Blaze News original: Damning new database names and shames hospitals that have subjected thousands of kids to sex-change mutilations

Do No Harm is a medical advocacy group that works with health care professionals, hospital administrators, patients, policymakers, and others to reverse the ideological capture of medicine and medical education.

Since 2022, DNH — which comprises members across all 50 states and in 14 countries — has focused primarily on curbing two harmful ideological currents in particular: DEI-branded racism and radical gender ideology. DNH made a major strategic play last week to help expose the latter.

The organization launched the Stop the Harm database Tuesday, revealing precisely which hospitals and medical facilities around the country are presently subjecting thousands of vulnerable children to sex-change mutilations and sterilizing chemical treatments.

Dr. Roy Eappen, an esteemed endocrinologist and senior fellow at Do No Harm who has spent over three decades treating patients, told Blaze News, "A lot of the activists in this field say things like, 'No children are getting these kinds of treatments, or there are very, very few.'"

Eappen emphasized that the data say otherwise — and now the American public can see the offenders listed and victims tallied for themselves, all in one place.

'It is crucial every parent familiarizes themselves with this database.'

DNH's national database, which provides breakdowns on a state-by-state and institutional basis, revealed that between 2019 and 2023, at least 13,994 children received sex-change medical interventions.

"This first-of-its-kind project provides patients, families, and policymakers with a resource that reveals the pervasiveness of irreversible sex-change treatments for minors in America," Dr. Stanley Goldfarb, chairman of DNH, said in a statement.

"The StopTheHarmDatabase.com that the incredible group Do No Harm put together is an incredible body of work," said Alvin Lui, president of the parental rights advocacy group Courage Is a Habit. "It is crucial every parent familiarizes themselves with this database."

DNH researchers analyzed publicly available insurance claims data "from an all-payer claims database that incorporated data from clearinghouses, data aggregators, payors, health systems, CMS, and multiple open data sources" as well as from commercial insurance, Medicaid, Medicare , and VA claims concerning confirmed sex-change-related treatments for minors ages 0 to 17.5.

They determined that a staggering 5,747 American children were subjected to sex-change mutilations over that short period.

Meanwhile, 62,682 prescriptions for sterilizing hormones and puberty blockers were written for 8,579 pediatric patients.

"That doesn't sound like a huge number, but I think it's way too many," said Dr. Eappen.

These figures are minimums as the researchers have admittedly only just scratched the surface.

'This data represents the tip of the iceberg.'

Dr. Eappen noted that the Kaiser Permanente health care consortium has, for instance, withheld its data concerning potential sex-change victims, and Lui noted that the "majority of transgender drugs and surgeries that are provided to children are still paid out of pocket."

Dr. Goldfarb noted that while "this data represents the tip of the iceberg, this is the first step in holding the medical establishment accountable for participating in, and often times promoting, predatory and unscientific medical interventions for vulnerable children."

Lui stressed that the "explosion of children getting sucked up into the cult since 2016 should frighten every parent in America."

While the trend got progressively worse in 2021 and 2022, there were potential signs of the trend tapering off in 2023.

Dr. Goldfarb told Blaze News:

In the majority of states, we saw a spike in minors undergoing sex change treatments between 2021 and 2022. For example, California saw a more than 50% increase between that time (2021-363 patients, 2022-687 patients). PA saw an ~30% increase (2021:105, 2022: 332). The numbers started to decline slightly in 2023, but that is also around the time when many states began to pass legislation banning '[gender-affirming care].' AL was the first to pass legislation in 2022 and was one of the only states to see a decline in minors undergoing sex change treatments in 2022.

Last year, however, Do No Harm observed a trend of fewer patients, "especially in states that have passed legislation banning 'GAC,'" said Goldfarb.

"Our plan with the next iteration of the database is to analyze the 2024 data to see if these states are in fact following the law, and if there is a downward trend in the states that are still allowing 'GAC,' especially now that the danger of ideology is more widely known," added the DNH chairman.

The current database makes abundantly clear that the mutilation and sterilization of America's youth is a profitable enterprise. Over $119.7 million was made during this period on child sex-change medical interventions.

When asked whether money or ideology was the driving force behind the sex-change industry's medicalization of children, who in most cases would alternatively grow out of their confusion, Dr. Eappen said, "I think it's actually a confluence of the two."

"Ideology is a big part of it. But you know, Marci Bowers, who's the chief of WPATH, which is the World Professional Association of Transgender Health, made a million dollars last year as a transgender surgeon," continued Dr. Eappen. "It can be quite a lucrative undertaking."

'You're also making children into patients for life.'

Dr. Melanie Crites-Bachert, a urologist and osteopathic surgeon with expertise in pelvic reconstruction, recently provided Blaze News with some idea of how much surgery centers can make performing various sex-change mutilations.

"A lot of these surgeries can be done in a surgery center. They are very lucrative with reimbursement," said Crites-Bachert. "If somebody were going to have an orchiectomy or castration — my former biller pulled up this information — the Medicare reimbursement is $324. To amputate a penis is $804. Now, keep in mind, therapeutically, you sometimes do need to amputate a penis if there's penile cancer or things like that, but purely amputating a penis is $804. A hysterectomy, an abdominal hysterectomy, is a little over $1,000. A vaginoplasty, which is basically reconstructing the vagina for things like trauma, is $1,161."

Crites-Bachert indicated that these figures represent Medicare reimbursements for therapeutic procedures and that a surgery center can expect 150-200% reimbursement above that from commercial insurance if a patient has commercial insurance paying these procedures.

"You're also making children into patients for life because a lot of these kids have complications from these kinds of surgery. And you're saying that they should be on their hormones basically forever," said Dr. Eappen.

According to Grand View Research, the U.S. sex reassignment hormone therapy market size was an estimated $1.6 billion in 2022 and is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 4.05% until 2030.

The Free Press noted that Planned Parenthood, whose business model has long appeared to be harming vulnerable human beings, is presently the country’s leading provider of sex-change hormones for young adults.

The Insight Partners estimated that the global sex-change surgery market will grow to nearly $7 billion by 2031.

Dr. Miriam Grossman, the board-certified child and adolescent psychiatrist who authored the 2023 book "Lost in Trans Nation: A Child Psychiatrist’s Guide Out of the Madness," told Blaze News in September that surgeons and pharmaceutical reps will not be the only ones cashing in on victims of the sex-change regime.

Grossman noted that billions of dollars are "going to be made from reproductive technologies because we're producing a generation of sterilized people who are going to need egg and sperm donations. They're going to need IVF. They're going to need surrogates in order to have children."

'Medical gender reassignment does not have an impact on suicide risk.'

While there are hospitals that have far higher child sex-change billings, DNH's Stop the Harm database indicated that the 12 worst-offending children's hospitals promoting sex-change treatments for minors are as follows:

• The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia;
• Connecticut Children's Medical Center;
• Children's Minnesota;
• Seattle Children's;
• Children's Hospital Los Angeles;
• Boston Children's Hospital;
• Rady Children's Hospital in San Diego;
• Children's National Medical Center in Washington, D.C.;
• UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital Oakland;
• Children's Hospital Colorado;
• UPMC Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh; and
• Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center.

Blaze News reached out to the top offenders above for comment but received a response only from Children's Hospital Los Angeles, which noted it was "declining participation" in this report.

The continued medicalization of children is particularly egregious, not only because of the impossibility of getting informed consent from minor patients and in many cases their guardians — a troubling reality even WPATH scientists have admitted in private communications — but because of the ever-growing mountain of scientific literature indicating "gender-affirming care" is at best pseudoscience.

Gender ideologues and profit-incentivized health professionals have long told parents with confused children that they must choose between a "dead son or a live daughter" or between a "living son or a dead daughter” — the suggestion being that ruinous chemical treatments and irreversible surgeries are solutions to a gender-dysphoric child's supposed suicidality.

This claim has collapsed in recent years.

A peer-reviewed study published in January in the esteemed quarterly journal BMJ Mental Health revealed that "medical gender reassignment does not have an impact on suicide risk."

'You've sentenced a whole bunch of children to infertility and many other problems.'

"All-cause and suicide mortalities did not differ between those gender referred who had and had not proceeded to [sex-change surgeries] when psychiatric treatment history was accounted for," wrote the researchers.

The suicide argument is not the only core gender ideology claim to have recently crumbled.

Dr. Hilary Cass, an esteemed British medical doctor who previously served as president of the Royal College of Pediatrics and Child Health, was commissioned by NHS England to lead a multi-year investigation into the U.K.'s sex-change regime, particularly its youth-facing services.

Her final report came out earlier this year, revealing that where so-called gender science is concerned, "There is not a reliable evidence base upon which to make clinical decisions, or for children and their families to make informed choices."

The Cass Review had the University of York undertake a series of systematic reviews on topic, which found that most of the "research" underpinning so-called gender science is of "poor quality," demonstrating "poor study design, inadequate follow-up periods and a lack of objectivity in reporting of results."

In the case of the puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones apparently foisted on children by Boston Children's Hospital and other offending institutions, the review made clear that the uses "are unproven and benefits/harms are unknown."

"In addition to this making it difficult for clinicians to know whether these are appropriate treatments to offer, it is also challenging to provide children, young people and families with sufficient information on which to make an informed choice," said the review. "The duty of information disclosure is complicated by many 'unknown unknowns' about the long-term impacts of puberty blocker and/or masculinizing/feminizing hormone during a dynamic developmental period when gender identity may not be settled."

"I'm appalled that in North America, the Cass Review has not received more attention," Dr. Eappen told Blaze News. "[Dr. Cass] was neutral, and she basically came to the conclusion that most of this should not be done."

Dr. Eappen suggested that the North American medical establishment is keen to ignore the mounting evidence of the sex-change regime's unscientific and harmful practices in part because of its ideological capture — a problem that not only affects medical institutions but various medical professional associations such as the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Endocrine Society. It may, however, also be a matter of guilt and liability.

"When you've done things that are basically irreversible, it's very hard to say that you've done something wrong," said Dr. Eappen. "I mean, you've sentenced a whole bunch of children to infertility and many other problems. How can you say that you made a mistake?"

Dr. Eappen indicated that for each of the victims tallied above, there are also parents who bear some responsibility, and it's "very hard to say that you've done something that's harmed your children."

Chloe Cole, a senior DNH fellow and patient advocate, is among the many Americans victimized by the sex-change regime.

Cole told the Florida Boards of Medicine and Osteopathic Medicine Joint Rules/Legislative Committee in 2022, "At 13, I started taking puberty blockers and testosterone. At 15, I underwent a double mastectomy in which my breasts were removed and my nipples were grafted. And yet, at 16, after years of medically transitioning, I came to realize I severely regretted my transition."

Cole — who recently endorsed President Donald Trump "because he's committed to protecting children from these rash decisions" — said in a statement, "This new project from Do No Harm proves the lies from the medical establishment and radical politicians who argue that cases like mine are rare."

"The stats in this database represent thousands of kids who are being treated like Guinea pigs for unproven, and sometimes dangerous, medical experiments," continued Cole. "I hope politicians and parents alike use this database to see where these treatments are happening and protect their children from being rushed into irreversible, life-altering treatments."

When discussing the best ways to cripple the sex-change regime, Dr. Eappen told Blaze News that:

DNH has helped several legislatures pass laws because if the medical field doesn’t self-regulate itself properly, I think it’s the responsibility of the government to do something about it. I would prefer not to pass laws — I would prefer that doctors look at the risk-benefit ratio and see that the risks outweigh the benefits and act accordingly. But if they're not going to do that, [laws] are one way. The other is lawsuits: make it expensive for them to continue with this kind of procedure.

The Stop the Harm database might, in this regard, serve to provide a list of prospective institutional defendants as well as highlight states where children need legislative protection from the sex-change regime.

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