Trying to understand the logic of cultural leftists is an exercise in futility. After years — decades, actually — of downplaying and essentially denying any difference between the sexes and claiming gender roles are social constructs, they’ve done an about-face. Not only are certain characteristics indicative of gender but the sexes are so different that those who dislike their own can and even should claim another! Because there is no uniqueness between the sexes. Except when there is.

It’s bad enough that supposedly rational adults embrace such confusion, but now they’re seeking to validate their position by conducting medical and psychological experiments on children as young as kindergarten-age.

In a recent New York Times guest column, Yale School of Medicine Research Fellow Jack Turban praises the medical (mal)practice of giving children who dislike their birth-gender implants to block the onset of puberty so they can prepare to “transition” to their chosen gender. He tells the story of 14-year-old “Hannah” — born a boy — who “is using a puberty-blocking implant and getting ready to embark on the path of developing a female body by starting estrogen.” The implant, Turban writes, is a “hard rod” just beneath the skin of “Hannah’s” arm which “releases a drug that turns off the brain cells that would otherwise kick off puberty. … [It’s] been in place for two years, preventing the process that would have deepened her voice and given her an Adam’s apple.”

In other words, beginning at age 12, “Hannah’s” parents, with the complicity of medical professionals, began giving this child drugs to stunt his brain cells and the natural progression of biology.

It’s absurd that the obvious even requires saying, but for the record, this kind of medical experimentation on children is not a mark of a civilized society. In fact, one might argue it’s child abuse. Then again, a nation that dismembers its in-utero children can hardly become queasy at blocking brain cells. That would be a bit incongruous, now, wouldn’t it?

In a fashion typical of those who embrace transgenderism and other manifestations of gender disorientation pathology, Turban has hardly a negative word to say about any harmful effects of chemically altering children’s brain cells to deliberately stunt natural development. Instead, he paints a rosy picture, points to “Hannah” as “happy” with the implant, and calls him a “thriving teenager.” And he erroneously claims that “[o]ver the past few years, it has become clear that if we support these children in their transgender identities instead of trying to change them, they thrive instead of struggling with anxiety and depression.”

Putting aside for a moment the fact that the only ones trying to “change” children are those implanting drugs in their arms to botch brain cell activity, “thrive” is hardly an accurate word for thousands of individuals who bought into the deception that if only they could become the gender they wanted, they would find joy.

An astounding 46% of transgender men and 42% of transgender women have attempted suicide, according to one study from the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law and the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. Among transgender individuals who underwent hormone treatment, the suicide-attempt rate was 45%. By comparison, less than 5% of the overall U.S. population reports attempting suicide in their lifetime.

In fact, the study authors specifically write, “Overall, the most striking finding of our analysis was the exceptionally high prevalence of lifetime suicide attempts reported by … [transgender and gender non-conforming adults] across all demographics and experiences.”

This finding would not surprise Walt Heyer, who underwent a sex-change operation and lived as a woman for eight years without finding the peace he craved. “Changing genders is short-term gain with long-term pain,” he writes. “Its consequences include early mortality, regret, mental illness, and suicide.” Heyer isn’t alone. His website, sexchangeregret.com, shares the stories not heralded by the media — the stories of what happens to people like “Hannah” weeks, months and even years down the road.

In a brand new column, Heyer writes, “Doctors jam trans kids with puberty blockers and trans adults with cross-gender hormones, then recommend irreversible genital surgery, all without having long-term systematic studies of the effectiveness of such invasive treatment. Parents of trans kids don’t have the benefit of trustworthy information on the probable outcomes of up to 90 percent of gender changers.” That’s because the vast majority of post-trans surgery subjects are what’s called “lost to follow-up,” so no studies account for them. Some of that is intentional — just not counting those who transition back to their birth sex — because, according to Heyer, “LGBTQ studies purposefully exclude anything that would reflect badly on their overblown trans agenda.”

“Hannah” is searching for an identity that will never be found in medical inducements or surgical constructions. By telling him otherwise and applauding those who damage children psychologically and physically in the name of gender progressivism, the Jack Turbans of the world — never mind the parents and mad scientists who hurt these kids — aren’t giving hope; they’re endorsing child abuse.