The same doctor who has refused to release the results of a federally funded study on “gender-affirming care” is now being sued by a former patient, a young woman who says she was “fast-tracked” into a gender transition that culminated in having her breasts removed at age 14.
Dr. Johanna Olson-Kennedy, medical director of the Center for Transyouth Health and Development at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, oversaw the treatment of Kaya Clementine Breen, who was diagnosed with gender dysphoria at age 12 at her first appointment in December 2016.
Ms. Breen’s medical negligence complaint says that Dr. Olson-Kennedy “affirmed” the girl’s transgender identity within minutes of meeting her, put her on puberty blockers at age 12 and testosterone at age 13, and then referred her for a double mastectomy.
“She represented that if Clementine got a double mastectomy at an early age, the healing process would be easier, and that if she waited any longer, it would be impossible to do it right,” reads the lawsuit, filed Dec. 5 in California Superior Court in Los Angeles.
When Clementine’s parents objected, Dr. Olson-Kennedy asked them “if they would rather have a living son or a dead daughter,” even though the girl had not experienced or expressed suicidal thoughts, the complaint says.
Now 20, Ms. Breen has concluded she was never transgender. She stopped taking testosterone in early 2024 after switching to a therapist who treated her for unresolved trauma from a childhood sexual assault that left her feeling uncomfortable with her body.
“It wasn’t until earlier this year, when I actually started doing research about my own doctor and the things that she said, like, that you can just get breast implants later, or that comorbidities with mental health don’t cause gender dysphoria,” Ms. Breen said in a video called “Clementine’s Story” produced by the Center for American Liberty.
“And that’s when I started to realize that what happened to me wasn’t right, and isn’t actually the standard, or shouldn’t be,” said Ms. Breen, a student at UCLA.
Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, which is also a defendant in the lawsuit, said the center “has provided high quality, age-appropriate, medically necessary care for youth and young adults, and their families for more than 30 years.
“Treatment is led by the experienced physicians who practice at CHLA and is patient- and family-centered, following guidelines from professional organizations such as the American Academy of Pediatrics, American Medical Association, and Endocrine Society,” a hospital spokesperson told The Washington Times.
Ms. Breen’s case isn’t a one-off. At least 17 “detransitioners” have sued their medical providers in the last two years over the drugs and surgeries they were prescribed that they now regret.
What makes her situation striking is the young age at which she underwent so-called top surgery and the renowned doctor in charge of her care.
Dr. Olson-Kennedy is a nationally recognized expert on transgender and gender-nonconforming children, running the nation’s largest youth gender clinic and serving as a professor of clinical pediatrics at the University of Southern California’s Keck School of Medicine.
She’s also under congressional scrutiny for withholding the final results of research on puberty blockers for transgender youth funded by $9.7 million from the National Institutes of Health that began in 2015.
A House subcommittee launched an investigation last month, demanding that NIH turn over grant applications, progress reports and unpublished data about the study, titled “The Impact of Early Medical Treatment in Transgender Youth.”
In addition, six Senate Republicans called on NIH to produce the study’s annual progress reports, saying in a Dec. 5 letter that “taxpayers have a right to know the outcomes of the research they fund.”
The concerns were spurred by an Oct. 23 report in which Dr. Olson-Kennedy said she fears the study’s conclusions will be “weaponized” because they found that the 95 children aged 8-16 who were treated with puberty blockers for two years did not experience improved mental health.
“They’re in really good shape when they come in, and they’re in really good shape after two years,” she told the New York Times.
Her description appeared to clash with a 2020 baseline update that said about one-quarter of the children were depressed or suicidal before the treatment began.
Rep. Lisa McClain, chairwoman of the House Oversight subcommittee on health care, said lawmakers are “alarmed that the project’s principal investigator, Dr. Johanna Olson-Kennedy, is withholding publication of the project’s research findings.”
“Dr. Olson-Kennedy’s apparent mischaracterization of the TYC study’s results and refusal to publish taxpayer-funded research because they contradict her pre-existing biases and could be cited by critics of ’gender affirming’ medical interventions is an irrefutable example of politicization of scientific research to further an ideological agenda,” Ms. McClain, Missouri Republican, said in the Nov. 4 letter.
The Washington Times has reached out to Dr. Olson-Kennedy for comment. She has not commented publicly on the criticism, but other researchers have defended her, saying that study leaders are typically given latitude to publish their findings at their discretion.
Ms. Breen was one of the children who participated in the study, according to Jordan Campbell, whose Dallas law firm Campbell Miller Payne represents her. Her California-based counsel is the LiMandri & Jonna firm.
The lawsuit says that Dr. Olson-Kennedy depicted the treatment as reversible, but Ms. Breen, who went by “Finn” during her transgender days, is still grappling with the physical and mental fallout.
“Her voice has permanently deepened. Her female body did not develop, and she has a very masculine body structure,” the complaint states. “Her fertility is almost certainly destroyed from the combination of years on puberty blockers and testosterone. And even if she could conceive and deliver a child, she would not be able to breastfeed because her healthy breasts were removed when she was only 14.”
Despite the problems, Ms. Breen says she is happy to have left her transgender identity behind, saying she has found “so much peace in being my true self.”
Her case comes as the Supreme Court is considering a challenge to Tennessee’s ban on medicalized gender treatment for minors. Twenty-four states now prohibit gender-transition drugs and surgeries, while another two forbid surgeries.
Ms. Breen offered a warning about rushing to diagnose troubled children who may lack the vocabulary to express what is really bothering them.
“You actually do have to interrogate why children are thinking the way that they do, and you cannot take children at their word all the time,” Ms. Breen said. “Kids have crazy ideas about all sorts of things, and it’s not OK to just go along with things so you can swipe an insurance credit card.”
• Valerie Richardson can be reached at vrichardson@washingtontimes.com.