Consumers’ Research goes after insurance giant’s CEO for pushing for trans kids

Consumers’ Research is unveiling a new advertisement campaign on Wednesday slamming Kirt Walker, the CEO of Nationwide, a mutual insurance company, and chair of the board of the Nationwide Children’s Hospital, claiming that Nationwide and Nationwide Children’s Hospital have been promoting “discriminatory practices” such as diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies as well as pushing gender ideology on kids.

Consumers’ Research’s campaign, titled “Not On Our Side,” includes a mobile billboard that alleges Walker “oversees a hospital that pushed trans ideology on kids,” and also claims he has been “sacrificing kids to trans ideology.” The group’s campaign also includes a separate mobile billboard claiming Nationwide and the Nationwide Children’s Hospital have pushed “discriminatory” DEI hiring practices and “supported child sex changes.”

“Under CEO Kirt Walker’s leadership, Nationwide pushed discriminatory DEI policies, tried to rebrand them with a superficial name change, and then threatened a nonprofit organization for catching them in the act and rightly calling them out,” Will Hild, executive director of Consumers’ Research, said in a statement provided to the Daily Caller News Foundation. “Being woke and out of touch is a common theme for Kirt Walker as he also chairs Nationwide Children’s Hospital, which pushed radical gender ideology and irreversible sex-change treatments onto hundreds of kids. The woke, racist, and frankly vile behavior by Nationwide and Nationwide Children’s Hospital must stop.”

Nationwide Children’s Hospital has promoted various programs related to transgenderism, including the Team-driven Healthcare that Respects Individuals and Values Emotions (THRIVE) Program, which includes “behavioral health therapy, clinical medical social work and psychiatry who work with families of transgender and gender diverse youth and adolescents to help meet their treatment needs,” according to its website. The hospital has previously promoted “gender affirming reproductive health” and medical interventions to adolescents through its THRIVE program, and has performed sex changes on 118 children, according to data from the Stop The Harm Database.

Dr. Scott Leibowitz, a psychologist at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Ohio, said in 2022 that medical professionals should attempt to be “neurodiverse-friendly” to autistic children who identify as transgender and also “speak in ways that they can understand,” the DCNF previously reported.

While many U.S. businesses have been retreating from DEI initiatives in recent months amid political pressures and public criticism from consumers, some companies have reportedly been rebranding their diversity efforts instead of getting rid of them. Nationwide removed the phrase “DEI” from its website in February, instead replacing it with the term “belonging, respect and fairness,” according to The Columbus Dispatch.

Consumer’s Research previously accused Nationwide and other companies of rebranding their DEI efforts instead of ending the practices amid the Trump administration’s ongoing efforts to crack down on DEI programs across the U.S., Fox Business reported in April.

Walker has previously been named “CEO of the Year” by Des Moines Business Journal and was also named an “Honored Ally” by Stonewall Columbus, Central Ohio’s leading LGBTQ group, according to Forbes.

Columbus Childrens Hospital was officially renamed to Nationwide Children’s Hospital in September 2007, in honor of a “transformational” $50 million donation it received from Nationwide Foundation in 2006, according to its website. Nationwide’s charitable organization later donated hefty sums of money toward pediatric research at the hospital, Columbus Business First reported.

Nationwide and Nationwide Children’s Hospital did not respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.

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