The Medical University of South Carolina initially said it wouldn’t be affected by a law banning use of state funds for treatment “furthering the gender transition” of children under 16. Months later, it cut off that care to all trans minors.
One Saturday morning in September 2022, Terrence Steyer, the dean of the College of Medicine at the Medical University of South Carolina, placed an urgent call to a student. Just a year prior, the medical student, Thomas Agostini, had won first place at a university-sponsored event for his graduate research on transgender pediatric patients. He also had been featured in a video on MUSC’s website highlighting resources that support the LGBTQ+ community.
Now, Agostini and his once-lauded study had set off a political firestorm. Conservative activists seized on one line in particular in the study’s summary — a parenthetical noting the youngest transgender patient to visit MUSC’s pediatric endocrinology clinic was 4 years old — and inaccurately claimed that children that young were prescribed hormones as part of a gender transition. Elon Musk amplified the false claim, tweeting, “Is it really true that four-year-olds are receiving hormone treatment?” That led federal and state lawmakers to frantically ask top MUSC leaders whether the public hospital was in fact helping young children medically transition. The hospital was not; its pediatric transgender patients did not receive hormone therapy before puberty, nor does it offer surgical options to minors.
The scientific evidence supporting circumcision is actually fairly unconvincing. It’s still invasive, medically unnecessary surgery, that kills ~100 babies every year. It’s also proven that their brains are impacted by the procedure and show signs of PTSD.
Literally no other health board except American ones recommend circumcision. Canada, the Netherlands, the UK, Germany, all of these countries recommend strongly against circumcision as a therapeutic treatment, as far less invasive and much more effective options exist to achieve similar or far better health benefits. Even having basic hygiene and washing your penis erases any claimed health benefits from circumcision (which were already incredibly minor). It’s literally only potentially beneficial if you don’t observe basic hygiene.
It’s also fairly unethical to make decisions regarding what is effectively mostly cosmetic surgery on a baby boy that can not consent to the procedure.
Literally almost every mammal evolved to have some kind of penile sheath. If it was truly detrimental to have a foreskin, it is highly unlikely that would have happened.
Not to mention, they don’t live in a desert where the practice started, or a jungle per their doctor’s experience