Dems Trying To Block Bill That Would Ban Sex-Change Operations for Children
Democrats are some in the media are bitterly protesting a bill that would ban several controversial therapies for children with gender dysphoria, including sex-change operations.
According to TheBlaze, Florida state Rep. Anthony Sabatini, a Republican, introduced the Vulnerable Child Protection Act just before the deadline for new bills to be considered. The bill would ban surgeries on minors “that sterilize, including castration, vasectomy, hysterectomy, oophorectomy, metoidioplasty, orchiectomy, penectomy, phalloplasty, and vaginoplasty.”
It would also bar them from being injected with puberty blockers.
Puberty blockers are what they sound like — drugs that delay the onset of puberty for children so that certain sex-specific features don’t develop, making it easier for surgical transitions later on.
Violators could face felony charges.
Sabatini told TheBlaze he was inspired by the case of 7-year-old James Younger in Texas. The boy’s mother has begun socially transitioning him to a girl and could, if granted full control over his medical care, begin putting him on puberty blockers in the coming years.
The bill was one of four that were deemed “anti-gay” pieces of Florida legislation by NBC News in an article Thursday.
In the article, Democratic Rep. Shevrin Jones — Florida’s first openly gay black legislator — said in a statement that it was “shameful that Republican lawmakers are wasting tax dollars attacking Florida’s most vulnerable communities rather than prioritizing the issues that impact everyday people’s lives.”
“Clearly they’ve decided that discrimination and hate are central to their election-year platform despite our state’s incredible diversity,” Jones said.
“Just as I’ve done since I was elected in 2012, I will continue to fight any legislation that marginalizes or threatens any Floridian’s shot at a secure, safe, and bright quality of life,” he said.
Democratic Rep. Carlos G. Smith — the state’s first openly gay Hispanic legislator — also attacked the bills based on the NBC News story.
“It’s hard to believe that this is a legislature where three LGBTQ members are proudly and openly serving, but it is,” Smith tweeted. “THIS is what it feels like to be kicked in the gut by your colleagues. I am so utterly offended and disappointed.”
It’s hard to believe that this is a legislature where three LGBTQ members are proudly and openly serving, but it is. THIS is what it feels like to be kicked in the gut by your colleagues. I am so utterly offended and disappointed.https://t.co/BUboY2vJUP
— Rep. Carlos G Smith (@CarlosGSmith) January 16, 2020
Sabatini challenged those characterizations of the bill.
“They are not anti-gay at all. In fact, none of these bills have anything to do with gay and lesbian issues,” he said.
Instead, Sabatini said, the Vulnerable Child Protection Act is just that — protecting children from receiving treatments that are unproven without being able to consent to them.
Surgeries aren’t recommended practice for transgender people under the age of 18, but they do happen. A 2013 New Yorker article, for instance, described a family that found a doctor who would perform a mastectomy on their 16-year-old transgender daughter after shopping around.
Also, as noted by Jesse Singal in The Cut, “about 80 percent of kids with gender dysphoria end up feeling okay, in the long run, with the bodies they were born into.”
Given that surgeries have limited reversibility, the idea that legislators would take a look at limiting these is hardly anti-gay.
Puberty blockers are purportedly one of the safest parts of the transitioning process for children, often described as being a mere “pause button” on puberty — although even their proponents will usually concede there isn’t enough data regarding their long-term use on children.
Take the drug Lupron, which, like most puberty blockers, is used “off-label” — as in, not approved for that purpose. According to a 2018 report by Jane Robbins at The Federalist, Lupron “is used to suppress estrogen production, thereby delaying the physical changes of puberty in a pre-pubescent female patient.”
“Lupron was originally Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved to treat prostate cancer, but it’s now routinely prescribed for other conditions such as endometriosis and ‘precocious puberty’ — i.e., puberty that begins too early (generally considered under age eight for girls, under age nine for boys),” she wrote.
“Many of these patients have experienced extreme side effects that shattered their health and their lives, including severe joint pain, osteoporosis, compromised immune systems, and mental health issues such as severe depression and even suicidal ideation. The FDA has received 24,000 reports of adverse reactions, about half of which the agency has deemed serious.”
A British study, meanwhile, “showed some taking the drugs reported an increase in thoughts of suicide and self-harm,” according to the BBC.
There are also concerns about how they affect the skeletal systems of younger patients.
“It has been shown that puberty blockers interfere with the expected increase in bone density in adolescence such that the bones are not as strong as they would be had normal pubertal development been allowed,” endocrinologist Michael Laidlaw said. “These lost years of bone development cannot be regained.”
At the very least, hitting the pause button on the “pause button” might seem like a good idea — but not to Democrats.
In fact, things have gotten bad enough that Sabatini said his wife has received harassing phone calls over the legislation.
“These people don’t care about science or facts,” he said. “They are radical left-wing ideologues who care more about promoting their political agendas than protecting children.
“Today’s Democrat Party has transformed into a hate group that defames anyone who disagrees with their toxic and radical ideology. They even target people’s family members. It’s disgusting.”
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