The left-leaning media seems to be filled with stories of children as young as elementary school being allowed to “choose their gender” in the same way they choose their clothes. But, a recent court decision stripped an Ohio couple from the ability to keep their daughter from taking testosterone supplements to “transition” to a “male.”
Read on to learn more about this chilling decision, and what it could mean for parents’ rights to keep their children from taking gender-altering medication.
The teen years can be a rollercoaster ride of hormone-fueled highs and lows—one of the worst times in one’s life to make any sort of permanent, binding, or life-altering decision. From dropping out of high school to getting married, teens whose impulsive behavior is sanctioned by permissive parents or other authority figures may find themselves in a world of hurt once they enter the real world.
But that’s exactly what one Ohio family court judge did in an unfortunately historic decision on February 16, 2018. This judge’s ruling granted a 17-year-old girl the ability to undergo hormone therapy to “transition her gender” and become a male, all at an age before she can legally vote, enlist in the armed services, or buy a pack of cigarettes.
The girl’s parents opposed her decision to “become a man” and made efforts to help their daughter with her alarming gender-identification issues, from intensive Bible study and counseling to inpatient hospital treatment for anxiety and depression. But her permissive grandparents offered to let the girl live with them and “be herself,” and the judge’s decision awarding legal custody to these grandparents also granted them the power to make her medical decisions, including the decision to begin taking testosterone supplements.
Just as anabolic steroids can have serious health consequences for the bodybuilding men who take them, so can any testosterone supplements for someone designed to produce higher levels of estrogen and progesterone. These supplements can be tough on the kidneys and other parts of the excretory system, and may permanently affect things like body hair and the pitch of one’s voice. Yet, a child is now permitted to make the serious decision to consume these supplements based on nothing more than his or her feeling of what “gender” they are that day.
The circumstances leading up to this decision should be alarming for any parent. Although Ohio can be a swing state in national elections, it’s still in the Midwest and doesn’t tend to be as out-of-touch with Christian values as liberal enclaves like California and New York. Yet, all it took for this child’s removal from her loving parents was a single email to a crisis hotline.
After the Ohio teen sent an email to a crisis hotline complaining of “gender dysphoria” and claiming her parents just didn’t understand who she was, she was eventually admitted to the psychiatric unit of a local children’s hospital for anxiety and depression treatment. But, based on what she told her doctors during this treatment—merely that her parents didn’t want her to “transition” and become a boy, and had arranged for therapy to help her fight these urges—the state’s Department of Child Services saw fit to intervene and remove her from her parents’ home.
This court ruling could mean that any parent who disagrees with a child’s lifestyle decision, from homosexuality to transgenderism, might be superseded by more permissive grandparents, aunts, and uncles, or even unrelated foster parents. Any of these people could conceivably be granted legal custody and the ability to make decisions on your child’s behalf whenever your child disagrees with the decisions you’re making.
No longer are state departments of child services limited to removing children and teens who are victims of abuse and neglect. When this decision is taken to its logical conclusion in other states, teens may find they’re now able to essentially blackmail their loving parents into agreeing to allow them to engage in harmful behaviors. Parents who don’t give in may risk having their rights stripped because of a genuine moral disagreement with their child’s actions.
Because of this, it’s more important than ever to speak out to elected officials. Parents need to say enough when it comes to allowing children to make irrevocable medical decisions like “choosing a gender.”
~ 1776 Christian
