There is an alarming growing epidemic of gender dysphoria

Transgender tyranny is the next terrible step in the sexual revolution

Human Life International

by Fr. Shenan J. Boquet

Disturbing new data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) highlight the grave dangers that the transgender ideology poses to children. A new survey of 131,901 public school students has found that nearly 2 percent of students in grades 9–12 identify as "transgender." That translates into a staggering number of teenagers suffering profound confusion about their identity and all the accompanying psychological and physical risks.

While reliable statistics about the rates of transgenderism among high school students across time are hard to come by, more and more data suggest that there is an alarming, and rapidly growing epidemic of gender dysphoria (the clinical term for this psychological disorder) among young people.

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), for instance, recently reported that children's clinics in Canada are seeing an "exponential growth" in cases of teenagers "who don't identify as the sex they were born with." A doctor at one leading children's hospital, CHEO in Ottawa, told the CBC that ten years ago the clinic might see one or two children a year seeking to "change" their gender. Last year, they saw 189 such children. In 2013, British Columbia's Children's Hospital saw 20 children seeking transgender "treatments." Last year they saw 240.

Similar increases are being seen in other countries. In the UK, officials are investigating the reasons behind a stratospheric increase in teenagers seeking "treatments" to become another gender in the past 10 years. According to The Telegraph, in 2009–10, there were just 40 girls seeking transgender "treatments" in the UK. In 2017–18, that grew to 1,806, an increase of 4,500%. Meanwhile, "referrals for boys have risen from 57 to 713 in the same period," reports The Telegraph — an increase of 1,250%.

However, instead of seeking to identify environmental factors that may be causing this rapid increase, many clinics and doctors are instead rushing to "treat" these children using drastic, and in many cases irreversible interventions.

CHEO Hospital in Ottawa is just one hospital engaging in macabre experimentation on children suffering gender dysphoria. As the CBC reports: "At the clinic, patients from eastern Ontario and western Quebec are seen by a team of doctors who treat them with hormone blockers, hormone therapy and, in some cases, surgery to transition from one gender to another."

In other words, the clinic is taking children and teenagers who have either not yet gone through puberty, or who have but are still coming to terms with their sexuality (a confusing process at the best of times!) and interfering with their natural biological processes or mutilating their bodies in irreversible ways — confirming these children in an identity that is associated with a host of negative physical and psychological outcomes.

Transgender Pressure as Child Abuse

A recent report from the UK has raised serious red flags about the speed with which one children's clinic — the Tavistock Gender Identity Development Clinic — is prescribing these drastic, unproven and unstudied "treatments" for children, often without making any substantial effort to identify or treat underlying problems that may be contributing to the child's experience of gender dysphoria.

The report was compiled by David Bell, a staff governor at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust, which has oversight of the clinic. According to The Sunday Times, the report found that many children "take up a trans identity as a solution" to "multiple problems such as historic child abuse in the family, bereavement ... homophobia and a very significant incidence of autism spectrum disorder." The report provides several examples of cases where the patient's gender dysphoria could reasonably be traced to factors in their environment, and that could be addressed with normal psychological treatments. In one case, for instance, a girl felt so guilty after the death of her brother that she decided to give her parents "their son back" by transitioning.

Staff at the clinic reported, however, that they often couldn't even attempt to address potential underlying causes, since the pressure to "affirm" the child in his new "gender identity" is so strong. In many cases, they reported, children have clearly been "coached" by transgender activists what to say. As a result, says the report, the clinic is providing "woefully inadequate" care, with some staff members expressing "very serious ethical concerns" about the fact that children are being pushed towards dramatic and irreversible procedures with little knowledge about the long-term impact. According to report, in some cases children were being prescribed hormones after just a single session at the clinic.

The clinic, as reported by The Times, "is exposing young patients to 'long-term damage' because of its 'inability to stand up to the pressure' from 'highly politicised' campaigners and families demanding fast-track gender transition[.]" In other words, weak-kneed doctors and health care workers are perpetuating child abuse because of the political pressures they are under.

On the other hand, staff members have very good reasons to be afraid of this "pressure" from "highly politicised" campaigners. Transgenderism is the new sacred cow of liberal progressivism. A decade ago most people had never even heard of transgenderism, or if they did, they scarcely gave it any thought. Now, we are immersed in it, and even to question the flagrantly anti-scientific and extremist transgender ideology is to risk immediate and public consequences, including loss of jobs, public shaming and — increasingly — visits from the police or even arrest.

In one horrific recent case, a Canadian judge ruled that a father couldn't prevent doctors from giving his daughter hormones to help her "transition" to become a boy against his wishes. In another case, a construction worker was arrested for laughing at a "transgender woman" — i.e. a biological man dressed as a woman. Then there's the case of a 38-year-old woman who was arrested in front of her children for arguing with a transgender activist on Twitter. Then there's tennis legend Martina Navratilova, a feminist who is fully on board with the LGBT agenda — except for one thing. Recently, she dared to question whether biological men should be permitted to compete in women's sports. She was promptly kicked off the board of Athlete Ally — a leading homosexual activist organization — and vilified by LGBT activists and media.

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