Anti-trans activists release database flagging hospitals providing youth gender-affirming care

Do No Harm, a coalition of anti-trans doctors, nurses, and medical professionals, released a database of all the hospitals and medical centers in the U.S. that provide gender-affirming care for trans youth today.

The database spotlights twelve hospitals that Do No Harm claims are “the worst-offending children’s hospitals promoting sex change treatments for minors” called “The Dirty Dozen.” The top three in that group are the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Connecticut Children’s Medical Center, and Children’s Minnesota.

The findings push hyperbolic concern over medical centers when studies, like one from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health published in June, show that gender-affirming surgeries are rarely performed on youth.

In addition to ranking hospitals, institutions, and providers by how often they provide gender-affirming care, the database also offers state-by-state breakdowns. As shown below in Minnesota’s state-specific breakdown, the database states that 382 patients under the age of 18 “underwent gender-affirming procedures or hormone/puberty blocker therapy,” which resulted in almost $3.3 million in medical care.

Per the database’s methodology, Do No Harm compiled the information on hospitals by analyzing insurance claims and publicly available information on the facilities. The group also states that the database aims to “protect children” and “inform the public and shed light on the prevalence of these practices.”

In a tweet about the project, Do No Harm’s External Relations Manager Beth Serio, who is also a nurse, said the database disproves the notion that children “do not receive gender surgeries.”

“We know that is false and today we are providing the receipts,” Serio tweeted. “5,747 children received a sex-change surgery between 2019 and 2023. And this is only the beginning of what we have uncovered.”

Even if confirmed, 5,700 children would be just seven one-thousandths of a percent of the estimated 72.5 million children living in America.

The database is being heralded by far-right, anti-trans figures in the wake of its release.

“It’s happening and it’s horrific!” Terry Schilling tweeted. Schilling is the president of the American Principles Project, a conservative political action committee.

“If you haven’t done so already, check out Do No Harm’s new database and interactive tool for understanding the empirical realities of so-called ‘gender-affirming care’ in the United States,” anti-trans political scientist Leor Sapir tweeted.

“I believe that if this data was available to my parents, a lot of what I’ve been through wouldn’t have happened at all,” self-proclaimed detransitioner Chloe Cole tweeted.

And Matt Walsh, a far-right political commentator, called the database “very important.”

While anti-trans activists have deemed the list important, publishing the names of hospitals that provide gender-affirming care has incited violence before. When Chaya Raichik, who runs the anti-LGBTQ X account @LibsOfTikTok flagged a Massachusetts hospital for providing trans youth care, it received bomb threats.

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