Oregon Lawmakers Set the Record Straight on Child Sex Changes

This week, Republican lawmakers in Oregon sent a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi correcting false claims made in a lawsuit against the Trump administration.

The letter comes in response to claims made in a lawsuit by several Democrat-run states over a recent executive order curtailing federal funding to providers of child sex changes; Oregon is one of the states suing the Trump administration over the order. 

In their complaint, the states make the claim “that transgender minors do not receive gender-affirming genital surgery.”

As Do No Harm Visiting Fellow Paul Terdal demonstrated in National Review earlier this month, this is blatantly false:

In 2021, the Oregon Health Authority provided me with a copy of its insurance claims database for the year 2019. The database covers the private health insurance and Medicaid payments for all medical procedures of 92 percent of the state’s population. This includes gender-affirming treatment. In 2019, two biological girls had their ovaries and uteruses removed because of their gender distress. They were just 17 years old. Four 18-year-olds also received genital surgeries. 

Moreover, according to insurance claims data obtained by Do No Harm, there were 26 genital surgeries performed on minors between 2019 and 2023. Additionally, 330 minors received “top” surgeries such as breast reductions or double mastectomies.

The letter from the Oregon lawmakers further requests a federal investigation into Oregon’s use of Medicaid funds; the lawmakers accuse the Oregon Health Authority of “concealing the extent of taxpayer-funded procedures on minors and suppressing internal findings that show no evidence of benefit.”

This is in reference to a review of the “evidence” supporting child sex change procedures by the Oregon Health Authority’s Health Evidence Review Commission, which found a “paucity of data” and no systematic reviews to show the benefits of these interventions. However, the report was never published; instead, the commissioners endorsed guidelines from the radical activist group WPATH, or World Professional Association for Transgender Health.

“This is state-sponsored medical experimentation on kids, paid for with your tax dollars,” said Representative Ed Diehl, one of the lawmakers behind the letter. “The DOJ needs to act—this isn’t health care, it’s political ideology.”

Do No Harm applauds this effort to correct the record. As we’ve seen over the past few years, advocates of so-called “gender-affirming care” are not above making false or misleading claims to support their agenda.