Interview by Gary Powell with Jennifer Lahl
"Bad ideas generate victims. Our work at the CBC -Center for Bioethics and Culture- is to question and criticise these kinds of unhealthy ideas before they cause harm to people". This is the uncompromising and unequivocal message of Jennifer Lahl, founder and president of the CBCwhich is based in California. With 25 years of experience as a former paediatric intensive care nurse, hospital administrator and senior nursing executive, she is used to recognising problems and pursuing solutions with unfailing drive and determination.
A few days ago his new film - Trans Mission: What's the Rush to Reassign Gender? -Mission Trans: Why the urgency to reassign gender?- about thethe effect on children and their parents of the recent growth in the promotion of gender ideology in the West, with the consequent a dramatic increase in the number of children sent to gender clinics who have been offered radical pharmaceutical and medical practices with irreversible outcomes.
An experienced, award-winning director and producer, Jennifer's previous films include Eggsploitation (2010, updated 2013), Anonymous Father's Day (2011), Breeders: A Subclass of Women? (2014), Maggie's Story (2015), Compassion and Choice: Denied (2016) e #BigFertility: It's All About the Money (2018).
Trans Mission is the first film in which Jennifer examines the extreme impact of transgender medicine and ideology on the rights of children and their parents.
Trans Mission is of great interest to many of us, both inside and outside the LGB community, deeply concerned about the deleterious impact that gender ideology could have on children with its ideological takeover of key Western institutionsincluding the medical, psychological and psychotherapeutic professions. Jennifer kindly agreed to be interviewed by Lesbian and Gay News at the launch of the film (which can be viewed for free at the link below). At this point, I must declare a personal interest: firstly, because I myself appear in the film, and secondly because I am a member of the CBC staff as European special advisor.
GaryI know you are a director, but this is a new field for you. Why did you make this film?
JenniferMost of the films I have made in the past concerned assisted reproductive technologies. and in particular what is often referred to as conception on behalf of third partiesrenting wombs or buying and selling eggs and sperm to conceive children. I have focused mainly on these issues as a result of my career in paediatric nursing and also because of my strong interest in science, technology, medicine and the law, particularly the rights of women and children who are often the most harmed by these practices. Progressively, I have witnessed the shift from 'men who have children', who are actually men who have children because they buy eggs and rent wombs, to the inclusion of trans men and women who have children through assisted reproductive technologies, and finally to the inclusion of trans women who now want womb transplants. It was this that led to an increase in my interest in an area I was already involved in.
In addition, as I was heavily involved in paediatric nursing in the past, the issue of allowing children to make the medical and surgical transition was something I wanted to address in this film. Not so long ago, it would have been unthinkable for a family doctor to recommend medical or surgical transition to a child; rather, a longer-term and more holistic approach would have been taken to supporting children suffering from gender dysphoria. As with most of my films, the aim is to make the educate people and try to raise important questions and start conversations based on information and evidence and not only on opinions or ideologies - or, at worst, on inaccurate evidence.
Is there any reason that holds together the harmful practices of Third Party Assisted Reproduction and the extremism of transgender ideology that promotes the transition of children?
Third Party Assisted Reproduction (the buying and selling of eggs and sperm, and the renting of wombs) - what I often refer to as #BigFertility - is a multi-billion dollar a year global giant.
At first it was heterosexual couples struggling with infertility who needed a third party to help them have a baby. Then the men started having children and even launched an organisation, Men Having Babies. But if you know the biology of human reproduction, you will know that men need women, their ovaries and their wombs to have children. And now we are instead left with 'trans women' who want uterine transplants so that biological males can have children.
With the transing of children, #BigPharma has begun to lure children into a life of pharmaceutical dependency through puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones that do nothing but render these children permanently sterile before they are old enough to pierce their own ears without parental consent.
When these children and their parents agree to their medical and surgical "transition", they are offered the "fertility preservation'. - so, if they want, they can freeze their eggs and sperm for use after they have been made sterile. If these young girls freeze their eggs before opting for a hysterectomy, who will carry their embryos for their surrogate pregnancies later? What sperm will fertilise them? If these males freeze their sperm during transition, whose eggs will they fertilise? Who will manage these embryos? These connections between fertility, infertility and children made infertile, is the new expansion of #BigFertility. I have been writing about this topic for years and producing documentaries about it.
How did you choose the voices we hear in the film?
I thought about all the stakeholders and tried to listen and hear many of these voices. This is not an exhaustive list because the film is only fifty minutes long. But I interviewed seventeen people in total, including medical experts who oppose the transition of children and others who support it. In the film, you will meet and listen to paediatric endocrinologists, a paediatrician, a teenage psychiatrist, activists, an evolutionary biologist, some parents with children at various stages of gender dysphoria or transition, and you will also hear from the important items of detransitionerspeople who have medically and surgically transitioned and regretted their decision - so much so that they have returned to living according to the sex they were born with.
Who is this film for?
The main audience consists of parents of underage children. We wanted to talk to them first because they might have children with gender dysphoria or know other children who are dealing with this problem. Maybe their children attend school with a child who identifies as transgender. Parents are members of school councils, or PTAs, or lead girl or boy scout groups and often need to better understand the problem. Then it is the young adults, the medical staff, the media and of course the legislators.as this issue is animating a heated debate in many state and federal legislatures here in the United States, where I live.
What do you hope will be the result of this film?
As it is an educational film, it would be wonderful if the public could be more informed and able to participate in this kind of debate. Having worked in nursing for a long time, I can say that informed consent was always very important to me when talking to my patients and their parents (often my patients were too young to understand). I want to make sure that people know what are the important questions to ask, and that they get correct answers to their questions. This way they can weigh up the risks and benefits. If the people who watch this film come out of it better informed, I will be very happy. And if the laws were to change to better protect children, that would also be a wonderful and much appreciated achievement.
Do you expect trans activists to try to have the film cancelled?
It is difficult to answer, because I tend to be a very optimistic person and I want to think that this film will not be cancelled or censored, as it is quite balanced and rational. But I have witnessed what so-called trans activists have done to some of my friends and colleagues, so I have seen their utter unreasonableness when something is said or done that does not fit neatly into their parameters of conversation and civilised dialogue. The film will be broadcast and we will do everything we can to keep the film available for free streaming, even if this means constantly looking for new hosting and streaming platforms where people can watch the film.
Trans Mission: What's the Rush to Reassign Genderis available free of charge here on Vimeo or here on YouTube.
Link to original article: here translation by Angela Tacchini
