Scarlett Johnson, a political scientist and grassroots activist with ties to Moms for Liberty-Wisconsin, recently shared the remarks Dr. Janette Nesheiwat (pictured above) made in a 2022 Fox News interview:
When you have a child who's suffering from gender dysphoria, this is a disconnect, a mismatch between how they feel and what a doctor assigned them as a gender at birth. It's a very serious and sensitive issue that has to be taken very seriously because, specifically, there's a very high suicidal rate among transgender adolescents; they are almost eight times more likely to commit suicide than their cisgender peers. And so when we see the AAFP (American Academy of Family Physicians) only wanting to push drugs and hormones and other types of surgical interventions rather than taking a conservative approach, such as psychotherapy, they're making a mistake.
Dr. Nesheiwat went on to call it risky, "unethical," "immoral," and "inappropriate," saying, "They need to be open-minded to looking at the big picture.
"But the most important thing of all of this is no matter what gender your child identifies as, accept them and love them for who they are," she added.
Johnson responded on X by pointing out that "doctors DO NOT assign an infant their 'gender' at birth."
"Human babies are male or female," Johnson commented. "There is no such thing as a 'trans' child."
While acknowledging that Dr. Nesheiwat is not "woke," Johnson is concerned that the nominee for surgeon general would repeat the "misleading assertions of Gender Ideology," believe that children can choose their own so-called "gender," and urge parents to support that "choice."
Dr. Quentin Van Meter, a former president of American College of Pediatricians, is giving Dr. Nesheiwat the benefit of the doubt, saying she may not have been aware of information at the time of the news segment.
"I'm not sure where her academic background is from, but it may have been that she was tied to an institution where what she tried to say was she didn't like the idea of doing this, but the most important thing was to be compassionate," Van Meter. suggests "That's never wrong; that's always a beautiful and appropriate answer … [but] the thing that is truly compassionate is to take care of the undercurrent mental health issues and not rush to social medical and surgical interventions that try to change the persona of the individual from their biologic sex."
Van Meter would like Dr. Nesheiwat to give her current stance on these issues. If she acknowledges that the mental health of these kids is not improved by any of those harmful medical interventions, "I would say she's a great candidate," he concludes.
