Jill has again showed us an important voice that we should hear. I know a lot of people that come here also go to Jill’s blog, but in case anyone missed it, please go to her site and read it. Thanks. Hugs
Due to the mention in the comments of the trans haters favorite and only major strike against trans people and the medical treatment for those who do not identify as the gender assigned at birth. This article breaks it down for people. Somewhere I posted an even better one but I simply don’t have time to look for it. The woman leading the investigation had a well know bias against trans people and gender-affirming care. That is the reason the British right wing government picked her to do this. They wanted a hit job, not a way to fix problems. Cass believes in conversion therapy for cat’s sake. Hugs
This morning people who care about trans kids were reacting in utter dismay to hearing the Secretary of State for Health use the Cass interim review to justify the need to exclude trans people from a ban on conversion therapy.
I’ll link the lovely Olly Alexander linking to a clip of our Health Secretary using Cass to call for conversion therapy for trans kids – see here
Despite evidence that conversion therapy on trans children is particularly harmful, with research showing “For transgender adults who recalled gender identity conversion efforts before age 10 years, exposure was significantly associated with an increase in the lifetime odds of suicide attempts”.
For days now, MPs and commentators have cited the Cass review, in justification of the need for conversion therapy specifically for trans kids.
Of course they do not say conversion therapy for trans kids. They talk of ‘children suffering from gender confusion or gender distress’, they talk of ‘exploratory therapy. They talk of ‘unintended consequences, by which some clearly mean, they fear the law would stop them conducting conversion therapy on trans kids.
Those who want to conduct conversion therapy on trans kids hide behind a new favourite term of ‘exploratory therapy’. It is a friendly sounding rebrand of conversion therapy. It is focused on probing, delaying, questioning and at its heart, problematising trans identities. There is nothing wrong with being trans. Some kids are trans – get over it.
The same people who actually want conversion therapy for trans kids, are trying to create confusion on the meaning of affirmative therapy. They are trying to paint affirmation as a bad thing, as something forced. They are wrong and they know it. Affirmation is about meeting a person where they are, about listening to what they need. It has space for as much talk therapy on identity as a person wants. Without coercion. Without compulsion. Without considering trans or cis as a bad outcome.
Parents of trans kids are today VERY upset. People had put their faith in Cass to help our kids.
Personally, I feel something else other than upset. I feel cross at myself for not speaking up earlier.
Back when the Cass review was first announced, I had serious concerns. Concerns that have continued to mount.
There was Cass’ personal twitter following of a load of highly transphobic groups & no trans people.
There was the Cass review’s initial refusal to even say the word trans kids, in a review aimed primarily at helping trans kids.
There was the lack of any trans people on the Cass team, and the fact that the Cass team explicitly asked for people with no knowledge or experience of trans-ness, as though that was a preferable.
The fact there was no oversight group consisting of respected trans health experts and trans community leaders.
Back at the start I felt deep in my gut that this would go badly and would not serve the needs of trans kids. I seriously considered trying to get parents of trans kids together to stage a boycott until there was some proper trans representation. I didn’t for four major reasons. For one, the biggest reason, I was so tired & out of time and energy. For two, I wanted to give optimism a go – just cos everything else always fails trans kids in the UK, why couldn’t this be different – here we had a paediatrician reviewing trans kids healthcare, something I’d been asking for for years, maybe this time would be different. For three, I hoped having formal peer reviewed publications to feed into the process would make a difference (spoiler – it didn’t – the Cass team had my peer reviewed research article on the UK service from the highly respected international journal International Trans Health and didn’t even bother citing it). For four, I didn’t think things could really get much worse for trans kids in the UK, so I didn’t see how much real harm it could do.
Obviously I was very wrong. I noted my initial reaction to the pathologisation embedded in the Cass report.
The Cass interim report is now being cited everywhere to justify the need for conversion therapy for trans kids. It is being cited to deny inclusion of trans people of any age from a ban on conversion therapy.
The red flags about the Cass process meanwhile continue to grow.
I’ve been interviewed, found Cass on the face of it an empathetic listener who keeps her cards close to her chest.
Other parents of trans kids have been interviewed, again felt Cass had listened with kindness.
Many are deeply upset about the Cass interim report and the way it has encouraged further bigotry.
The Cass interim report couldn’t even take a decision on whether being trans is pathological. It couldn’t even take a decision on whether trans kids are better off being loved and supported or put through conversion torture. It is not acceptable.
I won’t dig into the details of the Cass report itself, but the references and evidence base are deeply biased and flawed. It is yet another total failure for trans kids in the UK.
There are still no trans experts involved in a senior role in the Cass review. There is no trans power at all.
The Cass process seem to think the exclusion of trans people is acceptable, because they have told themselves they are not dealing with trans people at all. They have told themselves they are dealing with healthcare for ‘children suffering from gender distress’. This phrasing has become standard.
Worryingly there are also trans-antagonistic people involved in the research for Cass.
This week, the world respected paediatrician with over a decade of practical hands on experience HELPING trans kids in Australia published a response to the Cass review in the British Medical Journal. That response is not open access to the public, but this is of incredible important to those who are directly affected (and now even threatened) by the Cass outputs, so I will put its text here:
Gender identity services for children and young people in England
Landmark review should interrogate existing international evidence and consensus
Ken C Pang, 1, 3 Jeremy Wiggins, 2 Michelle M Telfer1, 3
1 Royal Children’s Hospital; 2 Transcend Australia; 3 Murdoch Children’s Research Institute
The long awaited interim report of the Cass review was finally published in March this year.1 Commissioned in September 2020, the independent review led by paediatrician Hillary Cass examined NHS gender identity services for children and young people in England. These services are currently provided by a single specialist clinic known as the Gender Identity Development Service. After consulting people with gender diversity, health professionals, and support and advocacy groups, Cass expressed various concerns within her interim report, such as increasingly long waiting lists, the “unsustainable workload” being carried by the service, and the “considerable risk” this presented to children and young people.
Recognising that “one service is not going to be able to respond to the growing demand in a timely way,” Cass used her interim report to recommend creation of a “fundamentally different service model.” Under this model, the care of gender diverse children and young people becomes “everyone’s business” by expanding the number of providers to create a series of regional centres that have strong links to local services and a remit to provide training for clinicians at all levels.1 Although it remains to be seen how and when this key recommendation will be implemented, the proposal will be largely welcomed by gender diverse children and adolescents and their families in England. The shift away from centralised, tertiary, and quaternary centres is already occurring internationally, including in Australia,2 where local services are being enhanced to meet growing demand and provide more equitable and timely care.
Hormonal treatment In what was likely a disappointment to many, the interim report did not provide definitive advice on the use of puberty blockers and feminising or masculinising hormones. Instead, Cass advised that recommendations will be developed as the review’s research programme progresses. In particular, the report expresses the need for more long term data to assuage safety concerns regarding these hormonal interventions. Although additional data in this area are undoubtedly needed, the decision to delay recommendations pending more information on potential unknown side effects is problematic for several reasons.
Firstly, it ignores more than two decades of clinical experience in this area as well as existing evidence showing the benefits of these hormonal interventions on the mental health and quality of life of gender diverse young people.3 -9Secondly, it will take many years to obtain these long term data. Finally, Cass acknowledges that when there is no realistic prospect of filling evidence gaps in a timely way, professional consensus should be developed on the correct way to proceed.” Such consensus already exists outside the UK. The American Academy of Pediatrics, the Endocrine Society, and the World rofessional Association for Transgender Health have all endorsed the use of these hormonal treatments in gender diverse young people,10 -12 but curiously these consensus based clinical guidelines and position statements receive little or no mention in the interim report.
Indeed, there is no evidence, as yet, that the Cass review has consulted beyond the UK. This inward looking focus may be a reflection of how England’s gender identity service has come to chart its own path in this field. For example, its current use of puberty blockers diverges considerably from international best practice. In particular, NHS England mandates that any gender diverse person under the age of 18 years who wishes to access oestrogen or testosterone must first receive at least 12 months of puberty suppression.13 However, many young people in this situation will already be in late puberty or have finished their pubertal development, by which time the main potential benefits of puberty suppression have been lost.11 Moreover, using puberty blockers in such individuals is more likely to induce unwanted menopausal symptoms such as fatigue and disturbed mood.14 For these reasons, puberty suppression outside the UK is typically reserved for gender diverse young people who are in early or middle puberty, when there is a physiological reason for prescribing blockers.
Another possible reason exists for the Cass review appearing to have neglected international consensus around hormone prescribing. While the interim report often mentions the need to “build consensus,” Cass seems keen to find a way forward that ensures “conceptual agreement” and “shared understanding” across all interested parties, including those who view gender diversity as inherently pathological. Compromise can be productive in many situations, but the assumption that the middle ground serves the best interests of gender diverse children and young people is a fallacy. Where polarised opinions exist in medicine—as is true in this case—it can be harmful to give equal credence to all viewpoints, particularly the more extreme or outlying views on either side. Hopefully Cass will keep this in mind when preparing her final report.
(Back to me typing) The authors of the above include some of the most respected paediatricians with decade long expertise in working with trans kids in Australia. The Cass team should have been queuing up to learn from Australian experts. The fact they have totally ignored expertise from outside of the UK and its partner system in the Netherlands, strikes as amazing arrogance. The fact the Australian experts felt the need to write a submission to the BMJ to raise their concerns with the Cass report is again astonishing, and in another less transphobic country would set off alarm bells.
I don’t know where we go from here.
I do know the cards are now on the table. I have zero faith in the Cass process. It has already done more harm than good.
My number one hope for Cass was it would take significant strides in depathologising approaches to trans kids. It has done the exact opposite. 18 months in and they won’t even say the word trans.
I had hoped Cass would educate the public that being trans is not a problem or a pathology. It has done the opposite, and legitimised some incredibly problematising media pieces this week alone.
I had hoped it would move us from psychoanalysis to modern healthcare – instead people are using Cass to justify the need for exploratory therapy, conversion therapy by a different name.
I had hoped it would move trans kids’ healthcare away from a monopoly mental health trust to modern secondary or primary care. Instead, the focus appears to be on talk therapy to problematise trans-ness, without tackling the hostile climate that makes life so hard for trans kids, and perhaps with even less route to medical intervention where needed.
Cass has done nothing to highlight the biggest problem for many trans kids. The climate of societal transphobia. Just this week we have had headlines stating trans people can be humiliated and segregated as the UK tries to bring in a bathroom bill by the back door. Trans kids and adolescents have been in crisis again this week, many are really struggling with mental health. Not because there’s something inherently wrong with being trans, but because the UK is a hostile terrifying place to be trans as our rights are continually debated or taken away. Cass has done absolutely nothing to highlight the crisis in mental health caused by the terrible way our country treats trans people.
Cass has failed us on every level.
The whole process is cis-supremacism in full dominance.
Why do a bunch of cis people continue to debate and dictate whether or not trans kids should be put under conversion therapy.
Why do cis people continue to have all the power, and continue to use it to harm trans kids.
Trans liberation now. Trans kids deserve so much better than this.
Just to make sure everyone understands how the anti-trans hater bigots work, here is another debunking of Jamie Reed. Hugs
Missouri Independent | By Annelise Hanshaw
Published March 2, 2023 at 9:48 AM CST
Annelise Hanshaw
Missouri Independent
Casey Pick, Director of Law and Policy at The Trevor Project, speaks at a rally on the steps of the Missouri Capitol on Feb. 2, after testifying in two hearings. —————————————————————————————— The picture painted by whistleblower Jamie Reed of how patients were treated at the Washington University Transgender Center at St. Louis Children’s Hospital doesn’t match Jess Jones’ experience.
Jones worked alongside Reed for two years as the center’s educational coordinator before resigning in 2020. The allegations of misconduct laid out by Reed — both on a national news website called The Free Press and in an affidavit with the Missouri attorney general’s office — simply don’t match the reality during the time they worked together, Jones said.
“I feel like I could go line by line to her affidavit,” Jones said, “and debunk it all.”
And Jones is not alone.
The Independent spoke with numerous former patients of the Transgender Center, as well as parents of former patients. Some were eager to share their story, inspired by the onslaught of attention the center has received since Reed’s affidavit caused three state agencies to launch an investigation into its practices.
Others asked not to be named out of fear of retribution and concern about laws pending in the Missouri legislature that would criminalize gender-affirming care for minors.
Each person interviewed described a far different experience than Reed about how the Transgender Center operates and how minors seeking care are treated. And they want the state’s investigation to hear their experiences.
Reed, who lives in St. Louis County, has alleged minors were rushed into medical procedures without taking into account mental health, and that side effects of treatments were hidden from parents.
Those who received treatment from the center say that’s not the case, and any treatments were only undertaken after long consultations with doctors and mental health professionals. Often, patients were told they needed to wait for years.
Several of those interviewed by The Independent also recounted their experiences with Reed — both good and bad.
“There were parents of trans kids who also raised some red flags around Jamie. So I really wish the center had listened to trans people,” Jones said. “We said: ‘This is a person who isn’t safe for us.’”
Reed’s attorney, Vernadette Broyles, said Wednesday that it is not surprising that the only patients speaking up are those who have had good experiences.
Broyles said those unhappy with their transition often feel pressure to stay quiet. She said she’s heard from many former patients nationwide who have come to regret their treatment.
“It does not surprise me that you would find someone in that honeymoon phase,” she said.
Jamie Reed
Chris Hyman, who has a transgender son, remembered Reed’s magnetic energy at the center. She felt like an ally.
After Reed’s story became public, Hyman tuned into The Free Press webinar and saw a change in Reed and was stunned at some of the answers she gave to a Free Press editor.
“When [lawmakers] do their job, what happens to the transgender center you used to work at?” Free Press journalist Emily Yoffe asked.
“I do not believe it can continue to function,” said Reed, who is married to a transgender man.
“You want it closed down,” Yoffe inquired.
“I believe it’s the only way to stop hurting more kids,” Reed said.
Susan Halla, who is the mother of a transgender young adult, also thought of Reed as an advocate. Halla is the president of TransParent, a group that supports the caregivers of transgender people. Hyman is the organization’s at-large chapter chair.
“We were just apoplectic where this all came from,” Halla said.
Broyles, who serves as president of public interest law firm Child & Parental Rights Campaign, said during the webinar that Reed had tried to institute change at the Transgender Center.
“After trying to make changes happen internally, [the center directors] were just not going to honor her concerns. She appropriately made a complaint to the right governing official, and under Missouri law that’s the attorney general,” Broyles said.
She said Reed sought sanctuary under the state’s Whistleblower’s Protection Act, which states workplaces can’t fire an employee that reports an “unlawful act” committed by the employer.
Another one of Broyles’ cases was a key anecdote as Florida considered a law that bans the discussion of gender identity or sexual identity in grades K-3. Broyles is representing a family that alleges their child’s school helped the student socially transition without the parents’ knowledge.
Reed’s other attorney is Ernie Trakas, a Republican member of the St. Louis County Council who is involved with the Child & Parental Rights Campaign.
Currently, the Missouri Attorney General’s office, the Department of Social Services and the Division of Professional Registration are investigating Reed’s allegations. U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley has requested records from the center. Some state lawmakers expressed interest in launching an investigation, but no substantial action has been taken on their proposal.
Speed of treatment
Annelise Hanshaw
Missouri Independent
Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey speaks to the Missouri chapter of the Federalist Society on the Missouri House of Representatives floor on Jan. 20. He is currently overseeing an investigation into the Washington University Transgender Center at St. Louis Children’s Hospital ——————————————————————————– Reed’s affidavit to Attorney General Andrew Bailey alleges the Transgender Center quickly gave children hormones. The center “gave children puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones after just two one-hour visits (one with a therapist and one with a doctor at the Center),” she wrote in the affidavit.
Parents and former patients told The Independent it took months and multiple appointments before their transgender children received a puberty blocker or hormone treatment.
Rene and Kyle Freels called the Transgender Center in June of 2021 for their daughter. Reed answered the phone.
“What do you want from us?” Kyle Freels recalls Reed asking.
“I thought she had some sort of an agenda. Like the first time we called, she answered the phone. She was the opposite of helpful,” he said.
They didn’t know what treatment was recommended, and they were expecting more help on the other end of the line.
“For us, she was the ultimate gatekeeper. She was the ultimate person that kept our kid from getting an appointment and kept other kids from getting appointments at the center,” Rene Freels said.
They hung up confused and irritated but nonetheless determined to get medical care for their daughter. By August of 2021, their daughter had her first visit with a pediatric endocrinologist, a doctor specializing in hormones, at the center.
The doctor did not prescribe any hormones or puberty blockers and said he wanted their daughter to transition socially, meaning take on her new name and pronouns, prior to taking estrogen, the Freels said.
Their daughter did not have mental health conditions, like anxiety or depression, but attended therapy sessions and received a recommendation to receive hormone treatment.
The Freels returned for a second appointment with the endocrinologist a year later, and their daughter opted to get a puberty-blocking implant in November of 2022 — 17 months after coming out to her pediatrician.
Kyle Freels described the appointment as “so thorough.”
“There’s a lot of information,” Kyle Freels said. “He tells you the pros and cons of this method or that method.”
Lisa is the mother of a trans child who asked that her last name be withheld. She waited longer than the Freels family for her pre-teen son to receive a puberty blocker.
Her son had his first appointment at the Transgender Center in August 2019 but was too young for a puberty blocker. He had to wait three years.
He has had 21 visits with a psychologist and nine visits with an endocrinologist since the summer of 2019.
Joey, who also asked that his last name be withheld, started taking testosterone days before his seventeenth birthday and after nearly a year of therapy.
“Everything took a really really long time to get going,” he said.
The Transgender Center’s endocrinologist didn’t think he was ready for hormones after his first appointment because he wasn’t “out” yet at school, he said.
“Everything was so slow,” he said, later adding:. “Everything is so restricted and difficult for any kind of trans health care, particularly if you’re a minor.”
He opted to get “top surgery,” which removes breast tissue, a few weeks after he turned 18.
Reed alleges in her affidavit that the Transgender Center gives referrals for surgery to minors, but Jones said the center only provided patients with the names of surgeons that could provide the procedure.
“We did give out the information of surgeons,” Jones said, “but we never referred for surgery.”
Hyman’s son wanted top surgery but was immediately told “put that out of your mind until you’re 18,” she said.
Alison Maclean’s son was five or six months into his transition when she called the Transgender Center. Maclean was met with questions about her son’s social transition, like if his peers called him his name.
“I think they really gauge like where I think the clinic attempts to gauge where you’re at, kind of in your, in your journey with your child,” Maclean said.
Her son, now 12, does not receive any puberty blockers or hormones. He discusses with his Transgender Center doctor what may happen if he eventually takes testosterone, but Maclean said she and her son don’t feel pushed toward hormones.
The doctor told him he wouldn’t be old enough “for many years,” she said.
Mental Health
Jones said the center had one in-house psychiatrist but referred patients to other providers in the area and within St. Louis Children’s Hospital.
“It is true that many patients came in anxious and depressed, whether that was a diagnosis or just symptoms, but from my experience, that was alleviated with the start of gender affirming hormones,” Jones said.
Jones said Reed had a particular concern with patients’ ability to consent, alleging Reed wanted to make patients take an IQ test prior to accessing puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones.
Reed, speaking through her attorney to The Independent, didn’t directly address the IQ test accusation.
“She was always in favor of a full assessment being done and that full assessments should be done on every patient in accordance with the WPATH guidelines. So whatever was needed for any given patient, that was what she favored, as a general proposition,” Broyles said. “And that’s really as much as she feels comfortable saying at this point.”
The World Professional Association for Transgender Health sets standards of care for gender transition. In her affidavit, Reed said WPATH is considered an “activist organization.”
Danielle, who did not wish to share her last name, said her son walked into the center with depression at first. But that evaporated when he was able to be a boy.
“When [my child] came out as transgender, it was immediate, just the social transition results. Like he was not depressed anymore,” she said.
Maclean noticed her son becoming less like himself as the family moved and COVID-19 interrupted routines — and he also began puberty.
“He kind of withdrew and, like the light left him. He wasn’t depressed or suicidal or anything; he just was not himself,” she said.
The families noticed a positive difference after their child received gender-affirming care.
“We thought our kid was happy before, but after she came out and is living her true self, she’s so much happier,” Kyle Freels said. “You could tell the weight of the world was off her shoulders.”
“I would say I’ve only gotten benefits [from gender-affirming care],” Joey said. “It’s been awesome. And I wouldn’t trade it for the world.”
Side effects
Parents said they felt like they had the Transgender Center’s doctors’ full attention to ask questions and review possible side effects of treatments. When they left, they had multiple handouts — some provided to The Independent that had been emailed from Reed herself.
“Not only do they give you a paper handout, they give you a whole slew of materials to look at,” Lisa said.
Maclean has been given handouts with testosterone side effects listed and warnings about things Reed alleges goes unaddressed by the Transgender Center, like vaginal atrophy.
“I think these little bits have been cherry picked from people who maybe didn’t pay attention,” Maclean said.
“We were not rushed into it,” Danielle said. “We were not uninformed. Everything that I’ve read in the affidavit, the opposite is true for us.”
A Transgender Center handout sent to The Independent by a parent and a former employee discloses possible side effects of testosterone. ———————————————————————————- Parents, patients and Jones told The Independent the center would send children on hormone or puberty-blocking medication to get lab work before every visit.
At first, patients review their hormone levels and look for side effects, like cholesterol levels, every three months. Then, they reduce frequency to every six months.
Lisa’s son gets regular labs run to test his hormone levels and check his health, and doctors check his bone scans to check his calcium and bone density.
All the families interviewed said they were advised to consider fertility options, like storing eggs or sperm, if treatment would inhibit future plans to have children.
An April 2020 study by the Mayo Clinic notes that there is little research on fertility outcomes for transgender people but that fertility preservation is an option even after beginning hormones.
Parental consent
Reed alleges the center bullied parents into agreeing to their kids’ medical treatment.
“A common tactic was for doctors to tell the parent of a child assigned female at birth, ‘You can either have a living son or a dead daughter,’” she wrote in her affidavit.
The evening the affidavit became public, she told The Free Press subscribers it was only one doctor that said that, a doctor that no longer works at the center.
Jones said the center did not coerce consent.
“We were very adamant in my time working there that all guardians had to consent, and they needed to be present and receive informed consent around treatment,” Jones said.
Jones said physicians presented research that showed a lower rate of suicide with gender-affirming care as they explained the benefits and side-effects of hormones.
Divorced parents told The Independent the center contacted both parents prior to proceeding with treatment, including meeting via video chat for an out-of-state ex-husband.
“They made it very clear that until, until the other parent was in full agreement, they could not move forward if and when one of the parents wanted to move forward,” Lisa said.
Families addressed other sections of the affidavit, sharing concern for the investigation ahead of state agencies.
“If you go to a cardiologist and they give you bad drugs or whatever and you have a heart attack, you don’t shut down the office; there’s a medical malpractice suit,” Kyle Freels said. “These politicians are like, ‘Hey, one, two or three clients had adverse effects, just like any other doctor would have,’ but they want to shut down the transgender unit immediately without even an investigation.”
The attention the center has gotten since Reed’s allegations surfaced has given momentum to a spate of bills seeking to criminalize gender-affirming care.
Families of transgender children say fear of what’s to come has them looking at leaving the state.
“[My family is] from all over. We don’t have to stay here,” said Maclean. “We thought we were here for the long haul, but we don’t have to be.”
Her family is not the only one thinking about leaving the state.
“There’s already one family that’s moved, and there’s another family that’s about to move,” Halla said. “But not every family can do that.”
The Transgender Center did not comment on the allegations; its phone number dedicated to the media has given a busy signal during numerous attempts.
This story was originally published by the Missouri Independent, part of States Newsroom, a network of news outlets supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Missouri Independent maintains editorial independence.
I have already posted on how false the allegations by Jamie Reed were debunked and shown to be made up lies to slander the necessary medical treatments promoted as the best medical practices. However Tildeb, who is a virulently anti-trans bigot, spread more lies in the comments again. So for those who don’t know that the often quoted Jamie Reed made up the allegations, here is just one of the investigations showing she was lying. To give you her mind set, here is a quote from the article. Plus her lawyers are well known in the anti-trans movement doing all the can to milian and stop trans gender care calling it “… an “artificial social construct” as well as a “dangerous” and “radical new ideology” that is “overtaking families and threatening the well-being of children.” Wow they must belong to the same anti-medical science and loving misinformation as Tildeb. Hugs
Jones recounted Reed telling them that “misgendering,” or using the wrong gender or pronouns to describe a person, was “exposure therapy” that would keep trans children from being coddled and encourage them to develop a thick skin. Jones complained about Reed to the center’s directors and human resources and was not the only one to do so, they said. Reed acknowledged in the Free Press narrative that she received a negative performance review in 2021. Jones quit the educational liaison position the year before that.
A pair of new reports from the St. Louis Post Dispatch and the Missouri Independent have called into question key claims that a self-proclaimed whistleblower recently made about the Washington University Transgender Center at St. Louis Children’s Hospital. A former employee at the center, Jamie Reed, alleged in a first-person Free Press essay last month that went viral that she had witnessed “morally and medically appalling” treatment of transgender children and their parents during her four years working at the center. Reed, who has called for the center to be shut down, also detailed her allegations in a sworn affidavit to Missouri’s attorney general, who launched one of three investigations into the center now underway in the GOP-controlled state.
At least 20 people, including parents of patients and patients themselves, have given accounts that directly challenge the key claims made by Reed in the Free Press: that minors seeking care at the center were given little to no psychological examination before they were treated, that they were rushed into being prescribed puberty blockers or hormones (and were not given adequate information about the side effects), that consent for treatment was not always sought from both parents, and that the center had referred children for gender-affirming surgery.
“Almost two dozen parents of children seen at the clinic, which opened in 2017, say their experiences sharply contradict the examples supplied by” Reed, the Post-Dispatch reports. The Independent said it “spoke with numerous former patients of the Transgender Center, as well as parents of former patients,” and “each person interviewed described a far different experience than Reed about how the Transgender Center operates and how minors seeking care are treated.”
“The idea that nobody got information, that everybody was pushed toward treatment, is just not true,” parent Kim Hutton told the Post-Dispatch. “It’s devastating. I’m baffled by it.”
One parent who was skeptical of the need for transgender centers to begin with told the Post-Dispatch that though they did feel pressured by the center to proceed with unspecified treatment, “they have not forced us to do anything.” The parent was vague about any treatment that the center recommended or that the teenager was receiving, saying only they believed more therapy may resolve the teenager’s issues. Even so, the parent “does not want the Transgender Center shut down but said the approach should be broader, with extended psychotherapy for patients,” according to the Post-Dispatch.
When it comes to Reed’s claim about a lack of warnings about the side effects of prescribed hormones, sometimes to block the onset of puberty, the Independent reports:
Parents said they felt like they had the Transgender Center’s doctors’ full attention to ask questions and review possible side effects of treatments. When they left, they had multiple handouts — some provided to The Independent that had been emailed from Reed herself.
Contrary to Reed’s claim that the center prescribed hormones sometimes after just one visit, parents and patients said it took multiple appointments over a period of months or longer to reach that point in treatment, describing a deliberate and methodical process.
Reed also highlighted what she said was an example of how the center would push surgery on minors, a teenager who “was put on hormones at the center when she was around 16. When she was 18, she went in for a double mastectomy, what’s known as ‘top surgery.’” Three months later, Reed said, the surgeon’s office contacted the center and reported the teenager said “I want my breasts back.”
The Post-Dispatch and Independent quoted members of the center saying they do not refer people under 18 for surgery, and the Post-Dispatch recounted the experience of a teenager who was denied a referral:
Surgery is what Christine Hyman’s 17-year-old son wanted from his very first appointment at the Transgender Center, when he was just 12. He brought a blue Post-it with him, with three questions written: When can I start testosterone? When can I have top surgery? How can I get my dad on board quicker? The answer he received for all three, said Hyman, was to give it time.
“Put it out of your mind. We don’t do that here,” Hyman, of St. Charles, recalled the nurse telling her son about surgery. “You don’t walk in Tuesday morning as a girl and walk out Tuesday afternoon as a boy. That’s not a thing.”
How Reed would have known what was going on between doctors and patients and their families was also called into question, according to the Post-Dispatch:
Parents interviewed by the Post-Dispatch cast doubt on Reed’s ability to know what happened inside exam rooms as an employee who did not have a medical or managerial role, and whom they rarely saw. The case manager’s job duties, as described in a Washington U. posting, comprise patient intake, scheduling appointments and providing information about community resources to families. Reed emailed parents with reminders, asking them to contact her with questions.
The printouts that were attached detailed medical protocols, including side effects, risks and reversibility. They listed contact information for dozens of local wraparound services, LGBTQ advocacy organizations and licensed mental health professionals. Patients recounted that the staff explained procedures using both medical and everyday vocabulary.
The mother of a patient treated at the center, who had considered Reed a friend, said she was stunned by the allegations. She said she had texted Reed last year to let her know her son would begin taking hormones and wondered why, if Reed had concerns, she didn’t share them. “The worst thing about it,” the mother told the Post-Dispatch, “is people start getting paranoid, and they start doing terrible things to trans people. My kids are scared.”
The Independent also noted that though Reed said in her affidavit that “a common tactic was for doctors to tell the parent of a child assigned female at birth, ‘You can either have a living son or a dead daughter,’” but she later seemed to dial back her claim during a Free Press webinar, explaining that only one doctor, who no longer works at the center, had said that.
Also speaking out is Jess Jones, a transgender former co-worker of Reed’s, whom the Post-Dispatch reported “bristled at the way they said Reed sometimes spoke about patients.” They said that Reed had wanted patients to take an IQ test before being given access to puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones in order to confirm their ability to consent. In addition:
Jones recounted Reed telling them that “misgendering,” or using the wrong gender or pronouns to describe a person, was “exposure therapy” that would keep trans children from being coddled and encourage them to develop a thick skin. Jones complained about Reed to the center’s directors and human resources and was not the only one to do so, they said. Reed acknowledged in the Free Press narrative that she received a negative performance review in 2021. Jones quit the educational liaison position the year before that.
There is also scrutiny of Reed’s two attorneys. Vernadette Broyles is the founder of the Child and Parental Rights Campaign, which, as thePost-Dispatch has previously reported, fights against transgender policies in schools and says the concept of gender identity is an “artificial social construct” as well as a “dangerous” and “radical new ideology” that is “overtaking families and threatening the well-being of children.” Reed’s other attorney, the conservative St. Louis city councilmember Ernie Trakas, has also litigated on behalf of the organization. (Neither would tell the paper how they came to represent Reed, who wrote in the Free Press she is a liberal queer woman who is married to a trans man.) Reed declined to speak to the two publications, but Broyles dismissed the people speaking out, telling the Independent that they are only the ones who’ve had good experiences. “It does not surprise me that you would find someone in that honeymoon phase,” she said.
These are books written for 14 year olds and up, you know young adults. Again these same Christian warriors think girls that age should be forced to marry older men and be forced to carry a pregnancy to full term. But don’t tell kids about being gay or having a book that shows them their feelings are normal. That is the part that the Christian warriors hate, that it is normal and books like these show it as normal. As one parent claimed, “Gays use these books to recruit kids into the LGBTQ+ community”. By my dogs that love gravy it is 2023, and being gay is well understood not to work that way. You can not make a person gay. Full stop. No one can make a straight person gay and no one can make a gay person straight. What they want is to remove all LGBTQ+ representation from society, make gay kids ashamed that they feel different from the other kids around them, and to keep the society a nice forced Christian nation of the 1950s. We have to stop giving in to these overly loud minority. They are not the entire country, as maga people like to claim. You can’t please them. You can’t give in a bit because it is never enough. They will keep pushing for more and more their way. What they want is the erasure of an entire part of the population. Think on it. Even if the LGBTQIA was only 10% of the population, that is a minimum of 36 million people. I am sorry these people hate so, but LGBTQIA people exist and yes there are kids who are in that community. When the fuck do they think kids feel sexual, at 18? Why do kids start dating at 13, 14, 15? Because they feel an attraction. They have already started to use these laws to demand segregation, because good white kids are traumatized by having to sit in classrooms with black kids. A return to the 1950s. Hugs
one young boy said.
“Seeing that gave me at least a little bit of hope that maybe this town was OK and that people like me, kids, would feel like it’s not a bad thing and feel like they can have something relatable to connect with and make them feel hopeful and happy and secure, something as simple as a book,” he said.
and this, kids, is why respectability politics doesn't work. you can make the fluffiest, most sanitized, "unproblematic" PG-13 queer content imaginable, and the right is still going to call it porn and a danger to children, because there is no level of queerness they'll accept https://t.co/KvTxnrypQz
Nick and Charlie are all grown up and kissing – a lot – in Heartstopper season two. (Netflix)
The graphic novel series Heartstopper will no longer be available in the teen section of a Mississippi public library after a group of parents claimed the books were pornographic.
The Heartstopper books, which tell the story of two teen boys who fall in love, were removed from the teen section of the Columbia-Marion County public library and placed in the adult section after complaints.
The library moved the graphic novels from the teen section after a meeting on 9 August in which a group of parents claimed the books were pornographic, with one reportedly claiming homosexuals were using the series to “recruit” children into the LGBTQ+ community.
One mother also reportedly cited 14 other books that they found “objectionable”, asking for the board to remove them from the teen section in order to “protect our children”, The Mississippi Free Press reported.
Other titles described as objectionable included Dress Codes for Small Towns, by Courtney Stevens and Luna, by Julie Anne Peters, both of which have LGBTQ+ themes.
Heather McMurry, the mother said to have submitted the complaint about the Heartstopper series, said she had visited booklooks.org, a site run by “concerned parents” who screen children’s and young adults’ books for “objectionable” content. According to the site’s reports for Alice Oseman’s popular series, the graphic novels contain “sexual activities, alternate sexualities, alternate gender ideologies, profanity and violence.”
In reality, the books have a few scenes featuring kissing, but contain no explicit material.
Bookslooks was launched in 2022 by a member of the vocal conservative advocacy group Moms for Liberty, which has been branded as a far-right extremist organisation by civils rights activists at the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Alice Oseman is the author of the Heartstopper series of graphic novels. (Getty)
A local mother who wanted to remain anonymous said that she had not been given a chance to speak in favour of Heartstopper at the meetings, and told the newspaper that only opponents of the book had spoken.
Her son previously told the Mississippi Free Press that he had been pleased to see the series in the library.
“Seeing that gave me at least a little bit of hope that maybe this town was OK and that people like me, kids, would feel like it’s not a bad thing and feel like they can have something relatable to connect with and make them feel hopeful and happy and secure, something as simple as a book,” he said.
His mum said that while she was relieved the books were not banned outright, moving the titles to the adult section could mean that a child with a homophobic parent will not be able to read them.
The library’s director, Ryda Worthy, and the branch manager, Mona Swayze, who reportedly did not have a say in the decision to move the titles, confirmed that teenagers can only obtain books from the adult section with parental permission.
Please tell me again how teachers are groomers? Please tell me how books and movies with LGBTQIA characters are sexualizing lids? This guy is showing drawings of a penis complete with hairy balls and sperm droplets labeled my kids, to 12 or 13 year old kids and had to break the rules / laws to get his truck as close to them as possible. Think about this, a teacher can not have a rainbow sticker in the classroom or on the door because of these people, yet this upstanding member of the Republican Party who was a GOP leader can not only show kids dick drawings but take their pictures next to it! WTF. It is a game to these people, they don’t believe it in any way harms kids, in fact they support little girls being forced to marry older men and be forced to have babies. It is all about enraging the base and removing the LGBTQIA from the public, from society. Hugs
Ron Hedlund displayed a massive penis sign with the words, “Biden Sucks” written across it at a youth baseball game at RF&P Park in Henrico County, Virginia.
In a video captured at the event, Hedlund, who is listed as a Virginia GOP Central Committee Representative defended his sign after a community member said it was inappropriate because there were children present.
The man also had a “Fuck Biden” inflatable “air dancer” sign in the back of his pick up truck parked near the field. Hedlund celebrated and posted videos of teenage boys taking selfies with his massive penis sign at the park.
Capitol Police detain two men at the Virginia War Memorial’s Veterans Day ceremony in Richmond. On Nov. 11 after 11 a.m. when the ceremony began, officers noticed a man driving over a sidewalk and around barricades on 2nd Street.
The driver then stopped at the base of the amphitheater, which was blocked off due to the ceremony, with a ‘F*** Biden’ sign in the bed of his truck.
Police say the sign was ‘highly visible’ to the crowd at the ceremony. Members of the Capitol Police approached him and asked him to move. The man was identified as Ronald Hedlund, 60, of Glen Allen. Hedlund refused to move.
Hedlund, who also goes by “Ron Benghazi,” has a YouTube channel full of confrontations with the police. And of course, he has a money beg on the Christian site GiveSendGo:
Living in a free society comes with much responsibility and blood, sweat and tears. It also may involve numerous legal battles as corrupt local governments seek to usurp our rights many take for granted. I have been unlawfully arrested at the Virginia Capitol.
That charge was dropped after hiring an attorney for $2500. I have been charged with loitering and that charge was dropped, as well, after representing myself. Currently, I have been served a Protective Order that required hiring an attorney at $1500 and resulted in a 2 year Permanent Protective Order.
I now find myself needing another $2500 to appeal this travesty of justice whereby I will lose all my firearms for a period of two years unless I am able to overturn this legally unsupported Order. This Order is the result of citizens legally exercising our First and Second Amendement rights on public property in spite of objections of the Henrico County Manager.
Virginia GOP Official Displays 16 Foot Penis Sign at Youth Baseball Game to Protest Wokehttps://t.co/ZaOw9rtn9S
Used in a sentence: "Virginia GOP Central Committee Representative, Ron Hedlund, has teenage boys hold a sign of a giant penis at a youth baseball game. Ron is a text book definition of a groomer." pic.twitter.com/xmtatcMznO
Does the penis at the ballfield bother you, or no, it's okay b/c that book exists? It was also at a playground and other places around town. This is a Virginia GOP Rep doing this. pic.twitter.com/hJx6IjTaAf
We saw nothing on the local news either. BlueVirginia labels them the Gross Old Perverts party – but if not for Bitecofer, Kristol, Meidas, it wouldn’t get covered. Crickets from the Gov. https://bluevirginia.us/202…
Of course they are. Another attempt at establishing extra rights to discriminate and be above any laws Christians don’t like. “We don’t have to follow laws because of our god special rights”. But we still deserve to not pay taxes and still get taxpayer money from the state because again we are most special because of our god. Pay us to discriminate against taxpayers. Because hate and bigotry are more important than inclusion. Way to spread Chritistan love and the message of Christ. Hugs
State’s non-discrimination requirements “directly conflict with St. Mary’s, St. Bernadette’s, and the Archdiocese’s religious beliefs,” the lawsuit says.
AAron Ontiveroz, The Denver Post
In this file photograph Archbishop Samuel Aquila speaks during a press conference to address sexual abuse in the Catholic church on Tuesday, Feb. 19, 2019.
The Denver Catholic Archdiocese along with two of its parishes is suing the state alleging their First Amendment rights are violated because their desire to exclude LGBTQ parents, staff and kids from Archdiocesan preschools keeps them from participating in Colorado’s new universal preschool program.
The program is intended to provide every child 15 hours per week of state-funded preschool in the year before they are eligible for kindergarten. To be eligible, though, schools must meet the state’s non-discrimination requirements.
The Denver Archdiocese, St. Mary Catholic Parish in Littleton and St. Bernadette Catholic Parish in Lakewood filed suit against Lisa Roy, executive director of the Colorado Department of Early Childhood, and Dawn Odean, director of Colorado’s Universal Preschool Program, on Wednesday.
The Denver Archdiocese and the Colorado Department of Early Childhood could not immediately be reached for comment.
“The Department is purporting to require all preschool providers to accept any applicant without regard to a student or family’s religion, sexual orientation, or gender identity, and to prohibit schools from “discriminat[ing] against any person” on the same bases,” the lawsuit said. “These requirements directly conflict with St. Mary’s, St. Bernadette’s, and the Archdiocese’s religious beliefs and their religious obligations as entities that carry out the Catholic Church’s mission of Catholic education in northern Colorado.”
The Denver Archdiocese said in the suit they do not believe adhering to their religious beliefs against accepting LGBTQ people qualifies as discrimination. The Denver Post published written guidance last year issued by the Denver Archdiocese to its Catholic schools on the handling of LGBTQ issues, including telling administrators not to enroll or re-enroll transgender or gender non-conforming students and explaining that gay parents should be treated differently than heterosexual couples.
The lawsuit said St. Mary’s and St. Bernadette’s each require their preschool staff sign annual Archdiocese-approved employment contracts affirming that staff abide by traditional Catholic teachings on life, sexuality and marriage. They require parents who send their kids to their preschools “to understand and accept the community’s worldview and convictions regarding Catholic moral issues like life, marriage, and human sexuality,” the lawsuit said.
The Denver Archdiocese argues in the lawsuit that the state has “cornered the market” for preschool services by providing universal funding and any preschool providers who don’t participate will be “severely disadvantaged” and forced to charge “significantly” higher fees, disadvantaging low-income families whose children attend Archdiocesan schools.
“Colorado did not have to create a universal preschool funding program, but in doing so it cannot implement that program in a way that excludes certain religious groups and providers based on their sincerely held religious beliefs,” the lawsuit said.
The lawsuit said enrolling children with gay parents into an Archdiocesan school “is likely to lead to intractable conflicts” because a “Catholic school cannot treat a same-sex couple as a family equivalent to the natural family without compromising its mission and Catholic identity.”
The lawsuit is seeking a jury trial and for the state to reverse its decision and allow the Denver Archdiocese to participate in the universal preschool program while giving them the ability to exclude LGBTQ students, staff and parents from their schools.
Blacks don’t deserve a group just to help them the right believes. Notice a white support group wouldn’t have to change their name. But it is part of the push to keep and enshrine a dwindling white majority rule in the US. Seriously this has to be stopped, it is again a resurgence of the confederate south. As one student said. “Trying to erase things that we’ve been through that we had to deal with to get to where we are now is just trying to water down the things that we’ve done,” Wiggins said. “I think our history is very important.” Hugs
Patrick Sternad
WFSU Public Media
Exterior of Computer Technology and Workplace Development buildings at Tallahassee Community College. ———————————————————————————— The Black Male Achievers at Tallahassee Community College might have to change its name or risk losing state and federal funding under a new Florida law.
A student organization that serves African-American men who attend Tallahassee Community College might have to change its name or risk losing funding under a new Florida law.
Tyler Soto, a student at TCC, is a member of Black Male Achievers. He says they’re working out possible new names, such as “Male Achievers” or “Scholar Male Achievers.”
“We’re going to have to change the name of our organization or they’re going to defund it because it has ‘Black’ in front of it.”
A new law prohibits student-led organizations that “advocate for diversity, equity and inclusion” and other social and political causes from receiving state or federal funding. While those organizations aren’t banned outright, they may only receive funding from student-activity fees under the new law.
That has him and his classmates concerned as they get ready to return to campus this month, Soto said.
Soto, who’s also a member of TCC’s Student Government Association, says changes like these only encourage him to get more involved in the political process.
“It has made me want to step up and be the change.”
Soto’s classmate Denzel Wiggins is also a member of SGA and the Black Male Achievers.
“I don’t think we should have to change our name because obviously it’s for the Black community, so I’m not a fan.”
Wiggins says he’s also not happy about the Stop Woke Act, which restricts the way race is taught in college and university classrooms. That law is the driver behind the state’s controversial new African American history standards in K-12 schools.
“Trying to erase things that we’ve been through that we had to deal with to get to where we are now is just trying to water down the things that we’ve done,” Wiggins said. “I think our history is very important.”
Clarification: WFSU News reached out to TCC by phone and email before the story published on Friday.
TCC says that it had no conversations with members of the Black Male Achievers about having to change the organization’s name.
A spokesperson emailed WFSU News the following statement on Wednesday:
“BMA provides academic support and student services to help underrepresented populations, like minority males, persist and graduate. As with all TCC clubs, orgs and programs, membership into BMA is open to any and all currently-registered students.”
This part of the plan to wipe out the LGBTQIA from society, from public view. Because if you can not see us, we won’t exist. But they can put crosses and churches on every street. It seems strange to me that in Texas which is a state that is already minority majority with whites staying in political power by the dirty tricks of voter suppression and gerrymandering. Suppressing the brown people’s votes as much as possible. So here are a bunch of white cis men trying to remain the most powerful group by outlawing and banning diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives at public higher education institutions. Hugs
Jamie Gonzales, a former program coordinator at the University of Houston’s LGBTQ Resource Center, hasn’t slept well ever since she heard that the center will be disbanded in accordance with Senate Bill 17, a law banning diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives at public higher education institutions.
Although she knew the closure was coming after the bill passed in April in the Texas Senate, she still found herself emotionally ill-prepared to grapple with the reality: an end of an era for a place that served as a beacon of acceptance, safety and support for thousands of queer “Coogs,” as UH students often call themselves.
“There were a lot of special moments held in that space,” said Gonzales while crying during a phone interview this week. Before Thursday, the effect of the law at UH was unclear to many students, alumni and faculty. But all that changed last week when students noticed a flyer taped to the door of the center that read, “In Accordance with Texas Senate Bill 17, the LGBTQ Resource Center has been disbanded.”
The law’s author, Sen. Brandon Creighton [photo], is also behind his state’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill for public schools. Creighton first appeared on JMG in 2019 for his bill seeking to overturn LGBTQ protections enacted by Texas cities. In March 2023, he appeared here for his bill that would deny the prospect of tenure to newly-hired university professors. Creighton has spearheaded the Texas campaign to protect Confederate monuments.
many years ago I was a student at Northern IL university and during this time I was confused and questioning my sexuality. I found out there was a small office for Gay and Lesbian folk so I went and had an interesting and worthwhile discussion with a wonderful lesbian who shared her story with me. i still remained in the closet for a few more years but I have never forgotten what she told me, in her own way she helped me come out some years later. I still wonder what if I had not gone to that office that day,.
It’s an amazing feeling when you first realize you aren’t the only one in the world. I’m not gay, just an ally but I went through a somewhat similar experience when I first found out I wasn’t the only atheist in the world. I didn’t even know there was a word for it. We need connections to survive and thrive.
In the mid 80’s, I was at a homophobic, major university in Indiana. The chancellor declared in a speech, there were no “homosexuals” there.
By accident, I found a gay, then gay/lesbian group across the street from the student union, but actually iff campus in the Wesley Foundation. It was jointly sponsored by the Methodist / Episcopalian outreach programs. No religion was pushed. We met in the church basement.
It was truly life saving, during the era of lethal, rampant AIDS, police stings, discrimination, and other abuses.
The University couldn’t touch them. They were off campus, and inna church.
By driving them out of elected office, a process that will likely take as long as it took *them* to seize power. Which is to say, it needs to be a sustained and unrelenting effort that over the course of many election cycles.
we have to start local (county and city, then state), then work our way up to federal, challenging and changing judges as we go. it is a multipronged effort that all too many don’t want to take time to do. that was how the “moral majority” did it, they started with school boards and city councils, then county level and state level. when they had a strong base in place, then they took federal offices quite easily. once in place there, they appointed judges from within their ranks and owned the country. we will have to fight tooth and nail to get this reversed.
Political mobilization is super important, but I would also gently encourage folks to also give space to what is necessary to protect their own health and wellbeing, and that of their friends and family. Don’t panic, prepare has been my mantra for a while now.
Guess what, knuckledraggers? You have one, maybe two presidential election cycles before the generation you keep fucking over is the majority. They will decide what nursing homes you end up in as well as a host of other issues that will affect your hateful lives.
That’s why they’re trying to destroy democracy – it’s to create minority rule. Remember that whites were always a minority in South Africa, and Apartheid lasted almost 50 years.
The goal for these gang thugs is to make everyone afraid to protest the abuses, to make the treat of violence and harm so great people stop putting up supportive signs or speaking out. And it has worked in a lot of cases, with venues cancelling events. Horrible way the country is going. Hugs
Annelise HanshawMissouri Independent
Annelise HanshawMissouri Independent
Patrick SternadWFSU Public Media
Scottie's Playtime 