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Doctor withholds results of study that fails to show transitioning improves kids’ health

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From LifeSiteNews

By Calvin Freiburger

A prominent doctor has been refusing to release the findings of a federally funded “transgender youth” study she began in 2015 because the results did not match the conclusions she hoped for, according to an explosive report in The New York Times.

The Times reported that Johanna Olson-Kennedy, medical director of the Center for Trans Youth Health & Development at Children’s Hospital in Los Angeles, “recruited 95 children from across the country and gave them puberty blockers,” then “followed the children for two years to see if the treatments improved their mental health.” She told the National Institutes of Health (NIH) that she expected to find that the kids would show “decreased symptoms of depression, anxiety, trauma symptoms, self-injury, and suicidality, and increased body esteem and quality of life over time.”

However, the study did not show the children doing better than they started. “Before receiving the drugs, around one-quarter of the group reported depression symptoms and significant anxiety, and one quarter reported ever having thoughts of suicide,” the Times says. “Eight percent reported a past suicide attempt.”

In an interview with the Times, Olson-Kennedy attempted to argue that the children’s starting point actually wasn’t so bad after all, and therefore the lack of change was not concerning: “They’re in really good shape when they come in, and they’re in really good shape after two years.” On follow-up, she claimed her “good shape” comment was referring to data averages, and her conclusion about the full data was still pending.

Regardless, in the nine years since the study commenced, Olson-Kennedy has still yet to publish any of the data for outside observers to analyze for themselves, which she justified by claiming, “I do not want our work to be weaponized. It has to be exactly on point, clear and concise. And that takes time.”

significant body of evidence shows that “affirming” gender confusion carries serious harms, especially when done with impressionable children who lack the mental development, emotional maturity, and life experience to consider the long-term ramifications of the decisions being pushed on them, or full knowledge about the long-term effects of life-altering, physically transformative, and often-irreversible surgical and chemical procedures.

Studies find that more than 80% of children experiencing gender dysphoria outgrow it on their own by late adolescence, and that even full “reassignment” surgery often fails to resolve gender-confused individuals’ heightened tendency to engage in self-harm and suicide — and may even exacerbate it, including by reinforcing their confusion and neglecting the actual root causes of their mental strife.

Many oft-ignored “detransitioners,” individuals who attempted to live under a different “gender identity” before embracing their sex, attest to the physical and mental harm of reinforcing gender confusion as well as to the bias and negligence of the medical establishment on the subject, many of whom take an activist approach to their profession and begin cases with a predetermined conclusion that “transitioning” is the best solution.

In December, the U.S. Supreme Court will begin considering arguments about the permissibility of state laws prohibiting the gender “transitioning”” of minors.

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Education

Saskatchewan school board defends policy to allow boys in girls’ change rooms despite parents’ protests

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From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

The rural Saskatchewan school district’s director of education said ‘it is the right thing to do for our students, staff and school communities’ to allow biological boys to use the same locker room as girls who feel uncomfortable about the situation.

Despite an outcry from concerned parents, a Canadian school board told them it supports allowing gender-confused boys access to girls’ change rooms.

Last week, LifeSiteNews reported about Balgonie Elementary School in rural Saskatchewan where a female seventh grader told her parents she was not comfortable sharing changing rooms for gym class with gender-confused biological males.

Despite the outcry, the Prairie Valley School Division (PVSD) in a recent email sent to parents claimed that the school division’s inclusivity policy trumps the rights of girls from being victimized by gender-confused boys.

“One important part of creating these safe and welcoming spaces is ensuring our schools operate in a way that respects the human rights, dignity and privacy expectations of all students and their families,” PVSD director of education Gord Husband wrote in an email to parents.

Husband said the school division’s policies and procedures are “carefully aligned with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Saskatchewan Human Rights Code.”

“We operate according to these documents not only because it is our legal obligation, but also because it is the right thing to do for our students, staff and school communities,” he added.

Husband’s email did not mention the issue at Balgonie Elementary directly but instead claimed it was a “human rights” issue and asked all parents to support “all students.”

The father of the girl, who remains anonymous, said that after his daughter raised the issue of the biological males using the girls’ locker room, saying she “felt uncomfortable,” she was told, “she can change in a different room by herself.”

The issue drew the attention of Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe. He said that his first “order of business” should he be re-elected to lead the province will be to ban gender-confused boys from accessing girls’ change rooms in public schools.

One of the concerned parents noted that learning this fact is “insane.”

“Wow, that’s insane, Sask NDP candidate from the NDP party, but not surprised that someone from that party would do that to a child. The NDP is really pushing that agenda and it’s so disturbing,” said the parent, as reported by the Western Standard.

Saskatchewan’s provincial election will be held October 28.

As reported by LifeSiteNews, LGBT indoctrination targeting kids has been on the rise in Canada and worldwide, leading to Canadians fighting back in protest.

Earlier this week, LifeSiteNews reported that a leading female gender ideology activist, who also worked as a school counselor, has been charged with grievous sexual offenses involving a minor.

Provinces such as Alberta, New Brunswick, and Saskatchewan have in recent months proposed legislation that would strengthen parental rights.

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Health

Coalition of doctors warns Supreme Court ‘transitioning’ children causes ‘significant’ damage

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From LifeSiteNews

By Calvin Freiburger

The American College of Pediatricians, Catholic Medical Association, and other pro-family medical groups are defending Tennessee’s ban on ‘gender transitions’ for children and stressing to the Supreme Court that the ban is vital to their patients’ health and welfare.

A coalition of pro-family medical organizations has submitted an amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court urging it to uphold Tennessee’s ban on surgically and chemically “transitioning” gender-confused minors, presenting a comprehensive case against the practice as contrary to both science and health.

In March 2023, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee signed SB1, which forbids subjecting minors to surgical or chemical “sex change” interventions, such as puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and mutilating surgeries.

LGBT activists sued, and last September a three-judge panel of the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the law could be enforced, finding sufficient evidence linking puberty blockers to harmful effects. The Biden administration appealed the ruling to the nation’s highest court, which confirmed earlier this month it will begin hearing oral arguments on the matter in December.

Among several interested parties to weigh in on both sides of the case, on October 15 an amicus brief was filed on behalf of the American College of Pediatricians, Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, American Association of Christian Counselors, Association of American Physicians & Surgeons, Catholic Medical Association, and Christian Medical & Dental Association in support of Tennessee and SB1, citing their “direct interest in the outcome of this case because it affects the vulnerable population” they serve as medical providers.

“Scientific research shows that children with gender incongruence or dysphoria almost always have significant mental health struggles and adverse childhood events that contribute to if not cause their dysphoria,” the brief states. “And multiple studies show that these children almost always grow out of or desist from such gender incongruity while going through puberty. Yet when children are placed on puberty blockers and/or cross-sex hormones, they almost always proceed to ‘gender transition’ surgeries with life-long adverse consequences.”

It goes on to note that, despite gender activists’ insistence that the evidence for “affirming” transgenderism is so clear as to make opposition “cruel,” in reality, “there are no long-term, reliable studies on the benefits from starting a child on” the pathway of puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgical mutilation. While failing to improve children’s mental health, “transitioning” also leads to “significant mental health issues in the long-term” and does “nothing to treat the underlying mental health struggles” they face, according to the available evidence.

SB1, the doctors write, is “​​consistent with sound medical practice: Rather than push a pre-teen to drugs and permanent body-altering surgery, the appropriate medical treatment is to address the child’s underlying mental health issues while allowing the child to go through natural puberty […] upon reaching adulthood, the vast majority of children who were not ‘affirmed’ in a gender-incongruent identity will no longer feel any distress in their sex.”

The amicus brief by medical experts in support of Tennessee follows similar briefs presented to the nation’s highest court by Partners for Ethical Care, representing parents whose children suffered from being misled into “transitioning,” and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, which makes the moral case against “transitioning” minors and warns of potential dangers to the freedoms of those who object should the Tennessee law be struck down.

Studies find that more than 80 percent of children suffering gender dysphoria outgrow it on their own by late adolescence and that “transition” procedures, including “reassignment” surgery, fail to resolve gender-confused individuals’ heightened tendency to engage in self-harm and suicide – and even exacerbate it, including by reinforcing their confusion and neglecting the actual root causes of their mental strife.

Many oft-ignored “detransitioners,” individuals who attempted to live under a different “gender identity” before embracing their sex, attest to the physical and mental harm of reinforcing gender confusion, as well as to the bias and negligence of the medical establishment on the subject, many of whom take an activist approach to their profession and begin cases with a predetermined conclusion in favor of “transitioning.”

“Gender-affirming” physicians have also been caught on video admitting to more old-fashioned motives for such procedures, as with an 2022 exposé about Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s Clinic for Transgender Health, where Dr. Shayne Sebold Taylor said outright that “these surgeries make a lot of money.”

Opponents of transgender ideology are hopeful that the Supreme Court will rule in Tennessee’s favor and set a nationwide precedent protecting every state’s right to make the same decision.

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