BISMARCK, North Dakota (LifeSiteNews) — North Dakota has become the latest state to prohibit minors from being chemically or surgically mutilated through transgender drugs and surgeries.
House Bill 1254, signed on April 19 by Republican Governor Doug Burgum, prohibits medical professionals from performing “castration, vasectomy, hysterectomy, oophorectomy, metoidioplasty, orchiectomy, penectomy, phalloplasty, or vaginoplasty” on minors. It also prohibits a mastectomy and the administration of puberty blockers.
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There are exceptions for intersex individuals and anyone who has already started one of these medical procedures. Intersex and transgender are not the same thing, as explained here by LifeSiteNews’ Jeremy Williamson.
The American Principles Project (APP) celebrated the new law.
“The transgender industry is committing medical malpractice on a massive scale. In reality, sex changes are impossible—no person can truly change their biology,” President Terry Schilling stated. “Nevertheless, for years now, ideologically captured medical practitioners have been offering dangerous, experimental drugs and procedures to vulnerable individuals in mental distress, with little to no regard for their long-term health. This misconduct has been especially egregious when it comes to children, who are far too young to comprehend the lifelong consequences of sterilizing and mutilating their bodies.”
“This growing scandal must be addressed immediately, which is why it is encouraging to see so many states now taking action, including North Dakota,” Schilling stated. “APP thanks Gov. Burgum and North Dakota lawmakers for acting to protect children from the predatory transgender industry, and we urge the remaining states without such protections to follow suit as soon as possible.”
Other states have also prohibited or limits minors from permanently sterilizing themselves or making it impossible to breastfeed in the future.
Arkansas, for example, prohibits the transgender drugs and surgeries for minors, and Governor Sarah Sanders recently signed legislation which makes it possible for gender-confused individuals to sue medical professionals for chemical and surgical mutilation. Indiana joined Tennessee, South Dakota, Iowa, and Mississippi in enacting laws this year that prohibit the use of puberty blockers, cross sex hormones, and surgeries in the name of “gender transitions” for minors, as previously reported by LifeSiteNews. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has taken executive action against the procedures while legislation works its way through the legislature.
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Growing evidence indicates unscientific nature of transgender drugs and surgeries
The opposition to puberty blockers and surgeries comes as evidence continues to prove that so-called “gender affirming care” is not beneficial and can in fact be dangerous. These procedures of course also promote the falsehood that someone can change their sex.
For example, a gender clinic founder and former consultant to the American Psychiatric Association recently shared her regrets with pushing puberty blockers on kids. The puberty blockers are “not as reversible as we always thought, and they have longer term effects on kids’ growth and development, including making them sterile and quite a number of things affecting their bone growth,” Dr. Susan Bradley recently said.
This comports with an analysis by endocrinologist Dr. Michael Laidlaw that found puberty blockers generally lead people to more hormones and surgeries, even though “[a majority of] children who experience gender dysphoria but are allowed to go through puberty normally,…do not persist in identifying with the opposite sex.”
The Florida Department of Health also conducted its own analysis of the research on transgender drugs and surgeries and concluded they are not safe and the evidence behind their supposed benefits is thin.
“Based on the currently available evidence, ‘encouraging mastectomy, ovariectomy, uterine extirpation, penile disablement, tracheal shave, the prescription of hormones which are out of line with the genetic make-up of the child, or puberty blockers, are all clinical practices which run an unacceptably high risk of doing harm,” the official guidance released by the health department stated.
The conservative Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) also released a set of statements warning against the chemical and surgical mutilation of kids, sometimes euphemistically and misleadingly called “gender-affirming care.”
The medical professionals said transgender drugs and surgeries are “medically and ethically contraindicated because of a lack of informed consent” and warned of “inherently unknown and unknowable long-term risks, and the consequences of removing normal, healthy organs are irreversible.”
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LifeSiteNews has published four separate reports on the harms of transgenderism, sourcing material from credible medical experts, social scientists, and “detransitioners.” The latter are gender-confused individuals who began to take drugs and/or underwent surgery to present as the opposite sex but have since stopped and regret their actions.
The entire series with links to sources and further information can be read here.