A billboard drawing attention to the harms of transgender medical practices in Los Angeles near a Kaiser hospital has been taken down after being up for a day and a half. Concerned parents who paid to erect the billboard say it bodes ill for free speech amid a medical scandal about which much of the general public knows little.

The billboard is the second sign to go up in Los Angeles and was intentionally positioned about one block away from Kaiser West-LA, where transgender surgeries occur regularly. It was scheduled to stay up for a month.

Before it was taken down, the sign read: “Why do so many of our youth think they are transgender? Know the facts before making a life-changing choice. Read this book.”

The text was positioned next to a picture of the cover of Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters by journalist Abigail Shrier. The first billboard, which was put up in nearby West Hollywood in October and was sponsored by the same group of concerned parents, also promoted Shrier’s book next to text explaining that “puberty is not a medical condition” and noting how children are being taught about gender identity at school. The first board remained up for a month.

The dad of a trans-identifying teenaged daughter who is behind both billboards spoke with The Christian Post on Tuesday, again on condition of anonymity, explaining that the official word from the billboard company was that it was being taken down because of “complaints by the community.” The father’s money to book the billboard was refunded.

But the area is not very residential and the father speculates that the surgeons and medical staff and those that are financially benefiting from the surgeries are the ones who complained. They were told the billboard went up Sunday morning. By Tuesday, it had already been taken down completely.

“It may sound surreal to some people but it’s clearly in jeopardy,” he said when asked about the state of free speech in the United States in light of the billboard company’s move….

The father cited as an example the case last week of Keira Bell, a 23-year-old woman who de-transitioned after having identified as transgender during her teen years and underwent experimental hormone treatments at the Tavistock clinic in London. Bell, who went on to have a double mastectomy, alleged the medical treatments irreparably damaged her body and likely sterilized her and that she was not made aware of the risks as a teenager. The British High Court of Justice ruled in her favor, holding that minors under 16 are not capable of giving informed consent to puberty-blocking drugs and cross-sex hormones.

But the father noted that the story that “should have sent shockwaves throughout the entire world” was buried and the U.S. media was soon consumed by the announcement from an Oscar-nominated actress, Ellen Page, that she was coming out as trans and identifying as a male named Elliott. Bell was largely ignored while Page was cheered in the press…

Meanwhile, another group of parents from the newly-formed Partners for Ethical Care were planning to put up a near-identical billboard in Dallas across the street from the Genecis transgender clinic. This clinic has been involved in the case of James Younger, an 8-year-old boy in Texas whose mother, Anne Georgulas, has been intending to medically transition him into a transgender girl named Luna against the wishes of his father, Jeffrey Younger.

The billboard message had been agreed to, the contract had been signed, and it was scheduled to go up in mid-December but the agent — the same one who had connected with the Los Angeles parents — told a parent involved in the effort Tuesday that the billboard would not be allowed after all and that the Irreversible Damage book cover was too controversial to be featured….

The above comes from a Dec. 9 story in the Christian Post.