A new database from Do No Harm has revealed the number of children across Maine who have undergone gender transition surgeries, or received cross-sex hormones and puberty blockers, and the facilities making that possible.
Using data from insurance claims, Do No Harm identified 98 minor patients who received transgender surgeries or drugs in Maine between 2019 and 2023.
Those patients generated $233,490 worth of claims.
The Maine Wire has previously reported on the shocking and increasing number of taxpayer-funded sex-change procedures that have happened in Maine following Gov. Janet Mills’ (D) decision to include the procedures in MaineCare coverage.
Do No Harm compiled its database in service of its self-expressed goal of “protecting healthcare from the disastrous consequences of identity politics.”
The organization found 18 medical facilities and organizations actively helping to sexually transition children with permanent surgeries and irreversible drugs.
The Maine Medical Center had, by far, the most transgender children patients, with 50 minor patients receiving transgender drugs across the healthcare system’s three hospitals in Saco, Biddeford, and Portland.
The Maine Medical Center is a part of the MaineHealth non-profit. According to Form 990 tax filings, MaineHealth received $79,456,710 in taxpayer funding last year.
The Medical Center submitted $32,930 worth of insurance claims on 244 prescriptions for puberty blockers and cross-sex hormone treatments but did not perform any transgender surgeries for children.
The Plastic and Hand Surgical Associates in South Portland performed by far the most transgender surgeries for minors, with 15 surgeries and $118,176 in charges submitted to insurance.
The plastic surgeons proudly display their transgender “top surgeries” — also known as a voluntary double mastectomy — on their website, including before and after pictures of women whose breasts were surgically removed.
They do not advertise any age restrictions for the procedure.
The Maine Wire reached out to the Plastic and Hand Surgical Associates by phone to ask about their transgender procedures and found that they do not perform genital sex-change surgeries.
Out of the 17 Maine institutions listed in the database, 12 provided drugs but did not perform any transgender surgeries.
A relatively small number of transgender minors in the state have undergone surgeries—only 18 out of the 98 total transgender children—but the effects of drugs like puberty blockers can be just as permanent and irreversible as surgery.
Many of the drugs, like histrelin acetate implants commonly marketed as Supprelin LA, were originally designed for the treatment of prostate cancers, but they have now been repurposed as controversial and experimental treatments for gender dysphoria.
The UK issued an emergency ban on puberty blockers for minors after the publication of a study detailing their dangers.
The study found that some of the sex-change drugs can have a permanent negative effect on bone development and recommended that they no longer be prescribed to minors.
Do No Harm’s database provides year-by-year information, showing a dramatic uptick in the number of Maine children receiving transgender treatments, from eight new patients in 2021 to 43 in 2022.
That number then dropped to 25 in 2023 but remains well above previous numbers.
While the total number of patients dropped from 2022 to 2023, the number of surgeries skyrocketed in the same time period, jumping from just three in 2022 to seven the next year.
The charges submitted to insurance companies rose along with the number of surgeries, while all other metrics dropped.
Under Gov. Mills and a State Legislature controlled by the Maine Democrats, Maine has enacted some of the most permissive laws regarding transgender minors, including rule changes to Medicaid that force taxpayers to cover the cost of the procedures in some cases.
Mills signed a bill into law this year that allows 16- and 17-year-olds to receive sex-change drugs without their parents’ knowledge and even over their parents’ objections.
She also signed a bill earlier this year providing legal protections to anyone bringing a child into Maine from out of state to receive an abortion or transgender treatment.
A note on the data: Although the database claims there were 98 minors undergoing transgender surgery in Maine, the number changes to 99 when adding up the unique patients per year. The Maine Wire was unable to determine the cause of the discrepancy and went by the lower of the two numbers.
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