Janet Parshall Commentary

Facts are Stubborn Things

         President John Adams once proclaimed, "Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence." How right he was. But when blinded by a dangerous ideology, for some, facts just get in the way. 

         In May of 2025, The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services issued a report entitled Treatment for Pediatric Gender Dysphoria Review of Evidence and Best Practices, a scholarly 409-page document.  The U.S. has now become a part of a growing global concern about medical transition in minor children, a concern that has resulted in a number of countries putting restrictions on this kind of medical intervention.  As an example, the report notes the UK has banned the routine use of puberty blockers in treating pediatric gender dysphoria. 

         The HHS report also notes that “10 Health authorities have also recognized the exceptional nature of this area of medicine. That exceptionalism is due to a convergence of factors. One is that the diagnosis of gender dysphoria is based entirely on subjective self-reports and behavioral observations, without any objective physical, imaging, or laboratory markers. The diagnosis centers on attitudes, feelings, and behaviors that are known to fluctuate during adolescence”.

         The report also analyzed 17 international reviews of the medical evidence looking at cross-sex hormones, surgery, psychotherapy and puberty blockers.  What they found was a “deep uncertainty” about the benefits of those interventions but did find inherit risks like “infertility/sterility, sexual dysfunction, impaired bone-density accrual, adverse cognitive impacts, cardiovascular disease and metabolic disorders, psychiatric disorders, surgical complications and regret”.   

         A second major finding of the HHS report addresses the issue of suicidal ideations in the mind of the minor patient.  Too often parents are asked to make a heartbreaking choice couched in manipulative language: What would you rather have – a dead son or a live daughter?  According to the findings of the report, “No independent association between gender dysphoria and suicidality has been found, and there is no evidence that pediatric medical transition reduces the incidence of suicide, which remains, fortunately, very low.

          Transgenderism is an ideology, a damaging and deadly one at that, while gender dysphoria is a diagnosis.  When the ideology clashes with medicine, sparks fly.  The report notes that medical associations in this country have created a perception there’s a board consensus in favor of pediatric medical transitions but, in truth, there is not.  In fact, any one in healthcare who disagrees, debates or dissents can find themselves out of a job or being sued by medical juggernauts.

         Adams was right.  Facts are stubborn things.  In this battle for our children’s souls, facts are crucial but so is courage.  This HHS report now provides information as well as the fortitude needed for all of us to speak up for hurting children – to call for fixing broken hearts, rather than creating broken bodies.

         Those are my thoughts.  I’m Janet Parshall.