A Pediatrician’s Manifesto for the Modernization of Gender Medicine

A Pediatrician’s Manifesto for the Modernization of Gender Medicine

[…] This is the paraphrase of a real conversation that I overheard. I am a pediatrician specializing in the care of hospitalized children. One of the most common reasons a trans-identifying teenage female becomes hospitalized is due to attempted suicide through medication overdose. My seven years of rigorous training in medical school and pediatric residency were steeped in the principles of Modern medicine. However, I’m increasingly confronted with the sense that my profession is drifting away from its modernity. I believe medicine is being “queered,” or Postmodernized. Let me clarify.

There exist diverse metanarratives about health and healing globally. The mainstream form of allopathic medicine, typically referred to as “Western Medicine,” presumably stands in contrast to “Eastern Medicine” or other alternatives. This categorization suggests parity between “Western” and “Eastern” or “alternative” medicine, implying all these different metanarratives are equally valid. However, I would contend it is more accurate to place medicine as practiced around the world into three categories: “Premodern,” “Modern,” and “Postmodern.” The distinction should be based on underlying philosophy rather than incidental geography or ethnicity.

Examples of Premodern medicine would encompass practices such as attributing illnesses to witchcraft, consuming tiger penises to increase virility, or cannibalizing albino people’s body parts to gain health and good fortune. These practices, rooted in superstition rather than empirical evidence, were once common worldwide, including in the Western world, and they still exist in various forms today. On the other hand, Modern medicine, typically practiced at your local hospital or clinic, is a product of the Enlightenment, prioritizing reason, science, and individual sovereignty. It transcends geographical boundaries and ethnic divides, benefiting humanity globally.

Postmodern medicine seems to have a particular foothold in the West, especially in the United States, where it has become institutionalized. It is relatively new but is embedded in multiple American medical societies and medical schools. While it leverages the same technologies as Modern medicine, thereby superficially resembling it, it fundamentally seeks to dismantle Modern medicine’s underlying philosophy. While Postmodern medicine is being propagated across American medical schools through Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion bureaucracies, nothing exemplifies Postmodernity more than the gender ideology that drives the American “gender-affirming” model of care.