A coalition of anti-trans activists has released a list of hospitals and other medical facilities in the U.S. that they say are promoting gender-affirming care for transgender youth for profit.
The list, published by Do No Harm — a group that purports to stop “woke activists” and “identity politics” in medicine — targets 12 medical centers, along with the doctors and nurses providing the care. Their list includes Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Connecticut Children’s Medical Center, and Children’s Minnesota. Do No Harm claims they’re the top three facilities that profit most from an amoral, money-making scam.
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They’re “the worst-offending children’s hospitals promoting sex change treatments for minors,” the group claims, using an inflammatory and misleading term to refer to gender-affirming care for trans youth.
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Do No Harm is promoting the map as proof, they say, that thousands of children and their parents across the country are the unwitting victims of medical establishment greed.
In reality, data indicates gender-affirming surgeries are rarely performed on trans youth.
“We know that is false and today we are providing the receipts,” Beth Serio, a nurse with the transphobic group tweeted.
For years we have been told that children do not receive gender surgeries. We know that is false and today we are providing the receipts. 5,747 children received a sex-change surgery between 2019 and 2023. And this is only the beginning of what we have uncovered. Learn more here:…
Do No Harm says that 382 children in Minnesota (described as “sex change patients”) racked up nearly $3.3 million in bills profiting the state’s medical facilities.
In the U.S., “5,747 children received a sex-change surgery between 2019 and 2023,” Serio posted. “And this is only the beginning of what we have uncovered.”
Just a fraction of medical facilities nationwide treated hundreds of young trans patients in that time period. Most of the nation’s hospitals only had a number of trans patients during that period in the single- or double-digits.
Overwhelmingly, the gender-affirming care provided by the facilities was in the form of hormone therapy and other prescriptions — reversible medications that have been safely administered to children for decades and that are considered safe, essential, and effective by the professional medical community.
While the group states the database release aims to “protect children” and “inform the public and shed light on the prevalence of these practices,” the methodology behind it is questionable.
For instance, about 20,000 breast reduction surgeries are performed each year on men for a condition called gynecomastia, or enlarged breasts; the majority of corrective surgeries are done on males between the ages of 13 and 19. That statistic alone could account for a significant proportion of the “sex change surgeries” the group claims to document. The group’s use of the term “likelihood” in their statistical analysis is just one indication that the numbers are up for debate.
Those doubts aside, the number of purported gender-affirming surgeries is infinitesimal among a total universe of 73,602,753 children in the United States. The vast majority are undertaken with care and the full knowledge of the gravity of the decision by parents, doctors and a child suffering from gender dysphoria.
Do No Harm’s transphobic allies tried to whip up outrage in the wake of the database release.
“It’s happening and it’s horrific!” Terry Schilling, president of the right-wing American Principals Project wrote on X.
“2000 hospitals across the country have chemically castrated, sterilized, and/or butchered children,” far-right transphobe Matt Walsh falsely claimed in his praise of Do No Harm’s database.
Right-wing anti-trans activists targeting hospitals over gender-affirming care have brought real harm to doctors, patients and children in the past.
In 2022, stochastic terrorist Chaya Raichik of Libs of TikTok promoted false claims of child abuse at Boston Children’s Hospital, resulting in “hostile internet activity, phone calls, and harassing emails including threats of violence toward our clinicians and staff” at the facility.
Raichik’s campaign culminated in a bomb threat and evacuation of the hospital. Boston Children’s is one 12 on the Do Not Harm list they call “The Dirty Dozen.”
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