A Harvard-affiliated children’s hospital has sparked outrage after it claimed some babies know they are transgender “from the womb”.
In a now-deleted video, Boston Children’s Hospital suggested an even larger number of minors would know “as soon as they can speak.”
Critics told the claim was not based on scientific evidence and suggested medics at the clinic were unwilling to interview children, who are often at risk.
The hospital, which is part of Harvard University’s medical system, is also facing claims that it has been urging under-18s to have life-changing sex reassignment surgery.
In the clip, posted to Boston Hospital’s official website in August, psychologist Dr. Kerry McGregor, what kind of patients she treats.
She says: “So most of the patients that we have in the clinic actually know their gender, usually at the age of puberty.
“But a good proportion of children already know it – apparently – from the womb.
“And they’re usually going to start expressing their gender identity as very young kids, some as soon as they can talk… Kids know it very, very early.”
It comes as several states are beginning to crack down on prescribing puberty blockers to children. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has previously likened it to “child abuse.”
The Boston Clinic sees children between the ages of two and three, usually up to the age of nine. New patients come to the clinic and meet with psychologists to discuss their issues with the gender they were born into
This map shows the proportion of children between the ages of 13 and 17 who have been identified as transgender by state. The darker colors indicate a higher proportion of youth. In New York and New Mexico it is even three percent
dr Jay Richards, of the right-wing Heritage Foundation, told : “The claim that children “seem to know their gender identity…in the womb” is a claim without any scientific basis or data.
“It’s just a concept foisted on children’s actions by gender ideologues.”
dr Richards said it was another sign of “social contagion” increasingly creeping into medicine.
“I think even 25 years ago that would have been unthinkable,” he told .
The Boston Clinic sees children between the ages of two and three. New patients are counseled before exploring pharmaceutical options.
The clinic also provides “space and support” for this child to explore their gender.
Stella O’Malley, a psychotherapist specializing in gender issues, told : “When distressed and vulnerable young people are offered the opportunity to be someone else, it’s very, very tempting and gender ideology offers that.”
This map shows the proportion of the population who identify as transgender by state. Those with the darkest color have nearly one percent of their population in this category
Shown above are states with a puberty blocker ban (red), a partial ban (dark orange), a suspended ban due to court proceedings (orange), and a pure ban on surgery (yellow).
The map above shows the population of transgender adults and children across America in 2020, according to the Williams Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles. The estimate for children aged 13 to 17 has doubled since 2017. It shows that the highest population is in the southern states, followed by those along the east coast
How gender dysphoria in children has DOUBLED since 2017 – with 300,000 teenagers now identifying as trans
The number of children with gender dysphoria has exploded in recent years, leading to the use of powerful anti-puberty drugs.
According to recent estimates from 2020, approximately 300,000 children between the ages of 13 and 17 (1.4 percent) identify as transgender in the United States.
That’s double the figure estimated as transgender in a previous report by the same researchers in 2017, although they used different estimates.
In Connecticut and New York, the number of children identifying as transgender in their states has nearly quadrupled in just the past three years. Only in West Virginia, Tennessee and New Jersey did the population decline.
Children ages 13 to 17 are over four times more likely to identify as transgender (1.4 percent) than adults over 65 (0.3 percent).
Some say the rise is due to a heightened awareness of gender dysphoria — emotional distress due to a disconnect between gender identity and biological sex — and growing acceptance in society.
However, many believe that children’s impressionable minds are easily influenced by “trends” and “phases” among their peers, and that children are unwilling to make irreversible decisions about their gender.
Although there are no official national estimates, more and more children are receiving gender-affirming care at younger ages. Treatment often involves powerful and life-altering drugs that block puberty and the release of key developmental hormones.
So far, four states — Alabama, Arkansas, Texas and Arizona — have enacted bans to limit access to gender-affirming treatment, including hormone treatment and surgery. Oklahoma on Tuesday signaled its intention to follow suit after threatening to cut funding at a hospital if it prescribes puberty blockers or hormone therapies.
“Based on a series of events that I think are largely due to social contagion and the nature of ideological commitment, many are now considering this to be the right standard of care for children with gender dysphoria, and Boston Children’s Hospital is just one of the first.” that did it,” said Dr. Richards.
He added: “Some children conform to gender stereotypes to a greater or lesser extent.
“It doesn’t tell us anything about their ‘gender identity,’ a concept no child has, no one had until recently, and doesn’t even have a stable definition.”
Boston Children’s Hospital is also embroiled in a scandal over a now-deleted guide that allowed 17-year-olds to undergo irreversible sex-reassignment surgery.
A reporter for The Post Millennial revealed in August that people under the age of 18 were allowed to have both a hysterectomy and vaginoplasty, or the surgical construction of female reproductive genitalia in a boy, or a hysterectomy.
Hospital staff have since said this did not happen because no 17-year-old had met the necessary legal and other criteria.
Within about a week of the public uproar in right-wing social media accounts, the hospital deleted this information from its gender-affirming care page, changing it to read: “To qualify for gender-affirming treatment at Boston Children’s Hospital, you must You must be at least 18 years of age for phalloplasty or metoidioplasty and for vaginoplasty.”
Boston Children’s meanwhile denied the allegations as transphobic misinformation.
“Age 18 is used to reflect the standard age of majority for medical decisions,” the hospital said. “Boston Children’s will not and will not perform a hysterectomy as part of gender-affirming treatment in a patient under the age of 18.”
dr Richards said the contagion has led to an historic rate of young people coming out as trans or non-binary, an umbrella term people use to describe genders who don’t fall into either category, male or female .
A detailed report by the UCLA Williams Institute, based on state health surveys from 2017 to 2020, estimates that 1.4 percent of 13-17 year olds and 1.3 percent of 18-24 year olds are now transgender , compared to about 0.5 percent of all adults.
In the UK, referrals for girls seeking treatment for gender dysphoria, or the distress that results from a perceived discrepancy between the gender someone identifies with and the gender they were born into, are in the past increased by more than 4,000 percent decade.
The exponential growth in the rate of young people coming out as non-binary comes as no surprise to social scientists, who have documented incidents of “social contagion” in the past.
dr O’Malley told : “It’s well known that there are many social contagions, for example suicide and eating disorders and self-harm.”
“It’s especially common in adolescent girls because they tend to brood, over-identify with each other, talk endlessly about their problems, and talk to each other in a very sympathetic way, but it can lead to a kind of over-identification with the problems.” of the other,” she added.
After the Boston Children’s Hospital scandals, the hospital was the subject of a campaign of harassment and was inundated with bombings and threats.
Other children’s hospitals that offer gender-affirming care, such as Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, Vanderbilt Medical Center’s Clinic for Transgender Health, and Lurie Children’s Hospital in Chicago, have been forced to severely limit services or cancel all appointments on telemedicine platforms shift to hostility.