View From the Ramparts: Childhood's end
Banning second opinions on sex-changes affirms only our lack of moral fiber
How many remember the great tidal wave of satanic ritual child abuse that swept this country in the early 1980s? We had hundreds of children testifying that their day care providers had not only sexually molested them, but had also performed rituals of animal sacrifice in front of them.
Maybe you don’t recall those details, but remember the headlines of the McMartin Preschool Trial?
Experts from the fields of medicine and psychology testified that indeed there were vast networks of satanic worshippers all across our nation inflicting unspeakable horrors on our children.
Newspaper columnists and TV talking heads praised the prosecutors and therapists who brought these cases to light, extolling their “courage” in the face of public disbelief and apathy.
Three dozen people were convicted of such abuse in Kern County, California, alone in the early 1980s. Soon, “experts” found other satanic sex abuse cells in places as disparate as Memphis and the Bronx, Maiden, Mass., and San Diego.
During these trials, which stretched into the early 1990s, graphic testimony was given of children being forced to perform sex acts on camera for pornographic films, of exotic animals being sacrificed in church basements. The fact that no porn films with the children were ever found, and that no corroborating evidence of butchering large animals — you know, blood, bones, skin, missing giraffes from the local zoo — was discovered never seemed to discourage the prosecutors, therapists or journalists pushing this theory.
When the hysteria finally died down, when appeals courts began taking a hard look at the trial evidence, when independent researchers began to study the methods used by the therapists in interviewing the children, it all turned out to be not so much a hoax as a contagion.
Most of those pushing the theory really did believe it, and others who read about it then became believers and spread it further.
But it was all a mirage — a horribly, brutally damaging mirage that did untold damage to thousands of lives. It wasn’t just the falsely accused (and, often, convicted) adults, but the children as well, who have spent the subsequent decades trying to understand how they could have been so betrayed by those who claimed to be protecting them.
After all, being convinced that you’d been abused when, in fact, you had not, is itself a trauma.
The hallmark of each of these cases was that many of the young “victims” turned out to have altered their testimony in order to gain the approval of the adults who interviewed them — cops, therapists, prosecutors. Some even claimed to believe the “repressed memories” that the cops and therapists had assured them were bubbling just below their conscious state.
It turns out that children, even older children, are highly susceptible to suggestions from respected adults in their lives — that they (we) are pre-programmed to tell adults what they want to hear. It’s a survival instinct, part of how we are wired to socialize as we grow up.
When more sober, cautious or just skeptical members of the law-enforcement, judicial, mental-health and journalism fields involved in the satanic sex-abuse cases tried to raise concerns about these charges, the general response was a dismissive, “Oh, so you support ritual child abuse?”
Well, of course nobody does — but also no one wants to be seen as possibly supporting satanic child abuse, and so relatively few were willing to stand up and ask the hard questions.
Questions that could have prevented a lot of unjustified suffering.
There are parallels in all this to today’s sudden and dramatic increase in the number of children and young adults being referred for sex reassignment surgery. Anyone who asks, no matter how gently, genuinely or calmly, if this isn’t something worthy of more study before we charge ahead is likely to find themselves accused of being a “transphobe,” of fomenting bigotry.
Of being a Nazi.
And no one wants to be seen as possibly supporting bigotry.
And yet, despite all attempts to intimidate the skeptics into silence, we are seeing a growing number of young people coming forward after undergoing irreversible surgery, now wanting to “de-transition” — and wondering where the adults were who were supposed to protect them.
All too often, it’s a one-way street to gender reassignment: While any teacher or counselor is perfectly free to suggest to a child who comes to them saying they are unhappy or depressed that maybe they’d be happier as the opposite sex, in far too many jurisdictions nobody is allowed to suggest the opposite: that the diagnosis — once made — may be in error.
In fact, we are now told that it is the child who will provide the diagnosis by declaring their desire to transition.
The minute a child declares they want to transition, the process is set in stone — and anyone who tries to slow the race to surgery and hormonal treatment is treated as a child abuser.
In many jurisdictions now — California, Minnesota and Washington State among them — a therapist, physician or teacher who questions a minor’s professed desire to switch genders risks losing their license to practice, or even criminal prosecution. Parents who object to a diagnosis of gender dysphoria and recommended surgical intervention may lose custody of their child.
Many states have now reserved to themselves final authority over gender reassignment surgery, stripping parents of that authority — and added on a requirement that everyone involved in this process engage in “gender-affirming” messaging.
In other words, no second guessing.
Or even second opinions.
This isn’t how medicine works.
Surgery, and even hormone treatment (which can cause sterility even without sex-reassignment surgery), are supposed to be a last resort when no other treatments have worked, across nearly all conditions. The goal is to heal the patient without surgical or pharmaceutical intervention if possible.
And a diagnosis for a condition such as gender dysphoria can only be finalized when other conditions that can present similar symptoms have been eliminated.
We know that rates of depression and other mental conditions have been rising rapidly among children and teens in the West over the past decades. (In other cultures and societies without the overexposure to social media, television, etc., these rates have not risen nearly as quickly.)
And yet, none of these other conditions are allowed to be considered once a child says, even under encouragement from an adult, that they want to transition.
That becomes the diagnosis.
The fact is that children and teens suffering from depression, and on the autism spectrum, are far more likely to be referred for sex reassignment surgery.
Surely that is worthy of more study?
Many nations in Europe that formerly embraced the current U.S. model of fast-tracked “gender-affirming care” are now taking a step back, noticing that there is very light research into this condition, and that follow-up studies on patients who have undergone sex-reassignment are still in their infancy.
In other words, we still don’t even know what we don’t know.
There is also this: Conditions such as gender dysphoria, which is thought to be genetic, typically don’t fluctuate in incidence rates over short periods of time.
Rather than stoking the curiosity of researchers — and journalists — to try to determine how such a large proportion of a heterosexual species is suddenly feeling like they’re in the wrong body, the response has been “how do we more quickly identify and surgically transition these kids”?
Modern childhood, as it has developed in the Western world over the past century, has been extended from the early teens to the late 20s as a time for exploration and experimentation. Role-playing is a large part of childhood — the freedom to try out different personalities and philosophies without committing to any of them. Previous generations played cops and robbers, or cowboys and Indians, as a way of imagining who they might be someday.
To that end, U.S. law has tended to err on the side of protecting children so that decisions made as children don’t permanently alter one’s life.
Science tells us that the human brain’s ability to prioritize logic over emotions and impulses isn’t mature until around the age of 30.
This is why we have juvenile courts for those accused of committing a crime before adulthood, and why juvenile court records tend to be sealed — so that upon gaining adulthood, young offenders are free to begin life without having a mistake haunt them.
A district attorney in Minnesota was praised by many on the political left earlier this month when she offered a plea deal to two teens accused of murder because she felt their prefrontal cortexes were not developed enough for them to be held liable as adults. (The governor ended up taking the case away from her and reassigning it to the state attorney general who seemed more willing to charge them as adults.)
Well.
If a teen can’t be charged as an adult because as a society we’ve determined they’re still not fully developed emotionally and mentally, how on earth can we then turn around and say we’re going to allow them to consent to surgery that will permanently sterilize them?
Our society — and law — hold that adolescents are incapable of giving informed consent to a host of behaviors and decisions, from using tobacco or alcohol to getting a tattoo or a piercing, because we feel they lack the judgment to give informed consent.
How can we then in good conscience cede to them the authority to make far more consequential — and permanently life-altering — decisions that we’re already seeing others have come to regret?
In a democratic society with a secular government such as we live in, an adult should be allowed to present themselves as they wish, to live their lives as they wish so long as it causes no one else physical or financial harm. (And those who believe specific lifestyle choices violate mankind’s compact with God need to be free to share that message as well.)
But we have more than a century of law in this nation designed to protect children from making adult decisions. They may not enter into contracts nor marry, cannot acquire debt nor renounce their citizenship.
But on the issue of gender reassignment, which may have been suggested to them by a trusted adult, skewering their perspective, suddenly we waive all the rules?
Perhaps someday we’ll know more about this condition and proponents of this will be able to make a solid argument based on medical science that this sort of treatment is not only appropriate, but, as supporters put it, “affirmative.”
We’re not there yet. Not even close.
The growing numbers of young adults coming forward to sue the medical providers and state authorities who convinced them to have this surgery strongly suggest that we need to maintain our priority on protecting children.
And we best do that by ensuring that anyone undergoing sex reassignment surgery is able to fully, maturely comprehend the risks as well as touted benefits.
-30-
Great article. I agree, totally.
An elegant article.
When something is this inconsistent--don't have to be off your parents' insurance until 26, can't drink until 21, can't smoke until 18, etc.--but you can irreversibly alter your body based on a "feeling" at any age, then you know it's not really about the children. It's about something amiss in adults.
And you can see this also with the push to lower the voting age to 16. The same people doing that are the same people who have no problem with children mutilating themselves and parents not being able to protect them. They know how impressionable children are. And both of these benefit them in some way.