A report from the Manhattan Institute this week revealed that “gender-affirming” mastectomies for patients under 18 are more common than previously believed.
While cross-sex genital surgeries are rare in the US for both adults and minors, mastectomies — also known as “top surgery” in the context of transgender medicine — are widely available to minors and are the most common transgender surgery for this population. Around 5,000 to 6,000 girls underwent “gender affirming” double mastectomies in the US from 2017 to 2023, according to the Manhattan Institute, and at least 50 of those patients were younger than 12-and-a-half years old.
The actual prevalence of these surgeries is likely considerably higher than the latest estimate, since it relies on health insurance data and therefore does not include procedures obtained without using insurance.
Proponents of cross-sex medical interventions downplay the prevalence of these surgeries. The Human Rights Campaign declared last April that “gender affirming surgeries are NOT performed on children”, and the Association of American Medical Colleges wrote, “GAC surgery among youth is rare, experts say.” Marci Bowers, plastic surgeon and president of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), the leasing standard-setting organisation for transgender medical treatments, has made a similar argument. “Surgery really is not done under the age of 18, except in severe cases . . . And even that is rare, I think the estimates are something like 57 surgeries under the age of 18,” Bowers said in 2023.
But their insistence that surgeries for children are rare should not be confused with repudiation of such surgeries. On the contrary, activists strongly oppose restrictions on trans surgeries for kids.
Source: Report: thousands of US girls underwent trans ‘top surgeries’ – UnHerd