Written by Hudson Crozier

“Gender-affirming care” under attack: Children’s hospitals in the U.S. face immense criticism for performing gender transitions on minors. Multiple scandalous stories have shown the lack of ethics or transparency regarding the radical, irreversible nature of the procedures.

The media’s original strategy: Mainstream outlets have largely ignored these controversial practices or claimed that they aren’t happening. When conservatives accused Boston Children’s Hospital of transitioning minors, media “fact-checkers” deemed their claims false and said accusing hospitals of transitioning children was “harassment.”

Now they defend it: The New York Times admitted this week that clinics in the U.S. perform “top surgery,” the removal of female breasts, on hundreds of girls, accusing Republicans of infringing on “an intensely personal medical decision.” CBS News then promoted a study claiming that the surgery “drastically improves quality of life” for patients as young as 14.

The study was flawed: Doctors only recorded patients’ responses three months after they had the surgery without analyzing long-term effects. The control group was a set of patients who didn’t have the surgery but were still receiving other forms of “gender-affirming care,” meaning that there was no sample of girls who overcame their gender confusion without transitioning. Most children naturally grow out of gender dysphoria.