Vanderbilt University Medical Center will temporarily pause gender affirmation surgeries on patients younger than 18 after Tennessee Republicans and conservative media figures recently called for the Vanderbilt Pediatric Transgender Clinic to cease operations. 

In a letter sent to Rep. Jason Zachary (R-Knoxville), C. Wright Pinson, deputy CEO and chief health system officer for VUMC, said that among those patients receiving transgender care, an average of five per year received surgery. Of those patients, all were at least 16, and none received genital surgeries.