Transgender ideology violates the primary duty of doctors to ‘do no harm’
The new 'Gender-Affirming Psychiatric Care' textbook essentially says, 'Do whatever is necessary to advance our gender ideology no matter how much damage it does to a patient.'
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Fri Dec 8, 2023 - 4:27 pm EST
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(LifeSiteNews) — Since the fifth century, medical practitioners have summarized the intent of the Hippocratic Oath’s ethical principles in a four-word phrase: “First, do no harm.” A physician’s primary duty, as one source observes, is “to sidestep causing harm or needless suffering to those in their care.”
This principle has guided the treatment of patients down through the centuries. Until now. The “Gender-Affirming Psychiatric Care” textbook, recently released by the publishing arm of the American Psychiatric Association (APA), throws “First, do no harm” into the dumpster and replaces it with “Do whatever is necessary to advance our gender ideology no matter how much damage it does to a patient.”
According to its Amazon blurb, the book is “dedicated to providing affirming, intersectional, and evidence-informed psychiatric care for transgender, non-binary, and/or gender-expansive (TNG) people.” The first sign that this book is LGBTQ activist propaganda is the term “evidence-informed,” a subtle but monumental movement away from the term “evidence-based.” Evidence-informed implies that the authors have looked at the evidence, but their conclusions are not necessarily based on the evidence. Instead, they are informed by the authors’ experiences. Indeed, the wording in author Teddy G. Goetz’s Amazon bio states as much: “Their [author’s preferred pronoun] lived experience as a non-binary/trans, queer, neurodivergent, chronically ill Jewish person informs their writing, research, and clinical work” (emphasis added).
In the Foreword, authors Goezt and Alex Keuroghlian, MD, admit that “who conducts work matters; voices shape the stories that get told” and that’s exactly what occurs in the book. Eighty-nine percent of the authors and contributors are TNG — an acronym the authors use for “transgender, non-binary, and/or gender expansive” individuals. The term gender expansive means “non-binary identities and the individual, overlapping, and fluid nature of gender categories.”
Another touted feature is that “each chapter has at least one TNG author.” So once again, the book’s evidence-informed content is skewed by vacillating human experience rather than guided by scientific fact. And the authors admit that they did their best to prioritize “lived experience, diversity of perspectives, and community impact of prior work over academic titles.” They also celebrate that “to our knowledge this is the first book on TNG health produced by field experts who bring lived experience to their clinical and scholarly work.”
How many of us want the soundness of our doctors’ diagnoses and treatments based on their “lived experience?” How many of us want to turn over our children to those who consider “lived experience” sufficient rationale for cutting off healthy body parts?
Why should you be concerned about this book?
First, it targets a broad audience of professionals who work with all ages in a variety of health, social, and educational institutions. According to the Foreword, the book aims to “help readers develop clinical tools to provide trauma-informed care and mitigate their own transphobic countertransference across settings … across the life span, from children and adolescents to older adults.” In other words, the goal is to guilt readers into championing the most radical aspects of LGBTQ ideology: that individuals as young as preschoolers should be able to choose their gender and that their guardians should allow them to pursue hormone treatments and surgeries that will have life-altering consequences.
Second, the book’s association with the APA will make it easier for government agencies, the National Education Association (NEA), and medical schools to recommend or require its evidence-informed content to be embraced as standard procedure even though research and studies coming out of Europe suggest that the practices recommended in this book violate the “First, do not harm” principle in multiple ways.
For example, a 2022 article in the European Journal of Endocrinology found that transgenders face a “significantly higher” risk of cardiovascular disease and that “gender-affirming hormone treatment (GAHT) explained part of the elevated risk.”
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And what about the “lived experience” of detransitioners like Chris Beck, a 56-year-old Navy SEAL combat veteran who lived as a woman for 10 years? He said he “suffered symptoms of trauma, including depression, anxiety, and adjustment disorder” after he transitioned. And Chole Cole admits that the hormonal treatments and surgeries did not provide the physical, mental, or emotional well-being that psychologists and surgeons promised her. She also says she did not have suicidal thoughts until after she transitioned.
Third, the book’s association with the APA will also make it easier for the organizations listed above to use it as evidence against parents and caregivers who object to the concept that hormone treatments and surgeries are the best way — indeed the only humane way, according to the “lived experience” experts — to address gender dysphoria in children, adolescents, and adults.
Fourth, lawyers could also use the book in child custody cases as authorization to place children under the care of those who will push them toward transitioning hormone treatments and surgeries.
For centuries, the foundational principle of the Hippocratic Oath — do no harm — has provided ethical boundaries for our physical and mental health professionals. We cannot allow the “lived experiences” of a small percentage of activist zealots to replace it. The lives of millions of children, adolescents, and adults depend on us saying no to this extremely harmful brand of medical malpractice.
In addition to founding Help4Families and Living Stones Ministries, Denise Shick is the author of four children’s books and several nonfiction books, including My Daddy’s Secret, Understanding Gender Confusion — A Faith-Based Perspective, and Transgender Confusion — A Biblical Q&A for Families. She is an ordained minister and has a BA in psychology.
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- Amazon
- American Psychiatric Association
- Chloe Cole
- chris beck
- gender affirming psychiatric care
- gender-expansive
- Hippocratic Oath
- Non-binary
- teddy g. goetz
