First comes the pushback, then the pullback.
Yesterday, the Washington University Transgender Center at St. Louis Children’s Hospital announced that doctors there will no longer prescribe puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones to children and adolescents. This decision follows months of controversy and comes in the wake of a new law that just went into effect in Missouri, which limits hormonal and surgical interventions for gender transition to patients over the age of 18.
Under a “grandfather clause” in the new law, the Transgender Center could have continued to prescribe puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to current patients. However, it decided to back away from these interventions altogether:
The Center first came under intense scrutiny earlier this year, when former case manager Jamie Reed blew the whistle on what she had come to see as dangerous practices within the clinic. In an article for The Free Press, Reed reported that:
I left the clinic in November of last year because I could no longer participate in what was happening there. By the time I departed, I was certain that the way the American medical system is treating these patients is the opposite of the promise we make to ‘do no harm.’ Instead, we are permanently harming the vulnerable patients in our care.”
Reed catalogued “red flag” cases to keep track of “the kind of patients that kept my colleague and me up at night” and documented cases of youth with serious mental health struggles rushed onto life-altering drugs and even undergoing surgeries they soon regretted. The Transgender Center rejected Reed’s assessment and conducted their own internal investigation — an investigation in which they never bothered to speak to Reed — before declaring her allegations “unsubstantiated”.
But the case for youth gender transition has been unravelling this year, under pressure from state officials and legislators and increased scrutiny from the media. At the end of August, St. Louis Circuit Court Judge Steven Ohmer allowed Missouri’s ban on hormonal and surgical interventions for youth to go into effect, writing that the evidence for youth transition “raises more questions than answers”.
Join the discussion
Join like minded readers that support our journalism by becoming a paid subscriber
To join the discussion in the comments, become a paid subscriber.
Join like minded readers that support our journalism, read unlimited articles and enjoy other subscriber-only benefits.
Subscribe