Nonbinary Nonsense: HHS Proposes Rule Making It Harder to Care for Migrant Children
A proposed rule from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) would allow caseworkers to identify unaccompanied migrant children as “nonbinary.” The change would make it harder for HHS to keep track of vulnerable arrivals — a job it already struggles to do.
The proposal would expand gender designations in child advocacy paperwork to include “nonbinary,” in addition to male and female. HHS claims the revision will help officers better care for unaccompanied minor children.
But this change doesn’t improve HHS’ care — it just endangers the children in it’s custody.
First of all, allowing vulnerable children to identify as “nonbinary” is not compassionate or caring. Introducing and affirming gender confusion ensures kids will feel uncomfortable or trapped in their sexed body. Some will go on to receive opposite-sex hormones, “puberty blockers” and transgender surgeries, which wreak irreversible havoc on the body and provide no mental health benefits.
In a comment opposing the rule change, Americans Advancing Freedom (AAF) claims HHS could incentivize unaccompanied migrant children to identify as nonbinary:
In turn, AAF says HHS employees could push nonbinary-identified children toward transgender medical interventions.
The proposal’s nonsensical endorsement of a third gender is harmful, but not surprising. HHS has been pushing gender ideology for years. What is surprising, however, is how blatantly it prioritizes ideologies over the individuals it swears to protect.
HHS places unaccompanied migrant children with American sponsors after the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) or Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) releases them. When a child has been with a sponsor for a month, HHS is supposed to call them and confirm their wellbeing.
HHS failed to reach 85,000 children for these phone calls between 2021 and 2023, The New York Times reports, finding the agency “lost immediate contact” with a third of the kids it had placed with sponsors.
HHS’ top priority should be recovering the tens of thousands of children it lost and preventing it from happening again. Instead, it has spent time and manpower drafting a paperwork proposal making it even harder to identify children who slip through the cracks.
Law enforcement can’t identify missing children without knowing their biological sex.
Compassionate immigration policy requires prioritizing the physical and mental safety of unaccompanied migrant children over nonexistent gender labels. Until HHS prioritizes people over politically correct paperwork, ideology will continue to outrank the children the agency claims to protect.
Additional Articles and Resources
American Immigration System Loses Contact with Tens of Thousands of Migrant Children
Familial DNA Testing on the Southern Border Shouldn’t Have Ended
Doctor Refuses to Publish Major Study Finding Puberty-Blocking Drugs Don’t Help Children
‘Trust the Science’ About ‘Gender-Affirming Care.’ What Science?
American Society of Plastic Surgeons Backs Away From Supporting ‘Transgender’ Surgeries
U.K.’s Review of Child Gender Policy Reveals Profound Failures That U.S. Still Defends
The WPATH Files Exposes ‘Surgical and Hormonal Experiments on Children’
The WPATH Files – Transgender Interventions Are ‘Unethical Medical Experiments’
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Emily Washburn is a staff reporter for the Daily Citizen at Focus on the Family and regularly writes stories about politics and noteworthy people. She previously served as a staff reporter for Forbes Magazine, editorial assistant, and contributor for Discourse Magazine and Editor-in-Chief of the newspaper at Westmont College, where she studied communications and political science. Emily has never visited a beach she hasn’t swam at, and is happiest reading a book somewhere tropical.