[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 6]
[House]
[Pages 7928-7932]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          TRANSGENDER SURGERY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 6, 2015, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert) is recognized 
for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, as you know, we have had some interesting 
discussions here on the floor in recent days about transgender as a 
topic and as individuals of interest. In having talked a couple of 
times with one man who had been through a sex change operation, what he 
told me was--really, the best expert in the world on the issue of 
transgender is the former head of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins, now a 
retired diplomat, but he speaks for himself.
  Anyway, there was an article published back in 2014 that Dr. Paul 
McHugh had updated and that has been republished in the Wall Street 
Journal on May 13, 2016. It is entitled ``Transgender Surgery Isn't the 
Solution: A drastic physical change doesn't address underlying 
psychosocial troubles.''
  Since there are so many people who have opined on this subject who 
have not dealt seriously with the issue, it seemed like it would be 
helpful to read from this article that was written by what one 
transgender explained was a great article by whom he thought was the 
world's leading expert on transgender issues.

                              {time}  1930

  But Dr. Paul McHugh, who obviously is a brilliant man and obviously a 
man who cares very deeply about individuals, especially those who have 
transgender as an issue, says:
  ``The government and media alliance advancing the transgender cause 
has gone into overdrive in recent weeks. On May 30, a U.S. Department 
of Health and Human Services review board ruled that Medicare can pay 
for the `reassignment' surgery sought by the transgendered--those who 
say that they don't identify with their biological sex. Earlier last 
month Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said that he was `open' to lifting 
a ban on transgender individuals serving in the military. Time 
magazine, seeing the trend, ran a cover story for its June 9 issue 
called `The Transgender Tipping Point: America's next civil rights 
frontier.'
  ``Yet policymakers and the media are doing no favors either to the 
public or the transgendered by treating their confusions as a right in 
need of defending rather than as a mental disorder that deserves 
understanding, treatment, and prevention. This intensely felt sense of 
being transgendered constitutes a mental disorder in two respects. The 
first is that the idea of sex misalignment is simply mistaken--it does 
not correspond with physical reality. The second is that it can lead to 
grim psychological outcomes.''
  Let me insert parenthetically here into Dr. McHugh's article, having 
talked to him twice in the last couple of weeks. He was aware--and he 
pointed out that the DSM-V, the latest Diagnostic and Statistical 
Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition, evolves over time in line 
with the new scientific training and information available. It renames, 
as required, as they believe is appropriate, different conditions that 
may be diagnosed in accepted diagnoses. In the fifth edition of the 
DSM, it has gone from calling transgender a mental disorder to calling 
it a dysphoria, a gender dysphoria.
  Dysphoria basically is the opposite--it is an antonym of euphoria, 
and it basically means that someone is generally dissatisfied with 
their biological sex. And Dr. McHugh said that he thinks that 
``dysphoria'' probably is a better word than ``disorder'' because it 
makes clearer what the situation is. It is someone who is generally not 
satisfied with their biological sex.
  His article goes on, though, and says:
  ``The transgendered suffer a disorder of `assumption' like those in 
other disorders familiar to psychiatrists. With the transgendered, the 
disordered assumption is that the individual differs from what seems 
given in nature--namely one's maleness or femaleness. Other kinds of 
disordered assumptions are held by those who suffer from anorexia and 
bulimia nervosa, where the assumption that departs from physical 
reality is the belief by the dangerously thin that they are 
overweight.''
  Dr. McHugh goes on and says:
  ``With body dysmorphic disorder, an often socially crippling 
condition, the individual is consumed by the assumption `I'm ugly.' 
These disorders occur in subjects who have come to believe that some of 
their psycho-social conflicts or problems will be resolved if they can 
change the way that they appear to others. Such ideas work like ruling 
passions in their subjects' mind and tend to be accompanied by a 
solipsistic argument.''
  Dr. McHugh goes on:
  ``For the transgendered, this argument holds that one's feeling of 
`gender' is a conscious, subjective sense that, being in one's mind, 
cannot be questioned by others. The individual often seeks not just 
society's tolerance of this `personal truth' but affirmation of it. 
Here rests the support for `transgender equality,' the demands for 
government payment for medical and surgical treatments, and for access 
to all sex-based public roles and privileges.''
  Dr. McHugh makes really important points as he goes forward:
  ``With this argument, advocates for the transgendered have persuaded 
several states--including California, New Jersey, and Massachusetts--to 
pass laws barring psychiatrists, even with parental permission, from 
striving to restore natural gender feelings to a transgender minor. 
That government can intrude into parents' rights to seek help in 
guiding their children indicates how powerful these advocates have 
become.''
  He goes on:
  ``How to respond? Psychiatrists obviously must challenge the 
solipsistic concept that what is in the mind cannot be questioned. 
Disorders of consciousness, after all, represent psychiatry's domain; 
declaring them off-limits would eliminate the field.''
  We are talking about psychiatry.
  Dr. McHugh says:
  ``Many will recall how, in the 1990s, an accusation of parental sex 
abuse of children was deemed unquestionable by the solipsists of the 
`recovered memory' craze.''
  Dr. McHugh goes on and says:
  ``You won't hear it from those championing transgender equality, but 
controlled and follow-up studies reveal fundamental problems with this 
movement. When children who reported transgender feelings were tracked 
without medical or surgical treatment at both Vanderbilt University and 
London's Portman Clinic, 70%-80% of them spontaneously lost those 
feelings. Some 25% did have persisting feelings; what differentiates 
those individuals remains to be discerned.''
  As he pointed out on the air about 10 days ago, we all can recall 
girls we grew up with that were considered tomboys, who later grew up 
to be quite beautiful and quite feminine. They didn't need any liberals 
rushing in and forcing them to go in the boy's restroom because they 
identified more with what boys were doing.
  But Dr. McHugh goes on in his article, and he says:
  ``We at Johns Hopkins University--which in the 1960s was the first 
American medical center to venture into

[[Page 7929]]

`sex-reassignment surgery'--launched a study in the 1970s comparing the 
outcomes of transgendered people who had the surgery with the outcomes 
of those who did not.''
  I will insert parenthetically that I remember reading that Johns 
Hopkins medical center had been the first hospital in the United States 
to begin doing sex change operations back in the '60s. I remembered 
reading that. I never remembered reading that they ever stopped.
  But Dr. McHugh's article points out--and I am going back and reading 
from the article:
  ``Most of the surgically treated patients described themselves as 
`satisfied' by the results, but their subsequent psycho-social 
adjustments were no better than those who didn't have the surgery. And 
so at Hopkins we stopped doing sex-reassignment surgery, since 
producing a `satisfied' but still troubled patient seemed an inadequate 
reason for surgically amputating normal organs.
  ``It now appears that our long-ago decision was a wise one.''
  Well, Mr. Speaker, I never remembered reading anywhere and I don't 
recall articles talking about how Johns Hopkins said, look, we are 
having no better mental, emotional results from those who have had the 
surgery, so we are going to stop doing the surgery. This was Johns 
Hopkins; they were on the cutting edge of trying to advance gender 
change or sex change operations. They were doing those originally.
  This forward-looking, people-caring institution at Johns Hopkins 
medical center decided years ago that we may be doing more harm than 
good and we are going to stop doing sex change surgery. So no one can 
accuse them of trying to make more money--because obviously they would 
make money from the sex change operations--and not make money from 
stopping the sex change operations. But apparently those in charge at 
Johns Hopkins took rather serious the idea that doctors should first do 
no harm.
  He goes on and points out in his article:
  ``A 2011 study at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden produced the 
most illuminating results yet regarding the transgendered, evidence 
that should give advocates pause. The long-term study--up to 30 years--
followed 324 people''--so they have got hundreds in their database here 
and are following for 30 years--``who had sex-reassignment surgery. The 
study revealed that beginning about 10 years after having the surgery, 
the transgendered began to experience increasing mental difficulties. 
Most shockingly, their suicide mortality rose almost 20-fold above the 
comparable nontransgender population. This disturbing result has as yet 
no explanation but probably reflects the growing sense of isolation 
reported by the aging transgendered after surgery. The high suicide 
rate certainly challenges the surgery prescription.''
  Now, Mr. Speaker, I know there are people on the floor that are 
pushing for civil rights equality for the transgender and to let them 
go into whatever restrooms they feel like represents the gender they 
are at that particular time, but the studies have shown that when 
someone has a general dissatisfaction with their biological sex, that 
doing the surgery to make them that sex gives them 20 times more 
likelihood of committing suicide.

                              {time}  1945

  I know there is nobody on the other side of the aisle who has been 
pushing this issue that wants people to commit suicide at 20 times the 
rate of nontransgendered people, but this is where this ultimately 
goes.
  I don't believe our President wants people to commit suicide at 20 
times the rate of nontransgendered people, yet what he is urging right 
now, the best studies in the world indicate will be the outcome. What 
this President is doing in pushing people who at one point in their 
lives have a general dissatisfaction, or dysphoria, with their 
biological sex is causing more damage for these individuals down the 
road than he will be around to do anything about. It is not enough to 
say, ``I care more than you do for those who want men to go in girls 
dressing rooms and bathrooms'' when you are doing the kind of harm that 
the best studies in the world are showing has been done.
  Back to Dr. McHugh's article, he says: ``There are subgroups of the 
transgendered, and for none does `reassignment' seem apt. One group 
includes male prisoners like Pvt. Bradley Manning, the convicted 
national-security leaker who now wishes to be called Chelsea. Facing 
long sentences and the rigors of a men's prison, they have an obvious 
motive for wanting to change their sex and hence their prison. Given 
that they committed their crimes as males, they should be punished as 
such; after serving their time, they will then be free to reconsider 
their gender.
  ``Another subgroup consists of young men and women susceptible to 
suggestion from `everything is normal' sex education, amplified by 
Internet chat groups. These are the transgender subjects most like 
anorexia nervosa patients: they become persuaded that seeking a drastic 
physical change will banish their psycho-social problems. `Diversity' 
counselors in their schools, rather like cult leaders, may encourage 
these young people to distance themselves from their families and offer 
advice on rebutting arguments against having transgender surgery. 
Treatments here must begin with removing the young person from the 
suggestive environment and offering a counter-message in family 
therapy.''
  That is not me. That is what one transgendered gentleman who has had 
the sex change operation and knows more about transgender than any M.D. 
in the world, Dr. Paul McHugh. Now, Dr. McHugh, when I talked to him, 
said he thinks there are some others who know more, but they support 
his positions on what he is saying, which helped him come to these 
positions.
  But Dr. McHugh goes on: ``Then there is the subgroup of very young, 
often prepubescent children who notice distinct sex roles in the 
culture and, exploring how they fit in, begin imitating the opposite 
sex. Misguided doctors at medical centers including Boston's Children's 
Hospital have begun trying to treat this behavior by administering 
puberty-delaying hormones to render later sex change surgeries less 
onerous--even though the drugs stunt the children's growth and risk 
causing sterility. Given that close to 80 percent of such children 
would abandon their confusion and grow naturally into an adult life if 
untreated, these medical interventions come close to child abuse. A 
better way to help these children: with devoted parenting.''
  This psychiatrist says: ``At the heart of the problem is confusion 
over the nature of the transgendered. `Sex change' is biologically 
impossible. People who undergo sex reassignment surgery do not change 
from men to women or vice versa. Rather, they become feminized men or 
masculinized women. Claiming that this is a civil rights matter and 
encouraging surgical intervention is in reality to collaborate with and 
promote a mental disorder''--or mental dysphoria, if you would rather.
  Then I have this article from Walt Heyer. Having visited with Walt, I 
have eminent respect for this man who underwent a sex change operation 
from man to woman years ago. He is now in his seventies. This is his 
article published in The Daily Signal May 16 of this year.
  He says: ``President Barack Obama, the titular head of the LGBT 
movement, has added to the firestorm of confusion, misunderstanding, 
and fury surrounding the transgender bathroom debate by threatening 
schools with loss of Federal funding unless they allow students to join 
the sex-segregated restroom, locker room, and sports teams of their 
chosen gender, without regard to biological reality:
  ``I know firsthand what it is like to be a transgender person--and 
how misguided it is to think one can change gender through hormones and 
surgery.''
  Walt Heyer says: ``His action,'' talking about President Obama, 
``comes after weeks of protest against the State of North Carolina for 
its so-called anti-LGBT bathroom bill.

[[Page 7930]]

  ``As someone who underwent surgery from male to female and lived as a 
female for 8 years before returning to living as a man, I know 
firsthand what it is like to be a transgender person--and how misguided 
it is to think one can change gender through hormones and surgery.
  ``And I know that the North Carolina bill and others like it are not 
anti-LGBT.''
  He says: ``L is for lesbian. The bill is not anti-lesbian because 
lesbians have no desire to enter a stinky men's restroom. Lesbians will 
use the women's room without a second thought. So the law is not anti-
L.
  ``G is for gay. Gay men have no interest in using women's bathrooms. 
So the law is not anti-G.
  ``B is for bisexual. The B in the LGBT have never been confused about 
their gender. Theirs is also a sexual preference only that doesn't 
affect choice of restroom or locker.''
  But he says: ``The North Carolina law is not anti-T because the law 
clearly states that the appropriate restroom is the one that 
corresponds to the gender stated on the birth certificate. Therefore, a 
transgender person with a birth certificate that reads `female' uses 
the female restroom, even if the gender noted at birth was male.
  ``So, you see, the law is not anti-LGBT. What then is all the uproar 
about?''
  Walt Heyer goes on, he says: ``What has arisen is a new breed 
emerging among young people that falls outside the purview of the LGBT: 
the gender nonconformists.
  ``Gender nonconformists, who constitute a minuscule fraction of 
society, want to be allowed to designate a gender on a fluid basis, 
based on their feelings at the moment.''
  Walt Heyer says: ``I call this group `gender defiant' because they 
protest against the definition of fixed gender identities of male and 
female. The gender defiant individuals are not like traditional 
transgender or transsexual persons who struggle with gender dysphoria 
and want hormone therapy, hormone blockers, and eventually, 
reassignment surgery. The gender defiant group doesn't want to conform, 
comply, or identify with traditional gender norms of male and female. 
They want to have gender fluidity, flowing freely from one gender to 
another, by the hour or day, as they feel like it.''
  Mr. Speaker, coming from a transgender individual who had sex change 
surgery, this is quite an article.
  He goes on to say: ``Under the cover of the LGBT, the anti-gender 
faction and its supporters are using the North Carolina bathroom bill 
to light a fuse to blow up factual gender definitions.
  ``He does not grasp the biological fact that genders are not fluid, 
but fixed: male and female.
  ``Obama is championing the insanity of eliminating the traditional 
definition of gender. He does not grasp the biological fact that 
genders are not fluid, but fixed: male and female.''
  Here I would also like to insert parenthetically. This is not from 
Walt Heyer. But in talking with Dr. McHugh, who had headed up 
psychiatry for so many years at Johns Hopkins, who cares deeply about 
people who are confused over gender, he was pointing out--he brought up 
the MMPI and asked if I knew what that was. Well, I knew. It is the 
Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Index, as I recall. But it is a 
personality test, and as far as I know, it is the most complete testing 
anybody has done on personality. It has different scales in there, and 
as Dr. McHugh pointed out, scale 5 is masculine at one end, feminine at 
another end.
  Based on the questions that are asked, the MMPI score gives an 
indication on the male-female scale as to where someone is in that 
scale. It has nothing to do with biological sex. Apparently, most of us 
may have different places on that scale at different ages, and there is 
nothing abnormal about that.
  People are to be comforted and counseled, not have laws passed that 
they can't get help from their parents, they can't get help from loving 
counselors, they can't get help from psychiatrists.
  As Dr. McHugh pointed out, when these States like California and New 
Jersey pass laws that some confused minor with no biological 
indications of a problem, so the problem is all in the mind, when you 
pass laws saying you can't get counseling for what is all in the mind, 
as Dr. McHugh says sarcastically, you might as well outlaw all of 
psychiatry because what they deal with are things that have not 
presented normally. They have not presented a biological scientific 
issue.
  Going back to Walt Heyer's article, he says: ``Gender nonconformists, 
who constitute a minuscule fraction of society, want to be allowed to 
designate gender on a fluid basis, based on their feelings at the 
moment.''
  He said: ``I call this group `gender defiant' because they protest 
against the definition of fixed gender identities of male and female. 
The gender defiant individuals are not like traditional transgender or 
transsexual persons who struggle with gender dysphoria and want hormone 
therapy, hormone blockers, and eventually, reassignment. The gender 
defiant group doesn't want to conform, comply, or identify with 
traditional gender norms of male and female.''
  And I know I have read this, but this is so critical. He says: 
``Under the cover of LGBT, the anti-gender faction and its supporters 
are using the North Carolina bathroom bill to light a fuse to blow up 
factual gender definitions.''
  Now, going on: ``Using the power of his position,'' talking about our 
President, ``to influence the elimination of gender, overruling 
science, genetics, and biblical beliefs, is Obama's display of 
political power.''

                              {time}  2000

  ``One fact will remain, no matter how deep in the tank Obama goes for 
the gender nonconformists, genetics and God's design of male and 
female, no matter how repugnant that is to some, cannot be changed. 
Biological gender remains fixed no matter how many cross-gender 
hormones are taken or cosmetic surgeries are performed. No law can 
change the genetic and biblical truth of God's design. Using financial 
blackmail to achieve the elimination of gender will become Obama's ugly 
legacy.''
  Now that is from a guy who has had the surgery, who has had the 
hormones. He has been through it all. Walt Heyer has a blog. He has 
overcome his alcohol addiction. I asked him--I don't think he would 
mind me repeating--I said that we learned from the Swedish study over 
30 years, people that have had these sex change operations are 20 times 
more likely to commit suicide.
  I said: Did those thoughts enter your mind--suicidal ideations? And 
he indicated that he had tried to commit suicide. I didn't elaborate. 
This is a man that knows. And so is Dr. Paul McHugh.
  To try to make this a new civil rights issue holds these people up 
for political football. Everybody knows footballs get changed out from 
game to game. Some political football will be the new football in 
another game.
  I doubt that the people in this room that have been using transgender 
as a football will go back like the Swedish study or the Johns Hopkins 
study did and see the damage that has been done. Eighty percent, if 
left untreated, have very, very normal lives and normal mental affect 
down the road--if they are left untreated. But my friends who support 
this want to make them a political football.
  We have this article, then, from June 3. Melody Wood wrote the 
headline: 6 Men Who Disguised Themselves as Women to Access Bathrooms.
  She reports:
  ``The Obama administration has unlawfully rewritten law, meddling in 
State and local matters, and imposing bad policy on the entire Nation.
  ``Americans agree that while we should be sensitive to transgender 
individuals, others also have rights of privacy, safety, and their own 
beliefs that deserve respect and should not simply be pushed aside, 
especially when transgender persons can be accommodated in other ways.
  ``The risk to the privacy and safety of women and girls is real. 
There have been numerous cases in recent years of men either cross-
dressing or claiming to be transgender in order to access

[[Page 7931]]

women's bathrooms and locker rooms for inappropriate purposes.
  ``Here are six examples:
  ``In 2009, a sex offender named Richard Rendler was arrested for 
wearing fake breasts and a wig while loitering in a woman's restroom in 
Campbell, California, shopping center. Rendler had previously been 
arrested on charges of child molestation and indecent exposure.
  ``In 2010, Berkeley police arrested Gregorio Hernandez. Hernandez had 
disguised himself as a woman on two separate occasions to get inside a 
UC Berkeley locker room. Once in the locker room, Hernandez allegedly 
used his cell phone to photograph women.
  ``In 2013, Jason Pomare was arrested for cross-dressing in order to 
gain access to the women's restroom at a Macy's department store in 
Palmdale, California. Pomare snuck a video camera in to secretly 
videotape women while they used the restroom.
  ``In 2014, Christopher Hambrook--who faked being a transgender person 
named Jessica--was jailed in Toronto, Canada. Hambrook preyed on women 
at two Toronto shelters, and had previously preyed on other women and 
girls as young as five years old to as old as 53. Hambrook's case in 
particular shows the importance of protecting the privacy and safety of 
some of our most vulnerable citizens: the homeless and others who seek 
emergency shelter. And yet, the Obama administration recently proposed 
a rule that would impose a `gender identity' mandate here as well.
  ``In 2015, two spying instances were recorded in Virginia--one at a 
mall and one at a Walmart. Both instances involved a man in women's 
clothing who used a mirror and camera to take pictures of a mother and 
her 5-year-old daughter and a 53-year-old woman while they were in 
neighboring restroom stalls. The suspect wore a pink shirt and a long 
wig to present himself as a woman.
  ``In 2016, a man used a women's locker room at a public swimming pool 
in Washington State to undress in front of young girls who were 
changing for swim practice. When Seattle Parks and Recreation staff 
asked him to leave, the man claimed that `the law has changed and I 
have a right to be here.' The man was apparently referring to a 
Washington State rule that allows individuals to use the bathroom that 
corresponds with their gender identity. However, the man made no 
attempt to present as a woman.
  ``As these examples illustrate, there are people who will abuse 
transgender policies. Although the Obama administration wants to keep 
its focus on bathrooms, its transgender directive goes much farther and 
actually requires biological male students who identify as female to be 
granted unfettered access to women's and girls' showers at school gyms.
  ``So what are women and girls to do when a biological male wearing a 
wig and makeup walks into an open shower next to them and they are 
shocked by the intrusion? According to the administration's directive, 
`the desire to accommodate others' discomfort' is no reason at all to 
prevent transgender people from accessing the intimate facilities of 
their choice.
  ``Moreover, the directive prevents schools from requiring transgender 
people to have surgery, take hormones, have a medical diagnosis, or 
even act or dress in any particular way before having the `right' to be 
treated exactly like a person of the opposite sex.
  ``The logical effect would be to silence women and girls who might 
otherwise speak out to prevent serious crimes from happening for fear 
that they would be accused of bigotry if they make the wrong call.
  ``The interests and desires of transgender persons, especially 
adults, shouldn't be placed over the privacy and safety of women and 
girls. There are ways of accommodating transgender people with private 
facilities without endangering and silencing women who could be hurt by 
policies allowing anyone unfettered access to their lockers, showers, 
and bathrooms.''
  That is from Melody Wood.
  It also reminds me of back years ago when the issue of hate crimes 
was arising and we were going to punish people more severely based on 
what was in their minds, such as did they choose a person, a victim, 
based on their being a member of an identifiable group?
  That created a problem for me as one who has sentenced felons up to 
and including the death penalty, because from the testimony we heard 
over and over, those who used to be called sociopaths under the old 
DSM-II became antisocial personality disorder. But they knew right from 
wrong. They just chose to do wrong. And they would pick victims at 
random. They didn't really care.
  The people that testified in my court repeatedly made clear that if 
someone has this antisocial personality disorder, formerly sociopath, 
psychopath, they had less chance of being reformed and coming out of 
prison and shying away from wrongdoing. A lesser chance of reforming 
them.
  Whereas the testimony indicated in different cases that if someone 
committed an act in the heat of passion--often it was a one-time crime 
that had to be punished for its own crime's sake, but that they were 
not likely to ever commit that crime again. There were some who 
committed crimes. They were not antisocial personality, but they had 
been brought up to hate a specific group or people, and they committed 
some act or crime against them.
  I always made sure--it didn't matter whether they picked their victim 
because of sexual orientation--if they committed an assault of any 
kind, up to and including murder, I made sure they were punished 
severely for the crime they committed, because every person deserves to 
be protected from an assault.
  So hate crimes comes in. And those who chose a person based on a 
hatred they were taught, there are indications there have been some 
great successes with confrontations between them after they were 
sentenced with victims or victims' families in which the person who was 
not an antisocial personality would weep and recant and apologize and 
beg for forgiveness and never have that kind of hatred again and would 
begin associating with people, whether they were of a different race, 
creed, color, or gender. They had a better chance of being 
rehabilitated.
  Yet, the hate crime law came in. In fact, under the Federal law, if 
you convince a jury--just raise a reasonable doubt as a defendant--no, 
I didn't pick that victim because they were this, that, or the other; I 
just wanted to shoot somebody that day--if you raise a reasonable doubt 
that you may have randomly picked the victim, it is a complete defense 
to the Federal hate crime law. That is a messed up law.
  I also gave the example that, based on so many of the hate crime 
laws, you could someday--and I was called crazy and all kind of names 
for giving this example--but the example I thought many years ago that 
was appropriate, based on the hate crimes legislation, is that you 
could have a situation where a mother and her young daughter are 
standing on a street corner, somebody opens their trench coat and 
flashes the daughter, and the mother, out of that protective instinct 
they have to protect the child, hits the flasher with her purse.
  The flasher--in a lot of jurisdictions, that is a minimal 
misdemeanor--probably would never do any jail time. He might have to 
pay a fine or spend 1 day in jail. But because the woman hit him 
because of his sexual orientation toward flashing, then she is now 
guilty under many hate crime laws of committing a felony and can get 
prison time under these misguided hate crime laws. And I warned that we 
would get to this point.
  And then when I hear on the news some woman got mad when a guy came 
in dressed as a woman, scared her, and she hit him, then she gets 
arrested. This is what happens. This is the kind of miscarriage of 
justice you get when we don't base laws on facts.
  And then we have this article from Rebecca Kheel. Of course, most of 
us have heard the headlines. We know the Department of Veterans 
Affairs, or the VA, has had problems. People have been dying while 
waiting to get the treatment they needed.
  And now the VA proposes covering surgeries for transgender vets. They

[[Page 7932]]

are not even taking care of the vets when they need help, and now they 
are going to take up a procedure that Johns Hopkins says does more harm 
than good, that the best study in the world from Sweden says they are 
going to be 20 times more likely to kill themselves.
  Have we not lost enough veterans already? The VA wants to make them 
20 times more vulnerable to suicide than they already are?
  It is time to stop the nonsense. And I would submit, Mr. Speaker, 
having reviewed the information that Dr. Paul McHugh from Johns Hopkins 
provided and Walt Heyer provided and that I looked into based on their 
direction, one thing is imminently clear: the issue of transgender is 
not based on biological science, it is not based on medical science, it 
is not based on physical science, it is not based on chemical science. 
There is only one science that this whole transgender issue before the 
Congress is based on, and that is political science.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________