As more states across the country have recently passed legislation protecting minors from medical mutilation, and as even more states consider the issue, Dr. Oren Ganor, a pediatric surgeon and co-director of the Center for Gender Surgery at Boston Children’s Hospital, recently advocated for an increase in “gender-affirming” surgeries on children since he expects an influx of patients travelling from states restricting these procedures seeking “care.”
At least 12 state legislatures – Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Mississippi, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, and West Virginia – have recently enacted laws banning “gender-affirming care” for minors under the legal adulthood age, which is 18 for most states.
As a result of the aggressive legislative agenda to protect minors from medical mutilation, top U.S. medical associations such as the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the American Medical Association (AMA) have publicly opposed any restrictive regulations against any gender-related procedures for children, including administering harmful puberty blockers, hormone therapy and performing surgical mutilations. Ganor, expecting an uptick in minors as interstate patients, published an article in the Journal of the AMA and in association with Harvard Medical School calling for more clinics to operate under a “gender-affirming” model and to increase training and capacity for gender surgeries in light of all the recent legislation.
In the March 14 article, “Streamlining Interstate Access to Gender-Affirming Surgeries,” co-written by medical student Shawheen J. Rezei, Ganor stated “…as certain states work to criminalize gender-affirming care for adolescents, there will be an increased flux of patients traveling to seek care in states with more open legislation.”
Ganor’s article also calls for clinics “to improve capacity for this patient population” and recommended medical residency programs “increase training efforts” to expose future doctors to “gender-affirming surgeries.”
Many gender clinics across the country have already implemented procedures such as chest binding, puberty blockers, changing names, preserving fertility, “safe tucking” and hormone therapy to children, even some as young as ten years old. Even though Boston Children’s Hospital’s website states patients must be 18 years old to qualify for genital surgeries, Ganor stated he is “slightly flexible” when it comes to age of males for genital surgery.
Despite the damage these mutilating procedures cause, advocates for these surgeries insist there is enough evidence that proves they save lives for those struggling with gender. However, there is minimal research on the long-term effects of cross-sex hormone therapy and genital surgeries, especially with children. Yet some scientists claim a person can change gender healthily, and that this type of care is actual health care. This has some scientists and researchers pointing out errors in research methods. It is well known that there is a correlation between “transgenderism” and suicide, just as there is a correlation between trauma and suicide. Furthermore, an issue which seems rarely talked about here is the potential link between childhood trauma and “transgenderism.” Medical professionals and researchers claiming affirming care saves lives have yet to distinguish whether suicide in the “transgender” community is linked to past trauma or lack of affirming care.
Due to this problematic approach of blending gender ideology into the health care system, as many as two dozen states could have laws or have introduced bills placing a minimum age of 18 requirement on gender surgeries by the end of 2023.
The “sex reassignment” surgery market in the United States was valued at $1.9 billion in 2021 and is expected to expand at a compound annual growth rate of 11.23 percent from 2022 to 2030. Despite “the minimum age of 18 as eligibility” to undergo these procedures, anecdotal reports show that surgeons have performed them on children younger than 18 years.
Liberty Counsel Founder and Chairman Mat Staver said, “The legislatures around the country acting to protect children are doing the right thing. Puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and any genital mutilation cannot solve the underlying issues of identity dysphoria, and it cannot be considered health care. The wave of recent state legislation is encouraging, and more states must act to protect children from surgeons who have promised to do no harm yet ‘specialize in gender surgeries.’”
