Right-Wingers Harass Vanderbilt U. Hospital Over Gender-Affirming Care
Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville is under attack for the gender-affirming care it provides to young people, and now Tennessee lawmakers are calling for restrictions on such care.It all started with a podcast and social media posts this week by right-wing blogger Matt Walsh.
He shared video of a doctor at Vanderbilt calling gender-affirming surgeries a “big moneymaker” and another of a professor saying there would be “consequences” if hospital personnel object to participating in the procedures.However, the doctor, Shayne Taylor, “does not refer to children in the video clip Walsh posted, which did not appear to contain her full remarks,” Tennessee Lookout notes.
And in the clip of the professor, Ellen Walsh, it’s unclear “whether she was referring to consequences for patients or for staff,” according to the site.Another clip features a plastic surgeon discussing requirements for top surgery. “Walsh inaccurately characterized the remarks to suggest that after children are ‘drugged and sterilized,’ Vanderbilt surgeons ‘will happily perform double mastectomies on adolescent girls,’” the Lookout reports.Genital surgery is not performed on minors, in accordance with guidelines for best medical practices, and there are strict requirements that must be met for top surgery on teens.
But Walsh appeared Thursday on Tucker Carlson Tonight with “Vanderbilt Ghouls Castrate Kids for Big Profit” on the crawl. Walsh characterized the treatment given to minors (hormones and puberty blockers) as irreversible, which is not the case.After Walsh’s original podcast and posts, Tennessee Gov.
