By Sarah Weaver
Newly unearthed documents and investigative reporting reveal how medical professionals approve patients for sex change surgeries even if they aren’t gender dysphoric.
Telehealth services marked to transgender people, such as Folx Health and Plume Clinic, frequently diagnose patients with gender dysphoria, even when they do not necessarily meet the criteria, according to reporting by the Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh. Folx Health, for instance, explains that some patients may not fit the diagnosis for gender dysphoria but that “the code is needed in order for insurers to pay for the surgery.”
“It’s quite possible the information in a letter may not be specific to you,” the website notes. “For example, they may use a gender dysphoria diagnosis, but you really do not have dysphoria, even if you want top surgery.” (RELATED: How Influencers Lure Kids Into Transgender Lifestyle, Coach Them To Lie To Doctors)
Folx confirmed to the Daily Wire that a diagnosis of gender dysphoria is a requirement for insurance companies to pay for sex change surgeries, even if it “doesn’t apply” to some who identify as transgender.
Gregg Re, a producer for Walsh who formerly worked as a Daily Caller editor and as head writer on “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” went undercover as a transgender-identifying patient and contacted Plume Health, telling the online clinic that he had identified as a girl since a child, but that he had never experienced gender dysphoria for more than six months at a time. The DSM-5 specifies that to meet the criteria for gender dysphoria, a patient must have experienced, “gender and natal gender of at least 6 months in duration.”
🧵1/ BREAKING: The largest “trans healthcare” providers in the U.S. are rubber-stamping letters approving gruesome, life-altering surgeries. It’s such a racket that my producer was approved for testicle removal in #22minutes. The tape is disturbing.
— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) June 7, 2023
During his video interview with Plume, Gregg told a nurse practitioner that his father had been prescribing him hormones for year, an arrangement the nurse called “perfect.”
Nevertheless, after a 22-minute telehealth appointment, Gregg was sent a recommendation letter for an orchiectomy, the removal of testicles, to “help alleviate gender dysphoria.” (RELATED: The Entire Transgender Craze Leads Back To One Group, And They’re Playing Hardball)
The letter cites the recommendations of the World Professional Association of Transgender Health (WPATH), a medical organization whose guidelines are considered the standard of care for transgender health. WPATH recommends orchiectomy for individuals with a “eunuch” gender identity, and recently eliminated all age restrictions in their guidelines for sex changes.
The Daily Caller News Foundation reported on Plume Clinic in Nov. 2022, revealing that for just $99 patients can book a virtual appointment and receive a letter of recommendation to help obtain insurance coverage for cross-sex surgeries. Doctors at Plume can even diagnosis patients with gender dysphoria without the patient first meeting with a mental health professional.
Erica Anderson, a former president of the United States Professional Association for Transgender Health (USPATH), wrote in 2021 that gender clinics often receive letters from therapists that are little more than “a paragraph that stated the youth identified as trans, had dysphoria and wanted hormones.” Anderson left USPATH after voicing disagreement with the way the organization recommend treatment for transgender-identified youth.
Yes, this is what the first transgender president of USPATH and the psychologist for the first pediatric gender clinic in America blew the whistle on in WaPo in late 2021: https://t.co/6Lbw88l61W https://t.co/CAByeqcc5g pic.twitter.com/Bec8zVzn4p
— Wesley Yang (@wesyang) June 7, 2023
Another video included in Walsh’s reporting shows a licensed clinical social worker named Ari Groner saying she writes whatever letter will get her patients the surgeries they want paid for by insurance.
“Oftentimes we’re being asked by surgeons or physicians, but in reality it’s really for the insurance companies, that’s what the letters are really for and I think that’s really important for us to keep in mind,” Groner said, adding that patients need a diagnosis of gender dysphoria “to ensure clients get that necessary treatment.”
