Fact-checking trans misinformation

Trans activists insist that no children – no people under 18, that is – receive gender-affirming surgery. 

  • There is “little to no utilization of gender-affirming surgeries by transgender and gender-diverse (TGD) minors in the U.S.”– JAMA Network Open, 2024
  • “Gender-affirming surgeries for minors are exceptionally rare, and are almost always performed for cisgender — not transgender — youth.” – Them, 2024
  • Gender-affirming “Surgery under the age of 18 is very rare and is decided on a case by case basis.” – AP and Human Rights Campaign, 2023
  • “Any surgical care for teenagers under 18 is rare and individualized. It is carefully examined under the supervision of medical professionals using standardized, evidence-based guidelines.” – Advocates for Trans Equality, 2023

Normally these claims are backed up by references to research which is inaccessible or impenetrable.

Now, thanks to database compiled by a group called Do No Harm, activist propaganda can be fact-checked by the public. Do No Harm has launched a first-of-its-kind national database of hospitals and medical facilities administering irreversible sex change interventions on American children.

The database catalogues paediatric sex change-related services, including surgeries, cross-sex hormones, and puberty blockers, at American medical facilities between 2019 and 2023. It is also searchable by state and facility. Parents, policymakers, and concerned citizens can use it to search for their local children’s hospital and find out whether they are performing harmful medical procedures on minors.

Do No Harm Chairman Dr. Stanley Goldfarb says that “irreversible sex-change treatments for minors” are pervasive. Shining a light on “the dangers of experimental paediatric gender medicine” could bring them to and end if an outraged public realises what is going on. He says:

“While this data represents the tip of the iceberg, this is the first step in holding the medical establishment accountable for participating in, and often times promoting, predatory and unscientific medical interventions for vulnerable children.”   


Should children have the right to transition if they are convinced of their gender identity? Comment in the box below.  

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The figures for the US from 2019 to 2023 gathered by Do No Harm show that:

  • 13,994 children received sex-change related treatments
  • 5,747 sex change surgeries were performed on children
  • 62,682 hormone and puberty blockers prescriptions were written for 8,579 paediatric patients.
  • Doctors and hospitals billed at least US$119,791,202 for sex change treatments performed on minors

Nearly 6,000 sex change surgeries in five years is not what most parents would describe as “exceptionally rare”. And these numbers are just scratching the surface of how widespread these practices are.

Additionally, the Stop the Harm Database profiles the institutions and providers who do most of these dangerous and unsupported interventions. These hospitals, the “Dirty Dozen,” represent the 12 worst-offending children’s hospitals promoting sex change treatments for minors:

  • The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia
  • Connecticut Children’s Medical Center
  • Children’s Minnesota
  • Seattle Children’s
  • Children’s Hospital Los Angeles
  • Boston Children’s Hospital
  • Rady Children’s Hospital
  • Children’s National Medical Center
  • UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland
  • Children’s Hospital Colorado
  • UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh
  • Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center

As an example of Do No Harm’s research, consider its deep dive into Boston Children’s Hospital. It claims that 159 children were operated on between 2019 and 2023. “Patients as young as 15 have obtained breast or chest augmentations,” it found. “The hospital has offered vaginoplasty surgeries to 17-year-olds without parental consent.”

In videos made by the hospital (now removed from its website), a psychologist declared that children can know that they are transgender while still in utero and that staff see patients as young as two years old.

“This new project from Do No Harm proves the lies from the medical establishment and radical politicians who argue that cases like mine are rare,” said Do No Harm Senior Fellow and Patient Advocate Chloe Cole. She ought to know. She is a 20-year-old detransitioner from The Central Valley of California. She began transitioning at 12 and taking puberty blockers and testosterone at 13. At 15 – when she was still legally a child – she had a double mastectomy.

After realising that she had made a terrible mistake, she has become a strong advocate against gender ideology.

“The stats in this database represent thousands of kids who are being treated like Guinea pigs for unproven, and sometimes dangerous, medical experiments,” says Ms Cole. “I hope politicians and parents alike use this database to see where these treatments are happening and protect their children from being rushed into irreversible, life-altering treatments.”  


Should children have the right to transition if they are convinced of their gender identity? Comment in the box below.  


Michael Cook is editor of Mercator

Image credits: WikiCommons / Ted Eytan  


 

Showing 11 reactions

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  • Juan Llor Baños
    commented 2024-10-14 05:51:00 +1100
    Very good article!! Congratulations!!
  • Anon Emouse
    commented 2024-10-11 12:11:58 +1100
    Michael, I do love your qualifier there. Tell me, had they performed those procedures would it justify those heinous acts?

    And honestly, providing resources sounds ok? They talk about “socially transition” as in asking people to treat them as if they were a different gender before doing anything major like surgery. That seems reasonable to me?
  • Michael Cook
    commented 2024-10-11 08:54:58 +1100
    Thank you for reminding me of the death threats over procedures which the hospital probably did not do. That is completely unacceptable.

    However, my complaints are based on what Boston Children’s Hospital did do – and announced proudly. Here are some excerpts from a report:


    Boston Children’s “Center for Gender Surgery” web page, which has since been removed, contained dozens of videos discussing gender dysphoria, transgender sex, “top” and “bottom” surgery, and even a how-to guide for talking to friends and family about the subject, according to an archived version of the page. The website stated that “surgery is never the first step in a gender transition” and suggested that newer patients start with socially transitioning and “supplemental hormones.”

    Patients as young as 15 years old could obtain breast or chest augmentation provided they have their parent’s consent and a letter from a “medical doctor or nurse practitioner stating that you have ‘persistent, well documented, gender dysphoria,’” according to the website.
    https://dailycaller.com/2023/10/30/childrens-hospital-transgender-services/
  • mrscracker
    I’m descended from a 12 year old bride Mr. Mouse, so I know she was old enough to be a mother. And to understand basic biology.

    My late dog wasn’t overly particular marking his targets, either.
    :)
  • Anon Emouse
    commented 2024-10-11 02:29:30 +1100
    Also mrscracker – the logic that a 12yo is old enough to be a mother (care for another human being and be responsible for them) but isn’t mature enough to decide their gender is ridiculous.
  • Anon Emouse
    commented 2024-10-11 02:28:05 +1100
    mrscracker,

    I’ve seen my dog use the boys and the girls fire hydrants at the dog park, so I don’t know.
  • mrscracker
    “Old enough to be a mother but not old enough to know you’re really a boy, I guess?”
    **********
    Yes, Mr. Mouse. Again, it’s about biology, not delusion.
  • mrscracker
    " In videos made by the hospital (now removed from its website), a psychologist declared that children can know that they are transgender while still in utero and that staff see patients as young as two years old."
    **********
    I suppose when you remove biology & science & replace that with social delusion anything’s possible. I actually had someone tell me they thought their dog was transgender.
  • Anon Emouse
    commented 2024-10-11 00:30:01 +1100
    Also – I’d point out that these “still legally children” are forced to carry their rapist’s children to term in a number of US states that have outlawed abortion.

    Old enough to be a mother but not old enough to know you’re really a boy, I guess?
  • Anon Emouse
    commented 2024-10-11 00:08:02 +1100
    Any comments on the death threats and bomb threats these hospitals have received, Michael?

    https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/internet/fbi-charges-massachusetts-woman-boston-childrens-hospital-bomb-threat-rcna47973

    Because the drivel that libs of TikTok and “do no harm” spout can be directly tied to these terroristic activities.
  • Michael Cook
    published this page in The Latest 2024-10-10 14:50:18 +1100