They masquerade as the party of defending the defenseless/vulnerable. Yet, it is Donald Trump and his administration that are truly protecting low-income minors who are being harmed by these barbaric sex-rejecting procedures.
On Thursday morning, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr and the HHS announced that it will be pulling Medicaid funding from hospitals that provide sex-rejecting procedures in the United States. They announced that the experimental use of binders, puberty blockers, cross sex hormones, double mastectomies, vaginoplasties, and phalloplasties on minors will no longer be funded by federal tax dollars. The medical industry has disguised these sadistic procedures under the euphemism "gender affirming care."
However, Kennedy and his team know that these gender "treatments" will soon have the same reputation as lobotomies. Republicans are working hard to protect poor children from being lab rats for ideological, profit-driven doctors.
In addition, the Health and Human Services team announced that it will divert funds to research and to care for detransitioners, the thousands of people who medically transitioned and now regret it, and have endured harm as a result.
Detransitioners have been ignored, dismissed, and demonized for expressing regret for something most of them were led to believe by trusted professionals. For the first time, these victims of medical malpractice are being acknowledged by people who have the power to help them.
It was highlighted at Thursday's HHS meeting that when medicine and politics intersect, politics often prevail. However, this meeting wasn't political.
All the Trump administration is doing is disentangling the ideological junk science that has overtaken the medical field and returning to common sense. Despite repeated slogans, such as "affirmative care is life-saving," there has never been a consensus on the subject. In the past, professionals with no political motivations attempted to speak up and push back, but they were silenced, ostracized, and made examples of.
In addition, there have been rigorous studies done in other countries, such as the CASS review in the UK, and even a hidden American NIH study, that show puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones do not improve long-term mental health in children. They do cause psychological and physical harm, such as cognitive delays, bone loss, blood clots, cancers, heart conditions, mood disturbances, chronic joint pain, fertility issues, sexual dysfunction, and much more.
Plus, there is zero evidence to back the false claim that these procedures are necessary to prevent suicide. As a therapist with over 20 years of clinical experience, I know that this suicide threat is emotional blackmail.
However, despite the comprehensive data and attempts to course correct, the medical profession continues to experiment on poor children with their gender medicalization. Among these poor children, the cohort of children who are the most forgotten are foster children. Foster youth experience the most trauma, attachment disorders, and sexual abuse, and are more likely to believe that they may be trapped in the wrong body, especially if their therapists, foster parents, and doctors are all trained to affirm a false gender identity immediately.
In fact, in many states, there are punitive measures for foster parents and medical professionals who do not affirm, so these kids will likely be fast-tracked into medical malpractice.
The World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) is the organization that claims to be the authority on transgender medicine. Their most recent standards of care (2022) have no age limits on patients seeking radical body modifications. This was a decision influenced by Democratic Health Secretary Rachel Levine. Plus, there are damning documents, such as the WPATH files, and several undercover investigations that have exposed WPATH to be fully aware of the harms of hormones and surgeries.
They have been caught in private meetings admitting that they do not have any scientific evidence to support their standards of care. In fact, WPATH doctors were recently uncovered saying, "We're all just winging it," by The Free Press. You don't need to spend too much time investigating WPATH to learn how depraved they are.
I became a social worker years ago because I believed in protecting those who are vulnerable. Democrats shout "Protect Trans Kids," and they pretend to be the protectors. However, it's hard to think of something more evil and dark than the chemical castration and genital mutilation of children.
It gets even darker when we realize it is the poor, disenfranchised children who are more often groomed to believe they are "trans" and fast-tracked onto hormones and surgeries. There is nothing protective about "gender affirming care, despite how nice they make it sound. Meanwhile, in reality, it has been the Republicans who are working to protect our most vulnerable. Robert Kennedy, Jr vowed to make America's children healthy again, and he continues to fulfill his promise.
Pamela Garfield-Jaeger is a licensed clinical social worker with over 20 years of experience with youth and families. She is the author of "A Practical Response to Gender Distress: Tips and Tools for Families" and a pro-truth children's book, "Froggy Girl. www.thetruthfultherapist.org
