A whistleblower from the WashU Transgender Center has sued Washington University and says the school pushed her to resign, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported Tuesday, Nov. 3. Gayety couldn’t review the WashU transgender center whistleblower lawsuit or confirm who filed it by Tuesday afternoon, and the university’s newsroom hadn’t posted a response.
WashU Transgender Center Whistleblower Lawsuit Follows 2023 State Probe
The center, at St. Louis Children’s Hospital, came under state investigation in February 2023. Former case manager Jamie Reed had signed an affidavit for Missouri’s attorney general saying the center “gave children puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones after just two one-hour visits,” St. Louis Public Radio reported.
Andrew Bailey, the attorney general at the time, announced his probe in a press release. “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,” he said.
St. Louis Families and WashU’s Review Disputed Reed’s Account
Parents of former patients pushed back within weeks, the Missouri Independent reported. “We were not rushed into it,” said Danielle, whose son was a patient there and who didn’t share her last name. “We were not uninformed.”
Jess Jones spent two years beside Reed as the center’s educational coordinator and left in 2020. “I feel like I could go line by line to her affidavit,” Jones said, “and debunk it all.”
WashU’s own review, released that April, called the allegations “unsubstantiated.” The center’s doctors “adopted appropriate policies and procedures to treat patients according to the currently accepted standard of care,” the university found, according to the Independent. Bailey’s office wasn’t convinced. A spokeswoman said WashU’s findings “don’t line up with what we’ve uncovered so far in our investigation,” the Independent reported.
That October, parents Heidi and Greg, who gave only first names to protect their daughter, told First Alert 4 that Reed’s affidavit got her case wrong. “It’s blatant exploitation of my daughter’s medical situation,” Heidi said.
They shared records showing her liver damage came after she had COVID-19, the station reported. Reed told the station she stood by “my statement in the affidavit” about what the renal department had advised.
“In terms of the care our daughter received with the transgender center, we still have no regrets,” Greg said.
WashU Halted Gender-Affirming Prescriptions for Minors After Missouri’s 2023 Law
Missouri’s law restricting gender-affirming care for minors took effect Aug. 28, 2023, and it let patients already in treatment keep going, the Independent reported. Two weeks later, WashU said its doctors “will no longer prescribe puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones to minors for purposes of gender transition.”
The law also gave patients treated as minors a new right to sue. That claim “creates unsustainable liability for health-care professionals,” WashU said in its Sept. 11, 2023 statement. Missouri’s Amendment 3, one of the LGBTQ+ ballot measures on Tuesday’s ballots, would repeal the state’s 2024 abortion-rights amendment and add a ban on gender-affirming medical care for minors to the state constitution.
