‘Gender-Affirming’ Pediatricians Help Kill Maine Bill to Prohibit Children’s Social Transition at School Without Parental Consent

With the help of pediatricians from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), Democrats in the Maine House and Senate killed a bill Friday that would have prohibited public school staff from helping children to socially transition to another gender by allowing them to use new names and pronouns without written consent from parents.

LD 678 was defeated by house Democrats by a vote of 76-52, and by senate Democrats, 20-12.

As The Maine Wire reported Monday, two doctors from AAP testified in opposition to the bill.

Pediatric endocrinologist Dr. Mahmuda Ahmed testified that most children and teens who live with parents who do not affirm their child’s newly claimed gender identity are not safe at home.

“[C]onfidentiality and independent consent is extremely important for adolescent health and safety,” Ahmed said. “Less than 40% of LGBTQ adolescents live in LGBTQ-affirming homes. These youth are unable to have supportive environments at home and can experience this only at school.”

Ahmed continued regarding “transgender student rights”:

The Legal Guidance on Transgender Student Rights clearly outlines that trans-youth students have equal rights to educational opportunities, the right to transition at school with expression of said gender and the right not to be compelled to provide personal or medical information to school officials. It also outlines that school officials must not disclose personal information about the transgender student without the student’s consent.

“Students have the right to control the disclosure of the highly personal and confidential information from others including other students, parents/guardians, or other school personnel,” he added, expressing concern that among the “unsafe situations” gender dysphoric children might be exposed to at home is “attempted conversion.”

“The process towards familial acceptance and understanding can be challenging and unfortunately parental acceptance is not always attained,” Ahmed testified.

However, according to a study published at AAP’s own journal Pediatrics, young children who transition to a new gender with social changes — taking on new names, pronouns, haircuts and clothing — are likely to continue identifying as that gender five years later.

“[T]ransgender youth who socially transitioned at early ages continued to identify that way,” the study’s authors concluded.

“During this tumultuous period, students can still live in their affirmed gender with fully reversible social transition,” Ahmed nevertheless said, adding the period of social transition in school allows “children to choose their affirmed name and pronouns in the safety of their school without requiring parental permission.”

The AAP’s Dr. Rosamund Davis also echoed many of Ahmed’s statements, including the notion that “gender affirmation” is widely supported by doctors.

“Given that gender affirming care (from medical treatment to social support) is recommended by medical societies, it would be gravely misguided for a bill written by a lay person to be signed in to law when it goes against the recommendations made by medical professionals and their societies,” Davis said.

However, British pediatrician Dr. Hilary Cass, whose review of the National Health Service England’s “gender-affirming care” model for young people led to its replacement by a holistic model of appropriate care that emphasizes mental health assessment and treatment, especially noted about social transition that it is not a “neutral act” and could have “significant effects” in terms of “psychological functioning.”

In a recent piece at The Tablet, Leon Sapir also wrote about events in Finland to reverse that nation’s course on gender transition.

“Gender self-identification, or social transition, in youth is not a mere clerical ‘formality,’” Sapir noted. “In Finnish gender specialist Dr. [Riittakerttu] Kaltiala’s words, ‘it’s a message saying that this is the right path for you.’”

Sapir wrote:

Kaltiala thus concurs with NHS England, which recently noted that social transition—using a child’s preferred name and pronouns—is “not a neutral act” but rather one that can solidify what is otherwise likely to be a passing phase into a more permanent state of mind, or “identity,” and put the minor on a path to drugs and surgeries.

Similarly, a study by James S. Morandini et al, published in April at Archives of Sexual Behavior, found “no significant effects of social transition or name change on mental health status relative to control groups,” an outcome that suggests social transition is not likely to improve the mental health of gender dysphoric children or teens.

Maine Republican lawmakers voiced their support for the parental consent bill in testimony heard in May as well.

“This bill is presented to protect the rights of parents to be the sole authority in the lives of their children,” said state Rep. Katrina Smith (R-Palermo) during testimony in support of the measure. “This bill does not say that these name or pronoun changes cannot go forward, but merely that a parent must be informed and approve of any requests for changes.”

Similarly, State Representative Reagan L. Paul (R-Winterport) also testified:

Parents are labeled as unsupportive and potentially dangerous when they do not go along with affirming transgender feelings. A parent would be arrested for affirming their anorexic child’s feelings. This is no different. Schools should not be working secretively and at odds with parents.

“This bill does not deny children the ability to be called something other than their name or preferred pronoun, it simply puts the power back where it belongs, in the hands of the parents,” Paul said.

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Susan Berry, PhD, is national education editor at The Star News Network. Email tips to [email protected]
Photo “Teacher and Students” by Karolina Grabowska.