Johanna Olson-Kennedy, a physician and advocate of so-called sex-change interventions for minors, faces a medical negligence lawsuit from a patient who underwent a double mastectomy.
The lawsuit filed on behalf of Clementine Breen, who was prescribed “a series of life-altering puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones” before receiving the double mastectomy at the age of fourteen, notes that Olson-Kennedy prescribed the substances and surgery despite her long history of mental health struggles. Those challenges included “multiple instances of sexual abuse as a child and adolescent” which were allegedly never explored by Olson-Kennedy.
Breen was indeed allegedly “fast-tracked onto the conveyor belt” of puberty blockers and the double mastectomy after she informed a school counselor that she was “struggling with the thought of developing into a woman” to the surprise of her parents. Olson-Kennedy, who runs the Center for Transyouth Health and Development at the Children’s Hospital in Los Angeles, then allegedly “immediately and unquestioningly” affirmed her new so-called gender identity.
“She did not ask about things like past trauma, abuse, or mental health struggles or diagnoses. She involved no other providers or health care professionals in this purported gender dysphoria diagnosis and recommendation for puberty blockers,” the lawsuit contended. “She simply took a handful of platitudinal statements from a scared, confused, and traumatized barely twelve-year-old girl to give a life-altering diagnosis and handed her the prescription pad.”
The lawsuit comes as lawmakers and medical professionals increasingly voice opposition to so-called sex-change interventions. Many critics of transgender interventions note the irreversible physical harm they render and the biological impossibility of changing individual sex.
Olson-Kennedy recently received criticism for withholding data from a study funded by the National Institutes of Health that did not show positive effects of puberty blockers out of fear that conservatives would use the data to oppose transgenderism. She said in an interview that she did not “want our work to be weaponized” or used in court to argue against puberty blockers.
Those interventions are nevertheless increasingly common. One new analysis from Do No Harm, an association of physicians combating leftist activism in healthcare, revealed that some 5,700 minors have been subjected to so-called sex-change operations between 2019 and 2023. Beyond those subjected to the surgeries, such as genital reconstructions or mastectomies, another 8,600 children received hormones or puberty blockers, while almost 62,700 prescriptions related to so-called sex-change procedures were written for minors.
At least twenty-three states have now passed prohibitions on transgender surgeries and hormones for minors, while other states have increased legal protections for the practices. Members of the Supreme Court heard arguments last week over a law in Tennessee that safeguards minors from puberty blockers and surgeries that alter their sex characteristics.
