Daily Wire host Matt Walsh this week uncovered shocking revelations about Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s (VUMC) so-called gender-affirming care, specifically financial incentives and apparent threats to dissenting staffers.
But the stunning discoveries about the treatments, some of which can be performed on minors, only lead to more questions: Where else in the nation are children undergoing these highly controversial transgender “treatments”? How many medical professionals have been bullied into participating? And how exactly does “parental consent” play into these irreversible surgeries?
What Was Uncovered
Video and archived web pages from the medical center detail a doctor’s promotion of the “big money maker” transgender therapies and surgeries. Some of these surgeries can be done on minors, and one doctor said that medical professionals who object to them for religious reasons should face consequences.
Mutilation For Cash
“It’s a lot of money,” VUMC Clinic for Transgender Health’s Dr. Shayne Sebold Taylor, who works with adult patients, said at one Medicine Grand Rounds lecture, video reveals. “These surgeries make a lot of money.”
Taylor noted that a “chest reconstruction” can bring in $40,000 per patient, and someone “just on routine hormone treatment, who I’m only seeing a few times a year, can bring in several thousand dollars … and actually makes money for the hospital.”
Citing the Philadelphia Center for Transgender Surgery, Taylor said vaginoplasty surgeries can generate $20,000, gushing that it “has to be an underestimate,” since hospital stay, anesthesia, post-op visits, and other add-ons are not included in the total.
“And the female-to-male bottom surgeries, these are huge money makers,” the doctor continued, adding that such surgeries could bring in “up to $100,000” for the hospital.
Some clinics are “entirely” “supported” financially by such phalloplasty surgeries, she said.
“These surgeries are labor intensive, there are a lot of follow-ups, they require a lot of our time, and they make money,” she emphasized. “They make money for the hospital.”
Vanderbilt opened its trans clinic in 2018. During a lecture the same year, Dr. Shayne Taylor explained how she convinced Nashville to get into the gender transition game. She emphasized that it's a "big money maker," especially because the surgeries require a lot of "follow ups" pic.twitter.com/zedM7HBCBe
— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) September 20, 2022
Participate, Or Lose Your Livelihood
At another Medicine Grand Rounds lecture, Vanderbilt health law expert Ellen Wright Clayton says that people who object to transgender treatments should face consequences. They are told they probably shouldn’t be working at VUMC if they don’t want to participate in the trans surgeries. (Again, Vanderbilt performs some trans surgeries on minors.)
“If you are going to assert conscientious objection, you have to realize that that is problematic,” Clayton said. “You are doing something to another person, and you are not paying the cost for your belief. I think that is a … real issue.”
Clayton said conscientious objectors would be “accommodated” but said these people have to find someone else to carry out such surgeries for them.
“I just want you to take home that saying that you’re not going to do something because of your conscience — because of your religious beliefs, is not without consequences, and should not be without consequences,” she stressed. “And I just want to put that out there.”
“We are given an enormous — if you don’t want to do this kind of work, don’t work at Vanderbilt,” she stressed.
Vanderbilt was apparently concerned that not all of its staff would be on board. Dr. Ellen Clayton warned that "conscientious objections" are "problematic." Anyone who decides not to be involved in transition surgeries due to "religious beliefs" will face "consequences" pic.twitter.com/CgNicrG4Mg
— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) September 20, 2022
Compelled Speech
Walsh additionally uncovered the medical center’s “Trans Buddy,” which is also available for minors and described as a sort of monitoring system of the center’s doctors, including the policing of their “pronoun” use.
In case the objectors hadn't gotten the memo, Vanderbilt unveiled a program called "Trans Buddies." The "buddies" are trans activists from the community who attend appointments with trans patients, monitoring the doctors to guard against "unsafe" behavior such as misgendering pic.twitter.com/KyYUdRHrrP
— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) September 20, 2022
Minors Welcome
In a video from 2020 on Vanderbilt Psychiatry’s Youtube channel, the center says they’ll give irreversible hormone drugs to children as young as 13 and will perform double mastectomies, or “top surgeries,” on adolescent girls.
After they have drugged and sterilized the kids, Vanderbilt — as explained in this video presentation by plastic surgeon Julien Winocour and Physician’s Assistant Shalyn Vanderbloemen — will happily perform double mastectomies on adolescent girls. pic.twitter.com/SRvtytflsk
— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) September 20, 2022
Vanderbilt’s Response
VUMC released a statement Wednesday claiming to be victims of posts that “misrepresent facts.”
“We have been and will continue to be committed to providing family-centered care to all adolescents in compliance with state law and in line with professional practice standards and guidance established by medical specialty societies,” the statement said.
The medical center seemed to acknowledge it provides highly controversial transgender treatment to minors, but said “VUMC requires parental consent to treat a minor patient” and “never refuses parental involvement in the care of transgender youth who are under age 18.”
“Our policies allow employees to decline to participate in care they find morally objectionable, and do not permit discrimination against employees who choose to do so,” the statement continued, referring to video of Vanderbilt health law expert Ellen Wright. “This includes employees whose personal or religious beliefs do not support gender-affirming care for transgender persons.”
The controversial Trans Buddy program at VUMC, the statement said, “has received national acclaim. Its purpose is to provide peer volunteers who support persons who are seeking highly personal care in an unfamiliar environment, and who may have been refused medical services in the past or avoided seeking them out of fear of being met with hostility.”
Where Else Is This Happening?
Hospitals across the nation are participating in so-called gender affirming care for minors, from Boston, to Chicago, to New York, to Florida, to California.
Moreover, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) is promoting the controversial gender “care,” despite warnings, dissident members of the group coming forward as whistleblowers have said.
Boston Children’s Hospital
The children’s medical center notably posted a video promoting hysterectomies, even though its clients are children or young adults under the age of 21. It sparked backlash across the country.
In the since-deleted video, Pediatric Gynecologist Frances Grimstad, MD, MS — who specializes in transgender reproductive health at Boston Children’s Hospital — explained what a “gender-affirming hysterectomy” entailed. The video quickly spread on Twitter as many people were outraged that a children’s hospital would promote irreversible procedures that render the patient unable to bear children.
Golisano Children’s Hospital
The children’s hospital in Rochester, New York, has video on its website boasting about providing so-called gender-affirming care to minors. In video, which has now been set to “private,” a woman says a child as young as eight years old is welcome to the participate.
Rush University Medical Center
The hospital, located in Chicago, performed a double mastectomy, or “top surgery,” on a gender confused 16-year-old girl after the child’s surgery was canceled in Florida.
Dr. Loren Schecter, director of gender affirmation surgery at Rush University Medical Center, removed the child’s breasts.
“They’re prepared to undergo the procedure and then you get a phone call that the surgery is now canceled,” Schecter said, a slam against Florida. “That’s quite traumatic.”
Scores of other gender clinics have opened across the nation, and as brought to light by video from VUMC, the “care” is a “big money maker.”
What Is Being Done To Stop This?
Some conservative lawmakers are starting to move against the controversial treatment for minors, drafting legislation and opening investigations into specific cases.
Tennessee
A wave of Republican lawmakers in Tennessee have called for an investigation into VUMC and have promised legislation against such practices on minors and threats against dissident doctors by next year, in light of the scandal uncovered by The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh.
“This evil can not stand in TN,” state Rep. Jason Zachary (R-TN) said. “The Legislature must address such abuse of children and act to protect those who face consequences for their religious objections. This will be a priority for me in 2023.”
Florida
Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) has taken the strongest stand in the nation against trans “care” for minors. The Florida Department of Health on April 20 released guidance advising against medical transgender treatment and social transitioning for kids, which has led numerous hospitals to stop accepting minors at its clinics.
“Due to the lack of conclusive evidence, and the potential for long-term, irreversible effects, the Department’s guidelines are as follows: Social gender transition should not be a treatment option for children or adolescents. Anyone under 18 should not be prescribed puberty blockers or hormone therapy. Gender reassignment surgery should not be a treatment option for children or adolescents. … Children and adolescents should be provided social support by peers and family and seek counseling from a licensed provider,” the guidance reads.
Moreover, DeSantis in May told political commentator Lisa Marie Boothe that he would support a ban on sex change operations for youths.
“I think that it’s something that — you can’t get a tattoo if you’re 12 years old,” he explained. “When they say ‘gender-affirming care,’ what they mean, a lot of times is, you are really, you’re castrating a young boy, you’re sterilizing a young girl, you’re doing mastectomies for these very young girls.”
And in August, the governor said doctors who perform such trans surgeries on kids need to be held legally liable.
Texas
Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) in 2019 announced that an investigation would be launched into the troubling case of a young boy named James Younger, whom the child’s mother claims was indicating he was transgender as early as age two. She is effectively transitioning the child, which can be irreversible in numerous ways, without the father’s consent.
What About Parental Consent?
While the child transgender movement remains at full speed in most of the country, “parental consent” seems to be what hospitals and some medical professionals are leaning on, which is already troubling enough.
And it’s not even the whole story.
The Pro-Transition Parent Wins
In public cases, we have see parents unsuccessfully try to stop their child from being transitioned while their estranged spouse moves forward with the irreversible “care.”
This was highlighted in the case of James Younger; father Jeff Younger has been legally battling his wife for years over his son. Mr. Younger has been routinely met with courts siding with his wife about their child and the transitioning of his boy moving forward.
In another case, the world’s “youngest transgender model,” 10-year-old Noella McMaher, is being transitioned by his mother and her transgender partner.
The boy’s father, an analytical chemist named Timothy McCord, unsuccessfully pushed back against his child’s transition, and his ex tried to have charged with a hate crime over a gender-related pajama incident.
“I have no say in it,” McCord told the New York Post last month, asked about the child being socially transitioned and potentially undergoing surgical transition in the future. “She’s not my kid anymore.”
Transitions Behind Your Back
It’s been uncovered that some school districts are facilitating social transitions of children behind parents’ back.
For example, the Eau Claire Area School District in western Wisconsin held a training session for their staff this year, and one slide from a presentation during the training told teachers that “parents are not entitled to know their kids’ identities,” The Daily Wire reported.
Moreover, California is moving to become a “safe haven” for children who want gender transitions.
As highlighted by The Daily Wire, the legislation provides an avenue for insurance companies, physicians, and contractors to ignore subpoenas regarding child custody and other court measures from outside states if the child is being medically treated for transgenderism.
The legislation also prevents health care providers and contractors from giving out medical information if it’s being requested from another state due to the state’s policy allowing civil action to be taken against individuals who perform “gender-affirming health care” on children, the report added.
Zach Jewell contributed to this report