Former Johns Hopkins psychiatrist issues honest statement regarding transgenderism.

Culturally speaking, it’s a strange time to be alive. The upside down nature of our society makes it curious for anyone retaining a modicum of common sense and reason. Perhaps one of the most peculiar sights to behold is the idea that someone’s imagination is more valid than their reality; that their desires are more “real” than anything else.

This cannot be seen more clearly than in the transgender movement.

Here is a movement dedicated to making the imagination and desires of people as real as the chair I’m sitting in. A group of people that are confused and, some would say, mentally disturbed are being held out as the next great group of civil rights heroes. Somehow I think Martin Luther King Jr. would disagree. What King and other civil rights activists fought for were inherent rights based on reality: all people are equal regardless of the color of their skin. I don’ recall King encouraging anyone to change the color of their skin. Skin color, like gender, is biologically verifiable, determined at birth, unalterable.

At one time in history we as a society would have confessed the same about gender. Our elementary education in biology would have asked and answered questions related to gender with absolute truth. It seems the gray area is getting larger though, in our effort to normalize anything and everything.

Imagine my surprise when renowned psychiatrist Dr. Paul R. McHugh, formerly the psychiatrist-in-chief at Johns Hopkins recently claimed that transgenderism is a “mental disorder.” How dare he say such hurtful things. Doesn’t he know that our society doesn’t care about facts and biology? Doesn’t he know that our imaginations and desires are more important that centuries of verifiable, empirical evidence?

Apparently he does not know or care. Good for him.

In a recent interview Dr. McHugh said:

“This intensely felt sense of being transgendered constitutes a mental disorder in two respects. The first is that the idea of sex misalignment is simply mistaken – it does not correspond with physical reality. The second is that it can lead to grim psychological outcomes.”

McHugh said that one thing transgender activists don’t want to talk about is studies showing that 70-80% of kids expressing transgender feelings will “spontaneously lose those feelings” over time. Instead, politicians, media, and other transgender activists are pushing young children to undergo hormone therapy, pushing them farther into their confusion. McHugh says such actions can stunt the child’s growth and lead to sterility. He is correct when he states that these actions are “close to child abuse.”

McHugh also made this bold claim:

“’Sex change’ is biologically impossible. People who undergo sex-reassignment surgery do not change from men to women or vice versa. Rather, they become feminized men or masculinized women. Claiming that this is civil-rights matter and encouraging surgical intervention is in reality to collaborate with and promote a mental disorder.”

Can you believe he said that? He dared to stand on biological facts and scientifically verifiable data to make a truth claim. He is claiming that boys are boys and girls are girls. He’s saying that it is biologically impossible for a boy to be a girl. Doesn’t he know that “you can be anything you want to be’?

All joking aside, his claims really aren’t anything unusual or special. In our present culture however, which reveres “personal truth” above all else, even when that truth doesn’t correspond to reality, McHugh’s statements are revolutionary. Realistically though, his statements are boring old science that we’ve known since grade school. A male can never be a biological woman no matter how many surgeries or how many hormones he takes. A male can never produce an egg, and, once fertilized, carry that child as it develops into a fully formed human being and then give birth to the child.

What makes the current situation in our country more difficult is that its not one that people feel free to discuss. The narrative being pushed is that transgender people are like everyone else and deserve all the rights others enjoy. Accompanying that narrative is an unspoken but all-too-real threat to anyone that would dare voice opposition to the prevailing narrative. Like many other narratives of our culture, reasonable, respectful dialogue has been shut down.

But we aren’t doing anyone any favors. In a separate article Dr. McHugh is said to have commented on a study “showing that the suicide rate among transgendered people who had reassignment surgery is 20 times higher than the suicide rate among non-transgender people.”

Our culture is literally pushing people to kill themselves. And rather than address the issue with genuine love and respect for their human dignity, we are bragging about our rose colored glasses while people persist in their confusion.

My thanks to Dr. McHugh for his honesty. It takes real compassion to tell the truth when you know it will be painful. But, as Dr. McHugh is aware of, the temporary pain of our honesty is better than the life of pain that will result from our lies.