Occasionally I go on The Rick Amato Show, and I’m usually there when there’s a transgender issue involved. I’m sort of the “go to” trans person on all things trans there. The Rick Amato Show airs on the One America Now Network (OANN) at 7 p.m. PDT (AT&T U-verse 208 and 1208 HD; and Verizon 116 and 616 HD).
I’m finding I’m being confronted by other guests regarding the science of trans experience more and more when I’m on the show, and with that confrontation I’m hearing the name of Dr. Paul McHugh — the retired head the of Psychiatry Department at Johns Hopkins University.
In the 1970s Dr. McHugh shut down the Gender Identity Clinic at Johns Hopkins University due to the belief that transgender surgeries don’t help transgender women, whom he considers men. Dr. McHugh recently wrote in the Wall Street Journal an article entitled Transgender Surgery Isn’t the Solution,
“A 2011 study at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden produced the most illuminating results yet regarding the transgendered,” Dr. McHugh wrote in that WSJ piece, “evidence that should give advocates pause. The long-term study – up to 30 years – followed 324 people who had sex-reassignment surgery. The study revealed that beginning about 10 years after having the surgery, the transgendered began to experience increasing mental difficulties. Most shockingly, their suicide mortality rose almost 20-fold above the comparable non-transgender population. This disturbing result has as yet no explanation but probably reflects the growing sense of isolation reported by the aging transgendered after surgery. The high suicide rate certainly challenges the surgery prescription.”
Dr. Dan Karasic of the World Professional Association of Transgender Health (WPATH) took exception to Dr. McHugh’s take on the Karolinska study. “McHugh does cite one study from 2011,” Karasic wrote on WPATH’s Web site, “by Cecilia Dhejne, MD and colleagues at Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. However, he misunderstands Dr. Dhejne’s work. In the paper, Dr. Dhejne states that the study was not designed to draw conclusions on the efficacy of transgender surgeries, yet McHugh does exactly that. A closer reading of the paper shows that the increased mortality is in those who had surgery before 1989, and that mortality in trans people after 1989 is not statistically different from the general population. A recently published paper by Dr. Dhejne and colleagues shows that the regret rate for those having surgery from 2001-2010 is only 0.3%. Dr. Dhejne’s work shows that outcomes for transgender surgery have improved tremendously in the past 30 years, which supports the HHS decision to remove trans exclusions.”
Dr. McHugh also wrote in the WSJ article that “At the heart of the problem is confusion over the nature of the transgendered. ‘Sex change’ is biologically impossible. People who undergo sex-reassignment surgery do not change from men to women or vice versa. Rather, they become feminized men or masculinized women. Claiming that this is a civil-rights matter and encouraging surgical intervention is in reality to collaborate with and promote a mental disorder.”
As the Scriptures say in Genesis 1:27, “God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” Amen.
To the Christian social conservative, being transgender is a biological impossibility and scripturally sound, so the Personal Privacy Protection Act initiative effort makes perfect sense. Dr. McHugh and the Bible tells them they’re right.
Dr. Karasic referenced Mari Brighe, a Detroit-based genetics researcher for The TransAdvocate in his WPATH commentary. “It is important to remember that the opinions of Dr. McHugh fly in the face of currently accepted medical practice and the positions of many major medical associations,” Brighe asserted. “The American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association, the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology, the American Psychiatric Society, the American Public Health Association, and the World Professional Association for Transgender Health have all adopted positions supporting the medical necessity of transition-related care, including hormonal and surgical interventions, as well as expressing support for insurance coverage of these interventions.”
And too, 1 Samuel 16:7b says “The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” Trans people know what our gender identities are in our hearts.
Multiple medical organizations – and even the Bible can – tell us McHugh is wrong.
There’s a lot more bad science connected to Dr. McHugh than even what I’ve written about here that I’m apparently going to have to familiarize myself with. Yay me.
Dr. Paul McHugh a Genuine Pompous, Arrogant, Ignorant, and Always Wannabe Havetobe Right person. Even in the face of science findings he pays no attention. His talks with the last Pope continue to assist in Trans Suicides by the Church listening to his Ravings of Untruth about Trans Brains, and necessary Surgeries. There are no Blocks of Salt large enough to take with his rantings as that is what they are. This is a very good article to reference.
He is right with one simple thing though. Gender goes right down to genetics.
I can easily detect serious debaters from vitriolic smear and shut down debate fanatics when they try to dispute this factual claim by diffusing it with unrelated comments from some organizations.
There’s a lot of ad hominem going on in this article. And some tweaking of the truth.
This article suggests, for one, that trans people don’t kill themselves in modern times like they did in the eighties—but that’s not really true, as Canadian studies published in the Toronto Sun and the 2011 NTDS study show.
And the fact that McHugh is a Christian doesn’t matter. The Bible doesn’t matter, it’s not part of his argument. It’s not “God said men are men amen,” it’s that your genes say “XX” or “XY” and that sex signature is impossible to change. You can turn a man to a eunuch in adulthood and he still won’t lose the permanent signs of his sex wrought from puberty, like his large heart and his narrow pelvis. His point is you can make a dog look like a wolf, but that dog is still a dog.
More permanent changes can be made (still not to the complete effect) when mutilation is done in early childhood, but there’s the hurdle of making that anything but child abuse. If a kid can’t even be trusted to make the decision to have a tattoo at an age as early as 11, how can it make sense to institutionalize the legitimacy of his decision to mutilate healthy organs in pursuit of an identity he’ll be forced into for the rest of his life?
It’s not some pure political, cut and dry battle like trans advocates like you make it sound like. There’s real, legitimate arguments against trans operations that need to be respected, and addressed with respect. The reason a silent majority is repulsed by the trans movement is because of its tendency to bully people and to try to make the public accept incredibly wide stretches of imagination. There are mainstream claims that there is a genocide against trans people—genocide, not bullying, not “society doesn’t understand me,” not “I’m micro-oppressed,” but a genocide. Which implies that trans people are rounded up and murdered.
More than that, trans people argue that their movement is one for civil rights. Except their group is the first group with a civil rights movement in America who was born into the right to vote and was never systematically disenfranchised.
The claim that trans people are segregated due to sex divisions in bathrooms is hardly less than a huge stretch of imaginative power. To conveniently overlook the real problems of boys and girls sharing bathrooms—of the indecency of that, of the uncomfortable situations that would cause for millions—is to oversimplify the issue to absurb proportions. To act indignant that every facility in America hasn’t set up bathrooms specifically for a demographic that the majority of these facilities may never, ever see is to wrecklessly demonized society.
But these stretches help the cause by bullying people. Do you really believe you’re cause is comparable to slavery or women’s suffrage? I hope not, but even more than that I doubt it. Advocates enthusiasticallg jump to the imaginative creation of an oppressive society because it helps their cause. It’s an interesting spin, and it lets them bully people into publishing questionable studies with small sample sizes supporting the political agenda, and silencing academics who fly against the trans “norm” by calling them hateful when they introduce valid ideas that should be discussed. The straw man attacks with the Bible in this article and the fellow commenter calling McHugh hateful exemplify this point.
McHugh says trans is a disorder. How is that hateful? Do you say that he hates his patients for having disorders? Of course not. He legitimately believes it is a disorder, and he has legitimate reasons to do so. Is he using this as a tool to marginalize trans people and push them into obscurity? Not really, since he pushed raising awareness of the trans issue in the same breath.
Besides, if even one case of regret is reported after an operation, then that person is, with little doubt, someone who possesses or possessesed a dissociated state of awareness and identity that physical operation was not equipped to address. Thus, he can only logically have been or become mentally ill, since it is his perceived incongruence of identity alone that is causing him mental turmoil. And then it just as simply follows that there exist, even and especially to this day, where a troublesome gender identity is caused by mental illness. The current trans moment marginalized these people by claiming they don’t exist, or ignoring their existence as a mere bump in the road for their agenda, and their ability for treatment is thus attacked and erased as “a conservative conspiracy to marginalize the trans movement.”
The irony of the fact that this movement—in its appeal to victimhood and moral supremacy—threatens real harm to real people is simply beyond them. That’s why so many people hate this movement.
Yes but then he is caught altering research to suit his ends and then you need to ask if he is telling the truth:https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brynn-tannehill/johns-hopkins-professor-e_b_9510808.html&ved=0ahUKEwiRvPGiiP7QAhUqyoMKHWBwDBAQFggmMAE&usg=AFQjCNHSvxmBIGdnZLr8E1wCn_crXLj9zA&sig2=v0-hreIORd2lTXc5tkyDgQ
http://genderanalysis.net/2015/09/paul-mchugh-is-wrong-transitioning-is-effective-gender-analysis-10/
It’s odd to see Johns Hopkins going strong despite their lack of medical knowledge and unwillingness to study medicine. Their department heads still use the age old approach of “I have an ideology now lets see what bullshit I can put into a “peer-reviewed” study to “discover” that my ideology was right all along.” Their older protocols didn’t even rely on studies. Their protocols for mutilating intersex patients date back to the age of Freud and other phony doctors. Even the internet trolls are auditioning to join their entourage. What can you expect from corruption? Age-old institutions have only lasted as long as they have through trickery. Any medical student can tell you that a human’s sex and their genetics can vary greatly and that the original concept of men and women is too basic and uneducated. It’s laughable to see uneducated people spew their “science” in comment sections. Too bad I never have the popcorn ready.
I must first say that the picture you have selected for your article makes Dr.McHugh look really evil.
You begin the article appealing to emotion and experiences. These argument are not rational, and therefore completely irrelevant. So we can dismiss that offhand.
You are citing the bible. There is no science in the bible. We can dismiss that argument too.
Dr.McHugh points out that his research is ignored because it is not politically correct. This is absolutly true. I would even add that President Obama advocates the transition between gender. Therefore Obama rejected this study because it did not serve his narrative.
Dr.McHugh demonstrate that the suicide rate is alarmingly high, even after the surgery. That is a fact.
This arcticle does state some facts about Dr.Mchugh’s research. However, this article is extremly bias. The writer or this article and the readers are too emotionally invest in this issue to be rationnal.
Dr.McHugh wants to intervene to save the lives of patients with this mental illness. But the patient are too emotional to listen to reason and the government is allowing these patients to die instead of trying to save lives.
Sadly, transgenders will keep on dying. However, they have the right to refuse treatment and therefore choose to die willingly. That is their right. I am mostly opposed to forcing health professionals to assist them in their suicide.
Only a liberal nutjob would have the arrogance to call out the Chief of Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins Hospital, the top hospital in the world for the last 18-20yrs, and say he got his science all wrong since he doesn’t agree with your liberal logic. It’s like the playground runt giving tips to Jordan
His research is way out dated. The very reason it’s out dated is the fact that you can actually be born xxy and other variations not just xx or xy is a fact that can not be disputed. Dr. McHugh research is out dated by a few years a fact that can not be disputed. The latest research does show a biological reason for being transgender that is a fact when you actually add to the latest research compaired to his out dated information. A person can not legally have someone committed to a hospital for being gay or transgender because it is not a mental disorder. The Military has now allowed gay and transgender soldiers to openly serve in our armed services. Because for one transgender and gay people have been been protecting this great nation for years and are just as vital to our nations freedom as any one else. Thier is no gay or transgender rights or agenda in America. Only the rights of every American in this country. It’s called the bill of rights. Some people should read it. Know one is better than anyone else . People shouldn’t have to defend themselves over rights they already have. Read the constitution,be informed educate yourselves.