The push against transgender practices in hospitals, including a crackdown on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), is the fiercest it’s ever been. The U.S. Supreme Court’s recent ruling upholding Tennessee’s ban on so-called “gender-affirming care” for minors stands as a prime example. Bolstered by multiple executive orders from the Trump administration aimed at dismantling these practices, the push for reform is intensifying. Yet, a recent report reveals that some hospitals continue to defy these efforts, clinging to controversial agendas.

Clinic’s Pushing the Trans/DEI Agenda

Consumer Research, a conservative watchdog group, issued a “Consumer Warning” exposing five nonprofit hospitals — Cleveland Clinic, Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC), Henry Ford Health (HFH), Memorial Hermann Health System, and Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital — for persisting with DEI and transgender initiatives, including on minors, while benefiting from taxpayer dollars and tax-exempt status.

The report highlighted Ohio’s Cleveland Clinic, which amassed nearly $16 billion in revenue in 2023, surpassing projections, while CEO Tom Mihaljevic pocketed over $7 million in compensation. Mihaljevic asserted, “[H]ealthcare is only part of our mission.” The clinic’s Jacqui Robertson echoed this, declaring their priority was “embedding diversity and inclusion in all of our processes and all of our practices.” Robertson later doubled down: “I don’t believe that diversity and inclusion should ever be a standalone strategy. It has to be embedded in everything that we do.” This philosophy extended to their endorsement of transgender procedures.

VUMC, equally implicated, funneled approximately $17 million into hiring, promoting, and retaining “diverse biomedical researchers in advancement of DEI ideology.” On transgenderism, VUMC’s Dr. Taylor asserted that “gender identity is a more important factor than genitals in determining the sex of a transgender patient,” adding that the term “biological sex” has “no place or meaning in either science or medicine.”

HFH openly promoted claims like, “When transgender teens aren’t allowed to transition, they may suffer from depression, anxiety or self-harm.” The report detailed HFH’s extensive transgender options, including procedures such as facial feminization and top surgeries, alongside nonsurgical options like hormone therapy, voice therapy, and laser hair removal. HFH also “actively facilitates access to puberty blockers, hormones, passport or ID change letters, and referrals for additional ‘transgender-specific’ services for minors.”

Memorial Hermann has faced lawsuits for allegedly pressuring employees to violate their religious beliefs, while Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital, which labeled “racism … a public health issue,” advocated that children “should have access to transgender procedures to improve their mental health.”

Consumer Research’s Analysis

These findings merely scratch the surface. The report underscored that these hospitals, awash in “millions of dollars in federal funding, government-mandated savings programs, and tax exemptions,” are effectively using taxpayer money to bankroll political activism. It noted, “Hospitals are taking advantage of their billions of dollars … to fund frivolous projects outside the scope of patient care.”

Although some of these hospitals have scrubbed web pages promoting DEI and transgenderism, the report emphasized that “proof exists that hospitals are still pushing woke ideology internally.” It concluded with a sobering warning:

“Hospitals serve a crucial role in our communities, but no hospital has infinite resources. Every minute, every dollar, and every ounce of energy devoted to advancing the latest left-wing political orthodoxies is a minute, dollar, and ounce of energy not devoted to patients. At best, patient care is made more expensive; at worst, their lives are jeopardized when critical resources are sacrificed for other priorities. When hospitals choose to implement radical, partisan agendas rather than devoting all their resources to providing the best care at the best price, patients and our communities suffer. Consumers should be concerned that hospitals, like those outlined in this report, squander millions of taxpayer dollars each year on programs unrelated to patient care. Such cases demand government attention.”

‘The Greatest Medical Fraud of My Lifetime’

This issue appears to underscore a broader tension between ideological agendas and the core mission of health care, raising urgent questions about accountability, resource allocation, and the role of public funding in institutions prioritizing activism over patient care. Walt Heyer, author and prominent voice in the debate over transgender practices, offered a critical perspective based on his personal experience and observations in an interview with The Washington Stand.

Heyer, a senior fellow at Family Research Council, once identified as transgender. He later returned to living in the reality of his biological sex. Heyer sees the actions of hospitals as intentional defiance, stating that what these hospitals are doing “is deliberate. … [T]he only way they’re going to shut down is for the federal government to go in there and lock their doors. They’re not going to do it voluntarily.” He compared their resistance to the protestors attacking ICE facilities in objection to the Trump administration’s immigration policies. That kind of backlash, Heyer noted, is “no different with the clinics.”

Reflecting on his own experience, Heyer shared how he was “transed” by his grandmother at age four in 1944, long before modern transgender terminology existed. “I didn’t even have hormones, I didn’t have surgery, because that was in 1944. I was identifying as Crystal West in the early 1950s, and I was living, walking the streets, identifying as transgender. Actually, at the time it was called ‘transvestite.’ They didn’t have the terms [we do today.]” He argued that the evolution of terminology — from transvestite and cross-dresser to transsexual, transgender, and now “gender-affirming care” — is an intentional shift to justify medical interventions.

Hospitals pushing progressive agendas have to change the language, Heyer emphasized, because “they’re chasing something that doesn’t exist so far in all of world history. … No one has ever changed their gender. Your gender is not assigned at birth. It’s innate and fixed at conception. The whole thing is, in my view, the greatest medical fraud of my lifetime.”

“The fact of the matter is,” Heyer stressed, these hospitals are “counterfeiting genders. And if we treated them in the same way we treat counterfeit $100 bills, they would go to jail for what they’re doing.” He added, “The Trump administration [is] doing the right thing, and the Supreme Court [is] doing the right thing.” Particularly critical of transgender procedures for minors, Heyer likened them to “emotional and psychological child abuse.” Ultimately, he stated, “the only thing that the gender clinics can do is devalue, dehumanize, and destroy what God designed. That’s all they can do. They can’t change anything. They devalue, dehumanize, and destroy what God made. That’s it.”

Heyer’s perspective challenges the prevailing narrative surrounding gender dysphoria, emphasizing a compassionate yet resolute stance rooted in Christian values. As he asserted, “There is no such thing as a trans kid. Nobody ever transitions.” Rather, “What we need to understand as Christians is that something happened to these individuals who are struggling with their identity. It’s not a gender issue. It’s an identity issue.” And “as good, loving, faithful Christians, our job is to sit down with that child and ask them, ‘What happened that caused you to not like who you are?’”

Additionally, he stressed the importance of affirming divine design, stating that individuals need to hear that “God didn’t make a mistake.” The push for transgenderism, Heyer warned, directly attacks core Christian principles: “Christians need to understand that [proponents] are trying to destroy the cornerstone of the church, which is one man, one woman, making babies, honoring and glorifying Jesus Christ with their life.”

As such, he concluded, “Any time you accept the pronouns, any time you accept the idea someone has gender dysphoria and that the treatment for them is hormones and surgery, you are not honoring and glorifying Jesus Christ.”