WoLF Testifies In Support of Tennessee Bills to Protect Children
Dr. Mahri Irvine, WoLF’s Executive Director, submitted written testimony in support of TN HB 2835 and SB 2696, two bills that would enact the “Youth Health Protection Act.” These bills provide a mechanism to protect children from unnecessary, life-altering, and permanent medical interventions that are frequently promoted by gender ideology activists.
These two bills provide an extensive list of the many types of unnecessary, permanent, and/or life-altering medical procedures and interventions that many minors are now convinced that they “need” to have. They place the burden of responsibility on medical professionals and hold them accountable for causing harm to children and adolescents. The bills would make it unlawful for individuals to engage in practices (including surgeries and the provision of puberty-blockers) that would “facilitate the minor's desire to present or appear in a manner that is inconsistent with the minor's sex.” Medical professionals would also be subject to civil penalties of up to $1,000 per occurrence of engaging in practices prohibited by the bills. The bills also provide protection for whistleblowers who report unnecessary medical procedures on minors.
Unnecessary surgeries, puberty-blocking medications, cross-sex hormones, the removal of healthy body parts, and other cosmetic surgical procedures on young people have harmful, long-lasting, and often permanent effects. Children are affected for the rest of their lives when medical professionals make decisions about removing their healthy body parts, introducing unnatural levels of hormones into their bodies, or sterilizing them. Medical professionals have the power to make profound, life-altering decisions about children’s bodies, long-term health, and fertility.
WoLF receives a number of submissions from adults who are concerned about their children being harmed by the social contagion of gender ideology and unnecessary medical treatments that are now being touted as “gender affirming.” Read about parents’ concerns here.
Medical professionals should absolutely be held accountable when they encourage, promote, and/or provide unnecessary, permanent, and life-altering medical interventions to children.
However, in its written testimony, WoLF urged Tennessee legislators to carefully consider the complex challenges facing many medical professionals (including mental health professionals) who have been encouraged and even pressured to view “gender affirming” treatments as the only appropriate responses for minors who might be gender dysphoric or for minors who identify as “transgender, non-binary, etc.”
Dr. Irvine explained that medical professionals may be placed between “a rock and a hard place” when it comes to making decisions about how to respond to minors’ requests for surgeries, puberty-blockers, and other medical interventions, and urged Tennessee legislators to not simply assume that all healthcare providers are malicious. Many medical professionals are simply following advice and guidance given to them by their colleagues, mentors, and professional associations. “Gender affirming” treatments are now often considered mainstream or even “best practice,” despite a clear lack of evidence to support those claims.