This week, Townhall reported how Ohio GOP Sen. J.D. Vance introduced legislation to outlaw irreversible transgender surgeries for minors. Townhall has covered how de-transitioners like Chloe Cole underwent this type of surgery as a minor and lived to regret it.
“Under no circumstances should doctors be allowed to perform these gruesome, irreversible operations on underage children. With this legislation, we have an opportunity to save countless young Americans from a lifetime of suffering and regret….I look forward to working with my Senate colleagues to protect children from these life-altering procedures,” Vance told The Daily Caller, who first reported on the story.
Documents uncovered by parental rights organization Parents Defending Education found that Seattle Public Schools’ School Based Health Centers offer middle and high school students access to certain types of gender mutilation care, including referrals for irreversible surgeries (via Parents Defending Education):
The School Based Health Centers at Nova High School and Meany Middle School offer students “gender affirming care” as part of its school based medical services. The health centers, operated by Country Doctor Community Health Centers, offer “no cost comprehensive, trauma-informed, and gender affirming care, conveniently at the school. The center is “staffed full time by a clinic administrator, medical providers, and a behavior health specialist.”
According to Country Doctor Community Health Centers’ website, the services it offers include “gender-affirming medications (estrogen, androgen blockers, testosterone, etc.) and injection techniques,” “hormone therapy for adolescents and specialty referrals for younger patients as needed,” and “referrals for gender-affirming surgeries.”
The health center states that it “does not provide puberty blockers” for adolescents at the time.
Seattle Public Schools’ “Gender-Inclusive Schools: Transgender and Gender-Expansive Student Rights and Supports” (Policy 3211) states that “staff should not disclose a student’s transgender or gender X status to others unless (1) legally required to do so or (2) the student has authorized disclosure” and “contacting the parents/guardians of a transgender or gender X student and it is unclear whether the student asserts the same gender identity at home, it is best practice to avoid using gender pronouns.”
PDE noted that The Nova Wellness Center offers the care "conveniently at the school," and that "we bill appropriate services to insurance if you have it."
In addition, the organization added that over 1000 school districts across the country have policies that allow school staffers to keep students’ gender transitions a secret from parents. Townhall has covered how this has occurred in New York, Colorado, Virginia, Kansas, and California, where schools were exposed for concealing this information from parents. As a result, Republican Sen. Tim Scott (SC) introduced legislation that would prevent schools from hiding information about a student’s gender identity from their parents. Recently, a school district in Ohio was exposed for instructing teachers to report child abuse to protective services if a “transgender” student’s parents are not supportive of their gender identity.
"It's bad enough that medical professionals are prescribing cross-sex hormones and cutting off breasts and genitals of minors; it is a whole new level of awful and terrifying for schools to be involved,” Erika Sanzi, director of outreach for Parents Defending Education, told Townhall.
