POLITICS: Trust experts on transgenderism, they said   

As parents, our most important responsibility is keeping our children safe. 

We lose sleep over fevers and first steps. We worry about friendships, about whether they’ll make the team or get invited to the party. When they’re teenagers, we wait up until we hear the garage door open and know they are home. 

We are not perfect. We are learning as we go. 

And when something feels bigger than us, we turn to “trusted experts.” 

That, it turns out, can be a devastating mistake.

Imagine being a parent whose child is struggling with gender distress.

Sometimes it manifests well before puberty; other times, it comes on suddenly during adolescence. It is a confusing, emotional and often frightening time. 

Parents who feel helpless or at their wits’ end look to doctors and therapists for guidance. Those professionals, in turn, rely on major medical organizations for standards of care. 

For years, those organizations assured parents that gender-affirming medical treatment for minors was compassionate, necessary — even lifesaving. 

Parents were told that failure to affirm could put their child at risk of suicide. 

They were told puberty blockers were merely a “pause,” fully reversible.

They were told hormones were safe. They were told surgery could alleviate suffering.  

What they were not told was that the long-term evidence was low-quality, weak and inconclusive. 

Download The California Post App, follow us on social, and subscribe to our newsletters

Countless parents trusted the assurances that seemed to come from every direction. 

They trusted because that is what parents do when facing something beyond their expertise. 

School officials reinforced the same message and commitment to gender affirmation. 

What often began as counseling and accommodations at school quickly moved to medicalization. Puberty blockers first, cross sex hormones later. 

Low doses became higher doses. In some cases, treatment escalated to the surgical removal of healthy parts. 

These were minors — children too young to legally drink, purchase cold medicine or vote — consenting, with parental approval, to irreversible medical interventions. 

In early February, two major medical groups announced support for restrictions on gender surgeries specifically and gender affirming care more broadly, citing a weak and low-quality evidence base. 

They now recommend caution and suggest delaying medical interventions until the age of 19. 

For too many families, this admission comes too late. 

The question now is not only legal — though lawsuits have begun and will undoubtedly proliferate — but moral and emotional. 

What happens to the parents who relied on the promises of the medical establishment? 

What of the families who were told this was the only compassionate path? 

The California Post is here. Sign up for Morning Report.

Get the perfect blend of news, sports and entertainment delivered to your inbox every day.

Thanks for signing up!

See also

Politics

·02/07/2026·0

POLITICS: BAD NEWS FOR HILLARY! – Pam Bondi and Kash Patel Announce Arrest of Benghazi Attack Suspect! – Video

Imagine being a parent who consented — eagerly or hesitantly — to powerful medications or surgery because you believed it would save your child’s life. 

Imagine discovering that the certainty you were promised was not only overstated but wrong. 

How does a parent begin to process that? 

Some will double down. The psychological cost of reconsidering may simply be too high. 

Others will quietly wrestle with grief, regret, and anger — not only at institutions, but at themselves. 

Parents are told from the time their children are born that their most sacred duty is protection. To realize that a decision made in love may have caused harm is a burden almost too heavy to carry. 

Parents were repeatedly told, “Trust the science.” They were told hesitation was harmful. They were told the evidence was settled. 

It wasn’t. 

The reckoning will not be confined to courtrooms or medical conferences. 

It will unfold in kitchens and living rooms across the country — in strained conversations, in private tears, in the quiet recognition that decisions made under pressure and out of fear cannot be undone. 

Parents seek experts because of how much we love our children. We are wired to do anything in our power to relieve their suffering. 

If the medical establishment overstated certainty, minimized risks, and framed one course of action as the only compassionate and humane option, the fallout will be profound. 

Not abstract. Not political, but personal. And for many families, it is permanent. 

Marissa Fallon is the senior director of advocacy for Defending Education.