A father in New York state, who is fighting to keep his 11-year-old daughter a girl as the child's mother presses for the girl to be allowed to "transition", has been ordered by a court to call his daughter by a new name and new pronouns, a report said.
The father "has been instructed by the court to call his child by the new, chosen name, new preferred pronouns, and to refer to the child as being of the new, chosen gender. Neither parent is allowed, under court order, to talk to the child about 'anything gender related,' the father told The Post Millennial. The father was not identified in the report "in order to protect his family," the outlet said.
The girl's mother is demanding full custody, which would "give her the right to medically transition the child without the father's consent," the report said. "That request, along with the mother's request for an order of protection against, and sole use of the family's home, were both rejected by the court. The parents are seeking divorce, and this issue is the primary disagreement between them."
The father told The Post Millennial that he will fight as hard as he can to protect his child from medical gender transition, though puberty blocking drugs have been recommended. The father said that the girl's mother told him she will "die on this hill."
New York State passed a ban on "conversion therapy" in 2019, which effectively means that, should a child or teen present with gender dysphoria and claim to be the opposite sex, it is illegal to tell them that they may be okay without gender transition.
"It is illegal to tell a girl who says she is a boy that she is in fact a girl, and that no amount of medical intervention will change that. This law was specifically for mental health professionals," The Post Millennial noted.
A bill currently before the state Senate would make New York a "sanctuary state" for children seeking medical gender transition. That bill is sponsored by state Sen. Brad Hoylman, who also sponsored the conversion therapy ban in 2019. When asked about the requirements for medical professionals who are not in mental health but are medical providers, Hoylman's office was not sure if or how the conversion therapy ban applied.
The father said that, as young as 6-years-old, the girl had expressed an interest in entering beauty pageants. "Her dream was to be in a pageant," the father told The Post Millennial. But things began to change when she reached age 8, the report said. The child said that "girly clothes and dresses" were no longer to her liking, and opted to change her style of dress away from more feminine choices.
"I have no problem with that. Tomboys actually do exist still," the father said. But he then discovered that his wife had been keeping information about their child from him. He said his wife told to the child that when a girl becomes a woman she will "grow breasts like their mom does and bleed from their vagina."
"Unbeknownst to me," he said, "for a year, my wife and child hid this between the two of them, that my daughter was wanting to be a boy," in large part due to the terror instilled in the child by the graphically unpleasant images of growing up. "So my child, scared out of her mind at 8-years-old, says 'I don't want that to happen. I will cut off my breasts and I want to be a boy.' "
After that, the mother initiated a social transition for the girl.
The girl was referred to the gender clinic at Golisano Children's Hospital, the report said.
In 2021, the father said that he and the child's mother were told about puberty blockers. At this time, the child was seeing a nurse practitioner in the gender clinic at Golisano. It was about this time that puberty blockers, which the manufacturer does not recommend for treatment of gender dysphoria given the negative side-effects, and does not recommend for more than 3-months' use, were recommended for the child, the report said.
The father said that he was told by the nurse practitioner that the puberty blockers "were completely safe and 100 percent reversible."
The Post Millennial noted: "The FDA has warned that puberty blockers in minors can result in brain swelling, vision loss, and bone loss. Researchers have discovered that puberty blockers stunt growth, adversely affect cognitive function, leading to lowered IQs. Doctors who administer 'gender affirming care,' such as Dr. Marci Bowers, president of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, have stated that children who begin puberty blockers and move on to cross-sex hormones will never achieve orgasm."
The man's wife filed for divorce after Christmas of 2021. "It was at this point that the judge in the case determined that neither parent could discuss gender issues with their child, and a law guardian was appointed to the child," the report said.
"He suggested we don't have much time, and the child needs to be on blockers soon," the father said of the guardian. The guardian met with the girl "only 3 or 4 times, and has made the assertion in court about the need to act quickly in giving the child puberty blocking drugs. These kinds of treatments are covered under health insurance plans in New York, per law, since 2021," the report said.
The Post Millennial noted that it spoke to a nurse at Golisano's Division of Adolescent Medicine, who said that teens as young as 16 can go on cross-sex hormones, but younger children can start with puberty blockers.
Puberty blockers, the nurse said, "give you a little bit more time to figure things out." When asked how long children are typically taking these drugs, she said "We don't want them on it for years on end, just because it can cause other issues. But we tend to continue it for a few years, depending on where they're at already."
"There's a couple different options," the nurse said, as to the schedule of taking these drugs, which are administered via injection every one, three or six months. "Some people are on it for like a year or two years, and other people get like one injection and they're on it for a little bit and then they make a decision, like either they want to continue on or don't, and then we go from there."
The Post Millennial asked how the medical team at the gender clinic would proceed if a mother is in favor of medical treatment for gender dysphoria, and the father isn't. "We like to work together," she said.
"We'd really like dad to be there at appointments, so he can get information, so we can help him understand why this is important and why we want to do things like this. And we kind of work together and see what we can do now," the nurse said.
But she also said that in the case of divorce, if one parent has full custody and the other doesn't, the one with full custody doesn't actually need the approval of the non-custodial parent for medical decisions.
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