Former GLAAD president says medicalising children is ‘wrong’

The former president of US LGBT activist group GLAAD has said it is “wrong” to medicalise gender confused children.

Herndon Graddick led the controversial group between 2012 and 2013 and was hailed for expanding its work to include people who identified as transgender. In a podcast last month, he criticised the group for advocating for medical and surgical treatment for children who identify as transgender.

In the UK, trans-affirming treatment for gender-confused children — including the use of puberty blockers and new prescriptions for cross-sex hormones treatment — has been halted by the NHS.

Harm children

Graddick said: “I think that there’s been a lot of fear about discussing things openly for fear of being called transphobic, and I think that we’re at a place that we can really have those conversations without that fear.”

we should completely stop doing anything that might harm children

He added: “I think we need to correct what’s wrong first. And so that’s a big thing. I mean, particularly the medicalisation of children”.

He stated: “Teenagers and kids should not be given the power to make these life-altering decisions that medicalization causes.”

The former GLAAD president explained: “I just think that we should completely stop doing anything that might harm children, even if it [means admitting] that we got something really wrong, and my understanding is that we have”.

Medical loopholes

Keira Bell, a detransitioner who was prescribed puberty blockers at 16 and who now campaigns against transgender ideology, has called for a permanent end to medical treatment for gender confusion in both the NHS and private clinics, which are still able to prescribe cross-sex hormones under certain circumstances.

She explained: “Every youth deserves protection from this life-altering treatment and the opportunity to live a fulfilling life without becoming a life-long medical patient.”

Lawyer Paul Conrathe, from Conrathe Gardner LLP, who is representing Keira Bell among others, said: “Whilst protecting teenagers treated in the NHS, it leaves others vulnerable to treatment from gender activists in the private sector. It would now be irrational and an abdication of the Secretary of State’s responsibility for him to allow private providers to continue to prescribe these unsafe drugs.”

Conrathe added: “We have written to him to request that an immediate ban is put in place in the private sector. If he fails to do so, we will commence proceedings in the High Court.”