Boston Children's Hospital deletes references to vaginoplasties for 17-year-olds amid online furor

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Boston Children’s Hospital is facing a wave of backlash over its Center for Gender Surgery that performs mastectomies on teenagers as young as 15, as well as since-deleted wording on the hospital's website that claimed teens as young as 17 can get vaginoplasties. 

The hospital’s website stated as recently as Aug. 12 that "to qualify for gender affirmation at Boston Children's Hospital, you must be at least 18 years old for phalloplasty or metoidioplasty and at least 17 years old for vaginoplasty," according to The Internet Archive's Wayback Machine.

That wording has since been changed to read, "To qualify for gender affirmation at Boston Children's Hospital, you must be at least 18 years old for phalloplasty or metoidioplasty and for vaginoplasty."

A PDF about the eligibility requirements for a vaginoplasty that previously stated, "You must be between 17 and 35 years of age at the time of surgery," has also been removed from the "Eligibility for Surgery" webpage.

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The website for Boston Children's Hospital's Center for Gender Surgery stated as recently as Aug. 12 that "to qualify for gender affirmation at Boston Children's Hospital, you must be at least 18 years old for phalloplasty or metoidioplasty and at least 17 years old for vaginoplasty."  (Photo by Lane Turner/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)

The hospital describes a vaginoplasty as a "procedure in which surgeons create a vagina from your existing genital tissue."

A hospital spokesperson told Fox News Digital in a statement that "for surgical consultation, you must be 17 years of age and between 18 and 35 years of age at the time of surgery. We have since updated this to reflect the protocols for the practice, which we have always adhered to (no surgery under 18 years of age)."

The webpage previously made no mention of 17-year-olds only being eligible for "surgical consultation" before surgery. Currently, the webpage doesn’t mention 17-year-olds at all.

Boston Children’s Hospital made the changes to its website after Libs of TikTok highlighted videos posted on YouTube by the hospital about "gender-affirming" hysterectomies. The hospital issued a public statement Tuesday responding to the backlash by slamming the spread of "misinformation" and a lack of "respect" for trans people, explaining that it does not perform "gender-affirming" hysterectomies on anyone under 18.

"We condemn these attacks in the strongest possible terms, and we reject the false narrative upon which they are based," the hospital said.

The hospital made no mention in its Tuesday statement about its own wording regarding vaginoplasties apparently being in conflict with its policy, which contributed to much of the backlash. Fox News Digital asked the hospital whether it was willing to acknowledge that its own website may have been responsible for some of the "misinformation" being spread, but it did not respond to that question.

"As we submitted in our statement yesterday afternoon for hysterectomies and other genital surgeries performed as part of gender-affirming care, Boston Children’s requires a patient to be capable of consenting for themselves," the hospital said Wednesday. "Age 18 is used to reflect the standard age of majority for medical decision-making. Boston Children’s does not perform genital surgeries as part of gender-affirming care on a patient under the age of 18." 

Boston Children’s Hospital’s website says it follows the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) guidelines "to surgically treat people who are stable in their gender identity and have documentation of persistent gender dysphoria." According to the Associated Press, WPATH’s forthcoming updated guidance will lower its recommended minimum age for most genital surgeries to age 17, including womb and testicle removal, a year earlier than previous guidance, though that version has not yet been released.

Liberal demonstrators gather on the steps of the State Capitol to speak against transgender-related legislation bills being considered in the Texas Senate and Texas House, May 20, 2021, in Austin, Texas. (AP Photo/Eric Gay, File)

Another point of controversy at Boston Children’s Hospital is that it performs mastectomies on children as young as 15 who identify as transgender. Those patients must provide a letter from a mental health provider stating they have the capacity to consent and a letter from a medical doctor or nurse practitioner saying they have "persistent, well documented, gender dysphoria" and specifying either the length of hormone therapy or why they are not taking hormone therapy.

A study published in March that was approved by the institutional review board of Boston Children’s Hospital said, "The Center for Gender Surgery (CfGS) at Boston Children’s Hospital (BCH) was the first pediatric center in the United States to offer gender-affirming chest surgeries for individuals over 15 years old and genital surgeries for those over 17 years of age."

The study said that between January 2017 to August 2020, the CfGS performed 177 chest surgeries and that 36.7% of those surgeries were on patients younger than 18, with the youngest being 15. During that time period It also performed 27 genital surgeries, including 5 vaginoplasties.

Boston Children's Hospital faced online furor for its description of gender-related surgeries offered to minors.   ((Lane Turner/The Boston Globe via Getty Images))

Fox News Digital asked several follow-up questions of Boston Children’s Hospital, including whether it has ever performed a vaginoplasty on someone younger than 18, how many 15-year-olds had received chest surgeries to date, how many 18-year-olds had received genital surgeries to date, and where the CfGS gets its funding, but it did not respond.

Meanwhile, Libs of TikTok said Wednesday that Facebook had suspended its account over the posts about gender-related surgeries at Boston Children’s Hospital, and critics are accusing the account of launching a right-wing, anti-trans hate campaign that’s putting hospital workers in danger.

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"This woman can shout from her rooftop and yell from her car. And karma will eventually come for her hateful soul. But keep her off FB," tweeted Yale University professor Howard Forman.

"I report on the worst people on the internet, but targeting children's hospitals based on lies is just beyond," tweeted NBC News senior reporter Brandy Zadrozny.