Dear Editor,

It鈥檚 telling that a judge who ruled that a transgender teen can proceed with hormone treatments despite his fathers objections got his evidence from the teen鈥檚 doctors, and says at the outset of the judgment that the teen is a 鈥渢ransgender boy who was assigned female at birth鈥� and describes gender dysphoria as distress someone experiences 鈥渁s a result of the gender they were assigned at birth.鈥�

This assumes that the problem is with the teen鈥檚 body, which we have no reason to believe is not a healthy, female body. The teen is not female because she was 鈥渁ssigned female at birth,鈥� rather she was recognized as female at birth, an objective, biological fact.

The teen told the court that she feels she is a boy trapped in a girl鈥檚 body. But she does not know what it is to be a boy. She has never been and can never become male. She can only, with modern medical technology, appear more masculine.

This is something that many trans people have come to realize, with great pain and incredible regret, after a 鈥渢ransition鈥� 鈥� that you cannot truly become the opposite sex.

Gender dysphoria is a real medical condition, but the medical response on display, in this case, is setting children up for a lifetime of irreversible trauma.

Children with gender dysphoria need our love and support. But encouraging them to undergo irreversible surgeries and chemical alterations to the body based on the turbulent feelings they are experiencing during puberty is doing a disservice to these children.

Sheila Van Delft, 91原创