Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz said Thursday it is “horrific” that children across the U.S. are undergoing irreversible transgender procedures.
Project Veritas released a video in early April which appeared to show evidence that Dell Children’s Medical Center in Austin, Texas, is performing sex-change operations and other transitioning procedures on children as young as 8 and 9 years old — many resulting in sterilization. Cruz, along with Republican Texas Rep. Chip Roy, wrote a letter sent exclusively to the Daily Caller demanding that the medical center provide information about the procedures.
“This is tragically something that’s happening all over the country,” Cruz said. “Dell Children’s Medical Center is based in Austin, Texas. Heidi and I used to live in Austin. We’ve taken our girls to Dell. They’re a phenomenal institution. And last week, Veritas went undercover and got them on film explaining their policy is they will give puberty blockers and suppressors to children as young as eight years old. And I just think that’s horrific. I think a child that is eight years old, does not have the maturity to make permanent life-altering decisions.”
“We see institutions across the country performing genital mutilation, performing surgeries where they remove perfectly healthy genitals from children, little boys or little girls, making them no longer able to have children for the rest of their lives. That is horrific. I think that’s child abuse,” the senator continued.
Cruz said he is “engaged in oversight” in investigating the policies and medical procedures performed on children. (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: Sen. Cruz, Rep. Roy Call On Medical Center To Explain Employee Remarks About Performing Sex Changes On Minors)
“I just think that doing this to a child is fundamentally wrong and it is immoral,” Cruz added.
The Project Veritas video in question appeared to show Nora Scott, a licensed social worker at Dell Children’s Medical Center, saying puberty blockers are given to minors as young as 8 and cross-gender hormones to children as young as 14.
“We do have patients who are starting [their transition] as young as eight, nine. So, we do have folks on the younger side,” Scott said in the video. “In regards to prescribing, that’s up to the prescriber’s discretion. They might just require a couple of appointments just to see, it might be appropriate after one. It’s not something that we want to gate keep and require someone to come see us 10 times before it’s prescribed.”
BREAKING via @Project_Veritas: @wpath Connected Transgender ‘Health’ Doctors Prescribing Puberty Blockers to Minors as Young as Eight Years Old and Irreversible ‘Cross-Gender Hormones’ to Minors as Young as 14 Years Old#TooYoungpic.twitter.com/tITghmMfEz
— Matthew Tyrmand (@MatthewTyrmand) April 19, 2023
Cruz and Roy wrote in the Wednesday letter sent to Dell Medical Center that science “overwhelmingly opposes these junk procedures,” and cited studies that show a majority of children grow out of being transgender when they reach adulthood. Decades of research show that anywhere from 65 to 94 percent of transgender kids eventually cease to follow those identities in adulthood, according to KHN.
“Good science overwhelmingly opposes these junk procedures intended to do the impossible – change one’s sex,” Cruz and Roy wrote in the letter. “Studies show that virtually all children eventually grow out of this stage. Numerous European countries including Sweden, Finland, and the United Kingdom, once considered world leaders in gender experimentation, now heavily restrict access to these procedures, only allowing the use of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones if strict eligibility requirements are met and if it occurs in a research setting.”
The Daily Caller has reached out to Dell Children’s for comment and will update as necessary.