Washington Post: Planned Parenthood Will Give Hormone Blockers to a Teenager After a 30 Minute Consult (and Sometimes They'll Give Them the Drugs Before They Even Have the Consult)

Fred has a history of cycling through various fixations. Last year he was apparently part of an alt-right group chat. But last December he gave all of that up and announced he was trans. 

His parents suspected this might be short-lived but just to make sure they signed him up with a program at Children's National Hospital that is the only gender clinic in the US which focuses on kids with autism. 

The plan was to have Fred carefully assessed to make sure this wasn't another fad. But the wait for a proper assessment would have been about a year. Fred didn't want to wait so shortly after he turned 18, when his parents were out of town, he went to Planned Parenthood. 

There, he was able to get a prescription for hormones in about 30 minutes. 

His parents know how long the consult took because they could see when his phone showed he arrived at the clinic (11 am) and when his prescription was ready at the drug store (11:39 am). 

"It's criminal what Planned Parenthoods all over the country are doing," Fred's mother, a New Jersey pediatrician, said. "And most people have no idea this is happening." 

Criticism from Fred's mother probably isn't that surprising but even the doctor who founded the first pediatric gender clinic in the US thinks Planned Parenthood is out of its depth. 

"I have always been a very strong supporter of Planned Parenthood and am pro-choice," said Laura Edwards-Leeper, who co-founded the nation's first pediatric gender clinic, at Boston Children's Hospital, in 2007. "But they have taken on something that they are not equipped to handle." 

The lack of gatekeeping is so bad, she added, that some of her patients received hormones from Planned Parenthood before coming to her for an assessment. Others, like Erica Anderson, a former president of the US Professional Association for Transgender Health, say patients they've sought to delay from transitioning have simply turned to Planned Parenthood. 

"I've had patients desperate to get hormones where I've been the voice of caution," said Anderson, who is transgender herself. "In some cases, they say, 'I'll just go to Planned Parenthood when I'm 18.' Usually I can dissuade them but sometimes I can't."... 

"Some young adults are developmentally more like adolescents," Edwards-Leeper, who helped write the WPATH guidelines for minors, said. "Planned Parenthood really isn't following the standard of care if they don't take that into account."

GRTWT.