Written by Alice Larkin
(pen-name of a counselling psychologist well known to FLI)
20th January 2026
Psychologists among the dissidents questioning the transgender narratives
The word dissident has been usually associated with courageous opponents of totalitarian political regimes. In our age, however, it may be surprising to read that it may well be applied to psychologists, psychiatrists, and health professionals opposing certain narratives being thrust on them. These new dissidents question the efficacy and certain treatments for various medical and psychological problems. Their professional voices are often silenced, not so much by jail, but by ostracism, or de-registration.
This dissidence from professionals has become particularly evident with what is termed the ‘transgender agenda.’ Numerous psychologists (among other health professionals) do not agree with their peers’ views. Some publicly, some in silence. As a psychologist I have encountered this first-hand. I have come across well-qualified psychologists, researchers, and other health professionals who have spoken out against the transgender narrative and indeed are dissidents within their own professions.
What’s in a diagnosis?
There is a universal diagnostic manual, the DSM5 as it is called, and it is used the world over. The letters stand for the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, volume 5 – and this most recent edition was published on May 5, 2013. In the previous edition called, there was a diagnosis called Gender Identity Disorder (GID), previously used to refer to transgender individuals. In the new DSM5, this diagnosis was removed from the category of ‘disorder.’ The DSM5 now stated that those wanting to change gender are no longer disordered but have Gender Dysphoria – that is, they display, among other things, ‘a marked incongruence between their experienced/expressed gender and assigned gender.'[i] This was a significant attempt to de-stigmatise what transgender persons experience, in shifting the ground from the more loaded term ‘disorder’ to the less loaded term ‘dysphoria.’ That is, while their dysphoria is important, and needs addressing, it is not a disorder.
As a psychologist, I lived through this and can recall the surprise with which my professional colleagues heard of this change in official team meetings – for they knew that Gender Identity Disorder (GID) existed, they knew that those with it deserved compassionate treatment as having a mental health problem and they helped them. However, the new narrative started to pervade the media, health professional groups and academia from about 2015 onwards. No-one disagreed that those with transgender and transexual experiences had often suffered from being misunderstood. Some, however, like US psychologist William Kilpatrick saw it not only as a change of diagnostic criteria, but as straying into delusional thinking. He thought that it was precisely delusional thinking that had become a prominent feature of the modern mind, adding that psychology and medical professionals, who usually detect such thinking and help people overcome it, should have known better. Those with gender identity difficulties deserved better. In his article ‘The Normalisation of Delusional Thinking’, Kilpatrick stated:
All of a sudden, a significant percentage of our social and intellectual elites have succumbed to the delusion that a girl can be a boy, and a boy can be a girl, or whatever he, she, ne, ze, zir currently desires to be. This is not merely a rebellion against social convention, it’s a rebellion against reality.[ii]
He saw this rebellion – of questioning biological facts – as part of a creeping coercion ensnaring western institutions and professions, whose authorities want to punish those who fail to honour the delusion – even psychological authorities.
Politics invades psychology
The transgender narrative had a distinctly political as well as psychological dimension. In 2020, the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission made what is known as ‘transgender’ – a protected status under the 1964 Civil Rights Act.[iii] The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Bostock v. Clayton County that it was illegal under the terms of this act for an employer to not hire, to fire, or to otherwise discriminate against individuals because of their sexual orientation or gender identity (SOGI). [iv]9
The transgender agenda took on a life of its own. As Catholic moral theology professor Christian Brugger states, a ‘baffling multiplication of categories of sexuality’ were suddenly seeking ‘rights’ – including transsexualism, transvestism, bi-genderism, genderqueerism, and pansexuality, to name a few.[v] An Australian called Norrie gave it all a new twist. Norrie took his desire to be ‘no gender’ to the High Court in Australia in 2014 and won.[vi] Not to mention that many were perplexed that transgenders insist on IVF to conceive children at their request, replacing terms such as ‘mother’ and ‘father’ with Parent 1 and Parent 2. [vii] Needless to say, those who wished to change their birth certificates were having a difficult time as understandably the paperwork was fraught with difficulties. Keeping up with such trends, there was a proposal in Queensland, where terms ‘mother and father would be optional, and people would be allowed to change their gender every 12 months.’[viii]
Some context to the problem
Before going further, we need to put the issue in context. There are three important points to note. First, the transgender issue has not suddenly emerged in the new millennium but had been on the boil for many years. In early modern history, a call for recognition of transgenderism came from a nineteenth-century German physician called Magnus Hirschfield (1868-1935) who categorised 64 possible types of sexual intermediary ranging from masculine heterosexual male to feminine homosexual male. While many initially rejected his ideas, his advocacy of ‘rights’ for all genders later resonated with others, among them Harry Benjamin MD who in 1966 published his foundational text The Transsexual Phenomenon.[ix] Then there was Dr John Money, born in New Zealand, who completed his studies at Harvard, and became professor of paediatrics and medical psychology at Johns Hopkins University in 1951. Dr Money was a dedicated Kinsey disciple on the advisory board of the Kinsey Institute. Money stressed the social construction of gender from that time onwards and wrote Man & Woman, Boy & Girl (1972) which was used as a college level textbook. He had coined the term ‘gender role’ in 1955 proposing that this signifies all those things that a person says or does to disclose himself or herself as having the status of boy or man, girl or woman, respectively. That is, having a gender is a socially constructed role and not limited to the fact that one is a ‘male’ or ‘female’ at birth.
The second point to note, as stated above, is that is that there was a previous sex-change clinic before the diagnostic change in 2013. In November 1966, the Johns Hopkins University would publicly announce the founding of the first US Gender Identity Clinic, led by John Hoopes (chief of plastic surgery there), and co-founded by Dr John Money (psychologist). It was run by 10 specialists including.[x] Dr Paul McHugh, formerly chief of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins, worked with Hoopes and Money, among others, on this original sex-change project.[xi] That is, before he re-thought it all and closed it down.[xii]
One of their first transgender ‘projects’ was the Canadian boy David Reimer. His story deserves telling. He was one of twin boys born in Manitoba Canada in 1965. David was born a healthy male but due to damaged sex organs, as a result of a badly done circumcision, he was referred to Dr Money. David was ‘reassigned’ as a female from infancy onwards, dressed in female clothes, given the name Brenda, with various operations performed on him. Despite the frilly dresses, ‘Brenda’ did not feel he was a girl and was not accepted by other female peers. The reassignment also involved his twin brother in various sexual behaviours to affirm his sibling’s ‘female’ identity.[xiii] From the age of 11 onward Reimer began to question his ‘female’ identity and decided to live as a male from the age of 14, no longer attending sessions. In 2000, however, the twins went public, telling how Dr. Money had taken naked photos of both boys from the age of seven.
David was traumatised by what had happened and wanted to return to being male. He had further surgery to reassign him and recover what was left of his maleness. He urged others not to engage in gender change. Sadly, he suffered from severe depression from the age of 13 onwards and he committed suicide in 2004. His twin brother, who developed mental health problems, ensuing from the gender ‘experiment’, had committed suicide in 2002. Little public comment on the ‘failure’ of this ‘project’ was issued by John Money who saw media criticism of it due to ‘right wing’ bias and ‘antifeminism’.[xiv]
There were, however, growing concerns about the reported success rates of changing genders and whether Dr. Money had been falsifying the reports of sex change success. This prompted a review. Dr. Paul McHugh commissioned a study of post-operative transsexuals from the Johns Hopkins Gender Identity Clinic program. One of the examiners, Dr. Jon. K. Meyer and Donna J. Reter obtained results that were different from Money’s reports of success a decade earlier.[xv] Dr. Meyer reported, ‘To say that this type of surgery cures psychiatric disturbance is incorrect.’ He added, ‘My personal feeling is that surgery is not a proper treatment for a psychiatric disorder, and it’s clear to me that these patients have severe psychological problems that don’t go away following surgery.’[xvi] In 1979 Dr McHugh shut down the gender identity clinic at Johns Hopkins.
The third contextual point to consider, is the fact that our understanding of disorders does change over time. In the nineteenth century, many were diagnosed with ‘hysteria’ but psychologists came to better understand trauma, organic brain damage, and personality disorders. Similarly, some treatments were outrageously bad. Remember some psychiatrists once believed lobotomies would help people? We know now that this was mistaken and caused great harm. When it was proposed that there are any number of genders and that this is perfectly ‘normal’, why were dissenting professionals not heard? It would not be the first time such dissent has occurred in psychology. Rather than using a cautionary approach, there seemed to be a determination to establish a particular viewpoint.
Of course, no-one has to swear total undying allegiance to the DSM 5, though psychologists and psychiatrists are expected to accept most of what it says, as a general ‘consensus’ on what is a disorder or not. This works reasonably well with major disorders such as bi-polar disorder or schizophrenia. Scientific questioning and biochemical discoveries alter our understanding of diagnoses and treatments. But this differs from diagnoses arising from social and political developments. After the American Psychiatric Association (APA) removed homosexuality from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) in 1973, the challenge remained to remove any negative reference to transgenderism or gender identity disorder from the manual. Dissenters from 2013 onwards were not given a public voice and were even professionally ostracised.
The dissidents speak out.
Despite ostracism, some professionals did speak out. The most prominent was arguably Dr Paul McHugh, mentioned above, the former chief of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins Hospital, who had spoken out decades before the new DSM V re-categorisation of gender identity. Remember, he had closed the clinic in 1979 after an empirical study on the original 1960s sex-change project found the clinic had not only not solved the genuine problems of those seeking gender change, but had increased them. After examining the evidence on a scientific and professional basis, McHugh considered his work had been misguided:
I concluded that Hopkins was fundamentally cooperating with a mental illness. We psychiatrists, I thought, would do better to concentrate on trying to fix their minds and not their genitalia.[xvii]
McHugh saw it as a failure not to seek the underlying causes of the desire to change gender. He expressed alarm at the resurgence of the transgenderism and quoted results from long -term research on the consequences of sex-change:
Most shockingly, their [i.e. the transgenders’] suicide mortality rose almost 20-fold above the comparable non-transgender population. This disturbing result has as yet no explanation but probably reflects the growing sense of isolation reported by the aging transgendered after surgery. The high suicide rate certainly challenges the surgery prescription .[xviii]
Those undergoing gender reassignment surgery had not fulfilled their hopes, nor had there been a long-term improvement in their psychological health.[xix] He said surgical treatment for transgender youth was like performing liposuction on an anorexic child. He described post-operative transgender women as ‘caricatures of women’ because the surgery failed to change many of their male traits, and believed that the transgendered suffer a disorder of assumption.[xx]
Another American psychiatrist, Dr Fitzgibbon reached similar conclusions, stating that reassignment surgery is a ‘category mistake’— offering a surgical solution for psychological problems, and which could endanger people’s lives.[xxi] He noted that the largest study to date of the long-term psychological state of post-SRS (Surgical Reassignment Surgery) persons was an analysis of over three hundred people who had undergone SRS in Sweden over the past thirty years. Along with Dr McHugh, he found that this 2011 study demonstrated that persons after sex reassignment, had considerably higher risks for mortality, suicidal behaviour, and psychiatric morbidity than the general population (Dhejne et al., 2011).[xxii] In his comprehensive study of the existing literature on the subject, Fitzgibbon noted that within certain subgroups that the desire to change genders had taken on a life of its own in which youth acquired more status by being transgender than being gay. He also viewed with great concern a connection between autism and transgender thinking, increasingly noted in various studies.[xxiii]
Another prominent dissident was pediatrician Dr Michelle Cretella who saw the dangers of the growing rebellion against former well-studied gender identity issues. While the American Academy of Pediatrics had adopted a radically affirmative transgender approach for children, by contrast the American College of Pediatricians (of which Cretella was then president), did not. Cretella warned that the current treatment proposed for young transgenders was dangerous for many reasons:
Just a few short years ago, not many could have imagined a high-profile showdown over transgender men and women’s access to single-sex bathrooms in North Carolina. But transgender ideology is not just infecting our laws. It is intruding into the lives of the most innocent among us—children—and with the apparent growing support of the professional medical community.[xxiv]
In addition, the claim that people are born in the wrong body with differently wired brains is false, for twin studies show that even if one twin is transgender, there is no significant finding that the other will be so. Identical twins should show 100 per cent concordance in this, and clearly do not. Cretella stated that most pre-pubertal children who are puzzled by their gender, usually grow out of it. Furthermore, there have not been sufficient studies to observe the long-term consequences of strong endocrine medication:
[In] 2006 and 2007, the journal Psychoneuroendocrinology reported brain abnormalities in the area of memory and executive functioning among adult women who received blockers for gynecologic reasons. Similarly, many studies of men treated for prostate cancer with blockers also suggest the possibility of significant cognitive decline. [xxv]
If such dangerous effects can be observed in adults, Cretella asks why should such medication be used for children? Interestingly, more controversy was aroused in early 2025,when the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists website announced a ban in Queensland on the use of puberty blockers until more study was completed.
On 28 January, the Queensland Government ordered a statewide halt on puberty blocking agents and gender affirming hormones for all new patients under 18 seeking help for gender dysphoria, pending an independent review into their use.[xxvi]
Renowned paediatric US endocrinologist, Quentin Van Meter, MD, also voiced professional concerns at the new transgender narrative. He and his colleagues who asked questions often found a subsequent cost to their professional status. Van Meter compiled a list of studies expressing scientific concerns which were published by the US National Library of Medicine.[xxvii] When invited to Australia, Sydney’s Catholic Weekly reported an address he gave:
The transgender movement is not based on “a shred of scientific evidence,” a US pediatric endocrinologist has said during a recent visit to Sydney. While emphasising the need to extend compassion and respect for those struggling with their sexual identity, Dr Quentin Van Meter—who has treated numerous children and young people confused about their sexual identity over several decades—said the transgender movement has no scientific basis whatsoever and is “a social movement dressed up as science.” Furthermore, he said the irreversible procedures performed on children, such as puberty-blockers and “corrective surgery,” which help a child to transition to the opposite sex, constitute “child abuse.”[xxviii]
Perhaps one of the most high-flying dissidents of the transgender narrative is Jordan Peterson, formerly psychology professor at the University of Toronto. As a new millennium Orwell (or Jeremiah), he has faced hostile crowds, the Canadian Parliament, and aggressive TV interviewers in his questioning what he saw as ideologically defined notions of ‘diversity’ and ‘tolerance.’ What particularly put Peterson in the spotlight was his refusal to accept the new DSM 5 view on the transgender issue, and his refusal (with threatened hefty fines) to use new pronouns for transgender persons. Looking like a suave, left-wing academic in cool garb, showing a wide understanding of politics, post-modernism, and psychology, he was almost a ‘Foucault lookalike.’ He attracted listeners and was skilful at demolishing post-modern ideological assumptions, the transgender agenda one among them.
Peterson was an early dissident to the proposed Canadian Bill C-16 (passed in June 2017). He courageously faced denunciation at his university. Opponents glued the locks to his office, and the media sought to cancel him. As many know, this new Canadian Bill amended the Canadian Human Rights Act by adding ‘gender identity or expression’ as a prohibited ground of discrimination to protect all genders from discrimination under the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Criminal Code. It did not, however, clearly define what ‘discrimination’ meant. Some occasional mistaken use of wrong pronouns was not deemed to be discrimination. But persistent misuse – e.g., by Christians, clergy, psychologists, doctors, and those who thought differently – broke the law.
Gender identity was ‘defined’ by the Ontario Human Rights Commission as ‘each person’s internal and individual experience of gender, a sense of being a woman, a man, both, neither, or anywhere along the gender spectrum.'[xxix] Feelings and internal experience became the arbiter of truth.
Things hotted up when Peterson debated a lecturer in Transgender Studies, Nicholas Matt, in a 2016 Canadian TV interview, giving his objections to this Canadian law requiring legally enforced pronouns for transgender persons.[xxx] Matt accused the psychology professor of hate speech, abuse of transgenders, and transphobia. Unfazed, Peterson replied that being forced to use words was a constraint on free speech and stated that his accusers were guilty of discriminatory speech and hatred towards him. Peterson said biological sex exists, there being ample scientific evidence for this. Peterson added that he respected transgenders as persons, and that he had counselled many of them at their own request. He believed, however, as a professional psychologist that they had mental health problems, and that these needed compassion. Counselling hotlines suddenly erupted online for those offended by his comments.
Then in January 2018, came a dramatic debate. BBC journalist Cathy Newman took Peterson on, covering issues such as gender equality, freedom of speech, and transgender rights. She particularly attacked Peterson’s refusal to use various transgender pronouns. But she had not reckoned on Peterson’ quick thinking grasp of post-modern thought patterns. Peterson was psychologically prepared to meet her charge of ‘hate speech’ by replying that forcing him to use language he did not want to use was totalitarian, and a form of Maoist coercion. For a cultural warrior like Newman to be accused of being ‘totalitarian’ temporarily reduced her to shock, confusion, babble, then silence- no arguments given in return. Peterson then complimented her for exercising her right to free speech, for even offending him, adding he had the right to disagree. Another jaw-dropping moment! The unthinkable had happened – a psychologist – and Canadian to boot – had questioned and neutralised the transgender post-modern narrative in public view. On youtube, the interview got over 13 million hits and Peterson was never invited on BBC TV again! He has since increased his critique of the ‘trans affirmative’ policies within the medical and psychological professions. In his talk, ‘Doctors & Psychotherapists: Butchers & Liars’, he called sex-reassignment surgery ‘brutal’ and ‘appalling’, a contradiction of the Hippocratic oath in actually doing harm to others.[xxxi]
Philosophical and theological questioning of the transgender agenda
The western philosophical understanding of human nature opposes the recent transgender one. The philosopher John Skalko has written an interesting article, asking:
What differentiates human males from human females? Is it the number of sex chromosomes? Is it the possession of the appropriate sex organs? Is it the amount of testosterone or estrogen? The difficulty is that none of these standards always works: some individuals are born with extra chromosomes, such as XXYY or XYY. Some individuals are born with both pairs of sex organs. Some females have higher testosterone levels than many men. [xxxii]
He goes on to say defects in nature imply a norm:
If human beings had no ordering to reproduction, or no sexual reproduction occurred, not only would one have no concept of gender, there would be no biological sex in human beings… Defects occur in nature, but defects imply a norm from which they deflect. A castrated man is still a male; a female with a mastectomy is still a female. The fact that one is born with ambiguous genitalia does not do away with one’s true sex. [xxxiii]
He adds that true human hermaphrodites with both male and female sexual organs that fully function don’t exist, and that no cases of self-fertilization have ever been recorded in human beings. Hermaphroditism, rather than disproving the traditional binary distinction, actually reinforces it. Skalko concludes that it is the capacity for reproduction that grounds the distinction between male and female. It is most evidently a ‘given’, an observable, scientific fact, not a socially constructed role.
Professor Nicholas Tonti Filippini drew the distinction between first, congenital disorder of sex development (intersex conditions) and second, of gender dysphoria/identity problems. If former treatment is meant to restore as much normal function as possible, the latter mutilating intervention destroys what were otherwise healthy bodily functions.[xxxiv] He pointed to the Catechism of the Catholic church (# 2297) which states that ‘Except when performed for strictly therapeutic medical reasons, directly intended amputations, mutilations and sterilizations performed on innocent persons are against the moral law.'[xxxv] Gender reassignment often involves multiple mutilations of healthy organs and invasive hormonal treatment, such as puberty blockers. The good of a person cannot be achieved at the expense of the destruction of a basic human function except to save a person’s life. And as other dissidents asked – given suicide rates, does invasive surgery really solve problems?
Catholic philosopher David Schindler, says that gender is not an accident, it is not a way of appearing or behaving, nor how a person may feel on a particular day. He says:
… gender difference is exactly coextensive with the form that defines the substance: in other words, it is a difference that goes ‘all the way down’, not determining some particular essential content of the nature, but rather determining the particular manner of all the content. … a difference in modality of the form that defines the species…. Men and women are not different in their substance, but in the mode, the manner of that substance’s existence. The difference goes down to the deepest level …[xxxvi]
The Popes speak out
Not lacking in dramatic language, the last three Popes have spoken out on gender ideology. Pope Leo XIV, confirmed in a meeting with the Vatican diplomatic corps that the family is founded on the ‘stable union between a man and a woman.’[xxxvii] The Huffington Post and the Guardian, hoping the new pope might express differing views, were disappointed. On the day after the Papal election, May 9, the National Catholic Register reported that Pope Leo XIV, ‘As the Bishop of Chiclayo in Peru … opposed a plan to teach transgenderism in schools.[xxxviii]
In a 2023 interview, Pope Francis saw gender ideology is one of the ‘most dangerous ideological colonizations’ in our times, an attack on the very nature of the person.[xxxix] His predecessor Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI also addressed the transgender question in his 2012 Christmas Address, saying:
According to this philosophy, sex is no longer a given element of nature, that man has to accept and personally make sense of: it is a social role that we choose for ourselves, while in the past it was chosen for us by society. The profound falsehood of this theory and of the anthropological revolution contained within it is obvious.
Pope Emeritus Benedict XIV added that being created by God as male or female, pertains to the essence of the human creature:
People dispute the idea that they have a nature, given by their bodily identity, that serves as a defining element of the human being. They deny their nature and decide that it is not something previously given to them, but that they make it for themselves. According to the biblical creation account, being created by God as male and female pertains to the essence of the human creature. This duality is an essential aspect of what being human is all about, as ordained by God.
The church’s teaching has been consistent. We do not ‘create’ our own nature, we are given it.
Then came the Polish and American Bishops
The Polish Bishops entered the fray early on as powerful dissident voices. It is not surprising that in a country previously under Nazism and Communism, many smelt some kind of ideological rat in the transgender agenda which declared that gender is a socially constructed role. Very soon after the diagnostic changes in 2013, the Polish episcopacy swung into action. In 2014, originating from the Polish Bishops’ Conference, Poland parish priests read their parishioners a letter, entitled The Dangers Stemming From Gender Ideology. Signed by all members of the Polish Bishops’ Conference, the Episcopal letter enunciated clearly the political and ideological context of its rise of the ‘gender ideology,’ stating:
The gender ideology (movement) is the product of many decades of ideological and cultural changes that are deeply rooted in Marxism and neo-Marxism endorsed by some feminist movements and the sexual revolution. This ideology promotes principles that are totally contrary to reality and an integral understanding of human nature. It maintains that biological sex is not socially significant and that cultural sex which humans can freely develop and determine irrespective of biological conditions is most important. According to this ideology, humans can freely determine whether they want to be men or women and freely choose their sexual orientation. This voluntary self-determination, not necessarily life-long, is to make the society accept the right to set up new types of families, for instance, families built on homosexual relations.[xl]
The Polish Bishops outlined the harm of the new ideology:
…The danger of gender ideology lies in its very destructive character both for men, people contacts and social life as a whole. Humans unsure of their sexual identity are not capable of discovering and fulfilling tasks that they face in their marital, family social and professional lives.
In strident language, Bishop Kazimierz Ryczan of Kielce, addressing the Catholics of Slovakia, referred to gender ideology as a ‘contemporary Herod’ which seeks to destroy the family.[xli]
In the wake of anomalies in which transgendered men could play sport with biological women, American Bishops started to voice dissent early on, even if not always heard. In 2016, it was reported:
Nebraska’s Catholic bishops have called for the reversal of a new school athletics participation policy that would recognize gender identity, not biological sex, as a standard for student athletes. The Catholic schools in the Nebraska School Activities Association are dismayed by the association board’s “arbitrary, non-collaborative decision” on the policy vote, the Nebraska Catholic Conference said Jan. 14.”Member-schools and parents must make every effort to reverse an NSAA board action that compromises fairness, equality, privacy, safety, and respect for Nebraska’s high school students,” said the conference in a statement signed by the state’s three bishops.[xlii]
Another questioning and compassionate address on this subject is Oklahoma City Archbishop Paul S. Coakley’s pastoral letter ‘On the Unity of the Body and Soul: Accompanying Those Experiencing Gender Dysphoria,’ released on Good Shepherd Sunday, April 30, 2023.
While this pastoral letter addresses the anthropology underlying the transgender movement, its purpose is to provide clear pastoral guidance on how the Church, its ministers and the lay faithful can help those struggling with gender identity. A section of resources concerning gender dysphoria, mental health professionals, and transgender ideology was also included at the end.[xliii]
Archbishop Paul Coakley stated:
Following Pope Francis, I distinguish “between what pastoral care is for people who [identify as transgendered] and what is [trans]gender ideology.” Persons who identify as transgendered are created by God, are loved by God, and we as faithful Christians are called to love each of them as our neighbor (cf. Mark 12:31). To love others means at its heart to will and desire their good.[xliv]
Archbishop Coakley added that we all have unique circumstances in which we have ‘sought to rest in something other than God.’ He exhorts empathy for those who have suffered in various ways to lead them to this point, saying:
Sins and injustices against us can create wounds that make it difficult to recognize the body as a gift. Our own fallen natures exacerbate the internal and external disharmony we experience in varying ways. These factors add to the challenge of recognizing the goodness of our bodies and foster discord within the unity of body and soul. Both often are keenly experienced by those who struggle with gender dysphoria, which is defined as “strong, persistent feelings of identification with another gender and discomfort with one’s own [biological] gender and sex.” What tremendous suffering it must be to feel a lack of congruity between one’s sex and gender! We must tread lightly and with great compassion as we seek truth related to situations filled with pain.[xlv]
Writer JK Rowling speaks out.
Dissident voices have come from several unexpected quarters. Whether one likes her books or not, JK Rowling has an immense following and her comments attract attention. She found herself on the wrong side of political correctness, however, when she questioned aspects of the trans agenda. She wrote:
Most people aren’t aware -I certainly wasn’t until I started researching this issue properly – that ten years ago, the majority of people wanting to transition to the opposite sex were male. This ratio has now reversed.
Rowling commented on its group aspect, affecting entire friendship groups::
The UK has experienced a 4400% increase in girls being referred for transitioning treatment. Autistic girls are hugely overrepresented in their numbers. The same phenomenon has been seen in the US. In 2018, American physician and researcher Lisa Littman set out to explore it. In an interview, she said: ‘Parents online were describing a very unusual pattern of transgender-identification where multiple friends and even entire friend groups became transgender-identified at the same time. I would have been remiss had I not considered social contagion and peer influences as potential factors.’ Littman mentions Tumblr, Reddit, Instagram and YouTube as contributing factors to Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria, where she believes that in the realm of transgender identification ‘youth have created particularly insular echo chambers.’[xlvi]
For this Rowling endured a tsunami of abuse, accusations of spreading misinformation, and an ongoing campaign to discredit her and her words. Why not address her questions with scientific discussion- particularly current trans activist assertion that if you don’t let a gender dysphoric teenager transition, they will kill themselves.
Similar heated invective was also directed at other popular and progressive figures who also questioned the ‘agenda.’ Feminist Germain Greer has been called a ‘hateful bigot’ and ‘cancelled’ for saying that a trans man cannot be considered a woman.[xlvii] In an article entitled ‘The Left Is Shunning Liberals With Concerns About Transgender Agenda’, Dr Ryan Anderson reports that many on the left now voice dissident views.[xlviii] They plead for different ways of dealing compassionately with the problems of gender dysphoric children, other than by surgery or puberty-blockers. Perhaps frightened of being publicly ‘cancelled’ and fearful for the welfare of their children, they call for more professional and scientific discussion.
More dissent: studies found faulty
In a 2020 article entitled ‘The Irreproducibility Crisis of Modern Science’, the National Association of Scholars asked, ‘Why do researchers get away with sloppy science?’ They put their answer in the following way: ‘In part because, far too often, no one is watching and no one is there to stop them.’[xlix]
While their question is a general one, they found a particular application in the area of transgender ‘treatment’ and surgery in a 2019 study, called the Bränström study.[l] This study was entitled ‘Reduction in mental health treatment utilization among transgender individuals after gender-affirming surgeries: a total population study wrongly affirmed that the transgender treatments and other interventions were gender affirming.’ Researchers demonstrated that there were no ‘gender affirming’ results as claimed and that in fact the data showed ‘no improvement after surgical treatment.’ Among several problems were the irreproducibility of a particular study, and loss to follow-up. Patients who participated in a study were considered ‘lost’ if they were either unwilling or unable to communicate, missing, or dead. Loss to follow-up is frequently seen in studies that validate the benefits of transition, and it was strongly implied in this Bränström study. The reanalysis provided by scholars, Andre Van Mol, Michael K. Laidlaw, Miriam Grossman and Paul McHugh noted several shortcomings in the study. Most remarkably their correction was published in 2020 in The American Journal of Psychiatry![li] It was entitled ‘Correction: Transgender Surgery Provides No Mental Health Benefit.’ This was an unusual admission as such corrections are not usually published.
This was not the first study to show serious problems following transgender interventions, surgical or hormonal. Before the transgender gender affirming agenda took on greater force, there had been the 2011 Dhejne, Cecilia et al., entitled ‘Long-term follow-up of transsexual persons undergoing sex reassignment surgery’, mentioned earlier, which had done more follow up than later studies, and which had shown alarming rates of mental harm and suicide among those who had undergone gender change procedures.[lii] Recall that Professor McHugh, University Distinguished Service Professor of Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins Medical School, former psychiatrist in chief at Johns Hopkins Hospital, author of The Mind Has Mountains: Reflections on Society and Psychiatry,. had closed the gender change clinic in 1979 because of such earlier professional concerns.
Another researcher, Dr Marcus Evans is a British psychoanalyst whose clientele has included trans and gender diverse people at the Tavistock Youth Gender Change Clinic. While intending to help ‘transgender youth,’ he realised, from a professional standpoint, he was not doing so. He became a key critic of trans healthcare for gender diverse youth at the Tavistock which was later closed. With his wife Sue Evans, he co-authored the 2021 book Gender Dysphoria: A Therapeutic Model for Working with Children, Adolescents and Young Adults. He is now involved with the organization Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine (SEGM).[liii] He has expressed his deep concern at the lack of follow up of vulnerable people with very controversial treatments.
One can justifiably ask, why are the concerns of dissident researchers and highly qualified voices not accorded more scientific and professional discussion?
Then came the transgender dissidents…
Now we come to consider transgender persons themselves – what do they say? Perhaps the most fragile yet most powerful recent voices, are those who have been there and come back. They are eloquent witnesses, testifying to their own experiences and sufferings.
The terms ‘transgender regret’ and ‘detransitioner’ have entered the lexicon, albeit with much resistance, given the media and academic hype which tends to ignore those damaged in the current transgender wave of treatments. For example, on a website named, https://www.sexchangeregret.com/, there is the sad account of Soren Aldaco, who is a:
… detransitioner who attempted a gender transition at age 17 is suing the doctors who operated on her, accusing them of ignoring her plethora of mental health conditions and pushing her down a destructive path. Soren Aldaco, who is now 21 years old, filed her lawsuit Friday in the Tarrant County District Court of Texas. She alleges that her doctors behaved more like “ideologues” than medical professionals and that they did not properly take her autism, depression, anxiety, and other comorbidities into account when they evaluated her for an attempted gender transition. … Despite these telltale signs demanding caution and therapeutic resolution, the suit emphasizes, Aldaco’s physicians ‘deliberately and recklessly propelled’ her ‘down a path of permanent physical disfigurement and worsening psychological distress.(Taken from: https://www.sexchangeregret.com/)
Another detransitioner, Melbourne’s Ollie (aka Oliver Davies) believed at the age of 26 he was a trans-woman. He was placed on cross sex hormones. He regards this ‘treatment’ as a ‘catastrophic mistake’ and deeply regrets it. He later detransitioned after coming to understand his identity issues were not helped by such interventions. The ‘Detransitioners’ website states:
Ollie is a Melbourne man who at the age of 26 came to believe he was a trans-woman. He was placed on cross sex hormones which have since made him infertile. He later detransitioned after coming to understand his identity issues were not helped by transition. Ollie believes – based on his personal experience – that the Australian Standards of Care are far too relaxed when diagnosing and treating gender dysphoria… I think that in Australia there are hundreds of people like me who now regret it… And I think that soon there will be thousands.[liv]
Another detransitioner, American Chloe Cole, at 12 years old, thought she was transgender. At age 13, she told her parents and that same year, she was put on puberty blockers and prescribed testosterone. At 15, she underwent a double mastectomy. Less than a year later, she realized she’d made a mistake — all by the time she was 16 years old. In a New York Post article, Chloe reflected that she was failed by the system. The article noted others like her:
Now 17, Chloe is one of a growing cohort called “detransitioners” — those who seek to reverse a gender transition, often after realizing they actually do identify with their biological sex. Tragically, many will struggle for the rest of their lives with the irreversible medical consequences of a decision they made as minors. “I can’t stay quiet,” said Chloe. “I need to do something about this and to share my own cautionary tale.” [lv]
Another courageous voice is that of American Walt Heyer who became ‘Laura Jensen’ and then reverted, saying in his book Paper Genders that it was very damaging to engage in sex change. He had been sexually and physically abused as a child and said no-one had asked him about this when he expressed a desire to ‘become a woman.’ He compared sex change surgery to the predilection for lobotomies a few decades ago. He reminded us that many patients in the past who had complex mental issues were often reduced to the need for a lobotomy. Dr. Walter Freeman performed so many lobotomies that he was nicknamed the ‘ice pick doctor.’[lvi] However, there was no opposition from the actual victims of the lobotomies as they were in no position to defend themselves, professional dissent caused this procedure to stop. Here, with sex-change operations we have ongoing professional dissent being increasingly voiced. The victims, in Walt Heyer’s view are unable to speak out in their unhappiness, as social polemics, the voice of psychological ‘authority’, and hysterical political accusations silence them. Who will speak for them?
Walt Heyer submitted testimony against the Massachusetts Transgender Rights and Hate Crimes Bill H502 and runs a website with stories of those regretting their ‘sex change’ attempts.[lvii] He says that psychological treatment is needed for transgenders – but of a helpful kind, giving some outline of what is happening within the person.[lviii] He adds there is a ‘darker side’ to the transgender story which has left a fraudulent and destructive trail of vulnerable souls who have been harmed by the ‘ideas’ of Money and his followers. He raises a poignant plea to all who have ears to hear what he is saying, asking all especially Christians to point out the other side of the transgender agenda wherever possible to young people most at risk. He says:
…The truth is: it is impossible to actually change someone’s gender. Why, then, start the child off on a life filled with lies? When doctors and parents cannot bring themselves to tell the truth, the child’s world becomes one of imagination, fantasy and elaborate masquerades, none of which is emotionally healthy for the child.[lix]
And in the face of those declaring the questioners of the transgender agenda intolerant, Heyer replies:
But the truly intolerant are the transgender activist themselves who do not want to acknowledge the truth. To claim gender change success you must exclude suicides, regret, disappointment, medical problems and the ones who abandon their surgical gender and return to living as their birth genders. The activists have infiltrated the scientific community so that research studies aren’t framed in a way to acknowledge or study the downsides of gender change treatment. The patients themselves are intimidated into silence if they ever realize the treatment didn’t work for them. “Females” return to their male gender after having gender surgery and receiving female birth records. They stay silent because of their shame and fear of bullying from activists. They are not counted and they do not count. Like the lobotomy patients of the past, it appears that gender change patients are considered throwaway lives by the promoters of the procedure.[lx]
14-year-old Patrick Mitchell became a powerful witness to rethinking his transgender process, which had been encouraged by his mother but which fortunately had not progressed to its final stages. He intended to change genders and announced this as a young boy on the Australian program 60 Minutes. Patrick woke up one morning, however, and realised he indeed had an identity problem, saying of his confusion, ‘I didn’t know who the person staring back at me was.’[lxi] After being diagnosed with Gender Dysphoria and after a year of taking body altering hormones, he says that one day he suddenly realised his identity problem did not require him to change genders, saying, ‘I realised that I could be happy without completely changing who I am.’ Commenting on Patrick’s situation, Australia Professor Whitehall of Western Sydney University said that the call for transsexual surgery was often a call for help to deal with the psychological distress underlying it, but the politically correct push was buying into the distress and making it worse.
Young Patrick stated his newly found realisation, in the face of transgender policies and treatments surrounding him. He said that just because you may feel you are a different gender, does not mean you are. It would be very apt for psychologists and others involved in gender change clinics to quote Patrick’s story.
Then finally the lawyers became involved
Whatever the general views of lawyers regarding the transgender issues, one can say they have certainly become involved with transgender dissidents, especially giving support to those who have suffered from the aftermath of surgeries and hormonal treatments. A 2022 article published in Medscape UK ran the headline: ‘1000 Families to Sue Tavistock Gender Service.’[lxii] It turns out that the UK’s only children’s gender identity development service (known as GIDS), run by the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust, was being sued by at least a thousand families who allege that their children were rushed into surgery and taking life-changing puberty blocking drugs without adequate information. In the same article, Tom Goodhead, global managing partner of Pogust Goodhead stated:
We believe that there are potentially hundreds of young adults who have been affected by failings in care over the past decade at the Tavistock Centre, and we want to be able to give them a voice in court … Children and young adolescents were rushed into treatment without the appropriate therapy and involvement of the right clinicians, meaning that they were misdiagnosed.
While this represents no grand turnaround in lawyers’ attitudes to the transgender agenda, it indicates that some lawyers are open to listening to those facing permanent physical and psychological damage after seeking gender change treatment as a solution to their problems. Keira Bell is described as a key whistleblower in the UK’s Tavistock gender clinic court case which saw the court decide that minors were not mature enough to provide informed consent to ‘gender-affirming treatments’ such as puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgery. Keira says she was given a ‘superficial fix’ for her psychological problems. On the Detransitioners website, she stated:
Medicalised gender transitioning was a very temporary, superficial fix for a very complex identity issue. I was an unhappy girl who needed help. Instead, I was treated like an experiment.[lxiii]
As well as the Tavistock clinic being sued by many of its transgender clients, a Missouri clinic has stopped prescribing puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to minors for the purpose of gender transition. An NBC news report on Sept 13, 2023, explained that this is due to a new state law which “creates unsustainable liability” for health care workers.[lxiv] Lawyers getting involved again! And recently the majority-Republican South Carolina General Assembly passed a bill, by an overwhelming 27-8 vote on May 2, 2024, banning sex-change surgeries and treatments on minors. It also bars public school officials from withholding information from parents regarding their children’s perception of their gender.
In addition, some scientists such as Peter Wilkins, who have been penalised for expressing views on biology have sought legal help with some success. Working at Porton Down, developing technology to secure Britain’s defences, Wilkins was known as someone who looks at matters from a scientific perspective. But this apparently made him a ‘threat’ to some. A 2025 Free Speech Union article reporting the matter stated:
Wilkins never imagined he would be considered a threat because of a belief in biology. But when he stated his gender-critical views and support for the concept of immutable sex, Wilkins was reported for his “ideology” and labelled by colleagues as transphobic, “sad and pathetic” and “a rubbish employee.” [lxv]
After a 2 years legal battle, an Employment Tribunal led by the employment judge Gary Self sitting at Southampton, found that:
There was a “clear hostile animus” towards gender-critical beliefs at the top-secret Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL). It found that an intimidating atmosphere resulted in the harassment and discrimination of Wilkins, 43, who was forced to leave as a result.
The Tribunal panel stated that senior officials had lost sight of their obligation to be impartial. Wilkins stated that in a scientific organisation such as the one he worked in:
… it shouldn’t be unacceptable to use the phrase biological sex. I was never looking for DSTL to endorse my beliefs, or for anything to be said against people on the other side of the debate. But it just felt very one-sided. And it was pretty hurtful, really, having spent 15 years working for DSTL on some things which were high-security, to be told that we think you’re a security risk because you have these fairly normal, run-of-the-mill, factual beliefs about sex and genders.[lxvi]
A recent significant legal decision by Justice Andrew Strum in the Family Court of Australia highlighted the complex intersection of gender-affirming healthcare and family law. The decision was handed down in April 2025. It concerned “Devin”, a 12-year-old child whose mother sought to facilitate the use of puberty blockers to support Devin’s gender affirmation. While the child’s mother sought the use of puberty blockers, Devin’s father opposed their use and was backed by an Independent Children’s Lawyer (ICL) who contended that Devin’s feelings were more exploratory and fluid, ‘cautioning against medical intervention at this stage of development.’[lxvii]
Justice Strum found that there appeared to be a systematic approach in prescribing puberty blockers for every child referred to the clinic, as well as inadequate consideration of the potential long-term risks. He criticised the gender clinic treating Devin for what he saw as an ‘ideological commitment to a gender-affirming model’ strongly focused on only one way of helping children with gender questions, supporting the road to transition. He was concerned that the clinic didn’t seriously consider other possible approaches or give families real choices. His Honour rejected the notion that puberty blockers are entirely reversible and risk-free, highlighting concerns over the potential effects on fertility, sexual function, bone health, brain development, and other critical areas in a child’s development.
His Honour also took issue with an expert witness who dismissed the findings of the UK’s Cass Review, an independent inquiry led by paediatrician Dr. Hilary Cass, which had raised concerns about the quality of research supporting the widespread use of puberty blockers. Justice Strum found this dismissal to be misleading, noting that the expert’s response was inconsistent with their duty to the Court. The Cass Review had questioned the reliability of existing evidence on puberty blockers finding it of variable or even poor quality, making it difficult for families to make informed clinical decisions and well-grounded choices about treatment.
Justice Strum echoed the Cass Review’s call for a more cautious approach to gender-affirming care, particularly when it comes to minors. He criticised Australian health authorities for dismissing the review, emphasising the importance of taking a holistic and careful approach to the treatment of gender dysphoria in children and adolescents. Time will tell if his judgements will result in a greater application of a cautionary approach in treating those with gender dysphoria.
Indeed, other decisions suggest the cautionary approach is growing. For example, with the closure of the Centre for Transyouth Health and Development Los Angeles on July 22, 2025, some saw bigotry, others saw professional concern for young people.[lxviii] And Australian, Chris Elston, recently protested the use of puberty blockers on young people, questioning on X the WHO appointment of trans Teddy Cook to draft policy on transgender care. The Australian eSafety Commissioner issued both Elston and X an order to remove the post. Challenging the legality of that order in the Administrative Review Tribunal, an Australian legal group, the Human Rights Law Alliance led by John Steenhof, argued the fundamental human rights of conscience and belief. In the end, the Administrative Review Tribunal upheld the original post, concluding that the post did not intend to cause serious harm to an Australian adult. Monica Doumit, Director of Public Affairs and Engagement for the Sydney Archdiocese, stated that this victory gave a legal example to those attempting ‘the same type of public advocacy on contentious issues.’[lxix]
Ongoing professional concern: hearing the voices of detransitioners
Regarding the many areas of dissent surrounding the ‘transgender’ issues, it is evident that there is no clear consensus as to which treatments are needed, and what the actual long-term effects of such treatments are. There is increasing professional concern among psychologists, psychiatrists, medical workers and allied workers, that hormonal and surgical treatments are not helping those who believe they need a change of gender. As mentioned above, Dr Marcus Evans, the British psychoanalyst who worked at Tavistock Youth Gender Change Clinic thought he was helping diverse young people, but concluded that he was not. Likewise, Professor Paul McHugh closed the Gender Change Clinic at Johns Hopkins University, basing his conclusions on empirical evidence and harmful effects of transgender interventions involving surgery and hormone treatment.
A recent legal decision, however, added emphasis to the concerns many have about the confusions surrounding transgender issues. After years of insistence that any trans women can enter women’s sport, World Athletics president Lord Coe welcomed the UK Supreme Court’s ruling that the legal definition of a woman is based on biological sex, saying it will benefit women’s sport. Reported on the BBC and SBS media outlets, UK Supreme Court judges have unanimously ruled that a woman is defined by biological sex under 2010 equalities law: Judge Lord Hodge stated:
The unanimous decision of this court is that the terms woman and sex in the Equality Act 2010 refer to a biological woman and biological sex.[lxx]
While many heard the Christian legacy reflected in this decision ‘Male and female he created them’ (Genesis 5:2), the judge stressed that the law still gives protection to transgenders against discrimination. This highlights the fact that those seeking gender change need to be listened to, and receive appropriate help. The right help has been missed amidst the politicisation of transgender concerns. It does not help a transgendered person, to ignore their past, not to ask about possible psychological and emotional abuse which will remain uncovered unless someone asks. It is an added injustice that the abuse, if it is there, is not dealt with in a professional, psychotherapeutic way.
Psychologists and psychiatrists, along with other health care professionals need to be engaged in deeper exploration of each individual’s past issues. For the sake of the psychological and moral/spiritual well-being of transgenders, they need a multi-faceted approach. They need to read the growing literature questioning and critiquing the ‘gender affirmative’ approach. Most of all, they need to hear the voices of the detransitioners who state, like Walt Heyer, that they were not given the help they needed and are now victims of an ill-thought-out approach to their psychological problems. The detransitioners deserve a dignified response. May their stories of suffering and courage rise to prominence, amidst the politics and the agendas. May these dissident voices be increasingly heard.
Endnotes
[i]The DSM5 code is Gender Dysphoria DSM-5: 302.85 (F64. 9). [ii]William Kilpatrick, ‘The Normalisation of Delusional Thinking’, Crisis Magazine, September 25, 2017. https://crisismagazine.com/opinion/normalization-delusional-thinking [iii]https://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/newsroom/wysk/enforcement_protections_lgbt_workers.cfm [iv]U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, “Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964: Unlawful Employment Practices: Sec. 2000e-2(a)(1),” available at https://www.eeoc.gov/statutes/title-vii-civil-rights-act-1964#:~:text=It%20shall%20be%20an%20unlawful,basis%20of%20his%20race%2C%20color%2C [v]E. Christian Brugger ‘The New Pangenderism: Transgenders, Polysexuals and Sex Reassignment Surgery’, 25/4/2012. https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/library/new-pangenderism-2917. [vi]http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/neither-man-nor-woman-norrie-wins-gender-appeal-20140401-35xgt.html [vii]See: https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/mark-carneys-platform-includes-new-ivf-program-to-help-2slgbtqi-people-obtain-children/?utm_source=digest-prolife-2025-04-22&utm_medium=email [viii]Duncan Murray, ‘Huge Changes to Birth Certificate in Push for Better Representation”’’, June 30. [ix]‘Transsexual’ which focuses on surgery is less used nowadays than the term ‘transgender’ which focuses on identity and may or may not include surgery. Here is an ‘official’ psychiatric account of the development of the diagnostic change. https://www.psychiatry.org/psychiatrists/diversity/education/transgender-and-gender-nonconforming-patients/gender-dysphoria-diagnosis [x]Laura Wexler, ‘Identity Crisis’, Baltimore Style, Jan-Feb 2007.http://www.baltimorestyle.com/index.php/style/features_article/fe_sexchange_jf07 (Accessed 9/3/2014).
[xi]See Dr Quentin van Meter’s talk on the growth of the sec-change clinic. ‘The terrible fraud of ‘transgender medicine’, Nov 18, 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mtQ1geeD_c [xii]Paul R. McHugh, Surgical Sex: Why we Stopped Doing Sex Change Operations, First Things, November 2004. https://www.firstthings.com/article/2004/11/surgical-sex [xiii]See Nigel Barber, ‘Simply Psychology,’ 2018. Can be found on: https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/the-human-beast/201803/the-gender-reassignment-controversy [xiv]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Money [xv]Jon K. Meyer, and Donna J. Reter. Sex reassignment. Follow-up. Archives of General Psychiatry 1979, 36: 1010–5. [xvi]Laura Wexler, “Identity Crisis,” Style Magazine, The Baltimore Sun, January/February 2007, downloaded on Feb. 18, 2011 from: http://www.baltimorestyle.com/index.php/style/features_article/fe_sexchange_jf07/ [xviii]Paul McHugh, ‘Transgender surgery isn’t the solution’, The Wall Street Journal, 2014, June 12. wsj.com/articles/paul-mchugh-transgender-surgery-isnt-the-solution-1402615120. [xix]Paul R. McHugh, ‘Surgical Sex: Why we Stopped Doing Sex Change Operations.’ Op.cit. [xx]Ibid. [xxi]Richard Fitzgibbons, ‘Transsexual attractions and Sexual reassignment surgery’, Homiletic and Pastoral Review, Aug 29, 2016. http://www.hprweb.com/2016/08/transsexual-attractions-and-sexual-reassignment-surgery/#res-5 [xxii]Dhejne, Cecilia et al., ‘Long-term follow-up of transsexual persons undergoing sex reassignment surgery: Cohort study in Sweden’, 2011, PLoS ONE, 6(2): e16885. Online version: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3043071/ [xxiii]Annelou de Varies, L. et al.,. ‘Autism spectrum disorders in gender dysphoric children and adolescents’, Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 2010, 40: 930–936. Online version: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10803-010-0935-9 [xxiv]Michelle Cretella, “I’m a Pediatrician. How Transgender Ideology Has Infiltrated My Field and Produced Large-Scale Child Abuse”, Daily Signal, July 3, 2017.[xxv]‘Effects of treatment with leuprolide acetate depot on working memory and executive functions in young premenopausal women’, Psychoneuroendocrinology 31(8):935-47, October 2006. [xxvi]Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists, ‘Queensland freeze on puberty blocking agents and gender affirming hormones’ 30 Jan 2025. [xxvii]Quentin Van Meter, ‘Bringing Transparency to the Treatment of Transgender Persons’, 2019 Fall;34 (2):147-152. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33950603/ [xxviii]Catherine Sheehan, ‘US pediatrician: “The transgender movement has no scientific basis”’,
Aug 14, 2018. https://catholicweekly.com.au/us-pediatrician-the-transgender-movement-has-no-scientific-basis/
[xxix]See Ontario Human Rights Commission: Gender Identity and Gender Expression Brochure. https://www.ohrc.on.ca/en/gender-identity-and-gender-expression-brochureAlso see the full text of Bill C16 is on which was passed in 2017: http://www.parl.gc.ca/HousePublications/Publication.aspx?Language=E&Mode=1&DocId=8280564
[xxx] ‘Heated debate on gender pronouns and free speech in Toronto’, October 30, 2016. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiijS_9hPkM [xxxi]Jordan Peterson. ‘Doctors & Psychotherapists: Butchers & Liars’. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayWyzvo9SNY [xxxii]John Skalko, within Philosophy, Science, Sexuality, Jun 05, 2017. http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2017/06/19389/ [xxxiii]Ibid. [xxxiv]Nicholas Tonti-Filippini, ‘Sex Reassignment and Catholic Schools’, The National Catholic Bioethics Center, 2012, 85. [xxxv]Ibid., 86. [xxxvi]David Schindler, ‘Perfect Difference: Gender and the Analogy of Being’ Communio: International Catholic Review 43 (Summer 2016). [xxxvii]Audience To Members Of The Diplomatic Corps Accredited To The Holy See.Audience Of The Holy Father Leo XIV, Friday, 16 May 2025.
[xxxviii]Jonathan Liedl, ‘What Pope Leo XIV has said about five key issues’, May 9, 2025.https://www.ncregister.com/news/what-pope-leo-xiv-has-said-about-five-key-issues
[xxxix]Original interview text in Spanish: https://www.lanacion.com.ar/el-mundo/entrevista-de-la-nacion-con-el-papa-francisco-la-ideologia-del-genero-es-de-las-colonizaciones-nid10032023/ English language report on this interview: https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/253845/pope-francis-gender-ideology-is-one-of-the-most-dangerous-ideological-colonizations-today [xl]Quoted from: http://www.catholic.org/news/national/story.php?id=54514 [xli]Ibid. [xlii]Catholic News Agency, ‘Nebraska’s bishops call for reversal of transgender policy for schools sports’, Jan 16, 2016. [xliii]‘Full text of Bishop Paul Coakley’s pastoral letter on gender dysphoria, transgender movement’, May 1, 2023. https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/254210/bishop-paul-coakley-of-oklahoma-releases-pastoral-letter-on-gender-dysphoria-and-the-transgender-movement [xliv]Ibid. [xlv]Ibid. [xlvi]‘J.K. Rowling Writes about Her Reasons for Speaking out on Sex and Gender Issues,’ 10 June 2020. https://www.jkrowling.com/opinions/j-k-rowling-writes-about-her-reasons-for-speaking-out-on-sex-and-gender-issues/ [xlvii]‘Germaine Greer Is A Hateful Bigot’, Global Comment, October 25, 2015. Author given as: s.e.Smith.[xlviii]Ryan T. Anderson Phd, ‘The Left Is Shunning Liberals With Concerns About Transgender Agenda’,
Jan 29, 2019. Published on: https://www.heritage.org/gender/commentary/the-left-shunning-liberals-concerns-about-transgender-agenda
[xlix]Andre Van Mol, Michael K. Laidlaw, Miriam Grossman and Paul McHugh, ‘Correction: Transgender Surgery Provides No Mental Health Benefit’, September 13, 2020. Reported on: https://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2020/09/7129 [l]Bränström, R., & Pachankis, J. (2019). Reduction in Mental Health Treatment Utilization Among Transgender Individuals After Gender-Affirming Surgeries: A Total Population Study. American Journal Of Psychiatry, 177(8), 727-734 [li]Correction to the original article by Bränström and Pachankis. American Journal of Psychiatry, (2020), 177(8), 734-734. [lii]Dhejne, Cecilia et al., ‘Long-term follow-up of transsexual persons undergoing sex reassignment surgery: Cohort study in Sweden’, 2011, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3043071/ [liii]Andrea James, Transgender Map, May 7, 2025. https://www.transgendermap.com/issues/psychology/marcus-evans/; See also: https://criticaltherapyantidote.org/2022/09/23/an-interview-with-marcus-evans-the-gender-crisis-a-psychodynamic-approach/ [liv]See website: https://www.binary.org.au/detrans#Ollie-Davies [lv]Rikki Schlott, ‘I literally lost organs:’ Why detransitioned teens regret changing genders’, New York Post, June 19, 2022.https://nypost.com/2022/06/18/detransitioned-teens-explain-why-they-regret-changing-genders/
[lvi]Heyer, Walt (2011-06-21). Paper Genders (Kindle Location 972). Make Waves Publishing. Kindle Edition. [lvii]Another of Heyer’s websites is: http://www.sexchangeregret.com/ [lviii]Another of Heyer’s websites is: http://www.sexchangeregret.com/ [lix]Walt Heyer Paper Genders: Pulling the Mask Off the Transgender Phenomenon (USA: Make Waves publishing, 2011). Kindle edition, Chapter 2. [lx]Heyer, Walt (2011-06-21). Paper Genders (Kindle Locations 1014-1021). Make Waves Publishing. Kindle Edition. [lxi]’Debbie Schipp, News, Sept 11, 2017. http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/tv/current-affairs/patricks-pain-i-didnt-know-who-the-person-staring-back-at-me-was/news-story/65ff86c8bfe269109f1b28cbeb93ab7a [lxii]https://www.medscape.co.uk/viewarticle/1000-families-sue-tavistock-gender-service-2022a10021ac [lxiii]https://www.binary.org.au/detrans#Keira-Bell [lxiv]The report can be found on: https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-news/missouri-clinic-halts-transgender-care-minors-wake-new-state-law-rcna104652 [lxv]Frederick Attenborough, ‘Scientist forced out over gender beliefs wins two-year legal battle’, Free Speech Union, March 22, 2025https://freespeechunion.org/scientist-forced-out-over-gender-beliefs-wins-two-year-legal-battle/
[lxvi]Ibid. [lxvii]Lynn and Brown Lawyers, ‘Puberty Blockers and the Law: A Complex Intersection Between the Best Interests of the Child and Transgender Rights.’ May 21, 2025.[lxviii]‘The biggest gender-affirming care centre for trans kids in US is closing prompting protests’, The Week, July 9, 2025. https://www.theweek.in/wire-updates/international/2025/07/10/fes39-us-transyouth-centre-closing.html [lxix]Monica Doumit, ‘Victory for free speech a lesson for all’, Catholic Weekly, 13 July, 2005. [lxx]Angus Cochrane, ‘Supreme Court backs ‘biological’ definition of woman’, BBC News,
17 April 2025. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvg7pqzk47zo
