204 - Clementine Breen Sues Famous Gender Doctor, After Rushed Medical Transition

Gender: A Wider Lens

Sasha Ayad and Stella O'Malley

Health & Fitness, Society & Culture, Mental Health

4.6 • 961 Ratings

🗓️ 7 February 2025

⏱️ 71 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Sasha and Stella welcome Clementine Breen, a 20-year-old young woman who detransitioned after undergoing rapid medicalization as a child. Clementine was a patient of Dr. Johanna Olson-Kennedy, one of the most prominent advocates for pediatric gender medicine. Beginning at age 12, she was placed on puberty blockers, prescribed testosterone, and underwent a double mastectomy—all by the age of 14.

In this episode, she shares her story, shedding light on the devastating consequences of fast-tracked gender-affirming care. Clementine discusses how following her surgery, she experienced severe mental health struggles, including dissociation, self-harm, and a suicide attempt, yet clinicians remained focused solely on continuing her transition despite her worsening mental status. Clementine shares how, years later, proper therapy allowed her to uncover deeper psychological and childhood issues, exposing the failure of superficial gender-affirming care to address underlying trauma.

This conversation exposes the dangerous flaws in the gender medicine model and the lack of psychological evaluation for vulnerable youth. Clementine’s experience underscores the failures of the pediatric gender medical establishment, and the urgent need for accountability in a system that prioritizes affirmation over comprehensive care.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, I'm Stella O'Malley, a psychotherapist in Ireland.
0:04.0	And I'm Sasha Ayyad, an adolescent therapist in the United States.
0:08.0	And this is Gender, a Wider Lens, a podcast dedicated to the shifting concepts around gender in our contemporary culture.
0:16.0	Through in-depth interviews, personal stories, and psychological exploration, we seek to open up the discourse
0:22.7	around this hot-button issue. Join us as we look at gender from a wider lens.
0:32.0	Hi, Stella. How's it going, Sasha? This is our last interview.
0:43.6	It is. We have one more, I know. We have another episode coming up next week, but this was our last interview with a guest. And we really couldn't have picked someone better than Clementine Breen.
0:48.8	We are so touched to have her today. She's a 20-year-old woman, young woman, who is detransitioned. And her story is
0:57.6	particularly important because she was a patient of Dr. Joanna Olson Kennedy, who is one of the
1:04.2	most well-known advocates for early intervention, pediatric gender medicine. She received a $6 million grant to study puberty blockers.
1:14.1	She's in, you know, Los Angeles.
1:16.5	And she is one of the most prominent gender clinicians out there.
1:20.5	And Clementine began to see Dr. Olson Kennedy,
1:24.3	along with a therapist she recommended, at age 12.
1:29.5	And as you'll hear,
1:37.4	between 12 and 14, it was a very rapid succession of interventions. Puberty blockers recommended on the first session, testosterone, and then surgery when she was just 14.
1:43.8	And there's this incredibly forlorn image in the middle of it all.
1:48.0	When Clementine is telling the story, you're kind of, it's just rolling along.
1:52.3	And then she talks about she's in eighth grade.
1:54.3	She's recovering from a mastectomy at 14 and she is not able to do the activities because it's a school trip and she has to
2:04.9	set it out because she's recovering from a mastectomy and it just feels so wrong. It's like
2:10.2	this is just a baby who should be just enjoying school trip activities. It feels like she's a very good example of how fast track,
	...

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