Taxpayer-funded Planned Parenthood boasts about being leader in transgender medical procedures

Abortion provider Planned Parenthood now describes itself as one of the leading national providers of transgender medical interventions, but has been criticized by a top Republican for being "opaque" in how it discloses it in its annual reports. 

In 2023, a Pennsylvania chapter of the nonprofit said, "Providing gender-affirming care services aligns with our mission of enabling all people to make empowered, informed decisions about their bodies and lives. Nationally, Planned Parenthood is the second-largest provider of hormone therapy." 

The first Planned Parenthood affiliate began providing hormone therapy in 2005, according to its website. Forty-five affiliates offer hormone treatments – such as testosterone, estrogen and puberty blockers – under an informed consent model. Some of their clinics offer those treatments to children, depending on the location, according to Planned Parenthood's annual report for 2022-23. 

Louisiana Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy, who was a medical doctor before joining politics, has strongly criticized Planned Parenthood for being "opaque" in its reporting practices on transgender procedures – raising questions about whether spikes in an undisclosed category in its annual reports are from its gender program. 

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"Despite the rapid increase in the number of Planned Parenthood affiliates offering these types of services, the exact number of gender transition services performed is unknown because this information is captured in the organization’s annual reports under the broad label of 'Other Procedures,'" Cassidy said in a press release.

In its latest report, Planned Parenthood lists 177,237 in the "other procedures" category, a drastic increase from 15,902 "other Procedures" in its 2020-2021 report. 

Former Planned Parenthood director Abby Johnson blasted Planned Parenthood for having a "very dark agenda" in the general sense. 

Johnson, who left the organization in 2009, claimed many of the workers have post-traumatic symptoms from witnessing abortions at Planned Parenthood.

"That is not normal," she told Fox News Digital. "Nothing in that environment is normal and it's very dark. It's very macabre. Everything about it is very unnatural."

One Planned Parenthood clinic in Illinois is embattled in an ongoing lawsuit where the plaintiff is alleging one of their doctors was "negligent" in treating her by giving her hormone therapy to treat gender dysphoria. 

The lawsuit alleges the Planned Parenthood doctor failed to perform proper tests and psychological evaluations before allowing the plaintiff "who had no experience in the matter, to determine whether she wanted masculinizing hormone treatment, i.e., testosterone, when she was not qualified to do so." 

Alleged negligence has made the plaintiff suffer "great pain and anguish, (incur) substantial medical expenses and (experience) a substantial loss of her normal life," according to the lawsuit. 

Johnson called Planned Parenthood offering hormones to minors "callousness."

"I think that shows that the enemy has really overplayed his hand here, that this gender ideology push has really gone too far for many people. Even the most liberal people are saying this is enough. We can't do this anymore. This is a step too far," she told Fox News Digital. 

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Ex-Planned Parenthood worker Mayra Rodriguez, who became a pro-life activist, told Fox News Digital the nonprofit began changing its medical documents to be inclusive of all gender identities around 2007 to 2008. 

First, the language changed. Instead of using the word "pap smear," the phrase "annual exam" was used, she said. Rodriguez added patients were given referrals to places that could provide hormones and Planned Parenthood soon became a "pioneer" for transgender services.

Planned Parenthood continues to push changes to language to accommodate transgender individuals. The Planned Parenthood Vermont Action Fund advocated for narratives that called for gender-neutral language that would exclude terms such as "feminine," "women" and "female" from abortion advocacy.

Dr. Mary Rice Hasson, from the Ethics and Public Policy Center, said she believed that Planned Parenthood has played a "massive role" in "normalizing" transgender care for teens and young adults.  

"What people often miss is that Planned Parenthood is driving the entire ‘transgender’ ‘sales’ process start to finish, from social media campaigns to ‘LGBTQI+ inclusive’ sex education programs to ‘gender-affirming’ school-based health clinics," Hasson told Fox News Digital.

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"Planned Parenthood’s ‘gender’ business, in contrast, leads vulnerable young people (males as well as females) down a slower but no less deadly path... It takes a cold heart to destroy an unborn child, and an equally callous heart to carve up, disable, or sterilize the healthy body of a confused child," Hasson said. 

Planned Parenthood didn't respond to a request for comment.

The organization received about $1.8 billion in taxpayer funding between the fiscal years 2019 and 2021, according to the New York Post.

Fox News' Alexander Hall contributed to this report.