How ‘Compassion’ is Pushing Child Abuse

Photo Courtesy: January Littlejohn via Instagram

One of the most devastating wars going on in this decade is the stealth attack on the hearts, minds and bodies of children. It’s entering schools and destroying families based on the lie that a child can become the opposite sex, and it will make their problems go away. What’s fueling this is often well-meaning people (mostly women) who are fooled by this lie in the name of ‘compassion’.   

Here’s what happened to the daughter of January Littlejohn: “What the school did by blindly affirming a trans identity was not compassion. It was affirmation of her self-loathing. It reinforced the belief that something was fundamentally wrong with my daughter’s body and cheered her along a dangerous medical pathway.” 

Thank you, January, for writing this week’s blog to help other parents and children escape this too-common abuse. The more people know the Truth, the better we can truly Love. - Kim 

We’re Working to Protect Children and Families From Gender Ideology. Come Join the Fight 

Back in 2020, I had never even heard the term “gender ideology.” I had no idea that this pseudoscience had already infiltrated schools, universities, social media, my own professional field of counseling, and even our medical and mental health institutions. I assumed that anything involving children, mental health, and life-altering decisions would be approached with extreme caution. 

I was wrong. 

In September of that year, our daughter told me after school she had a meeting with school officials, and they asked her which restroom she preferred to use. She was thirteen years old. 

Alarmed, I immediately contacted the school. I was told by both the guidance counselor and the vice principal that they could not provide me with any information about the meeting. I was informed that “by law,” my daughter had to be the one to authorize my notification or participation. In other words, school officials had asked my thirteen-year-old child for permission to honor—or deny—my parental rights. 

After weeks of back-and-forth with the school district, we learned the full scope of what had occurred during this secret meeting. Our daughter’s middle school had created a six-page “Transgender/Gender Nonconforming Support Plan” with our daughter, without our knowledge or consent. This social transition plan was developed behind closed doors with three school officials: the guidance counselor, the vice principal, and a social worker I had never met. 

They asked her questions that would absolutely impact her safety, like which restroom and locker room she preferred to use and even which sex she preferred to room with on overnight field trips.  

Equally disturbing, the plan explicitly directed school staff to use my daughter’s birth name when communicating with us as parents, while using a different name at school. It instructed staff to conceal from us that the meeting had ever taken place. This was not accidental. It was intentional deception. We quickly realized what happened to our family was not an isolated incident. These secret social transition policies were in schools all over the U.S., even in Arizona.  

When parents are excluded from decisions affecting their child’s health and well-being at school, it sends a clear message to the child: your parents’ authority no longer matters. It is a form of parental alienation and created a devastating wedge between us and our daughter. The school’s actions communicated that she needed to be protected from us—not by us. 

Shortly after this social transition occurred, her mental health spiraled. She became increasingly withdrawn, anxious, and depressed. The very institution claiming to support her had accelerated her distress and made the people who loved her most, her parents, appear to be the enemy. 

Socially transitioning a child is not neutral or benign. It is widely recognized as the first step toward medical transition. It shapes a child’s self-conception and often leads to puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and irreversible surgeries like double mastectomies. Schools are grossly unqualified to facilitate this psychosocial intervention—especially without parental involvement. 

What the school did by blindly affirming a trans identity was not compassion. It was affirmation of her self-loathing. It reinforced the belief that something was fundamentally wrong with my daughter’s body and cheered her along a dangerous medical pathway. 

The evidence base for so-called “gender-affirming care” for minors is very low quality. Long-term outcomes are largely unknown. Many European countries have reversed course, restricting these interventions due to safety concerns. Yet in the United States major medical associations still assure families that the science is settled and that social and medical interventions are safe and evidence-based. 

This narrative ignores critical realities. First, there is strong evidence to suggest that the vast majority of children will desist or resolve  their distress if not socially or medically transitioned. Furthermore, most children presenting with distress over their sex have co-occurring mental health issues. Many are on the autism spectrum. Anxiety, depression, trauma, and eating disorders are common. The sharp increase in mostly teenage girls suddenly adopting trans identities also points to a social contagion. Instead of addressing these underlying issues, distress is normalized, promoted, and encouraged through an affirmation-only model that ignores evidence and reality itself. 

This is not ethical medicine and our current administration is taking steps to correct course and protect children. The recent HHS report on pediatric sex-rejecting procedures highlights the long-term health risks of puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and surgical interventions that were largely ignored in the U.S. until now. HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy stated, “That is not medicine, it’s malpractice.”   

Distress over one’s sex should be treated as a serious mental health issue deserving careful, individualized care—not as an identity requiring automatic affirmation and life-long medicalization all before a patient can even drive a car. When evidence is replaced with ideology, harm becomes inevitable. 

That is why Do No Harm’s work is critical. 

Do No Harm exists to restore medical ethics, protect patient safety, and support healthcare professionals willing to speak honestly. It provides a home for those who believe that “do no harm” is not optional—and that children and patients deserve better than ideological medicine. 

Our family’s experience forced me to confront uncomfortable truths. Silence enables harm. Institutions are failing families. And courage is required to change course. 

If you are a medical or mental health professional who has doubts about the current model of gender-affirming care for children, you are not alone. If you believe in evidence-based medicine, ethical restraint, and parental involvement, I urge you to join us. 

Together, we can help end the harms that gender ideology poses to children and families—and restore integrity to medicine. And we can ensure that compassion once again means protecting children—not experimenting on them.