by Calvin Freiburger, LifeSite News:
WASHINGTON, D.C. (LifeSiteNews) – U.S. Secretary of Health & Human Services (HHS) Xavier Becerra has reiterated that the Biden administration believes in “gender-transition” procedures for minors at taxpayer expense, doubling down on one of the Democrat Party’s most contentious positions.
The latest remarks came in a written follow-up to testimony Becerra gave to the House Committee on Education & Labor in April, elaborating on questions asked at the time by Rep. Mary Miller (R-IL).
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The secretary declared that HHS “is focused on ensuring that care is not stigmatized or denied based on a youth’s gender identity as consistent with the law,” reiterated that “medical, surgical, mental health and non-medical” procedures to “affirm” patients’ gender dysphoria are “supportive form[s] of healthcare” by “aligning their outward, physical traits with their gender identity,” that “all children and adults” should be afforded these “treatments,” and that “[p]ayers, both public and private, should cover treatments which medical experts have determined to be medically necessary.”
Becerra also refused to answer whether the Department thinks transitions should be performed on minors without their parents’ consent, or explain its previous claims that puberty-blocking drugs are reversible, stating only that “HHS is not in the practice of medicine and would recommend consulting with medical associations regarding standards of care,” while “[g]enerally speaking, care is between a patient, their family and their health care provider.”
“Biden’s HHS Secretary has now confirmed that the Biden Administration is using taxpayer dollars to push young children to have sex change operations and take dangerous chemicals that do permanent damage to their bodies,” Miller said of Becerra’s answers. “The Biden Administration even supports allowing these procedures to occur without parental consent. American taxpayer dollars should never fund puberty blockers and sex change surgeries on minor children.”
In April, former White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki claimed that “every major medical association agrees that gender-affirming health care for transgender kids is the best practice and potentially life-saving,” and the administration issued documents through the HHS Office of Population Affairs and HHS Substance Abuse & Mental Health Services Administration’s National Child Traumatic Stress Network endorsing “gender-affirming care” for “ transgender and nonbinary children and adolescents.”
The former document was more focused on specific procedures – including puberty blockers, testosterone or estrogen injections, and surgeries to alter or remove breasts, genitals, and reproductive organs – claiming they “improv[e] the mental health and overall well-being of gender diverse children and adolescents.”
The latter document was broader, and did not specifically mention surgery, but declared that “care … may include evidence-based interventions such as puberty blockers and gender-affirming hormones,” as well as indulgence of transgender pronouns, access to opposite-sex sports teams and restrooms, and an overall commitment to not only LGBT dogma but the broader far-left doctrine of intersectionality, i.e., “continually asking yourself questions about the power and privilege you have based on your own gender identity, sexual orientation, race, provider status, and other aspects of your intersectional identities.”
“Providing gender-affirming care is neither child maltreatment nor malpractice,” the NCTSN claimed at the time. “There is no scientifically sound research showing negative impacts from providing gender-affirming care.”
In fact, reinforcing a troubled individual’s gender confusion it in the name of subjective, fluid “gender identity” carries significant physical and mental consequences.
