Now, however, Dr Olson-Kennedy is being sued by a former patient, Clementine Breen, who believes that she was harmed precisely by a lack of gatekeeping. And many of Ms Breen’s claims appear to be backed up by Dr Olson-Kennedy’s own patient notes, which Ms Breen and her legal team have shared with The Economist. The medical-negligence lawsuit was filed on December 5th in California.
Ms Breen is a 20-year-old drama student at ucla whose treatment at Dr Olson-Kennedy’s clinic included puberty blockers at age 12, hormones at 13 and a double mastectomy at 14. She stopped taking testosterone for good about a year ago and then began detransitioning in March. The lawsuit’s defendants are Dr Olson-Kennedy, the gender therapist to whom Dr Olson-Kennedy referred her, the surgeon who performed the double mastectomy and 20 as-yet-unnamed “Doe Individuals” who were agents, servants, and employees of their co-defendants.” Ms Breen’s attorneys accuse them of medical negligence on a number of grounds, including an alleged lack of psychological assessment, poor management of Ms Breen’s mental health and a lack of concern about the effects of puberty blockers on Ms Breen’s bone health.
Why sue? One answer is that Ms Breen is seeking monetary damages. But she also cites “personal closure reasons” in an interview, as well as a desire to rebut the notion that rushed youth gender transitions are rare in America, a claim commonly made by some lgbt activists. “People are just brushing exactly what happened to me off as something that doesn’t happen,” she says.
The doctor who chose not to publish a study on puberty blockers because it showed no improvement in participants’ mental health is the very same Johanna Olsen-Kennedy who’s being sued by a young woman put on blockers at 12, given testosterone at 13 and a double mastectomy at 14.
