Parents Opposing Child Gender Reassignment Procedures Are Wrongly Threatened: Dr. Grossman

They're told if they are not supportive, their child is likely to commit suicide

Dr. Miriam Grossman, a child and adolescent psychiatrist, in New York on Sep. 23, 2022. Blake Wu/The Epoch Times

While some major medical organizations in Europe have begun to halt medical interventions such as puberty blockers, hormones, and surgery for children, some in the United States are doubling down on these procedures. In addition, if parents oppose their child’s gender reassignment, they are seen as a problem and told by medical personnel that if they don’t support their child’s transition, that child is more likely to commit suicide, says psychiatrist Miriam Grossman.

When parents take their child to a medical professional they hear: “Well, if you are not going to accept your daughter as your son, you’re the problem. And they would often say this after one or two meetings with the family, and they would say it in front of the child,” Grossman said during a recent interview with EpochTV’s “American Thought Leaders” program. “And if they continue to reject their son ... and don’t go along with their child’s new identity, they are going to increase the chance of their child committing suicide.”

Yet, according to a 30-year study out of Sweden, “even after going through the gender reassignment and living as the opposite sex, the rates of mental health disorders and suffering, and the rates of suicide are alarmingly high,” said Grossman, a child and adolescent specialist.

To find out whether suicide decreased after sex reassignment, Swedish researchers conducted a study from 1973–2003 in which they followed 324 sex-reassigned persons (191 male-to-females, 133 female-to-males).

This study was published in the National Library of Medicine and concluded that “Persons with transsexualism, after sex reassignment, have considerably higher risks for mortality, suicidal behavior, and psychiatric morbidity than the general population.

“Our findings suggest that sex reassignment, although alleviating gender dysphoria, may not suffice as treatment for transsexualism, and should inspire improved psychiatric and somatic care after sex reassignment for this patient group.”

Moreover, a June Heritage Foundation report (pdf) found a higher rate of suicide in areas where medical treatments are more accessible.

“It is clear that the presence of a state-level provision for minors to access health care without parental consent makes no difference in suicide rates among those ages 12 to 23 until about 2010, when the suicide rate begins to drift up in states with easier access.”

Many who have de-transitioned back to their original gender, talk “about feeling suicidal, because of where they are at now. They are recognizing that their original mental health issues were never addressed,” and they still have depression, anxiety and trauma said, Grossman.

Also, these young adults have added mental health issues from the damage caused by the hormones and surgeries, many having had their genitalia altered and being left infertile.

Prisha Mosley had both of her breasts removed when she believed she was transgender, she is now hoping to receive reconstructive surgery. Courtesy of Independent Women’s Forum

No in Europe, Go in the United States

The guidelines for all medical professionals on how to handle gender dysphoria come from the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), said Grossman. Europe does not use these guidelines but they are wholeheartedly supported in the United States.

“In fact, at their annual [WPATH] meeting, which took place recently, our Assistant Secretary for Health and Human Services Dr. Rachel Levine, gave the opening address. So, [the guidelines] clearly have the very strong endorsement of the government,” said Grossman.

While WPATH says it is a medical organization, Grossman calls it a transgender advocacy organization.

The WPATH guidelines Standards of Care version 8, use the terms gender-affirming care, support the idea that only what the child wants is important, and exclude biology or mental health as factors for care, said Grossman.

The Epoch Times reached out to WPATH for comment on the safety of the medical treatments outlined in their standards of care.

“Gender-affirming care is an Orwellian manipulation of language,” said Grossman, and there are euphemisms to describe mastectomies and castration.

This federal courthouse in Little Rock, Ark., is the scene of a trial over the nation's first law banning transgender treatment for minors on Nov. 28, 2022. Janice Hisle/The Epoch Times

The guidelines use the terms “top” and “bottom” surgeries, which are the removal of healthy breasts for females and castration for males—procedures that cannot be reversed. The most radical thing Grossman sees in these guidelines is that there is no lower age limit for this gender-affirming care.

“It’s a decision to be made by the child with the practitioner—with or without the parents. So, the current standards of care of WPATH say that practitioners should challenge parents that are hesitant,” said Grossman. “Parents are losing their kids because of organizations like WPATH.”

Grossman wants young people who are suffering from gender dysphoria to know that the type of “care” WPATH advocates is a medically dangerous road; they will not necessarily feel better in the long run, and that there are other options like mental health counseling.

“The current standards of care say that the mental health issues that a person may have or a child may have when they present and want gender-affirming care, those mental health issues, they don’t necessarily need to be resolved,” she said.

Medical doctors are taught that they should follow their professional guidelines, like WPATH, and parents think that the science on gender disorders is settled—but that is far from true, said Grossman.

“What I want parents to understand is that when they go to their pediatrician’s office, it’s more likely than not that their pediatrician is still trusting that chain of information from the authorities. Parents are not getting the information that they need.”

Grossman is not the only medical professional who has issues with the prescribed protocol for treating children and adolescents with gender identity disorder, she said.

Many doctors she talks with say they want mental health checks and treatments done before any gender affirmation.

“A lot of doctors are outraged and distressed and just can’t believe it,” said Grossman, “but it seems like in order to enter the profession of medicine, or psychology, or psychiatry, or social work that you have to go with that.”

Fairfax County mother Stacy Langton (L) protests the school district's pro-transgender policies and "gender-affirming care" outside a Fairfax County School Board meeting in Falls Church, Va., on Nov. 3, 2022. Terri Wu/The Epoch Times

Social Contagion

With social media personalities influencing young people, the government, and the medical system encouraging transitioning and gender-affirming care, more young people—especially girls—are experiencing a rapid onset of gender dysphoria.

Grossman cites a study by Brown University physician and researcher Lisa Littman, in which she surveyed over 200 parents about their children deciding whether they are transgender or non-binary. Littman found that over 82 percent were girls and in friend groups where this was a trend.

“Dr. Littman proposed that these new kids that we’re now seeing who are identifying as transgender are a result of a type of social contagion” which we also see with eating disorders and suicide, said Grossman.

“Most (86.7 percent) of the parents reported that, along with the sudden or rapid onset of gender dysphoria, their child either had an increase in their social media/internet use, belonged to a friend group in which one or multiple friends became transgender-identified during a similar timeframe, or both,” Littman’s study states.

“They were being exposed to these ideas about transgenderism, and there are hundreds of influencers on YouTube and on other platforms that are describing their journeys, and their transition from male to female or female to male,” said Grossman.

A fact that supports the social contagion hypothesis is that, historically, most transgender people have been male, wishing to become female. But in Littman’s study, the overwhelming majority were female wanting to become male, said Grossman.

“Many (62.5 percent) of the AYAs (adolescent and young adults) had reportedly been diagnosed with at least one mental health disorder or neurodevelopmental disability prior to the onset of their gender dysphoria,” states the conclusion of Littman’s study.

Cover of "Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters" by Abigail Shrier. Courtesy of Abigail Shrier

Psychiatric Guidelines Push Same Ideology

In the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, version 4, the transgender phenomenon was called gender identity disorder (GID) and “referred to kids and adults who have a deep sense of discomfort with their sexual bodies, [and] therefore was considered a psychiatric disorder,” said Grossman. In the DSM 5, the most recent version, that diagnosis has been changed to gender dysphoria, with no mention of mental disorders.

This is very important, said Grossman, because if gender dysphoria is not a mental health issue and does not have a mental disorder code, insurance companies will not pay for therapy and that will impact how doctors handle the issue. Not only that but it is only a small group of about 15 that decide what will go in the DSM, leaving out many mental health professionals, she added.

Many who are on the DSM committee are often activists and changed gender disorder to gender dysphoria because they wished to eliminate the stigma attached to transgenderism, Grossman said. But they kept it in the DSM manual because they want patients to be able to access gender-affirming care, which is covered under this label—but not the underlying mental health issues, she added.

Getting teens to be honest about issues they are dealing with can be difficult for any parent, but the pandemic made it even harder on teens. Shutterstock

Advice for Parents

Grossman advises parents to learn as much as they can about this trend and to stay calm and listen to their children if this issue arises in their family. She also advises staying as neutral as possible but telling the child that it will be a process of getting all the information before jumping into anything.

Parents should tell their children: “We’re going to learn as much as we can about this. And I’m going to get really educated, and we’re going to start to have conversations, and it’s not all going to happen at one conversation. It’s going to be an ongoing conversation,” said Grossman.

Parents should not assume that school staff, education officials, and doctors know everything.

“They’ve (teachers, doctors, etc.) been led to believe, for example, that puberty blockers are 100 percent reversible. The research is very, very poor, around these experimental therapies,” but the truth is that in some European countries they have banned puberty blockers because they want more data on long-term harm they cause, said Grossman.

Grossman is hopeful that reason and fundamental truth will prevail, but she is concerned about the number of children whose lives will be harmed before this happens.

“The goal of this movement is to erase the differences between male and female, to erase these fundamental truths, biological truths that are eternal ... they want to erase them. Now, I don’t have a question in my mind that in the end, they will not prevail, that the truth will prevail,” said Grossman.

“The question is how high is the body count?”