Austin, Texas, Oct 23, 2019 / 15:04 pm
A Texas jury this week ruled against a father who wants to block the hormonal gender transition of his 7-year-old son James into a girl named Luna.
Texas dad Jeffrey Younger had appealed to a state court to obtain sole custody of his twins, Jude and James, in part to save James from a hormonal gender transition that the boy's mother has been planning, according to the Washington Examiner.
The jury ruled on Monday that Dr. Anne Georgulas, the mother of the twins, would maintain sole custody of the boys, which would allow her to proceed with her plan to have James undergo a gender transition and be called "Luna." Georgulas believes James identifies as a girl because of his affinity for the Disney movie "Frozen" and its female character leads, according to Town Hall.
Expert witnesses called in the court reportedly expressed doubts as to whether James actually strongly identified as female.
"There is still some fluidity in his thinking," Dr. Benjamin Albritton said in his testimony, according to the Washington Examiner. "Neither child appears to be depressed, anxious or aggressive ... He [James] gave no indications of other significant psychological difficulties."
Georgulas reportedly wants to enroll James as a patient at the GENECIS in Dallas in their "Gender Affirming Care Program" for youth. On their website, the clinic says it offers hormone therapy and puberty suppression therapy along with mental health and social services. It does not currently offer gender transition surgery.
The case of James Younger has met with outrage from critics who say it raises multiple ethical considerations, including the rights of parents as well as the best interest of children experiencing gender dysphoria.
According to the Official Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics, whose guidelines GENECIS follows, "Pubertal suppression is not without risks. Delaying puberty beyond one's peers can also be stressful and can lead to lower self-esteem and increased risk taking. Some experts believe that genital underdevelopment may limit some potential reconstructive options. Research on long-term risks, particularly in terms of bone metabolism and fertility, is currently limited and provides varied results."
Numerous doctors and ethicists have previously raised concerns about whether it is ethical to treat children with gender dysphoria with hormones, puberty blockers or surgery.
In a December 2018 article for The Christian Post, multiple pediatrics doctors said they would treat gender dysphoria as a psychological issue, and not an endocrinological or physical issue.
"[Parents] need to continue to love their children. They need to continue to affirm their human dignity. Yet they shouldn't have to jettison biological reality to be able to put what they're being told into practice, in terms of disrupting normally timed puberty," Dr. Paul Hruz, an associate professor of pediatrics and endocrinology at Washington University in St. Louis, told The Christian Post.
The article featured interviews with several doctors who said synthetic hormones could put children on a pathway to permanent sterilization, and many other long-term repercussions which may not be felt for years.
"The reality is that there is no long-term data about treating children, and the only data that we have in adults indicates that medical interventions to align the appearance of the body to a transgendered identity does not fix the problem," Hruz told The Christian Post.
"There is a core of very diabolical people who are filtering large sums of money into this and using mass social pressure," added Dr. Quentin Van Meter, a pediatric endocrinologist in private practice in Atlanta.
The doctors said they also objected to medical interventions for children with gender dysphoria because most children will grow up to re-identify with their biological gender.
In 2016, many doctors protested after the Department of Health and Human Services announced that health providers could not refuse treatment, including surgery, for "gender transition" services if they were asked for them, even if they believed them to be harmful to the patient. The rule was struck down after challenges in court by nine states as well as by religious groups and doctors.
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