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I finally had the time to sit down and review the much-discussed and highly controversial Arkansas bill, frankly prepared to hate it. I mean I was ready with word tracks in my head: “These Republican jerks, blah blah, what idiots.” My fire is fierce when I believe someone is off track and self absorbed for a career or to make a point. Medically transitioning gender-questioning children should never be a political ladder used to further careers. Medical transitioning gender-confused children is a serious infraction that chips away at every child's health for a lifetime. It's serious and needs to be understood and presented that way. I kneel to no one about the topic of medical transition for gender-questioning kids. I don’t care who you are, how famous you are, or how much money you have. I will give in to no one and call out anyone I believe needs to be called out! But boy, was I pleasantly surprised to see what was in the actual language.
Arkansas, a heavily Republican state, almost got it 100%. Which goes to show you that sometimes your enemies are the exact people you need to turn to. In this circumstance I say, “Bravo.” A few tweaks and this could be a nationwide HALT to medical transitioning children.
It contains almost everything I would recommend in such a bill, which should go into effect in July.
It recognizes the experimental nature of and lack of long-term studies for puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones, which the UK’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) recently did a systemic review of and found the evidence “very low” (their words) in all categories. Similarly, as of May 1, 2021, Sweden’s Karolinska Hospital (part the the Karolinska Institute, which grants the Nobel Prize) has stopped all new prescriptions of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones for gender dysphoric minors under age 18 and will only allow their use in research studies. (Sweden! One of the most progressive countries in the world when it comes to issues of gender dysphoria.)
It outlaws puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and gender surgeries for all gender-confused children under the age of 18, recognizing that adolescence is a time of great identity exploration and development, much in line with what Finland (Finland! Another progressive Nordic country) did last year.
It recognizes that most gender-confused children will outgrow such gender-confusion.
It recognizes that medical transition does NOT improve mental health outcomes, in line with a recent correction to a study that was not reported in the mainstream news.
It recognizes the unexplained exploding rates of gender-confused children in recent years.
It recognizes biological sex.
It does not use the term “transgender” at all in the bill, which is factually correct. These are kids with gender dysphoria or who are otherwise gender-confused. Transgender is not the correct term for them.
When we are speaking about gender confused kids, the word trans should be nowhere around!
Why?
If you combine trans and kids, it acknowledges that trans kids exist...They do not! Gender-confused kids do exist and have an 80% of recovering to live contentedly in the sex they were born into. Which is contrary to the gay and lesbian human rights campaigns that focused on homosexuality being ingrained, which it is. Never has there been a conversion therapy that stuck or was successful long term with a homosexual. It always backfires. Why? Because homosexuality is who you are, but trans is something you create through medicalization. I’ll keep saying it; 80% of kids become content in their biological sex!
It’s not transphobic to celebrate this! Celebrate on, sisters and brothers! And celebrate that a tiny portion of these kids would find comfort in medical transition, but not most. This is another non-transphobic statement. It’s factual, and facts are not hateful. If you believe you are a female and in fact you are a biological male, this needs to be treated, not celebrated and lifted as brave… Nothing about this is bravery. We need to stop celebrating children who are confused. Nothing to celebrate here, people….Celebrating confused human beings is not furthering human decency - it’s celebrating the most at-risk people.
According to CNN, Arkansas state Rep. Robin Lundstrum, the Republican who proposed the Arkansas SAFE ACT, made this statement, with which I wholeheartedly agree: “Those kids are precious. Some of them may choose to be transgender when they’re older. That’s OK .... But when they’re under 18, they need to grow up first. That’s a big decision, there’s no going back.”
There are three main problems I see with the bill. One is that it only fleetingly addresses the need for psychological support for these kids. Many of these gender-confused children have serious comorbidities that need addressing, including autism, ADHD, eating disorders, depression, anxiety, and more. And if a child threatens suicide, they need immediate mental health counseling, not medicalized transition.
Second, it does not recognize that most gender-confused kids will grow up to be gay. And that’s a-okay.
Third, and this is big, it did not have the bipartisan support needed to make this bill palatable to more Americans. To redirect this bill and put it in bipartisan hands with a few changes, in my opinion, could HALT childhood medical transition nationally and even internationally.
I wish we didn’t need such a bill. I wish doctors and gender clinics and WPATH and the Endocrine Society would not be held captive by radical trans activists and would follow the latest research and science, as Sweden, Finland, and the UK have done, for the long-term health of our children.
But since they show no signs of doing such a thing, I believe we need bills like this. And it needs to be framed as a healthcare bill, not as anti-human rights or Republicans playing into the culture wars. At the same time, Democrats need to recognize that transgenderism is NOT the same as homosexuality, which cannot be outgrown. Where are the brave Democrats who will stand up and speak the truth, for the sake of a generation of gender-confused kids who are becoming guinea pigs?
What we really need for such bills are a Democrat and a Republican together, and ideally they should be LGBT or allied with the community in some way. We need bipartisanship when it comes to keeping our gender-confused children safe. These should be people who want to get the bill actually passed, who really care, and not just want to get into the newspapers and advance their careers. As I argued in my Newsweek article and elsewhere, this is absolutely not a partisan issue.
We also need to keep religion out of it. This is not a Christian, Jewish, Muslim, or atheist issue. It affects vulnerable children of any and no religion. It is NOT transphobic to want the best for our children, based on the latest research and evidence. We should NOT be arguing about the need for guardrails for our children.
Imagine me, Scott Newgent, a fully transitioned transman, saying the words of Robin Lundstrum: “Those kids are precious. Some of them may choose to be transgender when they’re older. That’s OK .... But when they’re under 18, they need to grow up first. That’s a big decision, there’s no going back.” In fact, I have said almost these exact words, many times now.
Our children come first. We must protect them.
I ask that everyone, for one second, imagine that your own sweet, beloved child was swallowed by the trans phenomenon and allow your brain to take you to a place you believe your child would be in 10 years, with all the horrific side effects that I have documented, and many more that are still unknown… Personalize what is happening to other people’s kids and replace the faces of these kids with your own precious little ones. Only then can we all come together to stop the travesty of childhood medical transition.
Listen, I have no doubt, whoever is reading this, that we could have a knock-down, drag-out verbal confrontation on many many things we don’t agree on. Ask me if I care - go ahead:
“Do you care, Scott?”
No, I don’t give a crap what you believe about anything other than stopping medical transition of gender-confused children, so grab my hand and let's focus on what we all should be focusing on...children!
Help Me Save Gender-Confused Kids!
Medical Transition Is No Place For A Child - Just Ask Us - We Have Done It
Scott Newgent
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The GOP governor vetoed this bill, which was overriden, because it made no exceptions for minors who are already receiving treatment. In my mind, this shows that there are conservative people who are empathetic to the plight of gender dysphoric people. I am conservative-leaning and I certainly do empathize with their suffering, but I refuse to assimilate TRA ideology.