Critics are sounding the alarm on "woke" medicine amid allegations that top medical schools in North Carolina are offering "gender-affirming care" to children as young as two years old.
Medical programs at Duke University, the University of North Carolina and East Carolina University are offering transitionary resources to children supposedly suffering from gender dysphoria, according to a new report from Education First Alliance.
Founder of Education First Alliance Sloan Rachmuth and Dr. Nancy Anderson discussed their concerns and the broader dangers surrounding the access young children have to sex-based treatments during "Fox & Friends First."
"Medicine has become an activist entity. There are activists that are now physicians and medical providers who have radical progressive ideologies who have no problem with socially transitioning two, three, four-year-olds in gender-affirming care," Dr. Anderson told co-host Ashley Strohmier Wednesday. "And just to clarify, these institutions are very specific about the mode of treatment as gender-affirming care, which means that this is a pathway, a highway that you can't get off of."
"As soon as the child thinks or pretends they might be a different sex, then that must be affirmed, and no questions asked," she continued.
The report notes that Duke Medical opened its gender clinic back in 2015, and treats toddlers as young as two years old for gender-based treatments.
UNC Health also sees patients as young as three years old who are believed to have gender dysphoria. The report cited an intake form, which is no longer available online, that said it offers gender-affirming care for the youth.
STOP THE MUTILATION OF OUR GIRLS WITH SO-CALLED 'GENDER-AFFIRMING CARE'
Additionally, residents in the medical school program reportedly offer free cross-sex hormone therapy occasionally.
"It's really bad. We've been told for years by the left that this isn't going on, and if it is, it's maybe 16-year-old, 17-year-olds here and there, but it is going on," Rachmuth said.
"These big systems cover the entire state of North Carolina, and they're doing it in family medicine. That's right, your corner doctors," she continued. "Their aim is to turn these places into pill mills for children… as young as two, starting with the social and then moving with the hormones and so forth."
Meanwhile, ECU Heath recently opened a "Pride Clinic" to serve members of all ages in the LGBTQ+ community.
"The literature tells us that kids can start around age four having their gender identity, so we do not want to exclude anybody within the pediatrics realm," Dr. Colby Dendy, the director of the clinic, said in an interview with the East Carolinian. "A big part of our goal is to provide affirming primary care to everybody in LGBTQ+ spectrum."
Dr. Anderson noted the criticism many parents face for pushing back against the progressive agenda, warning "activist" medicine is "incredibly unfortunate."
"As soon as they might start questioning or listening to other opinions, they're told that they're being transphobic and the child is kept on this pathway by activist medical professionals," Dr. Anderson said. "It's incredibly unfortunate. I personally don't understand it. I think it's against the ethics of do no harm."
"None of this happened when I trained in general surgery. This wasn't even an issue 10 years ago," she continued.
Strohmier said "Fox & Friends First" reached out to the medical schools for comment, but did not receive an immediate response.
