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CV NEWS FEED // Clementine Breen, a 20-year-old student at UCLA, has filed a medical negligence lawsuit against Dr. Johanna Olson-Kennedy, medical director at the Center for Transyouth Health and Development at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles.
Olson-Kennedy, as CatholicVote reported, is the leader of a study regarding youth mental health and puberty blockers that has cost taxpayers nearly $10 million.
The lawsuit, first reported by The Economist, alleges that Breen was rushed into so-called “gender transition” procedures as a minor without adequate psychological evaluation or consideration of long-term consequences. Beginning at age 12, Breen was put on puberty blockers, started hormone therapy at 13, and underwent a double mastectomy at 14, all under Olson-Kennedy’s care.
The New York Post reported that Breen has argued these life-altering procedures were carried out despite her own uncertainty and unresolved trauma, including childhood sexual abuse and violence from a sibling.
According to the Post, Breen first approached a school counselor in 2016, at age 12, expressing confusion about whether she might be “transgender,” “lesbian,” or “bisexual.” The counselor immediately contacted her parents, informing them that she was “transgender,” which prompted them to seek Olson-Kennedy’s “transgender clinic.”
Within three months of her initial visit, Breen was implanted with a puberty blocker. Less than a year later, she began testosterone treatment. By May 2019, at just 14 years old, she had undergone a double mastectomy.
The lawsuit alleges that Olson-Kennedy misrepresented Breen’s mental state and coerced her parents into consenting to these procedures. When Breen’s parents expressed concern about testosterone therapy, Olson-Kennedy allegedly claimed that Breen was suicidal and would commit suicide without the procedure, even though Breen had never expressed suicidal thoughts.
Medical records from the time reportedly describe her as “alert … no acute distress … cooperative, smiling.” The suit also claims that Olson-Kennedy falsely stated in a letter to the surgeon performing the mastectomy that Breen had identified as male since childhood. In reality, according to Dr. Olson-Kennedy’s own notes, Breen had only started questioning her “identity” months earlier, the Post reported.
Breen’s legal team argues that Olson-Kennedy failed to conduct proper psychological evaluations or provide sufficient mental health support before initiating the experimental procedures. The lack of gatekeeping allowed Breen to proceed with irreversible medical interventions despite her uncertainty and history of trauma.
According to the Post, Breen said the procedures initially gave her a sense of relief, but her mental health eventually deteriorated. In 2020, a doctor noted that she had started self-harming, yet there was no evaluation of whether her transition had contributed to her distress.
Now an adult, Breen no longer identifies as male and is considering breast reconstruction surgery. She says she is left with permanent physical changes, including a deepened voice, an Adam’s apple, and potential infertility after years of testosterone therapy.
Breen hopes her lawsuit will draw attention to what she describes as a “lack of proper safeguards” in procedures that chemically sterilize and surgically mutilate minors.
“People are just brushing exactly what happened to me off as something that doesn’t happen,” she said, according to the New York Post.
The New York Post reported that Children’s Hospital Los Angeles declined to comment on the case, citing a policy against discussing pending litigation. Additionally, Breen’s former therapist’s notes were reportedly lost due to water damage, and the surgeon involved in her mastectomy declined to comment.
According to the court documents, Breen is demanding a trial by jury. The lawsuit states, “This so-called ‘treatment’ of Clementine by her providers represents a despicable, failed medical experiment and a knowing, deliberate, and gross breach of the standard of care that was substantially certain to cause serious harm.”
Olson-Kennedy has faced criticism in the past for her approach to experimental “gender-transition” procedures performed on minors. Recently, the New York Times reported that she admitted to withholding the results of a $10 million taxpayer-funded study that reportedly showed puberty blockers did not improve the mental health of transgender youth.
