The legislation to protect youth under 19 years of age from the experimental, harmful protocol of puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and radical surgeries has already been adopted by many states and is being considered at the federal level. That’s a good start, but it doesn’t safeguard a much larger group — young people in their 20s who are easy prey for surgeons and gender clinics.

According to a study of “transgender” surgery trends in the USA, youth aged 12 to 18 years accounted for 7.7% of all “transgender” procedures (3,678) from 2016 to 2020. Protecting youth is an essential start. Thousands of children could be spared permanent harm with legislation that discourages surgeons and hospitals from carrying out irreversible surgeries on minors and prevents the use of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to treat gender confusion in children.

Thankfully, over half the states have enacted laws to stop the practice, but the other half has not.

At the federal level, the Chloe Cole Act proposed in Congress will get 7.7% of the job done. It specifically targets puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgical procedures for minors, and provides an extended statute of limitations for filing malpractice suits. (You can support the Chloe Cole Act by contacting your members of Congress here.)

But the group accounting for over 50% of “transgender” surgical procedures (52.3%) in the study was young adults, ages 19 to 30. Legally, they can do what they want, even removing healthy body parts and damaging their fertility. These individuals have no guardrails under the law. Many minors will wait until they are 19 to access gender care.

This reality became especially clear to me recently.

The Case of the 20-Year-Old Son

Distressed Christian parents (names withheld for privacy) emailed me to help them stop their 20-year-old son from having surgery to irreversibly refashion his genitalia to appear female. When he started identifying as “trans” in his teen years, they thought it was a phase he would outgrow. Instead, now enrolled in university, he has scheduled the surgery.

His desire to identify as female didn’t come out of nowhere. It was fostered in the educational institutions he attended. His parents believed enrolling him at age 15 in an exclusive, private boarding school would foster success in life.

But out of their watchful eye, the teenage son was susceptible to “transgender” social contagion from his friends and indoctrination from the GSA club on campus. GSA, as described on the school’s website, is “a gay-straight alliance for students who question their sexual orientation or who identify as LGBT or as an LGBT ally. The group meets regularly for discussion, support, and socializing.” GSA clubs and the teachers who oversee them cheer for confused kids who choose to identify as “transgender.”

Allowing a boy to pretend he is a female is emotionally and psychologically harmful, says Dr. André Van Mol, and far too often leads to reckless hormone therapies, followed by unnecessary radical genital surgeries. These schools and clubs are promoting emotional and psychological harm.

That is certainly the case with this boy.

Something Needs to Be Done

Examples like this are heartbreaking and clearly demonstrate that the dangers aren’t limited to minors. Something needs to be done for the larger group, young adults age 19 to 30, who represented 52.3% of this distressed population.

Young adults are indoctrinated from childhood to believe a “trans” identity will solve their problems, encouraged to adopt a false persona and applauded when they do, and preyed upon by surgeons willing to take their money.

Consider the Same for Adults

I had my surgery at 42, and I’ve been suffering the consequences for over 40 years.

If we intend on having a long-lasting, career-ending financial impact on the “gender affirming care” industry, then we’ll need to defend more than minors (7.7% of their clients) and fashion similar protection for all adults (the other 92.3%).

As it stands now, no prevention is available, only recourse in the courts through hard-to-win, expensive-to-file malpractice suits brought soon after the damage has been done. (Encouragingly, two women made news this year in winning settlements, Fox Varian and Camille Kiefel.)

Extending the statute of limitations would help tremendously. However, ending the practice of removing healthy body parts in pursuit of “gender change” is the real answer.

The FRC book, “Embracing God’s Design,” by Dr. Jennifer Bowens and FRC Senior Fellow Walt Heyer and the resources at embracethedesign.com are available to equip Christians to understand this topic and to minister to those who struggle with their identity.