As public pressure to stop operating on children with gender dysphoria builds, Seattle Children's Hospital pledged to continue offering "lifesaving" gender-affirming care to pediatric patients, according to the Daily Caller.
According to the hospital website, it is "the only pediatric academic medical center with fellowship-trained plastic surgeons who provide gender-affirming surgery in our region — Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana and Idaho."
Despite the growing criticism, the hospital told the Daily Caller that it has no plans to discontinue "gender-affirming care" for its pediatric patients.
"We will continue to offer evidence-based gender-affirming care because it is lifesaving care and is aligned with our mission to help every patient live their healthiest and most fulfilling life possible," a Seattle Children's spokesman told the news outlet. "Seattle Children's providers are specifically trained to care for the unique needs of adolescents, teens and young adults. This allows our team to offer personalized care that is tailored to meet each patient's individual needs and goals."
Seattle Children's "Surgical Gender Affirmation Program" offers "complex procedures, including face and neck surgery, top surgery (breast/chest), bottom surgery (genitals) and body contouring" for "teens and young adults" who suffer from gender identity issues.
While patients must wait until they are 18 years old to have genital surgery, "a typical age is mid-teens or older" for other procedures, according to the hospital website.
The invasive pediatric procedures listed on Seattle Children's website include thyroid cartilage surgery to create or remove an Adam's apple, double mastectomies to remove breast tissue and mandible contouring to alter the shape of the jaw.
According to the website, the hospital offers "options to improve the results" of surgical procedures in the event that the first surgery does not "meet the patient's needs or goals." Common side effects include non-functioning sex organs and infertility.
Seattle Children's fertility preservation program claims it is the only hospital in the region able to "remove and freeze immature eggs so they can be used later in life." This procedure makes "fertility preservation possible for patients who have not yet gone through puberty and for those who cannot delay treatment to ripen and freeze their eggs."
Public reaction to these procedures at other U.S. children's hospitals has, at times, become heated. At Boston Children's Hospital, which previously offered vaginoplasty surgery to 17-year-olds before updating its criteria to 18 years old, 37-year-old Catherine Leavy allegedly threatened the hospital last month.
Leavy allegedly called Boston Children's and said, "There is a bomb on the way to the hospital, you better evacuate everybody you sickos." She was arrested by the Department of Justice and charged with one count of explosive materials — willfully making a false bomb threat.