As a health reporter, I’ve spent quite a bit of time in hospitals.
For the brief time that I practiced nursing, I took many days off my life in the hospital.
And I’ve spent too much time in the hospital as a patient.
When I read this morning about the bomb threat called in not even 24 hours ago on Aug 30 to Boston Children’s Hospital, I reacted viscerally.
The police identified the threat as being just that: a threat. Beyond that, neither the hospital nor law enforcement is saying much other than the investigation is continuing. There is much speculation that because of so much recent maligned attention from TikTok star and social media personality Chaya Raichik who goes by “Libs of TikTok,” conservative talkshow hosts, rightwing bloggers and even conservative Georgia U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green to Boston Children’s care for transgender patients, the threat could be retaliation for the hospital’s care for transgender patients.
The bomb threat was called in at 8:05 p.m., at a time when emergency rooms are bustling, night-shift nurses are doing their evening rounds, and families are saying goodnight to their loved ones who have inpatient stays. At Boston Children’s, the clinics are long closed by 8 p.m. and the visiting hours end by 8 p.m., so it was the staff, patients and guardians who were staying with patients overnight who bore the weight of that bomb threat, though I’m certain staff took great pains to put patients and families at ease. Local media reports streets around the hospital were closed off for nearly two hours while law enforcement investigated. Fortunately, no physical threat was found.
First, some facts: Boston Children’s provides trans affirmative care to trans youth under 18. This consists of puberty blockers, a reversible drug option; psychological and psychiatric care, and as the child enters late adolescence discussions on more options such as hormone therapy. The hospital provides genital surgical care for trans patients over 18 and will provide in rare cases consultation for patients 17 years old.
Rumors have swirled as to what kind of diabolical things the hospital might be doing to children, but there is nothing diabolical about saving children’s lives. Gender affirming care is the standard for children under 18 and that includes exactly what is listed above: therapy, allowing the child to come to terms with where they are on the gender spectrum (male, female, nonbinary or gender non-conforming), and providing puberty blockers if necessary. Then, as the child ages into late adolescence and turns 18, providing additional care as necessary: hormones, and top/bottom surgery. Not all trans, non-binary or gender non-conforming people choose hormones or surgery. Some choose one. Some choose both.
Not to minimize this part of Boston Children’s services, but this hospital also provides a spectrum of care from life-saving transplant surgeries to every day to treating cancer to treating childhood sleep disorders to working with children who experience chronic illness.
Still, last night and in the last few months, extremists haven’t cared about any of that. Or about the fact that gender affirming care – such as simply using a child’s proper name instead of their deadname – is life-saving care as studies have shown. Such care reduces suicidal ideation and suicidal behavior among trans youth.
No. Instead extremists have only cared about rumors that doctors are doing nefarious things that I don’t care to repeat here. And that brings us to last night when a place filled with doctors and nurses and respiratory therapists and pharmacists and aides and cooks and janitors all serving the tiniest and most vulnerable in our population was threatened because of one among many clinics they have, because of one type of care they offer among many – in a state where it is perfectly legal in a country where we speak of individual freedoms to live our lives the way we want to live our lives.
As a health reporter, I wonder if perhaps my profession has failed to properly report on what trans affirming care actually includes while allowing conspiracy theorists to let their imaginations run wild.
As a nurse, I’m angry. You threatened healthcare workers. These are my people. You threatened my people.
As a patient whose care team includes a few doctors who practice such specialized care that they see both children and adults, I am heartbroken because I worry: Will their facilities be next?
Mostly, what I want is for this to stop. There is no need for violence or threats. A children’s hospital is a place where the whole team does everything – and I do mean everything – possible to put patients at ease and to save children’s lives. To this staff, every child is a gift, and they will go to all lengths to do what is best for the child. You may not agree with that what or how the hospital does that, and that’s your right as an American. But when people start committing crimes – such as calling in a bomb threat or worse – we’ve crossed a line into into a dark place.
Where do we go from here?