Paul McHugh vs. Norman Spack on helping trans youth |
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Using a sensationalistic headline about “sex change treatment to kids,” Fox News profiled Dr. Norman Spack of Boston’s Children’s Hospital, noted for his progressive clinic for trans youth. Though he is pictured in the article and quoted extensively, “Spack would not grant an interview to FOXNews.com and the Boston’s Children’s Hospital declined to respond.” In addition to Spack, Fox Reporters Hillary Viders and Joseph Abrams cite:
• Irene Sills, Senior Professor of Pediatrics at the State University of New York
• Stephanie Brill, co-author of “The Transgender Child”
Sills and Brill note the benefits of early intervention for trans youth.
Then out comes the loyal opposition:
• Paul McHugh, psychiatrist and Bush advisor who shut down the Johns Hopkins trans health services program in the 1970s
• Mat Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel, a legal charity affiliated with the late Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University
• Austin Nimocks, senior legal counsel for the conservative Alliance Defense
McHugh derides helping trans children as “barbaric” and has described transgender surgeries as “mutilation.” Those who seek to “cure” gender-variant children via reparative therapy or to deny these children health services have been in the news lately, following the appointment of reparative therapist Ken Zucker to to Chair the Sexual and Gender Identity Disorders work group that will revise and develop the fifth edition of the American Psychiatric Association’s (APA) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V)
Full article:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,356592,00.html
(Hat tip to Lynn Conway at Trans News Updates)
