Penna Dexter

Under the current administration, the United States is becoming an exporter of the Gender Identity Revolution.

Last June, President Biden issued an executive order which instructs agencies of the US government to take steps to stop “conversion therapy,” which mostly involves counseling or psychotherapy to reveal underlying issues that may contribute to someone’s distress with their biological gender. It’s used to avoid the implementation of drastic, risky, and often irreversible measures to try to bring “gender congruity” to the gender confused.

The Manhattan Institute’s Leor Sapir recently obtained a leaked memo written by Secretary of State Antony Blinken which states that the US is about to classify Sweden, Finland, and the UK as human rights abusers. Their offense is that they’ve learned over the past couple of years that, when young people express interest in becoming transgender, it’s prudent not to immediately react by providing “hormonal and surgical interventions.”

In an article for City Journal, Mr. Sapir reports that “Sweden and Finland are now instructing clinicians who deal with minors to utilize an approach that emphasizes talk therapy as the first line of defense and ‘affirming’ drugs only in extreme situations, if ever.”

Sweden is no longer providing gender surgeries for minors. In the US, several states have passed laws forbidding such surgeries. But, in most states, hormonal and surgical interventions are routinely performed on minors who exhibit gender dysphoria.

The United Nations has its own gender identity evangelist. Last month, Victor Madrigal-Borloz, the UN's so-called “SOGI czar” visited the US to check up on how we’re doing here at home in protecting the “human rights of LGBT persons.” His job is to curtail violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI). He criticized efforts by various states to limit “gender affirming care.” His report to the UN Human Rights Council is due next June.

Meanwhile, the US ought to quit being an international gender bully and try Sweden’s common-sense approach.