GSA advertisement of LGBTQ “affirming care” services
The school district won’t allow the Boy Scouts to advertise, but will for providers of gender and DEI services
Posted in the display case for the Sheboygan Falls High School Gender and Sexuality Alliance (GSA) are three business cards for Jasmine Jaime Lammers and his business Transformative Services LLC. The school board approves advertising agreements (Policy 9700.01), but no approval request has come to the Board for this advertisement.
The Transformative Services LLC website advertises training to families, schools, and other organizations on “LGBTQ, transgender, gender diversity, microaggressions reduction, prejudice/discrimination sensitivity, DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusivity), and more.” It also advertises individual therapy “geared specifically for the LGBTQ culture”. Only one type of therapy is listed, “affirming care”.
Lammers’ Wisconsin Transgender Health Directory listing opens with, “I am a mental health counselor who identifies as and provides services to individuals of non-traditional genders. I have provided mental health services to multiple individuals with issues that are linked to their gender and/or sexual orientation.” He counsels a “large volume of Trans patients”. He has “provided gender related counseling services to as young as 5 years old” and offers to counsel children as young as age 1. Children do not need parental consent to “receive care” and can “easily change name and/or gender in records”.
Lammers’ practice is also listed on the Sheboygan County LGBTQ Alliance website, which the GSA promotes. The website prominently features photos of high-school-aged children in the training and mental health sections of its resource guide, alongside trans-affirming medical services from Ascension, hormonal therapy from Froedtert, Ascension, and Planned Parenthood, and breast surgery from Aurora, listed in the healthcare section.
Impact on students: the school-to-clinic pipeline
By referring students to an “affirming care” provider, the advertisement posted by the GSA contributes to what City Journal calls “the school-to-clinic pipeline”. “‘Affirming’—that is, agreeing with and supporting—a minor’s rejection of his or her body in favor of an alternative ‘gender identity’ increases the chances that what would otherwise prove a temporary phase of confusion or distress will become a more permanent state of mind, i.e., an ‘identity.’” Studies have uniformly “found that the vast majority (61 percent to 98 percent) desist by adolescence on their own or with counseling.” By contrast, of children “affirmed” at an early age, only 2% desisted within 5 years, according to a 2022 study.1
The bandwagon effect, glorification of trans identities, and one-sided political activism come early in the pipeline. Next comes the “self-fulfilling prophecy” of affirming care and a “social transition” with a new name and pronouns, according to the City Journal article. Toward the end are referrals to trans-affirming medical services, hormonal therapy, and breast surgery, as made by the alliance promoted on the GSA advisor’s shirt. Many of the stages have no parental involvement.
Unequal treatment
Besides the impact on students, fairness is also an issue. In the middle school, two other counselors, Dione Gisch and Lana Roever of Novo Counseling, are permitted to advertise on the school counselor’s LGBTQ+ Resources page. However, other organizations, such as the Boy Scouts who have asked to advertise to raise awareness of their local troop, have not been permitted.
Related posts
Sapir, L. The School-to-Clinic Pipeline. City Journal. 2002. See also the Amicus Brief of Dr. Erica E. Anderson, PhD to the US Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, John And Jane v. Montgomery County Board Of Education, Case No. 8-20-cv-3552-PWG at pp. 4–5 for references to the studies involved and a summary of a corroborating 2013 study.