Dr. Haim Blows the Whistle on Bad Transgender Medicine

0:00 - At the time when they were doing this, can you give me a sense of what is going on? Like, I come into the hospital because my 11-year-old daughter says she thinks she's a boy. Like, what are the steps that lead to this procedure, and what are these people that claim to be experts and medical professionals telling me as a parent, that would lead me to say, okay, to something that would prevent my son from developing a fully functional penis as an adult, for example?

0:39 - I think a important question to answer that is to ask, you know, what's the role of the parent? And I believe that role is to teach children how to contend with reality. Because with children, there is a principle of limited understanding because they're children, they haven't undergone the life experiences to understand the consequences for their actions, which is the role of the parent. In order to teach them the lessons and the principles in order to be able to contend with reality in an effective way, to grow up and into an adult and live a happy life and to have meaning in their lives.

1:21 What's happening here is that they're failing on that initial front. They're failing to allow these kids to contend with reality, because the reality is they're either a boy or a girl. That's it and by failing to have them acknowledge that fact and accept that, and that it's gonna be hard going through puberty and it's gonna be uncomfortable, but that's reality. You have to contend with it. By failing on that, they're leading them down this road to where these misdirected doctors are able to perform these interventions and take them farther down that road.

2:04 And once they get so far down it, there's no turning back 'cause there's gonna be one morning they wake up, look in the mirror and they think, oh my God. Like, who am I, right? What have I done to myself? You know, can I even have a family? And that person's gonna realize that the people who were supposed to protect me were the ones, you know, who had thrown me to the wolves because that's how I got him the place.

2:28 - Can I ask a question or comment about, what's changed in medicine? And it also has legal implications when it's a minor wanting to make these changes. In the past, it might be that the child might present, change their name or address differently, but there would not be surgical interventions. And then it seemed to be during the COVID timeframe, so I've heard you frame it before that a lot of that changed and they started doing the physical interventions, which is what the mutilation, the assault, battery, those legal remedies start coming into play, During that timeframe and so now we're living in a world where this has sort of added to the list of things that came out during COVID of what institutions are doing to our children.

3:11 - Well, there's a bigger picture that I think we are all contending with, especially as parents and COVID accelerated these things, but it didn't start them, right. And we talk about this on this show all the time. There's been this substantial rise in anxiety and depression among, you know, gen Z that's really sort of manifest over the 2010s in particular. And that, that has resulted in much elevated levels of suicide. And so as a parent, and I have made changes to my own son's education for these kinds of reasons.

3:48 Not because he was having anxiety and depression, but because frankly, I pulled him from a class that was starting to, as a sixth grader, present gender fluidity things to him. And it's like, he's 10 and what are you doing? And I'm not, and it was a private school here in Austin, Texas, and I met with the principal, we talked and I was like, I can't let him be in this environment. I'm not gonna pay for this.

4:13 And thank God, I have the resources to choose. But let me paint a particular picture. I'm a parent. I have a 11-year-old daughter who is very psychologically troubled, very uncomfortable, very prone towards crippling anxiety and saying that she thinks she doesn't like the bot, the things that she feels starting to happen with her and says, "I think I might be transgender."

4:47 And I'm a normal person and I love my daughter. And I'm very worried, and I know that there's a risk of suicide. So I come to the Texas Children's Hospital and what am I told? What is my experience? - According to the affirmative care model in which they adopt if a child says that they're transgender, then that means they have always been transgender. That's the definition they use. - [Host] Do I just say it now? It's true.

5:18 - Yes. - How is that medicine? - It's not. No, no. Like- - I'm having trouble with, and I go to a psychologist and I'm depressed and I'm anxious and I want to, like, harm myself, I would think that the psychologist job isn't to say, yes, you should, or that yes, that's just what you are. But to actually, to do the opposite of that, to like try to get to, well, what's underneath this and what's causing you this discomfort?

5:48 - It seems like a contradiction, right? Like, oh, this is medicine. That seems like a contradiction, but contradictions do not exist. If you do find one, just check your premises. What they're doing is not medicine. - So, what's happening then? So I go in, come in and they say, okay, so you're saying you're a boy now, or you feel like you're a boy and you wanna be called a different name and with different pronouns, and they just say, okay, yeah, we're on board with that.

6:13 - Yeah. - What if I'm Me and who would be very resistant to this? And I say, I bring my daughter in. I don't have a daughter, but let's imagine. And because I am still worried and I've done what I can try to do to say like, this is not what this is. This is a phase, this is fad. This is like too much TikTok. Like, and I take away her phone and, but she's still gonna school with all these other girls that are talking about this stuff.

6:44 And I go to the doctor who's this authority? What do they say to me when I say, I don't want to do this. I don't wanna call her or him. - It's interesting you bring that up because one of the videos that was part of the story had demonstrated that exact situation, the exact situation where you had a parent who had questioned this whole idea about adopting this new gender. And that's when they bring out their big guns.

7:15 They say, well, you know, I have to respect your opinion and all, but if we don't pursue this pathway that's gonna increase their risk for suicide, which is, in my opinion, the most malicious form of black male you could ever tell to a parent. Because you're telling them that if you don't listen to me, if you don't put your kids on these drugs, that's gonna change them for the rest of their lives. If you don't tell, you know, your kid, that they have to hate themselves, that they have to adopt this new identity that's based off hatred, that their true self, that they're gonna kill themselves and it's gonna be your fault.

7:49 That's what they're saying. And- - I mean, that's an impossible paper for me as a parent - To put in that position is unforgivable. It's unforgivable to put the parents and the children in that position. - As a parent. Like, and now my son's 18, he's getting ready to leave the house and go to college and go off. And I'm already thinking like he's gonna be further away. What if something happens? Like, you know, we're neurotic basket cases.

8:15 Like we're constantly worried from the minute they're born and you take them home. Like there is always a part of you that's like, what if they die? What if they die? What if they die? What if like, it's like, it's always there. Like, my son's driving, it's at night. God, what if he gets in an accident? He's been in a couple of accidents. I'm like, what if he dies? What if he dies? Like, it's weird and horrible and it's like, there's a lot of blessings of parenthood, but that concern is like not really a blessing.

8:40 It's this thing. - It also calls into question and form consent - And what does that mean, informed consent? - So, informed consent. Dr. Haim can talk more about that. There's a lot of rules around that. It's also a legally operative term. And also it's something that has to be achieved in order for a doctor not to maintain their license before having patients undergo certain treatments. And if you are as a doctor or as a hospital, training your doctors to essentially put patients already in vulnerable positions and their families already in vulnerable positions into a state of duress that this has gone from, my child's confused to my child is going to commit suicide if I don't do this.

9:22 And so that's going to be then the argument used to achieve consent. There's a lot of very strong challenges that could be made to that approach. - I mean, it's not the same thing as saying your wallet or your life, but it's not that far off. It kind of rhymes with that. It's like, our medical treatment or your kid's life. That's sort of- - It's also your wallet. - And it's also your wallet. - Oh, yes. And it's like a lifelong, - It's lifelong medical treatment, not just for the abuse you've achieved physically, but an experienced, but also the mental health and again, the endocrine issues and your bones and your heart and all your major organs.

10:04 I mean, the amount of physical trauma you go through when you have these treatments done is staggering. - Now that might all be worth it if my choice is between, as has been said elsewhere, a living son or a dead daughter. I've heard this, some formulation of this phrase, would you rather have a living son or a dead daughter? I hope none of these Texas parents have been told that exact thing.

10:35 I fear that they've, many have. - Of course they have. It's most malicious lie that's ever been told in medicine, in my opinion.