Many parents in Utah are taking their children to transgender clinics seeking hormone therapy and surgery for their children to change their sex. This is troublesome because sex cannot be changed. Even with extensive hormonal or cosmetic treatment, affecting the outward appearance of individuals, XX and XY chromosomes will always be XX and XY chromosomes. Doctors at Utah clinics, including a clinic at the University of Utah, are administering puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and even body-changing surgeries to children. What are these “gender affirming” therapies and what damage are they inflicting on children? Puberty Blockers: Powerful drugs that will prevent children from experiencing puberty. According to the American College of Pediatricians some of the effects of these body altering drugs include:
Cross-sex Hormones: Giving young girls testosterone who want to become boys and giving young boys estrogen who want to become girls. What are some the side effects of these drugs?
Surgery: Hysterectomy, mastectomy, testicle removal and surgeries that attempt to create male genitalia on females and female genitalia on males which can be non-functional or with limited functionality at best. None of these surgeries are reversible in the sense of regaining full functionality or appearance if these children, or the adults they become, ever change their minds. The doctors are using the children as guinea pigs with untested and unproven drugs. As a result, their bodies are mutilated, and children become sterilized. This terrible practice must be stopped. Right now there are over a HUNDRED children at the GEMS Clinic at the University of Utah receiving these hormone treatments with more children starting the treatment on a regular basis. That means there will be hundreds of sterile and mutilated children by the end of this year. Representative Brad Daw is the sponsor of “Prohibition on Transgender Procedures Upon Minors” and Senator Curt Bramble is the Senate sponsor. This bill would make all of these procedures illegal for children under 18. Powerful people, who are not thinking of the best interest of Utah’s children, are blocking this bill from passing. As we have seen many times before, Utahns can be even more powerful than the politicians when they come together and stand for what is right. We need your help to get this bill to committee and on its way to become the law that will save these children. This is not a parental rights issue. Parents hold the legal right to care for their children and provide them the healthcare they need but they have never been able to allow their children to be used as guinea pigs. There is never a reason to sterilize or cosmetically alter children, which as a result destroys their God-given right to choose to have children in the future. According to long term studies in Sweden, individuals who have received chemical and surgical gender-affirming operations are 19 times more likely to commit suicide. The number of children who change their mind is EXTREMELY HIGH. According to the DSM-5 manual, up to 88% of the girls who identify during childhood as boys and up to 97.8% of the boys who identify as girls change their mind if they do not receive puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones or surgery. Please email all the Utah State Representatives and Senators. Call or email the Governor. Ask them to tell their leadership that they want the opportunity to vote on this bill to save the children. Senate Roster House Roster Please come to the Capitol with us this week to speak with your legislators. It makes a big difference when they know you are there and have a personal interest in the well-being of Utah children. For more information please call Maryann Christensen: 801-860-5419
 By Richard Saunders
According to a Swedish study, those who have been sickened, maimed and sterilized by transgender treatments need long-term “psychiatric follow-up.” But for young people tempted by transgender hell, it’s illegal in 18 states for them to get psychiatric help beforehand. Will Utah become state number 19? I see him once or twice a week as I make my daily Front Runner commute to and from work. He has grown out his hair, and he typically wears makeup, a bra and a dress complemented by something no woman would ever wear—men’s boots. And yet, he apparently considers himself, or at least wants to be, a woman. But a woman he is not, nor ever will be. That is biologically impossible. At best, he will eventually grow out of his gender dysphoria. At worst, he will become a mutilated man who, like an increasing number of people in the “trans community,” will live to regret any life-altering surgery or chemical regimen he undergoes. He does not need affirmation. He does not need encouragement. He does not need praise. What he needs is compassion and therapy. And yet Rep. Craig Hall and the Utah Psychologist Licensing Board would deny him that help. According to a proposed rule drafted by the licensing board, “unprofessional” psychological conduct could soon include “engaging in or attempting to engage in the practice of sexual-orientation change efforts or gender identity change efforts with a client who is less than 18 years old.” Psychologists violating the rule could lose their license. In other words, Utah parents would no longer be able to seek therapy for their children suffering from gender dysphoria. According to the licensing board, such therapy can “risk harm” and is “contrary to the ethical principles and standards of our profession; chief among these ethical imperatives is our responsibility to ‘Do No Harm.’” Troy Williams, executive director of Equality Utah, said, “We’re confident that if this rule goes forward as drafted, that we will see a reduction of suicides in our state.” “Do no harm”? “Reduction of suicides”? Keep those phrases in mind as I share some of the sordid facts about today’s agenda-driven transmania. If therapy is not allowed to help children, what is allowed? And at what cost? An amicus brief currently before the Supreme Court in the case of R. G. and G. R. Harris Funeral Homes Inc. v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sheds some light. The brief was filed by a dozen people who at one point identified as transgendered but now affirm their biological sex at birth. Each of them overcame their gender dysphoria with help from therapy. And through therapy, they were able to identify emotional trauma and other root causes that triggered their dysphoria in the first place. In the brief, Jamie Shupe, who once upon a time was legally recognized as America’s first “nonbinary person,” said, “I should have been treated. Instead, at every step, doctors, judges, and advocacy groups indulged my fiction.” Added Hacsi Horvath, who identified as a woman for 13 years, “I am far angrier that thousands of young people are being irreversibly altered and sterilized as they are induced into a drug-dependent and medically maimed lifestyle.” Mere anecdotes? Hardly. Let’s look at the science. In one of the most comprehensive studies to date, Swedish researchers who tracked over 300 “sex-reassigned persons” for 30 years discovered just how dangerous playing make-believe has become. When compared with a control group, victims of sex-reassignment surgery were 19 times more likely to die by suicide and were three times more likely to need psychiatric hospitalization, to suffer cardiovascular disease, and to abuse drugs. “This study,” found at www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3043071/, “found substantially higher rates of overall mortality, death from cardiovascular disease and suicide, suicide attempts, and psychiatric hospitalisations in sex-reassigned transsexual individuals compared to a healthy control population. This highlights that post-surgical transsexuals are a risk group that need long-term psychiatric and somatic follow-up.” In two other studies, one published in 2018 at George Washington University and one published this year in the Netherlands, researchers found that use of cross-sex hormones can substantially increase the risks of heart attacks, strokes, and blood clots (www.ahajournals.org). The Swedish study concluded that those who have been sickened, maimed and sterilized need long-term “psychiatric follow-up.” But for young people tempted by transgender hell, it’s illegal in 18 states for them to get psychiatric help beforehand. And so, misogynistic surgical predators are performing double mastectomies on gender dysphoric girls as young as 13 and 14. In Oregon, you can get a taxpayer funded “sex-change surgery” at age 15—no parental notification required. And in England, the ironically named National Health Service is giving transgender treatments to three-year-olds caught playing dress-up. According to the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, 80–95 percent of gender-dysphoric children will accept their physical biology if they are allowed to pass through puberty without transgender treatments, which is more like with therapy. A study by two psychiatric experts affiliated with Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine has found that “the hypothesis that gender identity is an innate, fixed property of human beings that is independent of biological sex—that a person might be ‘a man trapped in a woman’s body’ or ‘a woman trapped in a man’s body’—is not supported by scientific evidence.” They also found that “only a minority of children who experience cross-gender identification will continue to do so into adolescence or adulthood” (www.thenewatlantis.com). Sadly, by the time many confused young people reach adulthood, they will have been irreparably injured. What was that about “do no harm”? Deny a child professional therapy and put that child on puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones, and the trans identity can become fixed. Unfortunately, the only therapy many children are getting is the propaganda they find on the internet. Last year, a Brown University study by professor Lisa Littman found that identity politics is fueling a “social contagion” outbreak of transgender identification. Brown University took heat for the study’s publication, but a parent and research-driven petition stands by the study. It states: “The parental reports in this study offer important and much-needed preliminary information about a cohort of adolescents, mostly girls, who with no prior history of dysphoria are requesting irreversible medical interventions, including the potential to impair fertility and future sexual function. In any other group of children, these grave consequences would be seen as human rights violations unless there was significant and overwhelming evidence these procedures would be beneficial long-term.” We shouldn’t be surprised that “parents describe a process of immersion in social media, such as binge-watching YouTube transition videos and excessive use of Tumblr, immediately preceding their child becoming gender dysphoric” (thefederalist.com). Watch enough propaganda-filled YouTube videos, and you’ll be convinced you’re an L or a G or a B or a T—or all of the above. Watch a few more videos, and you might be convinced you’re a space alien. Social contagion is the internet’s own brand of conversion therapy—legal in all 50 states. But there’s hope despite destructive social media mythology, activist witch doctors masquerading as psychologists and surgeons, and the nation’s headlong rush into insanity. Hundreds of transgendered young people in their mid-20s are detransitioning. Soon they will number in the thousands as more and more discover that they’ve been sold an ideological pack of lies. Of those who would offend “one of these little ones,” Jesus said, “it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea” (Matthew 18:6). As I watch the science-denying child abuse that is occurring in Utah and other states in the name of “do no harm,” it becomes clear just who Jesus was talking about.  Please help us now to stop the State of Utah from passing a rule that would ban legitimate and necessary talk therapy when therapists are counseling with children under 18 who are questioning their gender or sexual orientation.
Sign the attached petition and ask the Licensing Boards to Protect All Teens by rejecting the language proposed by the Board of Psychologists and find new language that protects client self-determination of all teens and their families. https://www.ipetitions.com/petition/ask-dopl-to-protect-all-utah-teens The proposed rule is based on the premise that ordinary ethical conversational therapy that is open to change in sexual attractions or gender perceptions is harmful to minors. In the 2019 legislative session there was a bill to ban conversion therapy. The question was, what is the definition of conversion therapy? This legislation stated,” Conversion Therapy means:
This proposed language that would have infringe on the rights of parents, children and professional therapists by allowing only gay affirming help with same sex attraction or affirming the gender identity being questioned. A therapist could have validated a homosexual lifestyle but could not suggest other options. Parents looking for help for their questioning child would not have any place to go for help. THIS BILL DID NOT PASS THE LEGISLATURE. BUT THE UTAH MENTAL HEALTH LICENSING BOARD HAS PROPOSED A CHANGE TO THEIR RULE THAT WOULD BAN CONVERSION THERAPY, INCLUDING TALK THERAPY. THIS RULE CHANGE WILL HAVE THE SAME END EFFECT AS THE LAW THAT WAS REJECTED BY THE LEGISLATURE. THIS IS JUST ANOTHER WAY TO GET AROUND THE LEGISLATURE AND BAN TALK THERAPY FOR QUESTIONING LGBTQ YOUTH. If this proposed rule is adopted it will have the same effect as the law they tried to pass in the legislature and would violate:
Children struggling with their gender identity or sexuality need to be able to talk to a professional counselor who will give them honest answers to their questions and parents need to be able to trust that these therapists will do what is best for their child and not be controlled by unreasonable and biased laws that violate their constitutional rights. Your help is needed ASAP. Please do the following 3 things:
From David Pruden: 1. The proposed rule is unnecessarily vague and open to administrative abuse. For example, what constitutes therapy that is “neutral with respect to the sexual orientation . . . of the individual.” (The question is not whether the therapist is neutral; it is whether the therapy—the “methods, practices, procedures, or techniques”—is neutral.) What constitutes “neutral” therapy most probably will depend on the “worldview” regarding same-sex attractions or sexual orientation held by whoever decides what the term “neutral” means. Imagine that a psychologist is working with an adolescent who is experiencing gender confusion and is thinking seriously about whether he wants to undergo gender “change” procedures. In the course of their discussions, the psychologist should address with the minor client (and his parents) the emotional and psychological risks and hazards of “gender change” procedures. Further, the psychologist should advise the minor client and his parents that they will need to discuss the medical and physical risks of chemical, hormonal, or surgical “gender change” procedures—which are many and serious, and often with permanent and irreversible effects—with a competent physician. However, such discussions in a therapeutic context may well be regarded as having the “goal” of changing the minor client’s “gender identity.” Assume a situation in which a 10-year-old male tells his parents that he thinks he really should have been born as a girl, and wants to change his gender. The parents then take the boy to a therapist (who does not take a transgender/gender-change-affirming approach) to help him address his feelings and confusion. Under the proposed rule, addressing the feelings, emotions, or expressions related to the boy’s perceived gender “identity” would put the therapist at risk, because it might result in a change in those feelings, and thus potentially be regarded as having the “goal” of changing the boy’s “gender identity.” To remain safe, the therapist could only “reduce” the young boy’s “internalized stigma,” provide “acceptance [and] support,” facilitate his “active coping, social support, and identity exploration and development,” and assist him in “undergoing gender transition.” 2. The proposed rule threatens a therapist with loss of their license (and their livelihood) if they violate the “sexual orientation change efforts or gender identity change efforts” provision if they are working with any number of common adolescent sexual concerns. The likely practical result of the proposed rule would be to:
3. The proposed rule is based on the premise that ordinary ethical conversational therapy that is open to change in sexual attractions or gender perceptions is harmful to minors because it does not work and cannot work. The proposed rule is grounded in a misunderstanding or mischaracterization of what actually does—and does not—happen in counseling by an ethical, competent therapist who uses an approach that is open to change. Ethical and competent therapy does not involve physically aversive techniques (such as electroshocking genitals or inducing vomiting). No licensed therapist in Utah has used such techniques for decades, as the proposed rule’s supporters concede. Nor does ethical and competent therapy involve verbally abusive techniques such as bullying, intimidation, shaming, or humiliation. Contrary to the impression the activists who support the proposed rule want people to have, the proposed rule is not directed either exclusively or even primarily at physically aversive practices. 4. The proposed rule, in its operation, would not be neutral toward religion. It is based on an implicit hostility to the religious principles of clients (of all religious backgrounds) who seek therapy to address unwanted same-sex attractions or to resolve gender dysphoria, and would make it more difficult for those clients to obtain professional assistance in living according to their faith and religious convictions. The proposed rule further would exert forceful legal pressure on therapists of faith to either provide therapy that is contrary to their religious convictions or to remain silent. The proposed rule could be regarded as neutral only if the State could demonstrate as a matter of scientific fact that same-sex attractions (or gender perception or gender confusion contrary to physiology) are immutable. The proposed rule implicitly presupposes the illegitimacy of religious beliefs that do not accept that proposition, that view same-sex sexual activity as immoral, or that reject transgenderism or gender-change procedures.  You Are Worthy of Love By Steven Done
Equality Utah and others are pushing to enact a broad ban on any therapies they refer to as "conversion therapy". The practical effect of this ban would be to prevent teens from receiving ethical therapies aimed at helping them live according to their deeply-held religious beliefs. “Conversion therapy” is a term coined by political activists that is intentionally unclear. Ethical, licensed psychotherapists respect the right of clients to choose the goals of their therapy and help them work through emotional and relational issues that may influence these life circumstances. It is both dishonest and unfair to label these ethical mental health professionals as “conversion therapists”. Equality Utah defines "conversion therapy" as "the practice of attempting to change someone’s sexual orientation or gender identity". The legislation they introduced in the Utah State Legislature defined it even more broadly: "Conversion therapy" means any practice or treatment that seeks to change the sexual orientation or gender identity of a patient or client, including mental health therapy that seeks to change, eliminate, or reduce behaviors, expressions, attractions, or feelings related to a patient or client's sexual orientation or gender identity.The proposed rule currently before Utah's Division of Occupational and Professional licensing closely mirrors the effect of the original legislation. Under this definition, "conversion therapy" is any therapy with the goal of change - no matter the approach. Remember: change is the goal of any therapy for any unwanted feelings. Therapy, by its very nature, for any purpose, has a goal of changing behaviors, feelings and expressions. Indeed, what would be the purpose of going to a licensed therapist for help if not to hope for some change, at a minimum, in behaviors? It's time for society to push aside the propaganda. Equality Utah and other lobbying groups are playing a careful game of word chess to attack ethical, positive therapies for unwanted same-sex attractions and gender identity conflicts. They do so in a few ways:
But the truth is, ethical therapists work to help their clients accomplish their chosen goals using standard techniques used for any unwanted behaviors or feelings, such as EMDR and Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy. They don't engage in aversive techniques. They don't guarantee change, even if that is the client's goal, just as they don't with any other unwanted behaviors or feelings. But they do help the client with their desired goal. They help their client think about attractions in different ways, heal wounds and rebuild relationships, reprocess old traumas to reduce their power, and overcome shame. This therapy approach is not shaming, coercive, or dangerous. Yet it still falls under the definition of "conversion therapy" proposed by Equality Utah and would be outlawed under the current proposed rule. My therapist was instrumental to my healing. My attractions used to bring me a lot of shame, and they used to be a very powerful force in my life. I frequently thought of my "attractions" as a single thing that was exclusively related to sex, and as a result I deliberately avoided touching other men or looking them in the eye. The therapy I received from my licensed therapist focused on thinking about attractions in different ways, and on reducing the shame I felt. My therapist helped me see that most of what I was experiencing had nothing to do with sex. He helped me see that my desire for hugs from another man was a need for confirmation that I am valued by other men. I began to understand that intense feelings when looking other men in the eye were there because I had avoided it for so long, and because being seen by another person is a powerful experience. I came to understand that spending time with other men is a need that all men have. In other words, much of what I experience can be interpreted as intense desires for friendship and a deep, unfulfilled need for confirmation that I have value. I believe the eroticization came because I had denied myself true friendship for so long and because of the false stories I had in my head about the desires for friendship that I had. Not only did this approach greatly reduce the shame I felt, but it eliminated entirely my suicidal thoughts. Ethical therapy for unwanted same-sex attractions and gender dysphoria is simply that - good, ethical, safe therapy. Equality Utah's definition of "conversion therapy" and the associated stories are straw men set up to distract from this fact. It is just like any other therapy for any other unwanted feelings or behaviors. It is not dangerous or shame-inducing. Indeed, it saved me and others I know from suicide. Had I not had the ability to set my own goals in therapy, I likely would have killed myself. Please help protect all teens by asking the licensing boards and the governor to keep all goals for therapy on the table. Take a first step by signing this petition. You can find out about additional ways to help at ProtectAllTeens.com.  National Eagle Forum Capitol Hill Report
August 29, 2019 So far, in the House of Representatives, the 116th Congress has been a term of extending freedoms to some at the expense of others. We’ve seen bills, committee hearings, and floor speeches promulgating the Left’s talking-point demanding that our laws affirm a person’s sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI). The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), H.R. 1585, was one of the House’s first successful attempts at including SOGI language in a piece of legislation. SOGI language in VAWA has been interpreted to allow biological males who identify as a woman to enter into biologically female only places, not only violating the privacy, but also sometimes the safety of women seeking shelter. On top of this, the House’s passage of the Equality Act, H.R. 5, has also been celebrated by liberals and main-stream culture. Proponents of this legislation believe it is a landmark win for the LGBTQ community that gives them the protections from discrimination they deserve by making SOGI protected classes under federal civil rights laws. Most recently, the House unanimously passed the PRIDE Act, which allows same-sex couples to receive tax benefits that were previously awarded only to traditionally married couples, a husband and wife, by nullifying the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). It does so by modifying the tax code to allow same-sex couples to receive retroactive tax refunds from years prior to the 2013 Supreme Court decision striking down DOMA in U.S. v. Windsor. These three pieces of legislation are dangerous because they undermine the United States Constitution. Our Constitution already grants all people equality under the law, especially through the 14th Amendment, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and Title IX of the Education Amendment of 1972. Furthermore, by not including any conscience protections in VAWA and the Equality Act, and providing retroactive benefits in the PRIDE Act, all three pieces of legislation extend special protections and privileges for only LGBTQ people at the detriment of Americans who oppose their lifestyle, like Jack Phillips, the owner of a bakery repeatedly targeted for his refusal to bend his conscience and the Downtown Hope Center, which refused to allow a transgender female into their women’s only shelter. It is more important than ever to continue telling Washington, especially the Senate who has yet to vote on these pieces of legislation, of your disapproval of these harmful policies. Eagle Forum will continue to fight the assault on our Constitutional rights. Many young people are deciding they no longer want to live as the biological sex they were assigned at birth. These children start putting pressure on their parents to let them begin the process of transitioning to the sex they think they really are. This transition process will include using powerful puberty blockers, extreme hormone treatments such as giving testosterone to girls who want to become boys, and top and bottom surgery to change their sexual body parts. Utah parents are taking their children to the University of Utah health center for these services. The clinic is called the GEMS Clinic (Adolescent Gender Management & Support Clinic) at Eccles Primary Children’s Outpatient Services. The GEMS Clinic states that it helps teens affirm their gender through treatment and support. According to their website by the third appointment the children can start puberty blockers and hormone therapy. They state, “that before preforming gender-affirming surgery (top or bottom), most surgeons prefer that you take hormones for at least 12 months and you establish a relationship with a mental health therapist.” How can doctors who are pledged to do no harm, do these horrible things to children? How can they give them life altering, dangerous drugs and surgery that will forever change and endanger their lives? Further more, notice in the paragraph above where the U of U says they want the child (patient) to have a "relationship with a mental health therapist." If Equality Utah gets their way and passes a ban on conversion therapy, patients will have a relationship with a therapist who is unable to do nothing but affirm the gender of choice. From LifeSite News: Click here to read how Italy is putting an end to this child abuse  HB399 4th Substitute, Conversion Therapy
This bill is expected to be voted on tonight Please email the Members of the State House Representatives now and ask them to Vote YES on HB399 4th Substitute, Prohibition of the Practice of Conversion Therapy upon Minors and Vote NO to any motion to circle or substitute the Bill. This bill prohibits the old therapy practices subjecting a patient to physical discomfort through aversive treatment like electric shock, unpleasant physical sensations, or any practice that shames a patient. The bill does not infringe on the rights of parents, children and professional therapists to get help with same sex attraction or gender identity. We need YOUR HELP to PASS HB399 4th Substitute Please email & text the members of the House Memebers and ask them to Vote YES on HB399 4th Substitute, Prohibition of the Practice of Conversion Therapy upon Minors and Vote NO to any motion to circle or substitute the Bill. On Tuesday, March 5, the House Judiciary Committee will vote on HB399, Prohibition of the Practice of Conversion Therapy Upon Minors.
The bill says: 58-1-509. Prohibition on providing conversion therapy to a minor. 187 (1) As used in this section: 188 (a) (i) "Conversion therapy" means any practice or treatment that seeks to change the 189 sexual orientation or gender identity of a patient or client, including mental health therapy that 190 seeks to change, eliminate, or reduce behaviors, expressions, attractions, or feelings related to a 191 patient or client's sexual orientation or gender identity. While we can all agree that the old practices subjecting a patient to physical discomfort through aversive treatment like electric shock, unpleasant physical sensations, or any practice that shames a patient should be banned. We don’t however believe that government should infringe on the rights of parents, children and professional therapists by only allowing gay affirmative help with same sex attraction or gender identity. A therapist could help someone eliminate heterosexual pornography addiction but could not help someone eliminate homosexual pornography addiction. HB399 will infringe on religious liberty; therapists will not be able to help a gay teen work towards chastity or moral purity. A bi-sexual individual could not be helped towards a religiously motivated goal to eliminate compulsive sexual behaviors that are homosexual in nature. HB399 is unnecessary; no therapist in Utah actively practices conversion therapy. All reports of actual, specific, harmful practices are either from long ago or happen in another state. Hurt feelings or dissatisfaction do not equal abuse. HB399 makes the state government the coercive enforcer of a specific social and political agenda. A therapist could validate a homosexual lifestyle but could not suggest other options. HB399 is a gross over simplification. It equates all therapy that is not actively gay affirmative with the most outrageously inappropriate and abusive forms of conversion therapy. This bill does not represent the will of the people of Utah including many who experience same-sex attraction, the proponents of this bill are self selected and self appointed but claim to advocate for all. If the legislature passes this bill it will be allowing a small, vocal and well-funded group to dictate many moral, religious and sexual choices for all Utahans. We need YOUR HELP to STOP HB399 Please email & text the members of the House Judiciary Committee and tell the to VOTE NO to HB399! |
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