October 16, 2020

Biden: 8-Year-Olds Can Decide They’re Transgender. Social Media Erupts.

By Hank Berrien
Democratic Presidential candidate and former US Vice President Joe Biden participates in an ABC News town hall
Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images

Answering a question at the ABC News-hosted townhall on Thursday night, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden stated that an eight-year-old child should be able to decide that they are transgender.

A woman asked Biden, “I’m the proud mom of two girls, 8 and 10. My youngest daughter is transgender. The Trump administration has attacked the rights of transgender people, banning them from military service, weakening non-discrimination protections, and even removing the word transgender from some government websites. How will you, as president, reverse this dangerous and discriminatory agenda and ensure that the lives and rights of LGBTQ people are protected under U.S. law?”

After telling a story about his father, Biden answered, “The idea that an 8-year-old child or a 10-year-old child decides, ‘I decided I want to be transgender. That’s what I think I’d like to be. It’d make my life a lot easier.’ There should be zero discrimination.”

https://twitter.com/AndySwan/status/1316932414611050502

“Relatable” host Allie Beth Stuckey: “Joe Biden tonight said 7 and 8 year olds should be given the authority to be ‘transgender,’ despite data proving that the vast majority of kids with gender confusion outgrow it by puberty. We’re talking life-altering, body-harming decisions made by 1st graders.”

Political commentator Liz Wheeler noted, “Here’s the science: 90% of kids who suffer from gender dysphoria outgrow it by the time they’re adults if they do NOT transition. Puberty blocking drugs are NOT FDA approved for children or for gender dysphoria. Yet, Joe Biden wants to let 8yos decide if they’re transgender.”

Psychologist Debra Soh has written:

Research has shown that most gender dysphoric children outgrow their dysphoria, and do so by adolescence: Most will grow up to be happy, gay adults, and some, like myself, to be happy, straight adults. There is a small proportion of trans kids whose dysphoria will persist and who would benefit from medical intervention, but the tricky part remains predicting whom these ideal candidates will be.

For a young child whose gender dysphoria would have desisted without intervention, these procedures amount to a needlessly challenging process to undergo—and that’s without considering the implications of choosing to transition back. Even a social transition back to one’s original gender role can be an emotionally difficult experience for children.

Waiting until a child has reached cognitive maturity before making these sorts of decisions would make the most sense. But this is an unpopular stance, and scientists and clinicians who support it are vilified, not because science—which should be our guiding beacon—disproves it, but because it has been deemed insensitive and at odds with the current ideology.

National Review noted in January 2019:

In a recent issue of The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism (JCEM), the Endocrine Society’s leading journal, a group of endocrinologists who specialize in gland and hormone disorders give a starkly different view of gender-affirmative treatment. “There are no laboratory, imaging, or other objective tests to diagnose a ‘true transgender’ child,” the endocrinologists write in their letter to the editor, adding that “there is currently no way to predict who will desist and who will remain dysphoric.” They explain that “the consequences of this gender affirmative therapy (GAT) are not trivial and include potential sterility, sexual dysfunction, thromboembolic and cardiovascular disease, and malignancy.”