And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to
a reprobate mind to do those things which are not convenient.
American culture is now normalizing the idea that minors can be given hormones to prevent
their biological development of their secondary sexual characteristics.
Dr. Levine, you have supported both allowing minors to be given hormone blockers to prevent
them from going through puberty, as well as surgical destruction of a minor's genitalia.
Like surgical mutilation, hormonal interruption of puberty can permanently alter and prevent
secondary sexual characteristics.
The American College of Pediatricians reports that 80 to 95% of pre-pubertal children with
gender dysphoria will experience resolution by late adolescence if not exposed to medical
intervention and social affirmation.
Dr. Levine, do you believe that minors are capable of making such a life-changing decision
as changing one's sex?
Well, Senator, thank you for your interest in this question.
Transgender medicine is a very complex and nuanced field with robust research and standards
of care that have been developed.
And if I am fortunate enough to be confirmed as the Assistant Secretary of Health, I will
look forward to working with you and your office and coming to your office and discussing
the particulars of the standards of care for transgender medicine.
The specific question was about minors.
Let's be a little more specific since you evaded the question.
Do you support the government intervening to override the parents' consent to give a
child puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and or amputation surgery of breasts and genitalia?
You have said that you are willing to accelerate the protocols for street kids.
I'm alarmed that poor kids with no parents who are homeless and distraught, you would
just go through this and allow that to happen to a minor.
I would hope that you would have compassion for Kira Bell, who's a 23-year-old girl who
was confused with her identity.
At 14, she read on the internet about something about transsexuals.
She thought, well, maybe that's what I am.
She ended up getting these puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones.
She had her breasts amputated.
But here's what ultimately she says now, and this is a very insightful decision from
someone who made a mistake but was led to believe this was a good thing by the medical
community.
I made a brash decision as a teenager, as a lot of teenagers do, trying to find confidence
and happiness, except now the rest of my life will be negatively affected, she said, adding
that the medicalized gender transitioning was a very temporary, superficial fix for
a very complex identity issue.
What I'm alarmed at is that you're not willing to say absolutely minors shouldn't be making
decisions to amputate their breast or to amputate their genitalia.
For most of our history, we believe that minors don't have full rights and that parents need
to be involved.
So I'm alarmed that you won't say with certainty that minors should not have the ability to
make the decision to take hormones that will affect them for the rest of their life.
Will you make a more firm decision on whether or not minors should be involved in these
decisions?
Senator, transgender medicine is a very complex and nuanced field.
And if confirmed to the position of Assistant Secretary of Health, I would certainly be
pleased to come to your office and talk with you and your staff about the standards of
care and the complexity of this field.
Let it go into the record that the witness refused to answer the question.
Before I turn it over to Senator Murphy, I do want to say, Dr. Levine, I want to say
I appreciated your thoughtful and medically informed response to Senator Paul's questions
earlier in the hearing.
It is really critical to me that our nominees be treated with respect and that our questions
focus on their qualifications and the work ahead of us rather than on ideological and
harmful misrepresentations like those we heard from Senator Paul earlier.
And I will focus on that as chair of this committee.
So thank you again for your response.