The Health and Human Services committee of the South Dakota House killed a bill that would have protected the right of parents to refuse to consent to medical or psychological treatment for a child suffering from gender dysphoria if the treatment “would induce, confirm, or promote the child’s belief that the child’s sex or gender identity is different from the child’s sex presented at birth.” Proposed House Bill 1205 also provided that “no public authority or official of this state may take any adverse action against a parent for exercising this right.”
That such a simple affirmation of parental rights could not clear a committee in this solidly red state should terrify parents, as it lays bare transgender activists’ plan: use the government to force parents to affirm a false sex for their child, agree to hormone blockers, and accept a transition to their son or daughter’s preferred gender. If parents refuse? Removal of the child from the family, due to alleged medical neglect.
We are already seeing the first two waves of this strategy, according to Dr. Michelle Cretella, executive director of the American College of Pediatricians. The first wave began in 2016 in the divorce and child custody setting, Cretella explained.
“I first began hearing from distraught parents in this situation in 2016 and in 2017, I heard from seven families in as many different states in this situation. In all but one case the child was a 15 year-old girl who never had any sexual identity confusion prior to her parent’s divorce,” Cretella said. “The other case involved 4-year-old triplet boys whose mother desperately wanted a girl. The mother was a psychologist herself and had cross-dressed one of the boys for two years, insisting that it was his idea. In each of the seven cases the guardian ad litems and judges removed the right to medical consent and/or custody from the parent who objected to transition with puberty blockers and hormones.”
The Second Wave
We have since moved on to the second wave, Cretella told The Federalist. “The second wave is going on now, with emergency room staff, therapists, or doctors reporting parents to Child Protective Services who refuse to affirm their child’s false gender.”
More recently, Cretella explains, she has heard from two sets of parents who were accused of being “abusive parents” for refusing to consent to hormone treatments for their teen children. In one case, the parents sought treatment for their son’s suicidal depression. Their son was adopted out of an abusive family, had a long history of depression and anxiety, had been in therapy in the past, was on medications, and never had any sign of gender dysphoria.
Nevertheless, the emergency room physician at the children’s hospital, after interviewing him alone, diagnosed him as “definitely transgender because he insists that he is and that [the parents’] lack of acceptance is causing his suicidal depression. He should be started on puberty blockers and estrogen to transition.”
This was the first time the 14-year-old boy had ever said such a thing, Cretella noted, yet from this one ER visit, his parents had to fight with the children’s hospital for months against allegations of being “abusive and unsupportive” parents. The family finally found a therapist who helped them set boundaries with their son, and his complaints of feeling trapped in the wrong body have stopped. Even with this outcome, attorneys told the parents they could not sue because experts would side with the ER physician, who was following the “standard of care” guidelines.
The third wave will be here soon, according to Cretella, when schools trigger investigations into parents of children suffering from gender dysphoria, by reporting children “afraid to come out to their parents as their authentic selves.” We can see this wave forming from the multitude of school protocols in the news, such as allowing students from K-12 to choose their gender identity.
The end goal is the same, Cretella said: “removal of a child based on accusations of medical neglect.”