4. “Gender Dysphoria and Children: An Endocrinologist’s Evaluation of I am Jazz” by Dr. Laidlaw. Has further discussion regarding children and adolescents with gender confusion. https://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/20…
Transcript Hello, my name is Dr. Michael Laidlaw and I’m an Endocrinologist. I’m a medical doctor who specializes in gland and hormonal disorders. I am all for equality. But let me tell you that H.R. 5, the Equality Act, represents the biggest threat to children’s health ever conceived of in a bill before congress. The issue has to do with the gender identity provisions. Allow me to explain why these are so exceedingly dangerous. I became concerned about the issue of childhood gender dysphoria treatment when I learned about what our schools were reading to kindergarteners and first graders about transgenderism. I became extraordinarily concerned when I learned how medical doctors were harming children with puberty blocking medications and high dose hormones of the opposite sex. I became shocked when I realized that these medical treatments were based on little more than a child’s self-identification. You may ask, but there must be a blood test, a genetic test or imaging to know for sure that a child has a different gender identity than the sex of their body? In fact there is no way to know.
There is no way to know if children will change their minds or if these hormone intervention will one day be regretted once they caused serious irreversible harm. Yet dangerous hormones are being given simply based on a child’s self identification – their so-called gender identity which cannot be seen or proved in any objective way. Children who have gender dysphoria or gender confusion deserve all of the love and care and help in the world and they shouldn’t be bullied or harmed in any way. Regardless what you believe about children who identify as transgender, no matter what your politics, from a medical standpoint, the issues are quite simple. No child should be given puberty blockers for this condition.
These powerful drugs stop normal puberty. They are not FDA approved for this condition. They can lead to sterility and sexual dysfunction. They also can lead to anxiety, depression, and delusions. They will inhibit normal brain development and bone development No child should be prescribed cross-sex hormones – meaning hormones of the opposite sex. Girls are being injected with high dose testosterone. Boys are receiving high dose female hormones like estrogen.
These medications bring about serious cardiovascular risks such as heart attack, strokes, and deadly blood clots, and therefore should NEVER be given to children. This should be obvious. Mastectomies of perfectly healthy breasts are happening to girls as young as age 13 and 14 in the United States. How can these girls provide informed consent as they are not fully mature adults? This should never happen. When I learned that the NIH had given nearly $6 million to four pediatric gender clinics in the United States with no control group and no randomization as would be expected in a study of this type, I filed a Freedom of Information Act request with my colleagues to obtain the study records.
While I was unable to obtain the unsigned consent forms for human research, I did uncover this absolutely stunning finding: In 2017, the principal investigator, pediatrician Johanna Olson-Kennedy of Children’s Hospital Los Angeles lowered the age of cross-sex hormones (meaning hormones of the opposite sex) from age 13 to age 8. Tell me, how can a little child consent to this? How can they possibly understand the harms? How is this permissible legally or ethically? I’m very concerned that H.R.5, the Equality Act will lead to medical protocols like the one funded by he NIH being implemented all across the nation. This bill must be defeated. With this bill other medical doctors will be forced to decide between their careers and their medical ethics. For me, there will be no choice.
I will tell you very clearly and plainly, if I am forced as a physician to give these dangerous and experimental medications to children: I WILL NOT COMPLY.
