Therapist: Trans Industry Is Based on ‘Bill of Lies’

Vulnerable children are caught in middle of lucrative industry that creates medical patients for life

Stephanie Winn, licensed marriage and family therapist. (York Du/The Epoch Times)

“We’re agreeing with the lie,” therapist Stephanie Winn says, “that these vulnerable young people really have no other ways of coping than to make life-altering decisions with a lot of negative ramifications for their health.”

In a recent episode of “American Thought Leaders,” host Jan Jekielek talked with Stephanie Winn, a licensed marriage and family therapist who’s currently treating detransitioners and parents of gender-questioning youth. Winn is also featured in “Affirmation Generation,” a new documentary that critically explores the “gender-affirming” model, society’s suppression of detransitioners, the for-profit trans industry, and the many myths associated with being transgender.

Jan Jekielek: Stephanie, congratulations on this amazing film. In it, you say, “Clinicians, we’ve been sold a bill of lies.” What are the lies?

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• Stephanie Winn: The ‘Trans Industry’ Is Creating a Sterilized Generation and Medical Patients for Life

Stephanie Winn: We’ve been lied to that “gender-affirming” care is an actual model of psychotherapy like other models. Models of psychotherapy generally include ways of conceptualizing and formulating our clients’ distress and understanding their presenting problems and then helping treat their distress. We do a psychosocial assessment, what’s happening for them physiologically, environmentally, socially, and internally. With the so-called gender-affirming model, we’re told to not ask questions, just to affirm and agree without questioning or discernment.

This social affirmation by therapists is the first step in a process that leads to experimental hormones and surgeries that are very costly to physical health. We’re undermining people’s long-term health when we practice “gender-affirming” care. We’re agreeing with the lie that these vulnerable young people really have no other ways of coping than to make life-altering decisions with a lot of negative ramifications for their health.

Mr. Jekielek: In many cases, these children or teens are just discovering themselves, and they’re making these profound decisions without being able to grasp the consequences. How is this being considered?

Ms. Winn: In our documentary, Lisa Marchiano says that it’s naive of any responsible adult to go along with this child’s understanding of who they are and what they’re going to want in the future. Anyone watching this can think of someone they know who swore up and down that they didn’t want children when they were in their teens or 20s. Then, a switch flipped, maybe even at 35, where they wanted children desperately, and now they’re grateful they have them.

If healthy people can pass through normal phases of life thinking they didn’t want children and then that changed for them, how can we assume that young, vulnerable, mentally unwell, impulsive teenagers and prepubescent teens could possibly know what they’ll want in the future?

Mr. Jekielek: Gender dysphoria is associated with some other issues, and often those just get swept off to the side. A term mentioned in the film describes that.

Ms. Winn: The term is diagnostic overshadowing. It’s the idea that when you have various comorbidities or potential comorbidities that haven’t been diagnosed or ruled out properly, gender dysphoria overshadows all of them.

There’s a dangerous presupposition that if you treat gender dysphoria by changing the young person’s body, all the other issues will go away. What I see is actually the opposite.

You’ll hear these youth refer to things as “my dysphoria.” When they say my dysphoria, they could be talking about anything. They could be talking about PMS or social anxiety or ADHD. We know that about 48 percent of the children referred to the Tavistock Gender Identity Clinic, which has now been ordered to shut down, were autistic.

Many of the vulnerable young people who are presenting with gender dysphoria are autistic, and many have trauma histories. They’ve been bullied, and they’ve been abandoned. We know these kids are overrepresented in foster care and adoption. The natural response to that is shame and inadequacy.

That shame can be painful and overwhelming. It takes a lot of maturity to learn how to integrate our shame and tolerate it. So there is this idea that “Nothing’s wrong with me, my identity, my mind, my psyche; it’s my body that’s wrong. That’s why I’m different.”

Mr. Jekielek: You often hear this told to parents: “If you don’t affirm, your child is going to commit suicide or there’s a higher likelihood they’ll commit suicide.”

Ms. Winn: It’s such a dangerous myth. We do see higher rates of suicidal ideation in trans-identified young people, but we really can’t separate that out from their comorbidities: depression, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder, body dysmorphia, and eating disorders.

If you look at all the psychiatric comorbidities, as far as I’m aware, the rate of suicidal ideation amongst trans-identified youth isn’t higher than non-trans-identified young people with those same comorbidities. But we should also consider that a lot of these young people are being told on the internet and by their peers that they should threaten suicide to get what they want; therefore, we see a higher rate of suicidal ideation.

The threat of suicide has been grossly distorted and people have been intimidated in a way that’s really quite sick, because that’s truly every parent’s worst fear. The fact that people are using it in a manipulative way is just morally abhorrent.

Mr. Jekielek: You’ve mentioned that this “gender-affirming” care doesn’t work as a therapy, whereas watchful waiting actually has been shown to work.

Ms. Winn: Watchful waiting isn’t particularly an approach to therapy. It’s not a whole therapeutic toolkit. It’s basically just the message that if a kid presents with distress or confusion about their gender or sexual identity, don’t do anything about it. Just let them be a kid, give them time and chances, and they’ll likely grow out of it. Kids will believe in all kinds of things. We adults often need to just watch and wait.

Mr. Jekielek: You’ve referred to the term “gender cult.” How is it a cult?

Ms. Winn: How it isn’t a cult would be a shorter list. You start off with young, vulnerable people, many of them gifted, quirky, and weird, and you start off with love bombing them, giving them this idea of belonging and that it’s all going to be so great when you join us, and it’s just literally rainbows and glitter. Those are the symbols they use.

Mr. Jekielek: One of the things mentioned in the film are these very extensive interventions that put young people on a track to be medicalized for life. There’s a whole industry ramping up for this purpose.

Ms. Winn: It’s a huge industry that’s growing and a big money maker for hospitals.

And you’re right that these trans-identified young people are being set up to become medical patients for life. Once someone is on cross-sex hormones, for example, they have to continue taking those hormones. And if they don’t, if they physically “detransition,” then they’re going to encounter another host of medical problems. The detrans young people I’ve met are dealing with really complex and novel medical situations that a lot of doctors don’t know how to treat.

Mr. Jekielek: This is obviously critical information that both parents and kids should know at the outset of these discussions.

Ms. Winn: One of my main concerns as a mental health professional is how badly my field has betrayed these vulnerable people. In many cases, therapists played a role in this. We pushed people down a path of transition, and it’s not pretty, and a lot of people don’t want to talk about it.

We need to start looking at what people are experiencing, being present with the pain and suffering we’ve caused them. Detransitioners have been medically and mentally harmed by the professionals who are supposed to help them, and now they don’t trust us, and that’s our fault. We need to earn back their trust, and that’s not a process that can be rushed.

We also need to start educating a new generation of professionals to deal with the aftermath, as well as making some societal shifts. For instance, medical care for detransitioners isn’t properly funded. Can you believe that in some cases Medicaid will pay for a confused, distressed young woman to amputate her breasts, but they won’t pay for reconstruction? Not that you can reconstruct breasts; you can’t restore the breast tissue if the mammary glands have been removed. But if she wants something cosmetic to help her feel like she’s restoring her dignity, they won’t provide that.

Mr. Jekielek: “Affirmation Generation” is one step in that direction. It’s a film that can help anyone with an open mind accept its contents. It’s beautiful in that way. So how can people see it?

Ms. Winn: They can stream “Affirmation Generation” at AffirmationGenerationMovie.com. We’re encouraging people to organize screenings for March 12, which is Detrans Awareness Day. We encourage you to have friends or family over into your living room or rent a whole theater if you have access to that, to share the message we’re trying to spread.

This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.