'Morally and medically appalling': Transgender clinic whistleblower says medical system is 'permanently harming' children

A former case manager for a pediatric gender clinic in Missouri recently blew the whistle on the American medical system for "permanently harming" gender-questioning vulnerable children, the New York Post reported.

Jamie Reed, a 42-year-old woman from St. Louis who describes herself as a "queer woman" and "politically to the left of Bernie Sanders," published an article in the Free Press on Thursday explaining why she walked away from her job at the Washington University Transgender Center at St. Louis Children's Hospital.

Reed, who is married to a transgender man, stated that she "could no longer participate in what was happening" and claimed the medical professionals at the clinic were "permanently harming the vulnerable patients in our care."

Reed noted that when she started her position, there were approximately 10 calls a month from gender-questioning children, and when she left, there were 50. According to Reed, 70% of new patients were female adolescents who sometimes arrived at the center in groups.

"This concerned me, but didn't feel I was in the position to sound some kind of alarm back then," Reed said. "There was a team of about eight of us, and only one other person brought up the kinds of questions I had. Anyone who raised doubts ran the risk of being called a transphobe."

Most girls arriving at the gender clinic had "many comorbidities," including depression, anxiety, ADHD, eating disorders, or obesity.

"Frequently, our patients declared they had disorders that no one believed they had," Reed explained. "We had patients who said they had Tourette syndrome (but they didn't); that they had tic disorders (but they didn't); that they had multiple personalities (but they didn't)."

According to Reed, doctors at the St. Louis clinic believed that the children's incorrect self-diagnoses resulted from social contagion. However, doctors rejected the idea that the children's questioning of their gender identity might also be a manifestation of social contagion. Instead, they claimed it was "something innate."

Adolescents who wished to medically transition commonly only needed to see a therapist once or twice, Reed explained. Therapists were even provided a template for writing a letter supporting the child's transition.

Side effects from the gender transition medications are many, including sterility.

After years of working in patient intake, Reed concluded that "teenagers are simply not capable of fully grasping what it means to make the decision to become infertile while still a minor."

"Being put on powerful doses of testosterone or estrogen—enough to try to trick your body into mimicking the opposite sex—-affects the rest of the body," Reed wrote. "I doubt that any parent who's ever consented to give their kid testosterone (a lifelong treatment) knows that they're also possibly signing their kid up for blood pressure medication, cholesterol medication, and perhaps sleep apnea and diabetes."

Reed said she recently brought her concerns to Missouri's Republican attorney general.

"He is a Republican. I am a progressive. But the safety of children should not be a matter for our culture wars," she stated.

Reed called for "a moratorium on the hormonal and surgical treatment of young people with gender dysphoria" because of the "secrecy and lack of rigorous standards."

She added that referring to transgender treatment as a "national experiment" is incorrect.

"Experiments are supposed to be carefully designed. Hypotheses are supposed to be tested ethically. The doctors I worked alongside at the Transgender Center said frequently about the treatment of our patients: 'We are building the plane while we are flying it.' No one should be a passenger on that kind of aircraft," Reed concluded.

A spokesperson for St. Louis Children’s Hospital told KMOV, "We are alarmed by the allegations reported in the article published by The Free Press describing practices and behaviors the author says she witnessed while employed at the university’s Transgender Center. We are taking this matter very seriously and have already begun the process of looking into the situation to ascertain the facts. As always, our highest priority is the health and well-being of our patients. We are committed to providing compassionate, family-centered care to all of our patients and we hold our medical practitioners to the highest professional and ethical standards."

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