Gendomercials

What seems like helpful advice can be nothing of the kind

Gender identity ideology is controversial stuff. Are human beings like other mammals — where biological sex distinguishes male from female — or are we somehow different? With astonishing success, an activist lobby has promoted the idea that men and women are differentiated instead by their so-called gender identity. 

Gender identity is an affront to the safeguarding of children. Youngsters need to know the truth about sex, not be led to believe that it can be changed or marginalised. But where can they — and indeed their parents — find the truth? Not on some supposedly credible websites, it seems. 

Boston Children’s Hospital has a proud reputation. In 2022, US News and World Report ranked it the number one paediatric hospital in the United States. In response, the hospital recognised “the trust our patients and their families place in us when they choose Boston Children’s”.

With that trust comes great responsibility. But in a series of now deleted videos about transgender-identified children, BCH clinicians made some astonishing claims. For example, psychologist Kerry McGregor suggested that:

Most of the patients that we have in the GeMS [Gender Multispecialty Service] clinic actually know their gender usually around the age of puberty, but a good portion of children do know as early as seemingly from the womb.

Kerry McGregor, Boston Children’s Hospital

Really? As calming music played in the background, McGregor insisted that children can express their gender identity “as soon as they can talk”. Parents were advised to “just be supportive”. Supportive of what, exactly? Unfortunately, that was not explained. Instead, McGregor continued, “Sometimes you might not understand; sometimes you feel you don’t know the terms, or you don’t get exactly what the child means when they say they might be this gender.”

The message was uncompromising — the child knows their gender identity. But what is gender identity, and what does it mean to be transgender? In another BCH video, clinic director Jeremi Carswell MD suggested that transgender could be an “umbrella term” for a “person who identifies other than the gender that would normally be associated with their birth assigned sex”. For someone who “might have been born with ovaries”, Carswell added, “being transgender might be anywhere on the spectrum of being slightly less female to all the way to male”.

This is fanciful nonsense. Human beings are indeed like other mammals; we are female or male according to our reproductive biology. There is a word for people born with ovaries, and it is female — not “slightly less female”, and certainly not male. Astonishingly, Carswell is reported to be a paediatric endocrinologist — a doctor specialising in the hormone regimes of children.

The website of the clinic states that, “in children, puberty-blocking hormones can suppress the physical changes associated with puberty until they and their parents are ready to affirm their gender”. When adolescents have “passed puberty”, the clinic noted that “hormones can help encourage the development of gender affirming physical traits”. 

In other videos, physical approaches are discussed. Nurse Sarah Picher talked about breast binding. “A lot of my patients who identify as transgender male, or non-binary or male leaning [sic] like to do that.” Pilcher did not mention the study that reported negative outcomes in 97 per cent of 1800 adult women who experienced binding. Instead, she glibly recommended “measuring correctly” and not wearing the binder for more than 10 hours each day. 

BCH is an ocean away from the Cass Review of gender identity services for children and young people in England. Here, Cass criticised the single specialist provider model as “not a safe or viable long-term option”. The Tavistock and Portman paediatric gender identity clinic is now set to close. But the internet is global. Whilst Cass’s interim report is a lengthy read, the BCH videos were more like adverts — short, catchy, targeted messages. Children may have stumbled across these videos on their phones and devices, whilst their parents were blissfully unaware. 

Want some advice on pronouns? In another BCH video Dr Elizabeth Boskey asserted that, “one of the things that [is] really important to people in the way that they feel seen is for people to respect their pronouns”. Boskey — a social worker — declared herself to be a “cis-woman” and a user of “she/her/hers pronouns”. She was clear; it was “not cool” to ask pronouns only of people suspected to be trans. Better, she suggested, to introduce yourself using your pronouns. If children suddenly become obsessive about pronouns, the cue might have come from medical professionals.

BCH might have taken down these videos, but other healthcare providers are also peddling pseudoscience to young people in the form of short snazzy clips. Planned Parenthood has provided sexual health care services since 1916 in the United States and globally. Lately, it has been proselytising gender identity ideology.

After conflating trans, intersex and non-binary, Planned Parenthood suggests that hormone replacement therapy can help to start puberty. In some very rare intersex conditions, it might. Before that suggestion had a chance to register, the animation moved on: “Some people decide on hormones or surgeries to match up to their gender identity.”

Again, gender identity is assumed to be a fact. The video is explicit: “Your gender identity is real.” With alarming nonchalance, the viewer is then told that, “you should be the one to decide what changes you want to make to your body.” Choosing between oestrogen and testosterone becomes a lifestyle choice, like changing the colour of your hair. Planned Parenthood goes on to suggest that if, “your puberty experiences don’t line up with your gender identity … there are medicines you can take to delay puberty for a whilst”. Those puberty blockers are described as safe. How can Planned Parenthood possibly know that? Puberty blockers are powerful cancer drugs that are being used off-label. The treatment is new and experimental. The NHS is rather more cautious:

Little is known about the long-term side effects of hormone or puberty blockers in children with gender dysphoria … It’s also not known whether hormone blockers affect the development of the teenage brain or children’s bones.

NHS

Those are words printed on a website. Planned Parenthood’s material is delivered cartoon-style. According to reports, these ad-style videos have become YouTube ads, selling the message that gender identity trumps biological sex to impressionable children.

The dangers are clear to me as a teacher. I know that children are vulnerable to short, glitzy cartoons. As a trans person, I know these claims to be folly. We might struggle with our sexed bodies, but we do not need to invent a gender identity to explain away what is in fact a psychological condition, and one that children may well outgrow.

To parents, I would say, “do you know what your children are watching?” The threat comes not only from social media influencers but from seemingly credible organisations. Does your parental control software filter out videos from healthcare providers? Perhaps it should.

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Debbie Hayton

* This article was first published by The Critic on 26 October 2022: Gendomercials.