Sexually abused as a young child, 11-year-old Kaya Breen told a school counselor that she'd wondered if "life would be easier if she were a boy," her lawsuit states. The counselor told her and her parents that she was transgender. She was diagnosed with gender dysphoria, and fast-tracked her for puberty blockers at 12, cross-sex hormones at 13 and a mastectomy at 14.
Now, 20, Breen is suing her doctors and hospitals for medical negligence. They ignored her "complex mental health struggles," including anxiety, depression and undiagnosed post-traumatic stress disorder, according to the lawsuit. Her “mental health progressively declined” following "gender-affirming" care.
“In retrospect, I wish that somebody had suggested real, genuine therapy first, instead of gender-specific therapy," Breen, now a UCLA student told NBC News. She questioned her decision to transition after she started dialectical behavior therapy earlier this year.
One of the defendants in Breen’s lawsuit is Dr. Johanna Olson-Kennedy, an adolescent medicine physician specializing in gender-affirming care, who refused to release the findings of her study that showed puberty blockers did not improve gender-dysphoric children's mental health. The doctor said opponents of transitioning pre-pubescent children might "weaponize" the findings.
In 2020, Dr. Olson-Kennedy’s group said that about a quarter of the test group had symptoms of depression, anxiety and suicidal thoughts, and predicted puberty blockers would lessen their symptoms. When the New York Times reported on the unreleased findings, Dr. Olson-Kennedy said the children's mental health didn't improve because it was already good.
Many parents have been persuaded to agree to transition their children because they're told the alternative is suicide, writes Leor Sapir in City Journal. But the U.K.’s Cass Review, found “no evidence that gender-affirmative treatments reduce suicide.”
ACLU attorney Chase Strangio admitted that in oral arguments in U.S. v. Skrmetti, which seeks to overturn Tennessee’s ban on pediatric sex “change” procedures.
Justice Alito asked, “Do you maintain that the procedures and medications in question reduce the risk of suicide?”
Strangio replied that suicide is "rare," but that gender treatments might reduce "suicidality."
That's not what trans activists have been telling parents, writes Sapir.
Britain has banned the use of puberty blockers. The medical evidence for transition-related care for minors is “remarkably weak,” said Health and Social Care Secretary Wes Streeting in a press release. "The current prescribing and care pathway for gender dysphoria and incongruence presents an unacceptable safety risk for children and young people.”