Gov. Katie Hobbs (D-AZ) signed an executive order on Tuesday targeting so-called “conversion therapy” for minors who are gay or identify as transgender . While declaring that she is “committed to promoting freedom and self-determination,” Hobbs seeks to rob children of any help with the often-transient condition of gender dysphoria.

“‘Conversion therapy’ means any practice or treatment that seeks or purports to change” someone’s “non-cisgender identity,” according to the order. Arizona's governor also vaguely directs state agencies to “develop and implement policies … to protect” children from it.

At the very least, this directive threatens funding for religious or otherwise conservative-leaning charities that offer counseling to help people overcome gender dysphoria. More importantly, it is part of a nationwide push to trap children in an identity that many will eventually come to reject, but not before their bodies are regrettably altered.

Studies have confirmed for decades that transgenderism in children, like other childhood proclivities, is fleeting and unreliable. More recently, researchers found in 2008 that 88% of girls with gender dysphoria end up desisting from it later on. A 2012 study concluded the same for about 88% of boys with gender dysphoria. A seasoned psychiatrist who worked with gender-dysphoric children also estimated in February that “four out of five” will “grow out of” the condition.

Research suggesting otherwise often relies on absurdly short follow-up periods, such as a highly publicized study from last year in which the follow-up ages ranged from 8 to 17. But thanks to the influence of adults who pushed the children into “social transition” early on, almost two-thirds in the study were taking cross-sex hormones or puberty blockers upon follow-up. Other research and expert accounts indicate that most children who begin the transgender medical journey will pursue fulfillment through more and more treatments, including surgery.

In some cases, the sex change industry’s “patients” don’t even have diagnosable gender dysphoria at the outset, but professionals are too ideologically stubborn to care.

Those who end up wanting their body parts back after this vicious process cannot restore them, while others won’t function the way they should. In most cases, the entire situation is avoidable if adults simply keep their hands off of the children and talk them through the struggle. But Hobbs calls it “harmful” to intervene in such a way and will only promote doctors who are eager to treat the human body as a problem to be corrected. And so the fanatical conversion therapy continues.

Hudson Crozier is a summer 2023 Washington Examiner fellow.