Vanderbilt Pauses ‘Gender-Affirming’ Surgeries on Minors After Pressure from State Leaders

One of the nation’s most well-known pediatric clinics, Vanderbilt Medical Center, is suspending its gender transition services on minors. Tennessee State Rep. Jason Zachary tweeted a photocopy of a letter from C. Wright Pinon, VUMC’s deputy CEO and chief health system officer, which announced the decision to suspend services.

“We are pausing gender affirmation surgeries on patients under age 18 while we complete this review, which may take several months,” wrote Pinson.

Pinson’s letter comes days after a group of Tennessee state assembly members told Vanderbilt to stop gender transition surgeries on minors by Matt Walsh, a conservative columnist that the clinic’s practices qualify as “nothing less than abuse.”

Vanderbilt’s controversial practices involving minors and gender transition procedures were investigated by conservative author Matt Walsh, who recently released a documentary, “What is a woman?”, which interviews doctors involved with the procedures, as well as opponents and supporters of gender transition services for youth.

In another sign of academica reversing its course on liberal rule, the University of Florida’s disclosed that Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse was the sole finalist among the candidates evaluated and interviewed by the school’s presidential search committee. All that remains is the formality of a final vote by the board of trustees. The news of Sasse’s likely hire surfaced less than two months after a viewpoint diversity survey by The Capitolist ranked UF as the most politically oppressive campus in the state, due to the fact that it had the highest percentage of students and employees who report feeling “intimidated” to share their views on campus. Sasse is known as a staunch advocate of free speech but is also known for his background in academia, and his vote in favor impeaching Donald Trump following the January 6 capitol riots. Those factors undoubtedly made Sasse much more palatable to a board of trustees who otherwise wouldn’t have given him any consideration to run a department, nevermind the entire school. 

Election polls are always interesting, but the fact that two universities in power five conferences are opening their doors to conservative thought may prove to be a leading indicator that Democrats greatly overestimated their momentum leading into the 2022 midterms.