New information from UK complicates Democratic narrative on trans surgeries for minors in KY

A newly revealed letter has put a wrinkle in the narrative that gender reassignment surgeries don’t happen in Kentucky.

A University of Kentucky Healthcare executive, according to a letter dated March 2 of this year sent to a Republican legislator, said that the school’s Transform Health clinic in Lexington performed “a small number of non-genital gender reassignment surgeries on minors, such as mastectomies for older adolescents.”

This contradicts what many pushing back on Kentucky Republicans’ fight to ban certain medical care for transgender minors, including Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear, have been saying: that the surgeries don’t take place in Kentucky. Beshear himself said this in a recent campaign advertisement defending against Republican attacks.

“I’ve never supported gender reassignment surgery for kids, and those procedures don’t happen here in Kentucky,” Beshear said.

While it’s true that Beshear has never explicitly supported the surgeries for minors — Republicans have argued to the contrary citing his veto of the controversial Senate Bill 150, an omnibus bill that included a ban on all gender reassignment surgeries for minors — the letter refutes the governor’s second claim.

Cameron, in a press release following a first report of the news from the conservative-leaning Washington Free Beacon, said Beshear “can’t stop lying” on this score.

“We know for a fact that gender reassignment surgery for kids was taking place in Kentucky. Andy Beshear sided with his far left allies and vetoed a bill to ban these procedures. Andy is lying in the middle of an election to mislead voters,” Cameron said.

But while many in the GOP are taking a victory lap following the revelation, some have stated that non-genital gender reassignment surgeries (also known as “top surgeries” or mastectomies) aren’t often the focus of these discussions. The letter, from UK Healthcare Chief Physician Executive Jay Grider, also states definitively that the clinic “does not perform genital gender reassignment surgery on minors.”

“Indeed, these types of surgeries on minors are not considered best practice in the United States and are performed in this country very rarely,” Grider wrote.

The term “gender reassignment surgery” is broad, and can include changes to a person’s genitals, chest and/or face. UK Healthcare divides the procedure into two categories — “top surgery,” referring to the creation or removal of breasts and “bottom surgery,” referring to removal of genitalia assigned at birth and recreation of genitalia that conforms with one’s gender identity.

Jay Blanton, a spokesperson for the University of Kentucky, stressed that the non-genital gender reassignment surgeries performed at Transform Health performed were exceedingly rare and that they have completely stopped since the passage of SB 150. He said that the clinic performed a “small number” of the surgeries “on minors who are almost adults,” stating that the clinic hadn’t performed the surgery on anyone as young as 14.

“These procedures are rare and have occurred only with the evaluation, discussion, and consent of parents/guardians. Indeed, in recent years the numbers of these procedures have been so small that providing a number would potentially identify a patient, thus violating their privacy under federal law, per our provisions for complying with HIPPA,” Blanton wrote.

Emma Curtis, who vied for the Democratic nomination for a House seat earlier this year and was a visible activist against Senate Bill 150, said Republican responses to the letter don’t distinguish between genital and non-genital gender reassignment surgeries.

“The conflation of the two is misguided at best and dangerous at worst. It’s extremely disappointing to see the willingness of a political party to use trans kids, who are already one of the most vulnerable populations, as political pawns,” Curtis said in an interview.

She also noted that every advocate against SB 150 that she knew of was “A-OK” with a ban on any form of gender reassignment, genital and non-genital, as long as access to mental healthcare, puberty blockers and hormone replacement therapy for older adolescents was protected. The latter two items were banned by SB 150.

Alex Floyd, Beshear’s re-election campaign spokesperson, called Cameron’s campaign, which touted the recent report, “flailing and divisive.” Floyd also said that the campaign didn’t know about the letter and its contents until the report from the Free Beacon on Monday.

“The governor has consistently said he doesn’t support these procedures. Through today, no reports from the medical community of such surgeries have been provided to the governor’s office. Both the Fairness Campaign and multiple healthcare systems have reported that these surgeries are not being performed. With regards to the letter, the governor reiterates his opposition to these surgeries,” Floyd wrote.

Timing of letter’s release

Curtis, who is transgender, also questioned the timing of the March letter’s release.

“The release of the letter today, more than 5 months after it was received by Rep. Tipton, is a disingenuous attempt to use a semantic error to create confusion and fear about Gov. Beshear’s stance on transgender issues ahead of November’s election. The willingness of the Republican Party to treat trans youth as expendable political props and the refusal of many in the Democratic Party to combat this vile disinformation campaign only further endangers the lives and safety of our trans youth,” Curtis tweeted.

Sen. Lindsey Tichenor, R-Smithfield, said that she quoted the letter on the Senate floor at one point during the debate.

A statement from Kentucky House GOP spokesperson Laura Leigh Goins indicated that the tipping point for Tipton, who chairs the House Education Committee, to go public with the letter was Beshear’s recent “false, very public claims” on the subject.

“It’s a totally hypocritical, election year flip-flop from Governor Beshear,” Tipton said in a statement from the Cameron campaign. “Earlier this year, I got a letter proving that gender reassignment surgeries were happening in Kentucky. We passed a bill to protect our kids. Andy Beshear vetoed it. The only reason these surgeries are not happening in Kentucky now is because we overrode the Governor’s veto.”

Blanton did not respond to further questioning on why UK didn’t publicly, beyond the letter, mention the practice during the hot debate over SB 150 or if they informed Beshear’s team. The UK administration’s reticence on this front before the recent publication of the March letter has rankled some in the activist ranks.

Rebecca Blankenship, the state’s first openly transgender elected official and executive director of Ban Conversion Therapy Kentucky, said it made her “livid.”

“This represents an appalling betrayal of the public trust by UK Healthcare, UK administrators, and the UK board of trustees,” Blankenship tweeted. “By withholding this information, the University of Kentucky has thwarted our legislature’s attempts to make responsible public policy, deliberately deceived and embarrassed pro-LGBT advocates, and denied the public the right to hold our public institutions accountable.”

A spokesperson for Norton Healthcare, a sizable healthcare provider in the Louisville area, told the Herald-Leader that “we do not and we have not” performed gender reassignment surgeries for minors.

University of Louisville Health said in a statement that it “does not perform gender reassignment surgeries on minors.”