Report: 'Publicly funded network' promotes transgenderism for minors in Colorado

Medical watchdog Do No Harm's latest report details how a network of various Colorado groups and institutions promote sex-rejecting procedures for children as well as market them using public funds. Chief medical officer at Do No Harm Dr. Kurt Miceli told The Center Square: "A publicly funded network of Colorado organizations is pushing resources that promote youth gender ideology on vulnerable children. "Our report is a case study examining how the transgender industrial complex has pushed further and further into the lives of children, reaching even as far as school-based health centers in the state," Miceli said. "Do No Harm urges Colorado leaders to prioritize evidence-based medicine and protect minors from a harmful ideology. "Patients and families deserve medical care rooted in evidence, not ideology," Miceli said. Institutions connected to Colorado's "publicly funded youth 'gender-affirming care'...infrastructure" include I Matter, the University of Colorado School of Medicine, the University of Colorado School of Health, as well as the state's School-Based Health Center network, according to Do No Harm's report. When contacted individually, none of these groups provided comment by publishing time. Do No Harm's report – entitled "The Colorado 'Gender Affirming' Pipeline" – said the State of Colorado "spent $4.7 million on a marketing contract for I Matter," which "included influencer campaigns targeting minors ages 13–17, with talking points emphasizing that youth 12 and older could access [gender-affirming] services without parental consent." I Matter is "a state-funded therapy program primarily for youth 18 and under," according to Do No Harm. The report noted that the marketing contract "was funded at least in part with federal pandemic-recovery funds." In addition to I Matter, the University of Colorado appeared frequently in Do No Harm's report. The report said the University of Colorado (CU) School of Medicine "hired faculty specifically to staff the TRUE Center…at Children's Hospital Colorado and to research cross-sex hormonal therapy in a pediatric setting, with 75 percent of one researcher's salary funded by a National Institutes of Health career-development award." The TRUE Center is "a pediatric gender clinic," Do No Harm said. The report also detailed how CU School of Medicine is "heavily influenced" by pro-gender affirming care political advocacy groups "resulting in a medical-school curriculum that singularly promotes and enables youth 'transition.'" The CU School of Public Health operated Colorado's Queer Youth Network program that paid "'queer' youth ages 12–18 in rural Colorado $40 per session to participate in weekly virtual meetings." The report noted that "the employee who administered this program is personally on the TRUE Center's patient/newsletter list." Both I Matter and Colorado's Queer Youth Network program "share institutional distribution and recruitment channels through the state's School-Based Health Center network, which has also distributed information on [gender affirming care]-related provider training materials," Do No Harm's report said. School-Based Health Centers are "clinics operating out of public K–12 schools" according to Do No Harm. Do No Harm obtained its findings by reviewing thousands of pages of documents obtained through the Colorado Open Records Act. Do No Harm began researching Colorado's "institutional support" of sex-rejecting procedures on children after "observing the rapid march of Colorado's pro-'gender-affirming care' policies in recent years." For instance, in 2023 Colorado designated "gender-affirming care" as an "essential health benefit," meaning private insurers must cover "sex-rejecting procedures," according to Do No Harm's report. Additionally, last year Colorado passed the Legal Protections for Transgender Individuals, which has a section that "includes 'chosen name and how the individual chooses to be expressed' as forms of gender expression for purposes of the 'Colorado Anti-discrimination Act.'" Neither the TRUE Center nor the School-Based Health Centers responded to The Center Square's individual requests for comment.