Dec 12, 2023
ORLANDO, FL – A new study published in Europe shows that medically mutilating surgeries do not relieve gender confusion or other underlying mental health issues. In fact, the study revealed patients with gender confusion who received hormone treatments or mutilating gender surgeries showed a greater increase in specialized “psychiatric treatment” than those with gender confusion who did not undergo those procedures. The authors recommended a “cautious assessment” of gender surgeries since they are not likely to resolve the mental health issues of people in “gender distress.”
Liberty Counsel Founder and Chairman Mat Staver said, “Medical mutilation is not the answer to gender confusion and the science clearly agrees. The evidence shows gender confusion is linked to underlying mental health issues and can be treated through counseling. The insanity of gender ideology and greed in the medical community has monetized the act of mutilating children and adults alike into a billion-dollar industry. There are only two genders, and the medical and counseling professions need to return to sound science to treat mental health issues with proven psychiatric therapies to heal rather than harm.”
Conducted in Finland and published in the medical journal, European Psychiatry, the large study reviewed records of 3,665 people registered with Finland’s “nationally centralized gender identity services” from 1996 to 2019. Using Finland’s socialized medical system, the researchers were able to survey the country’s entire population to assemble a control group. They matched every person receiving “gender identity services” with eight other people of the same sex and age resulting in a control group of more than 29,000 people. The researchers compared the mental health needs of the two groups both before and after the gender-confused person’s first appointment with gender identity services (GIS). The authors made several key findings:
The authors concluded that people with gender confusion had “many more common psychiatric needs” than the general population even after receiving GIS and surgical interventions. These findings are consistent with other peer-reviewed research that suggest mutilating surgeries do not improve mental health. These recent studies have found a correlation between gender confusion and other mental health disorders connected with childhood trauma (physical abuse, sexual abuse, domestic violence, etc.), and that these surgical interventions fail to address these issues leading to increased suicide rates while leaving as high as 83 percent of people feeling lonelier and almost 50 percent dissatisfied with their lives after surgery.
In a 2021 study at the University of Pittsburgh, medical researchers found that gender-confused adolescents had a significantly higher likelihood to report childhood sexual abuse, physical abuse, and psychological abuse than their non-gender confused peers. In a similar study at The Children’s Hospital at Westmead in Australia, scientists found that gender confusion “in children arises in association with…high rates of unresolved loss and trauma,” such as sexual abuse, emotional abuse, neglect, and exposure to domestic violence. The study also indicated 87 percent of children in the study who had gender confusion also had anxiety, behavioral disorders, or autism.
In a study published in May 2023, researchers at the University of Hamburg Medical Center concluded “…people, who have undergone gender reassignment surgery [generally] feel lonelier” than others who have not had surgery. In a subsequent study also published in May 2023 by the same researchers, 44 percent of people reported varying levels of dissatisfaction with their lives after irreversible surgeries where 30.1 percent reported “slight” satisfaction and only 1.1 percent reported extreme satisfaction.
These studies are also consistent with a 2011 study conducted in Sweden, which found “substantially higher rates” of suicide, suicide attempts, and psychiatric hospitalizations in gender-confused individuals receiving surgical interventions compared to a healthy control population.
In July 2023, a group of 21 doctors and medical researchers from nine countries – Finland, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Norway, Belgium, France, Switzerland, South Africa, and the United States – issued a letter stating that these treatments and procedures present little evidence for improving mental health.
In the letter, the doctors noted the “unfortunate” nature of how politicized health care for gender confusion has become, and recommended medical societies begin to align with the “best evidence available” which shows mental health therapy should be the “first line of treatment” for gender confusion. The doctors concluded there is “no reliable evidence” that these treatments are effective in improving mental health.
According to ACPeds, a national medical association in the United States, data shows up to 88 percent of girls and up to 98 percent of boys with gender confusion “will desist” when counseling is “directed toward underlying psychological issues.”
Yet, the “gender surgery industry,” which is expected to grow to a $5 billion industry by 2030, continues to surgically mutilate children and adults while ignoring this growing amount of research and data.
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