Children’s Mercy Kansas City hospital offers ‘gender-affirming’ care, apparently to children as young as 2

Children’s Mercy Kansas City hospital has been offering transitioning treatments to “gender questioning” children and adolescents, perhaps even to those as young as 2.

Simultaneously, its standards of care warn against trying to “convert” a child to his or her birth gender.

The hospital’s website proudly advertises children and adolescents may receive what it calls “gender affirming” care, including diagnostic evaluations and treatment recommendations for gender dysphoria; puberty-blocking and gender-affirming hormones; psychiatric medications; assistance with menstrual suppression; gender-affirming support from a board-certified chaplain; and gender-affirming voice coaching referrals, all through its “Gender Pathway Services” team.

Children’s Mercy’s Gender Pathways Services team claims to “provide evidence-based care that is informed by the Endocrine Society Clinical Practice Guidelines and Standards of Care proposed by the World Professional Association of Transgender Health (WPATH).”

WPATH’s Standards of Care include educating prepubescent “gender diverse children” on potential medical interventions for puberty.  And for adolescents, WPATH recommends against “offering reparative and conversion therapy aimed at trying to change a person’s gender and lived gender expression to become more congruent with the sex assigned at birth.”

The standards also recommend health care professionals educated adolescents about “chest binding and genital tucking,” and “consider prescribing menstrual suppression agents.” 

The hospital, which did not respond to a request for comment sent Monday, provides such services for the following groups of people, its website says: 

Gender questioning youth: Children and adolescents who are questioning their gender identities. 

Transgender, gender non-binary or gender-fluid youth: Children and adolescents whose gender identity is different from their assigned birth sex. 

Gender-variant: Children and adolescents who express themselves differently from traditional gender norms.

In coordination with the Gender Pathways Services team, the hospital provides a “GUIDE” team dedicated to “comprehensive care for children with differences of sexual development.”  

The GUIDE team webpage indicates it treats children from birth through adolescence, including comprehensive care for children as young as 2 through 6 who “may begin to express identity for one gender or another through play or expression.”  

For children aged 7 through pre-adolescence the GUIDE team suggests “gender identity is usually firmly established and can be stated by your child.” For adolescents it suggests, “Your child should be participating in making decisions about all aspects of their treatment.” 

Some of the resources readily available for children and families via the Gender Pathways Services page include links to the video “Growing Up Trans: a FRONTLINE Documentary”; the WPATH website; and sites called Gender Spectrum, The Trevor Project and Trans Youth Equality Foundation. 

Within the first three minutes of “Growing Up Trans,” several transgender children are depicted. Among them are a 9-year-old biological female who claims to have transitioned into a boy “for three years.”  

Next, the video shows a young biological male who calls himself Ariel and claims to identify as female. “Turning into a man is just probably the most horrifying thing ever,” he says of the prospect of growing up naturally.  

The next child on the video is a biological female, who says through the use of cross hormones “I can get a deep voice, I can get a beard, I can get a flat chest” – as if ordering from the children’s menu at a fast-food restaurant.  

Then there’s the 9-year-old biological male identified as Lia Hegarty.  

“I am transgender. I was born male and identify as female. But I like to say that I’m a girl stuck in a boy’s body,” he says in the video. “I transitioned when I was 6 or 7 to more of a girl, and now I’m, well, almost completely female. Second grade was the last year of William and this year I changed my name officially. So, I changed my name, my clothes, my room and my pronouns. And that’s really all you need, except for the fifth one, that I still need: surgery and medicine to help me look like a girl.”  

This is all within the first three minutes of the 90 minute video. 

Children’s Mercy has apparently produced its own video. A “webisode” called “Changing lives with Gender Pathway Services: Alex’s story” is embedded near the bottom of the Gender Pathways Services page.  

The video tells the story of Alex, a biological female who has identified as male since age 3. 

“17-year-old Alex knew something was different from about the age of 3,” the synopsis reads. “But it wasn’t until mom reached out to Children’s Mercy did this struggling child get answers, help and a diagnosis of gender dysphoria, which would set Alex on the path to becoming a happy, healthy transgender male.” 

“I’ve known something was a little different, like, my entire life,” he says in the video. “My dad had taken off his tie and laid it on his bed. And, 3-year-old me walked in the bedroom, picked up the tie and put it around my neck – and walked into the kitchen and said, ‘Dad, can you teach me how to tie a tie?’ My dad gave me a funny look and knelt down next to me and said, ‘Oh, you don’t need to know how to tie a tie. Girls don’t wear ties. Good girls wear dresses. You wear dresses.’ I just burst into tears.” 

Alex has been taking gender-affirming hormones – testosterone therapy – to look and sound more male, the video explains. The therapy has gone on for an undisclosed period, and he must undergo yearly checkups. 

Alex goes on to say that without the diagnosis of gender dysphoria, which he received from Children’s Mercy, none of the other gender-affirming care he has received in transitioning to male would be possible.  

And yet, such “care” can be more of a curse than a blessing, say those who deeply regret their transitioning. 

Cat Cattinson and Scott Newgent have both begun the process of detransitioning after their attempts to transform themselves physically into members of the opposite sex as adults. Both are experiencing a multitude of major medical issues and have profound regrets, as reported Monday by The Lion. 

“You’re trying to use body modification to treat a mental illness,” said Cattinson, whose attempts at body modification through testosterone therapy have resulted in heart palpitations, nausea, pain and difficulty speaking and singing despite her love for music. 

Newgent’s aftereffects include PTSD, multiple surgeries, a heart attack, several life-threatening infections and lung, heart and bladder damage – as well as $1 million in medical expenses and the loss of his “home, car, career and marriage.” 

And these are adult transitioners. Can children be trusted to competently make such life-altering elective decisions, even with the aid and encouragement of trusting parents and medical professionals? 

That’s the question Chloe Cole has asked in her medical malpractice lawsuit against the doctors who she says “mutilated” her by way of double mastectomy at the age of 15, having also “coerced” her parents into the transition through the specter of her supposedly inevitable suicide absent a gender change. 

“These butchers have gone unquestioned and unchallenged for too long,” she said. “My goal in this lawsuit is to set a precedent that will change the landscape for these barbaric processes and to create a pathway for other detransitioners to seek justice.” 

Even retired Navy SEAL Christopher Beck, who announced his transition to “Kristin Beck” in 2013, said this year, “Everything that happened to me for the last 10 years destroyed my life. I destroyed my life. I’m not a victim. I did this to myself. But I had help. … 

“I got taken advantage of. I got propagandized. I got used badly by a lot of people who had knowledge way beyond me. They knew what they were doing. I didn’t.” 

Beck told Fox News’ Tucker Carlson Monday night he is speaking out to protect children, and urged viewers to look up the name Chloe Cole. 

“The medical industry and parents, y’all need to wake up,” Beck warned. “Y’all need to know that there’s a lot of information out there that’s being hidden. And I want you to search for that information. … 

“I want people to take a look at both sides. … If doctors would be honest and give the entire story, then I wouldn’t even need to be on here right now.”