By Mark McDonald, M.D. - September 11, 2022

Recently the Democrat supermajority that controls the state of California passed AB 2098—the “medical misinformation” bill—that makes free speech illegal for medical doctors. The Left has always sought to control language, because any group that controls language controls the people. Even the title of the bill is misleading: “Misinformation” simply means “political speech we disagree with.” The bill has nothing at all to do with medicine. It is simply a speech code. This is only the latest example of how language is being manipulated and subverted by activist ideologues to take over the profession of medicine.

“Gender affirming care” is now all the rage. Every institution, every hospital, every clinic in the nation is virtue-signaling its commitment to gender affirming care. But what is it, exactly? It is nothing other than chemical castration and genital mutilation, often of children. My first patient to be harmed by this atrocity was a bright yet anxious and confused 14-year-old girl I began treating five years ago. I referred her to an adolescent group therapist who quickly convinced her that she was actually a he. When she came to see me at her next visit three months later, she had cut her hair short, traded in her blouse and skirt for denim jeans and a ripped T-shirt, and proudly announced that she had changed her name, her “gender,” and had begun her “path to transitioning.” Her mother found a depraved pediatrician at UCLA who began injecting her with testosterone. I never saw her again. Therapists who do not support this clinical child abuse can be sanctioned, fired, and lose their license to practice. This is only possible due to the rebranding of the abuse with words that misdirect the public and lead parents to believe the clinician is offering something healthy. “Affirm” sounds inherently positive. Who would be against any clinician “affirming” his patient?

In 1980 the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) introduced a new diagnosis: Gender Identity Disorder of Childhood. It described a rare condition in children where a patient felt profoundly confused about whether he was truly a boy or a girl. This condition was correctly called a mental illness, and it deserved treatment. In 1980, Gender Identity Disorder was replaced with Gender Dysphoria. No longer were children who thought they were the opposite sex suffering from a true disorder. Only if they felt unhappy about it could they now be diagnosed with a mental illness, and that illness was purely emotional. These children were now dysphoric, placed in the category of depressed children who needed treatment for their depression, not for their profound sexual confusion. But this new term was not good enough for the Left, because it will now soon be replaced with an even more disingenuous and inaccurate phrase: Gender Incongruence. Innocuous, blasé, boring even, Gender Incongruence conjures up the image of a puzzle piece that has been inadvertently misaligned and simply needs to be turned around to solve the “incongruence.” No longer is there a mental illness present, or even a sad mood. There is simply a minor structural misalignment that can be easily corrected, perhaps by cross-sex hormones or a double mastectomy. Nothing to see here.

Even child rape may soon be normalized. A movement is now underway on the Left to remove “pedophile” from the clinical (and cultural) lexicon and replace it with “Minor Attracted Person” or “MAP.” . . .

[SNIP]