Assistant Secretary for Health Rachel Levine’s recent claim that “there is no argument among medical professionals … about the value and the importance of gender-affirming care” for children is being quietly challenged by a growing list of doctors.
“There’s kind of like an underground group of therapists and pediatricians and doctors who have to meet in secret groups to talk about their concerns with this, because everyone kind of sees it as being transphobic if we challenge this narrative,” according to Dr. David Haralson.
Based out of Colorado, Haralson, a marriage and family therapist, is “part of a group called the Gender Exploratory Therapy Association (GETA), which encourages therapy instead of medicalization to help resolve gender dysphoria,” as reported by Fox News.
Cancel mob targets ‘transphobic’ Adele for saying she loves ‘being a woman’ at gender-neutral award show https://t.co/dJu4oGGXFK pic.twitter.com/w4cyXbZ6UZ
— Conservative News (@BIZPACReview) February 13, 2022
Dr. Oren Amitay, a registered psychologist and lecturer at Ryerson University in Toronto, described a similar phenomenon as the one outlined by Haralson.
“I don’t know if we’re in the minority, but we’re definitely in hiding, so to speak, because speaking out can get us in trouble. So yes, there are quite a few of us who disagree … who say no, this is wrong. And it’s not on ideological grounds; it’s on the science,” he told Fox News.
Real science has yet to confirm that so-called “gender-affirming care” for children is in fact helpful.
“There is a complete lack of high-quality, long-term data that these medical interventions actually help,” Dr. Miriam Grossman, a child and adolescent psychiatrist with 40 years of experience, explained to Fox News.
Grossman also slammed Levine for being more concerned with radical transgender ideology than with the actual science and facts.
“It is very disturbing to me as a fellow physician that Dr. Levine is arrogantly announcing that all pediatricians, all physicians and therapists agree with her position,” she said.
She added that she believes the growing phenomenon of children coming out as transgender or non-binary is “a psychic epidemic,” i.e., a fad.
“I attribute it to the gender ideology, which has made its way into our schools, into our entertainment industry, into the social media platforms. Children who have various emotional issues are being led to believe that being transgender is going to solve their emotional issues,” she said.
Declan Leary, an associate editor of The American Conservative, made this point himself last year in a column, writing, “Transgender people are grossly overrepresented in the entertainment class, and thus have a disproportionate influence on American popular culture—and, by extension, on public morality. … The stated goal of every transgender activist in Hollywood is to give young boys and girls watching at home plenty of good, queer role models to follow. It’s working.”
Indeed, it is:
Disney silent on leaked videos that tout injecting ‘queerness’ into kids’ shows https://t.co/Rg2OW4DuEQ
— American Wire News (@americanwire_) March 31, 2022
But pushback is emerging, some of it out in the open.
Late last month, Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo published a fact sheet advising Floridians to NOT follow the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ widely criticized advice pertaining to “gender-affirming care.”
The fact sheet bluntly advises against pursuing social gender transition, prescribed puberty blockers, hormone therapy and/or gender reassignment surgery for children.
In defending this advice, the fact sheet cites … facts:

Similar moves are also occurring on the world stage.
“In February, the Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare (NBHW) updated its health care service guidelines to recommend ‘restraint when it comes to hormone treatment,’ noting increasing reports of detransition and transition-related regret among youth who transitioned in recent years. The National Academy of Medicine in France also advised caution that same month,” according to Fox News.
“In 2020, the Finnish Health Authority (PALKO/COHERE) issued similar guidelines deviating from [the World Professional Association for Transgender Health] and recommending psychotherapy as the first-line treatment for gender-dysphoric minors. In October 2021, the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP) also released a statement citing a lack of quality evidence and emphasizing the necessity of receiving a proper mental health evaluation before undergoing irreversible hormone therapy or gender reassignment surgery.”
Meanwhile, the Society for Evidence Based Gender Medicine (SEGM) released its own fact sheet last month fact-checking HHS’ “gender-affirming care” guidance.
Fact-checking the HHS OPA Document “Gender-Affirming Care and Young People”https://t.co/5xnibe2ByT pic.twitter.com/CJIoHRreBr
— Andrew Bostom, MD, MS (@andrewbostom) May 3, 2022
SEGM went in especially hard on HHS’ hypocritical refusal to hear from a “diverse” range of voices.
“To date, there has been no attempt by HHS to gather feedback from a wide range of clinicians and patients with diverse experiences with ‘gender-affirming’ care—not only those who claim its benefits, but also those who have experienced or are concerned about the harms,” the fact sheet reads.
But according to the Biden administration, none of this pushback exists.
“There is no debate in the medical community about the medical or scientific validity of gender-affirming care,” Levine’s communications director, Adam Sarvana, stubbornly told Fox News.
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