The therapist shares that assessment with parents, sometimes in front of their child. In doing so, the gender specialist strikes heavy blows against a family in crisis, who turned to her with hope and trust: she undermines parental authority and weakens the parent-child bond.

As if that’s not enough, she refers them, following a hasty, incomplete evaluation, to an endocrinologist for hormones to block development. Safe and reversible, the therapist reassures the parents. Your child needs them now. In fact, it’s already late. . . .

[T]he truth: If teens go through natural puberty there’s a 60-90 percent chance of desistance (outgrowing transgenderism, aligning with one’s biology). Changing names, pronouns, and presentation can be a slippery slope and decrease desistance. Once on puberty blockers, desistance is very rare. . . .

Bottom line: parents who look further than gender clinics and therapists discover a heated debate regarding how to help kids like theirs. There’s a consensus among experts, they were told. Are you kidding? There is no consensus whatsoever.

So the parents search for a therapist who won’t immediately affirm the new identity, but instead take it slowly, get to know their child, and figure out the appeal to her of a new identity. A clinician with a more cautious, nuanced approach — that’s all parents want. Another shock: there are almost none.

Counting psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, and counselors, there are more than a million therapists in this country. I located a group of therapists who believe in long-term, exploratory talk therapy for gender-questioning youth, and there are only 60 members, with many outside the United States. . . .

Where are the psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, and counselors who will validate their experiences without judgment? How is it we’re able to serve the emotional needs of sexual offenders and murderers but not the traumatized, grieving parents of transgender children? . . .

This is an appalling betrayal of parents. To my colleagues: we’ve lost all credibility because of our surrender to a destructive, unscientific ideology. We’ve harmed thousands of parents and children, and they’ve had it with us.

Not too long ago, doctors performed frontal lobotomies as a cure for severe mental illness. They severed connections in the brain with crude instruments inserted through the eye socket. It was a barbaric but mainstream procedure, performed on about 40,000 people.

Right now in the United States, girls as young as 13 are having mastectomies and minor boys are castrated. What will it take to put the breaks on the massive transing of children? Call me a cynic, but I’m guessing a few huge lawsuits.

Trust me, the lawyers are coming, and victims will finally have a public platform. They will tell the world of the nightmare that descended on their precious children and families, leaving them traumatized and broken.

How are you praying about this important issue? Are you or a loved one facing these challenges?

(Excerpt from The Federalist. Article by Dr. Miriam Grossman. Photo by Angela Compagnone on Unsplash.  )