Uncovering the Irreversible Harm of Child Transgender Surgeries and Hormone Treatments in Children

According to the new bombshell report from the group Do No Harm, nearly 14,000 minors underwent transgender surgeries, took puberty blockers, or were given cross-sex hormone injections between 2019 and 2023. This report directly counters a refrain often thrown at anyone who expressed concern for the wellbeing of children, that “it’s just not happening.” In fact, just three months ago, researchers at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health announced that “gender-affirming” surgeries were “rarely performed on transgender youth in the U.S.”  

Rare, however, is the wrong word for 14,000 youth. As Dr. Miriam Grossman, my guest on a Breakpoint Forum earlier this year, told Washington Watch,  

This release of data is really a nuclear bomb. … We are led to believe by politicians and by many groups that these interventions are very rare and hardly happening at all in this country. And that is simply not true. 

Indeed. According to the Do No Harm report, just under 14,000 children received transgender-related treatments. More than 5,700 of those treatments were “sex change” operations, and more than 62,000 hormone and puberty blocker prescriptions were written in that time frame. These numbers do not include young people who underwent some form of “social transition.” 

When these treatments, which go under the misnomer “gender-affirming care,” are carried out on children, the consequences are severe and often irreversible. As the Cass Review (a comprehensive report out of the U.K. on “gender services” for children) revealed, doctors who recommended and administered these “treatments” knew of the risks of complications. These risks include pelvic inflammatory disease, pelvic floor dysfunction, and pain during any kind of arousal or sexual intercourse. Others saw no issues continuing “treatments” on those who showed serious co-morbidities, including mental health issues. According to one doctor: “The mere presence of psychiatric illness should not block a person’s ability to start hormones.” Another “referred for genital surgery people diagnosed with major depressive disorder, c-PTSD, and who are homeless.” Most troubling is that clinicians and activists from the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) have openly admitted that minors cannot fully understand what’s at stake in these “treatments,” especially the permanent damage done to their ability to have children in the future.  

In fact, for years, activists have pushed these chemical and surgical interventions on children and their parents by threatening them. “Would you rather have a dead daughter or a live son,” parents are asked as if anything less than their full affirmation will lead their child to commit suicide. This is a manipulative myth. According to one study published earlier this year, those who undergo so-called “gender transition” surgery are over 12 times more likely to commit suicide than those who do not.   

Although the effects of surgery and puberty blockers on children can never be reversed, almost always, a child with gender dysphoria grows out of those feelings by the time they hit their mid-twenties. Puberty, it turns out, is quite effective in aligning one’s internal sense of self with the realities of the body. As the authors of landmark research out of the Netherlands wrote, “Gender non-contentedness, while being relatively common during early adolescence, in general, decreases with age and appears to be associated with a poorer self-concept and mental health throughout development.”

Ideas have consequences, and bad ideas have victims. This report from Do No Harm reveals that there have been victims of trans ideology, and many of them have been children. This is an ideology with no basis in medicine, science, or observable realities. And yet, it is an ideology that has given birth to atrocities performed in doctors’ offices and hospitals by “experts” we were supposed to “trust.”  

We shouldn’t have. This ideology shatters the lives of young people and the lives of their parents. Until this report, we didn’t know how many. 

Photo Courtesy: ©Getty Images/Devenorr

Published Date: October 14, 2024

John Stonestreet is President of the Colson Center for Christian Worldview, and radio host of BreakPoint, a daily national radio program providing thought-provoking commentaries on current events and life issues from a biblical worldview. John holds degrees from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (IL) and Bryan College (TN), and is the co-author of Making Sense of Your World: A Biblical Worldview.

The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of CrosswalkHeadlines.

BreakPoint is a program of the Colson Center for Christian Worldview. BreakPoint commentaries offer incisive content people can't find anywhere else; content that cuts through the fog of relativism and the news cycle with truth and compassion. Founded by Chuck Colson (1931 – 2012) in 1991 as a daily radio broadcast, BreakPoint provides a Christian perspective on today's news and trends. Today, you can get it in written and a variety of audio formats: on the web, the radio, or your favorite podcast app on the go.