(LifeSiteNews) – The Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) is getting out of the underage puberty-blocking business after public scrutiny brought to bear by the conservative state legislators of the South Carolina Freedom Caucus (SCFC).
The issue was first raised in September, when the conservative American Accountability Foundation highlighted a MUSC booklet revealing that the university’s Pediatric Endocrinology Clinic received patients as young as four years old for “endocrine gender affirming therapy.” Among a patient pool age 18 and younger, “20% of patients received pubertal suppression and 50% received hormone affirming therapy.”
The booklet does not break down the exact ages at which patients received puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones, but it does express hope that in the future “more patients and at younger ages will be referred to affirming providers so that medical options such as pubertal suppression and mental health support can be discussed with patients and families.”
The @MUSCkids has four year olds coming through its transgender hormone clinic.
And hopes: “In the future, hopefully more patients and at younger ages will be referred to affirming providers so that medical options such as pubertal suppression”https://t.co/EXnvgnv8vv pic.twitter.com/UILYvsosbi
— American Accountability Foundation (@ExposingBiden) September 16, 2022
CBS affiliate WBTW reported that the SCFC filed a Freedom of Information Act request for records on the clinic, and last Friday Freedom Caucus chair Adam Morgan announced that MUSC officials “have informed us that they will no longer be providing morally and ethically repugnant ‘gender-affirming care’ that results in irrevocable and irreparable harm for minors.”
“MUSC Health does not offer gender-altering surgery,” the university confirmed in a statement, claiming it has “worked diligently to make sure that we are in compliance with the 2022-2023 Appropriations Act and proviso 23.4 and will do the same with any future legislative requirements/directives.”
That was a reference to a state law forbidding taxpayer dollars from being “used to fund or support any action furthering the gender transition of a minor child under the age of 16.”
“The battle against the woke Left in South Carolina is just getting started,” said SCFC Secretary Josiah Magnuson, who noted that their review of the records has found that “the university has been infiltrated by extremists who encourage the circumvention of FOIA laws,” Breitbart reported.
Another Freedom Caucus member, Stewart Jones, also announced legislation to strengthen the Palmetto State’s existing limits by making it illegal to perform surgical or chemical transitions on anyone younger than 18.
Studies indicate that more than 80% of children experiencing gender dysphoria outgrow it on their own by late adolescence, and that even full “reassignment” surgery often fails to resolve gender-confused individuals’ heightened tendency to engage in self-harm and suicide, and may even exacerbate it by reinforcing their confusion and neglecting the actual root causes of their mental strife.
On top of those issues, experts outside the medical establishment further warn that surgically or chemically reinforcing gender confusion imposes irreversible harm on children such as infertility, impairment of adult sexual function, and reduced life expectancy, as well as the psychological toll of being “locked into” physical alterations regardless of whether they change their minds when they mature, as attested to by many individuals who “detransitioned” back to their true sex.