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Welcome to Breakpoint, a daily look at an ever changing culture through the lens of unchanging truth. With the Colson Center, I'm John Stonestreet. Last week the US Department of Health and Human Services released a follow up report on the medical dangers posed by transgender so called therapy on children. This report, which supplements an original that was released in May, comes in at an additional 240 pages. According to the Child and Parents Rights Campaign, it is, and I quote, the most comprehensive review in the world to date of the evidence and systematic reviews regarding the benefits and harms of treatment for children and adolescents with gender dysphoria. End quote. As the press release put it, and I quote again, the report released through the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health finds that harms from sex rejecting procedures including puberty blockers, cross sex hormones and surgical operations are significant, long term and too often ignored or inadequately tracked. Quoting Dr. Brian Christine, the press release continued, what are we going to tell young people who can't have children because the medical profession stole that from them? Our report is an urgent wake up call to doctors and parents about the clear dangers of trying to turn girls into boys and vice versa. The report described how too often medical consultations have been a, and I quote, child led process in which comprehensive mental health assessments are often minimized or omitted. Some of these assessments were as abrupt as a single two hour session with no other procedure, especially any with consequences as extreme as castration or amputation, would such a brief consultation ever be tolerated. And yet so many in the medical field went along with this whole illusion, betraying their oaths and suppressing dissent. I quote, again, the voices of whistleblowers and detransitioners have played a critical role in drawing public attention to the risks and harms associated with pediatric medical transition. Their concerns have been discounted, dismissed or ignored by prominent advocates and practitioners of pediatric medical transition. There's evidence that some medical and mental health associations have suppressed dissent and stifled debate about this issue among their members. As the HHS Secretary RFK put it, that is not medicine, it's malpractice. And it was not isolated to just a few groups or people. Well respected academics and institutions embraced this trendy ideology that victimized children. Hannah Barnes groundbreaking book A Time to Think documented how a mix of activists and medical professionals badgered the entire British National Health Service into going along with what became the Tavistock tragedy. And similarly, in the US Medical consensus was fabricated with groups like WPATH purporting that doctors, not gender ideologues were leading this movement. In reality, the movement ran on two claims. First, anyone who refused to go along with transgender ideology had blood on their hands. Countless parents were asked whether they'd prefer a dead son or a live daughter or vice versa. Some states even remove kids from parents who would not conform. The HHS report reveals that in fact it was the states, not the parents, who were abusive. Second, transgender ideology was sold to us as a science, a lie that has now fully collapsed. Last year, the CAST report out of the UK declared that medical treatment for gender therapy was built on shaky foundations. While this HHS study not only builds on the British report, it goes much further, and its authors include esteemed scientists and scholars like Alex Byrne of MIT, Kathleen McDevitt of the Baylor College of Medicine, and Farr Curlin of Duke University. Dr. Kurland joined us on a Colson Center Breakpoint forum on this issue and was a featured speaker at the Colson center national conference in 2025. A few weeks ago, when ADF's Kristen Wagner posted on social media that her kids could not get an Advil at school without permission but could be transitioned, a bunch of critics called her a liar. So Wagner responded by, as the kids say these days, bringing the receipts. Likewise, back in May, critics attempted to discredit the initial HHS report. But last week's follow up report brings the medical receipts. As writer Wesley Yang put it, transgender ideology progressed by a no debate policy, relying on, and I quote, censorship and punishment of dissent as a first resort and in its bid to deploy state and administrative power to mandate compliance with their false dogmas. But as it turns out, truly following the science has led us back to the truth, and it's essential that we keep telling the truth. This report affirms not only that the truth is on our side, but more importantly, it's on the side of children. For the Colson Center, I'm John stonestreet with Breakpoint. Today's Breakpoint was co authored by Dr. Timothy Padgett. If you're a fan of Breakpoint, leave us a review wherever you download your podcast, and for a version of this commentary that you can download or share with others, go to breakpoint.org.
