California Docs, Hospitals Sued For Rushing 12-Year-Old Into Gender Transition

A 20-year-old woman has filed suit against California hospitals and doctors, saying they rushed to conclude she suffered from gender dysphoria and then “fast-tracked [her] onto the conveyor belt of irreversibly damaging” medical interventions that included puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and a double-mastectomy at age 14.  

According to the complaint filed in Los Angeles, Kaya Clementine Breen says she was sexually abused as a young child and that, around age 11 or 12, "began struggling with the thought of developing into a woman and began to believe that life would be easier if she were a boy." When she shared those feelings with a school counselor, the counselor told Breen that she must be transgender, and then called her parents to push the same assumption as a fact. 

Breen's parents sought out "experts" at the Center for Transyouth Health and Development at Children’s Hospital in Los Angeles, including Dr. Johanna Olson-Kennedy, one of the world's most vocal advocates for the gender-transitioning of children. "At her very first visit, after mere minutes, Dr. Olson-Kennedy diagnosed Clementine with gender dysphoria and recommended surgical implantation of puberty blockers," according to the complaint, which also alleges that Olson-Kennedy neglected to perform a mental-health assessment or inquire about past trauma or abuse. 

Echoing a grievance that commonly surfaces in the gender-transition realm, the complaint alleges Olson-Kennedy told Breen's parents that their daughter would "commit suicide if she did not begin taking testosterone...At that time, Clementine had never had any thoughts of suicide, and she certainly had never expressed anything along those lines to Dr Olson-Kennedy." According to The Economist, Olson-Kennedy's own notes made no mention of suicidal ideation. Ironically, it was only after enduring transition procedures and "therapies" that Breen would later attempt suicide as her mental health declined and she contended with extreme depression and anger. 

The fateful Dec. 27, 2016 consultation with Olson-Kennedy led to years of drastic medical alterations of Breen's body. These included puberty-blockers at age 12, cross-sex hormones starting from age 13 through 19 and a "gender-affirming" double-mastectomy at just 14 years old. She was also "urged" to have a hysterectomy at age 17, though it's unclear from the complaint if she did so. The mastectomy surgeon is among the many defendants, and is accused of his own negligence in carrying out the drastic procedure, having only met Breen for about 30 minutes on the very morning of the life-altering surgery.  

It was only via mental health care that she started receiving near the end of high school that Breen eventually concluded she was not "trans" after all. She stopped identifying as a male named "Finn," and has begun de-transitioning -- to the extent it's possible. Summarizing Breen's experience as "a despicable, failed medical experiment and a knowing, deliberate, and gross breach of the standard of care," the complaint lays out a long and disturbing list of enduring harms:

She has suffered physically, socially, neurologically, and psychologically. Her voice has permanently deepened. Her female body did not develop, and she has a very masculine body structure. Her fertility is almost certainly destroyed from the combination of years on puberty blockers and testosterone.

And even if she could conceive and deliver a child, she would not be able to breastfeed because her healthy breasts were removed when she was only 14. And she has to seethe scars from that unnecessary surgery every day. She has experienced vaginal atrophy, and her sex life has been materially impacted. She is also at risk for bone-related problems later in life.

Breen's experience closely matches the picture Megyn Kelly painted in her searing indictment of "gender-affirming care" during her October appearance on HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher": 

Olson-Kennedy came under fire earlier this year when she admitted to withholding the findings of her team's research, which found puberty blockers did not result in mental health improvements for children, telling the New York Times, “I do not want our work to be weaponized. It has to be exactly on point, clear and concise. And that takes time." Earlier this year, a British study concluded that a great many children who think they may be transgender have mental health issues that spring from abuse or difficult family situations.