The Democratic Party’s decay at the hands of gender ideology is only becoming worse, to the point that President Joe Biden’s Department of Justice is now calling the mutilation of children “medically necessary.”

The Justice Department announced that it is filing a complaint against Tennessee’s law banning the use of puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and gender surgeries for minors. Such a ban violates the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause, according to the department, and those procedures are “medically necessary care for transgender minors.”

What part of pumping children full of chemicals that lead to irreversible changes to their bodies or mutilating them with surgeries that will lead to complications for the rest of their lives is “medically necessary”? Are gender-confused children, many of whom are swept up in social contagion and will grow out of their gender dysphoria by the time they are adults, going to die if a doctor doesn’t prevent them from going through puberty?

There is no evidence of this. The implicit accusation made by Democrats (made explicit by the loony activists they promote on this issue) is that these children will commit suicide if a doctor does not cut off their genitals to match their desired gender. There is no evidence of this either, though, as studies show that the suicide rate among transgender people remains the same “through every stage of transitioning.”

So, again, how is putting a middle school boy on puberty blockers or giving a teenage girl a double mastectomy “medically necessary” for gender dysphoria? How is inflicting children with irreversible changes that can lead to sterility and increased risk of strokes and heart attacks “medically necessary,” especially given that this is being done without addressing the underlying mental health problems? And, if these destructive “gender-affirming” procedures are “medically necessary,” why have Finland, France, Sweden, and the United Kingdom decided to reevaluate their permissive child-transitioning policies?

This is not “civil rights” or “acceptance” or “inclusivity.” It is reckless, dangerous, and, most of all, unnecessary. Chemically and physically mutilating children is not going to save their lives or make them happier. It is only going to saddle them with even more physical health problems to go along with the unaddressed mental health problems that are being ignored. It is an attempt to medicalize them permanently — to turn them into lifelong patients. Yet that is precisely what Biden’s Justice Department is fighting for.