The Olsen-Kennedy study is released - Mental and Emotional Health of Youth after 24 months of Gender-Affirming Medical Care Initiated with Pubertal Suppression

It is infuriating and upsetting that no one stopped medical ‘professionals’ like this woman who ruined children’s lives and provided the fodder for the likes of Trump to have a legitimate grievance. The left just handed political power over to the right by carrying on this insanity.

Benjamin Ryan
@benryanwriter
Oct 1
'NEWS: Dr. Johanna Olson-Kennedy, the controversial leading figure in the pediatric gender medicine field, is no longer employed by Children's Hospital Los Angeles. CHLA shuttered the pediatric gender clinic she ran in July in the face of threats from the Trump administration of withholding Medicaid payments to hospitals that provided gender-transition interventions to those under age 19.

An email sent to Dr. Olson-Kennedy's email account with CHLA prompts an auto reply that reads: "CHLA has closed the Center for Transyouth Health and Development as of July 22, 2025. I am no longer at CHLA."

CHLA had indicated that it would seek to reassign staffers impacted by the closing of the gender clinic.

A lightening rod in this field, Dr. Olson-Kennedy is known for her steadfast opposition to psychosocial assessments of minors before they are put on gender-transition drugs. She is particularly notorious for having said at a training she was providing to other care providers, in reference to people who regret having undergone a double mastectomy for a gender transition: “What we do know is that adolescents actually have the capacity to make a reasoned, logical decision. And here’s the other thing about chest surgery: If you want breasts at a later point in your life, you can go and get them.”

In December, Dr. Olson-Kennedy was sued by a detransitioner to whom she prescribed puberty blockers on her first visit at age 12, without conducting a psychosocial assessment. She then put the girl on testosterone at age 13 and then cleared her for a mastectomy at age 14.'

Bumping this Olsen-Kennedy thread with a (slightly late) update.

https://nitter.poast.org/benryanwriter/status/1973516281060917429#m

'NEWS: Dr. Johanna Olson-Kennedy, the controversial leading figure in the pediatric gender medicine field, is no longer employed by Children's Hospital Los Angeles.'

On another thread but the NYT podcast "The Protocol" includes interviews with JO-K, Cass, Jamie Reed and lots of others. Really interesting background. Covers the context and basic facts & figures. Really does try to go middle of the road - which is probably why the TRAs are hating it. Really worth a listen.

The Dutch protocol which is referred to was originally (don't know about now) at least a year long programme of monthly therapy/assessment and 60-70% kids filtered away from puberty blockers. It was taken to the US by a young doctor who spent a week with the Dutch team before setting out a protocol for the practice where she worked - she only had 8 hours per patient and they came from across the US to see her. So she converted the dutch protocol into a "structured interview with questionnnaires that could be carried out in a day". Chilling moment - but JOK took it to a greater extreme and went fully with affirming care and seems to be the one who started claiming kids would die if they didn't get the drugs. Other providers interviewed seem more sensible. I came away thankful that we live in the UK and hopefully can find a moderate way through this. The US is a terrible example both medically and politically.

This only matters if you care about things like producing breast milk or women’s pleasure. If you only care about breasts as decoration, and TBF(er than I feel like being) they are a secondary sexual characteristic, none of their other purposes matter. We are trained to think of them as simply shiny baubles for men.

Adult women care about sensitivity (and therefore pleasure) and breast feeding. JOK clearly doesn’t.

They said they were collecting information on physical health as well in the protocol but they didn't report those in this study.

Data on anthropometric and physiologic parameters will be routinely collected through chart abstraction, questionnaires, and interviews throughout the study period. Items include lab results, height, weight, blood pressure, diagnoses, prescription medications, Tanner stage, physiologic changes, and bone mineral density as well as dietary calcium intake and weight-bearing exercise

They also have some info in the protocol about the age for cross sex hormones:

the minimum age in the inclusion criteria for the gender-affirming hormone cohort was decreased from 13 years (as stated in the original grant proposal) to 8 years in order to ensure that potential participants who might be eligible for hormones based on their Tanner stage would not be excluded due to age alone

Only 7 youths under the age of 13 years at the time of enrollment were enrolled into the cross-sex hormone cohort.

They actually excluded these kids (you couldn't make it up!) You have to go to their protocol (available here: https://www.researchprotocols.org/2019/7/e14434/) to find the info.

The exclusion criteria were ... presence of serious psychiatric symptoms (eg, active hallucinations and thought disorder), or appearing visibly distraught (eg, suicidal, homicidal, and exhibiting violent behavior) at the time of consent or the baseline study evaluation

This might be interesting if you want more robust data. It discusses the available data and also what's missing
https://benryan.substack.com/p/1-in-1000-privately-insured-17-year

Yes, Jamie Reed, thanks everyone.

Grok says:

Key Points to Estimate:
Pediatric Endocrinologists:
There are approximately 2,000–2,500 pediatric endocrinologists in the USA, based on data from the American Board of Pediatrics and the Endocrine Society. Most of these specialists are trained to prescribe puberty blockers for precocious puberty, and a significant portion likely offer gender-affirming care, though not all do. Assuming 50–75% are involved in gender-affirming care (a conservative estimate given the increasing demand), this suggests 1,000–1,875 pediatric endocrinologists may prescribe puberty blockers for transgender youth.
Adolescent Medicine Specialists:
There are about 500–600 adolescent medicine specialists certified in the USA (based on American Academy of Pediatrics data). Many work in gender clinics or transgender health programs and are trained to prescribe puberty blockers. If 80–90% of these specialists provide gender-affirming care, that’s 400–540 doctors.

So taking a ball park figure of both, say 1500 plus 470 so around 2000 people that are regularly prescribing puberty blockers.

So they are what, prescribing to one patient each a year to come up with the numbers that are 'very few'? Come the fuck on.

If I remember correctly, Jamie’s partner is in the process of detransitioning.

🤣 @spannasaurus and @rebmacesrevda crossposted!

You’re not misremembering - it’s Jamie Reed:

https://nitter.net/JamieWhistle

She had a good interview on Gender a Wider Lens.

Could be Jamie Reed. She's a whistleblower in the US, married to a trans man.

That sounds like Jamie Reed

Gender medicine started off in the U.S - which is a culture saturated in drugs and pharmaceuticals, and where drugs are advertised on the TV. It has suffered from periodic pharmaceutical crises and opiod epidemics etc, for which big pharma and elected representatives have been held responsible

The U.S is also a culture in which 'the individual' is king ( pursuit of freedom and happiness etc), and which has had a very domineering consumer culture for far longer than here in Europe. Everything is monetised and marketised. Including medicine.

The U.S is the home of "be the best you can be'"and " "your best self", " "whatever you want" and is the home of social media, with all of its imperatives and its influence.

Transgenderism as a social phenomenon is the apotheosis of American consumer culture aligned with the cult of the individual; fed by big Pharma and by post modernistic theories of the self - borne on liberal university campuses.

Have you heard of 'Crazy Like Us'? A book about how the U.S exports its cultural and social maladies around the world, along with ready made solutions to 'curing' them.

Does anyone remember, years ago, there was an article/report by an American HCP who worked in a clinic or practice that treated trans kids and she said that teenage girls were coming to the clinic for PBs like they were going to get their ears pierced together, like a group social thing, something along those lines? I think she herself was in a relationship with a transman.
Am I completely misremembering this?

No that isn't what I'm saying FGS. Trying to imagine how this extraordinary treatment looks in different societies. Every society has weird ideas about some drugs - alcohol being the classic British one. I can't imagine sitting in a room with a doctor informing me that they needed to halt my young child's physical development with chemotherapy for anything other than an aggressive cancer, and my reaction not being 'fuck off'. So I'm trying to see how this is considered OK, or more OK than it is over here.

When I google 'how many kids in the USA are on puberty blockers' and all the returns are 'just x% are on puberty blockers' or 'only a very few children' I get the heebie jeebies about it. I'm sorry, I just don't believe these numbers.

Children whose mental health is much like their peers, take serious drugs for two years after which their mental health is … much like their peers!

effects of drugs on human brains are often studied in sheep because apparently there are many similarities (!)

in sheep studies there have been sex differences and lack of maturity, especially in the hippocampus. Which is important for all sorts of things but also is often smaller in depressed individuals

and the Cass report considers a longer one with more children….

its not going to show any difference

So what you're saying here is that children should be put on meds that have no provable benefits and plenty of concerning side effects, because ... people like being on meds.

Seriously?

Does this study comment on the amount of physical side effects? Or just focus on mental health?

Cos if it merely maintains mental health but results in poorer physical health it's really not a great result is it?

I think with regard to the sample size, it is genuinely small numbers ever being given these drugs, so a study of 100 kids is big in those terms. It will add up in a big country like the US with the explosion in gender clinics following the funding agreement in 2015. A big multisite study would be the next thing I guess - maybe the British study will be set up as multinational and multisite?

I suppose they will argue that their mental health is OK because they have been promised they're getting the drugs.

Just another reminder that prior to the mass arrival of GLP1s (weight loss drugs), 65% of Americans were on at least one prescription drug and 25% of Brits were. Those proportions may well have changed post GLP1s and I don't know the pattern for under-18s. But it is culturally normal for Americans to have 'their meds' in a way that is not quite the same here. I have enormous respect for the power of culture in people's choices, emotions and perspectives on their own lives.