Commentary

Eating Disorder Center Tells Clinicians to Hide Kids’ Gender Identity From Parents

  • By Do No Harm Staff
  • September 20, 2024

The Renfrew Center, a national eating disorder treatment program, ran a training presentation telling clinicians to hide children’s gender identity from their parents.

In a rejection of sound research and evidence-based practice, the center practices a so-called “gender affirmation” approach to adolescent patients in their care.

The center offers outpatient programs throughout the country, as well as residential facilities in Pennsylvania and Florida. They admit and treat “cisgender adolescent girls and women, transgender adolescents and adults, and gender non-binary adolescents and adults.”

Figure 1. “Who We Treat” from The Renfrew Center website.

In a May 2023 presentation offered by Renfrew Center staff and rebroadcast in June 2024, Renfrew clinical assessor Alexandra Poole advises clinicians to withhold information about adolescent patients when speaking to their parents. “Before you disclose a patient’s pronouns or [trans] identity with parents, check in first to see what name and pronouns the family members use and what the patient is comfortable with having shared,” Poole states. “This can be a safety issue if we are outing people to family. We don’t know what internal bias they have and it can actually lead to a really abusive home environment.”

Additionally, she advises clinicians that attending to basic care needs of patients may include referrals for medical intervention including top or bottom surgery, puberty blockers, and cross-sex hormones. A patient may also need to obtain “gender affirming clothing,” such as binders.

The Renfrew Center presentation cites statistics from the Trevor Project, claiming that “minority stress and gender dysphoria are the leading cause of eating disorders in trans and non-binary youth.” Eating disorders have a much higher incidence in transgender or nonbinary boys and girls than in non-trans identifying youth. The presentation claims, without evidence or citation, that body dysmorphia does not respond to bodily changes, but body dysphoria does. Therefore, clinicians are urged to constantly affirm the self-perception of a youth who identifies as the opposite sex.

Figure 2. “Care Needs” for transgender population at The Renfrew Center.
Figure 3. Body dysmorphia vs. body dysphoria differences.

The Renfrew Center has high “accessibility” scores with the Fed Up Collective. This initiative requires a rooming policy that “prioritizes the safety of transgender people” (see figures 4 and 5). This rooming policy seems to leave open the possibility that a biological boy identifying as a girl may share a living space with biological girls.

Figure 4. Explanation of FedUp Collective “Accessible ED Treatment” Scorecard.
Figure 5. Renfrew Center scores on “Accessible ED Treatment” scorecard.

Current research indicates that affirmation for one’s trans identity does not lead to lower incidence of mental health problems, and often increases psychological challenges. The presenter uses the example of a “transgender boy” who is engaging in restrictive eating to lose her menstrual cycle, so that she can feel more like a boy. Affirming this child’s chosen gender identity will not remove the motivation for the eating disorder, which is to be more similar to a boy. Despite this incongruence, the Renfrew Center, whose primary mission is to treat eating disorders, continues to engage in trans activism over sound eating disorder treatment.

Misaligned treatment priorities are a hallmark of medical institutions that have been captured by woke ideology. The Renfrew Center undermines its own mission in service to a political agenda. Do No Harm calls on all clinical practices to return to an evidence-based treatment modality that centers patient needs over ideology.