Boston Children’s Hospital dramatically slashed the consultation time required before children receive gender transition treatment in a “reckless” reduction of care assessment, according to an ex-employee who is suing the hospital.
Dr. Amy Tishelman– a former champion turned critic of gender transition treatment for minors — has accused the Harvard-affiliated Boston Children’s Hospital of age-and-gender-based discrimination and retaliation after being fired in 2021, according to a report from The New York Sun.
The pediatrician testified in court on Thursday that she feels she first experienced blowback from her employer when she spoke up after the hospital made drastic changes to clinic policy regarding children who came to the hospital for gender transition treatment.
Tishleman was fired from the renowned hospital in 2021 after BCH alleged she violated a patient-privacy law, The New York Sun reported.
But the 68-year-old doctor said she was let go in retaliation for raising concerns over children’s pre-treatment care.
Tishleman was once widely recognized as a leader in pediatric gender medicine and started at Boston Children’s gender clinic in 2013.
At that time she was allotted 20 hours of therapy and interviews with patients before making a recommendation on what type of treatment they should undergo, according to her testimony as reported by the Sun.
But five years later, in 2018, administrators at BCH halved that period to just 10 hours — and then they slashed it again the same year to a two-hour assessment, according to her testimony.
“I didn’t feel like that was doable at all,” Dr. Tishleman said on the stand, according to the outlet.
“There’s a lot of things to think about in the long and short run,” she reportedly testified. “It’s not like taking an aspirin. It’s a big deal.”
Tishleman went on to call the eightfold reduction of the timeframe needed to assess “gender-distressed” children “reckless,” according to the Sun.
This suit against Boston Children’s Hospital comes after a major report on puberty blockers from The New York Times that revealed the hormones are not tied to psychological benefits in patients.
The leading investigator on that National Health Institute study refrained from publishing their findings expressly for political reasons, according to the Times.
Dr. Johanna Olson-Kennedy told the outlet that she believed the 9-year, $10-million study would be “weaponized” by critics of transgender procedures for kids.
A trial at BHC itself revealed a blind spot in pediatric gender transition treatment, namely, how the child patients fared in adulthood, according to the report.
The study found that after following up with youths two years after gender transition treatment those patients’ mental health did not improve, according to the Times.
minors. AFP via Getty Images
Republican lawmakers in Congress vowed to launch an investigation into the federal grant funding of that suppressed study.
Boston Children’s Hospital is no stranger to outrage from the general public.
Earlier this month, the BCH claimed in a now-deleted video that children are cognizant of their gender identity “from the womb.”
In 2007, Boston Children’s Hospital became the first US clinic to offer pediatric gender-transition procedures, which were first pioneered in the Netherlands.
Back in 2022, right-wing social media influencer Libs of TikTok was banned from Facebook after BCH received death and bomb threats following its post that falsely claimed the hospital was performing hysterectomies on minors.
The hospital says on its website that operations involving the removal of sex organs are only offered to adults over the age of 18.
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