martes, 21 de febrero de 2017

How the transgender agenda harms children | MercatorNet

How the transgender agenda harms children

An expert on child sexual abuse warns that sex changes could do irreversible damage

Judith Reisman | Feb 21 2017 | comment

On March 28, the US Supreme Court is due to hear a case about transgender bathroom access lodged by a Virginia student, Gavin Grimm. Born a girl, she decided in Year 9 that she was actually a boy. The local school board refused to let her use the boys’ toilets. She sued, and now the case has moved up to the Supreme Court (Gloucester County School Board v GG).

Amongst the briefs filed by “friends of the court” are a number of documents which contend that the transgender agenda will harm students.

Today we are publishing excerpts from a brief by Dr Judith Reisman, founder of the Child Protection Institute and a research professor at Liberty University School of Law. She is an internationally recognised expert on child sexual abuse and the influence of sexologist Alfred Kinsey.

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As the [the Department of Justice and Department of Education Office of Civil Rights] instruct school districts, the purpose of Title IX is to provide a safe and nondiscriminatory environment for all students. Assuming that is true, then its interpretation of Title IX to include “gender identity,” and particularly to compel districts to permit access to sex-separate facilities based solely on perceived gender is in conflict with that purpose. Moreover, the Departments’ advocacy for recognition of “transgender” children fosters experimental, life-changing medical protocols that do not comply with the dictates of medical ethics. Most importantly, the Departments are sanctioning an agenda- driven ideology that threatens the physical, mental and emotional well-being of children.

Despite studies showing that 80 to 95 percent of children who report dissonance between their perceived gender and biological sex find that their perceived gender and biological sex correspond by late adolescence, medical protocols for “transgender” children are calling for earlier intervention with puberty- suppressing drugs and cross-sex hormones. These protocols create irreversible sterility and other life-changing effects to which the children, as minors with immature brains, are unable to give informed consent. Nor can their parents give “informed” consent to such protocols as the long-term consequences of these early interventions are unknown.

There is not a single large, randomized, controlled study that documents the alleged benefits and potential harms to gender- dysphoric children from pubertal suppression and decades of cross- sex hormone use. Nor is there a single long-term, large, randomized, controlled study that compares the outcomes of various toxic synthetic steroids.*

Nevertheless, gender clinics encourage treatments that will suppress puberty “to allow the gender dysphoric child time to explore gender identity free from the emotional distress triggered by the onset of secondary sex characteristics.” These treatments will condemn unknown numbers of children to sterility. In addition, use of puberty- suppressing drugs means that the children will never develop sperm or eggs.

Consequently, they would not even have the chance to harvest and preserve eggs or sperm for future use in assisted reproduction, an option some are given who go through puberty and then begin cross- sex hormones.

Furthermore, neuroscience has documented that children’s brains are cognitively immature until the early to mid- twenties. Scientists can digitally map how the brain develops, and have found that the portions of the brain that permit processing of complex concepts, such as “gender identity,” evaluating risk and making informed decisions are the last to mature, usually not until the early twenties. This means that children are not only legally, but cognitively incapable of giving informed consent to these treatments. Informed consent is a fundamental ethical requirement, particularly when, as is true for these early interventions, the treatment is irreversible and life-changing. The Nuremberg Code, developed in response to the human experimentation atrocities in Nazi Germany and still relied on in human research, states:

The voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential. This means that the person involved should have legal capacity to give consent; should be so situated as to be able to exercise free power of choice, without the intervention of any element of force, fraud, deceit, duress, over- reaching, or other ulterior form of constraint or coercion; and should have sufficient knowledge and comprehension of the elements of the subject matter involved, as to enable him to make an understanding and enlightened decision. This latter element requires that, before the acceptance of an affirmative decision by the experimental subject, there should be made known to him the nature, duration, and purpose of the experiment; the method and means by which it is to be conducted; all inconveniences and hazards reasonably to be expected; and the effects upon his health or person, which may possibly come from his participation in the experiment.

Children are not legally capable of giving consent. Even if it could be assumed, arguendo, that parents can consent on behalf of their children, they still cannot give informed consent because the hazards and the effects upon children’s health have not been scientifically determined and therefore cannot be known prior to treatment. By advocating for the inclusion of gender identity in Title IX for elementary and secondary students, the Departments are placing the government’s imprimatur on human experimentation and involuntary sterilization of children wholly bereft of informed consent. Such disregard for the health and safety of children as well as the rule of law should not be given any effect by this Court.

Notes

* Michelle Cretella, Gender Dysphoria in Children, American College of Pediatricians, (August 2016)

For the complete footnotes and bibliography in Dr Reisman's statement, see her amicus curiae brief.

Dr Judith Reisman served as Principal Investigator for the United States Department of Justice Office of Juvenile Justice on child sexual abuse and child pornography, and has provided expert reports and testimony in cases worldwide. She is an internationally recognized expert on the history, fraudulent research and societal effects of Dr Alfred Kinsey. She has authored five books and hundreds of articles dealing with the implications of Kinsey’s research on law and public policy.

- See more at: https://www.mercatornet.com/conjugality/view/how-the-transgender-agenda-harms-children/19384#sthash.na7bIPyE.dpuf

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In 1789, Article 11 of France’s famous Declaration of the Rights of Man, a foundational document of human rights, declared boldly: “The free communication of thoughts and of opinions is one of the most precious rights of man”. But no longer, it seems. Speech is free so long as it agrees with government policy.

Read all about this shameful law in Chiara Bertoglio’s article below.