by Dr Michelle Cretella
In the life sciences sex is defined by how a species is organized to reproduce. Human beings reproduce sexually. This is because the union of a male sex cell (sperm) and a female sex cell (ovum) is necessary to produce a human offspring. There are exactly two sex cells required for human reproduction; no more and no less. This is why human sex is binary. Disorders of sex differentiation (DSD or intersex conditions) are rare congenital, medically diagnosable conditions associated with reduced fertility. DSD are not additional sexes, rather they are better understood as birth defects affecting the reproductive system and/or genitals. Human sex is binary, genetically determined at conception, identifiable in utero and acknowledged at birth. Sex is not “assigned” according to the whims of doctors and nurses or anyone else.
Prior to the 1950’s the term “gender” referred solely to masculine or feminine grammar. Gender was redefined by unscrupulous sexologists as “an internal sexed identity” during the 1950’s and 1960’s to justify their surgical and hormonal manipulation of distressed transsexual-identified men. Today’s post-Christian and anti-science culture has taken this to unprecedented levels proclaiming not only that every person has an “innate internal sexed identity” [a gender] that may differ from the body’s sex, but also that the body’s biological sex is nothing more than a social construct that may be disregarded at will.
In reality, there is not a single medical test to diagnose a person’s alleged “innate internal sexed identity” because gender and gender identity exist only in the mind not in the body. No child has a brain born “in the wrong body”. Every organ, every nucleated cell of a person’s body, has the same sex. So what of brain studies that allegedly prove otherwise? Trans-identified youth do not have an “opposite-sexed” brain in the wrong body any more than anorexic children have “obese brains” trapped in emaciated bodies. Functional MRI images of brains of anorexic youth differ from those of non-anorexic youth yet one never hears the assertion that anorexics are “born that way”. Instead, researchers point to the process of neuroplasticity a proven phenomenon whereby the brain changes in structure and function in response to experience (including but not limited to relationships, patterns of thinking and behaviour).
Similar but poorer quality studies of functional MRIs have identified potential brain differences among trans-identified individuals, but in this case neuroplasticity is completely ignored and the public is instead fed the narrative that this proves an opposite sexed brain is in the wrong body. Such an assertion is mythology; Pagan Gnosticism not science.
Unfortunately, this myth is the basis of a multi-billion dollar medical industry. So called gender experts insist that medical intervention (lifelong dependence upon toxic drugs with or without mutilating surgery) is both necessary and life saving for children who believe they are “trapped in the wrong body”. Yet, there is not a single long-term study to demonstrate the safety or efficacy of puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and/or surgeries for transgender-believing youth. Youth transition is experimental, and therefore, parents cannot provide informed consent and minors cannot assent to these interventions. Moreover, the best long-term evidence we have among adults shows that medical intervention fails to reduce suicide.[1]
Proponents of these interventions for trans-identified youth cite the American Academy of Pediatrics. However, most are unaware that the AAP’s pro-transition policy has been discredited as a gross misrepresentation of science by gender identity psychologist Dr James Cantor.[2]
Read the rest, including fully annotation: https://voiceofthefamily.com/deconstructing-transgender-pediatrics/