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'Gender Affirmation' Isn't Compassion, It's Dangerous and Deadly

Amy Curtis
Amy Curtis  |  October 28, 2025 6:30 PM

If there's one thing the Left is good at, it's projection.

They call Republicans racist while they hold up actually racist signs attacking Winsome Earle-Sears, they claim President Trump is Hitler, while they nominate a candidate with a literal Nazi tattoo inked on his chest, and they demand gun control because "Republicans are violent" while instances of Left-wing violence continue to rise.

Nothing is ever the fault of the Left or its ideology, but everything is fair game for political fodder. That's not surprising coming from the party that uses suffering as political leverage, but it is revealing. And now the Left is trying once more to capitalize on suffering for their political gain.

Sebastian ("Lia") Smith, a trans-identifying male, was reported missing on October 19, two days after he was last seen on the Middlebury College campus. Vermont State Police found his body on Thursday, Oct. 23. It was located near the campus, and the Medical Examiner ruled the cause of death was suicide.

Just days later, the Left blamed Smith's death on those who wouldn't affirm his trans identity, including his former Middlebury College swim teammates.

This is, of course, a lie. Smtih wasn't kicked off the swim team. In a February 2025 article from the Addison Independent, Smith said he took a break from the team in his sophomore year (emphasis added):

Attendees also heard from Middlebury College student Lia Smith about her experience as a diver on the women’s swimming and diving team. Smith spoke of being recruited to Middlebury as a trans athlete, noting that her coach and fellow teammates have always been supportive.

“It can be hard,” Smith said of the experience. “Especially because you have to get your hormones checked if you’re competing about, I’d say, once every three months and my healthcare’s at home, so it can be really hard getting all of those blood tests in between breaks and then submitting them on time.”

“I remember one time my testosterone blocker was rejected and seen as a steroid enhancement by the NCAA, so I actually couldn’t compete for points at my first meet my freshman year,” she said.

Smith said she took a break from diving during her sophomore year, as there was a lot of pressure from it.

“It’s really hard putting on the suit every day if you are obviously an outlier,” she said. “It’s also really hard going in a locker room where you’re not welcome, and there’s really not a clear space that I should be going to.”

It seems that saying his "fellow teammates have always been supportive" contradicts Smith's statement that he wasn't welcome in the locker room, but I digress.

I want to make it very clear: suicide is always a tragedy. It is devastating to those who are left behind; I lost a college classmate and friend to suicide 20 years ago. I've seen the heartbreak it causes, and that pain never fully goes away. The people who loved Smith lost a son, a friend, a classmate. They have my sympathies.

But we cannot sit by and allow the Left to use Smith's death as a political cudgel, and we cannot pretend that it was trans ideology — including its insane insistence on "affirmation" — that contributed more to his suicide than the objections of his teammates and the Trump administration's gender policies.

The trans movement denies reality and works hard, often in Orwellian fashion, to force reality to conform to their gender ideologies. It's why they use "gender neutral" language, erase women, and threaten violence to those who speak the truth. But biology and reality always win out in the end. No amount of puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, or surgery can change one's gender. Those things, however, can do tremendous harm. Puberty blockers can cause a slew of health issues; hormones can cause — among other things — psychosis; and surgery not only renders people sterile and disfigured, but often sexually dysfunctional and sometimes incontinent of bladder and bowel.

In December 2024, ACLU attorney Chase Strangio admitted before the Supreme Court that there is no proof that "gender affirming care" reduces suicidality.

That assertion was based on research published in The Cass Report, a definitive work on trans ideology and "gender-affirming treatment."

Another study showed that "gender-affirming care" might actually lead to an increase in suicidality among trans identifying people:

The study, supported with money from the National Institutes of Health and the University of Texas, was published just a few weeks ago and looked at data from over 90 million patients across the U.S.

...

Trans activists have been lying to the public for years, telling parents that "gender-affirming" surgery prevented suicide.

We all knew the opposite was true, and now there is clear data supporting it.

That study showed a 12-fold higher suicide risk. One of those victims is Yarden Silveira. He committed suicide at age 21 after botched "gender affirming" surgery, writing shortly before his death:

“I have a gaping hole in my genital area with my colon spilling out (disgusting) and a ring of scar tissue blocking most of the entrance. If the colon can’t discharge, that leaves it with severe blockage, which then could turn (and likely expected) into blood clots, followed by death. I’ve already reached the blockage stage.”

What Silveria and Smith both needed wasn't an "affirmation" of their "womanhood."

Instead, they needed people who were brave enough to tell them both that they were men and to be affirmed in that reality, even if it meant they didn't conform to typical gender stereotypes. That is love. That is kindness. That is what it means to care for someone.

There was no kindness in lying to Smith; there's no honoring his death by continuing to pretend he was a woman, and there's something deeply disturbing about trying to score political points off of it.

It also smacks of people who know they're actually to blame for Smith's death, but don't want to accept that reality, either.