Missouri transgender clinic will no longer prescribe hormone drugs to minors due to new state law
A Missouri transgender clinic that came under fire for its alleged rush to prescribe hormone drugs to children will end the practice due to a new state law.
The Washington University Transgender Center at St. Louis Children’s Hospital “will no longer prescribe puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones to minors for purposes of gender transition,” the university announced Monday.
The center became a catalyst for state legislators to draft the new law, which bars hormone therapy for minors under 18 after a whistleblower came forward in February to claim physicians doled out hormone drugs to kids with little screening of their mental health issues.
A former caseworker at the clinic, Jamie Reed, said its practices were “morally and medically appalling” and were “permanently harming” children by failing to take into account “red flag” mental health concerns, glossing over potential side effects and ignoring the few who later decided to detransition.
The newly enacted law only provides an exemption for patients who were already receiving gender-confirming hormone meds prior to Aug. 28.
But the Transgender Center decided to end such services to all its patients, new and old, because of a new legal claim the law created for minors who received the medications, university officials said.
“This legal claim creates unsustainable liability for health-care professionals and makes it untenable for us to continue to provide comprehensive transgender care for minor patients without subjecting the university and our providers to an unacceptable level of liability,” Washington University said in a statement.
The law enacts a minimum liability of $500,000.
The center will refer its current patients to other providers and said it was “disheartened” by its forced decision.
It will still offer education and mental health support for transgender children as well as medical care for those over 18.
Several patients at the clinic and their parents slammed Reed’s allegations and said they don’t add up with their own experiences, adding that she worked only on the administrative side and didn’t actually see what was happening in medical appointments.
Some of the former case manager’s accusations were later corroborated, while others were unable to be confirmed as part of a New York Times investigation that included interviews with dozens of patients, parents, former employees and local health providers and more than 300 pages of documents.
The report found that the clinic often relied on external therapists, some with little expertise in gender issues, to make the call on their young patients’ eligibility for hormone drugs and that the clinic provided little to no support for its former patients who stopped identifying as transgender.
Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey is investigating Reed’s claims and many Republicans in the state seized on her whistleblower report.
The parent of a former patient at the transgender center blamed politics for the closure of the hormonal drug program.
“I hope that they’re very pleased with the harm that they’re doing to transgender children,” Kim Hutton, whose now-adult son received treatment, told the St. Louis Dispatch Monday. “Obviously our children are not worthy of care.”
