The Connecticut Mirror is subsidized by an organization with family ties to the world’s only transgender billionaire who, through their foundation, donates hundreds of thousands of dollars to promote pride month in the U.S. and to increase emphasis in media on trans/queer individuals.
Peddling influence in Connecticut newsrooms is hardly newsworthy, and transgender persons are welcome to their opinions and even to influence the debate. I am a transsexual person who is also not shy about expressing my viewpoint and I’m writing to update and correct the record of CT Mirror’s May 5 “Safe Haven” article.
The article uncritically connects gender affirmation with reduced suicide rates for trans-identified teenagers and children by citing a survey funded by The Trevor Project. The Trevor Project’s statistics are unreliable because they are based on anonymous submissions solicited on social media platforms, with no control group or follow-up. Notoriously defective and low-quality evidence like this survey have controlled the debate around gender affirming treatment for children for too long.
But the CT Mirror didn’t have to. In January, the only rigorous study that compares children receiving treatment for gender dysphoria with a control group, reveals no statistical difference in suicide risk. It turns out, that what matters in suicide risk among kids is their underlying mental health condition, not necessarily whether a child struggles with their gender or is affirmed. The study also confirmed that the increased “effects of medical gender reassignment on suicide risk” are “not known” for children. But for adults who receive medical reassignment, the rate of suicide increases by up to a factor of three. The stakes are very high, I am well aware of them, and to suggest as the story does, that a “safe haven” can only be provided in communities that medically “affirm” a gender transition is untrue.
In fact, I’m convinced that the rush to inform children that they or their friends can be “born in the wrong body” is damaging to their mental and emotional stability.
Connecticut, through the Department of Education, currently encourages children as young as age 8 to be taught this unscientific concept. Over 27 school districts have policies to facilitate a social gender transition of students and hide it from their parents or guardians. So, after years of encouragement to experiment with gender and sex, your child may be encouraged to leave home as George but attend school as “Georgia” and the school could likely hide it from you. Your child’s underlying anxiety disorder and accompanying gender dysphoria may grow and be reinforced without your knowledge and sometimes over your objection. As a transsexual adult, I understand and appreciate when someone uses my preferred pronouns, but children are immature and impressionable, their identity is still being formed and should not be transitioned lightly or without parental involvement.
Social gender transitions are a high stakes intervention which is difficult to reverse. One recent study has shown that children who begin a social gender transition — adopting the clothing and mannerisms of the opposite sex — remain in their new identity five years later at a rate of 94%. But another study released last month reveals that the vast majority of children who want to change their sex at age 11, no longer feel that way at age 25 — and it’s not because they were “affirmed” but because they were allowed to mature and develop naturally. A decision to begin a gender transition is a serious matter and is coming under increased international scrutiny for its high risk of permanent damage with unknown long-term benefits. America is now an outlier among the international community as other countries have curtailed medical and hormone interventions for minors.
The state of Connecticut has already paid for the removal of healthy breasts and penises from minor children to treat gender dysphoria. Incredibly, our tax dollars are being used for the permanent genital mutilation of minors.
School administrators are assuming the role of mental health professionals, a role for which they have no training. What makes our administrative and teaching professions think they know more than the medical experts who can’t even agree. And voters object to secret gender transitions; a whopping 75% of parents believe parental consent should be required before a child begins a gender transition in school, including 76% of Black parents.
In response, some legislators have proposed and I also support simple “Let Kids Be Kids” legislation to inform parents of a social transition at school among other triggering events and also protect girls’ sports teams and competition. Critiques of this proposed legislation have been filled with hyperbole and claims of bigotry. But what children need are calm discussions among adults, with their parents at the forefront.
I hope the “Let Kids Be Kids” proposal will be submitted again next year and it grows in bipartisan support. Connecticut children are at risk when important medical events are hidden by school administrators. Instead of providing a haven for deceit, school administrators and Connecticut agencies and legislators should support the existing safe havens children can have within their own homes.
Christine Rebstock lives in Middletown is a member of LGBTS United.