The practice of sexually ‘transitioning’ children will be remembered as one of the “greatest ethical scandals in the history of medicine,” a report commissioned by French senators stated.
A landmark report produced at the behest of the centre-right Les Républicains in the French Senate found that the medical industry embarked upon the practice of giving children life-altering transgender treatments with little evidence of its effectiveness while ignoring the side effects.
The report found that while parents were often pressured by doctors to put their children on puberty-blocking drugs to prevent suicide, there is little proof that this course of action has any better outcomes for the child.
The head of the plastic surgery department at the Georges-Pompidou hospital in Paris, Laurent Lantieri told the report that there was “no evidence” that sex changes for children improved their quality of life because “there are obviously no randomized trials”.
Meanwhile, there was a prevalence of depression and other mental illnesses among children seeking to change their gender. The report found that 70 per cent of those seeking gender reassignment had “anxiety-depressive disorders” and 30 per cent had previously suffered some form of trauma, typically sexual abuse. Most disturbingly, 30 per cent of children seeking to change their gender were found to have been autistic, although they were often undiagnosed.
The evidence of the safety of prescribing puberty blockers to children was also “based on very fragile bases”, the report noted, pointing out that the justification for their administration in France was based on the so-called “Dutch Protocol” developed in the Netherlands two decades ago.
The protocol claimed that the effects of puberty-blocking drugs given to children as young as 12 years old were reversible. Yet, the French report said that this was not trustworthy, given that it was only based on the observation of 54 patients and was funded, in part, by Ferring Pharmaceuticals, a firm which produces puberty-blocking drugs.
Conversely, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, and the United Kingdom have all begun to restrict the use of puberty blockers given their side effects and often life-long impacts, which the report said indicated that the world is at a “turning point” on transgenderism.
The report argued that much of the rise in gender transitioning has been a byproduct of it becoming “fashionable” on social media and elsewhere, noting that hospital stays for transgender purposes increased three-fold from 2011 to 2020 in France, from 536 to 1,615. While just four surgeons in France were performing vaginoplasties in 2022, there are now at least 30.
Senator Jacqueline Eustache-Brinio, who led the study, went on to warn that there is “wokism in all of this,” telling Valleurs Actuelles on Friday: “When we realize that certain health professionals or researchers no longer talk about men and women, that they have completely appropriated the woke dialectic by talking about sex assigned at birth, it’s scary. I say to myself, we have to stop with these delusions.”
Concluding the report, the Les Républicains senator wrote: “Ultimately, there is every reason to believe that youth gender transition will be considered one of the greatest ethical scandals in the history of medicine. An ethical scandal approved by the medical profession, schools, universities, media and policies.”
Following the publication of the report and its submission to the French senate this week, the Les Républicains said that they plan on introducing legislation to restrict transgender treatments to children, banning anyone under the age of 18 from having sex change surgeries or from being prescribed cross-sex hormones, particularly puberty-blocking drugs, arguing that children do not have the capability to consent to life-altering decisions.
“I have nothing against minorities,” Senator Eustache-Brinio said, “Everyone has the right to live as they want, but they must not impose their points of view, their desires and their wishes on a majority or the vast majority of people. Trans people have always existed in all societies, what we want is the protection of minors and helping parents to resist social pressure. It is not supporting a child towards a transgender identity that will make them feel better.”