GoFundMe Hosts Sex-Change Surgery Fundraisers for Minors
For children, raising money from strangers for a sex change is just a click away on GoFundMe.com.
GoFundMe is the world’s largest crowdfunding website. It has more than 100 million users and has collected $25 billion in donations for causes described on the website.
No Parental Approval Needed
On the online platform, people of any age can ask for donations for almost any cause.
To confirm that, The Epoch Times anonymously created a fundraiser, identifying as a 12-year-old girl trying to get phalloplasty surgery to create a male appendage. After the page was successfully established and ready to receive donations, the test fundraising account immediately was closed by The Epoch Times.
A search on June 7 revealed that minors as young as 16 were raising money for sex-change surgery. Some of those fundraisers for children don’t list their ages.
The number of donations and the amount collected for sex-change fundraisers for children vary widely.
Some teens in search of breast amputation surgery haven’t received any contributions. The most successful current fundraiser on June 7 raised about $4,000.
Khai Moffett, an 18-year-old who identifies as nonbinary and spoke with The Epoch Times, hopes to do as well as a friend, who raised $14,000 for breast amputation surgery on GoFundMe.
Though Moffett’s parents disapprove, the teen started a fundraiser for a double mastectomy shortly before becoming a legal adult.
The Epoch Times reached out to several minors trying to raise money for breast amputations or cross-sex hormones. None responded.
But not all causes are tolerated by GoFundMe.
The company received criticism for freezing a fundraiser after it raised $5 million for Canadian truckers protesting against vaccine mandates in their country.
The truckers’ highly successful account was meant to help them survive despite lost wages during their protest. After shutting down the account and keeping the money from going to the truckers, GoFundMe floated a plan to give the money to other charitable causes.
Eventually, GoFundMe returned the money to the original donors.
The Epoch Times has reached out to GoFundMe repeatedly for comment but hasn’t received a response.
So Easy, a Child Can Do It
One page user was identified as a 17-year-old girl hoping for help to pay for breast amputation surgery. She’d been wearing a breast binder for five years, and it was painful, she wrote. The description of the fundraiser indicates she had parental approval for a mastectomy. She just lacked the dollars to pay for it.
But not for long.
Page statistics show $3,670 was raised from 71 donations. The page has been updated to say the girl has had her surgery, part of her “transition” to live as a boy.
Moffett also wears binders to hide female curves. But so far, no one has contributed to the mastectomy fundraiser.
Another page describes an effort launched on May 6 by users identified as a husband and wife. The description says the couple took in a homeless teen girl who identifies as transgender and they’re raising money for her breast amputation.
“Due to privacy and safety concerns, we will not be including his name or photo,” the description says, referring to the girl.
The user promises to “provide transparency for any and all unidentifiable medical paperwork hereafter,” to donors by making updates to the page.
“Please understand our family’s decision to protect him,” the description reads. So far, donations totaling $1,141 have been received.
Another user hopes to pay for surgeries and transgender supplies for several “trans youth.”
“This is a fundraiser for me and my three other trans friends,” the page creator wrote. “Three of the four of us have unsupportive parents, so it would be greatly appreciated if you could donate. The money will be used for items like binders, top and bottom surgery, etc.”
There have been no contributions since the effort was launched in January.
Some users identified as minors say they’ll wait until they turn 18 to get sex-change surgery.
One fundraiser describes the recipient as a girl who “needs” breast amputation and surgery to create a male appendage “so he can be comfortable with himself and affirm his identity as a man.”
The page creator wrote in the description that the girl’s family didn’t support her choice to “become a man,” so her friends decided to raise money for sex-change surgery. There have been no donations since the launch of the effort in November 2022.
Some fundraising pages ask for money to help with legal fees for custody battles for parents who support their children’s desire to “transition.” Others ask for money to help transgender children leave their parents’ homes.
Users identified as children say donations will help them run away from abusive parents.
GoFundMe also had active fundraisers on June 7 to help detransitioners pay for procedures to try to reverse their sex-change attempts.
And some described efforts to raise money to try to fight the transgender movement.
Permanent Choices
Hearing about efforts to raise money for children to undergo sex-change surgery frustrates psychologist Leonard Sax.
Children aren’t old enough to understand what transgender “health care” does to the human body, Sax told The Epoch Times.
“It shouldn’t be news to mention that adolescents are impulsive and thoughtless and often don’t anticipate the long-term consequences of their actions,” Sax said.
Children aren’t even allowed to get tattoos in many states.
But it appears GoFundMe eagerly provides help for obtaining permanent sex-change treatments, Sax said.
The site’s page on fundraising for such efforts reads: “Gender-affirming care can help improve the overall physical and mental well-being of nonbinary, transgender, and gender-expansive people. Many have turned to gender-affirming care fundraising to help find support.”
Sax questions the veracity of those statements.
“What is the evidence to support that claim?” he asked, “And how does that claim vary as a function of age? Is it as true for 13-year-olds as it is for 30-year-olds?”
There isn’t much research on how many people undergo sex-change procedures, only to try to reverse them later in the process known as detransitioning, Sax said.
It’s also difficult to do objective research because transgender-related issues attract political controversy, he said.
What is well-known is that the effects of sex-change drugs and surgeries usually can’t be successfully reversed, experts have told The Epoch Times. Undergoing transgender “treatments” usually renders a permanent change, Sax said.
“You can try to undo it, but once the healthy breasts are in the trash, you can’t get them back,” he said.
If a fundraiser makes Moffett’s breast-amputation surgery possible, losing the ability to breastfeed a child in the future won’t be a worry “because kids are so adaptable,” Moffett told The Epoch Times.
It’s not the first time the medical industry has embraced horrible procedures that mutilated healthy people, Sax said.
In 1949, Dr. António Moniz received the Nobel Prize for performing lobotomies on people. Those surgeries interrupted neural connections in the brain’s frontal lobe in an effort to dull the impact of mental illness.
But the procedure also causes personality changes, epilepsy, intellectual impairment, and other permanent issues.
Still, American doctors “lobotomized” tens of thousands of patients, including children. Today, doctors regard lobotomies as a “barbaric destruction of personality,” Sax said.
“The arrogance of educated people cannot be overestimated,” he said.
Whether children seeking sex change actually are able to follow through and defy parents who object depends on state laws, Sax said.
For example, in Texas, sex-change procedures for minors have been banned. California, however, is a sanctuary state for children seeking procedures to support their transition efforts.
And these laws can change quickly.
On May 17, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a law banning sex-change procedures for children in his state. On June 6, a Florida judge blocked the ban in response to a lawsuit brought on behalf of children hoping to continue with their transgender medications and procedures.
It’s too soon to know the long-term effects on society, Sax said.
“We are sowing the wind. We will reap the whirlwind.”
