by Megan Brock and Laurel Duggan
Planned Parenthood collaborated with now-Assistant Secretary for Health Rachel Levine, along with gender clinics and LGBT groups, in its effort to provide cross-sex hormones at its clinics, according to documents obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Levine, who was acting secretary of health for Pennsylvania in 2017, ran a working group of medical providers and LGBT activists called the Transgender Health Working Group, which included representatives from Planned Parenthood, the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) gender clinic and the Mazzoni Center. Levine’s office played an active role in connecting a local Planned Parenthood affiliate with transgender clinics throughout the year it began offering hormones, documents obtained through public records requests show.
The collaboration was part of a broader push from Levine’s office to promote cross-sex treatments that coincided with a meteoric rise in state funding for the procedures, including for children. Six years later, Levine is now a high-ranking Biden official with power to steer federal policy on health care.
This is such a dangerous ideology, far from any form of health care or medical science,” PA Family communications director Dan Bartkowiak told the DCNF. “Anyone responsible for overseeing the push for more children permanently harmed by these drugs and irreversible surgeries should not be in public office, let alone be given promotion to higher office.”
Everyone deserves to feel safe and live their truth. These attacks on gender-affirming care for trans and non-binary youth put their lives and well-being at risk. Gender-affirming care saves 👏 lives 👏 pic.twitter.com/USPt0eUDe6
— Planned Parenthood (@PPFA) March 25, 2023
Levine’s secretary, Sarah Boateng, coordinated with Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania (PPSP) in February 2017 to arrange an observation session at the Mazzoni Center, a Philadelphia-based group offering cross-sex medical treatments, in order to learn about operations and referrals for clinics offering hormones, according to the emails. PPSP had worked with other Planned Parenthood clinics offering hormones, but it was particularly interested in learning from Mazzoni because of its high volume of patients, according to the emails.
“We’re still crossing our fingers about Mazzoni. The volume of daily trans heath [sic] visits at a PP affiliate is low and we fear we’d go and only see a visit or two,” the PPSP worker wrote in the email to Boateng.
By July 2017, PPSP had begun offering hormones at two Pennsylvania clinics, and Levine had visited their offices ahead of the launch, according to the emails.
“Staring this month two Planned Parenthood locations will offer transgender health services, a location in Center City Philadelphia and a location in Pottstown, PA,” Boateng wrote to the working group on July 7. “Dr. Levine and I had a chance to visit their Philadelphia location prior to the launch and we very impressed with the significant planning, training and care they took in developing their program.”
Levine responded that it was “great news” that the Planned Parenthood clinics had begun administering hormones, and CHOP gender clinic co-founder Linda Hawkins offered to collaborate with the group in the same thread.
The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) Gender and Sexuality Development Program offers medical interventions for children seeking gender transitions as young as eight years old, including surgical referrals at age 14. The clinic also partnered with schools in the state to train teachers to use children’s preferred pronouns and keep gender identity issues hidden from parents.
The exact extent of PPSP’s growth in patient visits following this collaboration remains unclear, although its website states that there’s currently a six to eight month wait list for new “gender-affirming care” patients.
PPSP has a policy against prescribing hormones to minors because it requires mental health services and sometimes legal services, although they are considering offering hormones to those under 18 in the future, according to their website.
PPSP continued its involvement with Levine’s LGBT working group throughout 2017, and the group was slated to appear at least four meetings that fall, along with LGBT advocacy groups and gender clinics including the CHOP clinic and the Mazzoni Center, according to emails reviewed by the DCNF. Discussion topics for these meetings included physician training guidelines, appropriate signage within clinics, policy on transgender military participation, “Transgender 101” and “Penn State Hershey – increased access.”
Planned Parenthood is now one of the largest providers of cross-sex hormones in the U.S. A former “reproductive health assistant” reported that the small town Planned Parenthood clinic she worked at saw one to two teen girls each day seeking cross-sex hormones, and that gender transitions for young people brought in more consistent long-term revenue than abortions, according to journalist Abigail Shrier.
“Trans-identifying kids are cash cows, and they are kept on the hook for the foreseeable future in terms of follow-up appointments, bloodwork, meetings, etc., whereas abortions are (hopefully) a one-and-done situation,” she told Shrier.
Planned Parenthood’s national and local offices have focused intensely on transgender issues in recent years, with a particular focus on opposing state-level restrictions on children’s cross-sex medical procedures.
Levine’s tenure in the Pennsylvania government ran from 2015 to 2021, during which state spending on cross-sex medical procedures for those 18 and under rose about 5,000%, according to public records obtained by the PA Family Institute. Levine helped bring this to fruition by collaborating with various groups to successfully block state legislation that would have blocked taxpayer funding for child sex changes in 2017.
“The sad reality is, from 2015 to 2021, Pennsylvania saw a nearly 5000% increase in spending on ‘gender-affirming’ care for children 18 and under. That’s evidence of a priority being made by our state officials to harm children with this type of dangerous ideology,” Bartkowiak told the DCNF.
Levine’s time in President Joe Biden’s Department of Health and Human Services has been similarly marked by a push for child gender transitions, including official guidance endorsing cross-sex biomedical interventions, such as surgeries, for children.
Levine, Planned Parenthood and PPSP did not respond to the DCNF’s requests for comment.
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Megan Brock and Laurel Duggan are reporters at Daily Caller News Foundation.
Photo “Rachel Levine” by Governor Tom Wolf. CC BY 2.0. Background Photo “Planned Parenthood in St. Paul” by Fibonacci Blue. CC BY 2.0.
