Physical Interventions on the Bodies of Children to “Affirm” their “Gender Identity” Violate Sound Medical Ethics and Should be Prohibited

Dec 9, 2019 by

by Ryan T Anderson and Robert P George, Public Discourse:

Rather than teaching children to identify based on how well they fit prevailing cultural expectations on sex, we should be teaching them that the truth of their sexual identity is based on their bodies, and that sometimes cultural associations attached to the sexes are misguided or simply too narrow. There is a wonderfully rich array of ways of expressing one’s embodiment as male or female.

Several weeks ago, many Americans were concerned about a seven-year-old boy in Texas who was the subject of a custody battle after his parents divorced. Fights over the custody of children are always tragic, but what made this one especially disconcerting was that the parents disagreed about medical care for their son. This wasn’t just any usual medical decision for a child, where parents need to consider the treatment options and weigh the respective likelihoods of success, potential side-effects, and risks. No, this was a case where the parents favored radically different treatment options because they disagreed about the identity—the “gender”—of their little boy. One of the parents believes the child is actually a girl, a girl trapped in a boy’s body.

It was this disagreement that led to the bitter battle over treatment. So, without saying anything specific about this child’s case, we want to offer readers our best take on what is at stake: the anthropology, ideology, and ethics at issue.

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