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Speaker 1: Welcome to Wellness on MASS. I'm doctor Nicole Saffire, and

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Speaker 1: we're going to talk about today one of, in my opinion,

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Speaker 1: the most urgent and controversial topics in modern medicine, the

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Speaker 1: intersection of parental rights and gender medicine for minors. Now,

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Speaker 1: I am a physician, I'm a women's health press radiologist,

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Speaker 1: but I'm also a mother of three, and so this

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Speaker 1: is something that is deeply personal to me. The question

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Speaker 1: is no longer you know what doctors believe is medically appropriate.

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Speaker 1: It's about who gets to decide what's best for the child,

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Speaker 1: the parents, the doctor, the government, or is it the

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Speaker 1: child themselves. Now, in recent years, we've seen a growing

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Speaker 1: number of cases where parents are being sidelined from key

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Speaker 1: medical decisions. Whether it's school based vaccine programs without parental

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Speaker 1: consent to gender identity transitions facilitated by counselors and physicians.

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Speaker 1: Many parents feel that they are losing their seat at

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Speaker 1: the table. For me, it was the handling of the

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Speaker 1: COVID vaccines in kids that was eye opening. I don't

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Speaker 1: know how it was for you, but prior to COVID,

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Speaker 1: I always felt that I was in control of my

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Speaker 1: child's well being I spoke with the doctor, I spoke

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Speaker 1: with their teachers, and I listened to the CDC, and

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Speaker 1: I took them all as recommendations. But I never felt

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Speaker 1: that they were dictating what happens to my child. It

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Speaker 1: wasn't until COVID when the masking and the keeping them

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Speaker 1: out of school, when it was obviously doing harm to

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Speaker 1: the children. But yet they continued to say, no, it's

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Speaker 1: this is what's best for them. They were neglecting all

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Speaker 1: of the science and they were saying, this is what's best.

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Speaker 1: I had lawmakers telling me what was better for the

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Speaker 1: mental and physical health for my child. When I'm a

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Speaker 1: physician and I'm a parent, they had no idea what

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Speaker 1: they were talking about. Yet all of a sudden, they

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Speaker 1: were dictating what happened to my child. If you remember,

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Speaker 1: you had pediatricians who were refusing care for kids if

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Speaker 1: they were vaccinated. A Healthline report revealed that one third

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Speaker 1: of pediatric practices nationwide stated that they would not treat

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Speaker 1: patients unless the children were up to date with the

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Speaker 1: recommended vaccines, and that was including COVID nineteen vaccine. Then

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Speaker 1: Mayor Bill de Blasio said in New York City kids

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Speaker 1: couldn't even go into restaurants or movie theaters or Broadway

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Speaker 1: theaters without a vaccine card. And you have to remember

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Speaker 1: this was after the Israeli Health Ministry alerted US officials

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Speaker 1: of the safety signals with the vaccine, saying, hey, these vaccines,

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Speaker 1: these boosters, they're causing inflammation in kids. And by the way,

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Speaker 1: at that point, we were a couple of years in

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Speaker 1: we knew that kids were lowest risk. Now that didn't

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Speaker 1: mean that there was no risk to the child if

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Speaker 1: they were to be infected with the COVID nineteen virus,

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Speaker 1: but we knew that the risk was low, and the

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Speaker 1: reality was most people at that point had already been infected.

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Speaker 1: I know by that time my kids had already been infected.

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Speaker 1: I had been infected, So it made me question why

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Speaker 1: would I go and get this vaccine. In fact, these

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Speaker 1: rules came out about kids getting vaccinated came out six

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Speaker 1: weeks after my kids already had COVID, so I knew

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Speaker 1: that they had natural immunity. It made no sense to

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Speaker 1: me why I should go and get them this vaccine,

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Speaker 1: because at that point it was all risk, no benefit.

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Speaker 1: They already had ample antibodies circulating their bodies, because natural immunity,

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Speaker 1: as we know, is actually stronger than vaccine induced immunity,

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Speaker 1: and we already had started seeing that vaccine induced immunity

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Speaker 1: was waning. Yet Mayor de Blasio and then even Eric

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Speaker 1: Adams said, Nope, kids have to have the vaccine if

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Speaker 1: you want to eat out with them in New York City.

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Speaker 1: It was utter nonsense. Thankfully, I as a physician, and

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Speaker 1: I wasn't needing to take my kids to the pediatrician

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Speaker 1: because they were told that they were not allowed to

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Speaker 1: come in unless they have the vaccine, and unless someone

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Speaker 1: could tell me how that vaccine was going to benefit

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Speaker 1: them after they just had the infection, I wasn't going

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Speaker 1: to do it. Because I read those studies. I read

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Speaker 1: what Pfizer and Madarna put out. I know that they're

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Speaker 1: that these vaccines were not without risk, and so tell

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Speaker 1: me what would the benefit have been had they just

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Speaker 1: had the infection. No one could answer that question for me.

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Speaker 1: That I had lawmakers and I had administrators in the

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Speaker 1: hospitals saying unless my children were vaccinated, they were not

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Speaker 1: going to be subjected to going and do these activities,

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Speaker 1: and they were not going to be given care by

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Speaker 1: these pediatricians. I mean that sounds like malpractice to me.

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Speaker 1: If I refuse care for patients, I think I would

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Speaker 1: be fired. The fact that we had whole administrations that

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Speaker 1: were supporting it is beyond comprehensible in my opinion. The

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Speaker 1: reality was during COVID, the parents were entirely removed from

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Speaker 1: the conversation. We knew keeping them out of school was bad,

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Speaker 1: we knew putting them in face masks was bad. And

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Speaker 1: we also knew not every kid needed to get the vaccine,

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Speaker 1: and certainly even fewer, if any at all, needed to

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Speaker 1: get a booster shot, Yet we were told that they

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Speaker 1: needed it. Now the state are actually trying to do

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Speaker 1: the same thing with gender transitioning of minors. Now, I

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Speaker 1: know that's a big leap. We're talking about COVID, We're

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Speaker 1: talking about the vaccines, and now I'm jumping to gender

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Speaker 1: affirming care. You can't turn on the TV or the radio,

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Speaker 1: or even walk anywhere without seeing some sort of support

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Speaker 1: for transgender I mean, it is Pride month. You have

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Speaker 1: a lot of people talking about it, and you know

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Speaker 1: the way I feel, you do you. I don't care

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Speaker 1: what people want to do in their personal lives. I

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Speaker 1: really don't where I start getting concerned as one where

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Speaker 1: my tax dollars are involved. Should my tax dollars be

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Speaker 1: paying for people to undergo some of these gender affirming procedures.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I'm not paying for my friends who go

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Speaker 1: out and get boob jobs or those jobs because they

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Speaker 1: want to look differently. I don't think tax dollars should

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Speaker 1: pay for that either. And if people want to go

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Speaker 1: and do genital mutilation and other things, again, if that's

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Speaker 1: what you want to do, by all means, I don't

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Speaker 1: think I should pay for it. And by the way,

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Speaker 1: your insurance company probably shouldn't either, because all that's doing

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Speaker 1: is raising rates on other people. That's one issue. But

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Speaker 1: the issue at hand is in which I'm already hypersensitized

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Speaker 1: because of COVID, is what's happening with the minors, the kids,

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Speaker 1: with the whole gender dysphoria movement that's happening right now.

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Speaker 1: By the way, that's what's happening. This is a movement.

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Speaker 1: This is not a moment. This is a movement. The

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Speaker 1: gender dysphoria that's happening amongst our youth is rampant, and

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Speaker 1: we have to ask at what age does a child

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Speaker 1: truly have the capacity to even make life altering decisions,

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Speaker 1: and what role should the parents play in guiding them

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Speaker 1: through a complex medical terrain. So what I want to

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Speaker 1: do is, let's talk about the medicine. Let's talk about

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Speaker 1: the science behind what we're seeing. Gender dysphoria is officially

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Speaker 1: classified on the DSM scale Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of

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Speaker 1: Mental Disorders. That's a mouthful, but every sort of mental

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Speaker 1: illness is given this since the DSM five, and gender

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Speaker 1: dysphoria is included because it is a mental health condition

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Speaker 1: characterized by significant distressed and now their words are caused

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Speaker 1: by a mismatch between an individual's assigned sex at birth

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Speaker 1: and they're experienced gender identity. I don't really know what

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Speaker 1: that means other than they think that they're not what

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Speaker 1: they are if they're born a girl, they have XX chromosomes,

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Speaker 1: they have all the female reproductive system, but they think

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Speaker 1: they're a boy. That's the DSM five of gender dysphoria,

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Speaker 1: and vice versa. When it comes to a boy who

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Speaker 1: thinks he's a girl. Because it is fundamentally a psychological condition,

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Speaker 1: treatment approaches really need to prioritize mental health support and

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Speaker 1: therapy and careful evaluation rather than irreversible medical and surgical interventions,

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Speaker 1: especially in children adolescents. Listen, the reality is children's brains

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Speaker 1: they're still developing well until they're mid twenties. I have

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Speaker 1: a twenty five year old son. I'm certain his frontal

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Speaker 1: lobe is not finished. I'm certain of this. Particularly, these

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Speaker 1: are the areas that are responsible for decision making, impulse control,

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Speaker 1: and understanding long term consequences. The incomplete neurological development means

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Speaker 1: that minors lack the full capacity to provide truly informed

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Speaker 1: consent for these permanent and life altering procedures that we're

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Speaker 1: seeing kids undergoing right now. Hormone therapy, gender firming surgeries.

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Speaker 1: These are surgical castration, double massed ectomies. These are massive

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Speaker 1: surgeries and you can't reverse them. So as a result,

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Speaker 1: you have irreversible interventions that are being done when children's

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Speaker 1: brains are not capable of understanding the implications and long

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Speaker 1: term potential consequences of this. Yet here we are. The

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Speaker 1: American Academy of Pediatrics and some other medical bodies are

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Speaker 1: supporting gender firming care for minors, including puberty blockers with

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Speaker 1: hormones and cross sex hormones. And even now, what is

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Speaker 1: their rationale. Well, they like to point to studies that

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Speaker 1: show a reduction in suicidal ideation and depression, emphasize in

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Speaker 1: in the short term. These were all short term studies.

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Speaker 1: Let's remember the American Academy of Pediatrics. They were the

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Speaker 1: cheerleaders for masking our children all throughout COVID. They were

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Speaker 1: wrong about keeping them out of school, they were wrong

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Speaker 1: about keeping them masks, and they're wrong about the vaccines.

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Speaker 1: They actually scrapped an entire web page on their site

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Speaker 1: about how important it was for babies and toddlers to

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Speaker 1: see expressions on people's faces because they didn't want to

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Speaker 1: seem contradictory to the fact that they were telling people

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Speaker 1: to now mask up. So obviously, if they were quick

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Speaker 1: to just delete a web page to now support a

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Speaker 1: new cause, the masking up cause, they obviously didn't feel

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Speaker 1: strongly about it in the first place. But the reality is,

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Speaker 1: where was the science. Was the science babies need to

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Speaker 1: see facial expressions or was the science babies need to

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Speaker 1: wear masks? Well, we all know that babies need to

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Speaker 1: see facial expressions, and which is why we have now

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Speaker 1: a whole generation of children with speech impediments and other

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Speaker 1: manifestations of wearing masking at young ages. But they were

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Speaker 1: their social justice warriors, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and

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Speaker 1: they just followed in line more coming up on Wellness

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Speaker 1: Unmasked with doctor Nicol Sapphire. Now when we're talking about

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Speaker 1: transitioning in kids, they're doing the exact same thing. They

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Speaker 1: are sticking with those social justice talking points, and they're

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Speaker 1: pointing to these very small studies with short term results.

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Speaker 1: Here's the problem, we do not have long term safety

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Speaker 1: data of what they are doing to our children. Puberty blockers,

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Speaker 1: for example, were originally developed for rare conditions like precocious puberty,

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Speaker 1: when kids get puberty way too early, and we're like, wait, wait, wait,

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Speaker 1: you can't start puberty quite yet because this could be detrimental,

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Speaker 1: not just psychologically, but also so can have impacts on bone,

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Speaker 1: soft tissue and other things. So that's why we did that.

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Speaker 1: But their use in healthy adolescents is completely off label

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Speaker 1: and experimental and side effects may include reduced bone density, obviously, infertility,

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Speaker 1: and even impaired brain development. So why would we do this,

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Speaker 1: I don't know, because that's what social media talking points

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Speaker 1: are telling us to do. These days, some European countries

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Speaker 1: are taking notice. Sweden, Finland, and the UK have all

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Speaker 1: pulled back on youth gender treatments, citing insufficient evidence of

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Speaker 1: long term benefit and growing concerns about irreversible harm. I'm

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Speaker 1: so tired of the US being last. We were the

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Speaker 1: last during COVID. You had Israel, you had the UK,

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Speaker 1: you had Switzerland, you had all these other countries who

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Speaker 1: are doing the right things well before the United States.

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Speaker 1: How can that happen? How can we be such a

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Speaker 1: great nation at the forefront of scientific innovation and medical

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Speaker 1: advancements and yet we're always behind when it comes to

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Speaker 1: implementing them. And why is that? Because we are so

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Speaker 1: politically influenced and socially influenced into our recommendations. We need

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Speaker 1: to follow the science, not the politics. And the science

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Speaker 1: right now it's technically uncertain, I guess you can say,

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Speaker 1: because you can point to different studies showing different things.

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Speaker 1: My settled opinion is children who are dealing with gender

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Speaker 1: dysphoria are suffering from a mental illness, and we need

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Speaker 1: to rally around them best we can. We need to

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Speaker 1: look at their social environment, their home life, their school life,

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Speaker 1: Do they have food safety, do they have financial safety?

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Speaker 1: What is causing them to feel so out of touch

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Speaker 1: with their body? And what can we do to help them?

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Speaker 1: Is it through therapy, is it through medication? I think

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Speaker 1: it's probably more going to be about making sure that

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Speaker 1: they feel safe in their environments, They accept them for

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Speaker 1: who they are and have confidence in who they are

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Speaker 1: and who they were born to be. I think we

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Speaker 1: need to stop giving them medications to make them permanently infertile.

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Speaker 1: We certainly should not be touching them with a scalpel

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Speaker 1: and causing irreversible harm. Now, some states are trying to

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Speaker 1: ban these gender affirming treatments, and in a pivotal move

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Speaker 1: this week, the US Supreme Court is allowing Tennessee's ban

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Speaker 1: on gender affirming care for minors to remain in effect

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Speaker 1: while ongoing legal challenges continue. The court six to three

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Speaker 1: decision didn't rule on the constitutionality of such bans, but

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Speaker 1: it does allow states to enforce them during litigation, setting

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Speaker 1: a precedent for how similar laws and other states may proceed. Now,

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Speaker 1: this wasn't a final ruling, but it signaled the states

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Speaker 1: can regulate these treatments for now, but there are still

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Speaker 1: many states that are allowing children, yes children, to make

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Speaker 1: the decisions whether or not they want to start hormones,

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Speaker 1: or whether or not we want to consider surgery. In fact,

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Speaker 1: there are some states that a child just has to

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Speaker 1: be fifteen. They don't even need parental consent to get

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Speaker 1: some of these treatments. That is mind blowing to me.

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Speaker 1: If you have to be eighteen to vote, if you

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Speaker 1: have to be eighteen to enlist in the army buy cigarettes,

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Speaker 1: I don't know what else you have to do to

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Speaker 1: be eighteen, But I cannot believe that you would allow

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Speaker 1: someone under eighteen to say that they want to take

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Speaker 1: medication that would cause permanent sterilization. This makes no sense

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Speaker 1: to me. We might as well just get rid of

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Speaker 1: all age restrictions because it's based on nothing. Fifteen's a

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Speaker 1: magical number for you, What is that based on? It's

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Speaker 1: based on nothing. If you actually, if you really want

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Speaker 1: to say, when can someone give and form consent, it's

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Speaker 1: not even eighteen. We've already talked about how the brain's

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Speaker 1: not fully formed. Really, it's probably twenty five twenty six.

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Speaker 1: So if we're just going to stick with the arbitrary

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Speaker 1: numbers that we've given, is eighteen you can buy cigarettes

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Speaker 1: and a list in the army and vote twenty one

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Speaker 1: you can get alcohol. By the way, I don't understand

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Speaker 1: those numbers and themselves either. But fifteen for gender affirming care,

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Speaker 1: that's actually permanent damage. Smoking cigarettes that's long term damaged,

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Speaker 1: I mean, and by the way, that can stop. That's

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Speaker 1: not even permanent. You can smoke for a little bit

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Speaker 1: and stop. So why can you take these medications that

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Speaker 1: you'll never be able to stop and get healthy from again,

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Speaker 1: but yet you can't buy cigarettes. I don't know. Honestly,

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Speaker 1: none of it makes sense to me. I just think

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Speaker 1: that people are making decisions to try and cater to

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Speaker 1: a base that they think that these people know what

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Speaker 1: they're talking about, but they don't. Advocates for the bands

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Speaker 1: obviously argue that the states have a compelling interest in

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Speaker 1: protecting children from these irreversible decisions, but opponents call it

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Speaker 1: discrimination and medical obstruction. But here's what we can't ignore.

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Speaker 1: Parents are often the collect nateral damage of this ideological fight.

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Speaker 1: We must protect the parent's role in what is right

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Speaker 1: for the children. There is no way a fifteen year

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Speaker 1: old should be able to get a prescription for hormone

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Speaker 1: blockers without their parents' consent. Absolutely not, and I cannot

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Speaker 1: believe that we are allowing this to happen. The reality is,

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Speaker 1: when it comes to gender affirming care, we need more

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Speaker 1: longitudinal studies on the outcomes of gender affirming care and minors.

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Speaker 1: I guarantee it's going to show that there is regret,

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Speaker 1: that there is significant risk, and that those who had

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Speaker 1: mental illness prior to the surgeries and the hormone blockers,

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Speaker 1: they're still going to have mental illness after it's all

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Speaker 1: said and done. Unless we're focusing on the underlying cause

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Speaker 1: of the mental illness and focusing on helping this person

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Speaker 1: feel good about their life, it's not going to be anything.

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Speaker 1: I don't understand how we can look at people who

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Speaker 1: know they're looking in the mirror and they're not happy

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Speaker 1: with what they see, whether it's their nose, their chin,

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Speaker 1: their breasts, their wist, their thighs, or whatever it may be.

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Speaker 1: They get plastic surgery. After plastic surgery, and it can

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Speaker 1: be addicted, and you see these people on the street

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Speaker 1: and you kind of laugh and you shuffle at them like,

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Speaker 1: oh my gosh, they look like you know, plastic Barbie

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Speaker 1: or gosh, they've had a lot of work done or

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Speaker 1: whatever it is. At the end of the day, all

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Speaker 1: of this work is being done because they look in

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Speaker 1: the mirror and they are not happy with what they're seeing.

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Speaker 1: That's also a mental illness. Unless you're focusing on the inside,

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Speaker 1: nothing you do to the outside matters. You know. I

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Speaker 1: read MRIZ and CT scans every single day, and I

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Speaker 1: can tell you it doesn't matter what you've done on

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Speaker 1: the outside. I can see what's happening on the inside,

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Speaker 1: and that is where you need to focus. It's okay

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Speaker 1: to want to look a little bit different, but you

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Speaker 1: should certainly shouldn't be doing something permanent when you're a child,

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Speaker 1: because you need to grow into that body. You need

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Speaker 1: to grow up, you need to figure out who you are,

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Speaker 1: and you certainly cannot take the parents out of that

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Speaker 1: conversation because maybe not one hundred percent of the time,

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Speaker 1: the ninety nine percent of the time parents knows what's

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Speaker 1: best for their children, and by removing them from the conversation,

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Speaker 1: that in itself says there's something fishy going on here.

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Speaker 1: If you have to exclude the parent from the decision

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Speaker 1: about whether a child should undergo gender affirming care, then

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Speaker 1: that means you're doing something dirty and it's probably not

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Speaker 1: what's in the best interest from that child. So shame

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Speaker 1: on the lawmakers and shame on the advocates who aren't

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Speaker 1: actually caring for the well being of that child. Parental

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Speaker 1: rights should not be political. They should be protected as

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Speaker 1: part of a child's full circle of care. That's my

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Speaker 1: two cents as a mother, but also as a physician.

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Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to Wellness Unmasks on America's number one

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Speaker 1: podcast network, iHeart. Follow Wellness Unmasks with doctor Nicole Sapfire

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Speaker 1: and start listening on the free iHeartRadio app or wherever

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Speaker 1: you get your podcasts, and we'll catch you next time.