‘Southern Trans Youth Emergency Project’ offers ‘underground railroad’ for ‘trans kids’ in states that prohibit child sex changes

In an interview with STLPR, the director of impact for the organization, Allison Scott claimed, "Our country is in a time of crisis for youth having their health care removed."

"We recognize that if we're running a program that is scalable and sizable enough if we can support other states, then we thought it was the right thing to do," she added.

According to their website, Southern Equity created the Southern Trans Youth Emergency Project (STYEP) because "Healthcare is a human right," so they work to connect families with providers in states where sterilizing kids with hormone replacement therapy is legal.

The website says the project "provides rapid response support directly to the families of youth who are impacted by anti-transgender healthcare bans in the South." It continues, "Through STYEP, and in close partnership with state and local organizations, we are providing grants, patient navigation support, and accurate information to impacted families..."

The organization will even hand out small $500 grants to help families with travel and other "emergency costs."

According to the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), 22 states have passed restrictions on sex changes for those under the age of 18. While many of the states have carved out exceptions for those youth already being medicalized, STLNPR notes that many clinics have stopped providing the procedures altogether due to legal risks.

In February, a whistleblower from within the St. Louis Children's Hospital, Jamie Reed, described the hospital as a place that recklessly fast-tracks mentally ill minors into life-altering decisions. She said that the majority of the minor patients "received hormone prescriptions that can have life-altering consequences including sterility,” even though they had multiple comorbidities such as depression, anxiety, eating disorders, and autism.

"The earlier you treat kids with gender dysphoria, the more anguish you can prevent later on," was the belief of the clinic. The children "had no idea who they were going to be as adults. Yet all it took for them to permanently transform themselves was one or two short conversations with a therapist," Reed noted of the practice.