An undercover video released Wednesday by Project Veritas revealed that doctors in Texas and New York are routinely prescribing puberty blockers to children as young as eight years old.
“We do have patients who are starting as young as eight, nine,” a social worker at Dell Children’s Medical Center in Texas explained to one Veritas reporter who went undercover as a parent exploring transition services for his ten-year-old child. “We have a list of gender affirming therapists that we can provide.”
The social worker goes on to explain that, in some cases, puberty blockers are prescribed to young children after just one consultation with a doctor.
“In regards to prescribing [puberty blockers], that’s up to the prescriber’s discretion. And they might just require a couple of appointments just to see,” the social worker adds. “It might be appropriate after one. It’s not something that we want to gate-keep.”
In another clip, Prisha Mosley, a woman who transitioned as a teen only to de-transition in later life, tells the outlet that she was pressured into undergoing transgender surgeries and hormone treatment without a proper understanding of the impact of the procedures.
“They said it was transition or suicide. Like I was given no choice. I was told you will kill yourself if you don’t go through with these treatments,” she says.
At one point in the video, an unnamed Project Veritas journalist asks a family medicine specialist at St. Mark’s Institute for Mental Health in New York City whether surgeries could be conducted on “a 10-year-old.”
“They could, yeah!” the medical doctor responds. “I’ve never done a 10-year-old, to be quite fair with you. I’ve done 15, 16 [year-olds].”
In a Zoom recording Project Veritas acquired, a group of medical practitioners spoke about the “reproductive regret” experienced by young adults who transitioned as minors and lost the ability to procreate as a result. During the call, a pediatric endocrinologist at British Columbia Children’s Hospital acknowledges that some individuals who transition as minors later regret undergoing sterilizing procedures, but argues that the longterm cost is worth it to make the child happy in the present.
“We try to talk about it, but most of the kids are nowhere in any kind of a brain space to really talk about it in a serious way. That always bothers me, but you know, we still want the kids to be happy. Happy in the moment, right?” he says.
The video represents the first of a three-part series examining “how young medical professionals are not only allowing, but encouraging, children to begin the journey of medical treatment required for gender transitioning,” Project Veritas said in a press release.
“The undercover investigation discovered hundreds of large health organizations admitting to advocating that children who haven’t even hit puberty are mature enough to begin these life altering, and often irreversible treatments. After visiting 50 different clinics across eight states, Project Veritas discovered that puberty blockers were often made available for children as young as eight after only one prior consultation.”
An email obtained by the outlet also revealed that an adolescent pediatrics specialist within the Mount Sinai Hospital System places children on the path toward transition at just ten years old.
“If they do want to pursue surgery, it’s always good to be within the hospital system already. Just an FYI in terms of that, actually quite a few surgeons will perform on youth, the barrier is with insurance so it ends up being out of pocket,” the letter reads.
The practitioner in question, a later segment shows, walked an unnamed journalist through how the procedure works.
“The way to go at this age, age 10, would be something like a puberty blocker. When you then get to age 14, is when I’ll consider some, you know, cross-gender hormones. Fourteen is a reasonable age. Most kids are mature enough to make a relatively informed decision,” the doctor argues.
While gender-transition advocates claim puberty-blockers merely “pause” puberty, leaving no lasting effects on the developing body, some research suggests that the “pause” leaves children permanently altered as their bodies fail to develop adequate bone density and other secondary characteristics associated with puberty.
At age 14, the doctor says, children are generally mature enough to begin the irreversible process of taking cross-sex hormones.
“So I need the patient to be a little…to be mature enough to make a relatively informed decision. I get it, that there are some 14-year-olds that are not, you know, mature. But generally speaking, they usually are pretty good.”
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