Congressman Doug LaMalfa celebrated Pride Month by posting on Facebook: “There are no standards of care in transgender “medicine”, only the opinions of ideologues. Gender reassignment surgery is institutionalized medical malpractice and is barbaric. Any medical professional who pushes this on children should see the inside of a prison cell.”
LaMalfa wants us to believe that there are no standards of care in transgender medicine, only the opinions of ideologues. The Oxford English dictionary defines ideologue as a person who follows a system of ideas and principles in a strict and inflexible way. This is a perfect description of who Doug LaMalfa is. LaMalfa wants us to believe that gender affirming medical care and surgery is child abuse that is being forced onto innocent children by WOKE parents, school officials, politicians and wacko doctors. This is untrue. The current standard of care to treat gender dysphoria is to allow each transgender person to seek only those medical treatments which they choose to affirm their own gender identity. These medical treatments are all personal choices and not treatments forced upon unwilling individuals. Transgender people may seek any one of a number of gender-affirming interventions, including hormone therapy, surgery, facial hair removal, interventions for the modification of speech and communication, and behavioral adaptations such as genital tucking or packing, or chest binding.
LaMalfa wants us to believe that gender reassignment surgery is institutionalized medical malpractice that is barbaric. This is another of LaMalfa’s lies. The American Academy of Pediatricians and the Endocrine Society recommend gender-affirming care for transgender youths. In addition, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, the American Psychiatric Association, and the American Medical Association believe gender-affirming medical care is evidence based medical care. LaMalfa thinks he knows more than all the doctors who deal with transgender individuals on a daily basis.
4 Comments
Agree 💯 Well written and thoughtful essay
Glad to see the stats on gender affirming procedures that were done and only very few patients had a reversal! Obviously if the reversal numbers begin to grow, to a degree that becomes statistically significant, then finding those correlations and confounds can be tricky, but then the political front will find a way to “show” how these numbers are growing in dissatisfaction and say something along the lines of “It’s not working! See! We’ve told you!”. It’s always good to deconstruct political agendas and data.
Would like to add that intersex should be mentioned as well as most aren’t familiar with the term and meaning.
I still remember hearing from colleagues how the DSM added homosexuality (back in the 70s or so) as mental illness: Enter Dr. John Fryer who challenged these findings.
The Keck Medicine of USC has become one of the pioneers of gender affirming care for transgender, non-binary and diversity care. More and more doctors are reading and following studies not just for gender affirming care but gender in itself. The one size medical solution is slowly going out which is great! But there’s still a lot to do!
Now, it’s up to the community, scholars, and doctors to challenge these politicians!
LaMalfa continues to ignore facts that don’t fit his narrative, he lies constantly and hopes no one bothers to check his nonsense. Thank you Tom for calling out his dangerous rhetoric. We need a representative who cares about the people of our district, LaMalfa fails at that and everything else!
BOMB SQUAD: really impressive article and much interesting, I really like it.