Commentary by Susan Brinkmann, OCDS

What should come as no surprise to anyone, the new politically correct campaign for transgender rights has resulted in introducing so many more children to the concept of gender fluidity that the UK is now reporting a 1000 percent increase in cases of “gender confusion.”

Charisma News is reporting on statistics recently released by the National Health Service’s (NHS) Gender Identity Disorder Service, thanks to a freedom of information request by a media outlet, which reportedly treated 1,013 children between April and December of 2015. In 2010, just 97 cases were recorded.

Rather than asking the logical question about whether or not increased focus on the latest cause celebre might actually be introducing the idea to children, the NHS is bowing to the gods of political correctness and is busily gearing up to provide hormone-blocking treatments at additional facilities.

This is in spite of numerous studies suggesting that feelings of gender confusion in young children are often temporary.

For instance, Dr. Paul McHugh, the former psychiatrist in chief at the prestigious Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore tracked children experiencing gender confusion at Vanderbilt University and London’s Portman Clinic and found that 70 to 80 percent “spontaneously lost those feelings” as they grew.

Activist groups continue to disregard science and reason and are pushing the issue full steam. For example, one national “gender identity” activist group named Mermaids is gleefully claiming that up to 80 primary school age children a year are expressing a desire to “change” their gender.

Not everyone sees this as good news.

Andrea Williams, chief executive of Christian Concern, says children experiencing gender confusion should be treated with respect – but according to God’s design and sound science.

“When children express confusion like this, we need to be affirming their God-given identity and helping them to understand their birth gender. It is clear from this group’s comments that many children are simply following the lead of others, without truly understanding the implications,” Williams said.

“If we allow this trend to grow unchecked, we could see many children making decisions they could regret later on.”

She’s not the only one warning that we might be manufacturing our own problems.

In this article by Margaret Wente, she interviewed Dr. Ken Zucker, one of the world’s foremost authorities on gender identity issues in children and adolescents who heads the Gender Identity Service at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto.

Zucker, who has worked with hundreds of confused children, was asked why he believes there are so many more cases of gender disorder today than there were even 10 years ago.

“The No. 1 factor is the Internet,” he said. “If you’re struggling to find out where you fit, the Internet is filled with things about gender dysphoria.”

Another member of his team, Dr. Hayley Wood, said that when she asks children where they first learned about gender dysphoria, some will say things like, “Me and mom watched Oprah.”

Wente also spoke with Alice Dreger, a bioethicist and professor at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago and a strong supporter of transgender rights, who thinks the pendulum has swung much too far in the wrong direction.

Dreger blames the dramatic change in social norms and political correctness for the increase in gender dysphoria cases. It’s now fashionable to embrace a “diverse” child. she says, and parents who do so “are socially rewarded as wonderful and accepting.” But parents who take a more cautious approach are labeled as “unaccepting” or “conservative.”

Dreger is also highly critical of what she calls the “hasty clinics” springing up everywhere which are only too happy to help a kid transition right away.

Wentz rightly concludes: “It’s a mark of social progress that we are increasingly willing to accept people on their terms, for who they are. But maybe we’re manufacturing more problems than we’re solving. If we really want to help people, we should remember the old rule: First, do no harm.”

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