How a single staff member in a gender clinic can be a voice for change
A response to the New York Times Story
LGBT Courage Coalition co-founder Jamie Reed, the whistleblower who has spoken out against what she sees as dangerous and unethical practices at the Missouri gender clinic where she worked, is the subject of a groundbreaking front-page New York Times investigation, which was published today.
The piece, by Azeen Ghorayshi, is the result of months of investigation, and corroborates Jamie’s assessment of the state of youth gender treatment in Missouri and across the United States today. Ghorayshi’s detailed investigation has found that:
Gender clinics around the country are seeing an explosion of patients "with complex mental health problems."
There are valid and important questions "over whether some children's gender distress is the root cause of their mental health problems, or possibly a transient consequence of them."
There are an alarming number of cases of detransition and regret; and although the number is unknown, it is indisputable that they're happening much more frequently than activists acknowledge.
Throughout the gender care system, there's insufficient focus on counseling and therapy, with frontline ER doctors raising alarms they're seeing trans-identifying patients every day who are "in crisis." They're concerned that patients referred to gender clinics are "never told no," and that they're being given "hormones but not getting therapy."
In addition to Ms. Reed, Ghorayshi and the New York Times spoke to and quoted leading experts in the field, as well as former colleagues and former patients at the Missouri clinic, and virtually all of them offered broad agreement with the above points.
We’re delighted to see Jamie’s hard work vindicated by the New York Times, home to some of the very best journalism in the world, and an outlet that is especially trusted and respected by progressive-minded Americans and Canadians.
People across the political spectrum, and LGBT individuals have very serious concerns about the youth mental health crisis and the role that gender medicalization plays in it.
It’s high time the discussion moves forward beyond a culture-war deadlock.
Read the New York Times article here.
Yes, and. Over on Broadview, Lisa Selin Davis offers some really important edits. And, as we know, some NYT readers may be persuaded by the absurd push-back from GLAAD and "the contributors" such that they are unable to read Azeen's writing with as much openness as we'd hope. What do you think?
The reason the Times article may seem waffling...could it be because of thing like this?
"Why Did “On The Media” Stoke The Moral Panic Against Innocent New York Times Journalists Rather Than Investigate It?
Journalism and media criticism both require skepticism"
https://jessesingal.substack.com/p/why-did-on-the-media-stoke-the-moral