Free Republic

Health officials sought to ’remove barriers’ like parental consent. A constitutional rights litigation firm has obtained internal emails revealing the Biden administration’s efforts to find ways around state bans on gender transition medical procedures.In February, American First Legal (AFL) filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) for its alleged refusal to comply with the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) in handing over communications regarding HHS Assistant Secretary Rachel Levine and transgender clinics, according to the AFL’s press release.In March 2023, the AFL began its investigation into the HHS by filing a FOIA request after...

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled against two state-level health policies that exclude so-called “gender-affirming” treatments, teeing up potential review by the U.S. Supreme Court...Judge Roger Gregory, an appointee of Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, wrote in his majority opinion that the policies’ exclusion of surgeries such as vaginoplasties for certain diagnoses violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.“The coverage exclusions facially discriminate on the basis of sex and gender identity, and are not substantially related to an important government interest,” he said.The 8–6 decision affirmed lower court decisions against West Virginia’s...

Eight Democrat-nominated judges shoved transgender surgery closer to becoming a constitutional right via their decision Monday in a federal appeals court. No Democrat-nominated judges voted with the six Republican-nominated judges who strenuously denounced the court’s decision, further demonstrating how transgenderism has quickly become a litmus test for ambitious progressives in the Democratic Party. The majority decision in the Fourth Circuit federal appeals court said existing constitutional rules forbidding sexual discrimination also forbid denials of transgender surgeries in state-run healthcare programs. Any denial of the surgeries cannot be enforced without first deciding if the patient is male or female by checking...

J.K. Rowling should take a bow. She has been a tireless, vocal defender of women and kids against the tidal wave of transgender insanity. We've written about her a lot, because she's always so awesome. And while the woke Left and trans activists screamed at her, threatened her, and harassed her, she held her head high and kept speaking truth to power. So now that she's not-too-subtly taking a victory lap in the wake of the Cass Report, we are applauding her. ‘In years to come we will look back at the damage done to children with incredulity and horror.’...

The doctor behind a landmark review of the NHS’s gender identity services for children and young people has said fears had been raised about her personal safety amid online abuse after the report’s release. Dr Hilary Cass told the Times she wished to address the “disinformation” circulating about the findings and recommendations handed down by the Cass review when it was published on 10 April. She said she had received online abuse in the wake of the report and had been advised to stop using public transport. The report said the evidence base for gender medicine in young people had...

A government funded LGBT activist group that is active in more than half of Scotland’s schools has called puberty blocking drugs, which effectively sterilise children, “wonderful.” LGBT Youth Scotland, which is registered as a charity, has also declared that children should have the “autonomy” to decide whether to take puberty blockers without the views of their parents interfering. The group, which receives almost £1 million per year in taxpayer funding, issued a statement in opposition to a decision to suspend the prescription of the drugs to children by the country’s gender reassignment centre, Sandyford Clinic in Glasgow. The Telegraph reports...

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, America First Legal’s (AFL) lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) unearthed new documents regarding a radical presentation and plan distributed internally by Assistant Secretary of Health “Rachel” Levine on “Measuring Sex, Gender Identity, and Sexual Orientation.” These records reveal that the Biden Administration is trying to radically change governmental data and statistics on sex in the name of “gender identity.” AFL obtained these documents through litigation against HHS to enforce a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for Assistant Secretary Levine’s communications regarding pediatric “transgender clinics,” otherwise known as the genital...

For years, Dr Kinnon MacKinnon, like many people in the transgender community, considered the word “regret” to be taboo. MacKinnon, a 37-year-old transgender man and assistant professor of social work at York University here, thought it was offensive to talk about people who transitioned, later regretted their decision, and detransitioned. They were too few in number, he figured, and any attention they got reinforced to the public the false impression that transgender people were incapable of making sound decisions about their treatment. “This doesn’t even really happen,” MacKinnon recalled thinking as he listened to an academic presentation on detransitioners in...

The US Supreme Court on Monday ruled that Idaho can enforce its ban on sex changes for children. Healthcare professionals can face up to 10 years in prison for mutilating children or providing puberty blockers to them. In December Judge Lynn Winmill, a Clinton appointee, ruled that Idaho could not enforce the transgender ban while the lawsuit by two plaintiffs made its way through the courts. The US Supreme Court 6-3 granted an emergency request filed by Idaho’s Attorney General. Idaho previously enacted the Vulnerable Child Protection Act which protected children from dangerous puberty blockers and procedures that remove body...

A recent study by 11 scientists with the Mayo Clinic suggests that boys who take puberty-blocking drugs could be at risk of developing atrophied testicles and long-term infertility issues, despite claims that such drugs are reversible.The study, published in March and titled "Puberty Blocker and Aging Impact on Testicular Cell States and Function," analyzed testicular tissue samples from 87 patients under age 18.Sixteen of the boys identified as girls, and nine of them took puberty blockers. Two of the nine on puberty blockers "exhibited abnormalities" in their testicles, states the study hosted on the website of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory...

It’s been a red-letter week for destroying the gender narrative. And the trans juggernaut just hit another speed bump.Transitioning children not only harms them physically and psychologically, but it also causes medical conflicts. (Sangiao Photography/Shutterstock)Fresh off the heels of the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics announcing that it would not allow transgender-identified men to compete in women’s athletic events in any of its association’s 239 small private schools, a landmark study was released on Wednesday that defies the hysterical warning that if gender dysphoric adolescents don’t receive “gender-affirming care,” they will kill themselves.The new study from British pediatrician Dr. Hilary...

The leaked WPATH report highlights a panel discussion where Dr. Daniel Metzger, an endocrinologist, admits the impossibility of obtaining informed consent from adolescents for hormone therapy due to their lack of understanding. (Courageous Discourse) — Yesterday a reporter buddy at the Epoch Times sent me his piece on leaked files from the World Professional Association for Transgender Health – better known as WPATH. The leaked documents and video reveal “widespread medical malpractice on children and vulnerable adults,” according to a 241-page report authored and published by Michael Shellenberger’s Environmental Progress organization. I read a good portion of the report with...

On a Thursday in January, Normand Meunier arrived at the hospital in Saint-Jérôme, Que., with a respiratory virus. Weeks later, he would emerge with a severe bedsore that would eventually lead him to seek medical assistance in dying (MAID). Meunier, 66, had been a truck driver before a spinal cord injury in 2022 left his arms and legs paralyzed. Before being admitted to an intensive care bed for his third respiratory virus in three months this winter, Meunier was stuck on a stretcher in the emergency room for four days. His partner, Sylvie Brosseau, says without having access to a...

The publication this week of the Cass Review into gender-identity services for young people marks a welcome return to reason in an area of medicine which for the past few years has been driven by identity politics. No one is denying that there are those who deserve psychological — and in some cases physical — help to cope with their condition. But the explosion in the number of children treated on Britain’s National Health Service for gender-identity issues (and in many cases being given powerful drugs with severe side effects) should have set alarm bells. Medical professionals should have been...

‘Gender-affirming care’ is starting to run up against reality and it is getting really ugly for the people who pushed sterilization and mutilation on children. Recently, after journalist Michael Shellenberger released ‘the WPATH files,’ the credibility of individuals and organizations who have embraced trans activism has been called into question, and for one very good reason: they have no credibility. Now, nations such as the UK and France are either banning these practices outright or considering bans as more evidence comes out that justifies the French Senate calling ‘gender-affirming care’ one of the greatest medical scandals in history. The latest...

WARNING: This story contains graphic images A gender clinic in Texas dubbed 'Frankenstein's lab' has performed hundreds of unconventional genital surgeries that many experts describe as 'dangerous.' The Crane Center for Transgender Surgery in Austin bills itself as a world leader in operations for non-binary people - those who don't identify exclusively with one gender. The surgeries include giving patients a penis and vagina, or completely removing their sex organs, essentially 'Barbie-dolling your genitals,' as one critic put it. The center director, Dr Curtis Crane, has previously bragged he couldn't 'think of a surgical request that I haven't been able...

Attempted suicide rates among people who identified as transgender more than doubled after receiving a vaginoplasty, according to a peer-reviewed study published in The Journal of Urology.The study analyzed the rates of psychiatric emergencies before and after gender-altering surgery among 869 males who underwent vaginoplasty and 357 females who underwent phalloplasty in California from 2012 to 2018.Researchers found the rates of psychiatric emergencies were high both before and after gender-altering surgery, with similar overall rates in both groups. However, suicide attempts were markedly higher in those who received vaginoplasties.“In fact, our observed rate of suicide attempts in the phalloplasty group...

The world is waking up to the horror that is 'gender-affirming care.' Of course, that term is one of the biggest lies ever told, but it becomes even more horrific when it is applied to children. This weekend, the French Senate joined the growing number of nations trying to ban the barbaric practice of sterilizing and mutilating children before they're even CLOSE to an age where they are capable of informed consent. To date, Norway, Finland, Sweden, Holland, and the UK have either banned or placed severe restrictions on trans surgeries and hormones for minors, along with 22 states in...

Interfere in the natural process of human growth with chemicals. What could go wrong? Apparently plenty according to first Holland and now Great Britain which attempted that very unnatural experiment. However, ABCNews.com chose "race and culture" (not medical) reporter Kiara Alfonseca to recruit a conga line of experts to insist that puberty blockers are a good idea on Wednesday in "England's NHS halts puberty blockers for transgender youth amid research efforts."

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) released a disturbing documentary on the gender “transitioning” of children in Canada. The documentary shows an actress, “Sacha,” posing as a 14-year-old patient who says she is trans. After a brief consultation at a private “gender clinic” in Quebec, she received a testosterone prescription. Further, she was advised on life-altering mutilating surgeries during the consultation, which lasted only nine minutes and was during her first appointment. Watch: A 14-year-old girl walked into a private clinic in Quebec, said she was trans, and was given a testosterone prescription in less than 9 minutes! The doctor also...