LEXINGTON, Kentucky (LifeSiteNews) — The University of Kentucky has admitted to performing breast removals on healthy teenage girls for “gender reassignment” purposes, contradicting Democrat Gov. Andy Beshear’s insistence that such procedures “don’t happen” in the Bluegrass State.
In March, Kentucky enacted S.B. 150, which forbids minors from being subjected to surgical or chemical “sex change” interventions, requires medical providers to wean minors off of already-dispensed puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones, prohibits classroom discussion of sexual or gender ideology, discourages state education officials from implementing or recommending “gender-affirming” policies such as using “preferred pronouns” or hiding transitions from parents, and restricts school restrooms and lockers to the correct sex.
Beshear had vetoed the measure, claiming that “improving access to gender-affirming care is an important means of improving health outcomes for the transgender population,” only to be overridden by the legislature. Last month he changed his tune in an interview, insisting, “my position on this has always been clear. I have never supported gender reassignment surgery for minors, and they don’t happen in Kentucky.”
This week, the Washington Free Beacon reported that it has obtained a March 2 letter from Jay Grider, chief physician executive for the University of Kentucky’s Transform Health clinic, acknowledging that the clinic has “in recent years performed a small number of non-genital gender reassignment surgeries on minors, such as mastectomies.” A university spokesperson confirmed to the Beacon the letter’s authenticity and confirmed it has performed “non-genital gender reassignment surgeries” on girls as young as age sixteen.
The university stressed that it has since ceased offering “top surgery” in reaction to the new law (while maintaining it never performed “bottom,” i.e. genital, surgery on minors). “UK HealthCare is fully compliant with the law, including SB 150,” the spokesperson said. “With the passage of SB 150, Transform Health no longer provides any services that support a gender transition in minors.”
Beshear did not respond to the Beacon’s request for comment on this new evidence contradicting his July claim.
Despite the governor’s insistence that denying so-called “gender-affirming care” harms those suffering from gender dysphoria, evidence shows that the real danger lies with affirming confusion about one’s biological sex.
Studies find that more than 80% of children experiencing gender dysphoria outgrow it on their own by late adolescence, and that even full “reassignment” surgery often fails to resolve gender-confused individuals’ heightened tendency to engage in self-harm and suicide — and may even exacerbate it, including by reinforcing their confusion and neglecting the actual root causes of their mental strife.
Many oft-ignored “detransitioners,” individuals who attempted to live under a different “gender identity” before embracing their sex, attest to the physical and mental harm of reinforcing gender confusion, as well as to the bias and negligence of the medical establishment on the subject.
The danger of keeping parents in the dark about such situations is grimly illustrated in the story of Yaeli Martinez, a 19-year-old to whom “gender transitioning” was touted as a possible cure for her depression in high school, supported by a high school counselor who withheld what she was going through from her mother. The troubled girl killed herself after trying to live as a man for three years.