Michigan House subcommittee hears testimony alleging harms from pediatric gender‑affirming care

LANSING — The Michigan House Oversight Subcommittee on Child Welfare System heard more than three hours of testimony alleging that minors were offered medicalized gender‑affirming care without adequate diagnostic workups, full disclosure of risks or meaningful alternatives.

Witnesses who described themselves as former patients and a parent said they began receiving puberty blockers, cross‑sex hormones or surgeries as minors and later experienced serious, lasting health problems. "I started transitioning when I was 13 years old," said Johnny Skinner, now 22, who testified by Zoom that he was referred from a gender therapist to an endocrinologist at Childrens Mott Hospital and began hormones after his first endocrinology visit. Skinner said he and his mother were not told the full nature of diagnoses recorded in his chart and raised questions about how some conditions were coded in records.

The hearing included similar accounts. "They made me into a lifelong medical patient the day they pathologized and medicalized my mental distress," said Prisha Mosley, 27, who testified…