TikTok is a great place to drum up business for gender reassignment surgery. As anybody who has followed the growing controversy surrounding radical gender ideology already knows, the teen oriented video platform is a “safe space” for confused and depressed teens to join a “community” and find validation. More importantly, it turns out to be a great place to exploit confused teens to make a buck.

And as anyone who has been a teen knows, confused and depressed is the default setting for any teen who is not part of the “in crowd” in school. Junior High and High Schools are a breeding ground for self-doubt and self-loathing, and puberty is a time when confusion about and discomfort with your body is about as common as needing to breathe. And because transgenderism is all the rage, and the media and educational establishment is pushing kids to embrace transgender ideology, kids are flocking to join the trend.

Surgeons and other doctors looking to cash in on the transgender craze are advertising their services on TikTok and making bank by doing so. The New York Times profiles one surgeon cashing today, but she is hardly alone in trolling the Internet for new customers. The easiest target is young teen girls–a fast growing segment of the self-identified transgender population–because surgeons can perform surgeries on them at a younger age than young men because lopping off a child’s breasts is less controversial and physically challenging than reconstructing the nether regions.

It’s called “top surgeries,” and it is common enough to be advertised to children as a solution to their discomfort with growing up. Hormone therapies are a good business as well, obviously, but the pharmaceutical companies get too large a cut of the pie compared to surgical mutilation. That’s where the doctor and hospital can make bank quickly.

I have written about this before, and will certainly do so again. As long as the medical establishment targets children as a cash cow, I and others will do our best to stop them.

And yes, it is about money. Matt Walsh exposed Nashville’s Vanderbilt University Medical Center openly promoting gender surgery as a way to cash in on the victims of gender ideology.

Vanderbilt was apparently concerned that not all of its staff would be on board. Dr. Ellen Clayton warned that "conscientious objections" are "problematic." Anyone who decides not to be involved in transition surgeries due to "religious beliefs" will face "consequences" pic.twitter.com/CgNicrG4Mg

— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) September 20, 2022

From The Times:

Genital surgeries in adolescents are exceedingly rare, surgeons said, but top surgeries are becoming more common. And while major medical groups have condemned the bans on gender-related care for adolescents, the surgeries have presented challenges for them.

Much research has shown that as adults, transgender mengenerally benefit from top surgery: It relieves body-related distress, increases sexual satisfaction and improves overall quality of life. A few small studies of transgender adolescents suggest similar benefits in the short term.

But some clinicians have pointed to the rising demand and the turmoil of adolescent development as reasons for doctors to slow down before offering irreversible procedures. Although medical experts believe the likelihood to be small, some patients come to regret their surgeries.

The World Professional Association for Transgender Health, an international group of gender experts who write best practices for the field, had been planning for months to set new age minimums for most gender-related surgeries, including endorsing top surgery for adolescents age 15 and up. Although the guidelines are not binding, they provide a standard for doctors across the world. But this month, the group abruptly withdrew the proposals, a shift reflecting both political pressures and a lack of consensus in the medical community.

We hear lots of pious pronouncements from doctors who are leading the charge in the expansion of what they call “gender affirming care.” They are caring for kids who are uncomfortable with their bodies. They are saving lives. They are compassionate in the face of a society that treats unhappy kids as disposable. Blah blah blah. It’s all about the money for most of them:

Dr. [Sidhbh] Gallagher, whose unusual embrace of platforms like TikTok has made her one of the most visible gender-affirming surgeons in the country, said she performed 13 top surgeries on minors last year, up from a handful a few years ago. One hospital, Kaiser Permanente Oakland, carried out 70 top surgeries in 2019 on teenagers aged 13 to 18, up from five in 2013, according to researchers who led a recent study.

“I can’t honestly think of another field where the volume has exploded like that,” said Dr. Karen Yokoo, a plastic surgeon at the hospital.

The volume! Imagine what money can be made if we expand into this lucrative category of surgery!

How big a business could this be, you might wonder? Well the number of kids who identified as transgender from 2017 to 2020 doubled. That is a formula for a growth industry!

In the past decade, the number of people who identify as transgender has grown significantly, especially among young Americans. Around 700,000 people under 25 identified as transgender in 2020, according to the Williams Institute, a research center at the University of California, Los Angeles, nearly double the estimate in 2017.

Gender clinics in Western Europe, Canada and the United Stateshave reported that a majority of their adolescent patients were seeking to transition from female to male.

Female to male transgender kids used to be more uncommon than the reverse, but a social contagion is underway and it is drawing in hundreds of thousands of young girls into a spiral of depression and dysphoria. There is no conceivable way in which a disease that is supposedly innate, not contagious, could double in frequency in 3 years. None. This is a social contagion, and a particularly horrible one.

The transgender medical establishment has noticed and is expanding the customer base as quickly as possible, although they are finally getting some pushback:

Another notable change: More nonbinary teenagers are seeking top surgeries, said Dr. Angela Goepferd, the medical director of the Gender Health Program at the Children’s Minnesota hospital, who is nonbinary. (The program does not perform operations but refers patients to independent surgeons.) These adolescents may want flatter chests but not other masculine features brought on by testosterone, like a deeper voice or facial hair.

After many months of deliberations over its new guidelines, the World Professional Association for Transgender Health initially decided to endorse top surgeries for adolescents 15 and up, part of a suite of changes that would have made gender treatments available to children at younger ages. But the organization backtracked this month, after some major medical groups it had hoped would support the new guidelines bristled at the new age minimums, according to Dr. Marci Bowers, a gynecologic and reconstructive surgeon and the president of WPATH, who is transgender.

And if you think 15 is too young, you should know that these guidelines are suggestions, not requirements. Many doctors will perform surgeries on children years younger than 15. Expanding the market is just good business. The Times focuses attention on one surgeon in particular, Dr. Sidhbh Gallagher.

As demand has grown, Dr. Gallagher, the surgeon in Miami, has built a thriving top surgery specialty. The doctor frequently posts photos, FAQs and memes on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok, proudly flouting professional mores in favor of connecting with hundreds of thousands of followers.

Her feeds often fill with photos tagged #NipRevealFriday, highlighting patients like Michael whose bandages were just removed. On her office windowsill sits a framed nameplate with one of her best-known catchphrases on TikTok: “Yeet the Teet,” slang for removing breasts.

Dr. Gallagher said she performed top surgeries on about 40 patients a month, and roughly one or two of them are under 18. Younger patients are usually at least 15, though she has operated on one 13-year-old and one 14-year-old, she said, both of whom had extreme distress about their chests.

The surgeon said that most of her patients, teenagers and adults alike, found her on TikTok. Her online presence has drawn sharp criticism from right-wing media, as well as from some parents and doctors who say she uses the platform to market to children.

I doubt that only right-wingers have reservations about what is being done to children, although few others have the courage to fight against what is being done due to the backlash against those of us who are willing to speak up.

There is lots more in the Times story. While sympathetic to the messaging of the transgender ideologues, it is deeply reported and worth reading.

People do things for a lot of reasons. I am certain that a large number of advocates for transitioning are well intentioned, and some of the doctors doing the work are well meaning. But never ignore the fact that each patient will need a lifetime of care, and represent a revenue stream that could amount to millions of dollars. That is quite the incentive.

Whatever you think of people who feel the need to transition as adults–and as somebody who has never felt the impulse I cannot speak to the pain they feel or the origins of their dysphoria–I feel confident that society needs to stand up for children and protect them from ghouls who are using the trials and tribulations that all pubescent teens experience as a source of revenue.

Leave the kids alone.