Staff members at Children’s Minnesota, a children’s hospital in St. Paul and Minneapolis, Minnesota, are willing to meet individually with children over the age of 10, according to the facility’s website.
Children’s Minnesota launched its “Gender Health Program” in 2019 with the goal of becoming the “go-to resource for transgender and gender-diverse children from across the region,” program director Dr. Angela Kade Goepferd said at the time. The clinic’s services include meetings with a “gender-health expert” to discuss “gender identity;” and “pubertal suppression,” which the hospital describes as “fully reversible.”
Some medical professionals have warned blocking puberty can put gender dysphoric kids who might otherwise desist on a path to further medical interventions, such as hormones and surgery. Some patients suffer permanent loss of bone density and fractures later in life after taking the drug. (RELATED: ‘Non-Judgmental And Affirming’: Gender Clinic’s Services For Kids Include Transgender Hormone Therapy)
The clinic said it would also provide cross-sex hormones to patients in “late puberty or post puberty,” as well as “fertility preservation consultations.”
The first appointment the clinic provides to kids who experience gender dysphoria is a consultation with a mental health professional to discuss the child’s “gender identity and goals.”
“For patients over age 10, we offer an opportunity to meet individually with the provider,” the hospital’s website reads.
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The clinic also offers to meet individually with 11-year-olds to discuss “possible treatment options,” including puberty blockers or hormones. Around the ages of 15 or 16, the possibility of taking cross-sex hormones is discussed, according to the hospital’s website. A letter of support from a mental health professional is required to begin taking hormones, and referrals for surgery are offered “as you get older,” the hospital notes.
Dr. Angela Goepferd serves as medical director for the hospital’s gender clinic. Goepferd once gave a TED Talk on “The revolutionary truth about kids and gender identity” and goes by “she/they” pronouns, according to her bio. In the TED Talk, Goepferd recalls telling a boy at a daycare facility where her own child stayed that she was a “Mapa,” which is like “a mommy and a daddy — both.”
“When our kids were growing up we tried to expand their gender categories, just a little bit,” Goepferd says in the TED Talk. “So instead of saying to them, ‘These are boy parts, there are girl parts,’ we taught them that most boys have penises, and most girls have vaginas. Just so that we open the possibility that biology isn’t destiny, and that how someone feels inside, or their gender identity, may not align with expectations based on anatomy. They actually adapted quite quickly to this.”
The Children’s Minnesota hospital system in May gave Democratic Minnesota Rep. Leigh Finke an award for a bill designed to promote child sex changes. Finke’s bill prevented the enforcement of out-of-state legislation against irreversible transgender treatments on minors, such as puberty blockers or hormones. Goepferd testified in favor of Finke’s bill.
Children’s Minnesota did not respond to the Daily Caller’s repeated requests for comment regarding this report.