“Gender-affirming care,” including blocking a child’s puberty, giving them cross-sex hormones, and performing surgeries on their bodies, is life-saving, according to the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the news media, Democrats, hospitals, progressive activists, and Hollywood celebrities. For decades, the most powerful people and institutions in America have said that if a child feels like they are the opposite gender, they are, and doctors should be allowed to give them drugs and surgeries so their bodies align with their true inner self.
And yet the result of it all, a new report published today by Health and Human Services (HHS) confirms, is the worst medical scandal since lobotomies. Researchers have found a 12-fold higher suicide attempt risk among adults who had gender surgery, either on their chests or genitals, than among those who did not. A Swedish study that followed every “surgically reassigned patient” for up to 30 years found death from suicide ran 19 times higher.
A Trump administration Department of Justice declaration cites video of Boston Children’s gender clinic director Jeremi Carswell saying puberty blockers are given out “like candy.” It cites Boston Children’s psychologist Amy Tishelman’s testimony that evaluation time for minors fell after 2017 from 20 hours to two and a half hours, which she called “reckless.” And it quotes the hospital’s website calling blockers “temporary,” “fully reversible,” and free of “any permanent changes.”
The Campaign for Southern Equality published tables of “Codes That Are Commonly Rejected by Insurance Providers” and codes commonly accepted, matching mastectomy to breast reduction and hysterectomy to pelvic pain. “This guide is essentially a template for how to commit medical fraud,” report contributor Haim testified to Congress in April 2025. “We should all remember that this is something that people go to prison for.”
The HHS reports note that puberty blockers cost insurers an average of $16,385 per patient per year. Vaginoplasty averages $53,645 per patient and phalloplasty $133,911. Revisions for urethral strictures, fistulas, and lost sensation add more. A typical pediatric patient costs about $3,000 per year, while a gender patient costs $25,000 to $75,000 over a lifetime before any surgery.
