The claim: Harvard is teaching aesculapian students to dainty transgender infants
A Jan. 12 Facebook station (direct link, archived link) by conservative commentator Charlie Kirk shows screenshots of an nonfiction posted connected his website.
“Harvard Training Medical Students To Treat ‘Trans Infants,’” reads the header of a blog post.
“In lawsuit nary 1 told you, they’re aft your kids,” the caption, written by Kirk, reads.
The station was shared much than 180 times wrong 2 weeks. Another version of the claim, citing a different blimpish blog, was shared much than 30,000 times connected TikTok.
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Our rating: False
The assertion is false. Harvard Medical School said its people does not speech astir sex individuality oregon intersexual predisposition regarding infants. Instead, it teaches students astir variations successful enactment development among infants.
Course successful question teaches astir enactment improvement successful infants, not sex identity
Kirk’s blog post, which has since been updated to see a correction, refers to a Harvard Medical School course titled, “Caring for Patients with Diverse Sexual Orientations, Gender Identities, and Sex Development.”
But contrary to the article's archetypal claim, Harvard Medical School officials told USA TODAY successful an email that the people does not sermon sex individuality oregon intersexual predisposition successful regards to infants.
“The people constituent pertaining to infants involves learning specifically astir variations successful enactment improvement that tin make successful utero and that children are calved with,” the schoolhouse said. “This includes champion practices for supporting parents and families whose young kid has variations successful enactment development, grounded successful probe grounds arsenic good arsenic principles of aesculapian ethics.”
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A press release from the schoolhouse explains these variations successful babe sex development see "chromosomal, gonadal and anatomical variations, each of which are applicable to aesculapian attraction and attraction to guarantee steadfast development."
Though these variations successful enactment development may impact antithetic parts of the body, they each pertain to the reproductive system, said Dr. Susan Stred, prof emeritus of pediatric endocrinology astatine SUNY Upstate Medical University.
One communal saltation successful enactment development, Stred said, is Klinefelter syndrome. Males calved with this syndrome person an other X chromosome and tin acquisition sterility and debased enactment drive, according to the National Health Service.
Another saltation infants tin beryllium calved with is hypospadias, Stred said. This is erstwhile the urethra is not located astatine the extremity of the penis and alternatively is recovered “anywhere from conscionable beneath the extremity of the penis to the scrotum,” according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
An updated mentation of Kirk's blog post is present headlined, "CORRECTION: Harvard Is Not Training Medical Students To Treat ‘Trans Infants,’" but his Facebook station with a screenshot of the original, mendacious header remains online.
USA TODAY reached retired to Kirk for comment. The Twitter idiosyncratic provided nary grounds to enactment the claim. The TikTok idiosyncratic could not beryllium reached.
The Associated Press and PolitiFact also debunked the claim.
Our fact-check sources:
- Harvard Medical School, Jan. 17, Email interrogation with USA TODAY
- Dr. Susan Stred, Jan. 24, Phone interrogation with USA TODAY
- Harvard Medical School, Jan. 11, Response to reports astir HMS aesculapian acquisition course
- Harvard Medical School, accessed Jan. 24, Caring for Patients with Diverse Sexual Orientations, Gender Identities, and Sex Development
- National Library of Medicine, Nov. 22, 2017, Disorders of Sex Development
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, accessed Jan. 24, Facts astir Hypospadias
- National Health Service, accessed Jan. 24, Klinefelter syndrome
- Verywell Family, April 10, 2022, Chromosomal Abnormalities successful Pregnancy
- Associated Press, Jan. 18, Harvard med schoolhouse people isn’t astir ‘trans infants’
- PolitiFact, Jan. 20, Harvard aesculapian students aren’t being taught that infants tin place arsenic LGBTQ
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