Pediatrician: Here’s What Really Happens When Children ‘Transition’

October 18, 2017

WRITER

It’s one thing when adults experiencing gender dysphoria decide to “transition” to live as the other gender through hormone treatments, operations and makeovers. But what happens when kids say they’re transgender and think they’re ready for hormones that will disrupt their normal growth?

Michelle Cretella, president of the American College of Pediatricians, spent 17 years as a general pediatrician with a focus on child behavioral health. She talked about gender dysphoria on today’s show to explain what being dosed with hormones does to kids who aren’t old enough to know their own minds yet.

Schools are starting to teach students from a young age that they can easily switch from one gender to the other.

“It is outrageous; it is terrifying for these young children; it’s a lie,” Cretella said.

Here are more facets of the debate covered in this clip:

Why denying the existence of gender is truly anti-science

What hormone treatments do to kids’ bodies

Why allowing kids to go through normal, healthy puberty is the best option

How we can actually help children experiencing gender dysphoria

Listen to the full interview to hear all the details.

This article provided courtesy of TheBlaze.

GLENN: The Heritage Foundation had a talk that they had a pediatrician there. In fact, the president of the American College of Pediatricians, who has received a lot of heat because she said this about transgenderism.

VOICE: As to the studies, there are two that I'm aware of which claim that affirming your child's gender confusion is good for them, number one, it assumes that coaching a child into a fixed false belief is mentally healthy. Science doesn't allow to you assume your conclusion.

Number two, those studies are extremely small. Number three, those studies are very short-term. And number four, the control group of mentally healthy children are the siblings. Most of them are siblings of the trans-identifying child. And there's a number five: The parents were the ones evaluating the mental health of the children.

This is not science. I don't think you need to have an M.D. or a Ph.D. to know, that's not science. That's ideology masquerading as science. Chemical castration, which is what you are doing when you put any biologically normal child on puberty blockers.

GLENN: She went on and had a lot to say. And she joins us now, Dr. Michelle Cretella.

Doctor, how are you?

MICHELLE: Fine. Thank you. I'm happy to be here.

GLENN: So you had to have quite a weekend.

(laughter)

MICHELLE: I -- I'd rather -- I've been at this fighting for the truth on behalf of all children, not only the gender confused children, who are being put on toxic medications, but also for all of our children in the -- in public and private schools, who are now being taught that from preschool forward, they are being taught that you could be trapped in the wrong body.

This is outrageous. It is outrageous. It is terrifying for these young children. It's a lie.

GLENN: So -- so tell me -- tell me what your thought is on those people who feel that they are trapped in -- in the wrong body.

MICHELLE: Well, there's a degree of injustice to them. Let's even back up.

Look, when we're talking about mental health, we should all agree that, A, there is an objective physical reality that we live in. Okay. That's what science is all about. Science about the physical reality we live in.

And to be mentally healthy, at a bare minimum, your thinking and perceptions should be in line with that physical reality.

And here -- transgenderism alone, that psychology and medicine say, you can have a -- a fixed false belief. You can believe something that's contrary to genetics, physiology. You can believe something that's contrary to hard science. And still be mentally well.

That's insanity. If I go to my doctor and say, "Hi, I'm Margaret Thatcher," and you hold a gun to my head, and I still insist that I am Margaret Thatcher, well, I'm crazy. I'm delusional. And my doctor will recognize that and put me on antipsychotics. But if I go in and say, "I'm a man and I insist it, persistently, insistently, versus consistently.

Okay. Yeah. Congratulations. You're transgender. This is who you are.

This is -- it's cooperating. And my colleague and friend Dr. Paul McHugh said it best. He said, it's cooperating with mental illness. And in the case of children, I refer to it as coaching them into a mental illness. As far as I'm concerned, when children say, I'm not my biological sex, or a little boy says, I want to cut off my penis, a young woman says, I'm binding my breasts. I want a mastectomy. That's a cry for help, not a cry for hormones.

They're confused. This is a symptom. They're -- they are emotionally troubled. And it's a cry for help. Not a cry for hormones.

GLENN: Michelle, I -- I -- you know, I am of the mindset that, you know, jeez, what you want to do with your body, I don't -- I don't -- I mean, people, you know, do horrible things to their body. And I -- I think that it's a cry for help, you know, just when I see people who have put, you know, rings through their face over and over and over again. And it's their choice.

There's -- there's a difference, however, when it comes to children. And what we are -- what we are now advocating -- what our doctors are now advocating is sterilization and to -- to actually take really detrimental hormones and -- and change you forever. And you made a great point over the weekend. The American Society of Pediatrics said, you know, we shouldn't -- doctors should discourage kids from having a tattoo because it's permanent and it's scarring.

And yet they'll give a child without parental permission a double mastectomy.

MICHELLE: Right. So you raise several excellent points. Number one, yes, adults -- adults have a maturity, both experiential maturity and cognitive maturity that children and teenagers do not have. This isn't just known through common sense and -- I mean, any -- any mother, school teacher, father, grandparent, knows this. Shakespeare knew it. Okay?

Children are not little adults. And teenagers and adolescents do crazy things. Neuroscience has now proven it. We know this through functional brain imaging, that the risk center and the control -- the frontal lobes are the portions of the brain that control judgment rebuke risk assessment, and self-control. Those don't mature until the early 20s.

So as you said, if we're talking about an adult who is convinced that they are thoroughly unhappy. They believe they're the opposite sex. I still consider that a tragedy.

But if they go forth and they're going to pay out of their own pocket for these surgeries and these hormones because they and the physicians they've consulted think this is all that's left for them, as a society, okay. Okay. I can see that.

But what the College of Pediatricians and I are arguing is specifically what you said. These are children. These are children who need protection and guidance and authentic mental health.

And what's even more important, we know already that the vast majority of young children, up to 95 percent, who are supported through natural puberty, up to 95 percent, certainly well over 75 percent, will accept their biological sex by young adulthood.

So, you know, as you said, to put them on puberty blockers, plus the cross-sex hormones together, if you've never allowed them to mature enough through puberty, you are permanently sterilizing them. A child at age 11, even a child, a teenager cannot possibly comprehend what it means to be permanently sterile.

The same thing with getting a double mastectomy. The same thing -- when you go on these hormones, your risk -- it elevates risk for heart disease. Hypertension or high blood pressure. Strokes. Cancers.

This is crazy. It is absolutely crazy to put children at risk on these high-risk medications, when the vast majority would simply outgrow it with support through natural puberty.

GLENN: I want to come back. We have to take a break. But I want to come back and talk to you.

Because there's a real crisis of suicide -- and I believe it's a loss of meaning in our culture. And what is being pushed in the schools, I think is extraordinarily dangerous. And I want to further that conversation with you, when we continue.

STU: Back with more with Dr. Michelle Cretella here in just a moment. She's president of the American College of Pediatricians. You can follow them on Twitter. @ACPeds.

STU: Dr. Michelle Cretella, President of the American College of Pediatricians. Joins us.

GLENN: She was speaking at the Heritage Foundation. She gave quite a stirring talk and caused a lot of controversy online. I can't imagine the -- the hell that your life is, quite honestly. Can you -- can you tell us, first, Michelle, the difference between sex and gender. What's the difference between sex and gender?

MICHELLE: Sure. Sex, quite simply, is biologically determined at fertilization by genetics. Any -- any unborn child who has a functioning Y chromosome is going to develop into a male. And if that unborn child is missing a functional Y chromosome, the child develops into a female. There's nothing -- now, there's nothing in between.

The body declares our sex.

GLENN: Right.

MICHELLE: It's there in our body.

GLENN: Right.

MICHELLE: Now, gender has essentially become a political -- just a political term.

GLENN: Right. When I was growing up, there was -- gender and sex were the same.

MICHELLE: Were the same, yes, exactly.

GLENN: So I just wanted to make sure that I hadn't missed anything along the way, that somebody was taking terms and changing them. Okay.

MICHELLE: Well, this is what happened. Prior to the 1950s, gender was not anywhere to be found in the medical literature. But in the 1950s, that's when sexologists, like John Money and Harry Benjamin were wanting to justify sex reassignment surgery, so-called.

And they needed -- they knew they couldn't -- that you can't change sex. Surgery and chemicals cannot change sex. They knew this.

So they had to invent a term to justify their profiting from this surgery. And so they grabbed on to gender and said, "Oh, gender for us means the social expression of an internal sex identity." And that is what is being put forth now, without any -- it's -- it's made up. There's no such thing as an innate sex identity.

GLENN: Okay. So -- so -- here's the real problem. At seven years old, you know, in my faith, you choose to be a member of our faith at what we call the age of accountability at eight years old. However, there's a lot of people that make a choice early on that, I'm a Baptist. I'm a Catholic. I'm an atheist. I'm whatever.

MICHELLE: Right.

GLENN: And they change.

MICHELLE: Right.

GLENN: No decision that is permanent should be made by a 7-year-old, under any circumstance, or, quite honestly, there would be a lot of us that would be walking around that wanted at seven to be a kitty cat or Batman.

MICHELLE: Right. Right. Exactly.

And that's what I tried to make -- you know, in this debate, we're debating physical reality, the physical reality of sex, versus identity. And identity refers to thinking and perceiving which is in the mind, and that is changeable, okay?

As far as gender identity, meaning recognizing your own sex, the -- the gender experts, so-called, are correct, that most children correctly identify themselves as boys or girls by age three. But what the experts are not saying, is that many children, ages seven and below, do not understand that sex is constant and permanent and stable.

In other words, some seven-year-olds actually believe -- if they watch a man put on a dress and makeup, will actually think, oh, he just became a woman.

So cognitively speaking, it is a process of development. And because of -- that's why it's so damaging, to have three-year-olds being read to by drag queens, particularly when the drag queens are reading these ridiculous gender-bending picture books to them. It is confusing and will derail the normal psychological and cognitive development of those preschool children.

STU: Lifelong decisions should not be made while viewing Peppa Pig is what you're saying?

MICHELLE: Lifelong decisions should not be made by children.

STU: Right.

MICHELLE: Even teenagers. I mean, adolescence is full of changeability.

GLENN: Okay. Hold on for just a second. I want to continue our conversation in just a second. With Dr. Michelle Cretella. She's the president of the American College of Pedestrians. We're going to talk a little bit about what your kids are being taught in school, and how to talk to them about it, coming up.

Antifa isn’t “leaderless” — It’s an organized machine of violence

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The mob rises where men of courage fall silent. The lesson from Portland, Chicago, and other blue cities is simple: Appeasing radicals doesn’t buy peace — it only rents humiliation.

Parts of America, like Portland and Chicago, now resemble occupied territory. Progressive city governments have surrendered control to street militias, leaving citizens, journalists, and even federal officers to face violent anarchists without protection.

Take Portland, where Antifa has terrorized the city for more than 100 consecutive nights. Federal officers trying to keep order face nightly assaults while local officials do nothing. Independent journalists, such as Nick Sortor, have even been arrested for documenting the chaos. Sortor and Blaze News reporter Julio Rosas later testified at the White House about Antifa’s violence — testimony that corporate media outlets buried.

Antifa is organized, funded, and emboldened.

Chicago offers the same grim picture. Federal agents have been stalked, ambushed, and denied backup from local police while under siege from mobs. Calls for help went unanswered, putting lives in danger. This is more than disorder; it is open defiance of federal authority and a violation of the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause.

A history of violence

For years, the legacy media and left-wing think tanks have portrayed Antifa as “decentralized” and “leaderless.” The opposite is true. Antifa is organized, disciplined, and well-funded. Groups like Rose City Antifa in Oregon, the Elm Fork John Brown Gun Club in Texas, and Jane’s Revenge operate as coordinated street militias. Legal fronts such as the National Lawyers Guild provide protection, while crowdfunding networks and international supporters funnel money directly to the movement.

The claim that Antifa lacks structure is a convenient myth — one that’s cost Americans dearly.

History reminds us what happens when mobs go unchecked. The French Revolution, Weimar Germany, Mao’s Red Guards — every one began with chaos on the streets. But it wasn’t random. Today’s radicals follow the same playbook: Exploit disorder, intimidate opponents, and seize moral power while the state looks away.

Dismember the dragon

The Trump administration’s decision to designate Antifa a domestic terrorist organization was long overdue. The label finally acknowledged what citizens already knew: Antifa functions as a militant enterprise, recruiting and radicalizing youth for coordinated violence nationwide.

But naming the threat isn’t enough. The movement’s financiers, organizers, and enablers must also face justice. Every dollar that funds Antifa’s destruction should be traced, seized, and exposed.

AFP Contributor / Contributor | Getty Images

This fight transcends party lines. It’s not about left versus right; it’s about civilization versus anarchy. When politicians and judges excuse or ignore mob violence, they imperil the republic itself. Americans must reject silence and cowardice while street militias operate with impunity.

Antifa is organized, funded, and emboldened. The violence in Portland and Chicago is deliberate, not spontaneous. If America fails to confront it decisively, the price won’t just be broken cities — it will be the erosion of the republic itself.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

URGENT: Supreme Court case could redefine religious liberty

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The state is effectively silencing professionals who dare speak truths about gender and sexuality, redefining faith-guided speech as illegal.

This week, free speech is once again on the line before the U.S. Supreme Court. At stake is whether Americans still have the right to talk about faith, morality, and truth in their private practice without the government’s permission.

The case comes out of Colorado, where lawmakers in 2019 passed a ban on what they call “conversion therapy.” The law prohibits licensed counselors from trying to change a minor’s gender identity or sexual orientation, including their behaviors or gender expression. The law specifically targets Christian counselors who serve clients attempting to overcome gender dysphoria and not fall prey to the transgender ideology.

The root of this case isn’t about therapy. It’s about erasing a worldview.

The law does include one convenient exception. Counselors are free to “assist” a person who wants to transition genders but not someone who wants to affirm their biological sex. In other words, you can help a child move in one direction — one that is in line with the state’s progressive ideology — but not the other.

Think about that for a moment. The state is saying that a counselor can’t even discuss changing behavior with a client. Isn’t that the whole point of counseling?

One‑sided freedom

Kaley Chiles, a licensed professional counselor in Colorado Springs, has been one of the victims of this blatant attack on the First Amendment. Chiles has dedicated her practice to helping clients dealing with addiction, trauma, sexuality struggles, and gender dysphoria. She’s also a Christian who serves patients seeking guidance rooted in biblical teaching.

Before 2019, she could counsel minors according to her faith. She could talk about biblical morality, identity, and the path to wholeness. When the state outlawed that speech, she stopped. She followed the law — and then she sued.

Her case, Chiles v. Salazar, is now before the Supreme Court. Justices heard oral arguments on Tuesday. The question: Is counseling a form of speech or merely a government‑regulated service?

If the court rules the wrong way, it won’t just silence therapists. It could muzzle pastors, teachers, parents — anyone who believes in truth grounded in something higher than the state.

Censored belief

I believe marriage between a man and a woman is ordained by God. I believe that family — mother, father, child — is central to His design for humanity.

I believe that men and women are created in God’s image, with divine purpose and eternal worth. Gender isn’t an accessory; it’s part of who we are.

I believe the command to “be fruitful and multiply” still stands, that the power to create life is sacred, and that it belongs within marriage between a man and a woman.

And I believe that when we abandon these principles — when we treat sex as recreation, when we dissolve families, when we forget our vows — society fractures.

Are those statements controversial now? Maybe. But if this case goes against Chiles, those statements and others could soon be illegal to say aloud in public.

Faith on trial

In Colorado today, a counselor cannot sit down with a 15‑year‑old who’s struggling with gender identity and say, “You were made in God’s image, and He does not make mistakes.” That is now considered hate speech.

That’s the “freedom” the modern left is offering — freedom to affirm, but never to question. Freedom to comply, but never to dissent. The same movement that claims to champion tolerance now demands silence from anyone who disagrees. The root of this case isn’t about therapy. It’s about erasing a worldview.

The real test

No matter what happens at the Supreme Court, we cannot stop speaking the truth. These beliefs aren’t political slogans. For me, they are the product of years of wrestling, searching, and learning through pain and grace what actually leads to peace. For us, they are the fundamental principles that lead to a flourishing life. We cannot balk at standing for truth.

Maybe that’s why God allows these moments — moments when believers are pushed to the wall. They force us to ask hard questions: What is true? What is worth standing for? What is worth dying for — and living for?

If we answer those questions honestly, we’ll find not just truth, but freedom.

The state doesn’t grant real freedom — and it certainly isn’t defined by Colorado legislators. Real freedom comes from God. And the day we forget that, the First Amendment will mean nothing at all.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Glenn Beck joins Megyn Kelly LIVE — One night ONLY in Fort Worth!

Get ready for sparks to fly. For the first time in years, Glenn will come face-to-face with Megyn Kelly — and this time, he’s the one in the hot seat. On October 25, 2025, at Dickies Arena in Fort Worth, Texas, Glenn joins Megyn on her “Megyn Kelly Live Tour” for a no-holds-barred conversation that promises laughs, surprises, and maybe even a few uncomfortable questions.

What will happen when two of America’s sharpest voices collide under the spotlight? Will Glenn finally reveal the major announcement he’s been teasing on the radio for weeks? You’ll have to be there to find out.

This promises to be more than just an interview — it’s a live showdown packed with wit, honesty, and the kind of energy you can only feel if you are in the room. Tickets are selling fast, so don’t miss your chance to see Glenn like you’ve never seen him before.

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What our response to Israel reveals about us

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I have been honored to receive the Defender of Israel Award from Prime Minister Netanyahu.

The Jerusalem Post recently named me one of the strongest Christian voices in support of Israel.

And yet, my support is not blind loyalty. It’s not a rubber stamp for any government or policy. I support Israel because I believe it is my duty — first as a Christian, but even if I weren’t a believer, I would still support her as a man of reason, morality, and common sense.

Because faith isn’t required to understand this: Israel’s existence is not just about one nation’s survival — it is about the survival of Western civilization itself.

It is a lone beacon of shared values in the Middle East. It is a bulwark standing against radical Islam — the same evil that seeks to dismantle our own nation from within.

And my support is not rooted in politics. It is rooted in something simpler and older than politics: a people’s moral and historical right to their homeland, and their right to live in peace.

Israel has that right — and the right to defend herself against those who openly, repeatedly vow her destruction.

Let’s make it personal: if someone told me again and again that they wanted to kill me and my entire family — and then acted on that threat — would I not defend myself? Wouldn’t you? If Hamas were Canada, and we were Israel, and they did to us what Hamas has done to them, there wouldn’t be a single building left standing north of our border. That’s not a question of morality.

That’s just the truth. All people — every people — have a God-given right to protect themselves. And Israel is doing exactly that.

My support for Israel’s right to finish the fight against Hamas comes after eighty years of rejected peace offers and failed two-state solutions. Hamas has never hidden its mission — the eradication of Israel. That’s not a political disagreement.

That’s not a land dispute. That is an annihilationist ideology. And while I do not believe this is America’s war to fight, I do believe — with every fiber of my being — that it is Israel’s right, and moral duty, to defend her people.

Criticism of military tactics is fair. That’s not antisemitism. But denying Israel’s right to exist, or excusing — even celebrating — the barbarity of Hamas? That’s something far darker.

We saw it on October 7th — the face of evil itself. Women and children slaughtered. Babies burned alive. Innocent people raped and dragged through the streets. And now, to see our own fellow citizens march in defense of that evil… that is nothing short of a moral collapse.

If the chants in our streets were, “Hamas, return the hostages — Israel, stop the bombing,” we could have a conversation.

But that’s not what we hear.

What we hear is open sympathy for genocidal hatred. And that is a chasm — not just from decency, but from humanity itself. And here lies the danger: that same hatred is taking root here — in Dearborn, in London, in Paris — not as horror, but as heroism. If we are not vigilant, the enemy Israel faces today will be the enemy the free world faces tomorrow.

This isn’t about politics. It’s about truth. It’s about the courage to call evil by its name and to say “Never again” — and mean it.

And you don’t have to open a Bible to understand this. But if you do — if you are a believer — then this issue cuts even deeper. Because the question becomes: what did God promise, and does He keep His word?

He told Abraham, “I will bless those who bless you, and curse those who curse you.” He promised to make Abraham the father of many nations and to give him “the whole land of Canaan.” And though Abraham had other sons, God reaffirmed that promise through Isaac. And then again through Isaac’s son, Jacob — Israel — saying: “The land I gave to Abraham and Isaac I give to you and to your descendants after you.”

That’s an everlasting promise.

And from those descendants came a child — born in Bethlehem — who claimed to be the Savior of the world. Jesus never rejected His title as “son of David,” the great King of Israel.

He said plainly that He came “for the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” And when He returns, Scripture says He will return as “the Lion of the tribe of Judah.” And where do you think He will go? Back to His homeland — Israel.

Tamir Kalifa / Stringer | Getty Images

And what will He find when He gets there? His brothers — or his brothers’ enemies? Will the roads where He once walked be preserved? Or will they lie in rubble, as Gaza does today? If what He finds looks like the aftermath of October 7th, then tell me — what will be my defense as a Christian?

Some Christians argue that God’s promises to Israel have been transferred exclusively to the Church. I don’t believe that. But even if you do, then ask yourself this: if we’ve inherited the promises, do we not also inherit the land? Can we claim the birthright and then, like Esau, treat it as worthless when the world tries to steal it?

So, when terrorists come to slaughter Israelis simply for living in the land promised to Abraham, will we stand by? Or will we step forward — into the line of fire — and say,

“Take me instead”?

Because this is not just about Israel’s right to exist.

It’s about whether we still know the difference between good and evil.

It’s about whether we still have the courage to stand where God stands.

And if we cannot — if we will not — then maybe the question isn’t whether Israel will survive. Maybe the question is whether we will.

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