Irreparable Damage Caused by One-Sided Advocacy of Gender Transition: Psychiatrist

‘This is what happens when medicine is captured by ideology’

Dr. Miriam Grossman is interviewed on EpochTV’s “Crossroads” program on Sept. 12, 2022. Screenshot, Epoch TV

When a child is confused about their gender, health professionals and teachers usually affirm the child’s new identity without addressing the underlying cause and encourage them to go through gender transition, which often has irreparable consequences, according to psychiatrist and author Dr. Miriam Grossman.

If someone feels that their gender differs from their biological sex and wants a medical gender transition, health professionals will not question why the person is feeling that way, nor will they address the possible mental health issues underlying that feeling, said Grossman.

The only response from doctors, therapists, and teachers is to affirm the person’s stated identity, which leads him or her to believe that transitioning will solve all their mental health issues, Grossman said on EpochTV’s “Crossroads.”

Gender Transition

The first part of gender transition for children is the social transition that involves a child choosing a new name and new pronouns; deciding how they want to present themselves to the world in terms of their clothing, haircut, makeup; and whether the child will use the bathroom of the opposite sex, Grossman explained.

Following the social transition, children often begin the medical transition, which starts with puberty blockers that can be prescribed as early as age 8 if the purpose is to block puberty, she said.

Ryan, a "gender variant" fourth grader, sits at her desk in an Illinois school on May 2, 2013. Ryan outwardly lives as a girl but is physically still a boy. "I feel that I'm a girl in my heart and a boy in my brain," the 10-year-old says. AP Photo/M. Spencer Green

The basis for child gender transitioning is a study done in Holland, often called the Dutch study, the psychiatrist said, but the study population was different from the population of children in America who are being transitioned due to gender dysphoria.

The guidelines: Study participants had to have had gender dysphoria since early childhood—when they were 5, 7, or 8 years old—and they couldn’t have any significant mental health issues such as anxiety, depression, or autism, Grossman continued.

“Whereas now we are in the midst of an epidemic of teenagers who develop their dysphoria as teenagers, not as children,“ she said. ”And they do have a lot of mental health problems. So they have the two criteria that would have excluded them from that Dutch study.”

The study became the basis of the Dutch protocol for treating gender dysphoria, which was also adopted in other countries, including the UK and the United States.

Dutch Study

The purpose of the Dutch study, which included 55 children, was to determine which of them would be persisting with gender dysphoria, Grossman said, “which is pretty much impossible to do. It’s a guess.”

There was no control group in the study, she said, which means there was no group with similar health conditions who did not receive the treatments given to the experimental group. The purpose of establishing a control group is to evaluate the effectiveness of the therapy studied.

The study group was given puberty blockers at age 12—before puberty began—in order to stop it, Grossman said. At age 16, they were given cross-sex hormones, estrogen or testosterone, and at age 18, surgery was available to them, Grossman explained.

“After a year and a half of this protocol that they went through, it was found that they were doing quite well and their gender dysphoria had decreased.”

“It was a very small study and a problematic study as well,“ she said. ”It’s impossible for us to know which children are going to continue having gender dysphoria, which is called persistence, and which children will desist, or stop having this discomfort with their body, but reach an acceptance of their biology.”

There are a lot of studies showing that the majority of children—between 60 and 90 percent, depending on the study—are going to stop suffering from gender dysphoria, Grossman said.

“A lot of those kids will be gay or lesbian, [but] they will be fine with their bodies. ... [and] not need to have any kind of medical changes to their bodies.”

Impact of Puberty Blockers

There is an argument that puberty blockers are 100 percent reversible, but this argument applies to a different population of children who do not suffer from gender dysphoria, Grossman said.

The blockers are used to treat a medical disorder called precocious puberty, which causes premature puberty in kids at age 6, 7, or 8, due to hormonal imbalance, she explained. Once these children reach the age when puberty should begin, the medication is stopped, and normal puberty begins.

Puberty blockers are not FDA approved for treating gender dysphoria, but are approved to treat certain other medical conditions, Grossman said.

Supporters of anti-trans activist Chris Elston demonstrate against gender affirmation treatments and surgeries on minors outside Boston Children's Hospital in Boston, Mass., on Sept. 18, 2022. Joseph Prezioso/AFP via Getty Images

Children with gender dysphoria are perfectly healthy physically and don’t have any hormonal imbalance, she added.

“We are finding out now that, indeed, there are adverse effects that may not be reversible from these blockers—such as effects on bone density.”

It is also not known if puberty blockers might affect the development of the brain, Grossman pointed out. ”Adolescence is a time when the brain is undergoing an extreme makeover.”

More Research, Debates Needed on Gender Transition

The use of puberty blockers to treat gender dysphoria and facilitate gender transitioning is “a very dangerous experiment,” the psychiatrist stated.

The implications of this therapy necessitate further research and debates of different opinions, she noted.

“It’s very disturbing that both the mental health and medical worlds, [as well as] professional associations are not allowing open discussion and open debate.”

Demonstrators promote Detransition Awareness Day near the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco on March 12, 2022. Courtesy of protesters

When the government advocates for gender transition treatment in children, parents need to know that there is no scientific consensus and that the science is far from settled on this subject, Grossman said.

The same holds true for gender transitioning surgery, she said. Young women have their healthy breasts removed but after a year or a few years, they may realize they made the biggest mistake of their lives.

Those women visited various health professionals before the surgery, but none warned them against it, Grossman said.

“This is what happens when medicine is captured by ideology, and we no longer take seriously the oath that we all took to do no harm.”

Detransitioning

Once a child goes through the entire gender transition, including surgery, detransitioning is “a tough road,” Grossman said.

People who reversed their transgender identity must find a way to accept their new reality—“being a woman without breasts, some of them without ovaries and a uterus, and without the ability to become mothers and breastfeed,” the psychiatrist said.

These people “are some of the most courageous individuals you'll ever see,” according to Grossman. They have to forgive themselves and forgive the adults who facilitated their gender transition.

“If it was up to me, I'd have them on all the mainstream media 24/7. They’re beginning to get a voice.”