Most people know Planned Parenthood for its relentless promotion of abortion. Since 1973, the organization has taken the lives of nearly 10 million unborn children, racking up billions of dollars in the process. In its 2022-23 annual report, Planned Parenthood reported $2.5 billion in net assets, and the vast majority of its revenue came from abortions.
But in recent years, Planned Parenthood has begun promoting and facilitating another disturbing procedure: testosterone treatments for those who are confused about their gender. Christina Hineman is one young woman who fell victim to Planned Parenthood’s dishonest promotion of what it wrongly calls “gender affirming care.” Thankfully, she is now seeking to hold the organization accountable in court.
Dangerous promotion of cross-sex hormones
Planned Parenthood first began offering cross-sex hormones, including testosterone, at about two dozen of its locations in 2015. In less than a decade, the number of locations offering this service has ballooned to nearly 450, The Free Press reported.
In 2023, at least 40,000 people went to Planned Parenthood to get cross-sex hormones, and people aged 18 to 22 made up the largest proportion of them. Cristina Hineman knows exactly what that experience is like.
Tricked into receiving harmful medical procedures
Shortly after she turned 18 in November 2021, Cristina made an appointment at a Planned Parenthood location in Hudson, New York. She was experiencing discomfort with her body and uncertainty about her personal identity.
Instead of staff taking the time to work through these issues, Cristina said Planned Parenthood prescribed her testosterone gel after an appointment of just 30 minutes. Cristina is on the autism spectrum, and even though Planned Parenthood acknowledged that she had previously spoken to therapists (which implies there are other mental health factors at play), it provided the prescription after very little consultation.
Unsurprisingly, the testosterone treatment did not solve all Cristina’s problems like many YouTubers and social media influencers had promised.
“I was brainwashed,” Cristina now says. “A lot of people say that adults should be able to do whatever they want. But if you have mental illness that’s clouding your view, or you’re so misinformed about what gender dysphoria even means, then you cannot consent to such invasive treatments.”
After a little more than a year of what had harmfully been presented as “treatment,” Cristina realized she did not want to change her gender. She now considers herself a detransitioner, a term describing people who have ceased their attempts to change their gender. Unfortunately, many detransitioners must live with lifelong side effects from the dangerous medical interventions they endured.
Holding Planned Parenthood and others accountable
In April 2024, represented by Campbell Miller Payne, PLLC, Cristina filed a lawsuit against the health-care providers who took advantage of her, including the Planned Parenthood nurse practitioner who prescribed testosterone when she was 18 and the plastic surgeon who removed her breasts when she was 19. It is the first lawsuit in the country from a detransitioner challenging Planned Parenthood’s reckless facilitation of experimental “gender medicine.”
Many people are ill-informed about what will happen to them when they undergo these treatments. Cristina realizes now that she didn’t receive all the necessary information about the growth that would form around her private parts or the effects of removing her breasts, among other things. She says she is taking action to try to help others from suffering the same fate.
“I don’t want this to happen to other young people like me,” Cristina says. “Young people with mental health problems who struggle to find their identity, I don’t want them to be rushed down this path and to feel like this is the only choice they have to live a good life, because it’s not, and people don’t tell you that in these kinds of spaces.”
Cristina is joining people like Isabelle Ayala and many others in challenging the harmful decisions of medical providers who push people down the road of so-called “gender transitions.” Even when things may look grim, their courage helps remind us of the objective truth found in the Bible.
God created each of us either male or female, and that sex cannot be changed. He created us for a purpose, and when we align our ways with His, we will find the greatest meaning and satisfaction in our lives.
