Donald Trump’s Assistant Secretary for Health today vowed he would “not stop” until the “barbaric practice” of gender surgery for children in the United States is “eradicated like the plague it is.”
Admiral Brian Christine was speaking on Thursday at Life Beyond Transition 2026 – a one-day conference bringing together the largest ever gathering of detransitioners.
Christine, a former urological surgeon, said he and the Trump administration were “working to reverse the damage that has been done to our nation’s boys and girls” and wanted to stamp out the use of “castrating chemicals and mutilating surgeries”. He told his audience “these procedures carry risks for fertility, for cardiovascular disease, bone health, and psychiatric disorders.” Christine said that between 2019 and 2023, fourteen thousand minors underwent gender surgery, which meant “fourteen thousand children were lied to. The parents of fourteen thousand children were lied to. Fourteen thousand children were harmed.”
The Assistant Secretary turned on the organisations in “the medical establishment” he considered responsible, calling the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), the Endocrine Society and the American Academy of Paediatrics “wolves in sheep’s clothing. They intended to push a social agenda, and they ignore the studies and the reports that decry sex-rejecting procedures as harmful to these vulnerable populations. This medical establishment ignores the science, and pushes treatments for paediatric gender dysphoria that often coerce parents into affirming identities to the detriment of the children involved.”
This Ain’t Science
This is a personal crusade for Christine. He addressed the detransitioners in the audience directly, telling them “I want you to know what we are talking about today has motivated me to serve.”
Christine called gender-affirming care a “warped” and “evil” ideology which “affirms no truth, and brings with it life altering consequences. Puberty-suppressing drugs, cross-sex hormones and surgeries are administered with little evidence, and little international consensus backing their use.”
He spelled out his stance: “This is not science. This is not healthcare. This is politics. This is a radical social agenda, and this is wrong.”
Christine referred to his thirty years working as a surgeon, saying “every time that I put scalpel to flesh, I knew there was a potential for complications, and the complications for mutilating [gender] surgeries can plague these children potentially for a lifetime…. the medical interventions and surgeries on gender is for children are inconsistent with widely endorsed principles of medical ethics.”
Admiral Christine used the occasion to remind his audience he had already “signed a public health message to inform healthcare providers, families, and policymakers that the evidence does not support claims that puberty-blockers, cross-sex hormones and surgeries are safe and effective treatments for paediatric gender dysphoria.” He said he would “continue to evangelise” his belief that this form of what he called “sex-rejecting” treatment was unsafe.
A Man’s Man in a Man’s Uniform
Christine said his department’s “Office for Civil Rights” had “moved to reverse a Biden administration attempt to include gender dysphoria within the definition of disability in a non-discrimination statute”. This statute “would require healthcare providers to support medical and social sex-rejecting procedures on minors, whether or not the doctor, or nurse, or pharmacist, or therapist agree with these things.” He added that “one of the most important things” his department was doing was “standing strong with President Trump in conscience protections”. This apparently means doctors, nurses, pharmacists or therapists can refuse to participate in gender-affirming care without sanction, if their conscience does not allow them.
Admiral Christine’s predecessor was a trans-identifying man called Admiral Rachel Levine. Levine lobbied WPATH to remove their recommended minimum ages for hormone treatments and surgeries, one of the most appalling acts by a public official in recent US history. WPATH caved, published their recommended minimum ages by mistake, removed them to appease Levine and then lied about why they had done so (see here – point 4).
“There’s a lot of differences between me and Rachel/Richard Levine” Christine told his audience, who booed at Levine’s name. “One is that I stand before you, a man in a man’s uniform.”
Getting all Biblical
He returned to his main theme: “This administration’s actions are supported by gold-standard science, not driven by a warped social, financial and political agenda. We recommend compassionate, competent counselling, and mental health support for these precious children. Supported by science, we speak truth. We speak a basic truth. We speak a timeless truth, and yes, I’ll say it – we speak a biblical truth: boys are boys, girls are girls, and no amount of damaging, life-altering chemicals or sex rejecting surgeries can ever change that.”
Just before Admiral Christine took to the stage I asked him to compare the pushback against gender ideology in Europe compared to the situation in the United States. He said: “I’m obviously much more familiar with what’s going on here in the US, but I think in some ways, Europe, you might say, could be ahead of us, because there has been some backtrack from some of the countries in Europe, whereas in the United States, it’s really taken the Trump administration under Secretary Kennedy to begin really this fight in earnest.”
When I asked how he thought gender ideology had become so entrenched in Western liberal democracies he replied: “I think it’s a social contagion. I don’t think epidemiology explains the dramatic increase in numbers of so-called gender dysphoria in minors… I think it’s those on the left advancing an agenda. I don’t think they really care about the kids. I think they’re more concerned with advancing their agenda.”
The Life Beyond Transition conference took place in Washington DC on 12 March 2026 and was organised by Genspect. You can read all my live tweets from today here.
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