PBS News Weekend anchor John Yang unveiled a galling story Sunday evening under the online headline “Study finds gender-affirming care for minors is very rare, refuting political narrative.” Taxpayer-funded "public" broadcasting is all about "refuting" conservative narratives...with money from conservative taxpayers.
The phrase “gender-affirming care” is itself a misnomer favored by trans activists, better translated as “cross-sex hormones, castration, and breast removal.” The term was used 10 times during this segment. As for “very rare,” how to explain PBS’s obsessive coverage of these “very rare” occurrences? For some reason, they've gone from hyping how many could benefit to how it's "very rare."
For the sake of argument, assume the new study is accurate and gender surgery on teens is "very rare." Then why have PBS News and its sister show PBS News Weekend run so many stories encouraging transgender treatments and surgery, not only for adults but for impressionable minors?
Anchor John Yang began:
Yang: Among the flurry of executive orders President Trump signed on Inauguration Day was one saying the federal government recognizes only two sexes, male and female, and that sex is determined at birth. Mr. Trump and Republican congressional candidates made rolling back federal protections for transgender people a big issue. By one count, they spent nearly $215 million on network TV ads on the issue, much of it focusing on gender-affirming care for minors. Despite all this attention, a new study by researchers at Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health finds that gender-affirming medications are very rarely prescribed to minors….
Notice that the Harvard experts are automatically presented as nonpartisan. But look up the study, and it's pro-LGBTQ in its first sentences:
Some adolescents who identify as TGD require medical interventions, including gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) agonists to delay gender-incongruent puberty and gender-affirming hormones (testosterone/estrogen), which are associated with improved psychological functioning. Despite its safety and effectiveness, gender-affirming medical care for adolescents who identify as TGD is a polarizing topic.
They even played the "no evidence" card for puberty-blockers under 12: "The study found that less than 0.1% of minors with private insurance are TGD and received puberty blockers or gender-affirming hormone treatment. No TGD patients under age 12 were prescribed gender-affirming hormones."
Then Yang turned to expert Lindsey Dawson, "director of LGBTQ Health Policy at KFF which is an independent source of information on national health issues." Wrong. This is clearly an LGBTQ advocacy project.
Lindsey Dawson: The study found that prescriptions for gender-affirming care, hormone therapy and puberty blockers are actually very rare in adolescents. And this isn’t surprising. It echoes other findings we've seen and really counters some of the misinformation and disinformation we've seen about being trans, being widespread and prolific. That really just is not the case. And this study is more evidence that speaks to that.
After that, Dawson doubled down, claiming “Gender-affirming surgery is effectively not occurring among minors.” This is another Harvard study. Yang asked: "Why all this political attention to what sounds like a very small number?"
Alternate question: Why all of this biased PBS coverage around such a small (or nearly nonexistent) number?
Yang himself in 2023 hosted a PBS News Weekend segment on a Montana teen taking puberty blockers and undergoing hormone therapy. White House reporter Laura Barron-Lopez, drifting way off her beat, reporting a nauseating story in December 2024, high on emotional blackmail while skipping the gory details of the “top surgery” undergone by the story's young subject. So perhaps surgery is not so “rare” after all?
After Yang asked Dawson, as if he's not smart: “Why make transgender people sort of the focus of these political attacks?” Dawson reliably relied on the crutch of “misinformation and disinformation.” It sounds like people minimizing this to the Nth degree are the misinformers.
Demonstrating PBS’s own profound gender confusion, Yang warned in September 2023 that new state laws mean that "gender-affirming care for some 300,000 young people who identify as transgender is under threat….”
So which way is it, John Yang? Is “gender-affirming care” a very rare occurrence, or are 300,000 young people under threat from being denied it?
PS: Another leftist group figuring heavily in ongoing PBS "trans teen" coverage is the Trevor Project, which bills itself as “the leading suicide prevention and crisis intervention nonprofit organization for LGBTQ+ young people” and which aggressively pushes so-called “gender-affirming” surgeries onto kids.
This segment was brought to you in part by Cunard.
A transcript is available, click “Expand.”
PBS News Weekend
1/26/25
7:17:24 p.m. (ET)
JOHN YANG: Among the flurry of executive orders President Trump signed on Inauguration Day was one saying the federal government recognizes only two sexes, male and female, and that sex is determined at birth. Mr. Trump and Republican congressional candidates made rolling back federal protections for transgender people a big issue.
By one count, they spent nearly $215 million on network TV ads on the issue, much of it focusing on gender affirming care for minors. Despite all this attention, a new study by researchers at Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health finds that gender affirming medications are very rarely prescribed to minors.
Lindsey Dawson is the director of LGBTQ Health Policy at KFF which is an independent source of information on national health issues. Lindsey, this study in JAMA Pediatrics looked at gender affirming medications, prescriptions for them to adolescents. What did it find?
LINDSEY DAWSON, Director for LGBTQ Health Policy, KFF: The study found that prescriptions for gender affirming care, hormone therapy and puberty blockers are actually very rare in adolescents. And this isn`t surprising. It echoes other findings we`ve seen and really counters some of the misinformation and disinformation we`ve seen about being trans, being widespread and prolific. That really just is not the case. And this study is more evidence that speaks to that.
JOHN YANG: And previous studies that looked at gender affirming surgery. And what did they find?
LINDSEY DAWSON: Gender affirming surgery is effectively not occurring among minors. If you really scour the evidence, you will find occasionally minors are accessing this type of care. This is rare. And it is in cases where minors are experiencing really prolonged gender dysphoria. And these conversations and decisions are made very carefully between minors, providers and parents. It`s not something that happens overnight. It`s a careful and thoughtful, iterative type of care.
JOHN YANG: Why all this political attention to what sounds like a very small number?
LINDSEY DAWSON: It`s a really small number of people, and even among that small group, smaller shares are accessing gender affirming medical care. But these issues have been deeply politicized and polarized, particularly in recent years in states and then in the campaign among the now Trump administration in particular.
JOHN YANG: And why do you think that is? Why make transgender people sort of the focus of these political attacks?
LINDSEY DAWSON: So much of this rests on stigma and discrimination and misinformation and disinformation, and really using that to fuel partisan debate and polarization.
JOHN YANG: How safe are these practices? How safe are gender affirming medications? How safe is gender affirming surgery?
LINDSEY DAWSON: So as with any medical intervention, there are risks and benefits to it. That is the truth. When you take an Advil for a headache, of course, and as with anything else, there are risks to gender affirming care, but those are carefully thought about. Many of them can be mediated, and they`re really long, thoughtful decisions that are made in a sort of group decision between young people and parents and providers.
JOHN YANG: Mr. Trump`s executive order on this matter this week, a lot of what he says is he`s framing this as protecting women, as trying to help women. His executive order says efforts to eradicate the biological reality of sex fundamentally attack women by depriving them of their dignity, safety, and well-being. What do you make of that?
LINDSEY DAWSON: I mean, it really follows in the footsteps of many of the debates that we saw with reproductive care and is aimed at limiting access to services for a group of people based on sex and gender lines.
JOHN YANG: Does this give us any hint or any clues as to future actions and future policies of the Trump administration?
LINDSEY DAWSON: So the executive order that came out on his first day in office was quite broad, and in many ways it was nonspecific. There were hints in it that the administration might seek to make good on campaign promises to limit gender affirming care, but this executive order does not do that.
There need to be additional actions, potentially rulemaking, which is a long process, and we of course may see litigation as well. So this isn`t a change that will necessarily happen overnight and not something that the executive order does.
JOHN YANG: What`s the effect, or what do you think the effect is on transgender people? All this, the discussion about it, the focus on it, and especially transgender adolescents.
LINDSEY DAWSON: There are trans youth who are denied access to medically necessary care that could prevent significant mental health problems, potentially even suicidality. And then there`s the more cultural problem for LGBTQ people more generally. Generally when there are significant animus to the LGBTQ community.
JOHN YANG: Lindsay Dawson of KFF, thank you very much.
LINDSEY DAWSON: Thank you so much.
