Sacrificing Children on the Altar of Political Ambitions
“I hate that I am having to disappoint my lovely patients. We’ve had such a good close and trusting relationship. They came hopeful of being heard and helped. I feel like I am abandoning them and their parents.” (a doctor in Nashville)
My best friend from grade school through high school and still today — is a pediatric endocrinologist. That’s a long term — but it means a doctor who deals with children and teens who have hormonal issues.
The greatest share of her work involves children with diabetes. She’s helped found a summer camp for diabetic children in her region. But she’s also dealt with transgenderism for years and years. As she explained to me, this isn’t a fad. Or something the woke generation invented. It’s been going on for as long as she’s had a practice. And she’s past retirement age. (I can’t say her name due to the threats some of her colleagues have received.)
It’s also a subject that fascinates me because of my daughter. We adopted an 8-year-old girl from the former Soviet Union several decades ago. In the photo we received before adoption, Tanya had long curly hair with a big blue bow on top. Yet, practically the minute she arrived, our new daughter cut off all her hair and started calling herself “Max”. My mother said she walked like a football linebacker.
This was years before transgenderism had even become a thing. At the time, we just thought it was a problem with from her transition from Russia to the US. But, no, Tanya really identified with being a boy. It had nothing to do with us or being adopted or becoming American. It was her identity, who she really was.
I wish I’d talked with my friend, the doctor, at that time. It didn’t occur to me that she’d had experience with kids like my daughter. With boys and girls who from the earliest ages, 2 and 3 and 4, knew that they belonged to the opposite sex and displayed all the age-appropriate interests and occupations of that gender.
My friend explained to me that in the protocol at that time ((before this issue became engulfed in politics), the child and the parent would usually arrive in her office when that girl or boy had reached puberty, about 12 to 14-years-old. That’s when the young person felt most unhappy and out-of-touch with their bodies and their gender. Then the young person, his or her parents, the pediatric endocrinologist and a therapist would discuss options. Did they believe that postponing puberty was the best route? Did they want to begin hormones to alter the future development of their bodies? The appropriate therapy proceeded from this discussion with everyone contributing their views.
My friend explained that she’d worked with young people who started hormone therapy and later decided it wasn’t what they wanted and so the therapy was stopped. In those cases, the initial decisions were often precipitated by family problems like a divorce or death in the family or sexual abuse. But then, she said, there were other young people who knew from the outset what they wanted, who pursued hormonal treatment and who were thrilled by the results. “I’ve never seen happier kids,” she commented.
My daughter’s trajectory was a little different. She decided to return to her biological family in the former Soviet Union. She may have thought she’d be more accepted and appreciated in that culture. Of course the opposite was true — the country where she lived was extremely conservative. She remained for a year and it was largely a miserable experience. We begged her to come home. She suicided instead.
Frankly, I don’t think she believed she could ever be accepted anywhere for completely being who she was. Transgenderism was just beginning to emerge as an option in this country. If she’d come back, I believe, she could have achieved her goal, her identity. Also my husband and I would have been more accepting and understanding of her choice. Unfortunately, she was a little ahead of her time.
Nowadays Tennessee where my friend practices medicine has passed legislation to ban all transgender care. She’s boiling over with anger, frustration and disappointment. “We will have to transfer these young people out of state to other clinics that so far remain open,” she states. “They’ll have to travel 100s of miles every 3 months to get care. That is — if they can afford it.”
To me, a political decision like this doesn’t seem fair, it doesn’t seem reasonable and it certainly isn’t kind. Republicans claim they want a government that stays out of people’s lives but now they’re interceding in one of the most personal decisions a person and their family can make! They are sacrificing children on the altar of their own political ambitions. How cynical can you get!
Whoever these kids are, I hope they achieve their goals — to become who they truly feel they are. I wish our daughter had been able to enjoy that experience!
