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CHARLESTON, West Virginia (LifeSiteNews) — West Virginia became one of the latest states to crack down on mutilating transgender interventions for kids on Wednesday after Republican Gov. Jim Justice signed a new bill restricting the practice. 

The measure contains a carveout for teens determined to be at risk of suicide or another type of self-harm, despite evidence strongly indicating that transgender interventions do not lessen, and may actually increase, suicidal ideation.

Slated to take effect in January, the new West Virginia law will prohibit physicians from performing surgeries on minors to make them look like the opposite sex, or prescribing them cross sex-hormones or puberty blocking drugs, The Associated Press reported Thursday.

While most transgender surgeries in the U.S. are undertaken by adults, children who express gender confusion across the country are increasingly prescribed puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones, which can have serious permanent effects including sterility. Moreover, some U.S. gender clinics have policies permitting certain surgical interventions – including double mastectomies – for adolescents. Rates of surgical mutilation for minors have spiked in recent years.

West Virginia joins a growing number of states that are proposing and enacting legislation to ban the experimental procedures for kids

READ:  West Virginia governor signs bill banning males from women’s and girls’ sports

Unlike many other states that have similarly moved to legislatively protect kids from permanent, life-altering mutilation, however, West Virginia will allow the prescription of hormone or puberty-blocking drugs if a gender-confused teenager is determined to be at risk of self-harm or suicide.

According to the AP, “a patient can be prescribed puberty blockers and hormone therapy after receiving parental consent and a diagnosis of severe gender dysphoria from two clinicians, including a mental health provider or an adolescent medicine specialist.”

The carveout comes in spite of the fact that studies do not show that “affirmation” of a person’s divergent “gender identity” resolves the extremely high rates of suicidality among trans-identifying youth and adults. 

As LifeSiteNews has previously reported, a 2019 study by Richard Bränström Ph.D. and John E. Pachankis, Ph.D. that appeared to support the theory that “GAC” improves mental health was later retracted. A 2020 correction to that study found the “results demonstrated no advantage of surgery in relation to subsequent mood or anxiety disorder-related health care visits or prescriptions or hospitalizations following suicide attempts in that comparison.”

A 2010 meta-analysis concerning transgender surgical and pharmaceutical interventions concluded with “very low quality evidence” that “sex reassignment that includes hormonal interventions in individuals with GID likely improves gender dysphoria, psychological functioning and comorbidities, sexual function and overall quality of life,” with the caveat that “methodological limitations related to individual studies and the review synthesis suggest that it should not be considered reliable.”

READ: Gender-confused man featured in United Airlines’ ‘Trans Visibility’ ad commits suicide

A 2011 Swedish cohort study also found that “persons with transsexualism, after sex reassignment, have considerably higher risks for mortality, suicidal behavior, and psychiatric morbidity than the general population.”

Despite this, however, in recent years rising rates of transgender identification have been met with celebration and adulation in mainstream culture. In many public school classrooms, young children are actively being encouraged to deny their biology and live as the opposite sex, potentially contributing to lifelong physical and psychological harm.

In addition to West Virginia, states that have moved to curtail transgender procedures for kids include Alabama, Tennessee, South Dakota, Kentucky, Mississippi, Florida, and Georgia. Meanwhile, radical left-wing state California has reacted by enacting legislation to make the Golden State a so-called sanctuary for kids seeking transgender interventions.

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