud committed by hospitals charging the procedures off to E34.9 - Endocrine disorder, and E309 - Precocious puberty (only applies to children under 13 in rare cases). The correct code they avoided like the plague was Z69.x - Gender identity disorder (red flag - no science).
https://www.hhs.gov/press-room/hhs-report-insurance-coding-sex-rejecting-procedures-minors.html