Children’s Hospital Colorado announced that it is halting “gender-affirming” surgeries. / Thechildrenshospital|Wikimedia|CC BY-SA 3.0
Denver, Colo., Jul 26, 2023 / 15:30 pm (CNA).
Children’s Hospital Colorado will stop performing purported “gender-affirming” surgeries on patients aged 18 years and older, citing an “unprecedented” number of referrals and a need to focus on pediatric patients.
The surgeries involved “chest reconstruction,” the Denver Post reported. The procedures remove breast tissue to create a masculine appearance for women who identify as men. Staff are now referring prospective surgery patients to other hospitals.
The hospital said it has not performed such surgeries on patients under age 18, though it continues to provide puberty blockers and hormones and other services that aim to affirm the self-identified gender of some patients.
“We have been receiving unprecedented referrals for gender-affirming care, and in order to continue delivering expert multidisciplinary care to our pediatric patients and their families, we have made the difficult decision to no longer provide gender-affirming surgical procedures for adult patients 18 years of age and older,” the hospital told CNA in a statement.
Though a spokesperson for Children’s Hospital Colorado told the Denver Post last week that children’s hospitals have been “directly threatened as a result of the gender-affirming care provided in their institutions,” she later told NBC News that threats to other hospitals did not drive the decision.
The hospital’s TRUE Center for Gender Diversity still provides puberty-blocking medicines, cross-sex hormone therapy, and counseling as well as referrals to other services, according to its website.
“Using puberty blockers can avoid body changes that do not align with your identity,” the TRUE Center website says. It says hormone therapy can help produce secondary sex characteristics like voice pitch and breast development “that align with your gender identity.”
Catholic ethics rejects the removal of healthy sexual organs as a form of mutilation, according to an FAQ by the National Catholic Bioethics Center. The Catholic vision of the person as a unity of body and soul means that a person cannot change his or her sexual identity.
Purported gender-affirming drugs and procedures, especially for minors, have also drawn political scrutiny, public protest, and sometimes threats.
In November 2022, the New York Times published an article questioning the use of puberty blockers, which are often presented as a safe, reversible option. There are various protocols for using the drugs, little documentation of patient outcomes, and the drugs are not government-approved for use in gender therapies.
The drugs are prescribed as early as age 8 so that self-identified transgender patients can begin cross-sex hormones at age 12 or 13. However, puberty can help clarify self-perceived gender, and patients could be making life-altering choices prematurely. Among those who have used the drugs, bone strength analysis finds that their bone growth does not fully rebound.
There are also concerns that the drugs’ interference with hormonal development could disrupt mental growth and brain development in areas such as critical thinking, sophisticated self-reflection, social skills, and problem-solving skills.
“Our team is now working with impacted adult patients to explore referrals to the many other hospitals in the region that provide this care for adults,” the hospital said in its statement. “Children’s Hospital Colorado takes a holistic approach to ensure a patient’s mental and physical needs surrounding their gender identity and expression are met.”
An unnamed woman whose child was seeking to schedule chest reconstruction at Children’s Hospital Colorado after turning 18 this fall spoke about the changes to The Denver Post.
Before they could schedule the surgery her child’s primary care physician and a psychologist had to evaluate the child’s physical health and ability to make a decision about the procedure. Health insurers also had to agree to pay for the procedure.
She said her child has now been referred to the University of Colorado Hospital’s surgery center. She told the Denver Post the whole process has to restart, thwarting her child’s goal of finishing the surgery before leaving for college next year.
Colorado is the first state to define gender-affirming care as an essential health benefit and requires coverage of it in individual plans and small group plans, according to the website of the Division of Insurance at the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies. Colorado’s Medicaid program will streamline the process to provide people on Medicaid access to the drugs and surgeries on Aug. 30, 9 News reported.
An October 2022 Reuters report on children seeking gender care said 776 U.S. patients aged 13 to 17 with a prior gender dysphoria diagnosis underwent mastectomies from 2019 to 2021. This figure, compiled by health technology company Komodo Health Inc., was based on insurance claims data and did not include procedures paid for out of pocket. Genital surgeries were performed on another 56 patients in this time period.
The procedure is uncommon for patients under age 18, with some hospitals and gender clinics requiring patients to be adults. The surgical procedures are irreversible and have a heightened risk of complications, Reuters reported.
At least 121,882 children ages 6 to 17 were diagnosed with gender dysphoria from 2017 through 2021, Reuters said. It defined this dysphoria as the distress caused by a discrepancy between a person’s gender identity and the gender assigned to them at birth.
In the same period, at least 4,780 adolescents started on puberty blockers and at least 14,726 started hormone treatment.
[…]
Vice President Kamala Harris, who is currently running against Trump in the 2024 presidential contest, said on Twitter on Sunday that she had been “briefed on reports of gunshots fired near former President Trump and his property in Florida, and I am glad he is safe.”
So, she has usurped not only the candidacy of the incumbent, but his present term of office, with the formalities of the 25th Amendment or a resignation.
Karmala’s Deep State at work. The Republic is doomed.
Share with the rest of us your proof.
Share with us your proof that it’s not.
How many more thousands of times does the not so deep (hidden), very fascistic state, publicly calling the very anti-fascist Donald Trump a fascist or Nazi, would it take to create a national culture that inspires those of even softer minds to seek a catastrophic sense of “heroism?”
Use your common sense, man.
Two “deep States” at work. Any way you look at it the Republic is doomed!
I find it interesting that the time, date, and location of Trump’s golf game were not published publicly, which then raises the question of how the shooter knew beforehand where Trump was going to be. The shooter evidently traveled quite a long distance to get to the golf course. How exactly did he know where to be and when to be there at just the right time? I guess we’ll have more details once the FBI completes their investigation on the first assassination attempt.
The news reported that the suspect may have been hidden on site for 12 hours waiting for his opportunity. If that’s true it’s not a good look for federal law enforcement or the Secret Service. You might hope they’d at least conduct regular perimeter checks.
Indeed. How did assassin know that a) DT was in the home and b) that he would be playing golf that day. Unless assassin had parked nearby and stayed there for days watching to see if a caravan of SS and cars arrived at the place; and then assumed that DT would be playing golf that day between such and such hours. None of this is plausible. He had a Harris bumper sticker on his truck. He had donated to the Democratic Party. He was part of efforts to recruit fighters for Ukraine. He is in favor of the war vs Russia, as is Harris and the Deep State. Blackrock supports the war and finances it. The previous assassin appeared in a Blackrock commercial. This man Routh has been unemployed for quite a while. What is the source of his income? He has a house. Let us see if he commits suicide like Epstein or is killed by someone like Oswald….