Boston Children’s Hospital Deletes Website Info Saying 17-Year-Olds Are Eligible for Vaginal Construction Surgery

In response to criticism, Boston Children’s Hospital deleted website information stating that 17-year-olds are eligible to receive gender-transition vaginoplasties, or the surgical construction of female reproductive genitalia on a boy.

As of August 12, the medical center’s website said that “to qualify for gender affirmation at Boston Children’s Hospital, you must be at least 18 years old for phalloplasty or metoidioplasty and at least 17 years old for vaginoplasty,” according to an archive on the Wayback machine found by Fox News.

Within the week, that comment was revised to read: “To qualify for gender affirmation at Boston Children’s Hospital, you must be at least 18 years old for phalloplasty or metoidioplasty and for vaginoplasty.”

An informational document stipulating that, “You must be between 17 and 35 years of age at the time of surgery,” has also been scrubbed from the “Eligibility for Surgery” webpage, Fox News noted. A vaginoplasty is a procedure that involves the surgical creation of a vagina from existing genital tissue.

The hospital clarified to Fox News that 17-year-olds can only go to surgical consultation, but must turn 18 in order to qualify to obtain the surgery. That detail was missing from the original website page.

“For surgical consultation, you must be 17 years of age and between 18 and 35 years of age at the time of surgery. We have since updated this to reflect the protocols for the practice, which we have always adhered to (no surgery under 18 years of age),” a hospital spokesperson told the outlet.

Boston Children’s Hospital came under fire after Twitter account Libs of TikTok posted a video-explainer advertisement from the facility’s Gender Multispecialty Service Program on “gender affirming hysterectomies,” or the “removal of the uterus, cervix, and Fallopian tubes” from young girls’ reproductive anatomy. The representative in the video added that some hysterectomies also include the removal of the ovaries that produce eggs required for fertilization, which would prevent the female patient from bearing children in the future.

The hospital responded to the uproar by slamming the criticism as “misinformation,” while asserting that it does not offer “gender-affirming” hysterectomies for anyone who is not the age of consent, or 18-years-old.

“The article and the online attention that followed was based on the incorrect statement that Boston Children’s performs hysterectomies on minors in connection with transgender care,” it wrote in a statement. “We condemn these attacks in the strongest possible terms, and we reject the false narrative upon which they are based.”