In just 30 minutes, teenagers could make a life-altering and irreversible decision with the help of a gender-affirming Planned Parenthood physician.
A report from the Washington Free Beacon details the personal experience of a New Jersey family and their 18-year-old son, who is referred to using the pseudonym Fred. Their son was reportedly “diagnosed with autism—technically ADHD with autistic traits—at age four.” The article explains that Fred suffered from depression, anxiety, and extreme behavioral problems “stemming in part from an impulse control disorder.”
“Like many people on the autism spectrum, Fred cycles through obsessions and extreme views. He was part of an alt-right group chat as recently as last year, his parents said, but apostatized suddenly and now considers himself far left,” the article explains. “[In] December 2022, at 17 years old, he announced he was a transgender woman. The revelation came a few months after Fred’s best friend, who also has autism, began identifying as transgender.”
Fred’s parents enrolled him in the Autism Program at Children’s National Hospital, which the Washington Free Beacon notes is the only gender clinic in the country specializing in autistic youth. Though he was “determined” to be prescribed cross-sex hormones, the clinic had a lengthy assessment protocol, which would seek to ensure that his inclinations were not “peer-driven.” Fred was told to wait a full year before he could begin treatments. That is — until he found himself at a local Planned Parenthood.
Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider, is now willing to prescribe hormones to any legal adult after one brief consultation. A letter from a therapist or psychiatrist with a formal diagnosis is not required, and Planned Parenthood physicians or nurse practitioners only test for physical ailments when determining who is a “healthy candidate” for hormone replacement therapy (HRT). “Most patients are prescribed hormones that day,” the organization’s website explains. Planned Parenthood touts a quick, simple, and affirming process for patients.
So quick, in fact, that Fred was in and out the door with his new prescription in just over a half-hour.
“Fred arrived at his local clinic, on North Fullerton Ave. in Montclair, New Jersey, at around 11:00 a.m., according to phone tracking data his parents used to monitor his whereabouts,” the Washington Free Beacon article recalled. “By 11:39, [his parents] received a text message from CVS: Fred’s estrogen prescription was on its way. Instead of a months-long evaluation by expert psychiatrists, a nurse practitioner had, in little over 30 minutes, prescribed their special-needs son a powerful drug without their knowledge or consent.”
Fred’s mother, who is a licensed pediatrician in the state, called Planned Parenthood’s actions “criminal.”
Well-documented side effects of HRT include blood clots, heart disease, increased levels of potassium and triglycerides, a type of fat, in the blood, infertility, stroke, high blood pressure, increased risk of cancer development, and more.
Following the Supreme Court’s overturn of Roe v. Wade, the national abortion provider adapted its business model and expanded its distribution of HRT for transgender-identifying individuals, which it began doing in 2005. Planned Parenthood has quickly become the nation’s second-largest provider of hormone therapy.
Fred’s story was reportedly “corroborated through nursing and medical board complaints, locational data, prescriptions, text messages, emails, and other documents reviewed by the Free Beacon.”
