The White House repeated its opposition to bans on sex change procedures for minors amid backlash from LGBT activist groups, according to the Advocate.
The Biden administration released a statement last week saying it opposed sex change surgeries for minors, but still supported gender procedures for transgender individuals, the Advocate reported on Wednesday. The administration faced immediate backlash from several LGBT activist groups, including the Human Rights Campaign, which called the administration “flat wrong.”
The White House clarified this week that the administration opposed bans on transgender sex change surgeries, while reiterating that minors should not receive life-altering transition surgeries.
LGBT activists took credit for the White House’s clarification in a leaked email posted to X on Tuesday morning. The email chain from the Whitman-Walker Institute and PACT, posted by health and science reporter Benjamin Ryan, praised the administration for clarifying that it continues “to oppose bans on care for trans youth” and affirming “that these decisions are best left to patients, providers, and families.”
The Whitman-Walker Institute is a group of nonprofits involved LGBT advocacy. Partnering and Communicating Together (PACT) is a funded partnership between the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Division of HIV Prevention and other organizations representing populations affected by HIV.
“We will continue to vigorously fight categorical bans on gender affirming care in the courts, including the Supreme Court, and we will fight back hard against partisan laws being pushed by extreme Republican elected officials that target Americans just for who they are,” the clarified White House statement read, Ryan reported.
The White House statement reiterated a common talking point sex change surgeries are typically reserved for adults, but a JAMA study in 2023 found that 3,215 patients aged 12 to 18 years underwent sex change surgeries between 2016 and 2020, including breast or chest procedures. There were also 405 patients in the same age range who had other genital surgeries during the period.
The most common form of sex change surgeries for teenagers and young adults include double mastectomies, but there are over fifteen different kinds of sex-change surgeries, some of which change body parts and others alter facial structure. The process for receiving a sex change surgery requires informed consent, a history of “gender incongruence,” a mental health evaluation and hormone therapy, according to the Cleveland Clinic.
In recent months, red states have taken action against child sex change surgeries, passing bills banning the life-altering procedures.
The Supreme Court ruled in favor of an Idaho law in April that bans doctors from prescribing hormone therapy, puberty blockers or performing sex change surgeries on minors. Doctors who violate this law can face up to ten years in prison.
In June, the Texas Supreme Court ruled to uphold a law that prevents minors from accessing hormone therapies, puberty blockers and transition surgeries. The court upheld a ban that prevents surgeries that sterilize children, mastectomies and removing any otherwise healthy or non-diseased body part or tissue.
The Whitman-Walker Institute and the Biden administration did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment. Benjamin Ryan declined to comment.
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