"The Protocol" Drops Today

Critics of Pediatric “Gender-Affirming Care” Hope the NYT’s New Podcast Delivers

Six free episodes of The Protocol, a six-part New York Times podcast series will drop today. Gender clinic whistleblower and cofounder of LGB Courage Coalition, Jamie Reed, announced on X that she was interviewed for the podcast. Reed’s X followers hope she’ll be prominently featured in the series, though there is doubt that the podcast will treat the issue as the medical scandal that it is.

Photo by Icons8 Team on Unsplash

Nearly two years in the making, Reed noted that journalist Azeen Ghorayshi recorded their first interview in Reed’s kitchen the night before the Missouri SAFE (Save Adolescents from Experimentation) Act’s August 25, 2023 injunction hearing. Reed’s allegations of rushed hormone prescriptions and inadequate mental health assessments for minors in gender clinics fueled the SAFE Act’s prioritization and passage.

The series, named for the much criticized Dutch Protocol, explores these procedures as the Supreme Court prepares to rule on United States v. Skrmetti, challenging Tennessee’s ban on such treatments for minors. Skepticism stems partly from the podcast’s preview, which frames the debate in terms of political polarization.

Narrator: …it’s a story about medicine, about a new kind of treatment for a small group of kids…

Dutch puberty blocker patient: I was the first to be put on hormone blockers.

Narrator: … how it was meant to help…

Dutch Protocol Creator Peggy Cohen-Kettenis: Because of him, we thought maybe we should do this more often…

Narrator: …how it was codified into a protocol that spread around the world…

Clinician Laura Edwards-Leeper: They taught me the ropes [chuckle] and then trusted me to bring this to our country and try to make it work…

Narrator: …and how, in the time since, the politics and the medicine have become impossibly entangled…

Glenna Goldis, aka Unyielding Bicyclist, has commented on Edwards-Leeper’s involvement in bringing this to the U.S., in her Substack posts “The Assessment Scam” and “The Vanishing Legal Case for Pediatric Gender Medicine,” and during her appearance on Jenny Poyer-Ackerman’s podcast. She critiques Laura Edwards-Leeper as a central figure in promoting pediatric “gender-affirming care,” accusing her of perpetuating a flawed system under the guise of moderation. Goldis argues that Edwards-Leeper, who was involved in bringing the Dutch Protocol’s puberty blockers to Boston Children’s Hospital’s GeMs (Gender Multispecialty Service) Clinic in 2007, uses her advocacy for psychological assessments to deflect criticism of gender medicine’s weak evidence base. She contends Edwards-Leeper’s broad definition of transgender identity, encompassing gender nonconformity, risks misguiding gay and autistic youth toward medical transition. Goldis further criticizes Edwards-Leeper’s parent consulting business for exploiting anxious families and her media presence as damage control for a “scam,” portraying her as dangerously influential due to her reasonable demeanor despite promoting harmful practices.

Hanna Rosin was one of the first to question the child-led model of gender-affirmation and interviewed Spack for this 2008 Atlantic article. Norman Spack deserves a mention here as one of Edward-Leeper’s partners in crime. He is infamous for having said (more than once) that he was “salivating” at the thought of getting American kids on puberty blockers when he heard about it from Cohen-Kettenis in the Netherlands. Notably Rosin puts Norman Spack’s description of his hopes for GeMS in quotes: “the first major academic research center.” Rosin also describes Ewards-Leeper as a part-time psychologist who did 4 hour assessments but in “emergencies” (when families contacted the clinic too close to impending puberty) skipped them altogether. Cohen-Kettenis is quoted as saying, “Adolescents may consider this step a guarantee of sex reassignment, and it could make them therefore less rather than more inclined to engage in introspection,” in order to explain, in part, why no adolescents ever backed out once they were on blockers.

When their clinic opened in Boston around 2007, in a low scrutiny environment before the public had much of an idea of what they were doing, the founders could be described as a group of medical research enthusiasts—an endocrinologist, a psychologist and a urologist—they were excited to see whether this protocol would produce a better passing adult transsexual, although they were not operating under the auspices of any research facility with an institutional review board (IRB) which is widely considered unethical. Spack pushed for early intervention before children even know what sex or relationships are all about and admitted that the procedure would render them permanently sterile saying “Does a kid that age really think about fertility? But if you don’t start treatment, they will always have trouble fitting in.” He is quoted elsewhere as saying, “"Gender dysphoria is a condition that can be treated rather easily," he says. "You don't need to be a rocket scientist to take care of a transgender patient."

Jamie Reed has been interviewed by Azeen Ghorayshi before, notably for an article about Reed’s allegations in the Free Press article where Reed first detailed her experiences in the St. Louis gender clinic. Ghorayshi’s August 2023 New York Times piece revisited these claims, focusing on the clinic’s closure amid political backlash but drawing criticism from experts like Leor Sapir for downplaying medical harms. The LGB Courage Coalition also responded to Ghorayshi’s article. Reed’s previous engagement with Ghorayshi sets high expectations for her role in The Protocol, but some worry the podcast may downplay perspectives critical of GAC.

Lisa Selin Davis, Jamie Reed’s Informed Dissent podcast co-host, has frequently critiqued The New York Times’ gender coverage although in May 2024, she praised Azeen Ghorayshi’s Times article on the Cass Review on X, noting, “‘It’s not true unless it’s in The New York Times,’ is the unofficial motto of news-reading liberals.” In April 2025, Davis lamented Pamela Paul’s exit on BROADview. About Paul’s farewell piece Davis said, “Paul writes that “the truth may be hard for some people to hear, but the truth should never be hard for journalists to tell.” Well, it has been difficult—not because some of us haven’t been willing to tell it, but because the powers that be have stood in our way.”

The LGB Courage Coalition, in a Substack post titled “Hello Trump, Good-Bye Paul,” also expressed concern that Paul’s departure signals “a regression in gender reporting at The New York Times.” The Coalition, which was mentioned in Paul’s February 2024 Times op-ed on detransitioners, speculated that Paul’s articles, like “Why Is the U.S. Still Pretending We Know Gender-Affirming Care Works?,” were relegated to Opinion to distance the Times from controversy. They argued Paul’s departure, amid Trump’s reelection and further media polarization, suggested the Times was “recalibrating its voice, potentially at the expense of intellectual diversity,” hinting at a return to a cautious editorial strategy that could preclude critical gender reporting.

While The Protocol promises an in-depth exploration of this fraught topic, its commitment to the truth about GAC remains uncertain. Will it amplify critics’ concerns about the risks of pediatric gender interventions, or will it, as some fear, dilute them within a broader narrative of politicization? Will it explore how The Dutch Protocol’s patients were 87% same-sex attracted, something that Edwards-Leeper and Spack must have known before they opened GeMS? The podcast is poised to reignite a polarizing conversation. With 26 states instituting age-restrictions on pediatric gender procedures, and the Skrmetti decision imminent, The Protocol podcast emerges at a charged moment. Its Cass coverage signaled progress, but Paul’s exit continues to fuel doubts about The Times’ commitment to heterodox voices, amplifying fears that The Protocol, when it drops today, may frame the argument against gender procedures on kids as merely part of a culture war.