The Dangers of Gender Affirming Care

By Sammie Gallo, Creator of Abundant Life: You Were Made for More

What is “gender-affirming care?” Are you familiar with it? As a healthcare professional, I’ve seen this come into play in patient care, but it also applies to any of us, as we’re seeing it creep into other areas of our daily lives. It will inevitably show up in school systems. It may even sneak its way into youth ministry. It may show up in your home, in unexpected ways.

Gender-affirming care, as defined by the World Health Organization, encompasses a range of social, psychological, behavioral, and medical interventions “designed to support and affirm an individual’s gender identity” when it conflicts with the gender they were assigned at birth. The interventions help transgender people align various aspects of their lives — emotional, interpersonal, and biological — with their gender identity. As noted by the American Psychiatric Association (APA), that identity can run anywhere along a continuum that includes man, woman, a combination of those, neither of those, and fluid.

In the past year or so, there has been strong pushback against radical gender ideology and the growing evidence against so-called “gender-affirming care.” Notably, in early 2024, internal files leaked from the World Professional Association of Transgender Health (WPATH), the self-anointed medical association that has pushed for the chemical and surgical “gender transition” of minors, were made public. For years, clinical, political, and pop culture activists have cited WPATH in order to claim that the science on “gender-affirming care” is “settled,” and that social, chemical, and surgical “transition” interventions are safe, reversible, and, wait for it… even lifesaving.   

There is damning evidence that says otherwise. In a leaked video, a leading WPATH doctor admitted that a minor could not fully understand the implications of “treatment.” In other words, this process was being pushed on minors who were unable to grant consent. Interestingly enough, consent is something our world cares about deeply. Consent is important. Consent is vital. And yet in so many of these situations, consent is pushed to the side for organizational and idealistic agendas. Think about this: Why do HIPPA and so many other medical standards create obstacles and hurdles to get information to family members (or anyone who would request it) about our health and medical records? Because consent matters. Yet, when a child wants a sex transition surgery, that essential “consent” is thrown out the door for legal guardians and parents. Suddenly, that very critical “consent” required by law for all other circumstances – consent to treat, consent to transfer medical records, or consent to perform a procedure – is no longer deemed necessary. I’m an emergency room nurse, and everytime a child under the age of 18 enters our ER, we are required to get parental consent to even bring them back to a room – we’re required to have consent to treat. Consent matters.

Also in 2024, The UK’s National Health Service released an almost 400-page report on the state of “gender identity services for children and young people.” Basically, this report affirmed that “gender-affirming care” is built on “shaky foundations” and that the evidence supporting the treatments for gender dysphoria are “remarkably weak.”

Caring for individuals struggling with gender dysphoria is difficult. It requires caution, complexity, understanding, and empathy. We must always remember to see these people as just that – people. We must treat them holistically, not just treating the “problem” of gender dysphoria. For example, research out of the UK exposed that adults who identified as transgender were six to seven times more likely to have ADHD, four times more likely to suffer from depression, five times more likely to have bipolar disorder, more than five times as likely to have obsessive compulsive disorder and, shockingly, over 28 times more likely to have a diagnosis of schizophrenia.  

Another study found that youth who experience gender dysphoria are far more likely to have experienced emotional abuse and physical and emotional neglect. That last study exposes the evil of the suicide myth. an enduring lie that has effectively driven the transgender epidemic for years now. Counselors and activists have pressured parents into “affirming” their children’s dysphoria, with the manipulative question, “Would you rather have a living son or a dead daughter?” This question deeply plagues me as a parent myself, knowing that the manipulation behind it plays into a parent’s worst fear… losing their child. 

Think about this. 

“Do No Harm” is the core of the Hippocratic oath and the role of medical professionals.

Nowhere is this commitment more important than the care of our children and teenagers, which is why the unscientific and individually harmful practice “gender-affirming care” is so concerning. It’s based on the dangerous premise that any child who has distress that he or she thinks is related to their sex should automatically be treated with social transition to the sex of their choice followed by hormonal interventions and then possibly surgery to remove healthy body parts. Underlying mental health problems are usually not addressed.

The refusal to approach each child on an individual basis is reason enough to oppose the movement toward “gender-affirming care.” Yet there’s another reason it deserves criticism: It ignores the impossibility for informed consent of the children who are subjected to this approach. Put simply, young children and adolescents are inappropriately being allowed to make potentially irreversible life-altering decisions, in many cases without parental consent or engagement. 

These procedures can lead to impairment in bone strength and brain maturation, and loss of fertility and the ability to engage in sexual relations.

It is dangerous and destructive to let children, whose minds are still developing, make such life-altering decisions at such young ages – especially since 90% of children who believe they are a different sex no longer hold that view as adults if left to develop on their own without medical interventions.

A great testimony of gender dysphoria being redeemed by God is the testimony of Laura Perry Smalts. We had Laura on the podcast back in 2020 and she shared it again with Focus on the Family in 2024. Laura Perry Smalts shares about her 7-year journey of transitioning and identifying as a male before realizing she was living a lie and then fully embracing her female gender. She explains her painful experiences living with a self-created identity outside of God’s design and incredible plan for her – revealed through her loving parents and other believers. In the Focus on the Family interview, Laura and Dr. Meg Meeker, a pediatrician, speak compassionately about the issues surrounding gender confusion in today’s culture, offering practical insights, hope and help.

These revelations that continued to emerge throughout 2024 confirm what Christians should already know to be true. Even more, they should inspire us to steward Biblical worldviews of sexuality, relationships, personhood, the Gospel, Creation, and Redemption faithfully, so that each and every person would know that they were made for more.

 “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” – Ephesians 2:10. 

We need to fight and have the courage to counter the lies of gender ideology while caring for those victimized by the bad ideas that have been perpetuated in our culture.