Savior or Devil? Part l

Which best describes Dr. Laura Edwards-Leeper and Dr. Erica Anderson?

It was November 24, 2021, when my phone lit up with another revelation that those of us with kids caught in the gender cult thought signaled the end of gender interventions on children.  Dr. Laura Edwards-Leeper and Dr. Erica Anderson had published an op-ed in the Washington Post, entitled Mental Health Establishment is Failing Trans Kids, Gender exploratory therapy is a key step. Why aren’t therapist providing it? The article highlighted a real mother’s story of her depressed and traumatized daughter being immediately affirmed as a transgender boy by mental health providers without any exploration. The article revealed the failures of the mental health profession, and the coercive technique of using the risk of suicide to cajole the mother to “support” the depressed teen’s demand for transition.

While I celebrated the admissions of these two prominent gender mental health providers exposing the medical community, I would not go so far as to canonize them. They both believe in true trans, and even worse, they believe that they possess assessment techniques to determine which child is truly transgender and which child is not. Spoiler alert: no child nor adult is transgender. It’s not possible to be born in the wrong body. You get what you get.

Edwards-Leeper and Anderson proudly admitted in their Washington Post op-ed that:

Together, across decades of doing this work, we’ve helped hundreds of people transition their genders.

The hundreds of “people” that they are referencing are CHILDREN.

They also insulted those of us – rational humans – who want bathrooms to be sex-segregated with this little gem of a sentence:

This is an era of ugly moral panic about bathrooms, woke indoctrination and identity politics in general.

Apparently, to them, it’s moral panic to keep persons with fetishes and/or penises out of bathrooms where little girls frequent, and those of us who might recognize the danger are to be dismissed as ridiculous.  

But the coup de grâce was their admitted enthusiasm, thrill, excitement, passion, gusto, fervor, zeal, eagerness to perform secondary sex characteristic treatments on children:  

In response, we enthusiastically support the appropriate gender-affirming medical care for trans youth, and we are disgusted by the legislation trying to ban it.  

​It’s been almost three years to the day that their op-ed was published. My conflicted feelings for them lean squarely on disgust and revulsion for these two psychologists.

But as I describe the good, the bad and the ugly about them, I will let you be the judge.  Let’s start with Dr. Laura Edwards-Leeper.  Part II will discuss Dr. Anderson.

LAURA EDWARDS-LEEPER OPENED PANDORA’S BOX TO GENDER MUTILATION OF U.S. CHILDREN

Edwards-Leeper is proud that she is the birth mother of transitioning children in the United States.  As a young psychologist, Edwards-Leeper traveled to the Netherlands to learn about the emerging “Dutch Protocol” from Dr. Peggy Cohen-Kettenis and Dr. Annelou de Vries, who are truly the world’s creators of rearranging children’s bodies to appear as the opposite sex. DeVries hypothesized that the failed outcomes for adult gender-confused patients following their secondary sex characteristic modification interventions was the result of starting the body modifications too late. De Vries’ focus was clearly on the outward appearance of the body – “passing” as the opposite sex as opposed to improvements in life, hypothesizing that the better the body mimicked the opposite sex, the better the mental health of the patient.

For an excellent historical perceptive on the shift to performing gender interventions on children take a listen to Zhenya Abbruzzese’s talk at the 2023 Genspect conference.

​EDWARDS-LEEPER IS PART OF WPATH

Edwards-Leeper is one of the authors of the adolescent and children sections of WPATH’s Standard of Care 8, which at first lowered the ages for children/adolescent to get gender interventions and surgeries from the 2011 version, and then shortly after publishing completely removed all age restrictions.  Edwards-Leeper is not to be blamed for the removal as it was at Admiral Richard (Rachel) Levine’s bequest that they were removed. But Edwards-Leeper stayed silent on the fact that a layperson and extreme advocate from the UK, Susie Green who transitioned her homosexual son because her husband could not deal with a gay child, was also a contributor.  Edwards-Leeper stayed silent about the fact that the WPATH SOC-8 determined that “eunuch” is an acceptable gender identity for a child. Just the fact that Edwards-Leeper is a member of WPATH should cause everyone to question her morality. (See, the WPATH Files.)

“EVERYONE NEEDS A LAURA”

Whenever I think about Edwards-Leeper, I hear her voice saying “Everyone needs a Laura” in my head like nails on a chalkboard.  I was in the audience at a conference in New York with many of the world’s renowned gender specialists where she spoke. Edwards-Leeper’s presentation was filled with statements that the affirmation model is too simplistic; that a complete multi-disciplinary assessment is supposed to occur, and that with the right psychiatric investigation, transgender kids can be parsed out from “cis” kids. She proudly said that Dr. Spack told her that “everyone needs a Laura.”  Edwards-Leeper was implying that she is the one with the special powers to assess which child will benefit and which will be harmed by gender interventions.  Yes, special Laura knows which kids would not have grown to be comfortable with their natural bodies if left alone. She knows which child won’t regret having no sexual function, being infertile and have missing body parts. I asked her if she followed up with her patients that she approved for transition and she responded, “No, there is no money for that.”  Experiments on children with no data on outcomes because of lack of money. I don’t have words.  

EDWARDS-LEEPER AND ERICA ANDERSON RECENTLY SUBMITTED AN AMICUS BRIEF IN SUPPORT OF THE CHALLENGE TO THE BAN ON GENDER INTERVENTIONS ON CHILDREN IN THE CASE BEFORE THE SUPREME COURT

In their brief to the Supreme Court, they state that Tennessee’s ban on gender interventions for children will have “dire consequences.”  They claim that there is “broad consensus” that access to gender interventions is appropriate, while ignoring the growing number of countries outright banning or severely restricting such treatments because of the paucity of evidence of efficacy of these treatments.  Naively, they state that if only mental providers would strictly adhere to the WPATH’s Standards of Care – the same standards that have no age restrictions –  things would be peachy. Without any scientific basis, Edwards-Leeper and Erica Anderson claim that without the ability to alter their bodies, some children will suffer from worsening mental health symptoms or kill themselves, because treatments are life-saving.

EDWARDS-LEEPER PROTECTS HER OWN CHILD, AND SOMETIMES OTHER PEOPLE’S CHILDREN FROM GENDER IDEOLOGY

Edwards-Leeper is well aware of the social contagion aspect of gender identities, observing it in her hometown and practice, as clusters of kids announce that they are transgender. Edwards-Leeper even told my colleague that she was called by her child’s elementary school principal for help when parents were upset about a teacher instructing children about gender identities. Edwards-Leeper stated that there was no way her child was going to have that teacher the next year.  Yet, she continues to transition children.

I have interviewed a parent whose child was helped out of the gender cult by Edwards-Leeper in Oregon, so I suspect that she has helped other children to accept their biological sex.

To recap and summarize, Edwards-Leeper:

1. Brought the Dutch Protocol to the United States, altered it thereby experimenting on children, has no idea of the long-term results, and opened the first pediatric gender clinic in the United States

2. Assisted in opening the pediatric gender clinic at Randall Children’s hospital in Portland, Oregon

3. Teaches psychology students about the wonders of transitioning children

4. Helped transition hundreds of children

5. Continues to approve gender interventions on children

6. Perpetuates the false narrative that transitioning children is “life-saving”

7. Believes that she has the magic assessment techniques that can determine which child will remain distressed about their natural body but has no idea how many times she was wrong.  

8. Wants children to continue to be able to have irreversible gender interventions.

On the other hand, she has boldly, publicly chastised mental health providers for just rubber stamping every child for gender interventions, is willing to criticize her colleagues, and has helped some adolescents resolve their gender dysphoria.  

What do you think, is Edwards-Leeper friend or foe?

Republished with permission from Our Duty.