HARRISBURG, Pennsylvania (LifeSiteNews) – A recent report by the Pennsylvania Family Institute found that the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania spent almost $17 million in taxpayer money on “gender affirming care” since Democrat Gov. Tom Wolf took office in 2015.
The report uses data obtained from the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services (DHS) from a right-to-know request. The data provided to the Pennsylvania Family Institute, an organization dedicated to strengthening the position of the family by promoting traditional values, shows that since 2015 the Commonwealth spent $16.7 million on “gender affirming care” for children and adolescents. The Institute filed the request with the intention of seeing how much Pennsylvania spent in taxpayer dollars to fund gender transitions, The Daily Wire reported.
A new public records request reveals how $16.7 million in tax dollars have funded “gender-affirming” medical treatments for minors in Pennsylvania since 2015, when Gov. Tom Wolf took office and nominated Rachel Levine as physician general. Read my latest!https://t.co/txjnDOtEDo
— Christina Buttons (@buttonslives) November 1, 2022
“When Gov. Wolf took office, he unilaterally changed state policy to cover things like double mastectomies to remove healthy breasts from minor girls and irreversible experimental hormones for children,” said Emily Kreps of the Pennsylvania Family Institute.
“The same drugs used to chemically castrate convicted sex offenders are being funded by tax dollars for minors. This type of ‘care’ is happening right now at major institutions like [Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP)], Penn State Health and [University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC)] Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh — especially to children in foster care,” she continued.
The report found that Pennsylvania spent a little over $78,000 in 2015 on gender “care,” and in 2016, the Commonwealth spent $668,000 on “gender affirming care.” The DHS announced that Medicaid would cover all “medically necessary” gender “transitions” that July.
State funding for “transitional” care for minors increased in subsequent years. In 2020, Pennsylvania spent $2.7 million on “gender affirming care” for minors. The following year, Pennsylvania spent $3.9 million on “gender affirming care.” From January 1, 2022 to October 21, Pennsylvania spent $3.7 million on gender “care” for minors, and is expected to exceed last year’s funding.
Included in the totals are expenditures from the Children’s Health Insurance Policy program (CHIP), Fee-For-Service (FFS) paid claims, and health paid encounters from both physical and behavioral HealthChoices, according to the Pennsylvania Family Institute.
“This level of state-endorsed harm upon children is reprehensible,” stated Alexis Sneller of the Pennsylvania Family Institute. “While we knew the Wolf administration was funding services related to these irreversible procedures on minors, now seeing the exact numbers — millions spent towards these detrimental acts — is still shocking.”
While the report shows how much the Commonwealth spent on “gender affirming care” for minors per annum, it does not show who received funding. Dan Bartkowiac, communications director for the Pennsylvania Family Institute, told The Daily Caller that the Pennsylvania Family Institute intends to “submit additional requests” to find out which organizations received funds for gender “care.”
The report follows a warning from conservative commentator Jack Posobiec of a “dark alliance” between state and federal officials and CHOP. Posobiec noted that politicians such as Pennsylvania Attorney General and current Democratic candidate for Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro, as well as CHOP and Richard “Rachel” Levine, gender confused former Pennsylvania Physician General appointed by Wolf early in his tenure as governor and current Assistant Secretary for Health, formed an “alliance” to endorse gender “transitions” in minors for profit.
“They will take under 18-year-olds (which means minors) if you’ve been emancipated, if you’re on the street, or even if you’re in the foster system, and they will take children from the foster system and put them in this gender transition therapy,” Posobiec said. “They’ll do this to foster children. Kids who are already at a vulnerable point.”
Earlier this year, a video from a 2018 talk given by Dr. Nadia Dowshen, founder of CHOP’s gender program, emerged in which she praised Levine for his work in promoting gender “transitions” for minors. The talk, called “Understanding Gender Identity and Development in 2018,” was part of the “CHOP Office of Diversity and Inclusion Lecture Series,” The Post Millennial reported. Later in the video, Dowshen said that children identifying as transgender should be put on puberty blockers “right away,” and as a result may not need to undergo future mastectomies.
“If we can block their puberty right away, we can prevent them from ever developing breasts and that means they would have a better quality of life and they might not need to have top surgery in the future. Right. So those are one example of the benefits [of puberty blockers],” she said.
Earlier this year, Levine said that Americans should “empower” children to receive “gender affirming care” in an interview with MSNBC.
LifeSiteNews reached out to DHS for comment but has yet to receive a response.