For decades, many of transgenderism’s researchers and clinicians have promoted a false ideology: if a man, woman or child claims to be a member of the opposite sex, or expresses a keen desire to “change sex” through hormonal and surgical intervention, then there is nothing one can do but “affirm” or facilitate that person’s belief and desire. A key component of this ideology is that psychotherapeutic interventions have been tried exhaustively in such patients and that nothing worked.

You have likely heard the term. Perhaps you’ve used it in speaking about a patient. It may even be part of your childhood. Whatever the connection, I ask that you now pause and reflect as we move through this Introduction, which will include an ACEs Survey. We’ll consider in the next article the short and long-term associated health risks, then Resilience and its meaning, and finally how to promote it, even moving beyond your practice to the community, especially the schools and Faith community, in order to prevent and ameliorate ACEs.