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.

      • Murvel@lemm.ee
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        11 months ago

        If you get help or not? Idk if it helps you expand your world view, i suppose thats good.

        • webadict@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          Do you want the last word? Because you’ve ceased making a point, since I pointed out how bad your study was, pointed out exactly how you are transphobic, and you shifted to ad hominem attacks. I can only assume you think you looked good in this debacle or that I will get exasperated pointing out how you could be less transphobic, but you didn’t and I won’t because I like my trans friends and I would do anything for them.

          Do you have any trans friends, family, or coworkers? Do they know that you argue on the internet that they don’t deserve the medical care they need? I could speculate, but there’s no point. You are another transphobe in an insidious sea of transphobes, and I can only hope that they know of your hateful rhetoric.