There won’t be any debate between former President Donald Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, at least when it comes to The Daily Wire’s explosive undercover investigation into transgender health care providers’ dubious practices.
After Matt Walsh revealed in a Wednesday Twitter thread that healthcare providers Plume and Folx appear to be rubber-stamping approvals for life-altering sex-change operations so insurance companies will cover the medical expenses, both Trump and DeSantis expressed outrage. Spokespersons for the former allies-turned-rivals for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination said their candidates would fight the radical transgender craze from the White House.
“This report is shocking and deeply disturbing. President Trump will put an end to this evil malpractice in our medical industry, and fight back against the radical transgender ideology permeating every American institution,” said Karoline Leavitt, spokeswoman for pro-Trump Super PAC Make America Great Again. “Trump is the only candidate who has rolled out a detailed plan to combat this sickness, which includes a DOJ investigation into Big Pharma and hospital networks to determine if they deliberately covered up horrific long-term side-effects of ‘sex transitions’ to get rich at the expense of vulnerable patients. The plan also calls on Congress to stop federal taxpayer dollars from being used to pay for gender transitions.”
Told of the report, a DeSantis spokesman cited his opposition to radical gender procedures being performed on minors, which although not a focus of the Daily Wire investigation, has been a long-held position of the Florida governor. The spokesman, Jeremy Redfern, also noted in a tweet that the Florida Board of Medicine and Board of Osteopathic Medicine “are currently working on rules to put extra guardrails in place to prevent that type of predatory practice.”
“We will continue fighting against the rogue elements in the medical establishment that push ideology over evidence,” Redfern added.
In the investigation, Walsh and his team discovered how easy it is to get approved for sex-change surgery when producer Gregg Re got the green light for an orchiectomy — a procedure to remove testicles — after a mere 22-minute virtual appointment with Plume, the largest transgender health care provider in the U.S.
Re got scheduled for a video call with Plume after providing a fake name on an intake form. Re made it clear that he had not been experiencing gender dysphoria for six months or more, he purposely mispronounced the name of the surgery he wanted, and he said he didn’t know what effect the surgery would have on him. Yet, Plume’s nurse practitioner told Re “she wanted to write the most ‘solid’ letter possible to justify surgery,” Walsh explained.
Three days later, Plume sent a letter to Re, who said his name was “Chelsea Bussey,” saying Re was experiencing “significant, ongoing gender dysphoria” — despite “Bussey” stating unequivocally that this was not the case — and recommending “Chelsea” for testicle removal. Walsh said that in a text message to Re, Plume explained that the letters of recommendation are sent using a template based on standards provided by the radical World Professional Association for Transgender Health, also known as WPATH. Plume sells letters of recommendation for $150 to those seeking transgender surgeries.
Folx, another popular transgender telehealth service, also approves patients for sex-change procedures even if they are not diagnosed with “gender dysphoria,” according to Walsh.
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“Folx, which provides letters authorizing surgeries for a nominal fee, goes on to admit that ‘it’s quite possible’ patients will receive a letter indicating a gender dysphoria diagnosis, even though they ‘really do not have dysphoria,’” Walsh noted. “We reached out to Folx about this. A staff member confirmed that a ‘diagnosis’ of gender dysphoria — with the word ‘diagnosis’ in scare quotes — is a ‘requirement’ for insurance purposes, even if it ‘doesn’t apply.’”
Former Vice President Mike Pence, in an interview with Morning Wire, did not address the Daily Wire investigation directly, but said he is adamantly opposed to such surgeries being performed on minors.
“I wholeheartedly support efforts in states around the country to ban chemical and surgical transgender surgery under the age of 18,” Pence said. “I’ll support every effort in states around the country, and at the national level, to ban gender transition, chemical or surgical treatment [for people] under the age of 18.”
Former UN Ambassador and South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley also seized on the investigation to voice her opposition to transgender surgeries for minors.
“As a mom, these discoveries are terrifying,” Haley said in a statement to The Daily Wire. “We should do everything we can to protect our kids, including outlawing transgender surgeries for minors.”
The Daily Wire’s Zach Jewell contributed to this report