Healthcare Experts, LGBTQ+ Advocates Criticize Anti-Trans Hospitals Report

Twenty-eight Catholic health networks were among a list of hospitals alleged to have provided gender-affirming care in the past few years. The list was created by an anti-LGBTQ group whose work has already been cited by three bishops as the U.S. hierarchy is discussing new guidelines for Catholic healthcare.

These facts were reported by Katie Scott Collins of the National Catholic Reporter where she examines a popular myth that hospitals, including Catholic ones, are providing gender-affirming care to minors on a grand scale.

Do No Harm, the organization which created the list mentioned above, claimed their report shows “the pervasiveness of irreversible sex-change treatments for minors in America.”

Yet numerous authorities, including the Catholic Health Association (CHA), have critiqued the study’s methodology and the potential impact of the list.

Mercy Sr. Mary Haddad, president and CEO of CHA, alluded to “errors and inaccuracies in the database” in her internal memo to the Association.

Former long-time liaison between CHA and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Dominican Fr. Charles Bouchard, told NCR that he was unaware of any gender-affirming surgeries on minors at Catholic facilities during his tenure, which included the entirety of Do No Harm’s survey period of 2019-2023.

Anonymous Catholic health leaders told NCR that they were “concerned assertions made by Do No Harm were inaccurate and could harm an already vulnerable population.” Trans advocates concurred, adding that there was risk of the database being used to justify “draconian rules” in the bishops’ forthcoming revisions to their Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic healthcare.

Do No Harm’s methodology does “not pass muster with any kind of peer-reviewed process,” said Theresa Shireman, a longtime health services researcher and professor in the School of Public Health at Brown University. “It’s gobbledygook.” Although Do No Harm’s use of insurance claims as its source has lengthy precedent, that information does not lend itself to assessing individual hospitals, warned Dr. Peter Smith, an associate professor of pediatrics in the University of Chicago’s Department of Pediatrics.

Dr. Jane Liebschutz, director of the Center for Research on Health Care at the University of Pittsburgh, told NCR that this and other factors make the database “scientifically very suspect.”

Julia Sadusky, a Catholic psychologist who generally favors gender-affirming care for minors, disavowed Do No Harm’s claims as well. Sandusky referenced the organization’s citation of treatments which are not exclusive to gender-affirmation, and likely overrepresent the prevalence of gender-care, particularly in Catholic hospitals.

NCR adds that Do No Harm does not indicate whether they accounted for the age and sex of patients, information which informs whether treatments, particularly hormonal ones, were used for transition or other types of care such as precocious puberty, painful periods or low-testosterone levels.

Do No Harm’s publication of slipshod research is ominously timed to coincide with the bishops’ process to revise their health care directives, which now are expected to include a 2023 doctrinal note condemning medical treatments that “transform the sexual characteristics of a human body into those of the opposite sex.” Their misinformation can do incredible physical, emotional, and spiritual harm to many people.

—Jeromiah Taylor (he/him), New Ways Ministry, December 13, 2024