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Clinics doling out medications to kids demanding gender transition are �permanently harming� them in �morally and medically appalling� procedures
with little oversight, according to a former clinic worker.
In a stunning condemnation, Jamie Reed, 42, a former case manager at the Washington University Transgender Center at St. Louis Children�s Hospital,
said she quit in November after four years �because I could no longer participate in what was happening there.�
�What is happening � is morally and medically appalling,� the
whistleblower warned Thursday in a piece for The Free Press.
According to Reed � who describes herself as a queer �progressive� and
married to a �trans man� � soon after she started working at the pediatric gender clinic, she was �struck by the lack of formal protocols for
treatment,� leaving physician co-directors as the �sole authority.�
She said little was needed for kids to begin transitioning � a letter of support from a therapist �who they had to see only once or twice for the
green light,� and a single visit for girls to an endocrinologist for a testosterone prescription.
�To make it more efficient for the therapists, we offered them a template
for how to write a letter in support of transition,� she wrote.
Reed also slammed the center for downplaying possible negative
consequences on both boys and girls � including suicide.
�Being put on powerful doses of testosterone or estrogen � enough to try
to trick your body into mimicking the opposite sex � affects the rest of
the body,� she wrote. �I doubt that any parent who�s ever consented to
give their kid testosterone (a lifelong treatment) knows that they�re also possibly signing their kid up for blood pressure medication, cholesterol medication, and perhaps sleep apnea and diabetes.�
She added, �Our patients were told about some side effects, including sterility. But after working at the center, I came to believe that
teenagers are simply not capable of fully grasping what it means to make
the decision to become infertile while still a minor.�
At least one parent revoked their consent for the transition medication at
the clinic, according to a June 2022 email Reed shared.
�[Redacted] is a shell of his former self riddled with anxiety. Who knows
if it�s because the hormone blockers or the other medications. I revoke my consent. I want the hormone blocker removed,� the parent demanded.
Reed wrote that although boys had been the predominant pediatric patient looking to change gender, around 2015, �across the Western world, there
began to be a dramatic increase in a new population� � teen girls who
�suddenly declared they were transgender and demanded immediate treatment
with testosterone.�
She said as part of her role doing new-patient intake, she noticed a surge
in girls at the clinic.
�When I started there were probably 10 such calls a month,� Reed wrote.
�When I left there were 50, and about 70 percent of the new patients were girls. Sometimes clusters of girls arrived from the same high school.�
Reed said she felt concerned but never expressed them to her colleagues.
�Anyone who raised doubts ran the risk of being called a transphobe,� she
said.
When she left the clinic, about 70% of new patients were girls who also suffered from �comorbidities� like anxiety, ADHD, eating disorders,
obesity and autism or autism-like symptoms, she said. Another �new group�
also began to be referred � vulnerable kids from the inpatient psychiatric
unit or ER at St. Louis Children�s Hospital.
�Frequently, our patients declared they had disorders that no one believed
they had,� she wrote. �We had patients who said they had Tourette syndrome
(but they didn�t); that they had tic disorders (but they didn�t); that
they had multiple personalities (but they didn�t).�
She attributed the troublesome trend to �social contagion,� or the
spreading of emotions or behavior among a group � but the clinic�s doctors
said �gender identity reflected something innate.�
Reed added it wasn�t just the clinic that was worrisome.
Comments from Dr. Rachel Levine, a transgender woman at the Department of Health and Human Services, declared, �no American children are receiving
drugs or hormones for gender dysphoria who shouldn�t.�
But Reed said that�s not true.
�I started writing down everything I could about my experience at the Transgender Center,� Reed wrote, and then brought the concerns � and
documents � to Missouri�s Republican attorney general.
�The safety of children should not be a matter for our culture wars,� Reed wrote.
�Hypotheses are supposed to be tested ethically,� she said. �The doctors I worked alongside at the Transgender Center said frequently about the
treatment of our patients: �We are building the plane while we are flying
it.�
�No one should be a passenger on that kind of aircraft,� she wrote.
https://nypost.com/2023/02/09/whistleblower-lifts-lid-on-st-louis-kids- gender-clinic/
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