new

response to article
Submitted by American College of Pediatricians on June 7, 2017 - 10:39am
The American College of Pediatricians is a professional organization confident in the science we present and in the traditional ethics we uphold. In the past, we have typically directed critics to the relevant content on our website. Mr. Jack Turban that is not only libelous, but also denies the fact that untold numbers of American children are being experimented upon, and many of them permanently sterilized, under the guise of treating a largely transient disorder known as Gender Dysphoria of Childhood. This warrants a more public response.

The American College of Pediatricians has held true to its founding principles summarized by its slogan, “Best for Children.” The College has also endured ad hominem attacks for making factual statements that threaten agendas which promote the wants of adults over the needs of children. Attacking the messenger is a tactic commonly used by those who cannot refute a truthful message. Labels, such as hate group, extremist, right wing, miniscule, Christian fundamentalist, and deceptively named, reveal desperate attempts to deflect attention away from facts that undermine a desired agenda.

The American College of Pediatricians is precisely what its name implies: a national nonsectarian organization of child and adolescent physicians and health professionals. We have never surveyed the religious identities of our membership, nor attempted to attract physicians of a given religion. In fact, members of our Board of Directors and various committees have identified themselves as Christian, Jewish, Muslim and Buddhist. We are physicians and healthcare professionals united by a commitment to traditional Hippocratic medicine; a medical tradition that respects life from conception to natural death and provides care to all patients, as delineated in our Statement of Inclusiveness. It is true that we are relatively smaller than other medical organizations; we have 500 members and counting. Ultimately, however, this is irrelevant to the veracity of our statements; sound science and ethics are not determined by majority vote.

Responsible journalism requires thorough investigation of the subject at hand. This appears lacking with Mr. Turban’s report on the ACPeds. He and others have expressed deep concern over our very legitimate name, yet they erroneously designate us as the “ACP,” which stands for the American College of Physicians. Our proper designation is ACPeds. Our web address, pretty much gives it away. Then again, most of our detractors have never bothered to give our website, position statements, let alone any of the hundreds of scientific references there, a careful read. Were they to do so, they would realize how easily their alternative facts would be refuted, particularly those regarding Gender Dysphoria in Children.

Yes, Mr. Turban, prior to the widespread promotion of transgender affirmation, 75 - 95 percent of prepubertal children with Gender Dysphoria eventually outgrew that distress. The vast majority came to accept their biological sex by late adolescence after passing naturally through puberty. The alternative fact, recently put forth by activists, that large numbers of children who desisted were actually “misdiagnosed” with Gender Dysphoria is debunked by data in Dr. Devita Singh’s doctoral thesis, and also by Dr. T.D. Steensma et. al., as noted in slides 23-25 of our Gender Dysphoria power point.

Yes, Mr. Turban, children diagnosed with Gender Dysphoria pre-pubertally are permanently sterilized when the World Professional Association for Transgender Health and Pediatric Endocrine Society Guidelines are followed. According to these Guidelines, children are placed on puberty blockers as early as Tanner stage II of puberty (as young as age 11) and then placed directly on cross-sex hormones by age 16. An article by Dr. A. Evan Eyler, referenced in our full position statement, confirms that children administered blockers beginning at Tanner stage II and seamlessly transitioned to cross-sex hormones are prevented from producing gonadal tissue (eggs or sperm) for cryopreservation. They will be unable to have genetic offspring of their own even with artificial reproductive technology.

There is an obvious self-fulfilling effect in helping children to impersonate the opposite sex both socially and pharmacologically. Logic leads one to predict that most, if not all, pre-pubertal gender dysphoric children treated in this way will lose the potential to identify with their biological sex, and instead go on to claim a transgender identity. As noted in our position statement, the single follow-up study of such children finds just that; 100% of the pre-pubertal children placed on the social affirmation/puberty blocker protocol failed to desist.

According to the APA Handbook of Sexuality and Psychology (2014), among those youth who did resolve their Gender Dysphoria prior to the present-day transgender affirmation ethos, 63 - 100% of boys would identify as gay adults, and 32-50% of the girls would identify as lesbian by young adulthood. Affirming pre-pubertal gender dysphoric children as transgender potentially translates into a significant percentage of LGB adults being sterilized. Consequently, some members of the LGB community stand with the ACPeds against this “transgendering of children” which they view as nothing less than the single greatest form of homophobic hatred, namely, eugenics.
Contrary to popular belief, there is no evidence that the elevated rates of mental illness and suicide among transgender-identified youth and adults are due solely, or even predominately, to societal prejudice or discrimination. At least one 2008 study by LGBT-affirming researchers, noted in our Gender Dysphoria position statement, found these factors not to be causative. Mr. Turban’s article also alleges that the College has ignored evidence that transition improves mental health in gender dysphoric children. The “evidence” consists of two small short term studies that contain methodological flaws, and therefore, prove no such thing. There is also no scientifically rigorous, large, prospective or sufficiently longitudinal evidence that transition of gender dysphoric children prevents suicide in the long term. However, there is long-term research on the mental health of adults who transitioned with Gender Dysphoria. This reveals that despite initial relief of the dysphoria, one or more decades after transition, they often present with worse mental health than that of the general population, including a suicide rate nearly twenty times greater. This observation raises more questions than it answers, and should, therefore, give pediatric health professionals great pause- at least those who value evidence-based medicine and are dedicated to ‘first do no harm’.

Some members of the transgender community recognize this and have expressed solidarity with the ACPeds. Rene Jax, a Male to Female Trans author, wrote:

"Dear Dr. Cretella,
Chemical castration, sterilization and surgical mutilation are more than just words to me. They are personal and brutal realities; no child should be subjected to this. Thank you."

The ACPeds has also been contacted by clinicians and academic physicians across the political spectrum, including LGB affirming clinicians. They have expressed their gratitude to the ACPeds for saying publicly what they cannot. Division chairs in psychology and sociology, and many pediatric endocrinologists have told us that to stand for science and go against transgender group think is professional suicide and often results in relentless harassment including death threats.

Belief is in the mind; not in the body. Everyone knows that thinking or feeling that something is true does not make it true. When people consistently and persistently insist something that is contrary to physical reality, they are, at best, confused, or at worst, delusional. According to the alternative logic of transgender experts, however, this is true in every instance except where biological sex is concerned. In this case alone, the persistent and consistent insistence of something contrary to physical reality is definitive proof of the metaphysical claim that an immaterial essence, or in the words of Dr. John Money, “[an] internal sexed identity” is trapped in the wrong body. This foundational claim of transgender medicine has far more in common with a quasi-religion than it has with evidence-based science. How much longer will society sacrifice the health of its children upon these altars?

Michelle Cretella, MD, FCP President

The Differences Between Heterosexual and Homosexual Relationships

Sometimes you hear gays or lesbians say, “We’re just like anybody else. We have two kids, a dog, a mortgage, and we worry about the economy. We just don’t want anybody telling us who we can love.” My friend Brady, who used to be part of that gay sub-culture, calls the homosexual lifestyle “a façade of normalcy.” And it is only a façade.

Consider the huge variance in the stability of relationships. Despite a high divorce rate, 57% of heterosexual marriages last over twenty years.{5} The average length of homosexual relationships is two to three years.{6} Only 5% of them last 20 years.{7}

And consider the issue of promiscuity. In heterosexual marriages, over three-fourths of the men and 88% of the women remain faithful to their marriage vows.{8} Most sexually active gay men are promiscuous, engaging hundreds of sexual partners over a lifetime.{9}

The concept of a committed relationship is very different for the two groups. Most heterosexual couples are faithful and stable. When homosexual men are in what they call a “committed” relationship, this usually includes three to five outside partners each year.{10} Rev. Troy Perry, founder of the Metropolitan Community Church, told the Dallas Morning News, “Monogamy is not a word the gay community uses. . . . We talk about fidelity. That means you live in a loving, caring, honest relationship with your partner. Because we can’t marry, we have people with widely varying opinions as to what that means. Some would say that committed couples could have multiple sexual partners as long as there’s no deception. Each couple has to decide.”{11}

In Holland, which legalized gay marriage in 2001, the average is eight outside partners.{12} One study of gay men who had been together for over five years could not find one single monogamous relationship.{13} Not one!

Women in lesbian relationships often stay together not because they want to, but because they’re stuck financially and emotionally. “I heard one speaker say at a Love Won Out conference, “We don’t have partners, we have prisoners.” Of course, that’s not universally true, but over the years of walking toward Jesus with women who were no longer in lesbian partnerships, I have heard over and over, “We didn’t know how to do life apart from each other.”

Heterosexuals live longer, happier lives. Sexually active homosexual men live a dangerous and destructive lifestyle. They are at huge risk for contracting AIDS, and run a much higher risk of sexually transmitted diseases than straight men. The gay community experiences three times more alcoholism and drug abuse,{14} and much more promiscuity and domestic violence than the straight world.{15} Gay men can expect to live twenty years less than their straight neighbors.{16}

And finally, a home with a mom and a dad is the best possible place for children. Homosexual parents put kids at risk. The American College of Pediatrics discovered that children raised by gay parents tend to be more dissatisfied with their own gender, suffer a greater rate of molestation in the family, have homosexual experiences more often, and are encouraged to experiment in dangerous, destructive lifestyle choices.{17}

Please hear me: We’re commenting on the extremely high-risk behavior that is part and parcel of a homosexual lifestyle. That’s not the same thing as condemning the people who engage in it. A homosexual lifestyle is a façade of normalcy, but it can be changed.

Answering Arguments for Same Sex Marriage

Let’s look at several arguments being offered for same sex marriage.

The first is that marriage will encourage faithfulness and stability in volatile homosexual relationships. But the nature of homosexual and lesbian relationships is broken to begin with. Two broken people will not create a whole, healthy relationship. The best description I’ve ever heard of same sex relationships is “one broken little boy looking for his daddy, connecting with another broken little boy, looking for his daddy.” And the same is true of women. Neither a marriage license, nor the approval of society, can fix the nature of a relationship that is irretrievably broken at its core.

Another argument is that we need same sex marriage to insure hospital visitation. But it’s the patient who decides. If he appoints his partner as a health-care proxy, even if he’s in a coma that document will insure access to the hospital. We don’t need marriage for that. It’s a smokescreen.

A third argument is that we need same sex marriage to insure survivorship benefits. But that’s what a will is for. You don’t need marriage for that.

Some say that we need same sex marriage for Social Security benefits. This is an interesting argument, since Social Security benefits were created to address the financial inequity of father as breadwinner and mother as stay-at-home caregiver. Homosexual relationships are usually two-incomes. It’s very rare to have one stay-at-home caregiver of the kids, since homosexual relationships do not and cannot produce children naturally. When they do, they are borrowing from God’s plan for creating families.

Then there’s the discrimination argument. There are really two issues that fall under this argument: denied liberties and denied benefits.

Concerning the issue of denying the liberty to marry, this argument doesn’t hold water. Any person can marry whoever he or she pleases, with certain restrictions that are true for everyone. You can’t marry a child, a close blood relative, a person who is already married, or a person of the same sex. These restrictions apply equally to everyone; there is no discrimination here. The problem is, some people don’t like the restrictions.

True discrimination functions against an unchangeable identity, such as gender or color. Homosexuality is a lifestyle, a chosen behavior. Even sexual orientation is changeable. It’s not easy, but it is possible.

The other issue of discrimination is denied benefits. But benefits are granted to families because society has an interest in providing a safe place for children to grow up and be nurtured. So the government provides child-oriented benefits such as inheritance rights and tax relief to ease the financial burden of children. Insurance policies and Social Security benefits provide for the money gap between wage-earner and caregiver. These benefits are inherent to families. The essence of marriage is about building families. Homosexual relationships cannot build families legitimately. They have to borrow from heterosexual relationships or technology to create children.