For the last 10 years, the American College of Pediatricians has fielded an increasing amount of questions surrounding children and gender identity. Dr. Jill Simons, who serves as the organization’s executive director, said the explosion of the issue in the last five years — and especially over the last two — led to the Biological Integrity Initiative started by the organization.
“The calls and the website requests, the emails — this is by far the topic that people are wanting information on,” she told The Iowa Standard in a phone interview. “Whether it’s pediatricians, other physicians, parents, policymakers — this is what they’re needing.”
ACPeds had the information on its main website but thought putting the information together in one spot that is a bit easier to navigate and more viewer-friendly while not being geared toward medical professionals would provide a desperately needed source.
The Biological Integrity website includes tabs for parents, teens, physicians, schools and policymakers as well as a resources tab and another that helps contact the organization. The initiative aims to speak out against the harms of transgender interventions on kids.
“We are just really focusing on this and this is one of the greatest threats to children right now,” Simons said. “It’s our commitment to speaking out against it, to trying to get information into the hands of the people who need it.”
With gender ideology becoming a rapidly growing phenomenon among children, Simons was quick to point to social media as one of the many factors.
“We do know that social media and just the access to quick information, the internet, all that plays a very big part in this,” she said. “Especially with COVID, we saw especially teens affected by what they’re seeing on social media. That helped the spread and that helped really get kids exposed to it.”
Until 10 years ago, Simons said for the “very, very small percentage” of people who are experiencing gender dysphoria (which was mostly males), the biggest harm they’d do is dress up and assume the lifestyle.
“But what’s really changed it now is with the introduction of hormones, chemicals, puberty blockers, surgeries, cross-sex hormones and the explosion of doctors and clinics doing these — it’s just become so much more dangerous,” Simons said. “I think there are organizations like Planned Parenthood and others that have spoken openly about the profitability of this and so I think that factors into it.”
Both of those factors combine with the fact many of these children just don’t quite fit in and are searching for their identity.
“Puberty is awkward. We all went through it,” she said. “Instead of telling the kids this is normal and everyone feels awkward at some point during puberty, instead of helping kids through that, if kids are feeling any sort of awkwardness or if they happen to have Autism or another disorder where it is harder to have social interactions during puberty — 25 percent probably have Autism who are sent or told they’re transgender according to one study — they’re using it where they’re told if they don’t fit in, if they can’t find their tribe, they must be transgender.”
Simons said that part of the transgender movement is trying to replace the traditional family and it becomes a lure to kids. They provide the social media part of it and make it glamorous by turning these children into heroes.
The process can start as young as two years old. There are parents out there claiming they knew their child was born the wrong gender from the time the child started talking. Then the parents socially transition the kid and the “transition train” takes off.
“They start with encouraging kids to socially transition and that’s marketed as completely harmless, completely reversible,” Simons said. “They will have parents use different pronouns and different names and all that. What happens then is you set that child on that train, that conveyor belt where it just keeps amping up. Once a child gets on that and the whole family has bought into it — that they are the opposite sex, the school and everything — it’s really hard for someone to put a stop to that, especially a child. To say, ‘I changed my mind, it’s a phase, natural progression of things.’”
Studies show that 98 percent of boys and 88 percent of girls who experience some form of gender dysphoria naturally outgrow it if they’re allowed to go through puberty and they have support.
“By changing that, by not supporting them to feel comfortable in their biological sex, by convincing them they are in the wrong body and all that, by even socially affirming at that young age it becomes dangerous because it just progresses for most of these kids,” Simons said.
The fact the transgender industry is carrying out these treatments on kids without any evidence or research showing it is beneficial is “really scary” for Simons. Studies are coming out of Sweden and other countries that track the treatments better than America and they are showing worse outcomes, Simons warns.
“That’s why in the UK they closed their transgender clinic for children,” she said. “They have this big study and found these kids were not doing better. UK, Sweden, Finland, France — they’ve put a pause on their programs because of the lack of research and even evidence that it is harmful.”
According to Simons the United States and most of the world based the treatments on the Dutch Protocol. She said this was a couple of studies on protocol made for treating gender dysphoria. But in 2021 it was revealed there were flaws with the study.
“Even the authors who wrote the study said this should not be used to treat adolescents,” Simons said. “It was written at a time when we didn’t practice evidence-based medicine. These are experimental treatments. These are not approved by the FDA the way the medicines are used and these surgeries. With the pausing that is happening in Europe and the closing of these clinics, with the total discreditation of the Dutch Protocol, (other medical groups) kind of reiterate themselves and give each other credibility, but really when you pull back the layers, they’re not based on anything with evidence-based medicine, which is really scary. We don’t do anything else in medicine that way.”
Simons said there is a group of doctors who she believes have bought into the treatments and surgeries despite seeing the science, but for the “vast majority” of pediatricians they just put their nose down, do their job and do what they’re told.
“Even some who have started to question it, even just question it — not say it’s wrong but maybe suggest to look into it — they are threatened,” Simons said.
She received a call from a member a couple of weeks ago who was taken into the hospital administrator’s office and reprimanded for not using the right pronouns.
“He wasn’t even saying anything offensive,” Simons said. “He wasn’t embracing the transgender culture at the hospital. There’s a lot of pediatricians especially who are just simply afraid to speak out because it’s not worth losing their livelihood.”
But a pediatrician’s job is to do what is best for children and speak up for the integrity of medicine.
“If not us, then who,” Simons asked. “I do think there are so many silently waiting. There will be a tipping point. If people hear me talking about it and other doctors speaking out, they’ll feel the courage to speak out. That’s the other part of this initiative — speak out for the truth.”
The website features a Frequently Asked Questions section and includes fact sheets about puberty blockers in a way that doesn’t require a doctor’s background to understand.
“Most of these parents understand at a commonsense level that this doesn’t make sense, but they’ve been given this fear by people that they trust — pediatricians and other doctors — saying if they don’t support their child and their desire to be the opposite sex they’re going to commit suicide,” Simons said. “And that’s another completely fabricated statistic — that if they don’t support this child and their opposite sex life, then they’re going to kill themselves. There’s no evidence to support that but that’s what is thrown at parents and the parent will just do anything to save their child.”
However, the information offered through the Biological Integrity initiative can help parents and physicians truly save children.
Along with the information, Simons said it is important for a child struggling with gender dysphoria to receive counseling.
“A lot of kids suffering from gender dysphoria have underlying issues — anxiety, depression, and for a lot of them, they’ve had abuse or some traumatic event,” she said. “As I mentioned, a high percentage of these kids have autism. It’s really important that these kids get the mental health care that they need to address those issues, which are the much bigger picture than gender dysphoria. Even more so than a medical doctor, they need a good therapist.”
The website includes links to find therapists who are experienced and will not “just put the child on the transition train.”
Yet some states, cities and counties are attempting to ban counseling services that will not affirm confusion when it comes to gender identity. And that is why ACPeds also has a health care conscience rights initiative as well.
“Not only are some states becoming sanctuary states and allowing these harmful procedures to happen, they are preventing the very care that these kids need — counseling,” Simons said. “Even to the effect of threatening these counselors and doctors licenses. We’ve spoken out at the legislative level, we’ve spoken out in comments the administration is trying to put forth with regulations that restrict our rights of health care conscience, we’re also fighting on that front. It’s just, it’s hard to believe that it’s actually happening like this, and especially in this country.”
Simons finished by predicting the practice of sex-change treatments and surgeries on kids will end eventually.
“It can sound hopeless and (seem like) we’re up against Goliath, but I can tell you there are good people fighting, there are strong people fighting this,” she said. “It’s all truth, it’s all based on evidence and science. It’s just a matter of time before the tides really turn and we’re not dealing with this anymore. I’m very hopeful, it just cannot come fast enough.”
