Politicized Medicine Leads to Victims, Not Healing

(L-R) Abel Garcia, Billboard Chris, and Chloe Cole take part in a demonstration in Anaheim, Calif., on Oct. 8, 2022. (Brad Jones/The Epoch Times)

Commentary

One of the many great exhortations of Alexander Solzhenitsyn is: “The simple step of a courageous individual is not to take part in the lie. One word of truth outweighs the world.” One of the worst lies in our world today is that the human body can be transformed to become the opposite sex and thereby assuage mental anguish.

It may be years before we comprehend the extent of the damage done by those who have perpetrated the lie that men can become women and vice versa as simply the next step in human progress. Thankfully, the world-outweighing truth is being spoken, heard, and heeded.

The UK’s National Health Service (NHS) recently confirmed that children will no longer be prescribed puberty blockers at “gender identity” clinics. The UK joins Sweden and Finland, which have also, to varying degrees, reversed course on these so-called gender-affirming treatments. While the details of the new NHS policy stop short of an outright ban on the use of puberty blockers, it is still an encouraging development that evidence-based care is making a comeback.

The NHS decision comes on the heels of revelatory reporting on the inner workings of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH). Correlation is not causation, but the quackery on display in the WPATH files certainly lends credence to the NHS decision. Too many medical associations in Europe and the United States have for too long ascribed undue credibility to WPATH.

Transcripts of internal discussions between WPATH members display a worrying disregard for the additional mental health issues of patients and a damning admission that most children are incapable of understanding the consequences of these procedures.

Regardless of the seriousness of the questions presented, WPATH practitioners work from the assumption that gender dysphoria is best treated with puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and even surgery if requested. Never mind the guaranteed permanent disfigurement or the fact that sterilization and lifelong sexual dysfunction are among the probable outcomes. The results are minors and young adults who will be perpetual patients and subject to a lifetime of physical and emotional trauma coupled with the financial burden of dealing with what was done to them at the hands of adults who should have known better.

More and more victims of the unsubstantiated junk science that is the cottage industry of “gender transition” are seeking justice for themselves and accountability for those who preyed upon troubled minds for profit. The pending litigation is already having an impact on medical malpractice insurance rates. Additionally, lawmakers in nearly half of the states in the United States have passed legislation to protect children by restricting the use of these dangerous drugs and surgeries on minors. The U.S. Supreme Court will soon weigh in on the issue when it releases its decision in the case of Labrador v. Poe, in which activists are seeking to overturn Idaho’s Vulnerable Child Protection Act.

It may remain a mystery for the ages how the typically cautious medical profession could be pushed so quickly to embrace an ideology at odds with biological reality, professional ethics, and research-based standards of care. But in light of the tragic evidence of the politicization of medicine, corrective action appears to have begun.

C.S. Lewis noted in “Mere Christianity:” “We all want progress. But progress means getting nearer to the place you want to be and if you have taken a wrong turning, then to go forward does not get you any nearer. If you are on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; and in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man.”

By Lewis’s definition of progress, there are new, hopeful indications that the medical community may be recognizing the way back to the right road when it comes to treating individuals struggling to accept their physical bodies.

Godspeed.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.