Thousands of US children underwent gender transition: Study
Thousands of children have undergone gender transition surgeries in recent years, following a trend that has "increased significantly," according to the Journal of the American Medical Association.
The study identified 48,019 Americans of all ages who had undergone some form of gender dysphoria-related surgery in the United States between 2016 and 2019.
Nearly 4,000 of those were between the ages of 12 and 18. The reasoning for including 18-year-olds, the age of adulthood, in the younger cohort was not explained, so it is unclear by the study how many who are legally children were given the surgeries.
However, a recent Vanderbilt University study found that 489 children between the ages of 12 and 17, with a median age of 16, had gotten their breasts removed in a double mastectomy in 2019 alone.
"It turns out that not only have minors been receiving sex change procedures in the United States, as gender ideology advocates have argued, but it's been happening to thousands of kids and it's continuing to grow," Terry Schilling, president of American Principles Project, told the Washington Examiner. "The reality is that trans is not a civil rights movement. It's an industry that's mutilating and sterilizing the next generation of Americans for profits."
Surgeries in the JAMA article went beyond mastectomies and breast implants and included genital transition and facial reconstruction.
"Breast and chest procedures made up a greater percentage of the surgical interventions in younger patients, while genital surgical procedures were greater in older patients," the study noted.
Of the 3,678 patients between 12 and 18, 3,215, or 87.4%, had a breast or chest procedure. Another 405 of that age cohort underwent genital transition surgery.
"The fact that they are asking children to consent to something that they clearly can't understand and will change lives irrevocably is extremely unfortunate and is the reason European countries have decided to severely curtail this practice," Stanley Goldfarb, chairman of the Do No Harm medical advocacy group, told the Washington Examiner.