Top North Carolina health systems push transgender mutilation of children: report
By newseditors // 2023-05-07
 
Top medical schools in North Carolina are pushing so-called “gender transitions” on young children, according to a new report. (Article by Jean Mondoro republished from LifeSiteNews.com This week, Education First Alliance released a report showcasing how three prominent institutional health systems — affiliates of Duke University, University of North Carolina (UNC) and Eastern Carolina University (ECU) — provide hormonal intervention and surgical referrals for gender-confused minors.  Education First Alliance is an organization dedicated to protecting children across the country from sexualized education and “progressive agendas.”  According to the report from the pro-family group, Duke’s health system opened its “gender clinic” in 2015 and sees kids as young as two years old. The report pulled from a testimony made in federal court by the LGBT activist in charge of the program, in which Dr. Deanna Adkins said that “from a medical perspective, the appropriate determinant of sex is gender identity.”  “It is counter to medical science to use chromosomes, hormones, internal reproductive organs, external genitalia, or secondary sex characteristics to override gender identity for the purposes of classifying someone as male or female.”  Adkins is a pediatric endocrinologist and diabetes and metabolism specialist, according to Duke Health’s website. “Sexual development, pubertal disorders, and gender disorders are a special interest of mine,” reads her biography. Adkins is also described as “LGBTQ+ Identified or Ally.”   The health system offers puberty blockers “for children under 16,” with no minimum age requirement specified. Beginning at age 16, children can be given cross-sex hormones and obtain referrals for surgery. “Top surgery” or mastectomies are available for kids once they turn 18.   In a statement to LifeSiteNews, Duke Health officials said that the health system does not initiate “gender transitions” for toddlers, but indicated that it does administer hormone drugs to minors and sometimes refer them for transgender surgeries. In accordance with “national and international guidelines,” the statement noted, “hormone therapies are explicitly not provided to children prior to puberty and gender-affirming surgeries are, except in exceedingly rare circumstances, only performed after age 18.”  Studies show that puberty blockers impact bone density in adolescents and that using cross-sex hormones as part of a “gender transition” can lead to heart attack and cancer. Puberty blocker use can also result in infertility. Several countries, including Finland, the U.K., Sweden, and Norway have moved to restrict “gender transitions” for youth in recent years, as have around 20 U.S. states. Similarly, UNC Health “treats” kids as young as three years old for gender confusion. An image of an intake form at the Gender Equity and Wellness Initiative (GEWI) program, shared by Education First Alliance, shows various options for “reason for referral.” These include “psychoeducation and support” for children ages 3-11, “guidance on social transitioning and access to resources,” “support and resources for exploring gender identity and expression,” and “letters of support for surgery” for those at least 18 years old.  The organization’s Student Health Action Coalition also dispenses “free gender affirming care [sic] on the 3rd Wednesday of every month.” According to the website, this initiative allows for medical students hands-on experience with participating in irreversible interventions for gender confusion, including “prescriptions for hormone therapy, general primary care, letters of support for surgery, and referrals to other resources and providers.”   Website pages for UNC HealthCampus Health and the psychiatry department in the medical school which once described the so-called “gender affirming” programs have been removed and now show “page not found” errors.   Last April, ECU Health established an “LGBTQ+ Health Clinic” under the guidance of Dr. Colby Dendy, who said in an interview at the time, “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.”  “A big part of our goal is to provide affirming primary care to everybody in LGBTQ+ spectrum,” Dendy continued, adding that “we also do not know of any other pediatricians in our area offering this care to those 18 years old and younger.”  According to its website, ECU Health is dedicated to “eliminating LGBTQ+ health disparities and enhancing efforts to improve LGBTQ+ health care necessary to ensure that individuals who are LGBTQ+ can lead long, healthy and happy lives.”  The so-called “Pride Clinic” is also reportedly “overseen by departmental chairs and the dean of the Brody School of Medicine, as well as a community advisory board.” Additionally, the health system includes a list of 30 medical professionals “who publicly declare they are affirming of patients of all sexual orientations and gender identities.”  LifeSiteNews has also contacted UNC and ECU medical centers for comment but did not immediately receive a response.  Such intervention, which has been adopted by numerous prominent health systems in the United States, has been widely criticized as “child abuse.”   In August, a children’s hospital in Washington, D.C., denied recorded evidence that the institution committed sterilizing transgender hysterectomies on 16-year-olds. This came weeks after Boston Children’s Hospital made headlines for advertising the same procedure for gender-confused youth.   Last month, the co-director of the notorious health system called for an increase in mutilating surgeries committed in the name of “gender transitions.”   Read more at: LifeSiteNews.com