Akron Children’s Hospital

Akron Children’s Hospital is a nonprofit hospital located in Akron, Ohio. The hospital maintains the Center for Gender Affirming Medicine and states that it provides minors with hormone therapy and puberty blockers. Claims data shows the hospital has billed for hormone therapy over the past several years. The institution prescribed on average 43 sex change prescriptions per patient. Ohio currently bans gender medical interventions – including hormone therapy, puberty blockers, and surgeries – for children after a judge ruled August 6, 2024 that the state’s law banning these interventions can go into effect. The hospital’s chair of pediatrics Dr. Shefali Mahesh testified against the legislation as it was being considered by lawmakers in 2023.

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Key Findings

Akron Children’s Center for Gender Affirming Medicine provides a range of “gender-affirming” services including “pubertal suppression” and “gender-affirming hormones for older adolescents and young adults.”

The Center provides sex change treatments, including “menstrual suppression” and “puberty blockers,” after just two and a half hours of assessment.

A since-deleted case study detailed how the Center prescribed puberty blockers to a 13-year-old child; the center claimed that from “age 3 . . . Ryace’s gender identity did not match the sex assigned to her at birth” because “she asked Santa for girls’ things” and played the role of “Daisy Duke” in “The Dukes Of Hazard.” Center Director Dr. Crystal Cole claimed that going through puberty would have been “detrimental” to the child.

Multiple media outlets have reported that the center provides services to children as young as seven years old.

Dr. Stephen Sondike, Director of Akron Children’s Adolescent Medicine Division, reportedly claimed that puberty suppression merely “buys time” and “holds back pubertal development” to facilitate “body changes . . . consistent with . . . identity.”

In 2022, Akron Children’s released a statement in response to criticism about its Gender-Affirming Program which emphasized that they “proudly stand behind the work of our program” and that “Akron Children’s Hospital turns away no child who seeks care.” The statement also dismissed criticism of the Program as “misinformation.”

In December 2023, Akron Children’s testified against an Ohio House Bill which aimed to criminalize so-called “gender-affirming care” for young people. Dr. Shefali Mahesh, Akron Children’s Chair of Pediatrics, insisted their duty was “to never turn any child away.”

Dr. Mahesh also claimed that young transgender people undergo “a detailed intake process” and “rigorous assessment” prior to treatment at the hospital – despite their website stating that puberty blockers can be prescribed after two and a half hours of assessment. Dr. Mahesh said that banning medical treatments for young people would amount to the government “abandoning” them.