Matt Bush, FISM News

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Doctors affiliated with the Department of Defense (DOD) published an article in the American Journal of Public Health claiming that children as young as 7 are capable of “medical decision-making,” particularly when it comes to “gender dysphoria.”

The article cites a Dutch study from 2018 as empirical evidence that children over age 7 are mature enough to make their own decisions. That study assessed just 74 “transgender adolescents” and stated that around 90% of them were assessed as “competent to consent.” 

In America, there are any number of things that legally require you to be a certain age before the government believes you to be competent and mature enough to partake, the most notable being:

• The Department of Motor Vehicles says you have to be at least 16 in order to drive a car alone.
• The Department of Labor says you must be 14 or older to work.
• You have to be 18 to vote in the United States.
• At age 21 you can legally purchase and drink alcohol.

These DOD doctors argue for the idea that children as young as 7 cannot work, drive, drink, get a tattoo, or vote, but they are mature enough to make life-changing, elective medical decisions for themselves. 

In the article, the doctors argued that “youths … have an inherent ability and right to consent to gender-affirming therapy.” They also called for the military to train medical providers in what is called the “gender-affirming model of care.”

One of many major problems with the article is that at least 53 percent of physicians associated with the military have stated that they would refuse to provide the puberty suppression and affirming hormones advocated for in the article.

“The notion that 7-year-old children are capable of such decisions is beyond laughable,” said Dr. Stanley Goldfarb of Do No Harm. “The existence of a large, perhaps as much as 25% cohort of ‘detransitioners,’ suggests the folly of assuming the soundness of childhood decisions.”

The issue of gender dysphoria and gender-affirming care has grown at an alarming rate over the past six years. In 2017 there were 15,172 documented cases of gender dysphoria in the U.S. By 2020 that number had jumped to 24,847 and in 2021 there were 42,167.

There are no federal age restrictions on hormone drugs for children, but several Republican-led states have banned children under the age of 18 from being prescribed such drugs for gender dysphoria. Gov. Brian Kemp (R-Ga.) just signed a bill to that effect, and other states, including Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Mississippi, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Utah, have similar laws in place as well.

Dr. Goldfarb summed up the argument against gender-affirming medical treatment, including hormones and invasive plastic surgery, with a logical and easy-to-understand statement: “Just because a child states that they understand the implications of gender transitioning does not mean that they can conceive of their future regrets.”