There is a reason that civilized countries universally define an age of majority - an age at which a child becomes an adult. When one reaches this age, an age at which one is (hopefully) able to responsibly make decisions for themselves, options open up to them that are not allowed for a minor. Buying a beer, signing a contract, getting married, joining the military, or getting a tattoo - these things are generally restricted to adults. Adults are deemed capable of making these choices; children, by dint of their immaturity, are not.
But agreeing to life-changing hormonal treatments or even elective surgery? Call it "gender-affirming" care, and suddenly it's A-OK for minors to make these decisions on their own, and in recent years, here in the United States, none other than Planned Parenthood has been facilitating these decisions. This is not a counseling service offered to these children, mind; this is advocacy.
Now some youths, who are "detransitioning" - going back to their rightful sex - are blaming the organization for facilitating their poor decisions as youths, and are seeking redress in the courts, as Karol Markowicz wrote in a recent NY Post opinion piece:
A nonprofit generally associated with abortion on demand, recently Planned Parenthood has gotten into a different game: Luring people into the idea that they can change their gender.
The number of people, particularly young women, being “treated” at PP for gender dysphoria and given drugs in the mistaken belief a girl can become a boy or vice versa has skyrocketed.
With the increase in numbers has come the inevitable trauma.
A disturbing report Thursday in The Free Press identified Cristina Hineman as the first detransitioner to sue Planned Parenthood for medical malpractice.
Cristina, granted, had reached the initial stage of what constitutes the age of majority in the United States - 18 - when Planned Parenthood placed her on hormonal treatments, having convinced this girl, who was on the autism spectrum, that she could become a man, and so Cristina underwent not only hormonal treatments but surgery, an elective mastectomy. Cristina is suing Planned Parenthood for medical malpractice.
Another young woman, "Anna," is also suing. Planned Parenthood placed Anna, then 19, on hormonal drugs without, as Anna claims, an adequate explanation of the serious side effects.
It gets worse, Markowicz wrote:
It’s not just young adults: The Free Press cites insurance-claim data indicating that about 12,000 youths under age 17 sought gender-related care at PP clinics between 2017 and 2023.
Meanwhile, ever-more Americans have rightly focused on the distressing trend of children being put on hormones or undergoing surgical procedures in a fruitless attempt to change their gender.
Parents’ rights groups are fighting on behalf of mothers and fathers who’ve been kept in the dark about their own children’s mental health.
Alliance Defending Freedom, for example, has seven active cases representing parents suing school districts that secretly transitioned their children behind their backs.
Under 17 - these are children. They can't buy a gun or a beer, they can't sign a contract, they can't get a tattoo, but Planned Parenthood is allowing them to take permanent, irreversible hormonal treatments. The schools are allowing them to keep the secret from these kids' parents.
This is unconscionable.
It's important to note that about 43 percent of Planned Parenthood's revenue comes from federal government grants, subsidies, or reimbursements. That's about $670 million a year. Tax dollars - yours and mine - are paying for all this. Oh, Planned Parenthood is fond of claiming that their subsidies are used for other purposes, and not for transitioning children, or for abortions. But, the American people, by and large, are not so stupid that they fail to realize the logical flaw in this argument. Money is fungible; income from one source can be spent to free up money from another source to be spent instead on a proscribed activity.
Like transitioning children.
Most of the nations of Europe are realizing the terrible mistake in allowing this, and are backtracking on the practice of "transitioning" children. The United States is subsidizing the practice.
See Related: Denmark Moves Away From 'Gender-Affirming Care' for Children; Where Is Next?
There's another issue, of course, and it involves medical ethics. One of the primary tenets of medicine - one that I learned even as an entry-level Army company aidman - is "do no harm." There is no sane universe in which the removal of healthy tissue is not harmful. There is no sane universe in which administering hormonal cocktails to healthy children is not harmful. There is no sane universe in which having people posing as medical practitioners, who are in fact advocates, rushing children into these treatments, is not harmful. The Cass Review has shown that it is harmful, and research in the Netherlands has shown that the great majority of these kids outgrow any feelings of gender dysphoria - making the practice of rushing them into treatment for which they are incapable of informed consent all the more egregious.
Legislation around the delivery of these treatments will be complex, and the pro-transitioning side will fight tooth and nail, but there is one thing that can be done right away, with luck. With luck, we'll have a Congress and a president in January who will do what should be done here: Defund Planned Parenthood.
