Urgent Request to the US Surgeon General: Protect Young People from Irreversible Medical Harm

I was diagnosed with gender identity disorder as a 15-year-old boy in 2001, and underwent SRS three years later at age 18. When I began visiting a gender therapist I felt deeply convinced that I was inwardly female in some way, in my identity, my soul, or my brain. This female gender identity arose suddenly, but I was absolutely persistent in maintaining that I was truly female. My diagnosis was confirmed by two therapists, one of whom had seen me for many years starting from childhood, the second of whom oversaw the period of my transition, and who had many transgender clients and ran group sessions for them. My diagnosis was supported also by the opinion of my endocrinologist, whose practice also served many transgender patients. I had often wished to be a girl through my childhood, but any dysphoria I might have felt as a child was not too pronounced because gender roles were not pushed too harshly on me. I began to experience severe gender dysphoria beginning at age 14, and began to make gender-nonconforming fashion choices, though these were limited to makeup and grooming, rather than wearing girls' clothing. My choices disturbed my mother, who demanded explanations for my behavior until she teased out the part of me that wished to become a girl, and then told me she had always known, had seen me as a girl when I was an infant, and began buying clothing and accessories to affirm my new identity, despite having made me feel ashamed of much milder forms of gender-nonconforming behavior. Before she chose to affirm cross-gender identity, I was capable of understanding myself as someone who was not a girl, but who wanted to be a girl, and I was attempting to deal with my gender dysphoria on my own terms, as best I could. After she affirmed my cross-gender identity and introduced me to the ideas of transgender (at the time it was still called transsexual) culture, I never backed down from it, and felt I had to pursue hormones and surgery in order to fix my faulty

With so many detransitioning, how can these "treatments" be considered effective? One cannot change their biological sex, these children need mental health treatment, not experimental surgery and drugs.

If children are not protected from disfiguring surgery and chemicals, the United States will be remembered in history as the country who hated and destroyed their children.

The world needs to stop sacrificing children's futures on the altar of political correctness.

Healthy children are being put on a medical pathway into a lifetime of medication and surgical procedures which cause irreversible changes to their bodies and may increase health problems as they get older - links to osteoporosis for puberty blockers and increased risk of heart attacks or strokes for Testosterone. There should be more psychological help for these children not surgeries especially for under 18s. Please investigate this

Open your eyes to what is happening to our children. It is like a horror story. People need to go through puberty for their brains to fully develop. There needs to be more research on the lifelong medical effects of what is being done to minors and then as adults they can make informed decisions.

Alcohol, marriage, voting all after 18. Why not this. When children reach their majority.

This should be a crime to mutilate a child who does not understand what sex it with drugs and surgery.

We are rushing to irrevocable, drastic physical solutions to an emotional and psychological condition. It's like giving liposuction to an anorexic. We need to offer loving treatment that helps the patient, not immediate agreement to a self-destructive path.

Please stop the lies and medical malpractice of hurting these young people

Stop the mutilation of physically healthy youngsters. Start addressing culturally based MH issues.

Torture is a good way to describe changing youths biological makeup to something the parents think is right.

What are we doing to our children?

Stop this child abuse

Please look into this!

Please back science

Please don't let these children be harmed.

As grandmother in a relatively small community I have ran into other grandmothers whom like myself have granddaughters that believe themselves to be transgender. After living decades of seeing contagious ideologies that young girls have faced it is devastating to us that physicians & therapists are readily affirming these young with life altering hormones and surgeries! Please hear our pleas Dr. Adams and stop these dangerous practices being done to our children & young adults, issue a call to action. First do no harm to our grandchildren!

"Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea." - Jesus Christ, King of Kings and Lord of Lords, before whom every knee will one day bow, and every tongue confess that He is Lord before giving an account of the life we lived on this earth.

Protect Young People from Irreversible Medical Harm, let them decide when they grow and be adult.