On March 21, the American College of Pediatricians of the United States, (ACPeds), an unofficial association formed by a group of pediatricians and other socially conservative health professionals, has unveiled a controversial statement that positions gender identity in minors. Signed by three eminences in pediatrics such as Michelle A. Cretella (president of the American Pediatric Association), Quentin Van Meter (vice president and pediatric endocrinologist) and Paul McHugh (former head of the Johns Hopkins Hospital Psychiatry Service where they stopped doing sex change operations), and from the title makes clear its position: "Gender ideology hurts children".
How? (We shook our heads). When it seems that the trend is more towards acceptance and support from parents and the environment, it is interesting to know a scientific statement in a completely opposite line. It urges "educators and legislators" to "reject all policies that condition children to accept as normal a life of chemical or surgical impersonation of their sex for the opposite sex." "It is the facts and not the ideology," they say, "who determine reality," that is, that "sexuality is an objective biological trait".
At the end of the text, references to studies on the subject are added to demonstrate that it is a scientifically supported position, and it is also clarified that it is a "temporary declaration with references", that for this summer there will be a "complete declaration".
I leave you first with the text of the statement translated into Spanish and then I tell you about a recent case that I immediately remembered reading this news, that of little Lucia.
The statement of the American College of Pediatricians on gender identity
1. Human sexuality is a binary objective biological trait: XY and XX are healthy genetic markers, not the genetic markers of a disorder. The norm of human design is to be conceived as a man or as a woman. Human sexuality is binary by definition, its purpose being obvious the reproduction and growth of our species. This principle is self-evident. The extraordinarily rare disorders of sexual development, including testicular feminization or androgen insensitivity syndrome, n.n. and congenital adrenal hyperplasia, are deviations from the binary sexual norm, all of them medically identifiable and directly admitted as disorders of human design. Individuals with sexual development disorders do not constitute a third sex {1}.
2. No one is born with a gender. We are all born with a biological sex. Gender (self awareness and feeling as a man or woman) is a sociological and psychological concept, not an objective biological concept. No one is born with self-awareness as a man or a woman; This awareness develops over time and, like all developmental processes, can deviate as a result of the child's subjective perceptions, relationships and adverse experiences since childhood. Those who identify themselves as "feeling the opposite sex" or as "something in between" do not form a third sex. They are still biological men or biological women {2}, {3}, {4}.
3. The belief that a person has of being something that he or she really is not constitutes, at best, a sign of confusing thought. When a child who is otherwise biologically healthy thinks he is a girl; or a girl who is otherwise biologically healthy believes that she is a boy, there is an objective psychological problem - in the mind, not in the body - and should be treated as such.
These children suffer from Gender Dysphoria. Gender Dysphoria (DG), formerly known as Gender Identity Disorder (TIG), is a mental disorder recognized in the most recent edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association (DSM-V). The psychodynamic and social learning theory of DG / TIG have never been denied. {2}, {4}, {5}
4. Puberty is not a disease, and hormonal blockers can be dangerous. Reversible or not, hormonal blockers induce a state of disease - the absence of puberty - and inhibit growth and fertility in a child who was previously biologically healthy {6}.
5. According to the DSM-V, Up to 98% of boys with confusing gender and up to 88% of girls with confusing gender finally accept their biological sex after puberty naturally {5}.
6. Children who use hormonal blockers for sex reassignment will need cross hormones at the end of adolescence. Cross hormones (testosterone and estrogens) are associated with health risks, including hypertension, blood clots, stroke and cancer {7}, {8}, {9}, {10}.
7. Suicide rates are twenty times higher among adults who use cross hormones and undergo sex reassignment surgery, even in Sweden, which is among the countries with the highest LGBT support {11}. What compassionate and reasonable person would condemn young boys to this destination knowing that after puberty up to 88% of girls and 98% of boys will accept reality and reach a state of physical and mental health?
8. To condition children to believe that it is normal to spend a lifetime chemically and surgically replacing their own sex with the opposite constitutes child abuse. Supporting gender disagreement as normal through public education and legal policies will confuse children and parents, leading many children to go to "gender clinics" where hormonal blocking drugs are administered. This, in turn, virtually ensures that they will "choose" to receive carcinogenic or in one way or another toxic cross hormones, and will probably unnecessarily consider, when they are young adults, the surgical mutilation of their healthy organs.
Cases like Lucia, who was born Luken
As I was telling you, the case of Lucia, four years old, who has become the smallest child in Spain in getting a name change immediately came to mind.
At birth, the baby was registered as a child and was baptized with the name Luken. Since she started talking, she referred to herself as a girl "I am beautiful" and at three years old she told her mother: "Mom, even if I have a penis, can I be a girl?"
His parents supported his decision at all times and after informing and thinking a lot, finally last September they decided to request the court of Tolosa to change his name in the Civil Registry. A month later, still four years old (he turned five in December), he was granted it, and Luken became Lucia, although a male “M” still appears on his ID.
Without a doubt, a decision that will not have been easy for those parents, but What can you do if your child does not feel identified with his gender, is not comfortable inside his body? Would you support him or make him see that it is a "confusion"? Surely it will have been hard to accept it, but everyone knows his son and knows what makes him happy and what doesn't. Is he too young to decide with four years? It depends. You can, but we don't know your day to day. If since she was born she feels like a girl, she addresses herself as a girl and feels like a girl, four years is her whole life.
Can you regret it? Can it be a "confusion", as the American Association of Pediatricians argues and that in adolescence accept your biological sex naturally? It is possible, although in such a case, with such determination with so few years, living all his life as a girl, feeling like a girl and even with the name of a girl regretting at 15 or 16 years, I really doubt it.
Gender ideology for children
Finally, I want to leave this video, also controversial, about the gender ideology taught to preschool children. In it they are taught that they are not boys or girls, but "you decide what you want to be." Their sexuality does not come "pre-established" by the sex they were born with, but rather it's something that they must decide.
What do you think about it? Do you think it was time for a prestigious medical society to pronounce on the gender ideology in children? What do you think about his statements?
Upgrade: This article has been modified to clarify that the American College of Pediatricians is not an Official College but an association of conservative pediatricians.
