Top Children’s Hospital Internal Training Tells Doctors Ways To Avoid Parental Consent For Trans Procedures

Hospital staff at Cincinnati Children’s in Ohio explained ways for doctors to work around parental consent for transgender minor patients in an internal training video obtained by the Daily Wire.

Steve Davis, the president and CEO of the hospital, testified in December against several bills that would have banned all transgender procedures for minors, arguing that parental consent was always obtained for any treatment and that the legislation would harm families. Dr. Lee Ann Conard, director of the hospital’s Transgender Health Clinic, said, however, that if a child is reluctant to tell their family that they identify as transgender there are things that doctors and hospital staff can do to conceal treatment from the parents, according to the video.

“Some kids aren’t ready to tell the parents, and we shouldn’t out them,” Conard said in the video. “If the kid doesn’t wanna talk to the parent … are there things that we can do medically to help? We can refer a child for therapy without the parent knowing that the kid told us they’re transgender. If they’re having significant anxiety and depression, the other thing is menstrual suppression.”

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Conard goes on to say that doctors should ask boy toddlers if they want to “wear a tutu” as part of an annual screening of children starting as young as three years old, according to the video. She also suggests asking questions about transgenderism to older children “when we’re doing our confidential part of the annual exam.”

Evie Heflin, a social worker for the transgender clinic, who identifies as a transgender man, suggests that doctors be extra thoughtful with medical records when dealing with “families” who aren’t “affirming,” according to the video.

“It is really important to think about with the Cares Act, and like, families having more direct access to medical records, to really think about how we’re charting and the things that we’re putting in there,” Heflin says. “We want to make sure that we’re able to protect the safety and the privacy of our patients, especially for families that might not be affirming.”

The video allegedly appeared alongside other training videos on the hospital website but has since been removed, according to the Daily Wire. The hospital was also visited by Republican Gov. Mike DeWine in December, who spoke with medical professionals and their patients about the proposed bills that would bar minors from getting puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and transgender surgeries, according to The Columbus Dispatch.

DeWine, who received thousands in donations from several children’s hospitals including Cincinnati Children’s between 2018 and 2023, vetoed the bill last week, claiming that the bills went too far and did not account for families that had been helped by “gender-affirming care.”

The governor issued an executive order Friday banning only transgender surgeries for minors.

DeWine, Conard, Heflin and Cincinnati Children’s Hospital did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.