Re: Innisfail councillor speaks out against 'anti-trans policy'
I, like councillor Messaros, would also like to see doors open regarding conversation and education about trans issues and Premier Danielle Smith’s newly proposed pro-child policies.
Clearly, these policies had to be introduced because medical practitioners have consistently disregarded their Hippocratic Oath to ‘first do no harm’.
They, along with other professionals entrusted with the safeguarding of children, have shown a complete lack of ethical duty, choosing instead to adhere to a belief system based on regressive, sexist stereotypes that tell children they may be born in the wrong body and that it’s possible to change their sex.
For brevities sake, I’ll take one aspect of Smith’s announcement, puberty blockers, where she stated, “For children aged 15 and under, puberty blockers and hormone therapies for the purposes of gender reassignment will not be permitted, with the exception of those who have already commenced treatment at this time.”
It baffles me that anyone could think blocking a child’s puberty for what is called ‘gender reassignment’ is a good idea, or that a child could even give informed medical consent to such a procedure.
Powerful puberty blocking drugs, like Lupron, have been previously used to treat precocious puberty, certain cancers, endometriosis and to chemically castrate sex-offenders.
These drugs are not approved to use on children for ‘gender reassignment’ and it is not known what the long-term health impacts are. This is why they are considered by many to be experimental.
It used to be that when the once rare child presented with severe distress over their biological sex, health professionals would take a ‘watchful waiting’ approach to care, often with exploratory therapy, as almost all these children had other health issues like autism, depression and eating disorders.
When allowed to go through puberty naturally, most of these children found that their distress just went away, and most of those children would realize they were simply gay.
Now we have laws in Canada which make the watchful waiting approach illegal and the trans-ing of kids who would very likely grow up to be gay if left alone, legal. This is modern-day conversion therapy.
As more information comes out about the adverse, irreversible effects of blockers in children, we are seeing countries like the UK, Sweden, Finland and Norway, taking a much more cautious approach to their use, allowing them only in comprehensive clinical research settings.
In 2022 the US Food and Drug Administration announced that blockers could cause brain swelling and vision loss.
And as more detransitioners are coming forward to tell their stories we are hearing harrowing details of teeth shedding enamel, brittle bones, brain fog, osteoporosis and depression.
In fact, the few small studies that have been done show that there is no psychological benefit to blocking a child’s healthy and necessary natural development.
Another concerning aspect of blockers is that virtually all children on blockers go on to cross-sex hormones, which very likely will lead to sterility, loss of sexual function, increased cancer risk and becoming a life-long medical patient. Yes, this ideology sterilizes children.
Although councillor Messaros didn’t give any details on the myths and stereotypes she believes are being perpetuated, I’m happy that she opened the door ‘a little bit’ regarding this medical, political, cultural and ideological syndrome that has swept the nation.
Leslie Cameron,
Water Valley
