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The White House’s Transgender Tangle
City Journal ^ | 8 Jul, 2024 | Leor Sapir

Posted on 07/10/2024 7:17:37 AM PDT by MtnClimber

On youth gender medicine, the Biden administration shows that it is caught between the evidence and its activist base.

New evidence suggests that the White House is taking its marching orders on so-called gender-affirming care for kids from transgender interest groups. A messaging blunder last week revealed that the Biden administration likely knows that gender hormones and surgeries for kids are unpopular but fears that saying so will alienate the powerful organizations that support these controversial procedures.

In late June, documents released in Boe v. Marshall—a case challenging Alabama’s ban on sex-trait modification procedures for minors—revealed that the assistant secretary for health at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Rachel Levine, pressured the World Professional Association of Transgender Health (WPATH) to eliminate age minimums from its latest “standards of care,” due to fear that specifying adolescent ages for surgeries would invite political backlash and result in legal restrictions on teen gender surgeries.

Even worse for a group that claims the mantle of medical science, internal emails reveal that WPATH suppressed the publication of evidence reviews that it had commissioned from researchers at Johns Hopkins University. As The Economist reported, WPATH also required the researchers to secure the organization’s approval before publishing their findings. And, according to a court document, WPATH forced the authors to add a disclaimer that they were “solely responsible for the content” of their published work.

Within days of the Alabama documents being unsealed, the White House told Fox News and the New York Times that it opposes gender surgeries for kids. It did so despite the administration’s longstanding, well-documented support for these very procedures. On July 2, 19th News, a progressive news site, published another statement that it had received from the White House. This one reiterated the Biden administration’s opposition to surgeries but added that the White House “continue[s] to support gender-affirming care for minors like mental health care and respect[s] the role of parents, families, and doctors in these decisions” (emphasis added). Notably absent was explicit support for puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones; the statement seemed to equate “gender-affirming care” with “mental health care.”

Transgender activists and advocacy groups were incensed. Some accused the White House of giving in to “far right” narratives and putting electoral priorities above the “health care” of “trans youth.” “The Biden administration is flat wrong on this,” wrote the Human Rights Campaign, the largest transgender lobby group and a powerful organization within the Democratic coalition.

Five hours later, 19th News edited the original story. “This article has been updated to clarify the nature of the White House’s response,” an editorial note explained. The White House statement was now amended to read: “We continue to support gender-affirming care for minors, which represents a continuum of care, and respect the role of parents, families, and doctors in these decisions” (emphasis added).

Why did the White House suddenly change its tune? Why did it replace “mental health care” with “continuum of care”? The answer came the following day in a leaked email from the president of the Human Rights Campaign, Kelley Robinson, apparently sent to her organization’s listserv. After providing the text of the original and amended statements, Robinson wrote: “This is progress, but need [sic] to keep pushing. Pressure is working. This would not have happened without all of us.”

Replacing “mental health care” with “continuum of care” may leave an opening for hormonal interventions. The White House’s schizophrenic messaging around sex-modification procedures for kids, however, still needs explaining.

That explanation consists in the simple fact that all medical procedures for trans-identifying youth, whether hormonal or surgical, are unpopular and becoming increasingly so as Americans, including those in the medical profession, learn the details of this unfolding scandal. A YouGov poll found that only 19 percent of voters supported “allowing transgender youth access to puberty blockers.” Among Democrats, opinion was evenly split among those who support, oppose, and aren’t sure. Support went down as respondents’ age went up—a relevant finding considering that older voters turn out more frequently at the ballot box......


TOPICS: Health/Medicine; Science
KEYWORDS: wokeism

1 posted on 07/10/2024 7:17:37 AM PDT by MtnClimber
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To: MtnClimber

The marxist attack on the family continues.


2 posted on 07/10/2024 7:17:49 AM PDT by MtnClimber (For photos of scenery and wildlife, click on my screen name for my FR home page. More photos added.)
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To: MtnClimber

Just pure evil.


3 posted on 07/10/2024 7:18:15 AM PDT by No name given (Anonymous is who you’ll know me as)
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To: MtnClimber

Or they could tell them to get lost but (where is Belushi when you need him?) NoOoOo.


4 posted on 07/10/2024 7:27:53 AM PDT by Beowulf9
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To: MtnClimber; No name given

Yes; Yes


5 posted on 07/10/2024 7:28:52 AM PDT by PGalt (Past Peak Civilization?)
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To: MtnClimber

I think the trans and LBGTQ+ communities are way over-estimated in size. One survey (American Community Survey) estimated there are 1.3m same-sex couples in the US. This means 2.6m gays in a population of 330m. This suggests 0.007% are gay. Yet, take a count of the TV ads during prime-time that have at least one person who is likely gay. Remember when white males were in TV ads? Me neither. Evidently, such an ad would run counter to the White Supremacy people.

Personally, I could care less what you do in the privacy of your own home, but don’t shove it down my throat on TV or in schools. I can’t even watch some TV shows with my grandson, who loves any show that has a fire engine in it. Unfortunately, watching some shows (e.g., 911) has him asking me why two women are in bed kissing or, in the same show, why two men are in bed kissing.


6 posted on 07/10/2024 7:40:07 AM PDT by econjack
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To: econjack

0.7%, not 0.007%.


7 posted on 07/10/2024 8:00:55 AM PDT by Steely Tom ([Voter Fraud] == [Civil War])
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To: MtnClimber
"Transgender activists and advocacy groups..."

Plainly speaking, well-funded and relentless gay organizations.

The fiction that "gay are just like every once else and only interested in long-term monogamous relationships" is only propaganda. The truth is that no normal person would ever want to see what convoluted perversions are concealed under the lid of that box.

8 posted on 07/10/2024 8:01:38 AM PDT by Chainmail (You can vote your way into Socialism - but you will have to shoot your way out.)
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To: MtnClimber

Leave the kids alone!


9 posted on 07/10/2024 8:02:00 AM PDT by DownInFlames (P)
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To: No name given
"Just pure evil."

And the White House officials continue to give aid and comfort to the domestic and foreign enemies of the United States.

10 posted on 07/10/2024 8:07:17 AM PDT by Carl Vehse
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To: MtnClimber

Witch Rachel Levine in charge, no wonder what their position is!


11 posted on 07/10/2024 9:40:17 AM PDT by AZJeep
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To: AZJeep

obama


12 posted on 07/10/2024 10:00:27 AM PDT by skinny old man (Still lurking and posting after all these years(27 yrs ?)(more ?)(seems like more...))
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To: MtnClimber

bump


13 posted on 07/10/2024 2:47:21 PM PDT by Albion Wilde (Either ‘the Deep State destroys America, or we destroy the Deep State.’ --Donald Trump)
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To: AdmSmith; AnonymousConservative; Arthur Wildfire! March; Berosus; Bockscar; BraveMan; cardinal4; ...

14 posted on 07/11/2024 5:53:26 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (Putin should skip ahead to where he kills himself in the bunker.)
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