Health

EXCLUSIVE: Pennsylvania Gender Clinic Used Thousands Of Taxpayer Dollars To Train Mental Health Providers

[YouTube/Screenshot/Public — User: The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia]

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  • Through a series of grants, the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services gave the Gender and Sexuality Development Program at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) nearly $177,000 to host workshops for mental health providers on how to “affirm” transgender and gender expansive clients, according to documents obtained through a Daily Caller News Foundation public records request.
  • Clinic employees at CHOP’s gender clinic have previously promoted hormones and puberty blockers to children as young as 8 years old. 
  • “These trainings began as an identified need from both transgender clients wanting to access affirming and supportive mental health care and mental health providers knowing how to best support their transgender clients,” a CHOP grant request said.

A Pennsylvania gender clinic that gives puberty blockers to kids as young as 8 years old used taxpayer dollars to train mental health providers on how to “affirm” transgender and gender expansive clients, according to documents obtained through a Daily Caller News Foundation public records request.

The Pennsylvania Department of Human Services granted the Gender and Sexuality Development Program at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) more than $176,000 over three years to create “Transgender Therapy Training Workshops,” which include a series of webinars and in-person trainings for mental health providers, according to the documents. CHOP’s gender clinic refers kids as young as 14 for cross-sex surgeries including mastectomies or breast construction that clinic employees have promoted, in addition to hormones and puberty blockers for children. (RELATED: ‘Paranoia’: Transgender Gun Community Features Fears Of ‘Genocide’, Mental Illness)

“These trainings began as an identified need from both transgender clients wanting to access affirming and supportive mental health care and mental health providers knowing how to best support their transgender clients,” a 2020 CHOP request for the grant said.

The trainings teach mental health providers that children as young as 3 years old can share their gender identity and that someone’s transgender status is “confidential” and should not be disclosed unless the individual gives permission to do so. The CHOP trainings teach that children can discover their gender identity after having “access to more resources and can use new language to describe their gender.”

In the 2018-2019 fiscal year, CHOP was awarded $45,283 through the state’s “Community Mental Health Services Block Grant” for the workshops, which trained a total of 821 mental health providers with 600 participating in the webinars, the documents showed. Within the first year, CHOP aimed to increase “youth and family involvement” and boost older adults’ “engagement and access to services across all systems.”

The state gave CHOP a grant for $51,966 for the fiscal year of 2019-2020 to conduct the workshops as well as pay partial salaries for two of the gender clinic employees, according to the documents. In the second year of the program, 540 mental health providers participated in the webinars while 600 signed up to attend a CHOP in-person training.

The second year of the program focused on expanding the original workshop sessions and providing “on-going support” to aid mental health providers in offering additional resources for their clients, the documents showed.

In the 2020-2021 fiscal year, CHOP was granted $79,446 which resulted in 520 mental health providers being trained, the documents showed.

“OMHSAS [The Office of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services] greatly appreciates the partnership with the Gender and Sexuality Development Clinic at Children’s Hospital of Pennsylvania over the past two years to provide training to our mental health system that allows us to better serve the needs of transgender and non-binary individuals,” the state wrote after granting CHOP nearly $80,000 for the transgender therapy workshops. “The trainings have been very received by participants and there is a clear need for additional training based on the waitlist for every training session during FY19-20.”

[YouTube/Screenshot/Public — User: The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia]

[YouTube/Screenshot/Public — User: The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia]

During the planning of the 2019-2020 school year, CHOP proposed that the workshops address a variety of topics such as “legal transition, medical transition, working with couples, working with schools, individuals in addiction and co-occurring Autism,” the documents showed.

Since 2017, CHOP has provided at least 33 trainings in 15 schools; Pennsbury School District donated $1,200 to CHOP in 2022 for professional development sessions which taught K-12 educators how to create “gender inclusive and affirming educational environments.” In 2021, CHOP provided a training to Southern Lehigh School District which advised educators to allow students “room for exploration” of their gender.

“Mental health providers throughout the State of Pennsylvania had requested additional support and training in order to better serve their transgender and gender expansive clients,” CHOP wrote in an end of the year report. “In an effort to fill this need, the Gender and Sexuality Development Program at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia offered multiple opportunities for training to increase clinical and therapeutic competence in this area through Transgender Therapy Training Workshops.”

The Pennsylvania Department of Human Services and CHOP did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.

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