EDMONTON, Alberta (LifeSiteNews) — Alberta Premier Danielle Smith doubles down on her ban of puberty blockers for children, citing international evidence.
During a March 13 media presser, Smith defended her government’s new pro-family policies which would ban so-called “puberty blockers” and irreversible “gender reassignment” surgeries for children, pointing to the fact that similar actions are being taken across the globe.
“Because we are talking about sterility,” she warned. “If you stop the process of puberty and then you do cross-sex hormones, you don’t develop and become sexually mature. You can’t have children.”
“We have agreed that we believe that children who have good medical care, psychological support, and supportive family can start when they’re 16,” Smith explained. “And I think that increasingly is going to be supported by the international evidence.”
“The developing international evidence is that there’s no consensus on this,” she noted.
Smith referenced a clinical policy published by the United Kingdom’s National Health Service early last week which announced that it would not provide puberty blockers to children under the age of 18.
“We have concluded that there is not enough evidence to support the safety or clinical effectiveness of PSH [Puberty Suppressing Hormones] to make the treatment routinely available at this time,” said the service.
Smith’s comments come after the province’s announcement of what could become the strongest pro-family legislation in Canada, promising to protect kids from life-altering so-called “top and bottom” surgeries as well as other forms of medical interventions promoted by transgender ideology.
Smith said her United Conservative Party (UCP) government will soon be introducing legislation that, if passed, will bar doctors in the province from medically or surgically “transitioning” children under age 17. The new legislation will also mandate parental consent for pronoun changes in school. Additional legislation that bans biological men who claim to be women from competing in women’s sports will come this autumn.
While LGBT activists and Liberal politicians continue to attack Smith and her government, polls reveal that Canadians overwhelmingly support the new policies.
According to a February poll which questioned 2,000 Canadians, 45 percent support banning surgery and hormones for children suffering from gender dysphoria.
However, while Smith remained strong in her commitment to protect children from undergoing irreversible medical treatment, she seemingly attempted to placate the LGBT mob by promising to support adults who wish to undergo “gender transitioning.”
“We are going to make sure that any individual who is transitioning is supported,” she said, adding that she is “concerned that there are gaps in the medica coverage” such as that Alberta does not have clinics performing gender surgeries.
Smith’s statement echoes her previous announcement that Alberta wants to hire medical professionals to perform transgender surgeries in the province.
Despite her desire to expand the mutilation of adults, research does not support transgender activists’ claims that surgical or pharmaceutical intervention to “affirm” confusion is “necessary medical care” or that it is helpful in preventing the suicides of gender-confused individuals at any age.
In fact, in addition to asserting a false reality that one’s sex can be changed, transgender surgeries and drugs have been linked to permanent physical and psychological damage, including cardiovascular diseases, loss of bone density, cancer, strokes and blood clots, infertility, and suicidality.
There is also overwhelming evidence that those who undergo so-called “gender transitioning” are more likely to commit suicide than those who are not given irreversible surgery. A Swedish study found that those who underwent so-called “gender reassignment” surgery ended up with a 19.2 times greater risk of suicide.
Indeed, there is proof that the most loving and helpful approach to people who think they are a different sex is not to validate them in their confusion but to show them the truth.
A new study on the side effects of transgender “sex change” surgeries discovered that 81 percent of those who had undergone “sex change” surgeries in the past five years reported experiencing pain simply from normal movement in the weeks and months that followed — and that many other side effects manifest as well.