What defines a medical professional? One thing that all medical professionals are sworn to adhere to is the Hippocratic Oath. In essence, the Hippocratic Oath is a set of rules and guidelines that medical professionals must obey in order to uphold ethical medical care. “It requires a new physician to uphold specific ethical standards.” Unfortunately, there are many examples of medical professionals who do not seem to take said oath very seriously. One of the most notable examples is the infamous Dr. Jack Turban.
For many of us growing up, we were taught that doctors and nurses are our heroes. We were taught that we could trust them to make us feel better. Unfortunately, Jack Turban is not one of them. One would think that a medical professional would want to help those with certain conditions get better or perhaps even learn to manage them. Instead, Jack seems to think that “Access to gender-affirming medical care [puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones during adolescence] is linked to better mental health outcomes in adulthood.” A simple Google search would reveal quite the opposite of what Jack preaches. Currently, 24 U.S. States have restricted access to these interventions due to the irreparable harm that they cause. “Gender-affirming hormones and surgeries” have NOT been proven safe or effective at improving the mental health of children who experience distress over their biological sex. ‘Doctor’ Turban frequently clashes with anybody who does not share his worldview. He previously blocked one of our members for merely asking for proof of Turban’s claims.
Why should a graduate from Yale Medical School and former intern with Stanford advocate for experimenting on children? Instead of helping these kids, he chooses to abuse his power by surgically altering minors with unnecessary medical procedures. Jack Turban’s new book, "Free To Be," was released on June 4th, 2024. It is easy to read, well-written, and provocative. One would expect that a professional—assistant professor at a major university, and with an MD (a psychiatrist, no less)—would have clarity of thought, a high level of personal and professional ethics, and value creating the best outcomes for distressed youth. However, Turban fails on all counts. His audience with this book is not specifically minors with a trans identity, but parents and other adults who may otherwise intervene on behalf of a child. He’s grooming his accomplices.
The format of the book centers around the stories of three “gender expansive” youth whom he follows for several years, with the middle section filled with composite characters and Turban’s predictable arguments against safeguarding children. He presents the children as small sages who “know who they are” long before they have any adult understanding of themselves, life, sex, or their own future adult lives. Turban checks off the main “trans child” boxes. The first is a little boy encouraged to think he’s a girl, rather than a feminine boy. The family is described as affluent and accepting, and the home is large and inviting. The child is carefree. All the basic tropes of a gender non-conforming boy's interests meaning that he’s a girl are present. No one thinks he may grow up to be a gay man or a feminine straight man – he’s definitely a girl. The second child is the quintessential suicidal daughter of “transphobes,” rescued at the emergency room. There is no exploration of why this girl so desperately wants to be anything other than the young woman that she is – trauma, autism, porn, nothing. The third child is the “non-binary” non-conformist. He’s a boy who likes this and that, and does not “identify as” a boy or a girl in particular. His mother is also portrayed as progressive, attentive, and forward-thinking.
After introducing us to his protagonists, Turban loads us on the trans train, trumpeting its gender pseudoscience. He diligently uses all of the gender cult vernacular as if it were a given, not recent social engineering. We go down the tracks of sex being assigned at birth, dismissing it as “based on genitals the doctor saw when you were born.” He starts us right away, questioning what sex is, as if humans have not known what sex is before we became Homo Sapiens. As if the doctor, midwife, parents, the janitor at the hospital, or the three-year-old next door doesn’t recognize the existence of sexual dimorphism. Turban distinguishes gender expression and “gender identity,” going to great lengths to convince us that not only do human beings have a “gender identity,” but that said identity is beyond question, ever. He introduces us to the concept of “cisgender” being a natural contrast to “transgender,” as if that nomenclature made any sense whatsoever. One cannot be “on this side” or “the other side” of their own sex. Genderists like Turban will insist that sex and gender are different, and then in the same breath conflate the two. Turban does this throughout the rest of the book.
Another element that goes unchallenged in Turban’s book is the hyperfocus on the individual and the individual’s often internet- and sometimes pornography-fueled self-concept as a public issue rather than a private one. Obsessive navel-gazing and self-absorption are antithetical to functioning as a society, especially when it drives public policies, like sex-segregated spaces, child education, and sports. After framing the mythical gender as trumping the material reality of sex, the author explores the history of mothers being blamed for unexpected developmental trajectories in their children. Using the errant belief that children were autistic because their mothers were poorly engaged is compared to the mothers of trans-identified children, as if there is no social capital to gain for mothers of a “trans child” in the current climate. They then get to be The Best Ever Mother by investing in their child’s error – that they aren’t the sex they are. Parents do want the absolute best for their children, and sometimes that includes the unpopular act of telling them “No,” especially in an environment of social contagion.
In this exploration of the “trans child,” Turban’s only mention of autism is to debunk autism being caused by the mother. He ignores both the DSM-5-TR and the WPATH Standards of Care (8th edition) which make note of the correlation of trans identities and autism. Turban also ignores the correlation of trans identity with mental illness, assault, having a special needs sibling, borderline personality disorder, and eating disorders. None of these co-existing risks are acknowledged whatsoever. The most shocking aspect of Turban describing child sterilization is not just that he calls it “gender-affirming care,” but that he refers to a minor’s breasts as “chest tissue.” This is an example of linguistic sleight of hand that warps people’s thinking without their awareness. This linguistic sleight of hand that non-consensually shifts the thinking of well-intentioned parents and teachers is a major threat to the well-being of children finding their way into maturity. There is no “top surgery”; it is a radical double mastectomy for girls and breast implants for boys. There is no “bottom surgery”; it’s vaginoplasty or phalloplasty, which often leaves patients sexually dysfunctional.
He also describes blocking puberty as some sort of benevolent “pause.” This is absolutely false. Blocking puberty affirms that a child’s healthy body is wrong somehow, while denying the myriad dangers of subverting puberty as a coping mechanism that never solves the actual distress. While painting medically transitioning his little sages as wholesale right and good without exception, he completely ignores detransitioners and desisters. He doesn’t even dismiss those who detransition or desist – he completely fails to acknowledge them, the reasons why they are generally invisible to contemporary research, and the implications of their strong voices. After delving into all the prescribed gender language and narratives, he returns to our three sages and their relationship with puberty blocking and transition. Clearly, they have all been “affirmed” as a special kind of person throughout Turban’s research and follow-up. The little boy who thinks he’s a girl accepts puberty blockers as if he were rescued from the gas chambers. Obviously, someone encouraged him to believe that growing up is the worst thing that could happen to him.
The suicidal child is too old to block puberty, but her apparently Neanderthal parents are coerced to accept cross-sex hormones. She performs the ritual of The Sacred Testosterone Injections, as if this is normal or addresses the circumstances that led her to disassociate from her sex. Our third sage, who rejects male stereotypes and also rejects transition, is probably the best situated, though they intend to keep approaching him about radical medical interventions to which he can’t consent. Turban wraps the book up by reiterating his major points. Though in his book, Jack Turban says that sexual orientation is based on “gender identity” and not sex. He has no problem throwing all homosexuals under the bus with his trans narratives.
Yes, our country does have a lot of work to do. We need to depend on the educated to do the right thing, to earnestly seek to do good, to discern what’s real and what’s right. Yes, children have the right to be their funky selves – to be feminine, masculine, or any combination. They also have a right to their healthy bodies. Children aren’t little sages. They depend on adults, on us, to lovingly guide them to be their integrated selves so they can live their best adult lives. They depend on us to lovingly tell them the truth. And unfortunately, when it comes to Jack Turban, that does not seem to be the case.
References:
American Psychiatric Association. (2022). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Retrieved from http://books.google.ie/books?id=PIGizgEACAAJ&dq=Dsm+5+tr&hl=&cd=2&source=gbs_api
Forcier, M., Van Schalkwyk, G., & Turban, J. L. (2020). Pediatric Gender Identity. Springer Nature. http://books.google.ie/books?id=H4PZDwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=Pediatric+Gender+Identity:+Gender-affirming+Care+for+Transgender+%26+Gender+Diverse+Youth+1st+ed.+2020+Edition+ISBN-13:+978-3030389086,+ISBN-10:+3030389081&hl=&cd=1&source=gbs_api
Policy Tracker: Youth Access to Gender Affirming Care and State Policy Restrictions | KFF. (2024, June 11). KFF. Retrieved from https://www.kff.org/other/dashboard/gender-affirming-care-policy-tracker/
ReIME. (2024). The Facts About “Gender Affirming Care” (GAC) for Children and Adolescents. Retrieved from https://personandidentity.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/ReIME-FACTS-abt-GAC.pdf
Turban, J. L. (2024). Free to be: understanding kids & gender identity (First Atria Books hardcover edition.). Atria Books
WPATH. (2024). SOC8 Homepage - WPATH World Professional Association for Transgender Health. Retrieved from https://www.wpath.org/soc8
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