Whistleblower’s Claims About a St. Louis Transgender Center Are Under Fire

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/03/jamie-reeds-claims-about-transgender-care-are-under-fire.html

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.


Photo: Google Maps

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 the Post-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.

Alan Shore on Homosexuality

This is a clip from Boston Legal. Obviously I do not own any of the rights to Boston Legal, I simply own the DVD set to season 3. However, I believe it is both a tribute to the show and a good sales pitch towards purchasing a copy of this show to introduce herein a clip that demolishes the absurd religious views on homosexuality. In this clip, Alan Shore presents his case as to why the man he represents has been scammed out of $40k by a religious organization that intended to “cure” his SSAD (“same sex attraction disorder”, aka homosexuality). Brilliant and appropriate for this moment in time.

Gender Affirming Care Is Evil Except When It’s Not

Thanks to Ali for the link.   This cartoon really says it all.   Please go to the link above and read the two few paragraphs that fill in the cartoon’s backstory.  It is important.  I am going to post the cartoon so you get a taste of it, but the two short stories of how the same care is approached when a young person is cis vs when they are trans.   Hugs

Mom shares why she let her 17-year-old get top surgery. His face says it all.

https://www.upworthy.com/mom-explains-trans-sons-top-surgery

Thank you, Ali, for the link, just sorry it took me so long to post it.   Hugs

I am waiting for the screaming comments about kids getting life changing surgeries, about kids / minors having body parts chopped off when they are too young to understand it.  So before you get stupid and write that comment, read the entire story.  Then think about the fact that kids as young as 13 and 14 years old get charged as adults in the US.  Kids / minors as young as 12 get married in many states in the US, a very life changing even they are too young to understand.  Kids / minors are being forced to carry pregnancies to term no matter how young (one was only ten), giving birth to children while they are children if they survive the ordeal which is a life-changing event / surgery that they are way too young to begin to understand or consent to.  Plus breast surgery is common for young females in the US with girls 16 or younger getting reductions or enlargements as gifts from parents, and a popular surgery for minors is rhinoplasty.  Yes kids / minors getting nose trims.   The point is that many surgeries happen for kids, especially wealthy and or white kids.  Look up the stats before you start screaming about kids being mutilated.   Even more important is the saving of lives that transitioning does for trans kids, those studies are real, well documented, and are available for the haters to see anytime they could put their hate aside long enough to read them.    Hugs

“Cody’s heart is so full…”

trans kids, gender affirming care, top surgery
@jannatransmomma/TikTok

Living in truth is beautiful.

Top surgery, otherwise known as chest feminization or chest masculinization, is a gender-affirming procedure that changes the looks of a trans person’s chest. For female-to-male top surgery, breast tissue is removed to give a more masculine appearance for transgender males and non-binary people who are assigned female at birth.

This procedure, along with all forms of gender-affirming care, is surrounded by stigma and misinformation, especially when it comes to minors. Many parents fear that a teen could make a severe, irreversible decision regarding their gender presentation, given that adolescence is a time when the whole subject of identity is in flux.

It’s partially fears like this that have resulted in gender-affirming care receiving a wave of backlash in America, even being labeled as a form of child abuse.

However, a mom by the name of Janna, who recently helped her 17-year-old son receive top surgery, sees it as a form of love.

“Why would I ever allow my 17-year-old to have top surgery? Why would I do that? That’s insane. That’s crazy. It’s child abuse,” says Janna in a clip posted to TikTok.

Her reasoning is really quite simple—and something that almost every parent can relate to in one way or another.

“You look at the really, really happy kid who walked out of the doctor’s office today, feeling really great about himself for the first time in I don’t even know how long.”

Janna then put the spotlight on her son Cody and asked what it felt like when he saw his chest for the first time.

Getting instantly teary, Cody replied, “Normal…It finally feels right for the first time.”

Janna’s video is captioned “Cody’s heart is so full right now.”

Watch:

 

Janna, who regularly advocates for trans rights, has previously explained in another TikTok that Cody didn’t undergo any surgery until just before his 18th birthday, and that was only after “a lot of meetings” with doctors, therapists and both of his parents since coming out at the age of 15.

 

And prior to his procedure, Janna encouraged Cody to explore through a “social transition,” rather than a medical one. This basically means experimenting with other forms of gender presentation—changing their name, pronouns, wardrobe, etc.—that feel more fitting to their authentic identity before undergoing any surgeries.

Bottom line: “We are not just sending these kids to surgeons to have body parts removed. That doesn’t happen,” Janna stated.

 

When parents support their kids throughout their journey, “one of two things is going to happen,” she added. “They’re going to come out as trans when they’re old enough to really make that decision, or they’re going to say, ‘Yeah, I’m not really a boy.'”

“Either way,” she continued, “their relationship with you will not be tarnished because they know that my mom loved me no matter what my decisions were.”

Like every other turbulent and confusing chapter of teenage-hood, the waters are so much easier to navigate (for both the parent and the child) when there is compassion. Sometimes allowing kids to be who they really are is the best gift a parent can provide.

 

 

 
 
 

TYT: A Fallen Empire

This is long, and maybe too long for most people.  It took me three days to watch it all.  But it is even handed, it is informative, it is well documented, and it is truly how I and so many feel.   I loved TYT, but about the time Cenk decided to run for office and gave a lot of control over the company / show to Anna, I noticed a shift / change in both hosts and the company direction.  Cenk became very bitter and anti-democratic party, while Anna became overly more assertive on every show.  When Cenk came back so bitter from being what he felt was unfairly treated by the democrats but others felt was him trying to claim a position without doing the work others had done before him Anna started talking over him, interrupting him, not letting him finish his sentences.  But at the same time if he tried to interrupt her she got very vocal about it and wouldn’t tolerate it.  She was now in charge and she wanted the world to know it.  It showed how she felt about her position, she had the authority and say, so don’t disagree with her.  That was very off-putting for me a long time viewer and supporter of the show.   But then Cenk’s constant vitriol against the Democratic Party started to interfere with his reporting on Biden.  Right from the start he wanted Biden to do the impossible and when he did not Cenk couldn’t even give him credit for what he did get accomplish.  Cenk being a bombastic fighter spent two years demanding Joe Biden attack and call out Joe Manchin and pushed for the most virulent attacks on him.   Which would have lost the democrats the control of the Senate and stopped any left leaning judge appointments.  Then Cenk got more bitter towards Biden and other progressive members of congress who did not throw the disruptive bombs he wanted to destroy the party, so he openly attacked the very groups he started along with attacking all progressives.  What crossed the line for me what his attacks on Biden and openly trying to promote primary challengers to him talking up fringe candidates, knowing historically any time a sitting president was primaried they lost, giving the other party the win.  He did not care, his bitter anger was more important to him.  He kept up his now constant attempts to tear down Biden to the point he is doing the work of a republican challenger for president.   I wrote that when I canceled my long time membership, that Cenk was doing the work of the Republican Party in tearing down and maligning Biden.  This hard right turn of Anna’s and Cenk’s weirdly not even willing to listen to any criticism of her was the last straw for me.  He is not even really addressing the issue that Anna made as the start of this problem, and keeps misrepresenting it.   If Anna wants to be called woman that is great, if trans women demand to be called women that is great and everyone would do as they ask.  But there are transmen with parts that medical people need to address and that are on medical forms / question forms.  It was pointed out so often that no one in conversation referred to Anna as a “birthing person” but she still took offense to the term even existing.   She was demanding a medical term to be inclusive not exist because she felt it diminished her as a female.  Total right wing maga fundamentalist thinking.  This is entirely a case of two people drinking their own Kool-Aid on their own importance and getting called out for it.  Their egos have gotten in the way of the work they were doing.  I can no longer support them as they are, and I hope people will watch this well researched and documented video.   Hugs 

Cenk Uyger, Ana Kasparian, and The Young Turks have had a history of scandals and controversies throughout the existence of the network. I want to talk about that history, as well as the events leading up to their recent meltdowns on the podcast circuit and Twitter.

ObGyn: Is Science Anti-Transgender?

I am so sorry

I got up this morning a bit late, on purpose.  I wanted to get my blood drawn for my endocrinologist doctor’s appointment this week.  So that is what I did.  But, when I got home, I tried to get back to blogging.  Everything sort of fell apart.  Good news is my labs all came back great, but …  Oh all labs are great and my A1C is down to 6.2

I started doing dishes and other housework.  I got terrible shivers and shakes.  I almost needed to go to bed I felt so bad.  Ron continued to work on my new office room, he is painting everything the two pink colors I chose so there won’t be any white.  Even the formerly white shelf boards he is painting the camo rose, which is so close to the wall pink Chablis I can not tell the difference. I have not even asked Ron to do all this, but he painted the new white outlets, switch covers, and also the brackets for the shelves.  He understands how important this is for me not to have glaring white in my soft pink new office, he is just going to the max on it himself.  He asked me yesterday to look on Amazon for the pink Venetian blinds, and he was OK with ordering them, even though they were more expensive than white ones in places like Walmart.  

So the point is here at nearly 4 PM in the afternoon Ron is still working on the new room, Tupac is sleeping on our bed after being out all night scaring Ron half to death, and I am just starting to get to answering comments because I have felt so crappy.   Hugs and loves.  

Trump thinks Pence is too honest?? – Lewis Black’s Rantcast

Lewis Black discusses the recently revealed news that Donald Trump berated Mike Pence for stating there was no constitutional basis to reject the electoral votes on January 1st, 2021. To which Trump responded by saying that Pence was “too honest”.

Texas questions rights of a fetus after a prison guard who had a stillborn baby sues

https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/nation/texas-questions-rights-of-a-fetus-after-a-prison-guard-who-had-a-stillborn-baby-sues/

Ali sent us the link and as she mentions the state is trying to have it both ways, the fetus is a person from conception for forcing the pregnant person to carry even dead or dying fetuses to term, pay the costs for all the medical care along with funeral / burial costs as added punishment.   But when it comes to hardship for the state, costing the state money, or putting requirements on republicans they claim that personhood from conception is stupid and not legally recognized.  Hugs


DALLAS (AP) — The state of Texas is questioning the legal rights of an “unborn child” in arguing against a lawsuit brought by a prison guard who says she had a stillborn baby because prison officials refused to let her leave work for more than two hours after she began feeling intense pains similar to contractions.

The argument from the Texas attorney general’s office appears to be in tension with positions it has previously taken in defending abortion restrictions, contending all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court that “unborn children” should be recognized as people with legal rights.

It also contrasts with statements by Texas’ Republican leaders, including Gov. Greg Abbott, who has touted the state’s abortion ban as protecting “every unborn child with a heartbeat.”

The state attorney general’s office did not immediately respond to questions about its argument in a court filing that an “unborn child” may not have rights under the U.S. Constitution. In March, lawyers for the state argued that the guard’s suit “conflates” how a fetus is treated under state law and the Constitution.

“Just because several statutes define an individual to include an unborn child does not mean that the Fourteenth Amendment does the same,” they wrote in legal filing that noted that the guard lost her baby before the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the federal right to an abortion established under its landmark Roe v. Wade decision.

That claim came in response to a federal lawsuit brought last year by Salia Issa, who alleges that hospital staff told her they could have saved her baby had she arrived sooner. Issa was seven months’ pregnant in 2021, when she reported for work at a state prison in the West Texas city of Abilene and began having a pregnancy emergency.

Her attorney, Ross Brennan, did not immediately offer any comment. He wrote in a court filing that the state’s argument is “nothing more than an attempt to say — without explicitly saying — that an unborn child at seven months gestation is not a person.”

While working at the prison, Issa began feeling pains “similar to a contraction” but when she asked to be relived from her post to go to the hospital her supervisors refused and accused her of lying, according to the complaint she filed along with her husband. It says the Texas Department of Criminal Justice’s policy states that a corrections officer can be fired for leaving their post before being relived by another guard.

Issa was eventually relieved and drove herself to the hospital, where she underwent emergency surgery, the suit says.

Issa, whose suit was first reported by The Texas Tribune, is seeking monetary damages to cover her medical bills, pain and suffering, and other things, including the funeral expenses of the unborn child. The state attorney general’s office and prison system have asked a judge to dismiss the case.

Laura Hermer, a professor at the Mitchell Hamline School of Law in St. Paul, Minnesota, described Texas’ legal posture as “seeking to have their cake and eat it too.”

“This would not be the first time that the state has sought to claim to support the right to life of all fetuses, yet to act quite differently when it comes to protecting the health and safety of such fetuses other than in the very narrow area of prohibiting abortions,” Hermer said.

Last week, U.S. Magistrate Judge Susan Hightower recommended that the case be allowed to proceed, in part, without addressing the arguments over the rights of the fetus.

 

It happened again

Hello wonderful people.  I have to admit, it all got away from me again.  Due to doctor’s appointments, health issues, and other things I was unable to get to the comments at the beginning of the week.  Now the way I normally access both posts and comments is again blocked by WordPress.  This morning I could use the bell and go back only three days, yet this afternoon I can only go back a day and half.  I am trying to open and save every comment page, so I can reply to all the wonderful comments.   Here is what I need to ask of you wonderful people.  If you added your thoughts to a post and I did not reply in a reasonable amount of time, please, please alert me by adding a reminder on the post or linking to your comment on a newer post.   I do want to reply to you, I love it and think it is important.   But for a while I simply was not able due to my health.  They still think I had a tia or other brain hiccup along with the other breathing / heart issues. It was scary for a while, my head was so cloudy and I struggled so to function.   But I feel so much better now with the treatments from the heart doctor and the allergist.  Anyway please if you did not get a reply to your comment and you would like one try to let me know.   Thank you.  Hugs