A California director of a gender clinic and medical school professor claimed there are “infinite” gender identities, including one called a “gender Tootsie Roll pop.”
For decades, Diane Ehrensaft has been one of the most prominent voices pushing gender ideology in the medical and psychology field. She is the director of mental health and chief psychologist at the University of California-San Francisco (UCSF) Benioff Children’s Hospital gender development center. She is also a professor at UCSF School of Medicine.
Ehrensaft discussed in a slide deck on gender ideology – reviewed by Fox News – a “gender Tootsie Roll pop” identity. The self-identified feminist referred to this agenda as “The New Gender Wars,” while previously she has said it was a “Gender Revolution.”
The chief psychologist at Benioff pushes for social transitions to begin in early childhood. “Gender comes in an infinite variety, and children should get to live in their affirmed gender at such time they know it,” Ehrensaft said.
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Genders listed by Ehrensaft included, “Pangender Youth,” “Protogay Children,” “Prototransgender Youth,” “Gender Teslas,” “Gender Ambidextrous Children,” and “Gender Smoothies.”
It wasn’t the first time Ehrensaft made what some may consider fringe claims about gender ideology. Fox News Digital first reported that the clinician believes kids can be “gender hybrids,” which include a mythology-inspired creature called a “gender Minotaur,” and that kids can change their genders by season and can have different identities depending on their location.
Fundamentally, the children’s hospital director believes that society as a whole has a diagnosis of gender identity disorder, not transgender youth. “Gender pathology lies more in the culture than in the child,” she said.
“We need to wait and see, how about until adolescence, and not jump to premature conclusions about a child[‘s] [gender identity].”
She also claimed that if a child is simultaneously struggling with his or her gender in addition to other psychiatric issues, those issues are caused by society.
“If present, individual psychological/psychiatric problems are often secondary to negative interpersonal and cultural reactions to a child,” she said. “It is not for us to say, but for the children to tell [what their genders are].”
Ehrensaft was contacted for comment but did not immediately respond.
Proponents of the affirming model argue that it is “life-saving.” However, European countries such as Sweden, Norway and Finland have distanced themselves from its use in minors, citing limited research. Fox News Digital recently reported that children being treated with hormones for gender issues were presenting in the emergency room with psychiatric emergencies in Maine.
A military family medicine doctor, David Klein, found in a study reviewing Department of Defense pharmacy and billing records that children taking psychotropic medication had their prescriptions increased after “gender-affirming care” was initiated. It also found that transgender kids treated on the “affirming” pipeline had co-morbid psychiatric diagnoses, such as bipolar disorder, and some were taking anti-psychotic drugs as treatment.
After the study was published, the family medicine doctor appeared to distance himself from its findings, saying that when treatments were “optimized” – with surgeries and more hormones – diagnoses such as schizophrenia could “melt away” over time.
Parents shouldn’t assume that “Biology is destiny,” according to Ehrensaft. “Always keep in mind that penis does not necessarily = male and vagina does not necessarily = female.”
“Stop measuring gender dysphoria [as a] measure of pathology or psychological distress. Start measuring gender identity [as a] measure of developmental status and cognitive/emotional awareness,” she said.
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