By Sean Salai – The Washington Times – Thursday, June 27, 2024
Most transgender surgeries in 2019 involved adult patients and teenagers aged 15 to 17, a new study finds.
Writing Thursday in JAMA Network Open, several Harvard University public health researchers analyzed the insurance records of 47.4 million adults and 22.8 million minors. They found that 5.3 out of every 100,000 adults underwent gender-transition surgeries in 2019, compared to 2.1 out of every 100,000 teenagers aged 15 to 17.
Only 0.1 out of every 100,000 adolescents aged 13 to 14 had sex-change procedures that year, and no surgeries occurred among children 12 and younger.
“Our study shows that use of gender-affirming surgeries among trans adolescents is very low, and among minors 12 years and younger, not happening at all,” said co-author Dannie Dai, a research data analyst at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health who is nonbinary.
The study also found that 80% or 507 out of 636 breast reduction surgeries performed on adults involved biological men suffering from gynecomastia, a hormonal imbalance that results in swollen breast tissue. Among minors, 97% or 146 out of 151 breast reductions in 2019 happened for the same reason.
“Thus, these findings suggest that concerns around high rates of gender-affirming surgery use, specifically among [transgender and gender-fluid] minors, may be unwarranted,” the researchers wrote.
According to the researchers, they conducted the study in response to a growing number of states that have moved to ban gender-transition treatments for minors. They noted that the Supreme Court is scheduled to rule this fall on the validity of such laws, which have cropped up in 23 states from Arizona to Florida.
The study did not include self-paid treatments, however. Researchers also pointed to a lack of national data on sex-change procedures among children under 12, reflecting international guidelines that do not recommend gender transitions for prepubescent children.
The findings come as transgender surgery for minors has become a political flashpoint leading up to November’s election, with the Biden administration pushing to expand access and insurance coverage.
On Tuesday, The New York Times reported that unsealed court documents showed the Biden administration lobbied international officials to remove age limits on hormone treatments, mastectomies, breast augmentation and genital surgeries.
The documents filed in an Alabama courthouse showed that Health and Human Services Adm. Rachel Levine, who was born male, expressed concerns that limiting the procedures to teenagers would “affect access to health care for trans youth.”
Conservatives have argued that gender-transition procedures performed on minors constitute “sexual assault” and “child abuse.” On Thursday, they blasted the Harvard-led study for minimizing those concerns.
“This study appears to be an attempt by the complicit medical establishment to tell everyone to ’look away, there’s nothing to see here’ when it comes to mutilating kids,” said Katy Talento, an epidemiologist who served in the Trump administration as the White House Domestic Policy Council’s top health adviser.
While transgender and nonbinary people make up less than 1% of the U.S. population, conservative states have also passed education laws banning biological males from competing in girls’ sports and restricting gender identity lessons in public schools.
On the other side, the District of Columbia and 16 liberal states from California to New York have passed so-called “shield laws” protecting youth access to transgender medical treatments.
Nationwide, public school districts have enacted policies allowing K-12 students to identify as transgender or nonbinary in class without parental knowledge.
Pride Month, an annual commemoration of the June 1969 Stonewall riots that the gay community organized in New York City’s Greenwich Village, has embraced trans issues as part of a shift away from its traditional focus on gay marriage.
Since the Supreme Court legalized same-sex unions over a decade ago, corporate America and progressive activists have come to emphasize the right of children to transition from their birth sex into other gender identities.
“This trend is a clear sign of changing times and the need for human evolution,” Gareth Gallagher, a Los Angeles-based LGBT event planner, told The Washington Times. “Ultimately, the spirit that lives on within us should guide us, not outdated traditional structures.”
Gregory T. Angelo, president of the right-leaning New Tolerance Campaign, said recent cultural shifts validate concerns about transgender procedures spreading to younger children.
“If the number of children under 12 undergoing gender transition surgeries is near-zero, then no one should have a problem formally banning it for that age bracket,” said Mr. Angelo, a former head of the Log Cabin Republicans, a conservative LGBT group.
As the election approaches, conservatives have emphasized polling that suggests most people support limiting sex change operations to adults.
In a survey that the Clare Boothe Luce Center for Conservative Women and the polling firm KAConsulting released in March, 71% of women aged 18-24 agreed that children should wait for adulthood “before having irreversible sex-change surgeries.”
Kimberly Fletcher, president of the conservative Moms for America, said Thursday’s study failed to capture the surging number of teens who have rejected their biological sex since 2019.
She said popular culture and the educational system have invited more and more children to question whether they “feel comfortable” in their bodies and to make changes if they don’t.
“What child between 11 and 14 feels comfortable in their body? They are launching mental and emotional warfare on our children,” Ms. Fletcher said. “It is child abuse at the highest level.”
Kimberly Fletcher is an author, radio host, and Founder & President of Moms for America
Sean Salai can be reached at ssalai@washingtontimes.com.
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