The child sex-change craze is worse than almost anyone realizes — and a Colorado hospital just proved it.

Recently released court documents show that Children’s Hospital Colorado, affiliated with the University of Colorado School of Medicine, prescribed puberty blockers to more than 250 patients and cross-sex hormones to nearly 550 patients in a single year, 2025. 

Those are shockingly high numbers — at least 5 to 10 times higher than previously thought.

My organization, Do No Harm, had already analyzed insurance data for this hospital.

We found that between 2019 and 2023, Children’s Hospital Colorado provided just over 100 children with sex-change treatments, including puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and even surgeries.

Those treatments already made this hospital one of the worst abusers of vulnerable and confused children in the country.

But the numbers seen in 2025 are far higher.

In that single year, the hospital gave puberty blockers to twice as many patients as we documented in total over five full years.

All told, Children’s Hospital Colorado is hurting far more kids than even we thought possible.

Not all these treatments are for different patients; many kids get multiple medical interventions.

They may start with puberty blockers to stop their natural development, continue with cross-sex hormones to change their appearance, and undergo sex-change surgeries as a last step.

Regardless, the court filings prove that Children’s Hospital Colorado is giving invasive and irreversible treatments to mind-boggling numbers of children.

Is this single facility an exception? Probably not.

At Do No Harm, our insurance-claims analyses have documented nearly 14,000 sex-change treatments provided at children’s hospitals and other facilities between 2019 and 2023.

But not all claims were detectable, like internal Kaiser Permanente claims, and we don’t know how many treatments were paid for out of pocket.

Plus, we know for a fact that some facilities have deliberately hidden this information by using alternate diagnosis codes — perhaps to avoid blowback for basically experimenting on vulnerable kids.

Based on our research, and in light of what’s happening in Colorado, we think it’s fair to estimate that between 20,000 and 25,000 American kids got sex-change treatments in recent years.

Think about that: Tens of thousands of children have been pumped full of dangerous chemicals.

Tens of thousands of children have tried to become something they aren’t.

And tens of thousands of children have little chance, if any, of returning to who they really are.

The situation in Colorado is grim enough — but the facts coming out of Oregon are even more of a cause for despair.

A study published in May analyzed the data on Oregon children, ages 8 to 17, who paid for sex-change treatments with insurance, both Medicaid and private plans, using a database that includes about 80% of Oregonians with any kind of insurance.

The topline finding is terrifying: Between 2016 and 2023, more than 1 out of every 250 biological girls by age 17 took male hormones, while about 1 in 630 biological boys took female hormones by the same age.

All told, about 1 out of every 100 Oregon children covered by insurance was formally diagnosed with gender dysphoria — the belief that they’re born in the wrong body and facing distress — during that eight-year span.

That’s not some fringe phenomenon. It is mainstream for Oregon children to believe they need a sex change.

But we may be turning a corner.

Over the past few years, Republican-led states and President Donald Trump’s administration have seriously cracked down on child sex changes.

Many states have banned treatments altogether, and a Trump executive order has opened the door to federal investigations and lawsuits against medical providers that harm kids.

In response, a growing number of children’s hospitals have stopped providing sex-change treatments, including Children’s National Hospital in Washington, DC.

That’s cause for celebration, but there’s more work to be done.

Vulnerable and confused kids will be at risk so long as sex-change treatments for minors are legal anywhere.

The White House and Congress should immediately push for a ban on child surgeries — the most invasive and irreversible treatment for kids.

Ultimately, America needs a national ban on puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones, too. The Chloe Cole Act, which Congress is debating this week, would do exactly that.

It’s now clear that hundreds upon hundreds of children were subjected to dangerous treatments in a single Colorado hospital in a single year — to say nothing of other years, and other hospitals across the nation.

It’s not just a shock. It’s unconscionable — and a painful reminder that child sex changes are far more common than most people think.

But the very idea of a child sex change ought to be unthinkable. 

Now it’s time to make them impossible.

Stanley Goldfarb, MD, is chairman at Do No Harm.