Newsom OKs sterilizing trans treatments for teens

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By Greg Burt/CFC

Despite the medical evidence and moral outcry, Gov. Gavin Newsom celebrated the signing of a bill that allows gender clinics to provide transgender drugs and surgery known to sterilize children and adults.

Newsom praised AB 2218 for “strengthening protections for LGBTQ+ Californians” and providing an “additional step forward” in “our march towards equality,” in a weekend press release.

“By rejecting the concerns of doctors and parents, and siding with LGBT activists, Governor Newsom is yet again ignoring the heartbreak his policies will unleash,” said Jonathan Keller, President of California Family Council.

“AB 2218 opens the door to drugs and surgeries causing irreversible damage, risking life-long sterility for young people. Sadly, the Governor failed in his God-given responsibility to protect the people he was elected to serve.”

‘Concrete and immutable’

Dr. Quentin Van Meter, a board-certified pediatric endocrinologist and an adjunct professor of pediatrics at both Emory University and Morehouse College, testifying against the bill in the Assembly Health Committee.

He explained how “one’s sex is concrete and immutable” and “can never be changed.” He pointed to studies showing children who are treated with cross-sex hormones for their gender confusion have “significant mental health issues,” that remain even after hormone therapy.

Van Meter used an analogy of a carousel to explain to legislators how treatments that affirm transgender feelings are luring vulnerable and emotionally troubled children into treatment that turns into a nightmare.

“Medical literature and the testimonies of trans-adults who have returned to a congruence of gender and sex show that this carousel is, in the end, a circular hell,” he testified in May.

Evangelical icon and world-renowned Christian family psychologist Dr. James Dobson spoke out against the bill as well, saying it “supports  gender mutilation and sterilization” and celebrates “acts of cruelty.”

‘Sterile for life’

“These so-called ‘gender clinics’ use puberty blockers on prepubescent children to prevent them from experiencing puberty. If a child doesn’t go through this natural stage of development, he or she will likely be sterile for life, a medical fact that many of these clinics expressly admit,” Dobson said.

“Experimenting on vulnerable children and adults is not just unethical; it is morally repugnant. It is beyond reprehensible that our government officials voted to fund this evil assault on children and adults who are made in the image of Almighty God. These hurting individuals need our compassion and care—not a cocktail of drugs and disfiguring surgeries that could well cause irreversible harm to their bodies.”

California gender clinics themselves admit puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones sterilize young people. The Center for Transyouth Health and Development at Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles (CHLA) warns parents of the irreversible damage these drugs do to their children.

Before trans-identified minors are allowed to start their transition using puberty blockers (which stops puberty from occurring) and cross-sex hormones, CHLA requires their parents to sign a consent form which says the following:

“If your child starts puberty blockers in the earliest stages of puberty, and then goes on to gender affirming hormones, they will not develop sperm or eggs. This means that they will not have biological children.”

The consent form continues with the following sentence. “This is an important aspect of blocking puberty and progressing to hormones that you should understand prior to moving forward with puberty suppression.”

The UCSF Medical Center’s Transgender Care unit gives a similar warning about the effects of transgender drugs on fertility. Here is the advice care unit gives youth on their website before starting hormone therapy.

Freeze eggs now, can’t later

Under a section titled, “Preparing for gender-affirming hormone use in transgender youth” it says, “While options are being explored to preserve future fertility for transgender youth, the current reality is that cryopreservation is very expensive, in many cases prohibitively so for those with ovaries.”

The only reason to freeze eggs and sperm is that you know hormones are going to kill them permanently.

The advice goes on: “For youth whose pubertal process has been suspended in the earliest stages [by puberty-blocking drugs], followed by administration of gender-affirming hormones, development of mature sperm or eggs is unlikely at the present time, although it is noteworthy that there is active research developing gametes in vitro from the field of juvenile oncology. The issue of future infertility is often far more problematic for parents and family members than for youth, especially at the beginning stages of discussing moving forward with gender-affirming hormones.”

Greg Burt, the director of capitol engagement with the  California Family Council, can be reached at [email protected] and (949) 244-2080. For more, visit www.californiafamily.org/2020.