When in Doubt, Protect the Child

Two NPR Shows Expose the Cracks in the Gender Medicine Machine

There’s a quiet kind of heartbreak that comes when your worst fears are confirmed—not by activists or politicians, but by the very professionals who once endorsed the now crumbling system. That was my reaction listening to two recent interviews on NPR station WBUR’s Here & Now—one with trans-identified male (TIM) and clinical psychologist Erica Anderson, and the other with British journalist Hannah Barnes, author of Time to Think. Each offered a rare moment of clarity in a conversation clouded by ideology and fear.

I don’t agree with Erica Anderson on a lot of things—for example his amicus brief opposing Skrmetti—and it’s difficult to tell if his motivation comes from protecting these procedures for adults like himself or from a general concern for children who suffer from gender dysphoria, but at least he is speaking up. His interview was striking in part because he didn’t retreat into slogans or shield himself with activist talking points. Instead, he raised concerns grounded in clinical experience—and in doubt. Real, scientific, responsible doubt.

“I’ve been urging caution for some years,” Anderson said. He’s been public, for nearly a decade, about the need for thorough, individualized evaluations before any medical intervention is even considered. “When in doubt, doubt,” he said, “because doubt and skepticism are hallmarks of a competent scientist.”

These words brought me back to spring of 2022. That was when I first realized how deep this crisis had become. It started when I watched Lia Thomas, a transwoman, dominate the NCAA women’s swimming championships. I sat stunned as the camera panned across the biological women who had trained their whole lives, only to be forced to compete against someone with a male body. But even that didn’t prepare me for what came next.

Just a few weeks later, I attended a birthday party for a dear friend in Birmingham. That night, on the back deck of a restaurant in Cahaba Heights, under the soft Southern twilight, the real shock came: one friend after another confided that their child now identified as trans. Not one or two. Eight. Eight families. Eight children—mostly girls—all suddenly declaring they were born in the wrong body. I don’t know which kids were already on hormones or binding their chests or demanding new names and pronouns at school, but I knew this number couldn’t be true without a social contagion, the way eating disorders were when I was young.

I left that party in a daze. Something was terribly wrong. I knew, deep down, this wasn’t a coincidence, it had to be systemic, and it had captured the most vulnerable kids—the gay kids, the autistic kids, the girls who hated their bodies or had experienced trauma. And instead of questioning why this was becoming so common, the medical establishment was ushering them onto a conveyor belt of affirmation, blockers, and irreversible interventions.

What Erica Anderson described in his interview—the failure of clinicians to conduct proper evaluations, the dismissal of European evidence, the overcorrection from red states and, now, the redoubling by blue ones—perfectly mirrors what I’ve witnessed in real time. Through my study of this issue and my work with the LGB Courage Coalition, I’ve met dozens of parents and detransitioners. These families and individuals were pushed down a path that never should have been laid in the first place. I’ve seen the results of the ideological rigidity in clinics, schools, and even pediatrician offices—places where questioning “gender-affirming care” is treated not as a clinical concern, but a heresy.

Anderson notes that many U.S. providers refuse to take seriously the findings from Europe—studies from Sweden, Finland, Norway, and especially the UK—all of which have moved toward far more cautious approaches. He finds this appalling. So do I. In 2024 alone, the U.S. saw several cases of buried evidence that could have aligned us with Europe’s cautious approach. American practitioners are ignoring comprehensive, peer-reviewed research in favor of political theater.

If Erica Anderson is the insider blowing the whistle, Hannah Barnes is the journalist documenting the crash. Her March 20th interview details how the UK has come to a stark conclusion: the evidence supporting puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones in minors is astonishingly weak—and the risks too great.

Barnes is not some culture warrior. She’s an editor at The New Statesman, a mainstream British publication, and her book Time to Think is a meticulous chronicle of the fall of the Tavistock clinic—the world’s largest pediatric gender service. What she revealed was stunning. Despite operating for 30 years, Tavistock failed to follow up on more than 10,000 patients. There was little data collected. No rigorous evaluation of outcomes. No long-term research on side effects. Just belief—and an institution unwilling to look too closely at what it was doing.

She discussed risks that should alarm any responsible clinician or parent—the loss of bone density during puberty, the possible long-term impacts on IQ, reasoning, and sexual development, and the unknowns surrounding what happens to identity and cognition when puberty is blocked during its most critical window. “Too risky for children,” she said. And she’s right.

But, to me, the most powerful part of her interview wasn’t about the science. It was about the betrayal.

“They’ve been lied to,” she said of the young people now struggling with the aftermath. “They’ve come to believe that this is the only thing that’s going to help them feel better. We’ve never known that to be the case.”

That line shattered me. Because it’s the lie that undergirds the entire industry. The lie that affirmation is suicide prevention. The lie that puberty blockers are harmless and reversible. The lie that a girl who hates her body is a boy. The lie that a boy who loves dolls needs a new name and hormones. The lie that gender nonconformity is a pathology.

It’s a lie that has hurt so many gay kids—kids like I once was. If I had grown up in this era, I don’t know if I’d still be here as a lesbian woman. I might’ve been a “success story”—chest scarred, voice lowered, fertility gone. That thought chills me every single day.

What makes it worse is the contrast between the UK’s evidence-based response and the ideological trench warfare here in the U.S. Across Europe, countries are pulling back, reviewing the data, and exercising caution. But in America, any effort to slow this down is instantly labeled “transphobic.” As Anderson points out, red states pass bans, sometimes clumsily. Blue states retaliate by codifying a dogma that says every child who questions their gender must be affirmed—no exceptions. Solutions to this logjam might begin with liberals joining conservatives in this skepticism—a shift made more hopeful by a progressive NPR station like WBUR airing these candid conversations.

We are standing at a crossroads. Europe has already started to course-correct. It’s time for America to do the same. Let’s be brave enough to ask the hard questions. Let’s be humble enough to admit what we don’t know. And let’s be bold enough to speak the truth—even when it costs us. Demand that more Democrats step up, like the two NH Reps Jonah Wheeler and Peter Leishman, who recently dared to challenge the status quo. Especially when it costs us.

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