Read My Story About A Major Detransition Lawsuit In The Economist

The suit shines a light on the practices of the United States’ largest youth gender clinic

I don’t usually use this list to alert subscribers to freelance stories I’ve written, but I’m going to make an exception, because I think a lot of my readers will be interested in a piece I wrote for The Economist that just went online.

It’s about Johanna Olson-Kennedy, who is one of the most prominent proponents of youth gender medicine in the United States, as well as the medical director at the largest youth gender clinic in the country. She has long criticized comprehensive psychological assessments prior to medical transition as unnecessary “gatekeeping” — “I don’t send someone to a therapist when I’m going to start them on insulin,” she told me in 2018 — but now she’s being sued for medical negligence by a former patient, Clementine Breen, who insists that Olson-Kennedy did not provide enough gatekeeping. You can read the complaint here.

Clementine is a 20-year-old UCLA student who, under Olson-Kennedy’s care, received puberty blockers at 12, testosterone at 13, and a double mastectomy at 14. Breen, who is also suing her psychologist and surgeon, made a number of damning allegations about the care she received at Olson-Kennedy’s clinic, many of which are substantiated by Olson-Kennedy’s own notes, which Breen and her attorneys acquired and shared with me.

Here’s the story one more time. And because a lot of my reporting didn’t make it into the final piece, I’ll soon be publishing significantly more information about this case, much of it based on primary documents, for my premium subscribers, so please consider becoming one.

Thanks, and hope you have a great weekend.

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Image: Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles, via CHLA.org.