Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters

by Abigail Shrier

Blanchard believes sex reassignment surgery is appropriate for some gender dysphoric patients. He claims to have treated trans-identified patients whose dysphoria was largely alleviated by surgical intervention. As head of Clinical Sexology Services at the Toronto Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Dr. Blanchard saw adult patients and recommended surgery for those trans-identified adult patients he believed it would help. But—and here’s the important point, in his view—he never recommended such measures merely on the basis of a patient’s demand. Part of Dr. Blanchard’s job was to determine whether patients were likely to succeed at presenting themselves as the opposite sex; he undertook this evaluation precisely because he hoped they would. Dr. Blanchard emphasized to me the daily difficulties of trying to present as the opposite sex. It’s psychologically wearing, sometimes much more than patients anticipate. “People who don’t pass well are going to be subject to stares and possibly hostile comments from strangers. I’m sure it does take a toll on people to have to brace themselves for every trip to the store to get a quart of milk.” For this reason, his clinic only saw adult patients and insisted they spend two years living as the opposite gender in order to be eligible for sex reassignment surgery. The last thing he wanted to do was approve surgery for someone who would later regret it. “I can’t think of any branch of medicine outside of cosmetic surgery where the pa...