Judge Steven R. Ohmer wrote in the August 25 decision that a challenge to the constitutionality of the law by pro-LGBT medical professionals and three families was ‘unpersuasive and not likely to succeed.’
ST. LOUIS, Missouri (LifeSiteNews) — Last week, a circuit court judge in Missouri denied an injunction request filed by pro-LGBT individuals and groups, ruling that the state’s ban on child “sex changes” is constitutional.
The case involved SB 49, SB 236 and SB 164, which were later combined into SB 49, also known as the “Missouri Save Adolescents from Experimentation (SAFE) Act.” The bill was signed into law by Republican Gov. Mike Parson on June 7 and effectively prohibits all medical intervention for gender confused minors – including puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and surgeries – as well as banning the use of state funds to support so-called “gender transitions” and taxpayer-funded “transitions” in state prisons.
Three families of gender-confused kids and certain medical professionals and organizations that commit and promote child mutilation had “challenge[d] the constitutionality” of the law, “request[ing] the Court issue a preliminary injunction preventing Defendants [Gov. Parson and his team] from enforcing the provisions of this law.”
“Petitioner has not shown probable success on its Constitutional challenges of the law,” Judge Steven R. Ohmer wrote in the August 25 decision. “The Court has examined the Missouri law… of the Missouri Revised Statutes, the evidence, legal briefs and arguments of counsel and finds that Petitioners’ position in regard to constitutional violations unpersuasive and not likely to succeed.”
Ohmer added that “petitioners have not clearly shown a sufficient threat of irreparable injury absent injunctive relief,” pointing out “the balance between the harm to Petitioners and injury to others does not clearly weigh in favor of granting a preliminary injunction.” According to the judge, granting the request does not point to “a clear public interest [being] furthered.”
“The science and medical evidence is conflicting and unclear. Accordingly, the evidence raises more questions than answers. As a result, it has not clearly been shown with sufficient possibility of success on the merits to justify the grant of a preliminary injunction.”
The judge also ordered a “status hearing” to take place, at which both counsels “must appear.” This hearing is scheduled for September 22.
Missouri Republican leaders have joined more than a dozen other states in banning child mutilation in the name of “gender affirmation.” In March, Attorney General Andrew Bailey responded to a whistleblower report of the hidden horrors of so-called “gender-affirming care” by announcing emergency regulations clarifying that such medical interventions on minors violate “state law on experimental gender transition interventions,” which he also described as “inhumane science experiments.”
Less than a month later, Bailey released the regulations, which included the first state restrictions on medical intervention for gender-confused adults. The guidance encourages “psychotherapy… rather than any chemical or surgical intervention” for gender confused individuals.
However, such measures are permitted only after very specific documentation and assessment requirements are met, with continued monitoring for improved gender dysphoria that may render a retreat from medical intervention. The order – which is effective from April 27, 2023 until February 6, 2024 – was issued prior to the governor signing SB 49, which now completely prohibits such intervention for children under the age of 18. The attorney general’s order still applies to gender-confused adults.
A total of 15 states have banned medical intervention for gender confused minors while three others have restricted the practice. Seven more have bans either blocked in court or remaining up for debate in one legislative chamber. Puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgeries have been found to lead to continued mental health issues as well as the development of physical problems, including increased suicidality, heart attack and stroke and infertility.
Psychiatrist shows Dr. McCullough how parents can protect their children from gender ideology
In a recent interview, Dr. Miriam Grossman explains to Dr. Peter McCullough the importance of parents combating the claims of gender ideologues in order to protect their children from being indoctrinated while at school.
(LifeSiteNews) — As American schools dive into another academic year, a prominent child psychiatrist fighting radical gender ideology has warned parents about the importance of this issue and provided steps they can take to protect their children from this dangerous ideology.
During a recent interview with Dr. Peter McCullough, Dr. Miriam Grossman, a psychiatrist who works with gender-confused minors and persistently calls out the scandal of so-called “gender transitions,” told parents that many kids she sees in her practice “first hear [about] the idea of being ‘transgender’ [and] born in the wrong body… in school.”
Grossman pointed out that she “hopes” most school employees are “wonderful people” who want the best for their students, but also urged the public to understand that “there are also activists” who are trying “to introduce this idea” of transgenderism to kids as young as preschool.
Advice for parents
After refuting the claims made by LGBT activists that gender ideology is rooted in science, Grossman said that she is “warning parents” ahead of the school year that “it is not kindness to promote a false belief that a child has” and that “sex is determined at the moment of conception.”
First, she encouraged parents to read “at least” the chapter of her book which discusses gender ideology in schools. The book, titled “Lost in Trans Nation,” was published last month and provides details on the reality of the “transgender” movement, including scientific evidence to refute the ideological claims, and advice for parents to protect their children.
“It will take you an hour, under an hour,” she explained, adding that she promotes her work not for profit but because “I want you to have the information, I want you to understand what’s going on, potentially in your child’s school.”
Grossman further argued that kids may become victims of this ideology anywhere in the country, as “it’s happening in red states” as well as blue. However, she added, “there is a lot that parents can do” to combat the overwhelming challenges.
Secondly, Grossman directed parents to a form which they can fill out “to put your school on notice.” The document is freely accessible on her website.
“It’s a form written by attorneys who are specialists in parental rights,” she explained. “This form essentially says you do not give your consent for any of this. You do not want your child exposed to gender ideology in any classroom, any material, any presentations, any clubs, whatever.”
“You do not give permission for your child to be learning this material. You certainly don’t give permission for use of any different names or pronouns or clothing. And you sign that form, you bring it to your principal, and you tell the principal that you want this form placed in your child’s permanent folder. You are putting the school on notice. I want every parent listening to this to do that. Please.”
Lastly, Grossman said that she “want[s] parents to start early on” to arm their children with the understanding of the truth that will protect them from falling into radical gender ideology.
“I want parents, when their kids are still little, to be saying things to them like, no, you’re a girl. You were a girl from the very first moment that you existed, the very first moment of your life, you were a girl. And that’s a wonderful thing.”
She added that such conversations can include discussion of how not every girl is the same, depending on her unique personality, but that regardless of individual character traits, their daughter “will always be a girl.”
Emphasizing this truth early on will help children to notice “red flags,” such as the term “sex assigned at birth,” as something they already know to be illogical. They will “be armed” to go to school and “be able to recognize, from an early age, some of these ideas.”
When asked how parents can engage with their kids during the school year to gauge if they are being exposed to gender ideology, Grossman said they can “ask about what sorts of books were read,” especially with younger children whose teachers will read aloud to them.
“You want to be on top of the material that your kid is reading,” she continued. “I would say that, before the school year starts, you go in there and you ask what’s on the reading list, especially for middle school [and] high school.”
She also suggested that parents “look through the sections of the library that might contain some of this objectionable material.”
Refuting the claims of gender ideology
“This is impossible,” Grossman said, prefacing her advice on how to avoid gender ideology with facts refuting its claims. “There’s no science behind this and yet kids are being taught these things as if they’re certainties.”
Activist employees within school systems, Grossman added, simply say that “this happens, and it could have happened to you.” She also emphasized that the ideology is “not just [being taught in] public schools” and that part of the indoctrination includes the lie that if a child is “born in the wrong body,” there’s “only one solution,” which is to “change your body.”
“I’m seeing these kids, day in and day out. They are very troubled, they have underlying psychiatric disorders, most times. They have a history of trauma or eating disorders or maybe they’re on the autism spectrum—all sorts of issues.”
Grossman explained that she is constantly approached by families “who are fighting the schools,” which are “undermining the constitutional rights of parents to direct the education of their children.”
“When you ‘affirm’ the new identity you are denying the biology,” she said. “You’re denying the physical reality of the child. Adults are supposed to represent reality, are they not?”
The medical intervention alluded to by Grossman throughout the interview includes the use of puberty blocking drugs, cross-sex hormones and surgeries to remove or alter genitalia and sexual organs. Such interventions have been proven to cause infertility, impaired bone growth, suicidality, serious cardiac problems and prevailing mental health issues.
More information about Dr. Miriam Grossman and her advocacy for protecting children and parental rights can be found on her website.
20 Republican attorneys general file brief declaring transgender interventions are ‘experimental’
‘[A]ny claim that chemical or surgical intervention to treat gender dysphoria is “evidence-based” or settled within the medical community is simply wrong.’
(LifeSiteNews) — Twenty Republican attorneys general late last month signed onto an amicus brief declaring so-called “gender-affirming” drugs and surgeries to be “experimental” in contrast to claims of LGBT activists. They called on a federal court to roll back earlier decisions that they said had relied on false assumptions about the scientific basis for prescribing the life-altering drugs and mutilating surgeries.
Missouri Republican Attorney General Andrew Bailey led 19 other Republican attorneys general in the amicus brief, which was filed with the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit on May 25.
The brief comes after Bailey issued an emergency rule providing new restrictions on mutilating interventions for gender-confused individuals, including the country’s first restrictions on so-called “gender transitions” for adults, LifeSiteNews previously reported.
Hitting back at LGBT activists and the ACLU for opposing the rules, Bailey’s office blasted the groups’ lawsuit as an attempt to protect “ideologically based procedures masquerading as medicine.”
In their May 25 brief, the 20 attorneys general said they submitted their filing to “explain their strong interest in preserving the prerogative of States to make decisions ‘in areas fraught with medical and scientific uncertainties,’” citing U.S. Supreme Court precedent granting states “wide discretion” to enact policies “in areas where there is medical and scientific uncertainty.”
“Making policy decisions in an area of scientific uncertainty is a core, sovereign, democratic function,” they continued.
Specifically, the amicus brief took aim at two recent decisions by courts in North Carolina and West Virginia that decided in favor of challenges brought by pro-LGBT group Lambda Legal against the states’ regulations on transgender pharmaceutical and surgical interventions for minors and adults, Fox News reported.
“Taken together, the decisions wrongly assume that the science is settled and fully supports the routine use of puberty blocking drugs, cross-sex hormones, and surgeries to treat gender dysphoria,” the Republican attorneys general said.
READ: 17 Republican states defend Florida’s rule against funding ‘sex changes’ for children
LifeSiteNews has extensively reported that, in addition to asserting a false reality that one’s sex can be changed, transgender surgeries and drugs have been linked to permanent physical and psychological damage, including cardiovascular diseases, osteoporosis, cancer, stroke, infertility, and drastically increased instances of suicidality. Moreover, studies indicate that over 80 percent of children suffering from gender dysphoria outgrow it on their own by late adolescence.
Despite this, in recent years rising rates of transgender identification have been met with celebration and adulation in mainstream culture, and rates of surgical mutilation for minors have spiked. In many public school classrooms, young children are actively being encouraged to deny their biology and live as the opposite sex.
In the May 25 filing, the Republicans blasted as “simply wrong” claims that mutilating surgeries and dangerous drugs are “evidence-based.”
“[A]ny claim that chemical or surgical intervention to treat gender dysphoria is ‘evidence-based’ or settled within the medical community is simply wrong,” they said. “For these interventions, the evidence is lacking.”
To bolster their case, the attorneys general pointed to Finland, France, Norway, Sweden, and the United Kingdom, which “have recently declared these interventions to be ‘experimental’ procedures, ‘lacking’ in evidentiary support, whose ‘risks … currently outweigh the possible benefits,’” noting that similar assessments have also been made by “[a]gencies on this side of the Atlantic.”
Transgender advocates often claim that so-called “gender-affirming care” (GAC), including mutilating transgender surgeries and cross-sex hormones, are “lifesaving” because they help reduce suicidal ideation for gender-confused individuals. But robust research is scant, and numerous existing studies suggest the exact opposite.
A 2019 study by Richard Bränström, Ph.D., and John E. Pachankis, Ph.D., that appeared to support the theory that “GAC” improves mental health, for example, was later retracted. A 2020 correction to that study found the “results demonstrated no advantage of surgery in relation to subsequent mood or anxiety disorder-related health care visits or prescriptions or hospitalizations following suicide attempts in that comparison.”
“In light of Supreme Court precedent giving States wide authority in areas of uncertainty, this Court should permit the States wide latitude to respond to these scientifically unsettled issues,” the amicus brief declares.
In addition to Missouri, the states that signed onto the amicus brief are: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, and Virginia.
Last week, Texas became the latest U.S. state to formally ban the mutilating procedures for children when Republican Gov. Greg Abbott signed SB 14, prohibiting both pharmaceutical and surgical gender interventions for minors.
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