Boston Children’s Hospital said on Tuesday that its staff has faced a flood of violent threats and harassment sparked by a false claim made by the viral LibsofTikTok Twitter account.
The account, run by Brooklyn real estate agent Chaya Raichik, tweeted on August 11 that “Boston Children’s Hospital is now offering ‘gender-affirming hysterectomies’ for young girls.” The claim has been widely debunked by fact-checking groups—but as is typical in anti-trans rhetoric, facts rarely matter, and the claims were shared widely on right-wing social media accounts.
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As a result, the hospital and its staff have faced a torrent of abuse.
“In response to commentary last week critical of our Gender Multispecialty
Service (GeMS) Program, Boston Children’s Hospital has been the target of a large volume of hostile internet activity, phone calls, and harassing emails, including threats of violence toward our clinicians and staff,” the hospital said in a statement posted to Twitter.
The hospital did not specify where the threats were coming from, but VICE News has uncovered some violent threats posted on far-right and extremist platforms targeting the doctors.
“Long past time to start executing these ‘doctors,’” a member of a pro-Trump message board formerly known as TheDonald, wrote under a copy of a video featuring a doctor from the hospital. This message board is the same one whose members last week doxed and made violent threats against the judge who signed the search warrant that allowed the FBI to search the home of former President Donald Trump.
The forum’s members encouraged one another to post negative remarks on the hospital’s YouTube videos which were ultimately removed as a result of the influx of comments. Another member posted the phone number of the hospital and encouraged others to “CALL THEM ON THE PHONE.”
There were similar reactions to the claims in far-right and conspiracy-minded Telegram groups.
“Demons like this do not deserve to breathe! Crimes against humanity=DEATH,” one Telegram user wrote under a link to one of the articles repeating the false claims. “These people are physcopaths [sic] and should be locked up,” another wrote. On both platforms, the doctors and hospital staff were referred to as “pedophiles” and “groomers,” attacks that have become a mainstay of Republican orthodoxy in recent months.
Raichik’s account, which has over 1 million followers, has been at the forefront of the right’s anti-LGBTQ campaign, which has also targeted schools and libraries in recent months. It’s the same tactic that has been deployed for years by anti-abortion groups and is still being used in the wake of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade.
Twitter did not immediately respond to VICE News’ request for comment on whether Raichik’s latest tweet broke its rules.
The claim was instantly picked up and amplified by a slew of right-wing influencers and media personalities.
“This is monstrous,” Stephen Miller, a former Trump administration official, tweeted in response to Raichik. “How does anyone involved in this still have a medical license?”
Others who boosted the false claim included The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh and conservative websites such as The Post Millennial, the Gateway Pundit, and the Daily Caller.
“We are deeply concerned by these attacks on our clinicians and staff fueled by misinformation and a lack of understanding and respect for our transgender community,” the hospital said, “The article and the online attention that followed was based on the incorrect statement that Boston Children’s performs hysterectomies on minors in connection with transgender care.”
As has been pointed out in several fact-checks about the claims, in order for a hysterectomy to be performed as part of gender-affirming care, Boston Children’s Hospital requires a patient to be capable of consenting for themselves.
“Boston Children’s does not—and will not—perform a hysterectomy as part of gender-affirming care on a patient under the age of 18,” the hospital said in its statement.
Despite the outrage about the targeted harassment campaign against Boston Children’s Hospital and its staff, Raichik on Tuesday posted a similarly incendiary tweet targeting Phoenix Children’s Hospital.
“How many more children’s hospitals and their providers need to be threatened before you actually do something?” Alejandra Caraballo, a clinical instructor at the Harvard Law School Cyberlaw Clinic an LGBTQ+ advocate who has been at the forefront of calling out Raichik’s campaign, tweeted on Tuesday.
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