Lost in Trans Nation: A Child Psychiatrist's Guide Out of the Madness

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She writes that "(f)or twelve years, she was on the staff of UCLA’s Student Counseling Services, where nearly all her patients were students in their late teens and twenties. Because of this demographic, and no doubt also because of what’s now called the 'hook-up culture', many students who ended up in my office had a history of genital infections, one or more abortions, possible exposure to HIV, and other troublesome consequences of sexual activity, whether “protected’ or not." a b c d e f g Angier, Natalie (November 19, 1999). "A Sex Guide for Girls, Minus Homilies". The New York Times. Archived from the original on June 28, 2021 . Retrieved June 28, 2021. Dr. Grossman earned her medical degree from New York University, did an internship in pediatrics at Beth Israel Hospital in New York City, and completed a residency in psychiatry followed by a fellowship in child and adolescent psychiatry at North Shore Hospital – Cornell University Medical College. Secondly, I have been seeing these families for a few years now. I have patients who no longer have a penis or a so-called “vagina.” I have patients who have been made infertile, patients in their twenties, by surgeons who carved them up without taking a moment to explore their mental health. I have talked to too many young women who have had their breasts removed and now regret it, and it’s sinking in that they won’t be able to nurse one day. So I have been living it in this way.

MG:Yes. And so I delved into it. I wanted to understand why this was being championed by my profession. And I discovered someone by the name of John Money. Now, these cases represented perhaps 0.02 percent of births, and there’s a vast array of medical conditions and chromosomal conditions that can cause ambiguous genitalia. But again, they are extremely rare. Now, John Money was extremely interested in those kids, and especially in the process of deciding if they would be raised as males or females. His Ph.D. thesis at Harvard focused on that question. a b c d "Deal With It!: A Whole New Approach to Your Body, Brain, and Life as a Gurl". Publishers Weekly. August 30, 1999. Archived from the original on June 27, 2021 . Retrieved June 26, 2021. His idea was, put simply, that we are born “gender-neutral,” that we are all blank slates, and that our identity as men or women hinges merely on the way we’re treated during the first two and a half to three years of life. Given the debates at the time regarding nature and nurture, and what we knew and didn’t know about chromosomes, this seemed plausible. That is a major medical organization. It claims it has 67,000 members. I want parents to understand that when they go to their pediatrician, doctors are busy and we don’t have time to do research on every subject that we are supposed to know about. So, we are taught throughout our training, that we trust our professional organizations. Makes sense, right?a b Mitchell, Claudia; Reid-Walsh, Jacqueline (December 30, 2007). Girl Culture: An Encyclopedia. California: Greenwood. p.334. ISBN 9780313339080. The Looks Book: A Whole New Approach to Beauty, Body Image, and Style". Publishers Weekly. October 1, 2002. Archived from the original on June 27, 2021 . Retrieved June 26, 2021. DG:It really is alarming. There’s a silencing of medical debate in America that is not happening in other countries. Letter Opposing West Bend Decision Not to Reappoint Library Board Members". National Coalition Against Censorship. April 28, 2009. Archived from the original on July 9, 2015 . Retrieved July 1, 2021.

Money had no way of proving this, until a young blue-collar family from Canada, who had had twin boys about a year earlier, sought him out for medical assistance. One of their twin sons had undergone a botched circumcision and was permanently disfigured. Without going into too much detail here, Money instructed the parents to raise their boy as a girl and to never disclose the truth. This ultimately led to devastating effects for the whole family—the child was stereotypically masculine in behaviors, interests, and sexual attraction. That boy later discovered that he was not a girl and chose at once to live as a man. But he eventually committed suicide, and his twin brother died of an overdose. Money, meanwhile, lauded this experiment as a success and a vindication of his theory. Dr. Grossman’s practice currently focuses on gender-distressed young people and their parents. She believes that every child is born in the right body. Dr Grossman has been vocal about the capture of her profession by ideologues, leading to dangerous and experimental treatments on children and betrayal of parents. Anderson-Minshall, Diane (September 29, 2011). "Bookshelf: Banned Books Week". The Advocate. Archived from the original on July 4, 2021 . Retrieved July 1, 2021. Dr. Grossman is featured in the Daily Wire’s What Is A Woman?, Fox Nation’s The Miseducation of America, and many other documentaries. Her expert psychiatric opinion is sought for witness testimony and court reports. DG:I’m glad you brought up these institutions. How have these and other medical associations across specialties, which represent people like you, been captured by extremists on this issue? How did Money’s bad idea capture the Western medical imagination?She writes that "(f)or twelve years, she was on the staff of UCLA’s Student Counseling Services, where nearly all her patients were students in their late teens and twenties. Because of this demographic, and no doubt also because of what’s now called the 'hook-up culture', many students who ended up in my office had a history of genital infections, one or more abortions, possible exposure to HIV, and other troublesome consequences of sexual activ Dr. Grossman earned her medical degree from New York University, did an internship in pediatrics at Beth Israel Hospital in New York City, and completed a residency in psychiatry followed by a fellowship in child and adolescent psychiatry at North Shore Hospital – Cornell University Medical College. a b Gordon, Jane (March 5, 2000). "Controversy surrounds handbook for teen girls". Hartford Courant. p.G2. Archived from the original on July 15, 2021 . Retrieved July 14, 2021– via Newspapers.com. Dr. Miriam Grossman is a child and adolescent psychiatrist whose practice consists of trans-identified youth and their families. In Lost in Trans Nation, she implores parents to reject the advice of gender experts and politicians and trust their guts—their parental instincts—in the face of an onslaught of ideologically driven misinformation that steers them and their children toward risky decisions they may end up mourning for the rest of their lives. Without Money’s successful promotion of the idea that gender identity exists, and that it is separate from and more important than anatomy and chromosomes, we would never have reached the point we’re at now, where we are teaching kids in schools that biology does not matter. Telling children their feelings matter more than biological realities is extremely dangerous; we cannot deny our biology without paying a price–sometimes a high one MG:My book is not only for parents dealing with this issue immediately in their own lives, but for people who want to prevent this. One key, which seems small, is to challenge the statement that sex is assigned at birth. Sex is established at conception, not “assigned at birth.” Children are permanently established as males or females many months before birth. I want kids to hear this from their parents before they are exposed to the “assignment” language elsewhere. I want them to recognize the idea of sex being assigned at birth as the bizarre, anti-scientific myth that it is.

You offer another model for how we might approach reproductive education, one that emphasizes motherhood and fatherhood. I don’t think this need be done in a preachy way, but in a way that brings science, including psychology, to discussions of human relationships. For example, you pointed out the beauty of nursing, the bonding that occurs between a mother and child, and so forth. In short, you suggest reforming sex-ed to make it more about the life cycle. Miriam Grossman MD is board certified in psychiatry and in the sub-specialty of child and adolescent psychiatry. Before gender ideology was on anyone’s radar, she warned parents about its falsehoods and dangers in her 2009 book about sexuality education, "You’re Teaching My Child WHAT?" Lost in Trans Nation arms parents with the ammunition to avoid, or, if necessary, fight what many families describe as the most difficult challenge of their lives. Parents will learn what to say and how—at home, at school, and if necessary, to police when they appear at the door.MG:First of all, I’m at the end of my career. I’m not just starting off and having to worry about being rejected from job applications or being fired. So I don’t have that issue to deal with. Although I have been turned away from work because of my positions. But I survived. DG:Thank you. As much as I was aware of what these surgeries and other physical processes entail, reading about them in detail in your book was, it was heartbreaking and just so difficult to get through. But I also appreciated that you shed light on the parents who I think are often the quieter actors in this. I think there are some detransitioners who are very outspoken, and courageously so, but parents dealing with their children’s crises occupy a strange role. But as you detail in the book, some parents protesting their children’s medical transitions have been legally challenged and even imprisoned. Now, the problem is when it comes to this issue of gender identity and being transgender; on this particular subject the organizations have been captured by activists. DG:Thank you. Absolutely. Something else that I really loved about your book was your section on sex education. I thought you offered brilliant insights there. I know you wrote a separate book about sex education, where you talk about the way kids and young people are taught about sex and reproduction as if it’s a mechanistic, soulless experience, almost like the sexual play depicted in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. But no matter what, they cannot actually relate to being brought up in a world without those clear definitions. So they can’t meaningfully understand what children today are experiencing when they’re taught, as “wet cement,” these incredibly strange ideas.