CNN Tells It Like It Isn’t

We really need the independent media to tell the truth

I like looking at the way the “free press” and mainstream media in general cover sex and gender issues. Rachel Maddow said yesterday that the free independent media tell the truth. Do they? Today I want to focus on CNN. Let’s look at the way CNN covered the executive order halting federal funding for pediatric gender medicine in an article on its website last week. I’ll warn you beforehand. I looked for truth and didn’t find much. It’s pretty disturbing. I’ll give you the entire article interspersed with my comments.

“Trump signs order to block federal support for minors’ gender transitions”

Alejandra Jaramillo and Jen Christensen [and Jack Forrest], CNN —

“President Donald Trump signed an executive order Tuesday to end federal support for medical procedures aimed at altering sex or gender that involve surgical interventions or the use of puberty blockers or sex hormones in those under 19 years old.”

Comments: “altering sex or gender” makes no sense. It is not possible to alter a person’s sex, and since “gender” here appears to refer to the person’s “identity,” it is not clear how drugs and surgery can alter it. The reference is to drugs or cosmetic surgery that change the body in ways that mimic the appearance of the opposite sex. The media seldom acknowledge this or even note that it is controversial point.

“‘Accordingly, it is the policy of the United States that it will not fund, sponsor, promote, assist, or support the so-called ‘transition’ of a child from one sex to another, and it will rigorously enforce all laws that prohibit or limit these destructive and life-altering procedures,’ the order states.”

“The order directs the secretary of health and human services to ‘take all appropriate actions’ to end the use of gender-affirming care for minors, including actions that could involve Medicare, Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act. It also instructs HHS to withdraw its guidance on gender-affirming care and patient privacy.”

Comments: CNN uses the term “gender-affirming care.” This euphemism is common in the “transition” industry. However, it is inaccurate and confusing. It is not “care” to administer powerful, harmful drugs to a minor: drugs that are used to treat advanced prostate cancer, endometriosis and (temporarily) for precocious puberty, where it also causes numerous harmful side-effects. These drugs have been described as having effects too cruel to prescribe to sex offenders. The phrase “gender-affirming” sounds like a loving, caring response, whereas most of these children are distressed and have numerous comorbidities that require attention and care. A better phrase is “pediatric gender medicine.”

“Medicine and surgery can be used in the broader practice known as gender-affirming care, but such interventions are typically reserved for adults. International guidelines do not recommend medical or surgical intervention before transgender children reach puberty. Even for older teens and adults, surgery is relatively rare, research shows.”

Comments: The EO is about pediatric interventions. CNN refers to “transgender children” as if everyone agrees that some children are transgender, that everyone knows what that means, and as if these children can be distinguished from other children (they can’t). Surgery is not rare in the US in older teens (please consult the figures for the surgeons Joanna Olson-Kennedy and Sidhbh Gallagher). Also, check out the thousands of girls and young women raising funds on GoFundMe for “top surgery” – a double mastectomy.

“The broader practice of gender-affirming care can also include counseling for the individual and for the family at any age. It is meant to help people who are transgender, meaning they identify with a gender that is different than one assigned at birth, or people who identify as gender-diverse, with a gender expression that doesn’t strictly match society’s traditional ideas about gender.”

Comments: The EO refers to medical procedures: surgical interventions or the use of puberty blockers or sex hormones. Why is CNN referring to counseling? CNN refers to “people who are transgender,” this time explaining this means “they identify with a different gender than one assigned at birth.” But nothing is “assigned at birth.” Sex, not gender, is observed either in utero or at birth, and then recorded. Then the article refers to “people who identify as gender diverse, with a gender expression that doesn’t strictly match society’s traditional ideas about gender.” What is this? Are we back in the 1950s? I certainly have a “a gender expression that doesn’t strictly match society’s traditional ideas about gender.” When I last checked, being a “masculine” woman or a “feminine” man was fine and dandy. You don’t have to “identify” as anything to just be yourself.

“This multidisciplinary approach is a medically necessary and scientific evidence-based practice that can help a person safely transition from their assigned gender — the one a clinician assigned them at birth, based mostly on anatomic characteristics — to their affirmed gender — the gender by which a person wants to be known.”

Comments: Oh, CNN: “scientific evidence-based practice”? You thought we wouldn’t notice this baloney? The supposed benefits of puberty blockers have been disproven by every systematic review – including the ones hidden by WPATH and Olson-Kennedy because the results were inconvenient. And again we get the “gender assigned at birth” spiel. The “gender by which a person wants to be known” alludes to a fantasy. It is a cruel fantasy that has misled tens of thousands of children and their parents.

“For children, gender-affirming care is defined by the American Academy of Pediatrics as developmentally appropriate, nonjudgmental treatment that’s provided in a safe clinical space. The care is individualized and based on peer-reviewed scientific studies that show its effectiveness.”

Comments: Now we get the appeal to authority. Everyone who has been paying attention knows that the AAP currently stands accused of violating consumer protection laws by disseminating false information about puberty blockers. The phrase “safe clinical space” is jargon that reinforces patients’ sense of being under siege. The final sentence in that paragraph is the opposite of the truth. Systematic reviews show that the only way in which puberty blockers are effective is that they do actually block puberty. In fact, apologists for these interventions such as Annelou de Vries and Simona Giordano have recently said that we are wrong to expect they can do anything else: the kids want them and that is enough!

“Major mainstream medical associations — including the American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the Endocrine Society, the American Psychological Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry — have affirmed the practice of gender-affirming care and agree that it’s clinically appropriate care that can provide lifesaving treatment for children and adults.”

Comments: More appeal to authority. The Cass Review has shown that all these bodies quote each other in a circular fashion, giving the appearance of unanimity and settled science. That is bad enough: but the most pernicious word here is “lifesaving.” It is based on the dangerous notion that children who are not given puberty blockers are likely to kill themselves. It is completely false. In the UK, the Government Advisor on Suicide Prevention has several times admonished people who spread this irresponsible lie.

“However, Monday’s order condemns gender-affirming care, saying, “Across the country today, medical professionals are maiming and sterilizing a growing number of impressionable children under the radical and false claim that adults can change a child’s sex through a series of irreversible medical interventions.”

“The executive order directs federal agencies to withdraw policies based on World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) guidance, which the order claims lacks scientific credibility, although these guidelines are considered by experts in this practice of medicine to be the gold standard around the world.”

Comments: The “gold standard!” This would be truly hilarious if it were not that parents and kids take it seriously. The journalist passes over (hasn’t read?) the damaging disclosures in the WPATH Files and the meticulous details in the amicus curiae brief submitted by the Attorney-General for Alabama to the US Supreme Court in the Skrmetti case. WPATH has been thoroughly discredited. It is an activist group that protects the financial interests of clinicians working in this field and its recommendations are worthless. Note also the word “experts.” It means: those who have plenty of experience working in the “transition” industry.

“The director of the Office of Personnel Management is also ordered to exclude coverage for gender-affirming care for minors from the 2026 plan year for Federal Employee Health Benefits and Postal Service Health Benefits. The executive order also directs the secretary of defense to begin regulatory steps to exclude coverage of the medical interventions for minors from TRICARE, the military’s health program.”

“The order also directs the Department of Justice to investigate states that protect access to the procedures and “review” the enforcement of the US legal code that criminalizes female genital mutilation on minors.”

“The order outlines measures for tracking the progress of these directives.”

“Twenty-six states have passed bans on gender-affirming health care for transgender children and teenagers, according to a CNN analysis of data from the Movement Advancement Project, a nonprofit think tank that advocates for LGBTQ rights.”

Comments: It is debatable whether you can advocate for “LGBTQ rights.” In my view, the rights and interests of LGB people are largely incompatible with the demands of TQ+ people. That is gradually being recognized, as more and more people revert to saying “LGB.” All organizations that claim to advocate for “LGBTQ+ rights” actually focus on TQ+ demands. This discrepancy is never mentioned in the left-of-center media.

“Last year, an extensive but controversial research review in the UK called into question the use of puberty-delaying medications, saying that the rationale for early puberty suppression was “unclear” and that any benefit for mental health was supported by “weak evidence.” The review — known as the Cass Review for Dr. Hilary Cass, the pediatrician who conducted it — has prompted providers in the UK to scale back their use of the treatment. Cass had no experience with gender-affirming care, and the review’s methodology has come under under sharp criticism from some scholars and practitioners.”

Comments: Whoa! Hilary Cass is a leading pediatrician and she was chosen for this mammoth task precisely because she could approach it with clinical expertise but without prejudice. She held meetings with over 1,000 people, including trans-identifying children, and commissioned seven peer-reviewed systematic reviews from a university team. Her credentials and those of her research team are impeccable. The review has been attacked by those with a vested interest (financial and/or ideological) in this field. A recent article analyses these attacks and reveals the glaring errors in them.(1)

1. See https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0092623X.2025.2455133

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I am sorry for people who think media like CNN “tell the truth” on matters of sex and gender. There is not the remotest attempt here at impartial journalism: it’s written entirely in the language of the “transition” industry, for which all those running the 100-odd pediatric gender clinics in the US, or dispensing testosterone at Planned Parenthood clinics, as well as all the surgeons, endocrinologists and psychologists who are profiting from the multiple mental health problems of “gender-distressed” children, are very grateful, I’m sure. I will get to NPR another day. They are no better when it comes to sex and gender – it’s all propaganda.

If you’re listening, Rachel Maddow – one last point. Since you are so passionate about preserving and promoting the independent media – and make no mistake, I’m right with you there – why not get them to start living up to the standard of “high quality, gold star, independent” journalism that you describe when they write about sex and gender. And bite the bullet. Do it yourself.

Because if the “free, independent” media display such glaring bias, and misrepresent the facts so flagrantly when it comes to pediatric gender medicine, how do you expect the public to trust them about anything else?