The University of Arizona (UA) nursing school promotes the idea that toddlers can be transgender, according to slides confirmed to be part of a training program for student nurses.
One slide is labeled “What to ask – Ages 3 to 13.” It suggests using the following wording with children in that age group during well-child checks:
“Some kids feel like a girl on the inside, some kids feel like a boy on the inside, and some kids feel like neither, both, or someone else. What about you? How do you feel on the inside? There’s no right or wrong answer.”
“The College of Nursing does not recommend or advocate for young children to be asked gender-related questions in wellness checks. The college does not have a policy or position on this issue and does not integrate this type of training or education into its curriculum,” the university stated.
UA teaches practitioners to work with “parents and guardians and with their permission” when treating pediatric patients, UA stated.
The Sept. 6 post by Libs of TikTok about the slides has amassed more than 2.2 million views.
Kaiser Permanente released a statement to Fox News Digital saying that the training didn’t endorse the use of medical interventions on 3- or 4-year-olds. The hospital system didn’t respond to a request for comment from The Epoch Times.
The Kaiser Permanente training, led by three doctors and a physician’s assistant, aims to “explain the importance of gender-affirming care to KP (Kaiser Permanente) employees, staff, and patients.”
It also seeks to teach “appropriate terms that allow for understanding and delivering of gender-affirming care” and help them “recognize the experiences transgender, gender diverse, and intersex patients face” and determine how that might affect their interactions and the care they provide.
The training was meant to help providers “deliver an exceptional care experience to the transgender, gender diverse, and intersex community.”
A video showing young children identifying as the opposite sex includes a young boy who has identified as a girl since he was 4. Another segment of the video included a woman identifying as a man, saying she knew she was transgender at the age of 3.
Detransitioner Warnings
One former Kaiser Permanente patient, Chloe Cole, had both breasts removed when she was a teenager. She later tried to reverse changes to her body from hormones administered to help her look and sound more like a boy. Some of the effects are irreversible and have caused ongoing medical problems.
She is suing the physicians who she says pushed her to “transition” to male.
The lawsuit alleges that Kaiser Permanente “mutilated” Ms. Cole in response to her struggle with mental health issues as a minor.
The study reviewed a database with information about surgeries at “2,800 hospital-owned facilities from up to 35 states.” Within that network, researchers identified 48,019 patients who underwent “gender-affirming” surgeries in the four-year period.
Of minors identified in the study, 3,200 had breast or chest surgery, and more than 400 had genital surgery, researchers wrote.
The study didn’t provide the age of the youngest patient who received genital surgery. The most common genital surgeries were hysterectomy, surgical removal of the testes, and vaginoplasty, which attempts to build a vagina in a male patient seeking to live as a female.
Sex-change surgeries sometimes involve removing male or female reproductive organs and replacing them with an engineered version of the opposite sex’s organ. Surgeons remove skin and tissues from other parts of the body to build the facsimile.
The controversy over procedures to change children’s gender prompted Republican-led legislatures to pass laws banning transgender surgeries and cross-sex hormones for children in red states such as Texas and Florida.
Proponents of “gender-affirming care” say it saves lives and improves mental health.
Opponents say the “treatment” irrevocably harms children and that gender dysphoria usually disappears eventually without medical intervention.
