“Woe unto you, the men who call evil good, and good evil; whose darkness is light, whose light darkness…” (Isaiah 5:20)
Even well-intentioned courts and lawmakers stare at so-called Gender-Affirming Care (GAC) horrors like the Victrola Dog stares at the phonograph, head cocked, baffled. After all, they have never seen doctors convincing children that they were born in the wrong body. They have never seen puberty being “paused” on children, cross-sex mega-dosed hormones, mutilation of breasts and genitalia, sterilization, chemical and surgical castration — all in the name of “science” and “medicine.” They have not seen faux penises and vaginas that need as much care as a necrotic open wound. They have not seen these things because history has not seen them. It’s all hard to fathom.
And so, they underestimate the plight of victims of GAC, leaving most with no path to justice. Even if lawsuits are filed, they face voluminous procedural hurdles and many years of delay. Some are now working their way through the system, some are up on appeal, and some have settled. Tragically, most of the victims’ lawsuits will never be filed, their stories never told.
This is a plea that courts and legislatures look more closely at how the landscape of GAC is forested with word games and lies. Biblical and objective truth should matter.
Look at this tangle of thorns.
The first great lie of gender affirming care
The foundational lie of gender ideology or queer theory is that we are not created man and woman. Your gender is fluid, or whatever you self-identify as, and medicine must affirm it. Gender ideology limits the number of genders to … infinite and ever-changing. The only lie more foundational could be that we are not created human, which many of the same ideology espouse; i.e., Furries, Therians, Otherkin, Trees, or combinations such as puppy girls (trans lesbian dogs).
Instead of truth and supportive counseling, the future victims are told, “here is the panacea for your problems, and why you have always struggled, behold you were born in the wrong body,” or some such. GAC is sold a counterfeit god to fill the hole, the very same hole that nonbelievers recognize as existential angst, or thrownness. This is the state of all mankind, post-Fall.
Compare the first and greatest lie to mankind and the suicide myth
“Of all the beasts that the Lord God had made, there was none that could match the serpent in cunning.” The first words of the serpent and the first question asked in the Bible are a lie: “What is the command that God has given you, not to eat of any tree in the garden?” The primordial lie was planted in mankind’s heart that God did not love him, nor want the best for him. The Fall followed, and paradise was lost.
Compare the serpent’s “question,” a favorite of GAC professionals: “Would you rather have a live son or a dead daughter?”, or vice versa. It too is not really a question, but a lie. Gender care is not life-saving care. It is tragically true that trans-identifying youth are much more likely to commit suicide, but transitioning doesn’t help. The opposite is more likely true. Youth suicide rates have only sharply increased and paralleled the rise of GAC.
A Rose is not a rose: ‘Gender Affirming Care’ is not care
Each of the three words and the phrase as a whole is a lie. Victims of GAC are told that they are born in the wrong body or of the wrong “gender” (whatever that is), as discussed above. “Affirming” actually means denying biological sex; again, the opposite of truth.
Finally, “care” means chemical castration, antagonistic cross-sex hormones, and surgical mutilation.
Arguably worse, underlying psychological and emotional issues are minimized or not addressed at all: affirm, affirm, affirm. Thus, the “affirmation” model. The entire meat and potatoes of classic medical care, i.e. history, examination, diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment, are all thrown out the window, baby and bathwater. This is not medical care.
The lie that medicalized Gender Affirming Care is reversible
The Biden Department of Health and Human Services published a chart asserting that puberty blockers are “fully reversible,” and hormone therapy is “partially reversible.” Surgeons even asserted that gender-affirming top surgery (double mastectomy) was reversible. Here is Dr. Johanna Olson-Kennedy, a pediatrician and medical director at one of the largest children’s hospitals: “If you want breasts at a later point in your life, you can go and get them.”
None of this is true. Real breasts cannot be recreated, and puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones almost always result in permanent changes, including sterilization, sexual dysfunction, unwanted hair growth, deepening voice, loss of bone density, stunted brain development, cardiovascular risks, and a whole gamut of other adverse issues.
Worse, the best evidence is that the vast majority of people would desist and would accept their God-given body if they were merely supportively counseled or even just left alone. Few are told this.
The death of truth
How could any of this be happening? How could biological and objective truth be denied, and the denial weaponized against children and vulnerable adults? First, kill God. This is not an overstatement. Queer theory and gender ideology’s core tenet is that identity need not be grounded in reality. It is a spawn of Nietzsche’s claim that “God is dead,” and postmodernism’s central assertion that there is no such thing as objective truth. This denial is the beating heart of GAC.
But give the devil his due, once there is no God and no objective truth, what is left? Or as Pontius Pilate replied to the Son of Man before handing Him over to the mob, “What is truth?”
The victims deserve a shot at justice
Our laws, ethics, and morality are rooted in biblical principles and objective truth. Courts need to allow more lawsuits to go forward. Lawmakers need to create broader rights to sue that provide for attorney fees, punitive damages, and treble damages. The victims need a much longer time to file suit (in legal terms, “statutes of limitations”) — at least 20 years.
The clock on these statutes of limitations should not even begin to run until the victim de-transitions, realizing they have been defrauded. This is because the worst horror of GAC is not even the common complications, including recurring infection, chronic pain, scarring, sterility, tissue death, recto-vaginal fistulas and stenosis, inability to orgasm, and other sexual dysfunction too graphic to detail here. The real horror is that it all happened for nothing. They were duped by an industry that led them to deny their own true nature. This is not just salt in the wound — it is the wound.
Nor should it matter whether the victims are children or adults. The real issue is protecting the vulnerable and susceptible from abuse, at any age. It is the GAC machine that should be on trial, not the victims.
This is how real truth will eventually win out.
The need for truth is more important than ever
There are more victims of GAC every day. Although some clinics have closed, and many states are taking action to limit GAC for youth, the vast majority of clinics are still open for business, including one of the largest providers, Planned Parenthood. Most of its nearly 600 health centers offer puberty blockers and cross-hormone therapy for trans and nonbinary patients. And this is just Planned Parenthood. There are hundreds more. There was only one trans youth clinic in the U.S. in 2007. Coincidentally, 2007 is also the year the iPhone was introduced. Since then, pediatric gender diagnosis and treatment have increased by over 4000%.
Nor have the efforts to push gender and queer ideology, which underlie GAC, slackened. Harvard just hired a drag queen named “LaWhore Vagistan” as a visiting law professor to teach “WOMGEN 1215: DRAG RACE & POWER.” Up to 40% of incoming Ivy League classes identify as “other.” As I write this, Netflix is in the news for several Pride programming animated series aimed at children, featuring queer themes, gay parade celebrations, and trans characters. One cartoon features gay dads raising a trans toddler, who is dancing for them in drag.
These efforts, targeting children and young adults, go back many years. My own name was pushed down Google search results perch by Archie Comics’ first gay character, introduced in 2010. My titular brethren and I languish far below. I bear no grudge.
Last things: There is always a snake in the garden
How did gender ideology slither its way into “health care?” How could someone whose oath is “Do No Harm” take a scalpel to a healthy child, or chemically castrate them, or threaten parents with the suicide myth? God only knows each professional’s motivation: ignorance, greed, intellectual laziness, apathy, confusion, cultish groupthink, fear, or some combination? My bet isn’t even so much on these as on the adoration of the masses and peers, being toasted at American Medical Association cocktail parties. In other words, the oldest and greatest sin: pride. The cause of the Fall.
But I hope these professionals are somehow simply themselves defrauded, and that they take a hard look at what they are doing.
Kevin Keller is a 30 year trial lawyer who handles large loss tort cases and litigation of all types, all over. He specializes in dropping into cases as trial approaches. He volunteers his time helping on gender care litigation nationally. He is drawn to do so by his sympathy for the victims of gender ideology, the parable of the Good Samaritan (Christ), and the command that we should love our crooked neighbors with our crooked hearts (W.H. Auden, paraphrasing Christ).
