WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Today, December 4, Dr. Jennifer Bauwens, Family Research Council's Director of the Center for Family Studies, spoke at a rally in front of the U.S. Supreme Court, in support of Tennessee's Senate Bill 1 (SB 1). SB 1 is a commonsense protection for minors from "gender transition" procedures that often result in sterilization and life-long medicalization. Dr. Bauwens has a Ph.D. from New York University and has worked extensively as a researcher and a clinician providing trauma-focused treatment to children in foster-care and adults who have experienced interpersonal and collective traumas. In her role at FRC, she researches and advocates for policies that will best serve the health and well-being of families and communities. She has also testified before Congress regarding "gender transition" procedures.
Bauwens stated, in part:
"I've spent my career protecting vulnerable and abused children. Today, I stand with all of you to continue the important fight for the safety and well-being of hurting children. Every child deserves the opportunity to receive safe, effective, and loving care when they are in pain.
"Unfortunately, some in my profession have set aside everything we know about child development, neurology, and trauma and have instead prioritized ideology over the tenets of good practice.
"These individuals willfully ignore good research--which has been funded by our own government--that clearly shows that children lack the developmental capacity and judgment to understand the long-term consequences of altering or removing their healthy body parts.
"The fact is, 'gender-affirming care' is the most physiologically invasive practice within the entire mental health field. No other practice used to treat a mental health condition has proven to be this intrusive, since the lobotomy. Despite this reality, 'gender-affirming care' has been permitted across our country, even though it has been shown to be harmful. These procedures should've never been tried on a single child.
"Our children and families have been lied to. My profession has told children that all their problems will go away if they deny their biology and try to live as someone else.
"For those who have already been harmed, I pray for you to be healed from the destruction caused by these procedures. I pray for you to be healed from the lies that you were told by professionals in my field who made you believe that 'gender-affirming care' would make your pain stop. I also pray for those who genuinely believe that 'gender-affirming care' is good. We care about you enough to tell you the truth. We will continue to pray and fight for you, too, that you would receive true healing and be able to enjoy who God created you to be," Bauwens concluded.
FRC, which worked with on-the-ground allies in Arkansas to pass the first such bill in the nation in 2021, submitted an amicus brief in this case, demonstrating that the American medical societies who support gender transition procedures on minors are motivated by politics and ideology. The amicus brief demonstrates that medical societies are recklessly ignoring the data, citing only a handful of slipshod studies that failed to control for relevant variables or to reach statistically or clinically significant results. Meanwhile, medical societies in Western Europe continue to put the brakes on performing experimental "gender transition" procedures on minors.
To read FRC and the Center for Urban Renewal and Education (CURE)'s joint publication, The Trans Youth Phenomenon: Critiques & Hard Questions: https://www.frc.org/booklet/the-trans-youth-phenomenon-critiques-hard-questions
To watch Dr. Bauwens' speech, please download the Stand Firm app at the Apple or Google Play Stores.
To read Bauwens' full speech, please see: https://www.frc.org/get.cfm?i=LK24L09&f=LK24L09
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