EXCLUSIVE — Maine’s Department of Education guides gender-confused students toward a “youth programming” resource suggesting that “self-fulfillment” and “empowerment” can be found in “live gay porn cams,” according to the government website.
Outright Lewiston-Auburn, along with several other organizations, is part of a network of transgender activist organizations cited as resources for minors by the Maine government and major partners of MaineHealth, the state’s largest healthcare network. MaineHealth is host to a prolific gender clinic at the Barbara Bush Children’s Hospital.
An insider from MaineHealth provided the Washington Examiner with documents and personal insight about the relationships among the government of Maine, MaineHealth, and transgender activist groups that work with both to push transgender ideology on children.
The state’s Department of Education offers a link to Outright L/A on its website, under the “youth programming” section of its “LGBTQ+ Student Resources.”
“There are many people in Maine working to help young people facing these challenging realities and to provide support, including for LGBTQ+ students,” the state agency notes on the resource page of its website.
Following the state government’s link would take an interested child or adolescent to content encouraging participation in the transgender activist group’s weekly meetings for youth ages 12 to 21 years old. The meetings include “information on HIV prevention,” according to the Outright L/A website. The tag line for the organization, using a New England regional dialectic appeal, “We’re heeah & wicked queeah.”
The organization was founded in 1997 with the mission to “create safe and affirming environments for youth ages 12-21” who identify as LGBT. Outright L/A’s homepage appears to be directed mostly at children. Amid suggestions of ways for gay youth to pursue “self-fulfillment” and “empowerment,” the group proposes “live gay porn cams.”
Dr. Stanley Goldfarb, chairman of health advocacy organization Do No Harm, told the Washington Examiner that Outright L/A, through the state government and its relationships with other activist organizations, is encouraging children to come to its website only to have them confronted immediately by explicit content.
“These sites are openly targeting minors as young as 12 years old and are doing so mere sentences away from saying they want to create a ‘safe and affirming environment.’ Their homepage pushes adult content said to be ‘self-fulfilling’ and ‘empowering’ on those who are confused and vulnerable,” Goldfarb said.
The Department of Education’s student page also links to Equality Maine, a “political action, community building, education, engagement, and collaboration” organization, as a community resource. Outright L/A is listed as a resource on Equality Maine’s website, where a direct link to its homepage advertising “live gay porn cams” can be found.
The Maine Department of Education did not respond to a request for comment from the Washington Examiner.
“The government in Maine is actively moving to protect predators in positions of power who take the form of educators, administrators, government employees, doctors, nurses, caseworkers, counselors, law enforcement, lawmakers, etc., from being held accountable for keeping secrets from parents, promoting and performing the castration and mutilation of the most vulnerable among us,” the MaineHealth insider told the Washington Examiner, speaking on the condition of anonymity for fear of professional and social retribution.
Pushing children to groups like Outright L/A appears to be in line with Maine government policy across the board. A new “LGBTQI+ policy” introduced last fall in the Maine Department of Health and Human Services Office of Child and Family Services directs caseworkers to hide a child’s claimed gender identity from his or her parents and to help those children gain access to puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and genital surgeries.
According to Maine Wire, the gender clinic at Barbara Bush Children’s Hospital had a hand in creating the state’s policy. State caseworkers are also required to “support the child in their feelings and self-identification,” use alternative pronouns and names, and place children under DHHS custody in homes that will pursue the “gender-affirming” theory of medical intervention.
The gender clinic offers menstrual suppression drugs, puberty blockers, hormone regiments, and surgical consultation to minors, stating its “treatment philosophy” includes letting children’s “gender identity and expression unfold over time” and a belief that “trying to change a person’s gender identity is harmful.”
MaineHealth
The Barbara Bush Children’s Hospital and its gender clinic are part of MaineHealth, an integrated health system with roughly 22,000 employees who provide care to 1.1 million residents in Maine and New Hampshire.
MaineHealth also has significant ties to Equality Maine. It both sponsors and receives trainings and guides from Equality Maine for its healthcare staff to learn the latest in transgender medicine and DEI ideology. The MaineHealth staff member who spoke to the Washington Examiner said a network of LGBT activist organizations and healthcare providers in Maine work closely together to promote transgender ideology.
“The connections between MaineHealth, the State of Maine, and childrens’ access to pornography through the Outright L/A website is geared toward ripping the innocence from children,” said the source, who is familiar with patient care, including for adolescents. “The science has been strong and tough regarding early exposure to sex and sexuality: It traumatizes the brain. Once the damage is done, there is no going back.”
The insider provided the Washington Examiner with internal training materials showing MaineHealth, namely through its DEI office, directing its employees to Equality Maine to learn about how to handle children claiming transgender identity.
In one DEI “inclusive language” guide distributed to staff and available through the health system’s intranet, Equality Maine was the only resource listed for the issue.
In order to get “help” talking to children about sex and sexuality, the guide also suggests reviewing an activist YouTube channel called “Queer Kid Stuff” which “offers short videos that explain LGBTQ+ concepts in ways that young children can understand,” as well as a podcast called Rainbow Parenting, which teaches parents how to “affirm queer, trans, and nonbinary kids.”
A 2021 MaineHealth internal newsletter advertised a training, set to take place during the first six months of 2022, titled “Foundations in Transgender Healthcare.” The offering was made in conjunction with Equality Maine and other activist groups that, among other things, sought to “improve attitudes” of care team members handling gender-altering interventions.
MaineHealth is the largest healthcare system in Maine, and it has invested heavily in gender theory and DEI ideology in recent years.
In 2021, the system appointed Ryan Polly, a biological female who identifies as a male, as the vice president of the DEI office.
Polly has been known to deploy many of the common arguments made by the DEI industry, including during an episode last year in which Polly, who is white, offered a “prayer” against “whiteness” and said that white people, the predominant group in Maine, inherently hold “racist narratives and biases.”
In a video of the comments that was quickly removed, Polly, as a “minister” of a group called “One Spirit,” said, “We [need] to … begin the work to join the fight. … We need to ensure we … do the work to challenge our ignorance, our biases, and the racist thoughts that we’ve acquired through the life of whiteness.”
But the MaineHealth insider argued Polly is also behind much of the gender transition push inside the healthcare system. Polly has received plaudits from the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest gay lobby, and has been the grand marshal of the Portland, Maine, gay pride parade hosted by Pride Portland — another organization for which MaineHealth is a sponsor and that offers both Equality Maine and the state Department of Education as a resource.
“Considering past evidence of their DEI department driving a politicized agenda, coupled with their Children’s Gender Clinic pushing a ‘gender affirmative approach,’ it’s time for MaineHealth’s leadership to reconsider the community-based organizations it is endorsing,” Goldfarb said.
John Porter, MaineHealth vice president for system communications and public affairs, did not address issues related to Polly, Equality Maine, or the “live gay porn cams” advertised on Outright L/A, but he rather focused on the healthcare system’s “values” in a statement to the Washington Examiner.
“MaineHealth provides comprehensive care and treatment consistent with established best practice to all in our service area encompassing 1.1 million people in Maine and New Hampshire, including members of the LGBTQ+ community,” Porter said. “Our commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion stems from our organizational values, mission and vision. This work strengthens our connections with patients and ultimately helps us to deliver higher-quality care.”
Pornography use has been shown to be addictive, and studies show its frequent use can erode the prefrontal cortex and affect decision-making and impulse control, among many other negative side effects.
In addition, the “gender-affirming care” model advocated by Maine’s state government, MaineHealth, and activist groups is both highly controversial and has been shown in studies to cause sometimes irreversible harm to children’s mental and physical health.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Multiple Western European countries have come out in opposition to the practice. However, the U.S. medical establishment continues to approach transgender care as “life-saving,” as the Washington Examiner has reported.
Neither Outright L/A nor Equality Maine responded to requests for comment from the Washington Examiner.
