Baptist Medical Center sex reassignment surgery controversy

In 1973, David William Foerster and Charles Reynolds founded the Gender Identity Foundation at the Baptist Medical Center for the purpose of providing care to transgender patients.

[4] The famous transsexual actress and activist Christine Jorgensen came to Oklahoma in the late seventies to have some minor corrective surgery on her surgically created genitals.

[5] Joe L. Ingram, then the state convention's executive director, issued a moratorium on SRS at Baptist Medical Center, until a final decision could be made.

[5] Gene Garrison, an Oklahoma City pastor who was on the hospital's Board of Directors,[6] supported sex reassignment surgery, calling it "a Christian procedure".

[citation needed] Foerster and Reynolds released a statement saying "If Jesus Christ were alive today, undoubtedly he would render help and comfort to the transsexual as he did the leper, the blind and the lame".

[citation needed] Reynolds had his 25-year-old son appear with some post-op trans women at the meeting to decide the fate of the procedures at Baptist Medical Center.

[citation needed] Pastor Curtis Nigh stated to The Daily Oklahoman newspaper that "this is about healing for women who feel trapped in men's bodies".

[citation needed] The patient then ended with a sexually explicit description of her post op sex life and the functioning of her spongiform clitoris structure.

[8] A few other doctors, including the Oklahoma Memorial Hospital Gender Reassignment Program, provide FTM top and bottom surgery.

[14] Nigh continued his counseling practice[15] but also served on the ministerial staff of the United Methodist congregation 'Church of the Servant' in Oklahoma City until his retirement.