Crenshaw calls ‘gender-affirming care’ a ‘social contagion’

Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) ripped into what he described as the Left’s obsession with “gender-affirming care,” labeling it a pseudoscientific “social contagion.

“There’s a ton of risk when you give a 12-year-old puberty blockers, which 98% of which, by the way, move on to puberty blockers, because those puberty blockers are like a gateway, and then on to surgical interventions” he testified before the House Energy and Commerce Committee, as seen in a video posted Wednesday.

STUDENTS FOR DESANTIS REACHES 100 CAMPUSES NATIONWIDE

“There’s a ton of risk. That doesn’t even need to be debated.”

If Democrats want to continue to push an agenda on children that carries such a heavy risk, they might want to be sure about the so-called benefits, Crenshaw stated.

“I keep hearing that this will prevent suicides,” he said. “Zero evidence for that. There’s not one systematic review that says that. Now, the president of the Endocrine Society says it’s true, but studies published by the Endocrine Society say there’s no evidence to suggest a causal relationship between less suicides and these kind of therapies.”

The congressman also called attention to the fact that 70% of U.S. teenagers presenting to gender clinics already have comorbid psychiatric diagnoses that precede problems with gender.

“I’ve been called cruel and indecent for promoting this legislation … That’s insane,” Crenshaw said regarding his effort to bar the Children’s Hospital Graduate Medical Education Payment Program (CHGME) from funding facilities offering transgender treatments for minors.

“It’s been said that Gerald Ford would never support this, would roll over in his grave as he looks at these terrible Republicans saying that 12-year-old girls shouldn’t have double mastectomies or that little boys shouldn’t be castrated.”

Crenshaw said interest in and defense of gender transitions had simply become trendy in the last 10 or so years and expressed doubt that any mainstream politician from either party would have defended such procedures decades ago.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

“I’ll tell you what, back when Gerald Ford was president, there was no Democrats advocating for this kind of thing,” he said. “This is a social contagion that has occurred just in the last 15 years.

“I don’t think any of you believed in this before 15 years ago,” Crenshaw added. “This all happened very recently … It is a trend that has captured the imagination of some of our most prestigious societies and the leaders of those societies, even though the evidence so clearly does not back it up.”