A first-of-it’s kind clinic for transgender kids and teens has opened at St Louis Children’s Hospital in Missouri. The “Transgender Center of Excellence” opened it’s doors last week, although physicians in the region have been taking care of transgender kids for over 8 years already. The growing demand for their services saw the need to open a specialized clinic.
The new clinic will offer medical care and counseling such as mental health resources, hormonal therapy, voice therapy, and reconstructive surgery to children. According to Dr. Chris Lewis, a Pediatric Endocrinologist and the director of the centre, patients as young as 3 can already have a “strong fixed gender identity”.
The centre is expected to “help hundreds of children and their families in the region”. A 15-year-old transgender teen, Leslie Seay and her/his father explained how happy they were that the clinic had opened in their area after facing much discrimination over Leslie’s “gender fluid” choices.
Leslie explains that things were always a bit confusing for her/him and when she/he was in high school she/he started to express to her/his family how he/she was really feeling.“I was in the car with my dad and brought up starting testosterone or hormone blockers. I explained that I didn’t really want to be on those, that I didn’t really feel like that would be right for me. That’s when I told him how I had been feeling, that I don’t identify as female, but I don’t really want to just identify as male. He was like ‘that makes sense.’ Then I told my mom too, and she said the same thing. And of course my little brother was supportive. He’s always supportive of me.”
Child professionals in America as well as Europe have been outspoken about the harm in teaching young children about gender ideology, especially at an age when they are not mature enough to make decisions that will affect them for the rest of their lives. They speak about the unscientific nature of the claims that are being made by clinics such as the one in St. Louis. Some have even gone as far as to call the ‘medical care’ and treatments being offered to children “large-scale child abuse”.
What was once treated as a psychological problem that resolves in the vast majority of patients by late adolescence, is now being embraced, nurtured, encouraged to the point of no return. Centres like the one at St Louis Hospital are helping young people, like Leslie, take steps to transform their young bodies to the point of no return.
Young Leslie didn’t realize when she/he said, “This is definitely who I am and I doubt I’m going to change…” how right she/he was: She definitely is who God intended her to be, and once she starts down the path of puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and sex-reassignment surgery, I doubt she’s going to change either.
“Train up a child in the way he should go, And when he is old he will not depart from it.” Proverbs 22:6
Louise Carter
