YouTube goes apoplectic over doctor's accurate comment on transgenders

YouTube has gone apoplectic over a doctor's comment on transgenderism, censoring her video and insisting the only way it can be restored is to retract the statement.

Daily Signal Editor-in-Chief Katrina Trinko described her organization's frustration with the tech giant in a commentary.

"Over the past few months, The Daily Signal worked with YouTube to try to reach a resolution. Ultimately, we were told the only way we could get the video back on YouTube was to delete the … sentence. … In other words, we had two choices; censor the doctor's words or have no video on the world's biggest video platform," she wrote.

The statement from Dr. Michelle Cretella, the executive director of the American College of Pediatricians, came in a 2017 Daily Signal video.

In the video, she addressed the mental health aspect of transgenderism.

"See, if you want to cut off a leg or an arm, you're mentally ill, but if you want to cut off healthy breasts or a penis, you're transgender," she stated in the video.

"We define transability [also known as body integrity identity disorder] as the desire or the need for a person identified as able-bodied by other people to transform his or her body to obtain a physical impairment," Alexandre Baril, a Quebec-born academic knowledgeable on the transabled community explained to Canada's National Post. "The person could want to become deaf, blind, amputee, paraplegic. It’s a really, really strong desire."

But pointing out the double standard regarding transgenderism, Trinko explained, is "a sentence YouTube will not allow the doctor to say about children and gender identity issues."

Cretella explained in the video -- a transcript is available here -- that wanting a healthy limb amputated is considered a mental disorder.

"If I were to say, 'Doc, I am suicidal because I'm an amputee trapped in a normal body, please cut off my leg,' I will be diagnosed with body identity integrity disorder. But if I walk into that doctor's office and say, 'I am a man, sign me up for a double mastectomy,' my physician will. See, if you want to cut off a leg or an arm you're mentally ill, but if you want to cut off healthy breasts or a penis, you're transgender.

"No one is born transgender. If gender identity were hardwired in the brain before birth, identical twins would have the same gender identity 100 percent of the time. But they don’t," she said.

Such censorship, Trinko wrote, "should horrify every YouTube user – and anyone who values the importance of a public square featuring a variety of perspectives."

"We agree with the spirit behind YouTube's hate speech policy, which states, 'Hate speech is not allowed on YouTube. We remove content promoting violence or hatred against individuals or groups based on any of the following attributes' including 'Gender Identity and Expression' and 'Sex/Gender.' We believe transgender individuals, and any individual struggling with gender identity issues, should be treated with love and respect.

"But we also believe that on a topic where medical treatments have such serious ramifications, from infertility to permanent alteration of body parts, it is worth having a robust, fact-driven discussion," she wrote.

She noted that the World Health Organization removed "transgenderism" from its list of "mental disorders" only months ago.

"Here at The Daily Signal, the multimedia news arm of The Heritage Foundation, we believe that private companies, including YouTube, should be allowed to set and enforce their own rules.

"But we also believe consumers have a right to protest. And if you are upset that YouTube—the biggest video platform in the world—is refusing to let a doctor speak without censorship on gender identity and children, please reach out to YouTube and its parent company, Google," she wrote.

"Tweet at them: @YouTube and @google. Leave a message on Google’s Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/Google/) or YouTube’s (https://www.facebook.com/youtube/)."

Cretella explained the science of the dispute: "Biological sex is not assigned. Sex is determined at conception by our DNA and is stamped into every cell of our bodies. Human sexuality is binary. You either have a normal Y chromosome, and develop into a male, or you don’t, and you will develop into a female. There are at least 6,500 genetic differences between men and women. Hormones and surgery cannot change this.

"An identity is not biological, it is psychological. It has to do with thinking and feeling. Thoughts and feelings are not biologically hardwired. Our thinking and feeling may be factually right or factually wrong."