Transgender HHS Secretary: 'The Positive Value of Gender-Affirming Care Is Not in Serious Scientific or Medical Dispute'

(CNSNews.com) – In a speech at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, Texas on Saturday, Dr. Rachel Levine, the transgender assistant secretary for Health and Human Services, urged compassion and understanding — – and potentially life-altering treatment — for transgender people, especially those young people who identify as a different sex or maybe as no sex at all.

Levine, a physician who transitioned to female in 2011 after marrying a woman and having two children, pointed to research backing “gender-affirming care.”

“A paper published just two months ago in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that receipt of gender-affirming care, including puberty blockers and gender-affirming hormones, was associated with 60 percent lower odds of moderate or severe depression and 73 percent lower odds of suicidality over a 12-month follow-up,” Levine said.

“The positive value of gender-affirming care is not in serious scientific or medical dispute.”

According to an HHS transcript of Levine’s speech, Levine argued:

“Gender-affirming care is medical care. It is mental health care. It is suicide prevention care. It improves quality of life, and it saves lives. It is based on decades of study. It is a well-established medical practice.

“The World Professional Association for Transgender Health published evidence-based standards of care more than a decade ago, in 2011, and is planning to release a full update this year. Rather than relying on a few cherry-picked reports to make a political argument, WPATH assesses the full state of the science and provides substantive, rigorously analyzed, peer-reviewed recommendations to the medical community on how best to care for patients who are transgender or gender non-binary.

“There is nothing one-sided about their approach. It is founded on a vast body of medical literature. It is free of any agenda other than to ensure that medical decisions are informed by science. This is the way medicine is supposed to be practiced, and it is the way doctors are supposed to care for their patients.”

Dr. Levin praised President Biden for seeing the “LGBTQI+ community in all its diversity.”

And he had harsh words for people who say confused children should not be brainwashed by activists and/or popular culture into making permanent, life-altering decisions, especially without the knowledge of their parents:

“Those who now attack our LGBTQI+ community are driven by an agenda that has nothing to do with medicine, nothing to do with science, and nothing to do with warmth, empathy, compassion or understanding,” Levine argued.

“They’re rejecting the value of supportive medicine, rejecting well-established science and rejecting basic human compassion. They prefer slander, bigotry and gender-baiting hate speech.

“When they attack trans people as brainwashed, or worse, and call anyone who disagrees with them a pedophile, we have to admit to ourselves what’s happening.

“We, as doctors and as people who love our communities and our nation, have to confront the fact that the language of care and compassion that we take for granted is being used to tear our communities apart. The language of medicine and science is being used to drive people to suicide.

“The mantle of concern for children is being claimed to destroy children’s lives. We have to stand up. We have to take a stand on behalf of those who are being hurt. We have to be doctors. This is what we do, even when it’s difficult.”

‘Single caring adult…doesn’t have to be a parent or a family member’

Levine called for an end to “medical and political discrimination” against LGBTQI+”

“We’re clearly not there yet,” he said:

“Today, many politicians and their supporters are describing our LGBTQI+ community, in public, as a blight on our culture. Many of the targets of this kind of speech are driven to kill themselves.

“We know as a medical fact that trans youth in particular are being hounded in public and driven to the depths of despair at an alarming rate. Fifty-two percent of all transgender and nonbinary young people in the U.S. seriously contemplated killing themselves in 2020. Think about how many of them thought it was better to die than to put up with any more harassment, scapegoating and intentional abuse.

“I want to point out here that if you’re an LGBTQI+ child, adolescent or teenager having a mental health crisis, the difference between life and death is often a single caring adult. It doesn’t have to be a parent or a family member.

“It makes all the difference in the world to hear just one supportive person reminding you that you are a valuable human being, that your life is important, that you have no less dignity than anyone else.”

As Fox News reported, the Florida Department of Health recently issued a response to a gender dysphoria “fact sheet” issued by HHS in March.

“Due to the lack of conclusive evidence, and the potential for long-term, irreversible effects, the (Florida) Department’s guidelines are as follows,” the document says:

— “Social gender transition should not be a treatment option for children or adolescents.

— “Anyone under 18 should not be prescribed puberty blockers or hormone therapy.

— “Gender reassignment surgery should not be a treatment option for children or adolescents.”

But according to the HHS “fact sheet,” “For transgender and nonbinary children and adolescents, early gender-affirming care is crucial to overall health and well-being as it allows the child or adolescent to focus on social transitions and can increase their confidence while navigating the healthcare system.”

From CNSNews - READ ORIGINAL

Some media, including videos, may only be available to view at the original.