Gender-Affirming Care: 3 Major Developments

SPEAKER_01: 0:00

Welcome to the Next Talk Podcast. We are a nonprofit passionate about keeping kids safe online. We’re learning together how to navigate tech, culture, and faith with our kids. There have been three major developments in gender-affirming care over the last several weeks. One, in a landmark first of its kind ruling, a 22-year-old D-transitioner was awarded$2 million by a New York jury on January 30th, 2026. When she was a minor, she was experiencing gender dysphoria. It is being reported that within four months, she was then referred to a surgery, a double mastectomy, at the age of 16. This is what is frequently referred to as quote-unquote top surgery. The jury found the psychologist and the plastic surgeon liable for medical malpractice. They failed to properly take into account her mental health. The New York Post has reported on this, as with many other outlets. We’ve put up one of those articles for you if you want to dig into this deeper and go read it for yourself. But before I move on to the second thing that has transpired in the last couple of weeks affecting gender-affirming care, I want to pause here for a moment. As I talk and research this and get opinions from people from all walks of life, one thing that I continually heard was surgeries aren’t happening on minors. That’s a conspiracy theory. And I’m thankful now that this is happening and they’re starting to cover these lawsuits, and they’re starting to cover these stories. As you can tell, I’m a little passionate about this topic. In 2016, when I wrote my first book, this is what I wrote. This is a quote from that book. In the middle of the transgender issue, we must never forget that real people are struggling with their gender. Kids, they are crying themselves to sleep at night because they’re frightened and confused and have gender dysphoria. I want to be very clear once again. We are to love children who struggle with gender dysphoria. We should never bully, make fun of, disrespect, or try to erase. That is not the ways of God. These are children who deserve love and respect. Parents, if you have a child struggling with gender dysphoria, love your kid. Unconditional love. The red flag that I’ve been raising for all these years isn’t about whether we are love these children or not. It’s about the course of treatment. That’s where the disagreement lies. And what I’ve been shouting is we cannot rush to irreversible surgeries and cut off healthy body parts without more research. Our kids are not a science experiment. You can love a child unconditionally who is questioning their gender. And at the same time, you cannot rush to a treatment of drugs, hormones, and sex surgeries. Both things can be true at once. It is being reported that there are at least 28 similar lawsuits from detransitioners pending across the country. And we’re going to have to wait and see how this situation continues to evolve. So that’s number one, the landmark$2 million jury verdict saying the psychologist and the plastic surgeon were negligent. Number two, a couple days after this verdict came down, the American Society of Plastic Surgeons came out and said they now recommend delaying gender-related surgeries until at least age 19. I’m going to link an article for you. Multiple news agencies reporting on this. I pulled one link for you. So now we have people actually backing away from their original stance. After they have literally chopped off children’s body parts. Healthy, healthy body parts. This stance of just let’s pause for a minute. This should have been taken before experimenting on our children. Here’s where I have a lot of questions right now. What are we doing with all of the children who were now promised a surgery and told that it was going to fix their gender dysphoria? And now we’re backing away and saying, wait, wait, wait, you need to give this some more time. How are we treating that group of kids? Because I’m I’m seriously concerned about them. We have to think through this. Their mental health is at stake. They are being whipped back and forth by politicians and medical professionals who keep changing the tune and stance. These kids, when they are struggling with gender dysphoria, they truly believe they have been born in the wrong body. They hate themselves the way they are. They want to cut off their penis. There are girls who want to have skin taken from their arms so that a penis can be created for them. They believe that will finally make them happy. Do you see the problem here? Kids are caught up in a political firestorm, and it could have been avoided if we all would have paused and researched this issue more and said, How is the best mainstream way to treat gender dysphoria? But you know what happened? Profit happened. People saw that they could make money off of these hormones and these surgeries, and our kids are paying the price for people and companies for choosing profit. It has become a money-making industry. I am absolutely shattered for the kids and families who are caught up in this. And they are scared right now because they’re this is a quickly evolving, changing situation. For any parent out there who’s listening, and your kid has been rushed into medical intervention as a first and fast course of treatment, and you’re scared. I just want to say, I am sorry. My heart breaks for you. I love you. God loves you. And I know that God looks at our parent heart with we’re trying to do the best we can with the information we have. Most of us, the majority of parents, we love our children dearly and we just want to help them succeed and be stable. I think the way gender dysphoria has been handled and this rush to this course of hormonal drug and surgery treatments, it’s an injustice. I think we have not had all the facts, and it’s quite scary. Again, I point you back to these T transitioners have been sounding the alarm for a while, and mainstream media were not covering these stories, and everyone was calling it a conspiracy theory. Again, not any one person knows every moving part and is an expert on this. We are all living through this experiment. It’s a continually evolving situation, and we’ll see what happens next. But I just want to say to the children caught up in this, I am sorry. God loves you. He has a plan for your life no matter what. No matter what. He can redeem, he can restore, he can renew. All things can be new. Number three. So first we had the verdict,$2 million for the detransitioner, holding the psychologist and the plastic surgeon guilty of medical malpractice. Then, number two, the American Society of Plastic Surgeons came out and said, okay, we we probably should wait for gender surgeries until age 19. The third thing that happened in the last couple weeks, after the American Society of Plastic Surgeons said this, then the American Medical Association came out and they agreed with that stance. They said most of these gender surgeries generally should be deferred until adulthood. So they aligned with the American Society of Plastic Surgeons stance once this verdict had been read. I’m glad to see this. I’m glad to see medical organizations taking a stand and just halting it for a minute and saying we need to look at this more. But again, what happens with these kids and their mental health who are caught up in this and are believing that surgery will fix the problem. We’ve told them surgery is going to fix the problem. Detransitioners are saying it doesn’t fix the problem. It actually makes things worse because there’s so many complications from the surgeries. But these kids believe that this is going to fix it. Now we’ve got the experts, quote unquote, saying, okay, let’s delay it until adulthood. Again, I want to reiterate no one is saying we shouldn’t love and respect and help kids who have gender dysphoria. The debate is what should the course of treatment be? My stance is to recommend a course of treatment, like a lifetime of drugs, surgeries, and cutting off healthy body parts, that requires a whole lot more research than what we’ve done. Now these families are getting their day in court. We’re gonna solving none of us are experts, and let’s see what happens next. As this battle rages on, do you know what it reminds me of, though? The more and more I study this, I keep coming back to a Bible verse. First Corinthians 1, 25. Human wisdom is so cheap next to God. I’m summarizing it, right? It it will put it on the screen so you have the full context. Human wisdom is so cheap next to God. Humans, no matter how studied we are in our field, no matter what level of expertise we may claim, humans are flawed. Every single one of us. Humans are flawed. God is not. We get stuff wrong all the time. He does not. My challenge to you in a world of chaos when everybody changes their opinions and nobody really knows what to tell your child when they’re struggling with gender dysphoria is to trust in Jesus. Read his word, follow him. He has our best interests at heart. He is our creator, he loves us, and he can take a mess and make a message. He can take a disaster and create this beautiful plan of redemption. He’s the answer. And I know when I say that, some of you are like, so we don’t take our kids to the doctor. That’s absolutely not what I’m saying. And I just want to add this disclaimer. Of course, we seek people who know what they’re doing in their field. But we have to get second and third and fourth opinions. We have to look at all of it because at the end of the day, research, humans, we are all flawed. Only God is the one who is always right.

SPEAKER_00: 16:09

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