Epidemic of Abuse: ‘Transgenderism’ is Rampant Among American Children
By Liberty Counsel Staff
American children are identifying as “transgender” in epidemic proportions as more than 300,000 children between 13-17 years old identified as such, according to a 2022 report. More than just a statistic, each one of these 300,000 individuals is a child made in the image of God who deserves to be protected from this harm.
For children aged 6-17, “gender dysphoria diagnosis” reportedly increased 178% from 2017-2021 as puberty blockers and cross-sex hormone prescriptions more than doubled, and “top surgeries” — breast implantations and mastectomies — increased by more than 18% during this period.
American children are physically maiming and harming their body at the hands of medical professionals who took an oath to “do no harm.”
A report from the America First Policy Institute (AFPI) reveals just how pervasive this destructive ideology has become among American adolescents, leading many in the younger generation astray — the 13-17-year-old age group makes up 20% of those who identify as “transgender” despite comprising only 8% of the American population.
To understand how deep-rooted this is, data from the Stop the Harm database (based on insurance data between the years of 2017-2023) reveals:
13,994 gender-based medical interventions on children.
5,747 “sex change” surgeries on children.
62,682 hormone and puberty blocker prescriptions written for 8,570 children.
This generated close to $120 million in revenue — all from experimental, damaging “transgender” medical interventions on minors. Make no mistake — this is child abuse.
So, how did we get here?
Christopher Schorr, director of the Higher Education Reform Initiative and author of the AFPI report, notes that “it is adults (activists and politicians) who sow the seeds of transgender identification by pushing gender ideology on impressionable children, including in classrooms around the country (Meyer, 2007; Luhmann, 2012; Schorr, 2024). It is adults—specifically, men—who dress as hyper-sexualized caricatures of women and recruit children to publicly participate in their fetishes (Rufo, 2022). It is adults who implement policies allowing boys into girls’ sports and intimate facilities and who mandate the use of so-called “preferred pronouns” (Pidluzny, 2023a; Hardin, 2024). It is adults, not children, who create the online social media platforms and pornographic content that fuels the transgender social contagion (Littman, 2021; Gluck, 2023).”
He observed that “these reckless medical interventions are associated with serious and irreparable harm” and that "the side effects of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones include impotence, sterility, and physical health complications ranging from stunted growth to cancer (Schwartz, 2021).”
“Notwithstanding claims to the contrary by transgender activists, these changes are often permanent (National Health Service, 2020). Sex-reassignment surgeries are worse still. Amputating healthy body parts because confused children believe doing so will ease their anxiety is reckless and cruel.”
The effects of so-called “treatment” or “gender-affirming care” is likely far worse, given that data on long-term outcomes is limited.
It’s up to lawmakers and leaders — but ultimately parents — to protect the vulnerable from the predation of “transgenderism” and the evils of the LGBTQ agenda.
At least 27 states — Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming — protect children from such procedures and interventions.
Make Common Sense Common Again
On the 1960s-era The Andy Griffith Show, Mayberry Sheriff Andy Taylor’s young son, Opie, befriends a hobo who begins to negatively influence his thinking and behavior.
When the hobo tells Andy he should just let his son decide how to live his life, Andy wisely responds, “No, I’m afraid it don’t work that way. You can’t let a young’n decide for himself. He’ll grab at the first flashy thing with shiny ribbons on it. Then, when he finds out there’s a hook in it, it’s too late. Wrong ideas come packaged with so much glitter that it’s hard to convince them that other things might be better in the long run. All a parent can do is say ‘Wait’ and ‘Trust me’ and try to keep temptation away.”
If more parents took the wise Mayberry sheriff’s advice and protected their children from deception, fewer children would be victims of this epidemic of child abuse.
Society should not allow anyone, but especially a child, to permanently mutilate his or her body based on the lie that gender is “fluid” and, therefore, can change.
As comedian and commentator Bill Maher said, “If kids knew what they wanted to be at age eight, the world would be filled with cowboys and princesses. I wanted to be a pirate, thank God nobody took me seriously and scheduled me for eye removal and peg leg surgery.”
Common sense needs to become more common. It’s up to courageous men and women to boldly stand for sanity and the protection of the vulnerable — and for what was considered common up until the past decade.
Radical gender ideology must be completely rooted out from the health care industry and from government schools in order to protect children.
All states need to take a stand against this cruel ideology and enact legislation that puts a stop to harming children with these barbaric medical procedures.