On Thursday, Gavin Newsom signed into law a bill holding that, starting next year, the state will stand in for a child’s parents—any child, from anywhere in America—if the child has decided that he is so-called “transgender.” In that capacity, California will authorize chemically and surgically mutilating the child. All of this, of course, will be done in the name of compassion. California will instantly become the child-abuse center of America, a magnet for every damaged young person who has the wherewithal to run away from home.

If it weren’t so clunky, I would create a bumper sticker stating “Make Transgenderism A Mental Illness Again.” The acronym—MTAMIA—is equally clunky. Nevertheless, the sentiment is one that all Americans should embrace.

Up until recently, body dysphoria has been understood to be a mental illness. The most common type used to be anorexia nervosa, the delusional belief that one is fat. People prey to this syndrome (usually young women), willingly starve themselves to extreme emaciation, even death, because their mental illness makes them incapable of seeing their body as it is, rather than as their delusion renders it. When young women present with anorexia, doctors work with their minds so that the women embrace the reality of their bodies, rather than giving them diet pills and stomach stapling.

We used to have the same approach to the once-rare form of body dysphoria that saw people—usually people with absent or weak fathers and malignantly narcissistic mothers—reject their biological sex and insist that they belonged to the opposite sex. We didn’t give them dangerous hormones and cut off their sexual organs. Instead, therapists tried to help them align their minds with the biological reality of their bodies.

Image by Andrea Widburg using public domain material.

We also understood that young people going through puberty, when their bodies are changing, and their hormones are raging, are often unhappy with the process and the changes. This is normal. For all but the smallest number of teens, it is not a sign of gender dysphoria.

Humane treatment and normalcy changed when power-hungry politicians discovered dangerous (and crackpot) academic theories. Embracing the idea of so-called transgenderism, a mental illness, was the ultimate way to obtain power because it separates children from both their own bodies and their families. If you don’t owe allegiance to your body, someone seeking power can control you completely. Moreover, the only person who will speak on your behalf—a loving parent—is sidelined as the manipulative power-brokers assure you that they, and only they, recognize the real you.

This brings us to what’s happening in California:

A new law aims to stop other states from punishing children who come to California for transgender surgeries and other gender-affirming care, a move that will intensify conflicts between Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom and other Republican governors amid the country’s escalating culture war.

Newsom signed the law on Thursday, but it won’t take effect until January. It is designed to stop Texas and other conservative states from removing children from parents who allow them to receive “gender affirming” health care, defined as “medically necessary health care that respects the gender identity of the patient, as experienced and defined by the patient.”

That would include hormone therapy to to suppress secondary sex characteristics and other treatments “to align the patient’s appearance or physical body with the patient’s gender identity.”

The law will block out-of-state subpoenas, stop health providers from sharing information with out-of-state entities related to gender-affirming care. And it would give California courts authority to make an initial child custody determination if the child is in California for the propose of obtaining gender-affirming care.

Buried in the AP’s long, defensive language is a simple reality: If you’re a mentally ill child or a confused teenager who’s been brainwashed into believing that dangerous hormones and mutilating surgery will make you feel better about yourself, California just became your mecca.

If you can make it there, you’ll need new underwear, the kind the opposite sex needs—except that, after your penis and testicles have been removed, and a hole carved into your body, or your breasts have been removed, and your forearm has been dissected to provide flesh for a Frankenstein-style penis, you’d better make the underwear really special to handle the blood, pus, urine, and fecal matter that will seep from your mutilated body for the rest of your life. But don’t worry, that life probably won’t be long because the hormones you’re taking to maintain the fiction will dramatically increase your chances of cancer, heart disease, massive osteoporosis, and all sorts of other new, exciting, painful, and deadly problems.

Also, if you’re wondering, the latest study “proving” that surgical mutilation is the answer is a fraud. Matt Walsh explains:

California, in its pursuit of political power, is promoting a purely evil form of child abuse. I hope that a well-stated lawsuit ends this grotesque power grab immediately.