Death Threats Made to Children's Hospital Over Gender-Affirming Care
Boston Children's Hospital has faced threats and harassment from an online campaign aimed at doctors and staff caring for transgender children, which prompted the hospital to contact law enforcement and remove doctors' images from its website.Over the past few days, the hospital has been subjected to a high volume of hostile internet activity, phone calls, and harassing emails, including threats of violence against its clinicians and staff, representatives for the facility said in a statement. "We are deeply concerned by these attacks on our clinicians and staff fueled by misinformation and a lack of understanding and respect for our transgender community," the statement said.Young adults and children receive gender-affirming treatment through the hospital's Gender Multispecialty Service Program.Among the far right, there has been a rise in misinformation about gender-affirming care, which falsely accuses caregivers of mutilating children.
Despite online allegations, children under 18 cannot undergo genital surgery at Boston Children's. Gender-affirming includes a variety of treatments, all of which begin with prolonged counseling.
In addition, patients have access to hormonal therapies and surgery. In some cases, if a child is over 15 years old and has parental consent, they may be able to undergo breast surgery, the Boston Globe reports.The attacks against the hospital began when far-right provocateur and transphobe Chaya Raichik, who runs the Twitter account LibsOfTikTok, unleashed her more than 1.3 million followers on posting information about the hospital and encouraging anti-LGBTQ+ sympathizers to take aim at the hospital.