Doctor defends giving transgender treatments to 8 and 10-year-olds: 'Respect kids as individuals'

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PBS reporter asks Biden about anti-transgender laws in Republican states

PBS NewsHour correspondent Laura Barron-Lopez questioned President Biden at a joint presser with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.

An Ivy League professor and doctor defended giving transgender treatments to 8 and 10-year-old kids, comparing children knowing when their ear hurts to knowing they were born the wrong gender on PBS NewsHour Monday.

The segment spotlighted Texas banning gender procedures and hormone treatments for minors in a law that will go into effect on Sept 1. PBS White House correspondent Laura Barrón-López spoke with multiple doctors in opposition to the bill.

One such doctor was Brown University professor of pediatrics and clinician educator Dr. Michelle Forcier, who dismissed the notion that kids are too young to understand their own gender issues, comparing it to children understanding when they have an earache. 

"If I had a 10-year-old or an 8-year-old who told me their ear hurt, I wouldn't look at them and say, 'You're only 8 or 10, you don't know if your ear hurts,' right?" Forcier said. "It's important that we listen to kids. It doesn't mean that a kid says, ‘I'm trans,’ and two hours later they get hormones. It means that we respect kids as individuals."

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Protestors supporting trans identifying minors during a rally in Minnesota. (Getty)

The segment primarily centered around a Texas family, including 12-year-old transgender girl "Leah" and parents "John and Mary." Barrón-López reported they requested to be anonymous "because families like theirs are increasingly under threat."

The family said "Leah" first came out to them as a "gay boy" two years ago, at about age 10. "John" defended his child being able to now know as a preteen about instead being a transgender girl.

"The last two years, if you ask me if her as a 12-year-old can understand and wrap her head around what's going on and what she thinks she wants, damn right she does, because she's put more work in the last two years than most adults do in their whole lifetime, mentally speaking," he told PBS.

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Barrón-López also spoke with Republican State Rep. Tom Oliverson, who pushed the bill in the state house. Oliverson specifically referenced concerns about allowing children to make some life-altering decisions while being restricted from others.

"When you are an adult, you can make decisions for yourself. We don't allow children in Texas to get tattoos. We don't allow children in Texas to sign medical consents. We don't allow children in Texas to drive. It seems somewhat absurd to me that we would take a child's word for who they think they're going to be at age 30 at age 11," Oliverson said.

A Texas bill will prohibit transgender children from receiving hormone treatments starting in September. (Nathaniel Pawlowski)

Barrón-López came under scrutiny Thursday for asking President Biden about "the parents of a transgender girl in Texas who told me that they're afraid and that they are considering leaving not just their state, but the country." She asked Biden, "Sir, why do you think this is happening? And what do you say to parents like the ones that I spoke to, to those families who are contemplating leaving the country because they don't feel safe anymore?"

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During Monday's segment, Barrón-López confirmed that "John," "Mary" and "Leah" were the family she was talking about. While considering looking at transgender treatment providers in New Mexico, the family never mentioned contemplating leaving the country on air.

"It feels like were being pushed out, pushed out of our home, pushed out of our state, pushed out of our jobs. Like, if we go somewhere, what happens next? And I don't want to feel like we're constantly on the run. I don't want to feel like we're refugees in our own country," "Mary" stated.

"We just have our whole life here. And the last thing I want to do would be have to move," "Leah" said about leaving Texas.

PBS Newshour previously promoted a segment featuring parents defending treatments for transgender children. (Photo by: Michael Siluk/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

In March, PBS Newshour featured another segment on the parents of transgender children defending puberty blockers, among other treatments for kids as young as ten years old.

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"Our daughter is 10 years old," one parent said. "She started letting us know she was transgender really before she could even speak. She would do things like wear her sister‘s clothes, pretend that towels [were] long hair and when she was about three years old she started to withdraw and become depressed so we started doing some research."