Leading medical institutions in North Carolina are targeting extremely young children to begin transitioning, according to investigative journalist Sloan Rachmuth.
Take a look at the minimum ages for transitioning from North Carolina’s leading hospitals. PASS #SB639 #HB808 #ncpol pic.twitter.com/RsAKM9rh3j
— Sloan Rachmuth (@SloanRachmuth) May 1, 2023
In 2015, Duke Medicine launched the Gender Clinic to provide a comprehensive range of treatments for children as young as two for gender dysphoria.
In 2016, the clinic’s director, transgender activist Dr. Deanna Adkins, spoke with the Charlotte Observer about her transgender pediatric patients.
“They are not old enough to consciously just choose to do that. … It is not a choice in any of my patients. It’s really an unpleasant thing to have going on in your body to feel that distress about yourself. I can’t imagine anyone who would choose to do that,” said Adkins.
Adkins wrote in her expert declaration to the federal district court in North Carolina, “From a medical perspective, the appropriate determinant of sex is gender identity.”
Adkins claimed that gender identity is “the only medically supported determinant of sex” and hence should be used as the primary foundation for identifying someone’s sex.
“It is counter to medical science to use chromosomes, hormones, internal reproductive organs, external genitalia, or secondary sex characteristics to override gender identity for purposes of classifying someone as male or female.”
In court testimony, Duke doctor Deanna Adkins detailed how she treats toddlers:
Before puberty, treatment does not include any drug or surgical intervention. For this group of patients, treatment is limited to “social transition,” which means allowing a transgender child to live and be socially recognized in accordance with their gender identity.
This can include allowing children to wear clothing, to cut or grow their hair, to use names and pronouns, and to access restrooms and other sex-separated facilities and activities in line with their gender identity instead of the sex assigned to them at birth. Social transition is a critical part of treatment of patients with gender dysphoria of all ages and it is the only treatment for pre-pubertal children.
In other health care, children as young as three can be evaluated for gender dysphoria at UNC Health. According to the website, they will work with UNC endocrinologists, family doctors, and surgeons who are ready to medically “affirm” the child’s gender.
ECU Health’s new Pride Clinic welcomes young patients of all ages. Dr. Colby Dendy, the clinic’s activist director, gave an interview to the East Carolinian, during which he said:
“The literature tells us that kids can start around age four having their gender identity, so we do not want to exclude anybody within the pediatrics realm,” Dendy said. “A big part of our goal is to provide affirming primary care to everybody in LGBTQ+ spectrum.”
More from Education First Alliance:
A majority of ECU Health family medicine doctors indicate they are trained and ready to accept an influx of patients on the center’s website.
Dendy and her colleagues at ECU published a recent paper calling for doctors and clinics to push puberty blockers and hormones through telemedicine and school awareness programs.
A month after the doctors at the ECU Pride Clinic published the paper, the school announced it received $3.2 M for a telepsychiatry program for school children.
Please read about @DukeHealth @UNC_Health_Care and @ECUHealthNC offering “transgender” treatments to 2,3,and 4 year olds. Share R/T https://t.co/wTstk08Xad
— Sloan Rachmuth (@SloanRachmuth) May 1, 2023
On Tuesday, Youth Health Protection Act will be discussed in the committee’s agenda. This bill will “makes it unlawful for any individual to engage in any of the following practices upon a minor, or cause them to be performed for the purpose of attempting to alter the appearance of or affirm the minor’s perception of his or her gender or sex, if that is inconsistent with the minor’s sex.”
THANK YOU @JohnTorbett @Kenfont1983 for adding the Youth Protection Act to tomorrow’s Health Committee agenda. Activists, I encourage you to join me tomorrow at the GA to support this bill. #ncpol #ncga pic.twitter.com/VViro23Cu1
— Sloan Rachmuth (@SloanRachmuth) May 1, 2023