It has been almost four weeks since the La Crosse City Council passed an ordinance that seeks to punish disfavored speech in La Crosse, a violation of first amendment rights. On September 8, 2022, the council voted 8-4 to ban so called "conversion therapy" with minors.

At this point, the citizens of La Crosse wait for Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty (WILL) to make good on their promise to sue the city of La Crosse for passing this ordinance. Until WILL actually files a lawsuit against the city of La Crosse, no one but the plaintiff(s) can know the details of when the lawsuit will be filed. In the meantime, Save Your Rights Coalition will share several articles exploring the issues that WILL brought forth in its ten-page letter to the city of La Crosse explaining why this ordinance is unconstitutional.

For this first article, we will discuss how, according to WILL, this ordinance," ...fails to further the interest to which it is directed." (which is keeping children safe)

The La Crosse ban describes conversion therapy as counseling that, "seeks to change a person's sexual orientation or gender identity." This description seems to imply that children can be certain of their sexual orientation and gender identity at a young age. Historically and currently such children are termed as having gender dysphoria or unease with their gender. To be clear, the city of La Crosse has now prescribed how these children are to be counseled.

La Crosse County Democrat Party Chair William Garcia was one of the first to share his opinions to the world on the day after the ordinance was passed. In an interview with Rick Solum on WIZM’s La Crosse Talk PM, on September 9, 2022, Garcia stated that infants can not know their gender identity, but much older children could. He said an 8, 10, 11, and 13-year-old, often know and "have figured out" if they are gay or transgender. He also stated that transgender surgeries are reversible. He explained, "Most can be changed back, with quite a bit of cost, and maybe things would not be as good as they were before." (That does not sound like things can be reversed.) He also said that those who take hormones to change their gender can stop taking them and that after six to twelve months, their bodies would go back to normal.This explanation mirrors similar statements from institutions that claim taking a puberty blocker, is simply putting puberty "on pause" until children can know what they want to do with themselves. 

However, what Garcia did not discuss is that, according to the American College of Pediatricians(ACP), if a child were to take puberty blockers, and cross sex hormones together, the child would be at risk for a lifetime of complications including sterility, weak bones, mood disorders, seizures, and cognitive impairment. For example, the commonly used puberty blocker, Lupron, can actually cause depression, as its package insert says it can cause emotional instability. Some studies, according to ACP, show that puberty blockers cause children to become even more unhappy with their bodies, which just exacerbates gender dysphoria.

When it comes to hysterectomies, castration is considered to be a very serious surgery and is generally not given to women under 35 years old because of the emotional and physical risks involved. Yet somehow, according to both Garcia and Solum, the regret rate of transgender surgeries, which may involve cutting off a boy's penis or cutting off a young girl's breasts, can be compared to the regret rate of a knee or elbow surgery. This is an unequal comparison because while one surgery is meant to repair an injured body part, the other surgery is meant to destroy a healthy and necessary body part. It is also questionable whether a child can even give informed consent when under the age of eighteen, especially to a surgery that is considered experimental and dangerous to the child. Several times Garcia used the word, "dangerous" to describe conversion therapy. It would seem the word "dangerous" is better suited to describe the drugging and cutting regimen that transgenderism pushes young children toward.

With this ordinance, the city of La Crosse is now advocating that young children be given counseling that encourages chemical and physical castrations, and now makes it unlawful to counsel children to find comfort in their own gender. Contrary to Garcia's denials, a child who endures a transgender surgery will never be able to bring back what was once perfect in its original form. Does anyone really believe that those surgeries can be reversed? How do you put back on a penis? a set of breasts? or reinstate the ability to conceive?

Well... a trusting, impressionable child might believe that you can put Humpty Dumpty back together again.

The ten page letter written by WILL makes the point that these topics, and how to counsel people about them, are not settled science, yet the city of La Crosse is acting like it is, which is really a deprivation to the client as it limits their choice of counseling options.

WILL points out that the ordinance fails because it limits counseling that may actually help the child and advocates for counseling that can harm the children. WILL states, "...contrary to the insinuation of the ordinance, there is no one size fits all approach when a child experiences dysphoria," according to the World Professional Association for Transgender Health. Relying on multiple sources, WILL writes, "Mental health professionals disagree about the proper approach when a child experiences gender dysphoria. Some mental health professionals believe that children experiencing gender dysphoria can learn to find comfort with their biological sex and therefore support psychotherapy to help identify and address underlying causes of the dysphoria." Then, as is the case of the ordinance, some medical and psychiatric professionals believe that the best response is to "affirm" a child's perceived gender identity. Still others believe, writes WILL, "...social transitioning to a different gender identity during childhood and "affirmation" of an alternate identity by adults, can become self-reinforcing and have profound long term effects on the child's psyche and identity." Furthermore, reports WILL, "Multiple studies have found that the vast majority of children (roughly 80-90%) who experience gender dysphoria ultimately find comfort with their biological sex and cease experiencing gender dysphoria as they age - assuming that they did not transition."

The public is encouraged to read the letter from WILL and study its multiple sources which show that there are different studies on the issue of how to counsel a child with gender dysphoria.

What do you think? Should the city be able to punish counselors who provide an option for children to find comfort with their gender and only allow counseling that encourages children to chemically and physically castrate themselves at a young age? An age when children are impressionable and easily influenced by their peers, adults, the media and Hollywood?

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