Top Transgender Medics Warn Too Many Children Being Given Sex Change Surgery
Dr Marci Bowers & Dr Erica Anderson say left-wing media refuses to publish their concerns
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Two of the world's leading experts in gender dysphoria are warning that too many children are being diagnosed as transgender and given life-altering treatments and sex-change surgeries.
Dr. Marci Bowers and Dr. Erica Anderson, both biological male transgenders, are raising the alarm about the number of children being given puberty blockers and undergoing surgery, describing the rise in procedures as deeply worrying.
Anderson, a clinical psychologist at the University of California San Francisco's Child and Adolescent Gender Clinic, and Bowers, a world-renowned vaginoplasty specialist who operated on reality-television star Jazz Jennings, and both spoke out for Bari Weiss's Substack newsletter, Common Sense.
Bowers blasted the idea of putting children in the early stages of puberty on hormone blockers.
The technique maintains more feminine looks for growing boys and is increasingly used by doctors when young people say they are questioning their gender.
"This is typical of medicine," Bowers said, asked about the prevailing orthodoxy.
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"We zig and then we zag, and I think maybe we zigged a little too far to the left in some cases," Bowers continued.
"I think there was naivete on the part of pediatric endocrinologists who were proponents of early [puberty] blockage thinking that just this magic can happen, that surgeons can do anything."
Bowers said that the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) could be intolerant of dissenting opinions.
"There are definitely people who are trying to keep out anyone who doesn't absolutely buy the party line that everything should be affirming and that there's no room for dissent," Bowers said.
"I think that's a mistake."
Anderson submitted an op-ed to The New York Times warning about the risks of treatments.
However, the paper refused to publish it because the story was "outside our coverage priorities right now."
Bowers operated on reality star Jazz Jennings, in June 2018 - sharing a series of steps on Instagram with 1.2 million followers.
Gender dysphoria overwhelmingly affects boys and men, and often begins in early childhood, from the age of two.
It affects .01 percent of males, or one in 10,000, according to the latest analysis.
Nearly seven in 10 children initially diagnosed with gender dysphoria eventually outgrew it, many becoming gay adults, and so the traditional view was "watchful waiting."
That has now been replaced by "affirmative care" - a much more proactive position.
Bowers also said that the surgery they opt for can leave people sexually dysfunctional - something that was not discussed enough.
"The idea all sounded good in the very beginning," Bowers said.
"Believe me, we're doing some magnificent surgeries on these kids, and they're so determined, and I'm so proud of so many of them and their parents.
"They've been great.
"But honestly, I can't sit here and tell you that they have better — or even as good — results.
"They're not as functional. I worry about their reproductive rights later.
"I worry about their sexual health later and ability to find intimacy."
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Anderson also warned that many young people would regret their irreversible decisions.
"It is my considered opinion that due to some of the - let's see, how to say it? what word to choose? - due to some of the, I'll call it just 'sloppy,' sloppy healthcare work, that we're going to have more young adults who will regret having gone through this process," Anderson said.
"And that is going to earn me a lot of criticism from some colleagues, but given what I see - and I'm sorry, but it's my actual experience as a psychologist treating gender-variant youth - I'm worried that decisions will be made that will later be regretted by those making them."
She said she was concerned about "rushing people through the medicalization," and warned of the "abject failure to evaluate the mental health of someone historically in current time, and to prepare them for making such a life-changing decision."
