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Craig DeRoche, CEO of Family Policy Alliance, is praising President Trump for the executive order protecting children from chemical and surgical mutilation. He acknowledges the order has weight but points out it's not the same as a law. Based on that, he would still like to see federal legislation passed. 
"I really think it's important that Congress does this because of the amount of disinformation and lies that have been put out by organizations like the American Medical Association that have been coopted by pharmaceutical companies and private LGBTQ donors," he says. He argues parents are being duped by the Left's narrative. "Our nation actually has a crisis going on right now with this misinformation that is being brought to parents by radical LGBTQ advocates who are operating everywhere in our country and in nearly every school district – and that's why it's very appropriate and very necessary for Donald Trump to put a stop to this." |
President Donald Trump, through another executive order, put in place Tuesday federal protection for children questioning their gender. The United States will no longer fund, sponsor, promote, assist or support the so-called “transition” of a child from one sex to another, and it will “rigorously enforce all laws that prohibit or limit these destructive and life-altering procedures,” the order states.
According to The New York Post via NYC’s Komodo Health, Inc., in 2021, roughly 42,000 children and teens across the U.S. received a diagnosis of gender dysphoria, almost triple the number from 2017. More than 5,700 U.S. children received gender manipulation surgeries over a five-year period, Fox News reported last October.
The order signed by Trump warns of the permanence of such surgeries:
“Countless children soon regret that they have been mutilated and begin to grasp the horrifying tragedy that they will never be able to conceive children of their own or nurture their children through breastfeeding. Moreover, these vulnerable youths’ medical bills may rise throughout their lifetimes, as they are often trapped with lifelong medical complications, a losing war with their own bodies, and, tragically, sterilization.”
Following the science
Moving ahead, the federal government will rely on science to offer education and guidance in response to gender confusion among children and teens. But it won’t rely on the science of the Left.
The World Professional Association for Transgender Health “lacks scientific integrity,” the order states. Federal agencies have been instructed to rescind or amend all policies relying on WPATH guidance.
Trump has instructed the Sec. for Health and Human Services – his pick Robert F. Kennedy Jr. stood before the Senate Wednesday – to publish within 90 days a review of the existing literature on “best practices” and to use all available methods to increase quality data to guide practices.
“It ends the reliance on junk science and will stop using the WPATH guidelines. That’s huge,” Meg Kilgannon, the Family Research Council’s Senior Fellow for Education Studies, said on Washington Watch Wednesday.
The order is a significant milepost – not the end – in the timeline of work, much of it by FRC, to protect children and restore confidence and understanding in God’s plan for gender.
“It shows a very complete understanding of the issue,” Kilgannon told show host Tony Perkins. “There’s been a big push around women’s sports, around what’s going on in schools and sex education. This medical piece was the most difficult piece to work on.”
FRC, though, has helped to develop some legislation and raise awareness at the state level, all the while fighting against Joe Biden’s administration which strongly supported these procedures for minors.
“We’ve made a lot of progress there. Now we have the wind at our backs with this executive order instead of fighting the headwinds of the Biden administration, which was enforcing all of the opposite of this to the detriment of children,” Kilgannon said.
Hawley reintroduces legislation
Wednesday, a day after Trump signed the order, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Missouri) reintroduced his “Jamie Reed Protecting Our Kids From Child Abuse Act,” which aims to allow minors harmed by gender-manipulation procedures to sue the entities and individuals involved.
The bill would also prohibit federal funding for any pediatric gender clinic or affiliated university/hospital that performs such procedures on minors.
“Our children should no longer suffer from irreversible and dangerous child mutilation procedures, which the Biden administration enabled and promoted,” Hawley said. “I welcome President Trump’s strong action to reverse this child abuse and look forward to working with his administration to advance legislation that protects our kids.”
The executive order instills protections for whistleblowers who provide information of non-compliance.
It immediately excludes health coverage provisions for such procedures for dependents of military and federal employees. The Office of Personnel Management is instructed to negotiate for corresponding premium reductions as such healthcare is no longer necessary.
Kilgannon could see the depth of gender ideology among military personnel when she fought against it as a school board member in her suburban Washington, DC, community in 2015 and 2016.
“When the Left would put forward families to advance this policy in our community, those were children of people stationed at the Pentagon or federal employees almost 100% of the time. This will stop the idea that this is medical treatment, that this is medically necessary, medically appropriate. This is a big signal about the horror of so-called 'gender-affirming' care,” she said.
More help on the way
The heads of agencies under the order are to provide a report detailing their progress in compliance within 60 days. Kilgannon predicts other legislation ensuring protection for minors will be introduced.
“It’s a huge, huge win for us. It’s really a wonderful time to think about the possibilities now with this baseline of executive order language to work from,” she said.
Hawley's bill is named after Jamie Reed, a former case manager at the Washington University Transgender Center at St. Louis Children's Hospital who blew the whistle on "morally and medically appalling" procedures on children at the clinic.
