The Patriot Post® · Transgender Transformation

It’s been often noted, and rightly so, that transgenderism is not a meaningful scientific or medical area of study, but rather a political ideology with specific goals in mind that do not fit into any respected category of scientific thought. Those who support transgenderism — the idea that men and women can be born with a body and a brain that are of opposite genders — do not adhere to medical or biological facts, and worse still, they do not seek discussion or debate about the issue of gender “misidentity,” only blind adherence to their dogma.

The rise of this transgender ideology has been extremely harmful to our society. It puts young girls at risk because transgenderism says that men who identify as women should be allowed to use female bathrooms, locker rooms, and other personal spaces. It has thrown conventional society into complete disarray by arbitrarily changing standard gender definitions in education, commerce, sports, and entertainment.

Worst of all, transgenderism is harming the very people it purports to protect, those who are actually suffering from gender dysphoria. Transgenderism rejects the idea of psychological counseling for those wrestling with gender “identity,” opting instead to affirm their condition and let them go through the costly, dangerous, and harmful process of sexual reassignment. A process, by the way, that is just as likely to lead patients to suicide or self-destructive depression as they would be by being left unmutiliated.

The “transgender” community counts on bullying the opposition to keep the facts from coming out about gender dysphoria. Instead of treating it as a medical condition, leftists have latched onto this issue as one more way of tearing down our society, smashing our nuclear families, and deconstructing traditional gender concepts. They have found many in the media and even in the medical community to be their useful idiots in these endeavors.

They can no longer count Dr. Alicia Hendley among them.

Hendley, a career clinical psychologist who specializes in eating, mood, and anxiety disorders, was once a proud member of the transgenderism cult. She recently came out about how she discovered all that was wrong with the transgender movement. It’s a compelling read.

Hendley details how she was once a full-throated supporter of “transgender rights.” Transwomen were women and transmen were men, and biology meant nothing. She followed the movement to the letter, using social media to spread its propaganda, embrace its lies, and shout down and humiliate anyone who dare question it.

“When asked to elaborate, I pointed to vague notions of ‘knowing’ and ‘feeling,’ rather than terms that were rooted in science,” Hendley writes. “When asked to explain further, I resorted to circular reasoning: some men feel like women, and only women can feel like women, therefore some men are women. When pushed on the question of how it is possible to ‘feel like a woman,’ I’d argue that because I ‘felt’ like a woman, it must be true. Other times I resorted to name-calling, labeling women who said transwomen were male ‘bigots’ who were ‘stuck in the '50s,’ and didn’t believe in civil rights.”

Eventually, however, Hendley started to see cracks in transgender ideology.

“Was there any evidence that transgender people were at risk of imminent extermination, similar to vulnerable groups during the Holocaust? No. Were transgender people, as a group, more vulnerable than women? I had no evidence to support this claim. Was silencing women who say that transwomen are not women (and transmen are not men) a punishment that fits the ‘crime’? No.”

Hendley went back to her roots as a researcher and found some disturbing claims in otherwise respected Canadian and American medical journals on the subject of gender dysphoria. Trained physicians were actually promoting hormone treatments for pubescent children who expressed a desire to change sex. Such treatments virtually guarantee infertility, but the children were willing to go through the procedure and reject fertility preservation procedures like sperm or egg harvesting.

The doctors who support these treatments note this is common. Children at this age do not yet have the cognitive ability to understand the long-term implications of their decisions. Yet, these same doctors are willing to let them undergo a medical procedure that will irrevocably change their lives, mutilate their physiology, and possibly shorten their lifespan.

Having now emerged from this movement based on sheer madness, Hendley writes, “I’m chilled at how easy it was for me — a psychologist (now retired), ostensibly trained to understand the human mind — to become so caught up in the momentum of ‘trans rights’ that I avoided critical thought, much like a new member of a cult.”

Hendley further writes that she is reluctant to use the word cult, but a cult is exactly what transgenderism is. It boasts a complete rejection of criticism; bullies, smears, and assassinates the character of anyone who disagrees; and seeks blind adherence to its dogma.

“And, much like a cult,” Hendley continues, “those who push gender identity ideology discourage independent thought, and instead respond to requests for evidence and facts to support their beliefs with platitudes, mantras, and scare tactics, repeated over and over, until they become reality.”

Hendley’s story is a wake-up call to others in the scientific and medical professions about the dangers posed by the militant transgender movement. People we trust as experts in the fields of medicine are being fed a line of political garbage that is harming their ability to help people. It doesn’t serve our youth, it certainly isn’t serving women, and it is not serving our society. Enough is enough.