TN RINOs Killed Bill That Would Have Prevented Vanderbilt’s Mutilation of Minors – Now Leadership Reverses Course 

Image Credit: vanderbilthealth.org

The Tennessee Conservative [By Paula Gomes] –

Representative Jason Zachary is calling upon the Tennessee General Assembly to pass legislation that will prevent minors from receiving radical surgeries after Matt Walsh’s investigation of Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s Transgender Clinic.

Senator Janice Bowling and Representative John Ragan have been working to address what is happening at Vanderbilt for the last two years, but GOP leadership did not support their bills, instead favoring one that only prohibited hormone treatments to 8 to10-year-olds, and which became law last year. More on relevant legislation by Bowling and Ragan below.

According to Walsh, Vanderbilt’s Transgender Clinic was opened in 2018. In a lecture that the Medical Director Dr. Shayne Taylor gave the same year, she claimed to have helped convince the hospital to begin providing “transgender care” in large part because transaffirming surgeries are “big money makers” due to follow up care.

Taylor said that a mastectomy performed on a female who is transitioning to male can bring in $40,000. Individuals on hormones alone can bring in several thousand dollars a year. “Bottom” surgery is especially lucrative bringing in anywhere between $100 thousand to $200 thousand per patient. 

To illustrate how much money can be made from preying on people with gender dysphoria, Taylor cited an example of one clinic that funds itself entirely on the revenue it generates from performing phalloplasties, surgery that creates a fake penis, on women.

In 2019, in a followup lecture, Dr. Ellen Clayton said doctors who have “conscientious objections” to these types of surgeries are “problematic” and will face consequences. 

“If you are going to assert conscientious objection, you have to realize that that is problematic,” she said. “You are doing something to another person, and you are not paying the cost for your belief. I think that is a… real issue.”

Clayton went on to say that those doctors with religious beliefs that conflict with performing transgender surgery should face consequences. “If you don’t want to do this kind of work, don’t work at Vanderbilt.”

Those that have detransitioned describe how belonging to the trans community has some of the same qualities as a cult, making it hard to break away. Vanderbilt, in a first of its kind program called Trans Buddies, makes questioning the process of transitioning even harder as they pair Trans Activists with trans patients, who accompany them to medical appointments, presumably to protect them from doctors who disagree with “gender affirming” care. 

Vanderbilt has deleted the website for their transgender clinic since Walsh’s spotlight on the hospital’s actions.

However, a 2020 video from Vanderbilt Psychiatry’s YouTube channel admits that Vanderbilt has given “gender affirming hormones” to kids on puberty blocking drugs as young as 13.

In this clip, a plastic surgeon and physician’s assistant talk about performing double mastectomies on adolescent girls.

Governor Bill Lee has called for an investigation of the clinic. In a statement given to The Daily Wire yesterday, Lee said, “The “pediatric transgender clinic” at Vanderbilt University Medical Center raises serious moral, ethical and legal concerns. We should not allow permanent, life-altering decisions that hurt children or policies that suppress religious liberties, all for the purpose of financial gain. We have to protect Tennessee children, and this warrants a thorough investigation.”

Gary Humble, of Tennessee Stands, suggests that this is political pandering on the Governor’s behalf before the November elections.

Representative John Ragan (R-Oak Ridge- District 33) outlined the legislation sponsored by himself and Senator Janice Bowling (R-Tullahoma-District 16) for us as follows:

“Senator Bowling and I sponsored two separate bills attempting to outlaw child transgender drug therapy and surgical mutilations.

The first was HB 578 (Ragan) / SB 675 (Bowling).  The caption for this bill is as follows:

‘Children – As introduced, prohibits the provision of sexual identity change therapy to prepubescent minors; prohibits the provision of sexual identity change therapy to minors who have entered puberty unless a parent or guardian has written recommendations for the therapy from at least three physicians; punishes violations as child abuse; designates violations by healthcare professionals as professional misconduct.‘

After successfully getting through two House committees, I did not push this bill after being informed that it was dead in the Senate.

The second was HB 2835 (Ragan) / SB 2696 (Bowling).  The caption for this bill is a follows:

‘Health Care – As introduced, enacts the ‘Youth Health Protection Act.’

a) …it is unlawful for an individual to engage in the following practices upon a minor…

  (1) Surgery that sterilizes the minor, including castration, vasectomy, hysterectomy, oophorectomy, metoidioplasty, orchiectomy, penectomy, phalloplasty, and vaginoplasty;
   (2) A mastectomy;
   (3) Administering or supplying the following medications that induce transient or permanent infertility:
      (A) Puberty-blocking medication to stop or delay normal puberty;
      (B) Supraphysiologic doses of testosterone or other androgens to members of the female sex; or
      (C) Supraphysiologic doses of estrogen or synthetic compounds with estrogenic activity to members of the male sex; or
   (4) Removing an otherwise healthy or non-diseased body part or tissue.

(b) A medical professional who engages in a practice identified in subsection (a), or causes the practice to be performed, commits unprofessional conduct and is subject to revocation of licensure and other appropriate discipline by the medical professional’s licensing authority…

As with the previously cited HB 578, I did not push this bill after being informed that it was dead in the Senate.“

About the Author: Paula Gomes is a Tennessee resident and reporter for The Tennessee Conservative. You can reach Paula at paula@tennesseeconservativenews.com.