ACLU Targets Whistleblower Jamie Reed in Fight against Missouri Law Banning Transgender Procedures for Minors

The American Civil Liberties Union is going after former gender-clinic case manager Jamie Reed in its fight against Missouri’s restrictions on transgender procedures for minors.

Attorneys for plaintiffs in the Noe v. Parson case subpoenaed Reed’s communications with various legal organizations, lawmakers, media outlets, law-enforcement agents, former patients, the Missouri attorney general’s office, and other relevant parties. Reed blew the whistle last year with allegations of negligence and mistreatment of children at a pediatric gender clinic in St. Louis.

The ACLU’s attempt to obtain a collection of Reed’s communications appears to go against the organization’s historical mission of protecting civil liberties, Reed attorney Ernie Trakas told National Review.

“I am disappointed that the ACLU, an organization that historically has been devoted to the protection of whistleblowers like Jamie Reed, is now doing the very thing it has always stood against. If the ACLU will not stand up for whistleblowers, who will?” Trakas said.

Missouri passed legislation last year banning transgender surgeries and hormone treatment for minors after Reed’s explosive allegations sparked a national conversation on the efficacy of such treatments.

The ACLU, Lambda Legal, and Brian Cave Leighton Paisner LLP filed a lawsuit in Cole County, Mo., last year on behalf of three families, medical providers, and LGBT activist groups challenging the Missouri law.

Independent journalist Jesse Singal was among the individuals whose communications were listed in the initial version of the subpoena, he revealed on X on Thursday evening. Reed’s name is redacted from the publicly available subpoena, but Singal said she is the non-party in question.

“I was alarmed by this. It’s surreal that a branch of the ACLU, of all organizations, was attempting to peer into my inbox. I hope they can provide a more convincing explanation than ‘It was an accident,’ which doesn’t entirely make sense to me, if I’m being honest,” Singal told National Review.

The ACLU removed Singal from the subpoena after he inquired about it, he said on X. A spokesperson confirmed to National Review that Singal and “other media” figures were removed from the subpoena.

“The ACLU of Missouri has always been and remains committed to the freedom of press. While no subpoena was issued to Mr. Singal, the subpoena that was served to a former staffer at a Missouri clinic has since been revised to exempt information from Mr. Singal and other media,” a spokesperson for ACLU’s Missouri chapter told NR. Independent science reporter Benjamin Ryan said on X on Friday that the initial subpoena for Reed’s communications with media outlets would have also included him.

The spokesperson did not immediately respond to follow-up questions. National Review has reached out to the legal team of ACLU’s Missouri branch for additional comment. The Missouri attorney general’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

Reed, a progressive woman who identifies as queer, first came forward to the Free Press in February 2023 about her work as a case manager at the Washington University Transgender Center at St. Louis Children’s Hospital. She gave a detailed account of how vulnerable minors were rushed into life-changing medical treatments including cross-sex hormones and surgeries. In a sworn affidavit, Reed provided the same account of her experience at the pediatric gender clinic.

“Children come into the clinic using pronouns of inanimate objects like ‘mushroom,’ ‘rock,’ or ‘helicopter.’ Children come into the clinic saying they want hormones because they do not want to be gay. Children come in changing their identities on a day-to-day basis,” Reed stated in her affidavit.

“Children come in under clear pressure by a parent to identify in a way inconsistent with the child’s actual identity. In all these cases, the doctors decide to issue puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones.”

Singal defended Reed from an avalanche of criticism from progressives, and Reed predicted to him that her account would later be verified by independent investigators. A New York Times investigation published in August appeared to vindicate Reed’s telling of events at the Washington University clinic.

Numerous detransitioners have come forward to tell their stories of becoming transgender as minors and then switching back after experiencing the negative physical and mental effects of transitioning. Some of them have filed lawsuits against the health-care providers who allegedly rushed them into medical procedures that permanently altered their bodies and did not solve underlying mental-health problems.

Newly released internal documents from the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), an organization in favor of giving minors transition procedures, show the group knew children were unable to fully comprehend the medical decisions they were making, contradicting WPATH’s public position on the issue. Leading medical organizations such as the American Academy of Pediatrics and American Medical Association rely on WPATH’s standards for transgender care.

The U.S. is an outlier compared with most European nations in the support from the scientific establishment and the Democratic Party for “gender-affirming” surgeries for minors, despite a lack of evidence indicating they produce the desired result of improved mental health and the firsthand testimony of detransitioners.

Editor’s Note: This story has been updated to clarify Ryan’s tweet.