Former Planned Parenthood worker blew whistle on Missouri ‘gender clinic’

Earlier this year, a former Planned Parenthood worker filed a whistleblower complaint against the Washington University Pediatric Transgender Center at St. Louis Children’s Hospital, claiming the center showed children were being routinely prescribed puberty blockers or hormone therapy without “appropriate or accurate” mental health assessments.

“In her affidavit, Reed alleged patients were routinely provided medication ‘without informed parental consent.’ She also alleged that the center did not obtain custody agreements from divorced parents to ensure all parties consented to treatment,” according to NBC News.

Jamie Reed, a former case manager at the center who “considered herself a fierce champion of the gender-affirming model,” previously worked at Planned Parenthood (a top provider of “gender-affirming care”), at an H.I.V. clinic, and in the foster care system, the New York Times claimed.

In July, while the former Planned Parenthood worker claimed pediatric gender centers were not “big money makers,” she tweeted from her @JamieWhistle handle on “X”: “Planned Parenthood (and I was a clinical manager at PP years ago) makes money from visits. We used to stack 4 patients an hour. The quicker the ‘assessment’ the more they make.”

Reed added in a separate tweet in the thread, “I think this is a money maker for @PPFA.”

Reed Speaks Out Against Washington University in St Louis

“I took the job because I support trans rights and firmly believed I would be able to provide good care for children at the Center… Instead, I witnessed the Center cause permanent harm to many of the patients,” Reed wrote in her complaint.

NYT reported:

Her doubts about the affirming model arose in 2019, she said, after hearing from an upset patient who regretted their medical transition. She grew more concerned in 2020 as more new patients sought the clinic’s help, many with psychological problems exacerbated by the pandemic.

She saw parallels with England’s youth gender clinic, known as the Tavistock, which was under investigation after employees complained about feeling pressure to approve children for puberty blockers as their wait-list swelled.

After raising concerns with the Center, Reed was allegedly told to “get with the program or get out” — and after years in her position, she left in November of 2022. She alleged that the Center lied to the public, saying, “Doctors at the Center also have publicly claimed that they do not do any gender transition surgeries on minors” — a claim she alleged was false.

“The Center routinely gives out the names and contact information of surgeons to those under the age of 18. At least one gender transition surgery was performed by Dr. Allison Snyder-Warwick at St. Louis Children’s Hospital in the last few years,” Reed claimed.

“What’s happening to children is morally and medically appalling,” Reed wrote in a lengthy piece published by the Free Press (FP) where she detailed her observations at Washington University’s Transgender Center.

“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,” she wrote.

Doctors Pressured Parents 

Reed told the Missouri Independent that the University’s Center began medical transitions for “more than 600 children” between 2020 and 2022.

“Doctors at the Center routinely pressured parents into ‘consenting’ by pushing those parents, threatening them, and bullying them,” Reed’s whistleblower complaint stated. “When parents suggested that they wanted only therapy treatment, not cross-sex hormones or puberty blockers, doctors treated those parents as if the parents were abusive, uneducated, and willing to harm their own children.”

“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. 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,” the former Planned Parenthood worker wrote in FP.

 

Center ‘Downplayed’ Negative Consequences of Drugs

“Our patients were told about some side effects [of testosterone], including sterility. But after working at the center, I came to believe that teenagers are simply not capable of fully grasping what it means to make the decision to become infertile while still a minor,” Reed wrote.

“Many encounters with patients emphasized to me how little these young people understood the profound impacts changing gender would have on their bodies and minds. But the center downplayed the negative consequences, and emphasized the need for transition,” she added.

Reed explained in one example how the center would prescribe Bicalutamide, “a medication used to treat metastatic prostate cancer” as a puberty blocker and feminizing agent for boys, but alleged that in her view, the children did not understand the effects of the drug.

In a separate example, Reed described an occasion where a child’s “vaginal canal had ripped open” because she had had intercourse after being prescribed testosterone and allegedly did not understand that the drug “thins the vaginal tissues.”

“During my time at the Center, I personally witnessed Center healthcare providers lie to the public and to parents of patients about the treatment, or lack of treatment, and the effects of treatment provided to children at the Center. I witnessed staff at the Center provide puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to children without complete informed parental consent and without an appropriate or accurate assessment of the needs of the child. I witnessed children experience shocking injuries from the medication the Center prescribed. And I saw the Center make no attempt or effort to track adverse outcomes of patients after they left the Center,” the former Planned Parenthood worker claimed.

Failed to Provide Mental Healthcare

According to Reed, the Center told clients they could get psychological and psychiatric care, but Reed called that statement “untrue” and claimed that “nearly all children who came to the Center here presented with very serious mental health problems.”

She alleged that “the Center would not treat these mental health issues. Instead, children were automatically given puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones even though the Dutch study excluded persons experiencing mental health issues.”

“The Center says that it has four practice areas: Endocrinology, Adolescent Medicine, Psychiatry, and Psychology. But the Center placed such strict limits on Psychiatry and Psychology that I was almost never allowed to schedule patients for those practices. Those practices were advertised as available, but most of the time they were not in fact available,” Reed alleged, also claiming that “when psychology was available” the Center would only issue “a letter of support for the medical transition treatments and never for ongoing therapy.”

“Instead, I was required to schedule children for Endocrinology or Adolescent Medicine. Rather than provide psychiatric or psychological therapy, these practices (Endocrinology and Adolescent Medicine) would medically transition patients’ gender. Endocrinology would prescribe puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones. Adolescent Medicine, which was for children after puberty, prescribed cross-sex hormones. Children were sent to one practice or the other based on their age and stage of puberty or prepuberty. There was no continuing or ongoing mental health evaluation or treatment required or provided by the Center for patients,” Reed further alleged.

Staff Members Who Objected Allegedly Silenced

Reed also alleged that there was often no consensus regarding treatment of children, a fact rarely given to their parents. The only treatment the center seemed willing to apply was to prescribe body-altering drugs.

“The staff members on the team that were not universally in support of immediate cross sex hormones were not supported and were told to stop questioning the prevailing narrative of immediate cross sex hormones for all by the prescribing physicians,” Reed claimed. “The public has been led to believe that a ‘team’ has considered their child’s care and that the ‘team’ had ruled it best for the cross sex hormones to be initiated, but the public was not told the truth.”

Reed also alleged that:

Many patients had depression and anxiety symptoms before starting cross sex hormones but it was only after starting these medications that they became more severe and required starting mental health medications. Many patients were also suspected of having autism and were not even required to be formally assessed for this condition before starting cross sex hormones.

Toward the end of my time at the Center, it became clear that many children coming to the Center had gender identities that were likely the result of social contagion. When I first started in 2018, the Center would receive between 5 and 10 calls a month. By the time I left, that number was more than 40 calls a month.

In a webinar with her attorneys, Reed addressed the pressure impacted by children affected by transgender social contagion. She claimed these kids “get trapped” and “don’t see a way out” with some claiming they would be “letting their parents down.” She noted that “social transition” prohibits kids from “backing out” of transitioning.

In addition, Reed addressed the ideological capture of the medical community and the pressure felt by healthcare workers to cosign transitioning minors.

Reed works with Republican AG

Reed wrote in FP that she brought “documents to the attention of Missouri’s attorney general. He is a Republican. I am a progressive. But the safety of children should not be a matter for our culture wars.”

In February of 2023, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey launched a multi-agency investigation into St. Louis Transgender Center for harming hundreds of children, the AG’s release stated.

Bailey claimed his office had received an affidavit as well as “documents that support her allegations.”

“The sworn affidavit asserts, among other things, that individuals at the Center are using experimental drugs on children, distributing puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones without individualized assessment, and even giving children these life-altering drugs without parental consent. The whistleblower says that the actions taken by the Center have led children to attempt suicide and that the Center never discontinues prescribing cross-sex hormones, no matter how much those drugs are harming the child. The whistleblower also has provided documentary evidence that the Center has been unlawfully billing state taxpayers to fund these actions,” the AG’s release stated.

Allegations included:

• “[…]doctors have continued prescribing medical transition even when a parent stated that they were revoking consent.”
• “The Center does not require children to continue with mental health care after they prescribe cross-sex hormones or puberty blockers and even continues those medications when the patients directly report worsening mental health after initiating those medications.”
• “[…]Children who have not contemplated suicide before being put on puberty blockers have attempted suicide after.”
• “[…]Center does not track these outcomes because they do not want to have to report them to new patients and because they do not want to discontinue cross-sex hormone prescriptions. The Center never discontinues cross-sex hormones, no matter the outcome.”
• “[…]I personally witnessed Center healthcare providers lie to the public and to parents of patients about the treatment, or lack of treatment, and the effects of treatment provided to children at the Center.”
• “Doctors at the Center also have publicly claimed that they do not do any gender transition surgeries on minors. … This was a lie…”

Washington University Responds

The University, which allegedly investigated the claims called the allegations “unsubstantiated” but, according to NBC News, “Reed’s attorneys, Vernadette Broyles and Ernest G. Trakas, said in a statement on her behalf that the university did not interview Reed for its internal investigation.”

Still, the University said it was implementing “additional protocols recommended by the Oversight Committee for documenting parental consent” and would “review its procedures for engaging with members of the community, particularly as it pertains to guidance provided to local school administrators and educators,” among other changes.

But the protocols may be moot now that a new law in the state has forced the University to halt trans services to minors.

For her part, Reed maintains that “to ensure the safety of American children, we need a moratorium on the hormonal and surgical treatment of young people with gender dysphoria,” the former Planned Parenthood worker wrote in FP.