Trans Tide is Turning
An Irish Lass
Below is an opinion piece I have just written for an Irish/British Newspaper THE NEWSLETTER (it’s the oldest English language newspaper on the planet).
To see the original full opinion piece click here.
Writing home from America is a fraught experience. Write too little about your life and people think you’ve forgotten where you came from and don’t want to talk to them.
Write too much and they think you’re boasting – or worse, exaggerating your success. “He says he’s doing well out there, but I don’t know – Did you see the size of the car he rented the last time he was home? Can’t be doing that well”.
Some Republic of Ireland newspapers have turned this national anxiety into a cottage industry. Irish politicians have managed to create one of the most expensive countries on the planet. So with emigration still the only realistic path for many young people shut out of the housing market the Irish Times runs a regular series interviewing emigrants about life abroad: the struggles, the successes, the things they miss and definitely don’t.
This week they profiled a young woman from Dundalk, Co Louth, now a plastic surgeon in Miami. The piece is pure lifestyle porn. Subtropical weather, white sandy beaches, a paramotoring hobby, a boating licence, and a private practice shared with her sister Neasa, who handles the office after pilates. Weight-loss drugs have transformed the business – more loose skin, more tummy tucks, more arm lifts. Rib remodelling is booming. Life is easy: four-day weeks, long operating days, and the glorious diversity of a city where 71 per cent of residents are Hispanic. “It doesn’t feel like a lot of America,” the doctor sighs happily.
Buried deep in the article, almost as an afterthought, is a passing reference to “gender reassignment” surgeries that make up a lot of her workload.
Then the piece hurries on to how wonderful Miami is. Strange omissions, to put it mildly. Dr Sidhbh Gallagher is not just any plastic surgeon. She is one of America’s most prominent gender surgeons, with a TikTok account boasting hundreds of thousands of followers and millions of views.
She has cheerfully branded herself “Dr Teetus Deletus” and markets “yeet the teets” – youth slang for double mastectomies on women transitioning to men.
She is reported as saying she performs up to 500 gender-affirmation surgeries a year, roughly one a month on patients under 18.
A few years ago, an Irish newspaper would have led with that. ‘Dundalk Doctor Leading the Way in Gender Care!’ would have been the headline, complete with glowing profiles of brave patients. Not anymore. The reluctance is telling. The world has changed. In 2024, the Cass Review -Britain’s exhaustive independent examination of youth gender services – delivered a devastating verdict: the evidence base for puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and surgery for minors was “remarkably weak.”
There is no evidence whatsoever that Gallagher has broken any laws or performed unethical treatment but, for the first time, questions are now being asked about the whole idea of gender reassignment.
According to the Cass report children in the UK had been rushed onto irreversible medical pathways amid poor mental-health assessments and groupthink. The Tavistock Clinic’s Gender Identity Development Service was shut down. European countries that once led the charge – Sweden, Finland, Norway – have sharply restricted these interventions for minors. Even the NHS has pivoted toward holistic therapy over the scalpel. Here in the United States, more than two dozen states have banned or severely restricted gender surgeries and hormones for minors. Detransitioners – young people who regret the procedures – are winning lawsuits against clinics and doctors, exposing rushed diagnoses and lifelong complications.
And then came the 2024 election. President Trump’s return has already begun reshaping federal policy, signalling the end of the previous administration’s aggressive promotion of these treatments. The gender madness among children and adults is meeting reality. Long-term studies show high rates of comorbidities – autism, trauma, same-sex attraction – among those presenting with gender distress. The explosion in teenage girls identifying as trans, the social contagion via social media, the permanent loss of fertility and sexual function—these are no longer fringe concerns.
They are mainstream medical and political realities. So the Irish Times, like much of the legacy media, has quietly adjusted its tone. What was once heroic is now a footnote, even an embarrassing one. Perhaps the glamorous Miami lifestyle piece buries the most controversial part of Dr Gallagher’s practice because the public is no longer buying the uncritical cheerleading. The tide has turned. Emigrants writing home have always had to navigate what their audience wants to hear. Today, the media faces the same dilemma. They used to celebrate every gender surgeon as a pioneer. Now they seem to be hoping we won’t notice the small print. But we do.