Meredithe McNamara, a medical doctor and assistant professor in Pediatrics at Yale, appeared on News Nation to explain that “kids know their genders, unequivocally.” McNamara said that one thing she likes to say to parents of gender-confused children is, “What does it cost you to just affirm who they say they are?”

Chris Cuomo, the presenter, responded, “The discussion gets more complicated when it’s affirm plus let them take this hormone blocker, or stall puberty, or/and they want to have a top surgery or a bottom surgery. That becomes more complicated because it has more implications for the kids’ health, a lot of it’s unknown about what it would mean.”

“I wouldn’t say a lot of it is unknown,” McNamara replied. “We are in a very exciting phase in gender-affirming care, where we’re learning more and more all the time.”

This is a blatant misrepresentation of the facts. The “exciting” phase of gender-affirming care now involves the increased visibility of de-transitioners through testimony and lawsuits, whistleblower doctors and clinicians (including proponents of transition), and the adoption of a more cautious approach in multiple European countries.

Appearing on Joe Rogan recently, the comedian Bill Maher said: “If I were 100 billion percent convinced that I was born in the wrong body, I still wouldn’t do anything to my body. Because medical considerations come first. The idea that you can just take some sort of puberty blockers or just snap off snap on organs without really hurting myself medically and taking years off my life, is ridiculous.”

We don’t need doctors to tell us that medically and surgically manipulating secondary sex characteristics is a bad idea, though there are plenty who will. As Maher demonstrates, common sense is sufficient.