Gender Ideology is Based on Activism NOT Medical Science

     A Letter to the Bloomington Public Schools Superintendent and the School Board

Dear Dr. Melbye, Dr. Mitchler and Bloomington Public School (BPS) Board Members, Gender ideology has been gradually permeating itself into public schools for over ten years and has reached a level involving potential medical treatment for some students.  But it is very important for educators to know that the international medical community is backing away from gender affirming care and related gender ideology because it has become increasingly clear that there is a lack of scientific support for the gender health medical protocols previously accepted by many medical associations and doctors worldwide including several major American medical associations.  A just-released bombshell investigative report (see below) confirms what many have long suspected about gender ideology and gender affirming care. 

It is becoming more widely reported that these harmful gender health protocols for youth involving such treatments as puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and extreme gender affirming care (e.g. - surgical removal/modification of breasts and genitalia) were always based mostly on gender activism and not medical science.  In fact, several European countries, where gender health took root decades ago, are now publicly backing off on what was previously thought to be accepted gender health.  Multiple European countries are reported to have accumulated medical history proving that these once-accepted medical protocols are not reliable and are not supported by medical evidence. 

Why is it important for you, as public-school officials, to know this?  Because, at the behest of gender activists, national and state teachers unions and the Democrat Party agenda, public schools nationwide are being pressured to support scientifically-unsupported gender ideology in various ways - an ideology which is now increasingly being debunked as lacking sufficient (or any) medical science.  

This push for schools to accommodate gender ideology manifests itself through allowing biological males to compete in girls' sports, the state requiring schools to provide menstrual products in boys bathrooms, boys being allowed to use girl's locker rooms and showers, promotion of unique pronouns for kids identifying as another gender, promotion of accepting very young children "for who they are" in relation to gender and then potentially promoting "gender affirming care" to help them "transition". 

In fact, Minnesota just signed into law gender affirming care legislation that is supposed to protect those seeking treatment under the very medical protocols that are now being debunked by medical professionals worldwide.  This is gender activism at its most extreme and has nothing to do with medical science or the medical or psychological well-being of children or vulnerable adults. 

Here's the bottom line for BPS: to the extent that BPS officially tolerates or allows members of its staff to promote scientifically unsupported gender ideology to students that can potentially lead to irreversible harm to a student's psychological or physical health, BPS is, at a minimum, exposing itself to serious ethical peril and, ultimately, to potential civil liability for BPS and for individual staff members who promote this unscientific ideology. 

Here is just some of the recent evidence upon which I base my assertions:  a bombshell report about the alleged pseudoscience employed by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), the self-appointed leading international "medical" authority on transgender health, has just been released by respected international journalist Michael Shellenberger's Environmental Progress organization.   

This report, based on extensive leaked documents from WPATH is titled "The WPATH Files - Pseudoscientific Surgical and Hormonal Experiments on Children, Adolescents and Vulnerable Adults" by Mia Hughes is summarized here: 

The WPATH Files — Environmental Progress 

The complete thoroughly documented report including extensive copies of leaked internal WPATH documents is here: 

WPATH+Report+and+Files(N).pdf (squarespace.com) 

To learn more about the worldwide reaction of medical professional to the WPATH report please read here: 

Fear and doubt in the WPATH Files - by Bernard Lane (genderclinicnews.com) 

Please note that gender dysphoria remains a valid psychological condition experienced by some young people who, medical professionals acknowledge, will generally grow out of this psychological condition as they mature (sometimes with the aid of psychological counseling). 

Thanks for your attention to this important matter affecting the BPS community.