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.

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.”

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This article was originally published on Mercator under a Creative Commons license (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Image credit: Pexels