Levine ripped for demanding censorship of views disputing ‘positive value of gender-affirming care’ for kids
Conservatives blasted a recently surfaced video of the Department of Health and Human Services Assistant Secretary Rachel Levine calling on Big Tech companies to censor "misinformation" about "gender-affirming care" for kids on the internet.
EXCLUSIVE – Twenty Republican attorneys general are joining forces in an amicus brief against several LGBTQ+ groups that are pushing to allow minors to receive gender reassignment surgery and hormone altering drugs.
The GOP attorney generals said there is scant evidence that the surgical and chemical interventions on children with gender dysphoria should be considered the standard of care. They added that some mainstream media and activists are bullying dissenting viewpoints into silence, and blasted court decisions for interfering with states' rights.
The amicus brief – led by Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey – opposed decisions on a federal lawsuit filed by Lambda Legal, an LGBTQ+ civil rights organization, which challenged a ban in West Virginia on transgender medical interventions on children as well as a suit against North Carolina for blocking sex-change coverage for employees and their dependents.
"The Court should reverse the judgments of both district courts and rule in favor of the States," the amicus, filed on May 25, said. "[T]he decisions wrongly assume that the science is settled and fully supports the routine use of puberty blocking drugs, cross-sex hormones, and surgeries to treat gender dysphoria."
Fox News Digital previously reported that Children's Minnesota showcased a pipeline of how children progress from early childhood to eventually getting irreversible surgeries. (Children's Minnesota)
Transgender surgical and chemical interventions includes hormone blockers, cross-sex hormones, double mastectomies, breast implants, surgical inversion of the penis to create a neo-vagina, testical removal, facial reconstructive surgery for feminine or masculine features, removal of the uterus, removal of the ovaries, and the creation of a penis using the urethra and tissue from a forearm or thigh.
Children experiencing dysphoria may start getting treatment in early childhood, and may progress to surgeries starting at age 18, or sometimes younger.
The filing raised a systemic review of medical literature conducted by top doctors in Sweden at the Karolinska Institute. The report called the hormonal interventions for kids "experimental." The doctors also warned about the known and unknown long-term effects of puberty suppressants.
Ricard Nergårdh, a pediatric endocrinologist and researcher affiliated with the Karolinska Institute, has said, "What we call [puberty blockers] is chemical castration. And it can affect mental health in an unintended, undesirable way. So it's very important that the patient and the patient's family are informed about this."
Ricard (STV/screenshot)
Karolinska also said that puberty suppressants can have permanent effects on a child's developing bones, and discussed three studies which reported abnormally lower bone mineral density.
A Swedish transgender boy named Leo, highlighted by an investigative program, was one of those children who experienced mineral loss from blockers. Leo was taking puberty blockers for over four years, and developed a severe form of osteopenia, a condition where an individual lacks bone density, which can progress to osteoporosis and lead to bone fractures if not treated.
And at 15 years old he cannot stand longer than 15 minutes, he lives in constant pain and has a series of issues with his spine.
"My son shouldn’t be this way at his age," his mother said. "He should not have to live with this."
Despite Europe's growing concerns about the medical interventions on minors, the medical establishment in the U.S. – including most major medical associations – almost fully endorse the "affirming" model for children with dysphoria as a standard or practice.
The American Academy of Pediatrics put out a statement opposing bans on gender interventions for children, stating, "The rollback of these protections could have a devastating impact… and adversely affect self-esteem and contribute to the perception that they are undervalued by society and the health care system."
"The AAP recommends that youth who identify as transgender and gender diverse have access to… gender-affirming… health care… including… medical, psychological, and, when indicated, surgical gender-affirming interventions."
AG Bailey told Fox News Digital that "the left does not want to acknowledge" the facts. For example, "[T]here have been zero FDA approvals for cross-sex hormones or puberty blockers to cure gender dysphoria, but when even progressive European countries have sharply curtailed these procedures, it's time for the United States to course correct."
Nonetheless, some studies in the U.S. do raise potential flags about the affirming model becoming the accepted standard of care in all cases.
For example, a military family medicine doctor, David Klein, found in his study reviewing Department of Defense pharmacy and billing records that children taking antipsychotic medication had their prescriptions increased after "gender-affirming care" was initiated.
Dr. David Klein discusses psychotic illness in patients being treated with ‘gender-affirming care.’ (Getty | Adone Stock )
After the study was published, the family medicine doctor appeared to distance himself from its findings, saying that when treatments were "optimized," the "psychotic disorders" would "start to melt away over time."
"So more research over time will show that definitively, hopefully," Dr. Klein, who treats children with gender dysphoria at Travis Air Base, said.
Klein has also suggested, along with other DoD physicians, that 7-year-olds can make their own medical decisions vis-à-vis "gender-affirming care" in a journal article exposed by Fox News Digital. The clinicians criticized the practice to pause before changing a minor's gender to see if they would grow out of the dysphoria, calling it "unethical."
The military health providers then demanded the DoD publicly declare that it supported a "gender-affirmative position" to convince military members about the "evidence-based medical care" of changing a minor's gender.
The AGs said in the amicus, "Activists tend to frame these interventions as evidence-based and established. The British Medical Journal, however, put it best when it said that these interventions can be called many things, ‘[b]ut don’t call them evidence based.’"
"[A]ny claim that chemical or surgical intervention to treat gender dysphoria is ‘evidence-based’… is simply wrong," the AG's said.
Cropped shot of a surgeon passing his colleague a pair of scissors. (Hiraman via Getty Images)
They proceeded to blast the mainstream media and activists for trying "to bully dissenting voices into silence. These suppression attempts have become so bad that prominent practitioners in the field are starting to expose them."
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"Gender dysphoria is a serious condition, and all individuals struggling with it deserve compassionate, evidence-based care. Disregarding the science and the harms is not compassionate," the amicus brief stated.
States in the amicus filing included Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, Utah and Virginia.