WATCH: Fox News Reports on Trans Teens, Claims They Have ‘Mental Disorder’

After warning his viewers to keep in mind "how impressionable and fickle" teenagers can be, Fox News anchor Bret Baier reported on what he called "the shocking new policy" in Oregon, where Medicaid has been covering medical treatments for transgender boys and girls as young as 15 for nearly a year.

The "shocking" part of the news, according to the anchors, is that the policy allows teens aged 15 and older to receive the treatment even without parental consent. Notably, the policy took effect October 1, 2014.

Here's an excerpt from Dan Springer's report, which ominously claims that Oregon is "allowing 15-year-olds to get state-subsidized sex-change operations:"

"15-year-olds in Oregon can't smoke, give blood, or get a tattoo, but now they can get drugs to suppress puberty and even a sex change operation without their parents' consent. And the government will pay for it."

An activist for parental rights called the new law "mind-boggling" in the Fox News report, which also included a comment from Jenn Burleton of the TransActive Gender Center, who defended the law as potentially saving teens who might otherwise consider suicide.

But most concerning, as progressive media watchdog organization Media Matters pointed out, was Springer's claim that, "The American Psychiatric Association classifies Gender Dysphoria as a mental disorder."

Springer got it wrong.

As The Advocate previously reported, the term "Gender Identity Disorder" was considered a mental disorder until 2012, when the APA removed the classification entirely from the fifth edition of The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. The APA replaced GID with "Gender Dysphoria," to describe the clinically significant stress a person experiences when their gender identity does not align with their biological sex. According to the APA, gender dysphoria is not considered a mental disorder.

In changing the designation in the DSM-5, the APA explained the importance of depathologizing transgender identity and standing up for the trans community, citing the "significant discrimination, prejudice, and the potential for victimization from violent hate crimes, as well as denial of many basic civil rights, protections, and access to health care, to the severe detriment of [transgender people's] mental health."

A January study published in the journal Psychological Science "found that young people who claim a different gender than what was assigned at birth identify as consistently and innately with that gender identity as other kids their age that are not trans."
That same study found that the rate of suicide attempts in the transgender community are "staggering."

According to a 2014 report in the Los Angeles Times, a "whopping 41% of people who are transgender or gender-nonconforming have attempted suicide sometime in their lives, nearly nine times the national average." The same study by the Williams Institute at the University of California Los Angeles's School of Law also found that "78 percent who experienced social and family rejection attempted suicide, as did 65 percent who experienced work-based violence and over half who experienced anti-trans bullying at school."

Watch Springer's report on Fox News below: