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.

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.

  • darq
    2•1 year ago

    No no, don’t move the goalposts.

    You made a claim of conspiracy, that people are being lead to transition because the treatments “rake in ridiculous amounts of money and would bring in more money than just fixing their real issues”.

    That claim is complete nonsense, and you pulled it out of your arse.

    Acknowledge that.

    • @nugmeister64
      0•1 year ago

      okay, I acknowledge that maybe it’s not prohibitively expensive for the end user. You don’t think the development of new products to sell you also makes money for other companies in the chain? They have to develop the product, ways to harvest or synthesize the chemicals in it, deliver it, test it, and refine and iterate upon it.

      Now that I’ve acknowledged that, are you going to acknowledge the moral implications of encouraging people to physically and chemically deform themselves to feel comfortable in their own bodies, whether they’re okay with it or not?

      I still stand by my point that it’s like putting a band-aid and topical anesthetic on a 3rd degree burn and saying it’s okay because the victim doesn’t have pain anymore.

      • darq
        1•1 year ago

        okay, I acknowledge that maybe it’s not prohibitively expensive for the end user.

        No.

        Acknowledge that you were parroting a ridiculous conspiracy theory.

        There is not enough money in this to justify what you are suggesting.

        You don’t think the development of new products to sell you also makes money for other companies in the chain?

        What new products?!

        It’s testosterone and estrogens, that’s it.

        They have to develop the product, ways to harvest or synthesize the chemicals in it, deliver it, test it, and refine and iterate upon it.

        Every drug and procedure trans people take was developed for cisgender people first.

        There are basically zero new, trans-specific products.

        I cannot say this strongly enough: what you are saying is a ridiculous conspiracy theory that has zero basis in reality.

        • @nugmeister64
          1•1 year ago

          so you’re going to ignore the clear moral implications of forcing your body to be something it wasn’t designed to be and instead hyperfixate on me mentioning the cost of the treatment. You can’t call it a conspiracy theory that the medical industry isn’t earning money from it. Any marketable product is a source of income and clearly hormones are in high demand, and as mentioned by another user, something that is purchased regularly throughout the life of the person. Also, you don’t know anything about what areas of hormone production are or aren’t profitable. I can assure you that somewhere down the supply chain, there is a company profiting from it, otherwise it wouldn’t be available in the first place.