Oklahoma Children’s Hospital will stop performing certain “gender medicine services” after the state threatened to cut its funding.
QUICK FACTS:
- Oklahoma Children’s Hospital, part of the Oklahoma University (OU) Health system, will no longer be performing gender services on minors after the state introduced a bill that would cut funding, The Daily Caller reported.
- Republican lawmakers in the state announced they want to use $39.4 million from the American Rescue Plan for the health system to create a pediatric mental health hospital. The funds cannot go towards “gender reassignment medical treatment” for minors.
- “The OU Health Senior Leadership team is proactively planning the ceasing of certain gender medicine services across our facilities and that plan is already under development,” OU Health said in a statement.
- The Oklahoma House Conference Committee approved the new version of the state’s HB1007 during a special legislative session this week.
- “I’m thankful for language in this bill that protects children from the practice of mutilation through gender reassignment medical treatment,” Oklahoma state Rep. Kevin West (R) said in a statement. “This unbelievably harmful practice cannot be reversed, and has lasting physical and psychological consequences that can damage these children for the rest of their lives.”
OKLAHOMA STATE REP. KEVIN WEST ON LEGISLATION CUTTING FUNDING FROM HOSPITALS PERFORMING GENDER SURGERIES:
“The radical Left may be making a national push to try and allow the mutilation of our children to become mainstream, but here in Oklahoma, we have to stand up for our kids and say enough is enough,” West said.
BACKGROUND:
- Oklahoma Children’s Hospital claims it is “the only interdisciplinary clinic in the state that provides gender-related care to patients under the age of 16 years” and that its “Roy G. Biv Program” serves “patients who identify as, lesbian, gay, bisexual, pansexual, asexual or other sexual orientation, male-to-female transgender, female-to-male transgender, non-binary, genderfluid, agender or other gender.”
- The hospital currently offers hormone therapy and puberty blockers, assists with legal name changes, and collaborates with schools and families.
