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21 states threaten top medical group with legal action for claiming puberty blockers are ‘reversible’

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Idaho Attorney General Raul Labrador

From LifeSiteNews

By Calvin Freiburger

More than 20 state attorneys general are banding together to warn the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) that it could face legal action if it continues to promote surgical and chemical “transitioning” of gender-confused minors, Idaho’s top law enforcement official Raul Labrador announced Tuesday.

As previously covered by LifeSiteNews, the AAP sides firmly with LGBT activists on how to approach children suffering from gender dysphoria, endorsing the use of puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgical transformation of developing bodies, going so far as to accuse states that deny minors so-called “gender-affirming care” of “state-sanctioned medical neglect and emotional abuse.”

AAP’s position is based on “evidence free standards,” the Idaho Attorney General’s Office contends, the “most concerning” of which is its claim that the “use of puberty blockers on children is safe and reversible. This assertion is not grounded in evidence and therefore may run afoul of consumer protection laws in most states.”

“When used to suppress hormones below normal ranges during or before puberty, puberty blockers: (1) may interfere with neurocognitive development; (2) compromise bone density and may negatively affect metabolic health and weight; and (3) block normal pubertal experience and experimentation,” reads the coalition’s letter to outgoing AAP president Benjamin Hoffman and his incoming successor Susan Kressley. “And when puberty blocker use is followed directly by cross-sex hormone use, which is often the case, infertility and sterility is a known consequence, at least for those who began puberty blockers in early puberty.”

“Telling parents and children that puberty blockers are ‘reversible’ at the very least conveys assurance that no permanent harm or change will occur. But that claim cannot be made in the face of the unstudied and ‘novel’ use of puberty blockers” for gender dysphoria, it continues. “It is even less defensible now that the World Professional Association for Transgender Health and its standards of care—the AAP’s apparent cornerstone source—have been exposed as unreliable and influenced by improper pressures,” referring to revelations earlier this year that Biden administration officials pressured WPATH to remove age limits.

The attorneys general of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Virginia, and West Virginia, as well as the Arizona Legislature, went on to threaten legal consequences for AAP if it does not reverse course.

“Idaho law, for example, prohibits ‘[e]ngaging in any act or practice that is otherwise misleading, false, or deceptive to the consumer,’” the letter says. “Most other states likewise prohibit making statements to consumers that are false, misleading, or deceptive. Each of us takes our responsibility to protect consumers in our states very seriously.”

The AAP has until October 18 to answer a series of information requests about its decision-making process on the subject.

“It is shameful the most basic tenet of medicine – do no harm – has been abandoned by professional associations when politically pressured,” Labrador said. “These organizations are sacrificing the health and well-being of children with medically unproven [procedures] that leave a wake of permanent damage […] Parents should be able to trust that a doctor’s medical guidance isn’t just the latest talking point from a dangerous and discredited activist agenda.”

Studies find that more than 80% of children suffering gender dysphoria outgrow it on their own by late adolescence and that “transition” procedures, including “reassignment” surgery, fail to resolve gender-confused individuals’ heightened tendency to engage in self-harm and suicide – and even exacerbate it, including by reinforcing their confusion and neglecting the actual root causes of their mental strife.

Many oft-ignored “detransitioners,” individuals who attempted to live under a different “gender identity” before embracing their sex, attest to the physical and mental harm of reinforcing gender confusion, as well as to the bias and negligence of the medical establishment on the subject, many of whom take an activist approach to their profession and begin cases with a predetermined conclusion in favor of “transitioning.”

“Gender-affirming” physicians have also been caught on video admitting to more old-fashioned motives for such procedures, as with an 2022 exposé about Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s Clinic for Transgender Health, where Dr. Shayne Sebold Taylor said outright that “these surgeries make a lot of money.”

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Mental Health

Headline that reads ‘Ontario must pay for surgery to give trans resident both penis and vagina: appeal court’ a sign of the times in Canada

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From LifeSiteNews

By Jonathon Van Maren

Gender ideology so entrenched, surgical mutilation is no longer considered fringe

If you’d like a glimpse of what 10 years of progressive rule has done to Canada in a single sentence, I submit to you this April 24 headline: “Ontario must pay for surgery to give trans resident both penis and vagina: appeal court.”

Imagine reading a headline like that in, say, 2010. You’d wonder what country you were living in — that is, if you weren’t trying to figure out what you just read. But in Canada in 2025, this stuff isn’t fringe. It’s establishment.

The Ontario Court of Appeal, the province’s top court, issued a ruling this week stating that the province must pay for a “penile-sparing vaginoplasty” for a resident who identifies as transgender but does not identify “exclusively” as either male or female and thus would like to possess both a penis and a vagina.

According to the Post, “a three-judge panel of the Ontario Court of Appeal confirmed a lower court’s ruling that the novel phallus-preserving surgery qualifies as an insured service under the Ontario Health Insurance Plan.” In case you’re tempted to write this off as an aberration at the hands of a handful of activist judges, this ruling is the third unanimous decision in favor of the “patient,” identified in court records as “K.S.”

“K.S. is pleased with the Court of Appeal’s decision, which is now the third unanimous ruling confirming that her gender affirming surgery is covered under Ontario’s Health Insurance Act and its regulation,” K.S.’s lawyer, John McIntyre, told the Post. K.S., as it turns out, identifies as neither male nor female … but uses female pronouns:

The legal battle between K.S., whose sex at birth was male, dates to 2022, when the Ontario Health Insurance Plan (OHIP) refused her request to pay for the cost of surgery at a Texas clinic to construct a vagina while sparing the penis, a procedure this is not available in Ontario, or anywhere else in Canada. K.S. uses female pronouns but does not identify as either fully female or fully male.

Previously, saner generations would have no idea how to interpret the preceding paragraph, but gender ideology has made fools of us all. OHIP attempted to argue that “because the vaginoplasty would not be accompanied by a penectomy, the procedure isn’t one specifically listed in OHIP’s Schedule of Benefits and therefore shouldn’t be publicly funded” and also that the surgery is “experimental” in Ontario and thus can’t be covered.

But K.S., who has a male member but would also like a neo-vagina, appealed to the Health Services Appeal and Review Board, which overturned OHIP’s decision. OHIP appealed to the Divisional Court but lost; the latest appeal, heard November 26, was also rejected because a “penectomy,” the removal of the penis, was “neither recommended by K.S.’s health professionals nor desired by K.S.,” according to the court’s decision.

I wonder if the judges thought that they’d be ruling on whether a man who identifies as neither a man or a woman was entitled to obtain a vagina while retaining his penis when they were going to law school.

The court stated that K.S., who is in his early 30s, “has experienced significant gender dysphoria since her teenage years, as well as physical, mental and economic hardships to transition her gender expression to align with her gender identity.” Of course, K.S. isn’t “transgender,” per se — because he doesn’t identify as the opposite sex, even though he uses the pronouns of the opposite sex. He wants to be … both, somehow. And he wants the taxpayer to pay for it.

K.S.’s doctor submitted a request to OHIP for prior funding approval for the surgical creation of a vaginal cavity and external vulva. The request made it clear that K.S. wasn’t seeking a penectomy. In a letter accompanying the request, her doctor said that because K.S. is “not completely on the ‘feminine’ end of the spectrum” it was important for her to have a vagina while maintaining her penis, adding that the Crane Center for Transgender Surgery in Austin, Tx.,” has an excellent reputation” for gender-affirming surgery, “and especially with these more complicated procedures.”

The surgeries, depending on which are performed, range in cost “from US $10,000 to $70,000.” The court also ordered Ontario to pay K.S. $23,250 after dismissing OHIP’s appeal; the province has until June 23 to seek leave to the Supreme Court of Canada.

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Jonathon’s writings have been translated into more than six languages and in addition to LifeSiteNews, has been published in the National PostNational ReviewFirst Things, The Federalist, The American Conservative, The Stream, the Jewish Independent, the Hamilton SpectatorReformed Perspective Magazine, and LifeNews, among others. He is a contributing editor to The European Conservative.

His insights have been featured on CTV, Global News, and the CBC, as well as over twenty radio stations. He regularly speaks on a variety of social issues at universities, high schools, churches, and other functions in Canada, the United States, and Europe.

He is the author of The Culture WarSeeing is Believing: Why Our Culture Must Face the Victims of AbortionPatriots: The Untold Story of Ireland’s Pro-Life MovementPrairie Lion: The Life and Times of Ted Byfield, and co-author of A Guide to Discussing Assisted Suicide with Blaise Alleyne.

Jonathon serves as the communications director for the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform.

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Mental Health

Suspect who killed 11 in Vancouver festival attack ID’d

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MXM logo  MxM News

Quick Hit:

Authorities have identified the driver responsible for the devastating attack at Vancouver’s Lapu Lapu Day festival that killed at least 11 and injured dozens more. The suspect, Kai-Ji Adam Lo, 30, had a well-documented history of mental illness, and his family sought help just hours before the tragic event.

Key Details:

  • Kai-Ji Adam Lo, 30, was identified as the driver who plowed into a crowd, killing 11 and injuring dozens more.
  • Lo’s family sought psychiatric help for him hours before the attack; he was already known to law enforcement.
  • Police believe the attack was not terror-related, citing Lo’s extensive mental health struggles.

Diving Deeper:

The city of Vancouver is grappling with unspeakable tragedy following the deadly assault that unfolded during the Lapu Lapu Day festival, a vibrant celebration honoring the Filipino community. Authorities have identified the man behind the wheel as 30-year-old Kai-Ji Adam Lo, who was apprehended at the scene Saturday night.

Lo, whose troubled history with mental illness was well known to local authorities and mental health professionals, faces eight counts of second-degree murder, with additional charges expected as the investigation continues. According to reports, Lo’s family had reached out to a hospital psychiatric ward just hours before the incident, desperately seeking help for him amid his escalating paranoia and delusions. It remains unclear whether any intervention was made in response to the family’s call.

Vancouver Police Chief Steve Rai confirmed that Lo had no interactions with law enforcement immediately prior to the event, but acknowledged that the city is reeling from its “darkest day.” Investigators emphasized that, because of Lo’s mental state, they do not believe the attack was terror-related.

Adding to the complex portrait of the suspect, Lo was mourning profound personal loss. His brother, Alexander Lo, was murdered in January 2024. Following the death, Lo had penned heartbreaking posts online, sharing how his brother’s death and his mother’s subsequent suicide attempt shattered their family.

Tragically, among the 11 killed during Saturday’s carnage was a 5-year-old child. Dozens more were wounded when Lo drove his SUV into the densely packed crowd gathered for the festivities. Lo has since appeared in court and will remain in custody as prosecutors prepare to bring additional charges.

The horror that unfolded in Vancouver serves as a stark reminder of the broader systemic failures surrounding mental health interventions. While Canadian authorities attempt to grapple with the aftermath, this tragedy sadly echoes similar stories in other nations where warnings about individuals in crisis have gone unheeded—with catastrophic results.

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