Posted on 05/01/2022 10:00:30 PM PDT by RandFan
Assistant Health Secretary Rachel Levine said trans youth are being “driven to depths of despair” and committing suicide at alarming rates, during a speech on Saturday about the dangers of anti-trans laws being passed in red states across the country.
Levine, the first openly transgender federal official to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate, said in a speech at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth that LGBTQ youth are being “attacked” and have “few places to turn” for help.
“I want to say this very, very clearly: lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer Americans are committing suicide at a rate that should shock our conscience,” Levine said during the Out For Health Conference.
“Even after decades of progress, the most vulnerable among us continue to suffer … transgender women of color not only continue to be harassed, but are more likely than the population at large to suffer violence and even murder.”
Her remarks come after new laws criticized as anti-trans were enacted in several states this year, including the controversial “Don’t Say Gay” law in Florida, which prohibits the discussion of gender identity and sexual orientation in public schools from kindergarten through third grade.
Arkansas also passed a law prohibiting gender-affirming treatment for trans youth, and several Republican-led states have similar bills in the pipeline. Texas has ordered the investigation of parents who allow their children to undergo gender-affirming care, which the state’s attorney general said amounts to “child abuse.”
Levine, who was a doctor for decades before becoming Pennsylvania’s secretary of health, argued during her speech on Saturday that gender-affirming care is an established medical practice “based on decades of study” and is both safe and legal.
“Gender-affirming care is medical care. It is mental health care. It is suicide prevention care. It improves quality of life, and it saves lives,” she added.
The assistant health secretary herself has faced anti-trans attacks, including when Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) called Levine “a man” after she was named USA Today’s Woman of the Year. Levine identifies with she/her pronouns.
Levine said while the Biden administration pushing for equality and acceptance, it was becoming increasingly clear that “not everyone feels that way.”
“Many politicians and their supporters are describing our LGBTQI+ community, in public, as a blight on our culture. Many of the targets of this kind of speech are driven to kill themselves,” Levine said. “We know as a medical fact that trans youth in particular are being hounded in public and driven to the depths of despair at an alarming rate.”
In 2020, about 40 percent of LGBTQ children reported contemplating suicide, while 46 percent said they needed some form of counseling, according to The Trevor Project.
Levine told LGBTQ children “it was okay to be you,” and asked parents to support their children who identify with the community, saying “one supportive adult” makes a huge difference in saving their lives.
Russia ending work on International Space Station in response to sanctions Blinken, Ukrainian counterpart speak on US aid to Kyiv She also called on physicians and others in the medical community to take a stand against “slander, bigotry and gender-baiting hate speech.”
“The language of medicine and science is being used to drive people to suicide. The mantle of concern for children is being claimed to destroy children’s lives,” Levine said.
“We have to stand up. We have to take a stand on behalf of those who are being hurt. We have to be doctors. This is what we do, even when it’s difficult.”
Gays already attempt suicide at alarming rates. Approximately 46% of transgendered ppl admit wanting to die, which is the same rate as before they had surgery. They’re emotionally unstable to begin with.
There is no other medical condition in the history of medical conditions that requires, as an essential part of treatment, that society indulges the patient's disorder and is compelled to engage in a farce. You don't admire the trim waist of an anorexic, you don't help depressed people commit suicide (though I'd bet that is coming down the pipe), you don't look at a bald person and compliment them on their thick wave locks.
Kids trapped in this transgender mindset need help and treatment, not parades and cosmetic surgery that embraces their delusions.
Doctors don’t mutilate kids and call it “affirming.”
Hey dick, just because you cut your junk off does not make you a women. You and your demented friends are causing these kids to kill themselves.
Sounds like they needed mental health right when they thought they could turn into the other sex.
Encouraging a psychosis is NOT care or caring.
Sure. Treat gender dysphoria. But don’t lie to kids and tell them they can change their biological sex, because they cannot.
Offering them false hope is more harmful than honesty. Encouraging them to act out in ways that are inconsistent with their biological sex is naturally going to invite rejection and ridicule, whether this is wrong or not.
Kids can be very cruel to each other. When a child is encouraged to act out in ways that will tend to make him or her look foolish or out of place among his or her peers, it is asking for problems.
Oddly, such problems were very rare in the recent past. A lot of cases of gender dysphoria are being either caused or at least exacerbated by the open promotion of LGBT culture. Children are impressionable and unsure of themselves. They can easily be influenced to think they are something they are not. A lot of cases are probably directly caused by adults who intentionally manipulate these children. And that is morally repugnant and should be treated as a serious crime.
At the heart, gender dysphoria is a kind of self-rejection. Pushing it on children is much more likely to cause the suicidal tendencies discussed in the article.
Yes, a psychiatrist does not tell a patient to be something they are not, to run away from who they are, or to disfigure themselves if they don’t like their appearance. Well, they didn’t use to.
Mentally ill people have high suicide rates. Who would’ve thought?”
The trannies are mentally ill. Who starts chopping off their own body parts if not mentally ill. Of course they commit suicide. Chop, chop, chop and then end it.
Well put.
And this administration’s idiotic leaders.
Disney isn’t helping. Their mouthy comments have caused
people to be traumatized.
It shouldn’t bother anyone that little kids aren’t able to
talk to adults about this.
All day today there was a mem going on at Instagram
- - -
The person looks at the camera and says, “I can’t talk about
sex at the office. I’d get fired for talking to adults on
the topic. None the less, the Left wants to talk to little
kids about it, K - 3rd grade. Do you think that’s right?”
What parent is going to say no?
REALLY! Screww these aholes! Life is tough for everyone. I have my own problems and don’t have time for these pathetic loosers!
Adults forcing their perversion on children. Then encouraging it and pumping drugs into their systems are encouraging it. Freak.
anti-freak laws in other locations are driving freaks to despair in freak friendly locations?
LOL. no. that’s not what’s happening.
It’s long been known that freaks have a mental illness. 5 minutes ago, the left decided to encourage them and started pushing them to go all the way instead of restraining. end result, they go deeper into their psychosis and, with no medical help or counseling to treat the mental duress, they eventually kill themselves.
such an outcome has been typical for the freaks for decades. suicides would typically happen around the age of 42.
red states buying into the bs won’t stop it.
blue states encouraging it will result in more people going down the rabbit hole into madness (which i’m ok with as they’re freaks and in blue states).
just keep the freaks in the blue states
Yeah....'equality and acceptance'. They want that trash in schools....their tran-sreligion corrupting and polluting little minds, but when Christians try to bring any semblance of its message to the children, it is hounded, defiled and decried....that's 'equality?' Providing positive mental/medical treatment does not automatically mean you have to coddle and endorse deviancy to 'save a life.' What 'Rachel' et al should be doing is figuring out why so many are attempting and committing suicide as they claim and stop blaming it on those of us REPULSED by your attempts to normalize your deviancy into our society..
Maybe the despair is from the realization they may end up looking like Levine.
He’s a total loon
Sucks that a group of people can be so annoying that when they say, “We’re going to commit suicide!” everyone else says, “then be done with it!”
Levine told LGBTQ children “it was okay to be you,” and asked parents to support their children who identify with the community, saying “one supportive adult” makes a huge difference in saving their lives.
If it is ok, why the need to force a change... find out why these kids think they have to be a different something.
Fools.
Anyone who would believe the BS coming out of this things mouth would be just as retarded as this thing.
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