Testimony Reveals Fraud in Washington Gender Clinics
Suspicious parental affidavits filed in lawsuit against Trump’s gender medicine order
This post is an op-ed I submitted to gender-wise outlets. They declined. Judging by a few responses, the editors didn’t see what was new about this piece.
That’s on me. I do think the lawsuit I describe here — blue states’ challenge to Trump’s executive order on child gender med — is revealing information we didn’t have before. I might explain its significance in a longer post. For now, I think you’ll appreciate reading about these affidavits filed by Washington parents (which are different from ones I posted recently on X).
Since I targeted the piece to a general audience, consider sharing with your friends who are not gender aficionados.
Where I use they/them pronouns here it’s because I don’t know the person’s sex.
In February, parents in Washington State filed 38 unnerving reports with Nick Brown, their attorney general. Terrified by a recent executive order from President Donald Trump that cracked down on youth gender medicine, they describe how “affirming” their children improved their mental health. Affirming means treating them as the sex they identify with (including nonbinary), buying them new clothes, and helping them access puberty blockers, hormones, and surgeries. Two of the families are especially distraught because they have three transgender children.
The parents argue that gender medicine is safe and prevents self-harm. Many of their testaments are powerful and sympathetic. But rather than expose Trump’s order as dangerous, they read as evidence that gender doctors are committing fraud.
Two of the families … have three transgender children.
I’m a consumer protection lawyer. Youth gender medicine caught my attention several years ago, when I noticed its practitioners didn’t explain their ideas logically. If maleness is just a construct detached from biology, then what makes a beard masculine? Is there really an “innate” difference between a short-haired lesbian like me and a homosexual female identifying as a man? This matters because testosterone causes incontinence in females, among other medical issues. But I couldn’t find gender doctors engaging tough questions. Instead they told heartwarming stories and accused anyone who doubted them of bigotry. Murky reasoning, reliance on anecdote, and wrath toward skeptics are hallmarks of a scam.
I’m not the only lawyer who is concerned. In September, 21 states launched an investigation into the American Academy of Pediatrics for claiming puberty blockers are “reversible” when in fact they “may interfere with neurocognitive development” and bone health, among other dangers. The states cited a report by England’s National Health Service, known as the Cass Review, which also found no support for the idea that blockers prevent suicide. One of America’s leading gender doctors recently admitted that puberty blockers did not lead to mental health improvements in her own research.
Last year the Alabama Attorney General’s office unearthed internal emails from WPATH (World Professional Association of Transgender Health) that showed youth gender medicine guidelines were not developed based on a review of evidence but rather with the aim of securing insurance coverage and winning civil rights lawsuits.
So the desperate parental reports would have raised alarms in many state attorney general offices. But not in Washington. AG Brown cited them in a lawsuit against Trump and other officials to support the argument that “transgender children will die” without gender medicine. Brown defended the drugs by citing WPATH. He’s joined by his counterparts in Colorado, Minnesota, and Oregon.
The Washington parents – most of whom withhold their full names, citing fear of reprisal from the federal government – appear mis-informed.
JM, a parent of a 13-year old on blockers, claims:
“Though some sources highlight contraindications and dangers associated with puberty blockers, generally this is misinformation. I’ve learned from my own research and from our medical providers that puberty blockers … are perfectly safe for an adolescent such as [my child].”
SS writes of their child, a male placed on puberty blockers at age 11:
“all the medical care that L.S. currently receives is reversible … She also started low-dose estrogen at the age of 13 years, after fertility counseling and preservation.”
Estrogen causes breast growth that is not reversible. And as the parent seems to acknowledge, the blockers-then-estrogen regimen can cause infertility (as well as permanent sexual dysfunction). The techniques used to salvage sperm cells from males that young with blocked puberty are unproven – nevermind the efficacy of “fertility counseling” at that age.
Another parent, MF, believes:
“Blockers and hormone treatment, started during the teenage years, give a transgender person the opportunity, with the exception of their genitals, to look like the gender they feel for the rest of their lives.”
But a person’s sexed appearance is not only dictated by hormones. Genes make males larger than females, with different bone structure such as narrower hips. Plus: genitals are nothing to sneeze at.
It seems something is going on here beyond standard medical treatment. One mom refers to her 11-year old as her “spiritual leader.” Another notes that a gender doctor meeting with her 8-year old “wanted to make sure to let our daughter steer the ship in decision-making.”
Preoccupation with gender is common. One parent, AMM, says when their child started identifying as a girl in preschool, “we talked about gender constantly.”
Many of the children identify as nonbinary. AM, the parent of one such 6-year old, says the child “will become dysregulated and shut down when they encounter an adult who does not see them accurately or misgenders them.” Apparently they will need gender medicine in order to make their nonbinary identity obvious to strangers.
SO, the parent of a nonbinary 11-year old, states:
“My biggest concern is that my child will be forced into manhood and denied the chance to move gently into androgyny[.]”
Seeing their friends “develop and go through puberty” made one nonbinary child feel “scared,” according to their mother, KCC. So the family followed medical advice to use blockers. “They needed to press pause while they figured everything out.” The child is now 14 and still blocked.
The parents of another blocked nonbinary 14-year old worries that if gender medicine becomes unavailable, “they will lose their joy.” But doesn’t this teenager have to go through puberty sometime?
A Seattle pediatrician, GM, explains the logic behind blockers: to give kids “the time and space to decide which outward gender characteristics are most aligned with their gender identity – i.e., which characteristics they would like to avoid, and which to affirm permanently.”
Parents hearing this from a doctor might assume there’s a science to gender medicine. But there isn’t, as the WPATH imbroglio confirmed. Leading gender clinicians recently argued their work should not be judged based on its “effectiveness” (scare quotes theirs).
GM states that “completed suicides are … a considerable risk” of having gender dysphoria. This doctor doesn’t mention that gender medicine isn’t proven to alleviate it. And the doctor states, misleadingly, “[p]uberty blockers are considered reversable [sic].”
Suing the president is exciting for state AGs. But their bread and butter is consumer protection. If AG Brown gets back to basics, he might realize he has a big case on his hands – and it’s not against Trump.
Related
My X thread on the parental affidavits (different set than in this post)
My X thread on Washington’s motion for a preliminary injunction
I live in Washington. I have a trans-identified child. I do not endorse gender-affirming medical care.
Every single medical doctor and mental health provider I have encountered in Washington has not just affirmed my child's chosen gender identity but pushed us/bullied me to either go to Seattle Children's gender clinic or put my under-18-year-old child on cross-sex hormones.
When my child first told me they were trans, I was blindsided and completely clueless about what that meant. When I called the gender clinic at Children's hospital, seeking guidance and/or a referral to a psychologist who could help us all explore/understand what was happening, the intake person told me that the gender clinic offers no psychological services, only medical interventions and that they could refer me to a mental health provider to write a letter so that I could bring my child in for cross-sex hormones. I called about 5 of the mental health providers on Children's referral list, and each one did indeed subscribe to the affirming model. One went so far as to tell me that conversion therapy is illegal when I said I did not think we were ready for hormones, that we were just trying to understand what was happening.
One mental health professional told my child that her job, as my child's counselor, was to catch me up and educate me because I did not know any better - this was at our introductory meeting. This same counselor wrote a letter to my child's school to "educate" them on how to treat trans-identified children, complete with referrals to the Trevor Project and a person who could come into the school and provide training to the staff and teachers.
A pediatrician offered my child cross-sex hormones after knowing my child for 10 minutes. Another one repeatedly pushed me to take my child to the Seattle Children's gender clinic, also after knowing my child for 10 minutes.
An orthopedic surgeon identified my child as the opposite sex in the operation notes based on my child's chosen name and pronouns.
My child used the opposite sex locker room at school and competed against the opposite sex in a full-contact team sport without my knowledge. The school district's policy states that parents should not be informed of a child's gender or pronouns unless the child consents.
One of our state legislators has a trans-identified child, and that legislator is behind every single bill that denies parents' rights and pushes for gender affirming care.
The entire system is sick and stacked against those who do not endorse gender affirming care. If I could leave Washington, I would.
"One mom refers to her 11-year old as her “spiritual leader.” Another notes that a gender doctor meeting with her 8-year old “wanted to make sure to let our daughter steer the ship in decision-making.”
These people seem afraid of their responsibility and authority as parents and instead cede it to "experts," which is rarely good policy, but never when those "experts" are gender docs. Handy that those docs -- playing the suicide card -- further alleviate parental responsibility to make sane, protective choices for children by telling these parents they really have none if they want a living child.
As is widely known, most of these kids have co-morbidities -- autism, ADHD, depression, OCD and others -- and a significant number are experiencing the dissonance and distress of realizing they are gay (and perhaps being bullied for it). Rather than striving to resolve these mental health concerns and build their kids' resilience as they go through natural puberty, these parents accept -- perhaps even embrace -- relief from those responsibilities through a dubious diagnosis of gender dysphoria.
One can and should have compassion for families caught up in this madness, which must be agonizing. Yet that does not erase parental responsibility to protect and guide minor children. It seems as if the parents in these affidavits needed a hefty dose of Abigail Shrier -- and another of common sense, and another of moral courage -- before they yielded their children to this cult.
Thanks Glenna, for another illuminating post. I admire your resilience in staying sane when routinely doing deep dives into madness.