The ACLU of Missouri has subpoenaed a transgender clinic whistleblower and her communications with journalists as part of their lawsuit to prevent a state law banning hormone therapy for minors.
Jamie Reed, a former employee of the Washington University Transgender Center at St. Louis Children’s Hospital, alleged that doctors rushed trans-identifying children to harmful drugs last February.
Shortly after Reed’s revelations, Missouri’s Republican governor, Mike Parson, signed a bill banning doctors from performing gender transition surgery or prescribing hormone therapy or other gender transition medications to children under 18.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri filed a lawsuit on behalf of three families of transgender children against Parson, the attorney general and the Missouri Board of Healing Arts to block the law.
In a subpoena filed Thursday, the ACLU demanded that Reed turn over all her communications with journalist Jessie Singal and all other members of the media.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri has subpoenaed all communications from whistleblower Jamie Reed (photo) with journalist
Reed, a former employee of the Washington University Transgender Center at St. Louis Children’s Hospital (pictured), alleged that doctors rushed trans-identifying children to harmful drugs
The filing requested: “All communications, including all documents exchanged, between you and Jessie Singal regarding gender-affirming care provided at or through the Center.”
“Any communications, including any documents exchanged, regarding gender-affirming care involving the media or between you and a media outlet or member of the media.”
Singal posted about the request on Twitter, saying: “Strange evening. The ACLU of Missouri has subpoenaed Jamie Reed and (among other things) demanded all her communications with me.”
“I sent them an email saying (politely): wtf, you’re the ACLU. I got a call from a lawyer there saying it was a mistake.”
In its response to Singal, the ACLU said, “The ACLU of Missouri has been and remains committed to the freedom of the press.”
“While no subpoena was issued to Mr. Singal, the subpoena served on a former Missouri clinic employee has since been revised to exempt information from Mr. Singal and other media.”
DailyMail.com has contacted the American Civil Liberties Union for comment.
Reed confirmed on Twitter that Lambda Legal, one of the other organizations representing the families in the lawsuit, had called her lawyers and removed the request for communication with Singal and the press.
“I don’t know exactly what @jessesingal said, but apparently there is a glimmer of hope that journalist rights (and source protections) still exist,” Reed said.
The Washington University Transgender Center at St. Louis Children’s Hospital announced an end to gender hormone therapy after the state law was passed.
The university said the clinic “will no longer prescribe puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones to minors for the purpose of gender transition.”
Reed, who worked at the clinic between 2018 and 2022, told The Free Press that the clinic administered a litany of irreparable treatments to minors, often without parental consent.
Reed claimed that doctors would ask questions like “do you want a dead daughter or a living son?” to ‘bully’ children’s parents into going ahead with gender transitions – on the pretext that failure to do so would make them suicidal.
The whistleblower said working at the center, where 600 children were medically transferred within two years, was: “It was like being in a cult and having to deprogram myself from it.”
Reed, who worked at the clinic between 2018 and 2022, told The Free Press that the clinic administered a litany of irreparable treatments to minors, often without parental consent.
Reed said the practices were “morally and medically abhorrent” and caused “permanent harm” to children by failing to take into account “red flag” mental health issues.
She also claimed that politicians were kept in the dark about mastectomies for adolescent girls and the age at which they could receive male testosterone hormones.
Reed said on a Gender Dysphoria Alliance podcast that lawmakers were misled about whether breast removal procedures, or “top surgery,” were performed on children during hearings at the Capitol in Jefferson City.
“They would go to the legislature and say no surgeries are done on minors… and yet I would be in the clinic knowing they were just watching the scars from someone’s best surgery heal, who is 16 or 17, ‘ she said. .
Reed said they were also misled about the age at which trans teenage girls could receive testosterone, a male hormone that leads to facial hair, bigger muscles, a deeper voice and a stronger sex drive.