Madrid (EFE) of girls who want to be boys “because it’s cool”.
“It is a monstrosity”, has summarized San Sebastián, former head of the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Unit of the Ramón y Cajal Hospital in Madrid in a conference on mental health organized by Vox in Congress.
Previously, Arango, director of the Institute of Psychiatry and Mental Health at the Gregorio Marañón Hospital, explained that child psychiatry services have always treated cases of gender dysphoria, which were “very exceptional” and at an early age.
But now there is “an exponential increase in minors who say they are trans in adolescence, not children of 3, 4 or 5 years old as before”, increases of up to “100%, 200%, 300%” and even “more than 1,000%” according to “statistics out there” from some clinics in Catalonia.
“In medicine we know that if something multiplies so quickly, it is either of infectious origin or there is something else”, he continued.
Trans laws “what they do is perpetuate macho clichés”
Likewise, he has assured that, contrary to what is statistically expected, “8 out of 10 are girls who want to be boys because what prevails, the coolest thing, so that they do not mess with you and so on, is to be a boy”, with which trans laws “what they do is perpetuate macho clichés”.
The child psychiatrist has clarified that the state norm only regulates the change of registered sex, and it is the regional norms that “say that a minor can access irreversible treatments without a comprehensive evaluation.”
Although it seems “phenomenal” to him that it tries to avoid discrimination by law, the problem is that it does it in only one direction, “and that is that when a minor says that he is trans, the direction is only that”, without a psychiatric evaluation or a doctor who intervenes to see “if there are other phenomena or alternatives.”
“Operating, hormonal, removing breasts or penises, who does that if not a doctor?” Arango asked himself, before expressing his concern that “ideology ends up killing the rights of the most vulnerable, the children who in many times they have underlying disorders and we can destroy their lives”.
However, he has stressed that “any minor who says they are trans needs to continue to be loved by their parents the same as before or even more”, but he has insisted that it is something “emerging, the way in which in 2023 many adolescents of manifest a basic psychopathology or emotional discomfort”.
Serious deterioration of mental health in minors
However, the experts have wanted to warn of the very serious deterioration in the mental health of children and adolescents, which is being noticed in a “real overflow” of psychiatric emergencies with cases of self-harm and suicide attempts.
On this, San Sebastián has emphasized that suicide in adolescence is an “emerging problem” and has focused on the “extreme post-pandemic vulnerability” in which children under 14 are especially found.
The expert has asked not to trivialize the attempts; If before they started at the age of 12, now there is “an exorbitant increase” in attempted and completed suicides in children under 15, which in 2022 have increased fivefold in the 10-14 age range.
25% had tried it before; having been a victim or witness of abuse or violence or suicide attempts by the parents, which multiply by between 2 and 5 the risk of the child, are other factors.
Although it has put the focus above all on bullying and cyberbullying which, being “immediate and widespread, does even much more damage than traditional bullying”.
Two other experts cited today, José Luis Carrasco, director of the Personality Disorders Unit of the San Carlos Clinical Hospital, and the lawyer Luis Corno, have focused their presentations on the regulation of the medicinal use of cannabis.
The first has warned of the harmful effects of its consumption in the form of schizophrenia and affective and personality disorders. “Marijuana is the silent, sneaky drug, and when disorders appear, it’s too late,” he warned.
Corno has criticized the attempts to regulate its medicinal use in Congress because it is an “excuse to launder consumption.”
