NICOLE RUSSELL: Dan Crenshaw exposes Yale prof for having no scientific evidence to back up demand for child sex changes

The kind of care the progressive left suggests youth need for a gender identity crisis is cross-sex hormones and sex-change surgery ‒ life-altering, irreversible options. Yet they can rarely, if ever, provide ample evidence to show that this kind of medical care is safe. In the absence of such compelling proof, why is the left still pushing this kind of standard of care on minors and proposing taxpayers fund it?

Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) shed light on these very questions when he participated in a heated exchange with a witness, Dr. Meredithe McNamara, an assistant professor of pediatrics at Yale School of Medicine, Wednesday. The debate was about his proposed provision that would remove federal funding from hospitals that perform “gender-affirming” care for minors such as providing puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, or sex-change surgeries.

“We keep hearing that this is a politicized issue. That this is a manufactured culture war. I gotta say, we’ aren’t the ones who did that,” Crenshaw said during the hearing. “We aren't the ones who came up with this radical new movement that is performing permanent physiological changes to children with no evidence of any benefits. We didn’t start that. We’re just trying to stop it. Because it’s crazy…We’re just saying taxpayer money shouldn’t be used for it.”

When Crenshaw pressed McNamara for proof that sex-change surgeries or cross-sex hormones are safe for minors she said, “Everything I’ve said here today comes from a place of deep honesty and conviction about the care that I provide and the community that I am a part of.” 

When McNamara continued to say that people should look at multiple forms of research to support something, Crenshaw responded by citing the British Medical Journal, the Journal of the Endocrine Society, and the American Academy of Pediatrics ‒ all which say there is a lack of evidence that this kind of care is safe for kids. 

“When you’re talking about permanent physiological changes, just from an ethical standpoint,  do you not agree, that you might want extremely strong evidence of the benefits? There is no systematic review of evidence that states there is strong evidence of the benefits,” Crenshaw said.

McNamara simply said such ideas were simply the  “standards of care.” She repeated the phrase as though it has weight and merit, but it does not.

In fact, there are no set "standards of care" for children who think they were born in the wrong bodies. The World Professional Association for Transgender Health issues guidelines called the WPATH standards of care, they're on their 8th version so far. These "standards," that many hospital gender clinics have embraced, determine that children can have the gender identity "eunuch." The section in the "standards of care" that puts forth that position uses erotic writings about child rape and castration as backup. 

The latest "standards of care" from WPATH also determines that there's no age too young to begin "gender affirming care," setting children on the path for sex changes. These "standards of care" are not evidence based, but backed by activist rhetoric. Many nations, including those that were far ahead of the game on child sex changes, have stopped the practice altogether or drastically slowed it down. England, Finland, Norway and Sweden have all pushed hard on the brakes after revelations that the "affirmative" model was damaging children, teens, and their entire future sexual and reproductive lives. Yet the US is running full steam ahead. 

“‘The standards of care.’ That’s not a journal. That’s not a study. That’s not an organization. It’s not an institution. You’re just saying words. Name one study,” Crenshaw said.

Crenshaw’s conclusion is obvious and compelling: Taxpayer’s should not be forced to fund “gender-affirming” treatments on kids that they both oppose and that there is no evidence to suggest it even is safe or helpful for minors. Sex changes for minors is wrong, performing these procedures before the age of majority should be a crime. When states move to ban the practice, the left obfuscates with official sounding terms like "standards of care," despite there not being a set standard of care in the US, or globally, or hurl insults like "bigoted" and "anti-trans."

"There is no other human rights atrocity in America that is so quickly gaining momentum and validation within the very institutions that should know better," Crenshaw told Human Events. "One of these institutions is children’s hospitals. In a place where ‘do no harm’ is the ultimate guiding principle, there is no excuse to ever perform these treatments that permanently alter a child’s physiology.”

Crenshaw is correct that the leftist, progressive lobby that pushes for sex-change surgeries, cross-sex hormones, and puberty blockers for minors, including to the point where many in the medical community appear to agree, sans evidence, is indeed “the issue of our time,” as he said. And he's right–there's just no compelling, science based evidence that says children are better off when not allowed to develop naturally and mature into adults. There is a great deal of evidence to suggest that for most kids with gender dysphoria—the majority of whom are girls at this point—they grow out of it after going through puberty. Puberty helps.

Sex changes for minors are not something most people support or want as standard medical practice, or especially want to pay for, but it is being forced on parents and taxpayers by a small, loud, progressive margin of society that appears to value progressive ideas based on fluctuating feelings, more than facts, evidence, and data-driven medicine.

The progressive left has forced the medical community into embracing radical treatment for “gender-affirming” care that violates their Hippocratic oath and completely changes a child’s physiology ‒ without actually changing their gender ‒ often leaving minors or even young adults with genitalia that malfunctions, among other issues. 

Exposing the lack of data and research behind these surgeries, as Crenshaw did, is a powerful way to showcase just how flawed the medical community has become  when they suggest such irreversible changes on minors. The fact that progressives think taxpayers should fund this is well beyond logic. If stripping the taxpayer-subsidized funding from these facilities halts “gender-affirming” care on minors, so be it. This way, no child will be left between genders, with crippling regret, and depression.