In woke Oregon, minors are many times more likely to receive a gender dysphoria diagnosis than in less radically leftist states. That is not because red states don’t provide help for gender-dysphoric children. It is because the transgender industry thrives off fake diagnoses and child grooming.
If a therapist, doctor, or nurse works for a "gender clinic" or makes more money by increasing the number of his or her gender-dysphoric kids, of course he or she will overdiagnose. Or, if the medical professional in question is a die-hard ideologue, he will likely try to impose his fanaticism on as many young people as possible. The number of minors officially identifying as "transgender" is directly proportional to the radicalism of the politicians and medical professionals in a particular city or state.
City Journal, on July 17, published a deep dive into data exposing how Oregon, in particular, has much higher rates of "transgender" diagnoses for kids than the national average, illustrating my point:
Using insurance data for minors ages 8 to 17 between 2016 and 2023, the authors of the recent Research Connections study found that about one in 240 girls and one in 630 boys in Oregon were on hormones by age 17. In addition, 0.98 percent of minors—1.51 percent of girls and 0.46 percent of boys—received a “transgender-related diagnosis” (typically “gender dysphoria”) during these years. In other words, about one in every 65 adolescent girls in Oregon is a potential candidate for medical “sex reassignment.” Also of note, the median age of diagnosis in the study was 14 for both boys and girls, and the median time from diagnosis to medical intervention was just under ten months—findings consistent with the rapid-onset gender dysphoria (ROGD) presentation ... diagnosed teen girls and boys in contemporary Oregon thus represent a rise of, respectively, more than 500 and 30 times the prevalence of pre-2013 figures ... hormone prescriptions in Oregon were four to five times the national rate among 14- and 15-year-olds, while puberty-blocker uptake was up to six times the national rate at age 14.
Just think about that. In less than 10 months, kids aged 14 or even younger were receiving a diagnosis of "transgenderism," racing through the approvals process for interventions, and then receiving surgeries, hormone injections, or puberty blockers with life-altering results. The Trump-Kennedy Department of Health and Human Services has specifically condemned "sex-rejecting" procedures for minors because of the long-term impacts.
The late, great Rush Limbaugh always said "follow the money." Before the second Trump administration came into office, estimates for the transgender surgery industry's financial worth by 2030 were about $5 billion. Likely, the industry took a major financial hit between federal and red-state restrictions on trans-ing kids, but there are still numerous leftist states determined to keep mutilating and grooming kids in the name of transgender ideology. In states like California, Oregon, and Colorado, the transgender industry can still be lucrative.
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Between 2019 and 2023, in California, 2,084 children received "gender reassignment" procedures, according to The Center Square. Across just four states — California, New York, Washington, and Ohio — in the same time period, 13,000 children received such procedures, including vaginoplasties, phalloplasties, and cross-sex hormones. Such procedures have irreversible, life-long effects, as stated above.
FAO all who support the UK puberty blockers trial:
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) July 3, 2026
'They ruined my life. They shaped and folded my body according to what they thought would look the best... You can't treat kids like that. We're not your art project.'
-- detransitioner Jonni Skinnerhttps://t.co/DlTYUfzi5H
But the woke medical professionals and politicians in Oregon, California, and elsewhere are not diagnosing kids as "transgender" and rushing them into "treatments" because of scientific evidence or compassionate care. The goal is to force kids into committing irrevocably to woke ideology while also becoming lifelong patients with chronic conditions, thus benefiting both lefty politicians who need grievance votes and medical institutions that need money.
