Judge blocks Trump's order against medical mutilation for kids
A federal judge has temporarily blocked President Donald Trump’s executive order protecting children from medical mutilation procedures.
Biden-appointed US District Judge Brendan Hurson on Thursday issued an injunction against the order, which prohibits the federal government from supporting or funding any programs or institutions that subject children to puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, or genital surgeries. Evidence shows that these procedures, referred to by ethical doctors as medical mutilation, are known to cause irreversible castration and sterility in addition to other harms like suicidality, heart disease, osteoporosis, and blood clots. Medical mutilation of minors has been banned in many countries, including the UK where citizens are arrested for criticizing gender ideology.
Gender activists base their support for medical mutilation on the debunked claim that gender dysphoric children who do not undergo such procedures are at higher risk of suicide. As many as 99% of children who are said to have gender dysphoria grow out of the condition. According to The Cass Review, the largest independent review of “gender-affirming care” to date, gender dysphoric kids are at no more risk of suicide than other children who suffer from mental health conditions.
Nevertheless, Judge Hurson perpetuated the suicide claim during the hearing.
“This is a population with an extremely higher rate for suicide, poverty, unemployment, drug addiction,” Hurson said, claiming it would be “horribly dangerous for anyone, for any care, but particularly for this extremely vulnerable population” to stop what amounts to medically mutilation of children.
The case was brought by the ACLU and Lambda Legal on behalf of “families of transgender teens,” according to Reuters.
"The president's orders sought to take away from transgender young people the very care that they, their families, and their medical providers all agree is best for them — medical care that is evidence-based and well-established," Omar Gonzalez-Pagan of Lambda Legal, one of the lawyers, said in a statement. "But these decisions are for patients, their families, and their doctors to make, not for politicians or Washington bureaucrats."
The Trump administration is expected to appeal the decision.
The executive order
Trump’s executive order, titled “Protecting Children From Chemical and Surgical Mutilation,” disqualifies medical institutions from receiving federal funds if they medically mutilate minors.
“This dangerous trend will be a stain on our Nation’s history, and it must end,” the EO said. “Countless children soon regret that they have been mutilated and begin to grasp the horrifying tragedy that they will never be able to conceive children of their own or nurture their children through breastfeeding. Moreover, these vulnerable youths’ medical bills may rise throughout their lifetimes, as they are often trapped with lifelong medical complications, a losing war with their own bodies, and, tragically, sterilization.
“Accordingly, it is the policy of the United States that it will not fund, sponsor, promote, assist, or support the so-called ‘transition’ of a child from one sex to another, and it will rigorously enforce all laws that prohibit or limit these destructive and life-altering procedures.”
The order also directs various federal agencies to take several measures against medical mutilation providers — including insurance companies — and ends “reliance on junk science.”
“The blatant harm done to children by chemical and surgical mutilation cloaks itself in medical necessity, spurred by guidance from the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), which lacks scientific integrity,” reads the EO. WPATH, which produced the “science” that has been used to justify medical mutilation, was outed last year as a controlled mouthpiece for the Biden administration’s agenda.
