Finland Pediatric Expert Calls out American Doctors for Using Fear of Kid's Suicide to Convince Parents of Gender-Affirming Treatments

A top transgender treatment expert from Finland slammed the disinformation being spread about kids going through gender confusion and called out doctors in America who are using suicidal tendency reasons to convince parents about gender-affirming treatments for their children.

Dr. Riittakerttu Kaltiala is the chief psychiatrist of one of Finland's two government-approved pediatric centers. She is also the leading expert on pediatric gender medicine in their country. She knows gender medicine, as Tablet described.

Years prior, she administered gender-affirming treatments to patients who met restrictive requirements. However, when she noticed a significant surge of adolescent patients in the 2010s, she suddenly doubted that gender-affirming treatments were the solution to the gender confusion problems of the youth.

The expert informs the public that 80 percent of teens who question their gender and experience confusion accept who they are if they do not receive abrupt medical intervention.

She further emphasized that "far too little" is known about the current surge of gender dysphoria in the world today. Thus, offering and allowing life-altering treatments to children is not the way to go.

Risk of suicide, unjustified

The doctor pointed out in a recent interview with the Helsingin Sanoma, a Finnish newspaper, that there is overwhelming evidence showing how the desire to transition from one gender to another spiked among female teenagers with high exposure to social media.

Further, she called out American physicians who often take advantage of parents' fear of their children committing suicide and use this as a "weapon" to pressure and persuade them to say yes to the necessity of gender-affirming treatments. She described it as "purposeful disinformation, and spreading it is irresponsible," Daily Mail reported.

"It is not justified to tell the parents of young people identifying as transgender that a young person is at risk of suicide without medical treatments and that the danger can be alleviated with gender reassignment," Kaltiala declared.

Last year, the doctor told the Florida Board of Medicine and Florida Board of Osteopathic Medicine that there is no evidence to support that allowing teens who are experiencing gender dysphoria for the first time to go through gender-affirming treatments can be a solution to the problem.

Her findings are utilized as a basis for treatment in most of Europe, yet have a "stark contrast" to how the United States approaches gender dysphoria and treatments.

Read also: Utah Lawmakers Continue to Limit Medical Options for Transgender Youth

Parents are cautioned

She further said in her interview that the kind of gender-affirming treatments the United States is administering to its youth more likely aggravate the problems that the patients are experiencing rather than treating them.

Recent statistics by Komodo Health showed there were already 42,000 children and teens nationwide diagnosed with gender dysphoria in 2021, a 122 percent increase from 2017.

According to the New York Post, Kaltiala also warned parents that using their children's preferred names or pronouns is as severe as altering their bodies. The action would confirm their thoughts that something is wrong with their body.

Thus, conforming to their new names or pronouns is "harmless," as society says it to be, or a "neutral act" but is also counted as an intervention to influence the children and the teens, giving off the message that they are taking on the right path.

Related Article: Gender Dysphoria: A Lookout For People With Autism