OPINION:
Being “cool” is an awesome feeling. When everyone is cool, though, then no one is, because coolness means standing out from the crowd. Accordingly, attracting oodles of adulation requires taking coolness to the next level. It’s part of the rite of passage from youth to adulthood.
But when transgender adolescents are involved, the phenomenon involves medical procedures that can lead to lifelong regret. Health professionals, who are sworn “to do no harm,” should temper the practice rather than promote it.
Fortunately, some states are taking steps to cool the trend. Earlier this month, Florida became the eighth state to restrict sex-transition medical treatments for minors. The state’s Board of Medicine adopted a rule banning puberty blockers, hormone therapy and sex-change surgery for underage residents. Florida joins Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Mississippi, South Dakota, Tennessee and Utah in restricting transition-related medical care for minors.
The only surprise is that more states have not acted to dampen a phenomenon that has all the look of a fad. After all, the fundamentals of human sexuality remained essentially immutable for thousands of years — until now. Intelligent, modern people ought not to give in to impulsive, irreversible and destructive behavior commonly attributed to lemmings.
The trans trend is so sudden that barely any studies have been done to gauge its progression. A Williams Institute study in 2017 used Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data to conclude that about 0.7% of youth and 0.6% of adults identify as transgender, totaling about 1.5 million Americans.
An updated version of the survey in 2022 using 2017-20 government data gauging the U.S. trans population at 1.4% of 13- to 17-year-olds, 1.3% of 18- to 24-year-olds, and 0.5% of adults 24 and older. Although the transgender cohort still comprises a tiny demographic fraction of Americans, the surveys indicate a doubling of their numbers over a five-year span. It’s got all the look of a craze.
If Americans have the freedom to define themselves, then what’s the problem? The problem is that children across the nation are being cruelly subjected to abnormal sexual behavior in their impressionable years — behavior that could hijack their life course.
Social media is rife with instances of cool-craving parents dragging their young children to “drag queen story hour,” like the one hosted Sunday by New York Attorney General Letitia James, and “drag queen brunches,” where toddlers are forced to watch sexually genetic men cavort in women’s underwear. Celebrating sexual license may be fashionable in 2023, but it comes at the cost of stolen childhood innocence.
There is every reason to reckon the transgender phenomenon is a trend that, like most, will fade — giving way to a fresh fad. Already on the horizon is the “transhuman,” the individual who identifies as part person and part machine. Sufferers of such internal disarray deserve extra compassion.
Sadly, millions of youths who have succumbed to the urge to undergo sex-change procedures are destined to remain trapped in a dysfunctional identity they no longer find awesome. Cooling the transgender trend by restricting transition chemicals and surgery to those few who identify as, and are, in fact, adults, is the responsible approach.
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