Tennessee’s Vanderbilt University Medical Center has stopped gender-altering surgeries for minors after their practices were highlighted by journalists Matt Walsh and Tucker Carlson, and online activists like Libs of Tik Tok and Billboard Chris. The most explosive inner workings they exposed are that the hospital viewed “gender-affirming care” as a mammoth profit center, and that “chemically castrating” minors and performing top and bottom surgeries were “huge money makers.”

BREAKING: My team and I have been investigating the transgender clinic at Vanderbilt here in Nashville. Vanderbilt drugs, chemically castrates, and performs double mastectomies on minors. But it gets worse. Here is what we found. Let's start at the beginning.

— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) September 20, 2022

Tennessee lawmakers went on the offensive after the revelations, as RedState’s Brandon Morse reports. Governor Bill Lee demanded a full investigation, which is the main reason Vanderbilt is backing down. They are only temporarily halting trans services, however, leaving open the door to resume their operations once they get the seal of approval from the non-profit organization WPATH:

“On September 6, 2022, WPATH [World Professional Association for Transgender Health] published a new version of its recommendations to health care professionals for treatment of transgender persons, known as SOC-8,’ the hospital wrote in a statement to lawmakers.

“In light of these new recommendations, and as part of completing our internal clinical review of SOC-8 guidance in patients under 18, we will be seeking advice from local and national clinical experts.

“We are pausing gender affirmation surgeries on patients under age 18 while we complete this review, which may take several months.”

The most glaring admission in this statement is that they are “pausing” gender affirmation surgeries on patients under age 18. Many gender-affirming medical centers deny that they perform such surgeries on minors, but implicit in Vanderbilt’s missive is that they do.

UPDATE: here is the letter Vanderbilt sent to state legislators. Notice the wording at the end. They promise to comply with whatever regulations are imposed. They’ve already conceded the legislative fight. This win is even bigger than we thought. pic.twitter.com/VkKhuiHTUO

— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) October 7, 2022

The center drew attention after conservative activist Matt Walsh exposed their activities, unearthing a 2018 video of a UVMC doctor arguing for the surgical procedures:

These surgeries make a lot of money. So, female to male chest reconstruction could bring in $40,000.00. A patient just on routine hormone treatment who I’m only seeing a few times a year can bring in several thousand dollars without requiring a lot of visits and labs. It actually makes money for the hospital.

The issue grew even more attention after Walsh appeared on a September episode of Tucker Carlson Tonight:

During the show, Carlson played a 2020 YouTube video from Vanderbilt’s Psychiatry’s YouTube page in which the narrator says:

Previously, the Endocrine Society recommended to start these at age 16, but we all know that would be delayed puberty, right? Sixteen-year-olds don’t start puberty. So, more recently, they did update that to say as early as 14 for compelling reasons. So, we have some individuals who have started gender affirming hormones at 13 or 14 to be more like their peers.

Walsh explained his findings:

Well, we know for a fact, this is an absolute fact that that Vanderbilt, they performed double mastectomies on minor girls, on children. They chemically castrate children, and they give them irreversible hormone drugs that change their bodies permanently. They’re doing all of that to kids.

And the other thing we should know, and I’m glad you mentioned all the other hospitals around the country, because the things I just mentioned, that is happening all across the country, in every single State, in many hospitals, and in many other medical clinics, all of those things are happening.

What is going on with the seemingly explosive rise of transgender surgeries in youth? Well, there are simply more people now feeling like they’re in the wrong body. The New York Post reports a massive uptick in teens declaring gender dysphoria in recent years:

Exact figures are difficult to come by, but, between 2009 and 2019, children being referred for transitioning treatment in the United Kingdom increased 1,000% among biological males and 4,400% among biological females. Meanwhile, the number of young people identifying as transgender in the US has almost doubled since 2017, according to a new Centers for Disease Control & Prevention report.

In today’s America, you aren’t supposed to question what you’re told, and right now there are many voices claiming that irreversible surgeries on minors are perfectly normal. As anyone who has ever been a teen or raised one knows, adolescents often go through phases and are often confused by their identity in sexual and other matters.

When kids are at an age where they’re not even able to consent to get a tattoo, it’s vital that people like Matt Walsh keep questioning the narrative, and for governors like Bill Lee to fully investigate what some are doing to our children—for profit.