America First Legal Foundation is demanding information from several major university health care centers for information on the so-called “gender-affirming health care” they provide for minors. It is expected to file freedom-of-information lawsuits against those that refuse to provide the information.
In a news release Thursday, America First Legal disclosed that it had submitted Open Records Requests to five “Gender Clinics” in Georgia, Iowa, Ohio, Utah, and Virginia, that offer “gender-affirming” care to children under 18. Four of the five clinics are part of University health care centers: the University of Utah, University of Iowa, Ohio State University, and University of Virginia.
In emails to the clinics, America First Legal states that European health care centers have curbed “gender-affirming” care for minors due to growing awareness of its health risks. “In reality, “gender-affirming care” involves the practice of prescribing puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones for children under 18, as well as using life-altering surgeries like mastectomies, vaginoplasty, phalloplasty, and metoidioplasty to give children the irreversible appearance of the opposite sex,” it says in the emails.
The emails state that the clinics are out of step with most other Western nations, and that gender clinics in the U.S. are pushing irreversible medical treatments without proper precautions, and without fully informing parents and patients of the risks.
The email to the University of Virginia’s Health System stated:
in 2021, Swedish hospitals halted the use of puberty blockers in five out
of six clinics, with a single clinic only using them for clinical trials. Sweden also now
emphasizes psychotherapy for gender dysphoric minors instead of puberty blockers.Last year, France’s National Academy of Medicine warned medical professionals that
the spike in demand for physicians to perform “gender-affirming care” on children is
an “epidemic-like phenomenon” with the hallmarks of a social contagion, exacerbated
by the “increasing supply of care.” The Academy stressed that the “risk of
overdiagnosis is real” and cited the high number of transgender young adults wishing
to detransition. Thus, the Academy concluded that it was crucial to “extend as much
as possible the psychological support phase” to guard against providing “irreversible”
medical care for “transient dysphoria.”Finland has made similar findings, and its Council for Choices in Health Care
stressed that “[r]esearch data on the treatment of dysphoria due to gender identity
conflicts in minors is limited,” that medical intervention should be deemphasized in
favor of psychotherapy, and that surgery should not be part of any treatment.Likewise, England’s National Health Service has also recognized the need to hit the
brakes on the medical transition of children given the concerning and abnormal spike
in referrals of children claiming to identify as a different sex. It noted that in “most
cases gender incongruence does not persist into adolescence” and that social
transitioning should no longer be considered a “neutral act” given the risks associated
with it. Thus, “social transition should only be considered where the approach is
necessary for the alleviation of, or prevention of, clinically significant distress or
significant impairment in social functioning and the young person is able to fully
comprehend the implications of affirming a social transition.”Despite the trend in Europe to change course amidst a clear social contagion, the
risks of transitioning children socially and medically, and the growing population of
detransitioners, the University of Virginia’s Health System and Children’s Hospital
continues to offer gender-affirming medicine including gender-affirming surgeries
and hormones.
Given the serious and long-term impacts of gender transitions for minors, and that many of the procedures are irreversible, it is vital for the public to better understand what the university health clinics are doing and saying about gender-reassignment procedures, the emails state.
America First Legal then requested records from the clinics, from 2020 to the present, including:
1. How many minors each clinic has treated;
2. The number of minors prescribed puberty blockers by each clinic;
3. The number of minors prescribed cross-sex hormones;
4. The number of cases where minor patients reported serious complications from puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and other gender treatments;
5. The number of minors who stopped and/or expressed regret after receiving treatment;
6. All records having to do with how each clinic provides third parties for how to respond when parents are “insufficiently supportive” of transition;
7. Sources of funding;
8. Anyone who receives training from each clinic;
9. How each clinic complies with federal conscience protections
10.How each clinic obtains parental consent, informs minors and parents about the risks of “gender-affirming” care.
