A St. Louis area gender clinic reportedly told an elementary school teacher in a local school district that a group of fifth graders who together claimed to be transgender should be accommodated.
In an email to the clinic, a teacher from Parkway C-2 School District expressed concern that the group of elementary-aged children was claiming a transgender identity because one of their classmates had done the same and that it could be a result of social contagion, the Daily Mail reported.
In the emails, which were reportedly obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request by the parent activist organization Parents Defending Education, an employee at Washington University Transgender Center at the St. Louis Children’s Hospital told the teacher that concerns about “contagion” were not “affirming” and that studies that showed such trends are “invalid.”
The clinic employee told the teacher that there were multiple ways of interpreting the group of children all choosing to come out as transgender together.
“It may still be a valid experience, and for some, it may be genuine exploration of gender,” the staffer said. “In general, I’d recommend as much support and discussion as possible around their gender exploration.”
The employee later followed up and quoted Dr. Sarah Garwood, who works at the St. Louis-area gender clinic.
“The best we can do is affirm, validate and allow for exploration,” the email said. “If in a few weeks or months, a student wants to go by their legal name and pronouns that match their sex assigned at birth, no harm was really done in affirming them before.”
“The utter lack of curiosity about the underlying causes of such a trend among ten-year-old children by medical professionals is immoral at best and an abdication of professional responsibility at worst” Parents Defending Education President Nicki Neily told the Daily Mail. “These children and their families have been let down, both by the school and the hospital — so it’s little wonder that trust in these institutions have declined precipitously over the past few years.”
The St. Louis Children’s Hospital gender clinic is currently under investigation by Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey for “harming hundreds of children.”
“We have received disturbing allegations that individuals at the Transgender Center at St. Louis Children’s Hospital have been harming hundreds of children each year, including by using experimental drugs on them,” Bailey said earlier this month. “We take this evidence seriously and are thoroughly investigating to make sure children are not harmed by individuals who may be more concerned with a radical social agenda than the health of children.”
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) has also launched his own investigation into the clinic.
* Article from: The Washington Examiner
