Washington University ‘alarmed’ by trans clinic whistleblower allegations

Washington University is ‘alarmed’ by the allegations of a whistleblower who worked at its transgender clinic at the St Louis Children’s Hospital and has vowed to ‘ascertain the facts’.   

Jamie Reed, a former employee at the Washington University Transgender Center at St. Louis Children’s Hospital, told The Free Press that working there was like working ‘in a cult’ and that what is being done to kids is ‘morally and medically appalling’. 

After the article was published, Missouri’s Attorney General Andrew Bailey confirmed his office was launching an major probe into the clinic following Reed’s allegations, which he characterized as ‘disturbing.’ 

Sen. Josh Hawley’s office has also launched an investigation. 

Sen. Josh Hawley’s office has also launched an investigation into the disturbing claims 

Jamie Reed (pictured) said she took the job with the intention of ‘saving’ trans kids, but that she believes what is happening amounts to ‘permanent harm’ on young, vulnerable children

Dr. Allison Snyder-Warwick at St. Louis Children’s Hospital. Reed alleged she performed a sex-transitioning surgery at the center hospital in the last few years, despite the hospital saying otherwise

Bailey said his primary goal was to make sure children were not harmed by ‘individuals who may be more concerned with a radical social agenda than the health of children.’ 

In her affidavit, Reed said in one instance a girl was prescribed cross-sex hormones because she did not want to become pregnant. 

‘There was no need for this girl to be prescribed cross-sex hormones. What she needed was basic sex education and maybe contraception,’ she said, adding that a basic assessment of her case would have revealed that.

‘But because the doctors automatically prescribe cross-sex hormones or puberty blockers for children meeting the bare minimum criteria, this girl was unnecessarily placed on drugs that cause irreversible change to the body.’

She alleged that in another instance, a patient asked for their breasts to be removed and was given the surgery at St. Louis Children’s Hospital – but just weeks later, the woman asked for them to be ‘put back on.’

Reed draws the conclusion that proper assessment was not taken, and the patient was not properly informed that the changes were irreversible, according to the document.  

The former employee added: ‘Three months later, the patient contacted the surgeon and asked for their breasts to be “put back on.” Had a requisite and adequate assessment been performed before the procedure, the doctors could have prevented this patient from undergoing irreversible surgical change.’

The whistleblower, who first came forward in The Free Press, included a list of outlandish requests children came into the center with, which she alleged doctors listened to and then prescribed cross-sex treatment for. 

One of the doctors at the center, Dr. Chris Lewis, is named in the affidavit as allegedly giving the young patients Bicalutamide, which can cause liver damage

Attorney General Andrew Bailey said: ‘We take this evidence seriously and are thoroughly investigating to make sure children are not harmed by individuals who may be more concerned with a radical social agenda than the health of children’

She said: ‘Children come into the clinic using pronouns of inanimate objects like mushroom, rock, or helicopter. Children come into the clinic saying they want hormones because they do not want to be gay.

‘Children come in changing their identities on a day-to-day basis. Children come in under clear pressure by a parent to identify in a way inconsistent with the child’s actual identity.

‘In all these cases, the doctors decide to issue puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones.’

Reed alleged the hospital’s public claims that it did not perform gender transition surgeries on minors was a lie. 

‘The Center regularly refers minors for gender transition surgery,’ she said. ‘The Center routinely gives out the names and contact information of surgeons to those under the age of 18.’ 

‘At least one gender transition surgery was performed by Dr. Allison Snyder-Warwick at St. Louis Children’s Hospital in the last few years,’ Reed alleged.

In another shocking claim, Reed alleged that one 17-year-old patient was brought into the clinic by a man – who he was not related to. The teenager was living with the man.

The teenager started hormones ‘as soon as they turned 18.’ But the patient’s mental health very quickly deteriorated –  and Reed claims it was soon revealed the man who initially bought the child to the clinic was sexually and physically abusing him. 

Despite learning of the alleged abuse of power, the center did not stop the gender transition treatment, the affidavit claims.  

Jamie Reed worked at The Washington University Transgender Center at St. Louis Children’s Hospital between 2018 and November 2022

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey confirmed his office was launching an investigation into the hospital following Reed’s claims, which he characterized as ‘disturbing’

Reed worked at The Washington University Transgender Center at St. Louis Children’s Hospital and was responsible for patient intake between 2018 and November 2022. 

 Reed said she took the job at the center with the intention of ‘saving’ trans kids, but that she believes what is happening amounts to ‘permanent harm’ on young, vulnerable children. 

After four years, she says she became convinced the clinics were harming kids and families, whose understanding of the realities of the medical side-effects involved was scarily poor. 

Doctors acted as though they were more entitled to make decisions than parents,  says Reed, and only one parent’s consent was required in cases involving minors. 

Reed cites examples of a 17-year-old girl’s birth canal allegedly being ‘ripped open’ when she had sex while taking testosterone to transition to male, unaware that the drug would cause her to bleed extensively through her clothes if she had intercourse. 

In other scenarios, she claims teenage girls were terrified when their clitorises turned into micro-penises while they took the drugs. 

Some psychiatrically ‘disturbed’ children from juvenile detention centers were also presented because they had ‘at some point’ expressed an interest in changing gender. 

Among those patients, according to Reed, was a boy who’d been sexually abusing dogs. 

‘Somewhere along the way, he expressed a desire to become female, so he ended up being seen at our center. 

‘The way the American medical system is treating these patients is the opposite of the promise we make to ‘do no harm.’ 

‘Instead, we are permanently harming the vulnerable patients in our care… what is happening to scores of children is morally and medically appalling.’ 

She describes seeing a sudden, sharp uptick in the number of young girls ‘demanding testosterone’, sometimes presenting themselves as ‘clusters’ from the same schools. 

Reed perceived a ‘lack of formal protocol’ at the center, and that doctors ignored the fact young girls lied about having other illnesses and prescribed them hormones. 

She reveals that in order for a young girl to start transitioning to male, all she needed to do was see a clinic-recommended therapist once or twice and obtain a letter of support for their decision.

That therapist was often given a template for the letter that was written by the clinic, according to Reed.

‘Frequently, our patients declared they had disorders that no one believed they had.

‘We had patients who said they had Tourette syndrome (but they didn’t); that they had tic disorders (but they didn’t); that they had multiple personalities (but they didn’t). 

‘The doctors privately recognized these false self-diagnoses as a manifestation of social contagion,’ Reed says. 

‘They even acknowledged that suicide has an element of social contagion. But when I said the clusters of girls streaming into our service looked as if their gender issues might be a manifestation of social contagion, the doctors said gender identity reflected something innate.’ 

Reed, writing in The Free Press, says she was hesitant to raise her concerns because anyone who did was deemed a ‘transphobe’. 

She describes warning young girls about the lasting physical effects of taking testosterone hormones – including sterility – but that they didn’t understand the seriousness of what they were doing. 

‘Teenagers are simply not capable of fully grasping what it means to make the decision to become infertile while still a minor,’ she writes. 

‘The center downplayed the negative consequences, and emphasized the need for transition.’ 

She lists one example of a young boy who wanted to transition to female. Neither he nor his family ‘understood’ the severe effects of Bicalutamide, one of the prescribed drugs he received. 

Bicalumatide is predominantly used to treat prostate cancer and can lead to liver toxicity – which is what happened in this child’s case. 

It is frequently prescribed as a feminizing trans drug.

In this child’s case, he ended up in the hospital. His parents threatened to sue, according to Reed, who had told colleagues the child wasn’t ready to undergo therapy because neither he nor his family fully grasped the drug’s side-effects.

One of the doctors at the center, Dr. Chris Lewis, is named in the affidavit as allegedly giving the young patients Bicalutamide. 

Reed claims that the adult medical center at Washington University does not even associate or use risks Bicalutamide because of its risks and issues – but the center treating children does.

 Another teenager who was taking testosterone to transition from female to male was unaware that the hormone caused her vaginal tissue to thin. 

After having sex, she began bleeding uncontrollably, soaking through her jeans and a towel, before having to go to the emergency room where she was sedated and underwent vaginal surgery.   

‘Clinics like the one where I worked are creating a whole cohort of kids with atypical genitals – and most of these teens haven’t even had sex yet.

‘They had no idea who they were going to be as adults. Yet all it took for them to permanently transform themselves was one or two short conversations with a therapist,’ Reed writes. 

She also includes emails from concerned parents revoking their consent for the medications and procedures, after their kids turned into ‘shells’ of themselves. 

‘Who knows if it’s because of the hormone blockers or the other medications. I revoke my consent. I want the hormone blocker removed,’ one mother wrote. 

Reed also describes a terrifying lack in consultation with both parents. 

She gives the example of a family where the father and mother were in the midst of a divorce and the mother was championing that their 11-year-old daughter be given puberty blockers to allow her transition to male. 

Reed said she found the mother ‘disturbing’ and thought the child didn’t meet the initial criteria to transition when she interviewed them. 

Weeks later, the mother returned to the clinic with a different set of answers for Reed’s questions, and her colleagues approved the girl for transition. 

A judge then sided with the mother in court, allowing the child to move forward, despite her father’s strong protest against it. 

In 2019, Reed said she started noticing a growing number of patients deciding not to go through with transition, or deciding to return to the gender they had been previously. 

She and her colleague started collating information about those patients with the assumption that the doctors would want to know about their change of heart.

‘We thought the doctors would want to collect and understand this data in order to figure out what they had missed.

‘We were wrong. One doctor wondered aloud why he would spend time on someone who was no longer his patient.’ 

She and her colleague started a ‘red flag list’ to keep track of kids who had changed their minds. 

The hospital released a statement saying they were looking into the allegations.

‘We are alarmed by the allegations reported in the article published by The Free Press describing practices and behaviors the author says she witnessed while employed at the university’s Transgender Center,’ they said. ‘We are taking this matter very seriously and have already begun the process of looking into the situation to ascertain the facts. 

‘As always, our highest priority is the health and well-being of our patients. We are committed to providing compassionate, family-centered care to all of our patients and we hold our medical practitioners to the highest professional and ethical standards.’

Reed transferred from the transgender center to a different department in November 2022. 

She says the doctors at the hospital treat the issue of transitioning among teens as an ‘experiment’. 

‘Experiments are supposed to be carefully designed. Hypotheses are supposed to be tested ethically.

‘The doctors I worked alongside at the Transgender Center said frequently about the treatment of our patients: ‘We are building the plane while we are flying it.’ 

‘No one should be a passenger on that kind of aircraft.’