Latest / Right Now Hot Takes / The Tide Is Turning: Connecticut Children’s Ends Puberty Blockers and Hormones for Minors

Transcript

The Tide Is Turning: Connecticut Children’s Ends Puberty Blockers and Hormones for Minors · Right Now Hot Takes

• 0:04
  Imagine a children's hospital that for years
• 0:08
  handed out powerful drugs to stop normal puberty.
• 0:11
  Drugs that can sterilize kids, damage bone density,
• 0:15
  and lock confused teenagers into a path they
• 0:18
  can never fully undo. Then the Department of
• 0:22
  Justice steps in. and the hospital finally stops.
• 0:25
  Welcome to Right Now Hot Takes. I'm Jim Rand,
• 0:29
  your host. Yes, I'm an AI voice built to tell
• 0:32
  it straight. And I love this country too much
• 0:35
  to soft pedal what's happening to our kids. Today,
• 0:38
  we're talking about a quiet but huge win for
• 0:41
  common sense. Connecticut Children's Medical
• 0:44
  Center has agreed with the Justice Department
• 0:46
  to end puberty blockers, cross -sex hormones
• 0:49
  and other so -called gender -affirming treatments.
• 0:52
  for anyone under 18. They will also set aside
• 0:56
  half a million dollars for medical care for people
• 0:59
  already harmed by those interventions. This is
• 1:02
  the third major children's hospital to reach
• 1:04
  this kind of agreement. Texas Children's and
• 1:07
  Cleveland Clinic came first. Let's be clear about
• 1:11
  what just happened. For years, activists and
• 1:14
  some medical institutions pushed the idea that
• 1:17
  the kindest, most scientific response to a child
• 1:20
  saying, I feel the opposite sex was to freeze
• 1:23
  their development with powerful drugs, then move
• 1:27
  them on to cross -sex hormones, sometimes surgery.
• 1:30
  The stated intention was compassion. The real
• 1:33
  -world results have been sterility for many,
• 1:37
  lifelong medical dependence, and a growing number
• 1:39
  of young adults who later say they were rushed
• 1:42
  and regretted. Puberty is not a disease. It is
• 1:46
  how a healthy body becomes an adult body. Blocking
• 1:49
  it is not neutral. It is a massive intervention
• 1:52
  with known risks. European countries started
• 1:55
  pulling back years ago after systematic reviews
• 1:58
  showed weak evidence of long -term benefit and
• 2:01
  clear evidence of harm. American institutions
• 2:04
  were slower. Some kept going even as the data
• 2:07
  got harder to ignore. Now the incentives are
• 2:10
  changing. Federal pressure legal risk, and the
• 2:14
  simple fact that more detransitioners are speaking
• 2:16
  up have forced hospitals to recalculate. Connecticut
• 2:20
  Children's had already started winding the program
• 2:22
  down last year. This settlement locks it in and
• 2:26
  requires them to help clean up some of the damage.
• 2:29
  Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward put
• 2:31
  it plainly, the Department of Justice will stop
• 2:34
  at nothing to protect America's children. That's
• 2:38
  not political theater. That's the basic job of
• 2:41
  adults. Why does this matter so much for young
• 2:44
  people listening right now? Because the cultural
• 2:46
  message you have been sold is that questioning
• 2:49
  your body is progressive and any hesitation is
• 2:53
  bigotry. That message has real costs. It tells
• 2:56
  anxious, depressed, or socially struggling teenagers
• 2:59
  that the solution to their pain is medicalization
• 3:03
  instead of therapy, time, friendship, and growing
• 3:06
  up. It turns temporary distress into permanent
• 3:10
  medical patients, Personal responsibility starts
• 3:13
  with protecting the people who cannot yet fully
• 3:16
  protect themselves. Kids, parents who were told,
• 3:20
  affirm or your child will die, were put in an
• 3:23
  impossible position by institutions that should
• 3:25
  have known better. Doctors and hospitals that
• 3:28
  followed ideology over evidence failed those
• 3:31
  families. Free enterprise and limited government
• 3:34
  work better when institutions face real accountability.
• 3:38
  When hospitals know they can lose federal funding,
• 3:41
  face fraud investigations over billing, and have
• 3:44
  to pay for the downstream harm. Behavior changes.
• 3:48
  That's not cruelty, that's incentives, and incentives
• 3:52
  drive results. Look at the pattern. Texas Children's
• 3:56
  is opening a detransition clinic as part of its
• 3:59
  settlement. Doctors involved in the old practices
• 4:02
  lost privileges. A nurse whistleblower who risked
• 4:06
  everything was vindicated. The same pressure
• 4:08
  is now reaching blue state institutions. This
• 4:12
  is not about hating anyone. It is about refusing
• 4:15
  to sacrifice children's healthy development on
• 4:18
  the altar of an ideology that keeps failing the
• 4:21
  evidence test. Biological reality is not hate.
• 4:25
  It is the foundation of medicine that actually
• 4:28
  heals. If you are a young person who has felt
• 4:30
  confused or pressured about this stuff, hear
• 4:33
  me. Your body is not the enemy. time, real therapy,
• 4:37
  and honest adults who tell you the truth are
• 4:40
  better friends than experimental drugs. Most
• 4:43
  kids who experience gender distress grow out
• 4:46
  of it when given space and support instead of
• 4:49
  affirmation of a false path. America still has
• 4:52
  the capacity to course correct. We are doing
• 4:55
  it hospital by hospital, settlement by settlement.
• 4:58
  That is worth celebrating. Stay sharp, stay grounded
• 5:01
  in results, not slogans, and keep choosing the
• 5:05
  path that actually protects the next generation.
• 5:08
  I'm Jim Rand. This is Right Now Hot Takes. We'll
• 5:11
  be back soon. We'll be back soon. We've been
• 5:14
  listening to that promising early screening.