A former president of the prominent LGBT activist group GLAAD has spoken out against the push to prescribe puberty-blocking drugs and opposite-sex hormones to youth suffering from gender confusion, followed by further elective trans surgeries that mutilate the body.

Herndon Graddick, who served as president of GLAAD from 2012-2013, recently spoke with Ben Kawaller and Andy Mills for the podcast series “Strange Bedfellows: When LGB met T.”

“I think we need to correct what’s wrong” with the LGBT movement, Graddick told Kawaller and Mills, adding that this included “particularly the medicalization of children.”

“Teenagers and kids should not be given the power to make these life-altering decisions that medicalization causes,” said Graddick, as quoted by The Lynnwood Times.

“I just think that we should completely stop doing anything that might harm children, even if it means we admit that we got something really wrong, and my understanding is that we have.”

Graddick added that “there’s been a lot of fear about discussing things openly for fear of being called transphobic, and I think that we’re at a place that we can really have those conversations without that fear.”

Ben Appel, a writer and LGBT activist, wrote in response that “Graddick’s words felt vindicating” and that this was “a big deal” given Graddick’s work with GLAAD. “It was under his leadership that the organization began to shift its focus to transgender issues, even going so far as to change its name from the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation to simply GLAAD,” said Appel.

“In May 2013, after Graddick announced his resignation, Chad Griffin, then president of the [LGBT activist group] Human Rights Campaign, issued a statement thanking Graddick for leading GLAAD in its ‘new and groundbreaking work’ to ‘lift up transgender voices across the country.’”

In recent years, there has been considerable debate in the United States and abroad about transgender ideology and the trans medicalization of youth. 

Several states have passed laws or policies that prohibit the prescribing of puberty blockers to children or mutilating surgeries for minors for the purpose of gender transition, such as castrating boys and severing girls’ breasts. 

In February, the American Society of Plastic Surgeons recommended that its members stop performing trans surgeries on youth younger than 19. In a statement, the American Society of Plastic Surgeons recommended that “surgeons delay gender-related breast/chest, genital, and facial surgery until a patient is at least 19 years old.” 

Conversely, in February 2022, other medical groups, including the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the American College of Physicians, the American Osteopathic Association, and the American Psychiatric Association issued a joint statement denouncing efforts to criminalize "gender-affirming care" for minors.

Many other medical professionals, activists, and individuals who formerly identified as transgender but no longer do so have criticized the so-called treatments, however.

The New York Times published a feature story in 2022 showing that an increasing number of medical professionals and formerly trans-identified people were concerned about the potential long-term harmful effects of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones on children.

In December 2024, the U.K.’s Department of Health and Social Care announced that it was banning the use of puberty-blocking drugs on children who struggle with gender dysphoria for the foreseeable future, except for clinical trials. 

Last June, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a 6-3 decision in the case of United States v. Skrmetti, which upheld a Tennessee ban on the controversial procedures for youth.

“The plaintiffs fail to note that Tennessee also proclaimed a ‘legitimate, substantial, and compelling interest in protecting minors from physical and emotional harm,’” wrote Chief Justice John Roberts for the majority. “And they similarly fail to acknowledge that Tennessee found that the prohibited medical treatments are experimental, can lead to later regret, and are associated with harmful — and sometimes irreversible — risks.” 

Michael Gryboski serves as editor of The Christian Post.

This article originally appeared in The Christian Post.