Culture & the Family

Database shows 65 Oklahoma children subjected to sex change

October 9, 2024

Ray Carter

A new database compiled by the organization Do No Harm, a group of medical professionals, shows that 65 children were subjected to some form of sex-change procedure in Oklahoma from 2019 to 2023.

According to the Stop the Harm database, of the 65 child patients identified in Oklahoma 18 underwent some form of sex-change surgery while 47 children and youth were given cross-sex hormones and/or puberty blockers.

Do No Harm describes itself as representing “physicians, nurses, medical students, patients, and policymakers focused on keeping identity politics out of medical education, research, and clinical practice.”

The Stop the Harm Database was developed by analyzing insurance claims data to assess which sex-change procedures each hospital and healthcare facility administered to minors. Do No Harm also reviewed claims data at children’s hospitals in states that have passed legislation with age limits on sex-change treatments for minors and non-pediatric hospitals and healthcare facilities.

The database found that there were 13,994 minors nationwide who underwent sex-change procedures in the United States from 2019 to 2023 with 5,747 children and youth having sex-change surgeries and 8,579 receiving cross-sex hormones and/or puberty blockers.

The associated medical entities involved in the youth sex-change efforts submitted more than $119.7 million in charges.

Discussing the database on X, the site formerly known as Twitter, officials with Do No Harm bluntly noted, “It turns out that the child trans industry is a lucrative one.”

The database reports that 18 Oklahoma medical facilities conducted sex-change measures on children during the 2019-2023 period with four facilities providing surgeries.

Overall, just four state facilities were responsible for 53 of the 65 Oklahoma child patients subjected to sex-change measures.

According to the database, Children’s Hospital of Oklahoma was the leading provider with 25 sex-change patients (seven surgery patients and 18 patients receiving cross-sex hormones or puberty blockers).

An independent facility ranked second with 13 sex-change patients, all receiving cross-sex hormones and puberty blockers.

The Northwest Center for Behavioral Health, which is part of the Oklahoma State Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services, was identified as having had nine child sex-change patients, all of whom received surgeries, according to the database.

The database showed that Cherokee Nation W.W. Hastings Hospital in Tahlequah provided six youth patients with sex-change measures (cross-sex hormones and puberty blockers).

State Rep. Kevin West, R-Moore, authored the Oklahoma law that made it illegal to perform sex-change surgeries on anyone younger than 18 or to provide children with cross-sex hormones or puberty blockers. That law passed the Oklahoma Legislature with overwhelming support and was signed by Gov. Kevin Stitt in 2023.

“I’m extremely proud that we were able to get that passed,” West said.

Supporters of sex-change surgeries for children subsequently challenged the law in federal court. In October 2023, U.S. District Judge John F. Heil, III, denied the plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction that would prevent enforcement of the law.

Because the University of Oklahoma Children’s Hospital was seeking legislative approval of millions in spending on a new facility at that time, officials at that hospital met with lawmakers in 2023 and discussed having performed sex-change surgeries on some children.

West said lawmakers “suspected” the procedures were conducted on children at facilities other than OU Children’s Hospital, but it was harder to get data from other facilities when the ban was being debated.

He said his only regret is that legislators were not able to pass a ban on the use of taxpayer funding for any sex-change surgeries, not just surgeries on children.

West said it is disturbing that “something that is undeniably a life-altering decision” like sex-change surgeries and cross-sex hormone injections were being provided based on the whims of 12-year-old children who might—and often did—come to regret their decisions.

“It just breaks my heart,” West said.

Chloe Cole is among those who pursued gender change as children and came to regret her decision. Cole decided she was a transgender male at an early age and was given puberty blockers and prescribed testosterone by age 13. When she was 15, Cole underwent a double mastectomy. But by age 16, she regretted that decision and now lives as a woman.

Cole praised Do No Harm for highlighting the number of medical facilities nationwide that have performed sex-change measures on children, writing on X, “These numbers make it undeniably clear that this is a gender industrial complex, and the only way to stop it is a national ban on the medical transition of youth along with tons of lawsuits.”

She also noted that the database is not comprehensive and many more children were subjected to sex-change measures than the 13,994 identified by Do No Harm.

“This doesn’t even include me or thousands of others because Kaiser doesn’t make their insurance claims public…I wonder why??,” Cole wrote.

Officials with Do No Harm also stressed on the organization’s X account that most children expressing gender confusion resolve that issue if left alone and physically intact.

“BOTTOM LINE: Over 90% of children with gender dysphoria will grow out of that belief during their adolescent and young adult years. Almost 14 thousand children throughout the United States were NOT given that option. It is time to #StopTheHarm,” officials with Do No Harm wrote.

The Oklahoma lawmakers present at the 2023 meeting with OU Children’s Hospital officials do not recall the exact number of surgeries discussed, but other details remain stark due to their shocking nature.

“I don’t know the exact number,” said state Rep. Tom Gann, R-Inola. “All I know is that there was an admission of specifically removing the breasts off a 10-year-old girl.”