Posts by Andrè Van Mol, MD
Four New Books Dealing with Transgenderism
Publications exposing transgender ideology and its capture of academics, medicine, the entertainment industry, government and the business sector are picking up steam. What we might term the breakout books, those that caught traction and burst onto the public square addressing and countering the whirlwind of transgenderism.
Read MoreAAP calls for “systematic review of evidence,” yet reaffirms 2018 gender-affirming care policy
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) announced on AAP News on August 4, 2023, “AAP reaffirms gender-affirming care policy, authorizes systematic review of evidence to guide update.”
Read MoreTeaching Points from the Educator Award
At the 2023 CMDA National Convention my wife Evelyn and I were honored, blessed and quite humbled to receive the 2023 Educator of the Year Award. This all happened under the watchful eye of Princeton’s Professor Robert George, whom I have admired for years (and no, I did not go full fan boy and embarrass CMDA, but we did talk privately a while). I was given a few minutes to share some thoughts which I am now offering you, my colleagues.
Read MoreHHS/SAMHSA Press Release on Sexual Minority Youth Affirmation is a Model of Ideology Over Evidence
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) issued a March 31, 2023 press release titled, “New HHS Report Released on Transgender Day of Visibility Offers Updated, Evidence-Based Roadmap for Supporting and Affirming LGBTQI+ Youth.”
Read MoreInternational Pushback Against Medical Interventions for Gender Dysphoria
The case for gender (transition) affirming therapy—which is more realistically termed gender imitating medical intervention—for gender dysphoria and incongruence is precipitously weakening.
Read MoreUnited Kingdom Closing the World’s Largest Pediatric Gender Clinic
The BBC broke a story July 28 headlined, “NHS to close Tavistock child gender identity clinic.” Following the Cass Interim Review determination that the current model of care “is not a safe or viable long-term option,” Britain’s National Health Service announced that their Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS), the world’s largest pediatric gender clinic, is to close by spring 2023. It is to be replaced with centers in London and North West with increased emphasis on mental healthcare and relevant general practitioner services. Also noted was that the UK’s 20-fold increase in referrals over the last decade (250 then and 5,000 in 2021) had overwhelmed the capacity of the service.
Read MoreRegretting Transition for Gender Dysphoria
Supporters of gender-affirming therapy (GAT)—transition affirmation—are doubling down on claims that regret and detransition are rare. From state-level bills in my home state of California to national policy initiatives from the federal administration, the assertion that transitioning for gender dysphoria is all but regret free is used as a promotional tool for the proposed mandating of GAT essentially on request. However, the sales pitch does not hold up to inspection.
Read MoreAbortion Pills and Reversal
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that chemical abortions represented 38.6 percent of all U.S. abortions in 2018, an increase of 120 percent from 2009. According to the Associated Press, abortion by pill rose to 54 percent of all abortions in America in 2020. The abortion industry has evidently found its path to circumventing the possible overturning of Roe v. Wade, and that avenue is the mailbox.
Read MoreEven Failed Therapy for Undesired Same-Sex Sexuality Results in No Harm, Finds New Study
Swiftly on the heels of his 2021 study showing sexual orientation change efforts (SOCE) “strongly reduces suicidality” and that restrictions on SOCE may “deprive sexual minorities of an important resource for reducing suicidality, putting them at substantially increased suicide risk,”[1],[2] Sociologist Paul Sullins’ new peer-reviewed analysis revealed, as per its title, an “Absence of Behavioral Harm Following Non-efficacious Sexual Orientation Change Efforts: A Retrospective Study of United States Sexual Minority Adults, 2016–2018.”[3]
Read MoreEvidence Opposing Therapy Bans
Legislation to ban so-called “conversion” therapy or practices for people with undesired same-sex attraction, gender dysphoria and other sexual minority issues is being put forward across the globe.
Read MoreNew Documentary Released on the Rush to Reassign Gender
In keeping with their history of producing eye-opening documentaries taking highly controversial societal trends head on, The Center for Bioethics and Culture (CBC) recently released a film on gender affirming therapy titled Trans Mission: What’s the Rush to Reassign Gender? Running just under 52 minutes, the feature presents activists, healthcare professionals, educators, parents and the patients themselves—among others—regarding “the medical and surgical transitioning of children.” The guests exhibit varied points of view, and they include members of both CMDA and the American College of Pediatricians (ACPeds).
Read MoreSOCE Reduces Suicidality in a New Study
What if another study came to print asserting that sexual orientation change efforts (SOCE) constituted harmful stressors to sexual minorities? What if a published letter to the editor in the same journal exposed gaping holes in the assessment? What if a reanalysis of the original study “in the strongest representative sample to date of sexual minority persons” revealed polar opposite findings: SOCE “strongly reduces suicidality” and that restrictions on SOCE may “deprive sexual minorities of an important resource for reducing suicidality, putting them at substantially increased suicide risk.” Now that would be something! And these things happened!
Read MoreNew Study Addresses Sexual Minorities Who Reject LGB Identity
A new study authored by a socio-politically diverse team of psychologists evaluated a religiously diverse population sample of varied sexual identification and found that sexual minority people who reject LGB identification have positive outcomes that contradict the expectations of both minority stress and sexual identity development theories.
Read MoreTherapy Bans, APA Talking Points and Counseling Choice
A multitude of states, counties and cities have banned “conversion therapy,” usually for minors only, with efforts underway to issue a national ban for all through the so-called “Equality Act” (HR 5). Yet, “conversion therapy” is a misrepresentative, maligning and summarily ill-defined term employed as a jamming tactic to capitalize on an allusion to implicitly forced religious conversion while stigmatizing and intimidating any therapist who would engage in change-allowing therapy. It implies coercion and suffering, neither of which are true of modern change-allowing therapy (aka SOCE for sexual orientation change efforts). Modern SOCE therapists uniformly view old aversive techniques (think shaming, electric shocks, etc.) as unethical and ineffective. Tellingly, no state or municipality enacting a therapy prohibition has yet to ban aversive practices, only counseling that allows clients to explore their potential for change of SOGI (sexual orientation, gender identity). Why not ban aversive measures too, if abuse is really the issue?
Read MoreUK High Court Rules Puberty Blockers Experimental, Minors Cannot Consent
In a stunning decision with international implications, the United Kingdom’s High Court ruled December 12 in Bell vs. Tavistock that puberty blockers (PB) and cross-sex hormone (CSH) use in gender dysphoric minors was experimental and should not, in most cases, be given to children under 16 without court order, adding that such petitioning was also advisable for 16 to 17 year olds. They clarified that the consent issue was not about the breadth and depth of information the minors were given, but that “There is no age appropriate way to explain to many of these children what losing their fertility or full sexual function may mean to them in later years.”
Read MoreAJP Issues Correction: No Mental Health Gain from Gender-Affirming Surgery
The American Journal of Psychiatry (AJP) printed a rare and important correction this month. A study claiming to be the “first total population study of transgender individuals with a gender incongruence diagnosis” was published in the October 2019 AJP titled “Reduction in mental health treatment utilization among transgender individuals after gender-affirming surgeries: a total population study.” Seven letters to the editor from 12 authors, myself included, resulted in a data reanalysis and subsequent correction statement that no improvement was demonstrated with surgical treatment. Now for the setting and major points of my team’s published letter.
Read MoreMedical Conscience Rights, Part II: Sexual Minority Conflicts
Conscience rights are constitutional priorities as well as professional and personal necessities for free people, and these enjoy strong and historic support from the legislature, executive branch and judiciary. They are worth defending, especially when misrepresented and misunderstood.
Read MoreMedical Conscience Rights, Part 1
Per Alliance Defending Freedom: “Freedom of conscience means you are free to carry out your moral duty without fear of government coercion or punishment.”
Also, it need not be faith-based to count. Conscience is conscience, and these rights protect our atheist colleagues as they do us. Canadian philosopher Edward Tingley explains that conscience rights protect those who object to the norm of what even a majority thinks is right, and they apply when (1) a cogent claim can be made that (2) grave wrong is done. The claim of wrong needs only to be serious and defensible.
Conscience rights exist precisely to protect someone who disagrees with majority consensus. They specifically protect unpopular opinions. The objection needs only to be serious and defensible.
Read MoreMental Health Advocacy for Gender Dysphoric Youth
British general practitioner Sally Howard wondered in The BMJ, “…the significant majority of children do resolve their gender ID in favour of their natal sex by adulthood. Where is the advocacy for the mental health needs of that majority?” Where, indeed.
Read MoreThe “Parent Resource Guide” for the Trans Movement
The “Parent Resource Guide: Responding to the Transgender Issue” is a just-released project of the Minnesota Family Council available gratis at www.GenderResourceGuide.com. Print copies can be purchased as well.
It is endorsed by organizations right (Heritage Foundation and Family Policy Alliance), center (Kelsey Coalition and Parents of ROGD Kids) and left (Women’s Liberation Front). Their stated common concerns are the “negative consequences that result when society regards bodily sex as irrelevant,” and the belief that “public schools should never feel pressured to force boys and girls to sacrifice their bodily privacy, promote unscientific theories about human biology, or celebrate ideas that place young children on a path to chemical sterilization or cosmetic ‘gender confirmation’ surgery.” I was honored to be one of many who were invited to help shape its content.
Reinforcing Children’s Sexual Identity: A Review of Ellie Klipp’s I Don’t Have to Choose
Parents have asked if I could recommend any books to safeguard young children against trans-ideology. Their concern is well founded. Pro-trans indoctrination is ubiquitous, its repetition tireless and rebuttals are punished. The educational system from pre-K right on through, television, print, social media and much of the web broadcast the siren song of gender fluidity and trans identity.
Read MoreScapegoating the Church for LGBT Suicide and Stigma
Health statistics for people who identify as GLBTQ+ are recognized as poor compared to the general population. Finding causation for those negative statistics in stigma and the religious groups that allegedly promote it is the ideological zeitgeist. California Assemblyman Evan Low just introduced non-binding resolution ACR-99 Civil rights: lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender people, which states, “The stigma associated with being LGBT often created by groups in society, including therapists and religious groups, has caused disproportionately high rates of suicide, attempted suicide, depression, rejection, and isolation amongst LGBT and questioning individuals;” and it isn’t the only time “religious groups,” “pastors” or “religious leaders” are mentioned in the text condemning “conversion therapy.” It’s conceptual and factual error and ultimately hurts sexual minorities. Blame shifting does that.
Read MoreIntersex: What It Is And Is Not
Intersex is a colloquialism for what is more formally titled Disorders of Sex Development (DSD). Per psychiatrist Karl Benzio in an article published in Today’s Christian Doctor in 2015: “Intersex – People who have anatomy that is not considered typically male or female or have anatomy not matching their genetic sex of XX or XY. Most come to medical attention because healthcare professionals or parents notice something unusual about their bodies or puberty or fertility isn’t normal, but some are not known until death/autopsy.”
Read MoreDisappointment, Rejection and Betrayal, and Reasonable Expectations
My senior pastor instructs that successful Christian living—I would add “or any successful life”—requires being prepared for the inevitability of disappointment, rejection and betrayal. Expectation is not fixation but preparation. The aim is not to sour you on life, but to bullet proof you a bit from its down side and to recognize the prize God provides through it.
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