Hate groups unite to denigrate gender affirmation

Quackpot: Michelle Cretella prostitutes her medical training in an attempt to conform medical science to the teachings of the Catholic Church. That makes her a danger to children and their parents.

What do American Family Association and American College of Pediatricians have in common? Aside from being at the fringes of conservative Christianity, both are deemed hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Both groups devote much of their resources towards attempts to conform the real world to their religious beliefs.

The latest effort to do so is titled: Affirmation isn't helping. That bit of genius appears on AFA's phony news blog. Written by Charlie Butts it is at odds with the overwhelming consensus of medical science when it comes to the treatment of children with gender dysphoria. Mr. Butts might be a wiz with the New Testament but he knows nothing about medicine or science.

According to the research, children with gender dysphoria who are allowed to identify with their gender have levels of stress (anxiety and depression) comparable to the general population. Children who are not permitted to affirm their gender are at considerable risk for self-harm.

So my question for Mr. Butts and his incurious colleagues is this: How many kids need to suffer because you are incapable of separating your faith from science? I doubt that Butts knows the difference between the two.

Enter Michelle Cretella, Defender of the Faith©:

Butts writes:

A spokesperson for the American College of Pediatrics says a new study of transgender youth is leaving a false impression of the best way to deal with their confusion.

A University of Texas study published in the Journal of Adolescent Health suggests the remedy is to coddle the youngsters and affirm their chosen gender identity to reduce the impact of their lifestyle on their mental health as well as the suicide rate. But Dr. Michelle Cretella of the American College of Pediatricians suggests that is backward thinking.

It is Cretella who is confused. Cretella is not a researcher. Cretella promotes the pseudoscience of conversion therapy because it provides a means of conforming medicine to the teachings of the Catholic Church. Conversion or reparative therapy doesn't turn gay people straight and it cannot change the gender of people with gender dysphoria. Cretella is confused as to the difference between a faith-driven belief system and evidentiary science.

Cretella has not been a licensed physician in several years. That means that her continuing education requirements no longer exist. For her to suggest that peer-reviewed research published to a prominent scholarly journal is backward thinking is so absurd as to be comical. Moreover, she is begging the question when she asserts that gender affirmation is some form of coddling. Then she further posits that a medical condition is a lifestyle (re-tooled anti-gay rhetoric). All this unscientific blather designed to be in agreement with the Vatican palace eunuchs awkwardly tortures logic and common sense.

"It's like a honeymoon period," she compares. "But when you get ten years out from surgery, all the mental health problems that they had before escalate."

And after following those individuals out 30 years, the suicide rate is almost 20 times greater than that of the normal population.

She doesn't know any of that and the suicide rates are dependent upon a number of factors including family support:

Respondents who experienced rejection by family and friends, discrimination, victimization, or violence had elevated prevalence of suicide attempts, such as those who experienced the following:

— Family chose not to speak/spend time with them: 57%
— Discrimination, victimization, or violence at school, at work, and when accessing health care

• Harassed or bullied at school (any level): 50-54%
• Experienced discrimination or harassment at work: 50-59%
• Doctor or health care provider refused to treat them: 60%
• Suffered physical or sexual violence:

— At work: 64-65%
— At school (any level): 63-78%

— Discrimination, victimization, or violence by law enforcement

• Disrespected or harassed by law enforcement officers: 57-61%
• Suffered physical or sexual violence: By law enforcement officers: 60-70

— Experienced homelessness: 69%

When it comes to transgender suicide, Cretella is a carrier. She is far more concerned with Church dogma than the well-being of transgender people. But she has a solution:

So Dr. Cretella suggests lying to youngsters who identify as transgender and affirming their gender confusion does not produce the good results the Texas study claims. She also contends that what transgenders need regardless of age is counseling from trained mental health professionals to resolve the underlying issues that have caused their confusion.

Cretella never — never — cites any research to support her claims. She cannot. There is no cure for gender dysphoria. There is no intervention known to medical science that addresses the condition. Cretella is not a psychiatrist. She has received no training in the treatment of children with gender dysphoria. She is trying to influence parents in defense of Church dogma. That makes Cretella a prostitute.

Remove the societal anxiety and the incongruence of gender and sex is just a natural variant of human sexuality. It only produces a discomfort (or dysphoria) because of societal pressure. Eventually that will change. Meanwhile, we need to try to limit the damage caused by religious zealots.

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