It was only a matter of time before the attempts to force normalization of the abnormal and deny undeniable biological reality would be codified in a textbook with which to “train,” or more accurately, to indoctrinate, psychiatrists and other mental health professionals. The release of Gender-Affirming Psychiatric Care, a textbook newly printed by American Psychiatric Association (APA) Publishing, promises to add false legitimacy to the already out-of-control push to “transition” children and teens.

The Epoch Times posted an article on November 30 charging that, according to critics, this new transgender textbook “could harm millions of kids.” The book’s foreword indicates it was written by 56 different authors, 50 of whom are members of the transgender community. Critics question its “reliance on a mix of transgender-identifying professionals writing about their experiences, limited scientific studies, and neo-Marxist critical theories.”

One of these critics is Alan Hopewell, Ph.D., a board-certified neuropsychologist and former senior clinical neuropsychologist for the U.S. Department of Defense. Hopewell called the textbook “disturbing” and described the content as “nonsensical gibberish which has no foundation whatsoever in science.” He told The Epoch Times: “This reminds me of brain-damaged hippies free-associating at a commune.”

Oklahoma City psychologist Dr. Lauren Schwartz warns that the textbook is based on “an evidence-informed approach” rather than an “evidence-based approach, which is more scientific,” and yet it “will be perceived as authoritative because it was printed by the APA’s publishing arm.”

Schwartz added: “Anyone wanting to practice gender-affirming care, any attorney wanting to defend it, and any legislator who wants to protect it, now has a new peer-reviewed textbook, not just ‘evidence’ in a journal or a study.”

Gender-Affirming Psychiatric Care bills itself as “cutting-edge neuroscience” and “the first textbook in the field to provide an affirming, intersectional, and evidence-informed approach to caring for transgender, non-binary, and/or gender-expansive (TNG) people.” Its 26 chapter topics include “gender-affirming care for marginalized communities such as Two-Spirit and Indigenous, Black, Asian American, Pacific Islander, disabled, migrant, refugee, and unhoused people,” an obvious attempt to create division by singling out designated victim groups.

A quote from the book’s foreword suggests that it drags into the trans mix the popular leftist notion of decolonization by asserting that “the psychiatric field was built on the work [and assumptions] of European, white, cisgender men, including their colonial, Anglo-centric, cis-heteropatriarchal worldview and pathologization of experiences that did not fit their own ‘norm."

The foreword continues: “For millennia, outside of European colonial influences, gender diversity has flourished to varying degrees among hundreds of indigenous communities around the world,” the proof of which many observers would doubtless like to see. The Times noted: “The idea that Western countries were colonizing land stolen from indigenous people is part of critical race theory (CRT), which critics say is rooted in neo-Marxism....”

The textbook makes outrageous claims such as calling heterosexuals cisgender people “who are part of a ‘cultural and systemic marginalization’ of LGBT people who don’t align with societal norms.” It cites as a legitimate beef the biological fact that “only women can have babies.” As the foreword reads: “For example, naming an obstetrics and gynecology practice a women’s health center is cis-normative because it assumes the practice will only serve patients with one gender.”

Legal concerns

Dallas attorney Ron Miller of Lawyers for Detransitioners told The Times that “a textbook affirming gender transitioning could lead to the harming of millions of children through sterilization and side effects from hormones and surgery.” Miller’s law firm represents detransitioners who “are suing doctors who prescribed hormones and surgery for gender dysphoria.”

Miller believes danger lies ahead if this textbook becomes widely adopted, because “a textbook put out by a professional psychiatric organization such as the APA is seen as credible. We’re already in a world where thousands of kids are at risk of this ideology or this practice,” he said, pointing to the fact that the American Academy of Pediatrics approved guidance for “gender-affirming care” as long ago as 2018.

The firm’s website spells out its “Focused Mission,” which states in part: “The number of individuals undergoing treatments and procedures in the name of ‘gender-affirming care’ has increased exponentially in recent years. Unfortunately, too many of those never should have undergone such irreversible treatment.

“Our firm is singularly committed to seeking justice nationwide for those detransitioners and others who have suffered harm due to medical malpractice, fraud, and other healthcare-related wrongs.”

Another point made by critics of the textbook is that the studies it cites are “low-quality studies.” At the same time, they acknowledge that “the APA is one of the largest nonprofit publishers of ‘psychological science’ in the world,” which will likely provide a facade of professional legitimacy to its questionable premises and flawed data.

Miller cautions that the “standards” in such a textbook could “end up trickling down, even into elementary schools, where school counselors could affirm millions of children.”

Minimizing serious health risks

The zeal to drive the transgender agenda without regard for consequences has given rise to dangerous denial of the very real health risks posed by puberty blockers, hormone drugs, and the life-altering surgeries that often follow.

For example, one chapter in the textbook alleges that puberty blockers “have been used safely in children of all genders” to pause early onset puberty, and that “pubertal suppression is fully reversible.” But Dr. Hopewell told The Epoch Times that “this is the lie they’re promoting all across the country.”

It is in fact known that puberty blockers “can affect bone growth and brain development in adolescents....” (See Education Reporter, Nov. 2022.) Hopewell pointed out that “hormone drugs such as Lupron, which suppress testosterone production, also must be managed carefully, but the textbook claims ‘gender-affirming’ hormones appear to be ‘overwhelmingly safe and linked with positive outcomes.’”

Although the textbook alleges that research on cardiovascular risk associated with cross-sex hormones is “mixed,” a study conducted earlier this year in Denmark “reinforces medical evidence that transgender-identifying people taking cross-sex hormones dramatically increase their chances of developing heart disease.”

The Daily Caller News Foundation reported on the Danish study results, which were released in August and show that males taking transgender hormones were 93 percent more likely to develop a heart condition than those not taking hormones. “Biological women taking testosterone were found to be 63 percent more likely to have heart disease than women not taking hormone treatments and have over twice the risk of developing a heart condition as biological men.”

This study was conducted on young adults in their early twenties, and found that both men and women taking cross-sex hormones over a five-year period were at a “significantly increased risk of developing high blood pressure and high cholesterol and were more likely to have heart attacks and strokes.”

A 2021 article on Medscape by William Malone, M.D. warned that “most of the long-term health risks [for children and teens given such treatments] are largely unknown.” Malone wrote:

• Puberty blockers have been demonstrated to significantly impair bone health, and it is not clear whether this will result in future osteoporosis. Cross-sex hormones are associated with roughly 3-5 times the risk for heart attacks and strokes, though long-term studies are of insufficient quality for accurate risk assessments.... The risks to fertility are largely unknown, but it is almost certain that if puberty blockers are given at the early stages of puberty and followed by cross-sex hormones, sterility will result.

The Daily Caller described another study also released in August 2023 which shows that “the number of U.S. teenagers getting sex-change surgeries increased significantly from 2016 to 2019. Kids from the ages of 12 to 18 made up 3,678 of the 48,019 patients over the four years, with 405 of those patients getting genital surgery.”

Clearly, the fears of critics like Drs. Schwartz, Hopewell, and others over the release of the new Gender-Affirming Psychiatric Care textbook are well founded and should be of grave concern to parents and citizens across the nation.

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