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Lacey Spears appeared on “48 Hours” last night protesting her conviction of murder in the death of her child, by way of Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy.  At the link you get the article and excepts from the broadcast. Compare and contrast what “48 Hours” has to say about Munchausen and my take as it relates to Gender reassignment for toddlers and young children.

Both provide opportunities for  the psychological and physical abuse of toddlers and young children for the gratification of the care giver and in the ultimate nightmare a medical professional.

The article in Breitbart Gender Reassignment and Child Abuse will probably never see the light of day in the MSM. The ACP report confirms the stance taken by Professor Paul McHugh of Johns Hopkins as reported in the “Wall Street Journal”, Transgender Reassignment Isn’t the Solution.

The American College of Pediatricians (ACP) has issued a report urging legislators and educators to reject all policies that condition children to accept as normal “a life of chemical and surgical impersonation of the opposite sex.” They say endorsing “gender discordance” is “child abuse.” The report published by the ACP concludes that “conditioning children into believing a lifetime of chemical and surgical impersonation of the opposite sex is normal and healthful is child abuse.” 

I haven’t seen any source discuss the possibility that the whole issue of gender reassignment by parents for small children isn’t a manifestation of “Munchausen’s Syndrome by Proxy.“The issues of gender reassignment would seem to be ready made for an unstable parent, double bonus when that parent finds an equally unstable medical professional. Child Abuse: Munchausen’s Syndrome By Proxy was identified by the FBI Behavioral Science Unit in the 1980’s.  It remains rare, in part, because it is often not recognized and therefore unreported.

A typical Munchausen’s Syndrome by Proxy comes about when an adult caregiver inflicts an illness on a child under their care.  The disease and its course are hard to identify and needless to say terrifying to the adult and child.  Doctors and medical professionals are helpless. The victim, typically a small child is nonverbal so the parents are thrust into the limelight, right where one of them wanted to be. It isn’t usually a team effort.

There are cases where the offender was a medical professional, Jeanine Jones killed up to 49 infants between 1971 and 1984 while employed as a pediatric nurse. It is believed that Jones induced cardiac arrest in infants under her care so that she could then save them, or not.  

I am not a medical professional. Dr Paul McHugh of Johns Hopkins is and he maintains that “gender identity disorder” falls in the same category as body dysmorphic disorder, a form of mental illness.  I am not sure how one would go about diagnosing a nonverbal toddler to arrive at a defensible conclusion that the child is in need of intervention in the form of medication, to correct their gender confusion.

Gender reassignment may be the exception that proves the rule, where a partnership between a disturbed parent and an equally disturbed therapist working together to the detriment of the child provides the perfect cover for Munchausen’s Syndrome by Proxy.

The ACP journal states that human sexuality is an objective biological trait and human beings are conceived as either male or female. No one is born with a “gender” which is an awareness and sense of oneself as male or female. They say that gender is a sociological and psychological concept, not an “objective biological one.” They conclude that “A person’s belief that he or she is something they are not, is at best, a sign of confused thinking.” 

Moreover, they report, “According to the DSM-V, as many as 98 percent of gender confused boys and 88 percent of gender confused girls eventually accept their biological sex after naturally passing through puberty.” 

According to Dr Paul McHugh, the transgendered suffer a disorder of “assumption” like those in other disorders familiar to psychiatrists. With the transgendered, the disordered assumption is that the individual differs from what seems given in nature—namely one’s maleness or femaleness. Other kinds of disordered assumptions are held by those who suffer from anorexia and bulimia nervosa, where the assumption that departs from physical reality is the belief by the dangerously thin that they are overweight.With body dysmorphic disorder, an often socially crippling condition, the individual is consumed by the assumption “I’m ugly.” These disorders occur in subjects who have come to believe that some of their psycho-social conflicts or problems will be resolved if they can change the way that they appear to others. Such ideas work like ruling passions in their subjects’ minds and tend to be accompanied by a solipsistic argument. 

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 civil-rights matter and encouraging surgical intervention is in reality to collaborate with and promote a mental disorder.

Sex change, gender reassignment is a desperate act of a maladjusted individual. The American College of Pediatrics got this one right, when it is done by a parent with the advice and consent of a medical professional it is Child Abuse and both should be prosecuted.