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Planned Parenthood Steps Deeply into Transgender Hormones, Including for Minors: Annual Report

April 28, 2023

Planned Parenthood’s latest annual report reveals that the multi-billion-dollar business has diversified its portfolio beyond abortion, pushing deeply into the transgender industry by offering puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to young adults and minors — often while explicitly withholding this information from parents.

While the organization does not list the number of transgender procedures it carried out, it has acknowledged the number of people seeking such services numbers in the tens of thousands. Planned Parenthood also aims to turn teens into “fighters” for their cause, bashing “ugly” legislation that would prevent surgeons from permanently castrating minors, and proclaiming that its sex education courses contain the information America’s children “need to be free.”

These views show that Planned Parenthood’s dual embrace of abortion and transgender procedures is “much more spiritual than political,” according to an expert on applying the biblical worldview to contemporary events.

In its annual report released this week, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) announced that 41 of its 49 affiliates carry out transgender hormone injections and/or distribute puberty blockers — a massive spike from the 30 affiliates that charged customers for such work in the 2020-2021 fiscal year.

The report does not specify the number of transgender interventions committed in these offices. But at least 35,000 people nationwide came to Planned Parenthood to receive cross-sex injections in 2021, Dr. Bhavik Kumar, the medical director of primary and trans care at Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast, told NPR in February.

PPFA’s report lumps “transgender services” into the category of “other procedures.” Planned Parenthood reported 256,550 “other procedures” in its most recent review — a massive 1,613% increase over the 15,902 miscellaneous procedures reported in last year’s report

By all reports, Planned Parenthood cannot keep up with demand. Its Pittsburgh-based affiliate reports a six- to eight-month wait for cross-sex hormones. Both its Virginia affiliate and the expansive affiliate that oversees the great northwest, Hawaii, Alaska, Indiana, and Kentucky report they “had to temporarily stop taking new patients as we work to increase capacity.”

The age of these patients also varies from affiliate to affiliate, and at least some Planned Parenthood offices admit they inflict transgender injections on minors. Planned Parenthood of Southwest and Central Florida “sees about 60 to 70 minors a year for hormone therapy,” local media reported in February. Planned Parenthood affiliates in central California/Nevada, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, and Nebraska inject children as young as 16 with puberty blockers and distribute cross-sex hormones, with parental consent. Affiliates in Delaware, and New York begin hormone shots at age 17, and Planned Parenthood of Greater New York specifies that it offers cross-sex hormones to “emancipated minors.”

When it cannot carry out the hormonal interventions directly, Planned Parenthood gladly refers minors to those who can. PPFA’s Michigan affiliates refers minors to outside offices that offer puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones to children as young as 12.

“The anti-parenthood campaigns of Planned Parenthood don’t stop with ending pre-born life,” said Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life of America. “The sex-altering drugs they sell have the capacity of making people infertile for life, which makes giving them to minors very disturbing, as they don’t understand the life-long choice they may be making.”

‘Your Parents Do Not Have to Know That You Came’

Children listening to Planned Parenthood may come to believe their bodies’ natural development presents a catastrophic threat. New York’s Upper Hudson Planned Parenthood, Inc. distributes puberty blockers to “gender non-conforming adolescents who are entering puberty and wish to prevent the irreversible and undesirable changes that develop.” This affiliate, in this circumstance, requires parental consent — but in some parts of the country, parents and guardians cannot protect their children from the whispers of transgender industry employees.

“Your parents do not have to know that you came,” proclaims the website of Planned Parenthood Mar Monte, which has offices in California and Nevada. “If you are a young person between the ages of 12-17 in California or 12-16 in Nevada, you may have tests, receive treatment or talk with us about certain issues, and we cannot tell your parents, guardians or others unless you give us permission.”

Already the group has the ears of “millions of people” who “come to us every day with their most urgent, personal questions.” When Planned Parenthood has minors’ ears, such as in its “sex education” programs, it aims to mold the children into “fighters, who will not rest until every person has access to the sexual and reproductive care and education they need to be free.”

The affiliates also channel teenagers’ interest in transgender procedures to attack pro-family legislation. For instance, a Planned Parenthood chapter in central Florida describes S.B. 54 — which prohibits transgender surgeries or procedures on children under the age of 18 — as “cruel,” “dangerous and ugly,” and “out of touch and discriminatory.” As of this writing, the bill has passed the legislature and awaits the signature of Governor Ron DeSantis (R).

“We are committed to … eliminating barriers to” their ability to carry out transgender procedures, states Upper Hudson Planned Parenthood, Inc.

The abortion business has reduced the barrier of time, often locking patients onto the conveyor belt of transgender treatments on their very first visit. People suffering from gender dysphoria schedule an initial visit, undergo lab work, and “most patients are prescribed hormones that day,” explains Planned Parenthood of Greater Texas, Inc. In Idaho and Northern Washington, “you may be given a prescription to take to your pharmacy as early as the second visit.”

Significant Financial Windfall

Notably, Planned Parenthood seems reticent to reduce the fees it demands for transgender procedures. People suffering from gender dysphoria may pay up to $406 on their first office visit, the amount Planned Parenthood Metropolitan New Jersey charges for new patient consultation and labs. In Tennessee and parts of Mississippi, “The initial visit is around $180 for in-person initial appointments. Follow up visits run between $200-$275 depending on your treatment path,” the local affiliate reveals. “Please note that this does not include the cost of telehealth labs at our outside laboratory, which are around $50 for initial labs and $250 for follow up labs.”

The appointments pile up. “In your first year of care, you should plan for 4 visits, with blood work,” says Planned Parenthood of Illinois. Additional appointments are required at least once a year thereafter, for life.

“Certainly, there’s a financial incentive involved” for Planned Parenthood to offer testosterone or estrogen shots, Joseph Backholm, senior fellow for Biblical Worldview and Strategic Engagement at Family Research Council, told The Washington Stand. “Like birth control, getting someone on hormones creates a monthly revenue stream, since they need the hormones every month for the rest of their lives. So Planned Parenthood has a financial incentive to encourage kids to change their sex, like they have for encouraging kids to have sex.”

Since many states’ Medicaid programs cover transgender procedures, taxpayers help firm up the abortion industry’s bottom line. “Planned Parenthood will run the same play of providing services and then convincing governments to guarantee payment for those services,” Backholm added. “They’ve been doing it for contraception and abortion for generations, and now they’ll do it for opposite-sex hormones and surgeries.”

Transgender Procedures as Spiritual Warfare

“But the spiritual significance shouldn’t be missed,” Backholm, the host of TWS’s “Outstanding” podcast, continued. “I think Planned Parenthood’s venture into genital mutilation is much more spiritual than political.”

“The abortion industry and transgender industry are not just connected by a shared hatred of conservatives, but by a shared desire to destroy and deface what God created and called good,” Backholm explained. “Many of the activists don’t think of it in those terms, but it’s important that we recognize what’s happening. These are demonic forces trying to destroy God’s creation, and those demonic forces have convinced people to destroy God’s creation with a clear conscience, having been convinced it’s a noble act.”

At times, Planned Parenthood employees acknowledge that abortion and transgender injections stem from the same moral source. “The same values we use in abortion … translate really easily into serving our gender-affirming hormone care patients,” Ashley Coffield, the chief executive officer of Planned Parenthood of Tennessee and North Mississippi, told NPR. Various Planned Parenthood affiliates confess that injecting cross-sex hormones into “transgender, gender non-conforming, non-binary, and genderqueer identified” individuals “really goes to the core of our mission.”

The spiritual dimension may be reflected in Planned Parenthood’s most recent annual report, which boasts of producing “TONE, two volumes of self-care playlists for Black women, Latinas, and non-binary folks, with tracks of affirmations and meditations by Black and Latinx creators and wellness leaders.” PPFA also took part in Sigue, which it describes as “a transcreation of the Be Seen campaign for first generation Latinos, reaching more than 5 million people.”

Planned Parenthood’s expansion into transgender procedures has transpired even as the number of bona fide medical services it provides declined. “Between 2021 and 2022, prenatal services fell by a whopping 29 percent. In addition to this, miscarriage-care fell by 5 percent, adoption referrals fell by 7 percent, STI tests fell by over 2 percent, and pregnancy tests fell by 3.7 percent,” reported Michael J. New, a scholar with the Lozier Institute, who has tracked the issue for decades.

“Sad, but not surprising, prenatal services continue to go down and wrong sex hormone prescriptions go up,” said Hawkins.

Whatever the ultimate origin of Planned Parenthood’s business philosophy, the organization is reaping significant financial benefits. Planned Parenthood’s most recent annual report shows revenue far outstripped expenses in its 2021-2022 fiscal year, yielding $204.7 million in profit. The Planned Parenthood Federation of America reports total assets of $2.7 billion.

“Stopping people from ever having a family is big business at Planned Parenthood,” concluded Hawkins.

Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.