The concept of a "social contagion" is well known; these are societal memes, usually harmful, that are spread by casual contact; a widely perceived rise of anorexia diagnoses following the sad death of Karen Carpenter would be one example.
The rise of the internet has taken this all to the next level. Social contagions spread like a fire in a match factory, encompassing everything from politics to medicine.
Which brings us to the transgender movement. A new study reveals that the surgical alteration of healthy girls, in the name of "gender-affirming" care, has taken place in thousands of cases and has been inflicted on girls not even yet in their teens.
Leor Sapir, PhD, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute whose areas of research include pediatric gender medicine, shared that anywhere from 5,288 to 6,294 double mastectomies were performed on girls under age 18 between 2017 and 2023 — and that 50 to 179 of those girls were just 12 years old or younger.
It gets worse.
This was based on analysis of an "all-payer national insurance database," including patients who were previously diagnosed with gender dysphoria and had the treatment covered by insurance, Sapir wrote in an article revealing the findings.
The actual numbers could be higher, the Manhattan Institute claims, because researchers did not include patients who paid for the procedure themselves without submitting an insurance claim.
ICYMI: The consensus of major US medical groups over youth gender medicine has its first fracture.
— Leor Sapir (@LeorSapir) August 13, 2024
In my new article for @CityJournal I discuss this development and provide new data on the use of “gender-affirming” double mastectomy on teen girls. ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/ibFp0mbdrg
There are reasons minors don't have all the freedoms, rights, and privileges of adulthood. There are reasons we don't allow minors to make life-changing, irreversible decisions.
Except, in some jurisdictions, where "gender-affirming" surgeries are involved. The transgender advocacy movement encourages this, the surgical alteration of healthy young people, to suit an agenda, regardless of the age of the patient, regardless of the increasing number of studies indicating that gender dysphoria is almost always a transient condition that these kids age out of. And these numbers! Thousands — thousands — of children are subjected to invasive, irreversible surgeries. These girls will never be able to breastfeed a child; if they are also being subjected to hormone treatments, they may never be able to have children.
To call this medical malpractice is to indulge in a gross understatement.
See Related: LGBT Acceptance Is Down and 'Experts' Are Missing the Reason Why
American Society of Plastic Surgeons Expressing Doubt on Gender-Affirming Surgeries
Fortunately, the medical community seems to be moving in the right direction. The American Academy of Pediatrics, the American College of Pediatricians, and the American Society of Plastic Surgeons have all come out against the practice of doing these surgeries on minors. Dr. Mark Siegel, a medical analyst for Fox News, explains why:
Dr. Marc Siegel, senior medical analyst for Fox News and clinical professor of medicine at NYU Langone Medical Center, said his view is the same as the current policy in the U.K. — "which is that gender-affirming surgery, including mastectomies, should not be performed on minors."
"There is too great a risk of [the patients] changing their minds later on," he told Fox News Digital.
Now, granted, I'm not a doctor. However, I am a biologist, and while I haven't worked in the field for some years, I maintain a keen interest in the topic and stay abreast of the current state of the science. While surgeries are permanent and ill-advised, hormonal treatments may be worse. Human bodies, indeed all vertebrate bodies, develop by the input of various hormones throughout the life span of the organism. Puberty in mammals, in particular, is hormone-driven, and messing that balance up can have serious, life-altering, and harmful side effects.
Adults? That's different. Adults may do as they please, as long as they don't harm or interfere with anyone else. We may think they are crazy, stupid, or some combination of the two, but they are adults, presumably able to give informed consent. Children are not; that's why we don't allow them to sign contracts, buy booze or guns, get married, or join the military. And to see these numbers — thousands of young girls, surgically mutilated because of a social contagion that they would have grown out of, that should have been treated at most with therapy and counseling — this is nothing short of horrifying.
America is lagging behind Europe in proscribing this practice, but at least part of the medical community is catching on. It's a start.
