'Our Side Has Science. Their Side Has Anecdotes.'
March 04, 2020
Nobody said puberty was easy.
But it is necessary, Dr. Quentin Van Meter told Alabama legislators. He's practiced medicine for decades and, like a lot of doctors, can't believe that people are willing to throw pediatric science out the window just to satisfy a handful of transgender activists.
After so many years treating kids, he says, it really is "hard to swallow."
And it's basically come out of nowhere.
On "Washington Watch" Tuesday, I talked to Dr. Van Meter about how society has embraced this agenda almost overnight.
Twenty years ago, when I was in the Louisiana legislature serving on the Health and Welfare Committee, if you'd have put a measure in front of me protecting underage kids from transgender surgery and hormones, I'd have fallen out of my chair.
Dr. Van Meter, who's practiced pediatric endocrinology for 46 years, has never seen anything like it.
"There's no reason behind [it] other than it's sort of a train rolling on a track very fast at warp speed."
It used to be, he said, that gender confusion affected about six out of 100,000 adult males and three out of 100,000 adult females.
"It's now estimated," Van Meter explained, "to be in 1.5 percent of the population of kids across the country today."
"It's sort of a cult phenomenon," he insisted, fueled by "Internet access and hysteria.
Now, a child who's "miserable in middle school or [adolescence] for any number of reasons we were all miserable when we grew up" are being given "bright, shiny object that promises them extensive amounts of happiness and success -- when in truth, that's not what it really is.
So it's a shiny object that draws attention and draws these kids into a state of making decisions that they should not be able to make."
Van Meter made that argument in Alabama, one of the many states considering a ban on gender reassignment surgery and hormones for kids.
Together with FRC's Peter Sprigg, he was pleased with the reaction to the testimony.
"Our side really presented beautiful science.
Their side presented anecdotes.
And [the] legislators could see that clearly.
The science is on the side of this issue." In fact, he went on:
"There is no science at all that says [transgender treatment for children] is safe or effective over the long run because we haven't been doing it long enough, and there are no control groups. This is an experiment on children without any ethical framework in which to do it -- something that's an anathema to those of us that do clinical research and are very careful about clinical practices that protect our patients from experimentation."
But unfortunately, he warns, this campaign to lock kids into a lifetime of pain and misery has tremendous financial backing.
"The LGBT community has embraced this, even when it's essentially harmful to those who might end up being same-sex attracted instead of transgender.
It's almost as if this is an alternate track that has medical and surgical harms attached to it that are just unfathomable in terms of the outcomes.
And so we're compounding the injury... It's the strangest coalition, but it is very powerful."
Your voice, fortunately, is just as powerful.
If you live in a state that's considering protections like Alabama's, make sure to weigh in.
South Carolina, Florida, Missouri, Ohio, Illinois, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Kentucky, Utah, and Georgia are all racing to respond to the cult that's destroying our kids.
For more information on the truth behind the debate taking America by storm, check out FRC's "Understanding and Responding to the Transgender Movement."
Or to study up on what could be happening in your child's classroom, be sure to read, "A Parent's Guide to the Transgender Movement in Education."
Tony Perkins's Washington Update is written with the aid of FRC Action senior writers.
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