In exclusive interviews, two prominent providers sound off on puberty blockers, 'affirmative' care, the inhibition of sexual pleasure, and the suppression of dissent in their field.
I found Abigail Shrier's book, Irreversible Damage, to be frightening. As a former educator, I know that teenagers, especially depressed ones, do not make good decisions! Psychiatric help should precede any sort of gender changing advice.
This is soul-crushing to read, and even sadder is that within a decade, when many class actions are filed and solved, the backlash against some organizations will be so significant that the same groups they want it to protect would be the most affected. Planned Parenthood will be critically defunded, medical professionals and associations will have to work to regain the credibility of minorities, and trans activists will be demonized. "Good" intentions without common sense and the pursuit of scientific discovery will erase 20 to 30 years of progress in rights and acceptance for the LBTQ+ community.
Drs. Bowers' and Anderson’s public comments are unprecedented and therefore remarkable. They are literally risking their careers. So, kudos to them and, of course, to Abigail, for getting them to speak to her as candidly as they did. I understand why Abigail made the strategic decision to avoid challenging them on specifics, choosing instead to simply allow their message to disseminate through the interwebs and make a powerful impression…and it has. The vast majority of hits in my search engine report this story in a very favorable manner. One can almost hear it reverberate: IT’S ABOUT TIME!
So I’ll simply add the following food for thought: Sexual dysfunction caused by puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones is just one serious potential side effect. This is because puberty stimulates more than just sexual development. It is the biological process by which a child becomes an adult. As Wikipedia states: “In response to the [hormonal] signals, the gonads produce hormones that stimulate libido and the growth, function, and transformation of the brain, bones, muscle, blood, skin, hair, breasts, and sex organs. Physical growth—height and weight—accelerates in the first half of puberty and is completed when an adult body has been developed.”
Cross-sex hormones; i.e., testosterone for females, estrogen for males, are supposed to complete the maturation process of a child who was first put on puberty blockers. But there is evidence of cognitive decline, psychiatric disorders, changes in brain morphology, and suicidality accompanying administration of cross-sex hormones. See, for instance, https://pitt.substack.com/p/rise-of-the-trans-medical-taliban. Normal brain development is not complete until ones mid-20s, when the pre-frontal cortex matures, enabling us to use insight and reasoning in making important life decisions. The assertion that children can give informed consent to transgender medical procedures would be hilarious if it weren’t so insidious. At the very least, no one under the age of 18 should be allowed to medically transition.
Abigail reminds us that we must be compassionate enough to recognize that sometimes the suffering of a gender dysphoric child requires a more pro-active approach. However, “watchful waiting” more often than not resolves the issue at puberty. And considering the risk of irreversible damage, it's worth noting that gender dysphoria may be the result of shaming by parents and peers because of a child’s normal gender nonconformity, leading to painful dysphoria caused by social rejection.
Imagine a world where the feminine boy and the masculine girl are supported and loved exactly as they are, with no pressure to change a thing about themselves.
Could we talk about the media coverage of the Dave Chappell/TERF story please? It angers me when I read claims that is the LGBTQ community who is taking offense when the likes of Chappell question the gender/sex narrative. This is framing the problem in such a simplistic way and there is so much nuance that is missed: 1. gays and lesbians can be some of the most outspoken critics of trans activism and many feel abandoned by the institutions that claim to be speaking for them 2. trans activists attack trans individuals who fail to toe the line with the same vehemence and acrimony.
The issue is not at all against individuals who identify as trans. The problem is trans activism and the post modern queer theory ideology that is being promoted. The biggest irony is that when we turn our back on the concept of objective truth (like post modernist do) all of a sudden academic freedom and dissenting opinions are no longer relevant. What we get then is a type of “science” that is as biased as it is unhelpful. Who has the most at stake here? Young people (kids!) who identify as trans and those who care about them the most, of course. How much longer will trans activists be able to hide behind their vacuous “transphobic” claims?
I haven't spent a day in medical school, yet simply relying on common sense, I know with absolute certitude that no matter how expertly you mutilate someone's genitals, you have not changed that person's sex, you have only mutilated. I can also assert that sex hormones affect the entirety of someone's physiology and psychology, not just one's sexuality. It's insane to think that you can change this delicate balance of hormones and not run into harmful consequences.
Remember the guy at Google that got fired because he said women were different from men, they had areas of expertise that were not the same as men? It just hit me, that all this trans stuff is based on affirming that women and men are different. What a paradox.
“I never use the colon,” Dr. Bowers said. “It’s the last resort. You can get colon cancer. If it’s used sexually, you can get this chronic colitis… And it’s just in the discharge and the nasty appearance and it doesn’t smell like vagina...Believe me, we’re doing some magnificent surgeries on these kids…”
With all due respect for Dr. Bowers’ surgical skills, but she talks about these experimental, irreversible, dangerous mutilations that pass for surgical operations on children with a flippancy you’d expect from a sausage maker. Healthy kids get hormones that disrupt healthy puberty; their healthy, perfectly functioning organs are removed in wholly unnecessary, grisly, revolting, life-threatening operations that will have serious, painful, sometimes devastating side effects not to mention will turn them into life-long medical patients. WHO decided this passes for acceptable medical practice? It's certainly not medical "care."
If you want to know what these surgeries are REALLY like, I recommend that you read Scott Newgent’s horrific description of his transition, “Forget What Gender Activists Tell You. Here’s What Medical Transition Looks Like.” PS: You’ll need kleenex.
And for a double dose of refreshing reality, watch Scott call out his interviewer on a popular transactivist BS (lie) about the “epidemic violence” against trans people. https://youtu.be/BApU7LFokNk
My 4 year old had "When Aidan Became a Brother" read to him during Pride Month last year. This is about a little girl who identifies as boy and will be having a baby brother soon. First off, really - this is an appropriate and non-confusing topic for a 4 year old? Also, as the article suggests a large majority of children who experience gender dysphoria will grow out of it, catering to every whim of a child who experiences gender dysphoria (in the book they dress Aidan as a boy and introduce him as the soon to be big "brother" to confused store clerks) is not entirely in a child's best interest. Especially before puberty.
Abigail, you should get the Pulitzer Prize for journalism! Thank you for exposing the dishonesty and strong arm tactics that permeate the transgender movement. The secrecy, half truths, lies, threats, greed, and incompetence of drug companies, doctors, surgeons, hospitals, therapists, schools, universities, and most of all, of well funded, aggressive transgender activists and lobbyists.
So kids who take puberty blockers and then go on to cross-sex hormones will never achieve orgasm. And exploding numbers of kids are now recruited by the online Pied Pipers. Well then, gender affirming doctors, wave your hands, utter some medical doublespeak, and sweep those bombshells under the rug. But sooner or later the truth comes out. It always does. And this time, wonder of wonders, it came straight from the horse's mouth!
Thank you again, Abigail for confirming what most people suspected all along. And now it's time to spread the news far and wide -- on social media, youtube, TV, in the papers. Let the Truth Fairy's truth ring out throughout the land.
I read Abigail's book and it was enlightening for me. I read it for several reasons but as an RN I look for a baseline to help me when I care for a patient that is transgender and has possibly undergone gender reassignment surgery.
What I found interesting in the portrayals of the families of the young women that started testosterone is that initially they supported their gender dysphoria. I feel that these young women did not receive the counseling that they needed to really understand the root cause of their issues. When these young women came back home from college as young men, I think it sunk in for the parents. Hormones are very powerful and we do not know enough about this process to make accurate decisions for very young people.
Yes. These young women don't get any real counseling. I know of one young woman who takes hormones and now has a creaking baritone voice, a masculine jawline, a five o'clock shadow, and a trendy man's name. But she (I'm not calling her "they") asks people to tell her she looks "pretty." This is bonkers. If she wanted to be considered pretty, why on earth would she take a drug that was guaranteed to destroy her appearance?
In March 2021, Sweden's Karolinska Hospital, one of the world's top medical teaching institutes, announced: Puberty blocking "treatments are...fraught with extensive and irreversible adverse consequences such as cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, infertility, increased cancer risk, and thrombosis. In light of the above, [such treatments] will not be initiated in gender dysphoric patients under the age of 16. For patients between ages 16 and 18, it is hereby decided that treatment may only occur within the clinical trial settings approved by the EPM (Ethical Review Agency/Swedish Institutional Review Board)." Not one word re this in US media.
Thanks for sharing this. I visited Sweden and I would love to retire there if they would have me. The US should be looking closely at this study and I agree that this these procedures should be experimental and be reviewed by the IRB for a clinical trial.
Bravo! This piece will move the debate forward. Keep pushing, Ms. Shier—We have your back!
Your book is essential reading for those seeking REAL information about this issue. As a mother and the wife of a highly regarded primary care physician for 35 years, I am horrified by these reckless, deeply harmful practices.
I am also a former journalist, a fact checker/ researcher for a well known investigative reporter (who hired many award winning WSJ reporters early in their careers) and in that vein, I have done a ton of reading on this and everything I read only intensifies my sense of shock and outrage. All the medical societies and orgs that have legitimized this disturbing model should be shamed out of existence. Rubber stamping affirmative medical treatment for minors is the very definition of malpractice in my opinion. My heart breaks for all these young people whose lives have truly been irreparably damaged. It makes me sick.
Armed with information, I am writing letters and sending messages to all the DEM politicians who are seeking donations from me. I am also bringing this subject up with my friends and family, especially medical colleagues. Is there anything else people like me could be doing?
Could we adopt a policy of referring to any "transgender" person as (s)he, for the purposes of journalism? (S)he works for both M2F and F2M, and also doesn't insult the reader by referring to biologicals males as "she" or vice versa.
Interesting suggestion. In the past, I have avoided using pronouns by simply repeating the person's name or using a phrase like this person or this individual.
I found Abigail Shrier's book, Irreversible Damage, to be frightening. As a former educator, I know that teenagers, especially depressed ones, do not make good decisions! Psychiatric help should precede any sort of gender changing advice.
This is soul-crushing to read, and even sadder is that within a decade, when many class actions are filed and solved, the backlash against some organizations will be so significant that the same groups they want it to protect would be the most affected. Planned Parenthood will be critically defunded, medical professionals and associations will have to work to regain the credibility of minorities, and trans activists will be demonized. "Good" intentions without common sense and the pursuit of scientific discovery will erase 20 to 30 years of progress in rights and acceptance for the LBTQ+ community.
"I worry about their reproductive rights later. "
These kids have lost their penis and testicles....what reproductive rights?
Great article! It is referenced in this week's edition of The Economist. You guys are doing important work!
Drs. Bowers' and Anderson’s public comments are unprecedented and therefore remarkable. They are literally risking their careers. So, kudos to them and, of course, to Abigail, for getting them to speak to her as candidly as they did. I understand why Abigail made the strategic decision to avoid challenging them on specifics, choosing instead to simply allow their message to disseminate through the interwebs and make a powerful impression…and it has. The vast majority of hits in my search engine report this story in a very favorable manner. One can almost hear it reverberate: IT’S ABOUT TIME!
So I’ll simply add the following food for thought: Sexual dysfunction caused by puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones is just one serious potential side effect. This is because puberty stimulates more than just sexual development. It is the biological process by which a child becomes an adult. As Wikipedia states: “In response to the [hormonal] signals, the gonads produce hormones that stimulate libido and the growth, function, and transformation of the brain, bones, muscle, blood, skin, hair, breasts, and sex organs. Physical growth—height and weight—accelerates in the first half of puberty and is completed when an adult body has been developed.”
Cross-sex hormones; i.e., testosterone for females, estrogen for males, are supposed to complete the maturation process of a child who was first put on puberty blockers. But there is evidence of cognitive decline, psychiatric disorders, changes in brain morphology, and suicidality accompanying administration of cross-sex hormones. See, for instance, https://pitt.substack.com/p/rise-of-the-trans-medical-taliban. Normal brain development is not complete until ones mid-20s, when the pre-frontal cortex matures, enabling us to use insight and reasoning in making important life decisions. The assertion that children can give informed consent to transgender medical procedures would be hilarious if it weren’t so insidious. At the very least, no one under the age of 18 should be allowed to medically transition.
Abigail reminds us that we must be compassionate enough to recognize that sometimes the suffering of a gender dysphoric child requires a more pro-active approach. However, “watchful waiting” more often than not resolves the issue at puberty. And considering the risk of irreversible damage, it's worth noting that gender dysphoria may be the result of shaming by parents and peers because of a child’s normal gender nonconformity, leading to painful dysphoria caused by social rejection.
Imagine a world where the feminine boy and the masculine girl are supported and loved exactly as they are, with no pressure to change a thing about themselves.
Could we talk about the media coverage of the Dave Chappell/TERF story please? It angers me when I read claims that is the LGBTQ community who is taking offense when the likes of Chappell question the gender/sex narrative. This is framing the problem in such a simplistic way and there is so much nuance that is missed: 1. gays and lesbians can be some of the most outspoken critics of trans activism and many feel abandoned by the institutions that claim to be speaking for them 2. trans activists attack trans individuals who fail to toe the line with the same vehemence and acrimony.
The issue is not at all against individuals who identify as trans. The problem is trans activism and the post modern queer theory ideology that is being promoted. The biggest irony is that when we turn our back on the concept of objective truth (like post modernist do) all of a sudden academic freedom and dissenting opinions are no longer relevant. What we get then is a type of “science” that is as biased as it is unhelpful. Who has the most at stake here? Young people (kids!) who identify as trans and those who care about them the most, of course. How much longer will trans activists be able to hide behind their vacuous “transphobic” claims?
I haven't spent a day in medical school, yet simply relying on common sense, I know with absolute certitude that no matter how expertly you mutilate someone's genitals, you have not changed that person's sex, you have only mutilated. I can also assert that sex hormones affect the entirety of someone's physiology and psychology, not just one's sexuality. It's insane to think that you can change this delicate balance of hormones and not run into harmful consequences.
Remember the guy at Google that got fired because he said women were different from men, they had areas of expertise that were not the same as men? It just hit me, that all this trans stuff is based on affirming that women and men are different. What a paradox.
“I never use the colon,” Dr. Bowers said. “It’s the last resort. You can get colon cancer. If it’s used sexually, you can get this chronic colitis… And it’s just in the discharge and the nasty appearance and it doesn’t smell like vagina...Believe me, we’re doing some magnificent surgeries on these kids…”
With all due respect for Dr. Bowers’ surgical skills, but she talks about these experimental, irreversible, dangerous mutilations that pass for surgical operations on children with a flippancy you’d expect from a sausage maker. Healthy kids get hormones that disrupt healthy puberty; their healthy, perfectly functioning organs are removed in wholly unnecessary, grisly, revolting, life-threatening operations that will have serious, painful, sometimes devastating side effects not to mention will turn them into life-long medical patients. WHO decided this passes for acceptable medical practice? It's certainly not medical "care."
If you want to know what these surgeries are REALLY like, I recommend that you read Scott Newgent’s horrific description of his transition, “Forget What Gender Activists Tell You. Here’s What Medical Transition Looks Like.” PS: You’ll need kleenex.
https://quillette.com/2020/10/06/forget-what-gender-activists-tell-you-heres-what-medical-transition-looks-like/
And for a double dose of refreshing reality, watch Scott call out his interviewer on a popular transactivist BS (lie) about the “epidemic violence” against trans people. https://youtu.be/BApU7LFokNk
My 4 year old had "When Aidan Became a Brother" read to him during Pride Month last year. This is about a little girl who identifies as boy and will be having a baby brother soon. First off, really - this is an appropriate and non-confusing topic for a 4 year old? Also, as the article suggests a large majority of children who experience gender dysphoria will grow out of it, catering to every whim of a child who experiences gender dysphoria (in the book they dress Aidan as a boy and introduce him as the soon to be big "brother" to confused store clerks) is not entirely in a child's best interest. Especially before puberty.
Abigail, you should get the Pulitzer Prize for journalism! Thank you for exposing the dishonesty and strong arm tactics that permeate the transgender movement. The secrecy, half truths, lies, threats, greed, and incompetence of drug companies, doctors, surgeons, hospitals, therapists, schools, universities, and most of all, of well funded, aggressive transgender activists and lobbyists.
So kids who take puberty blockers and then go on to cross-sex hormones will never achieve orgasm. And exploding numbers of kids are now recruited by the online Pied Pipers. Well then, gender affirming doctors, wave your hands, utter some medical doublespeak, and sweep those bombshells under the rug. But sooner or later the truth comes out. It always does. And this time, wonder of wonders, it came straight from the horse's mouth!
Thank you again, Abigail for confirming what most people suspected all along. And now it's time to spread the news far and wide -- on social media, youtube, TV, in the papers. Let the Truth Fairy's truth ring out throughout the land.
To Serve Man is a cookbook.
The Trans Emperor is stark raving naked!
https://abigailshrier.substack.com/p/why-marci-matters
I read Abigail's book and it was enlightening for me. I read it for several reasons but as an RN I look for a baseline to help me when I care for a patient that is transgender and has possibly undergone gender reassignment surgery.
What I found interesting in the portrayals of the families of the young women that started testosterone is that initially they supported their gender dysphoria. I feel that these young women did not receive the counseling that they needed to really understand the root cause of their issues. When these young women came back home from college as young men, I think it sunk in for the parents. Hormones are very powerful and we do not know enough about this process to make accurate decisions for very young people.
Yes. These young women don't get any real counseling. I know of one young woman who takes hormones and now has a creaking baritone voice, a masculine jawline, a five o'clock shadow, and a trendy man's name. But she (I'm not calling her "they") asks people to tell her she looks "pretty." This is bonkers. If she wanted to be considered pretty, why on earth would she take a drug that was guaranteed to destroy her appearance?
In March 2021, Sweden's Karolinska Hospital, one of the world's top medical teaching institutes, announced: Puberty blocking "treatments are...fraught with extensive and irreversible adverse consequences such as cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, infertility, increased cancer risk, and thrombosis. In light of the above, [such treatments] will not be initiated in gender dysphoric patients under the age of 16. For patients between ages 16 and 18, it is hereby decided that treatment may only occur within the clinical trial settings approved by the EPM (Ethical Review Agency/Swedish Institutional Review Board)." Not one word re this in US media.
Policy Change Regarding Hormonal Treatment of Minors with Gender Dysphoria at Tema Barn - Astrid Lindgren Children’s Hospital. https://segm.org/sites/default/files/Karolinska%20Policy%20Change%20K2021-3343%20March%202021%20%28English%2C%20unofficial%20translation%29.pdf
Thanks for sharing this. I visited Sweden and I would love to retire there if they would have me. The US should be looking closely at this study and I agree that this these procedures should be experimental and be reviewed by the IRB for a clinical trial.
Thank you for documenting the tragedies created by puberty blockers and hasty surgical intervention.
Bravo! This piece will move the debate forward. Keep pushing, Ms. Shier—We have your back!
Your book is essential reading for those seeking REAL information about this issue. As a mother and the wife of a highly regarded primary care physician for 35 years, I am horrified by these reckless, deeply harmful practices.
I am also a former journalist, a fact checker/ researcher for a well known investigative reporter (who hired many award winning WSJ reporters early in their careers) and in that vein, I have done a ton of reading on this and everything I read only intensifies my sense of shock and outrage. All the medical societies and orgs that have legitimized this disturbing model should be shamed out of existence. Rubber stamping affirmative medical treatment for minors is the very definition of malpractice in my opinion. My heart breaks for all these young people whose lives have truly been irreparably damaged. It makes me sick.
Armed with information, I am writing letters and sending messages to all the DEM politicians who are seeking donations from me. I am also bringing this subject up with my friends and family, especially medical colleagues. Is there anything else people like me could be doing?
Could we adopt a policy of referring to any "transgender" person as (s)he, for the purposes of journalism? (S)he works for both M2F and F2M, and also doesn't insult the reader by referring to biologicals males as "she" or vice versa.
Interesting suggestion. In the past, I have avoided using pronouns by simply repeating the person's name or using a phrase like this person or this individual.