Emily Yoffe Takes Sides Against a Vulnerable Youth

Bari Weiss’ Free Press finally turned up a single, divorced parent who feels unhappy with the treatment at the Transgender Center in St. Louis, contrary to her child and ex-husband, but in a twist the transgender teen at the heart of the story came forward on Twitter.

by Evan Urquhart

Emily Yoffe wrote a story for the Free Press earlier this week about the mother of a transgender youth who objected to their treatment at the Washington University Transgender Center at St. Louis Children’s Hospital. The woman, identified as Caroline, said she felt pressured to consent to a puberty-blocking implant. She is now furious that revoking her consent for treatment did not result in the implant being forcibly removed from her nonbinary transfemme child, which would have to have been done against their will and over the objection of the child’s father. Caroline retained the legal services of Vernadette Broyles, who works with the far-right legal group Alliance Defending Freedom. After the story published, someone plausibly claiming to be the nonbinary 16-year-old in question took to Twitter to tell their side, raising widespead concerns about Yoffe’s journalistic practices.

There are five key things you need to know upfront about the latest chapter in the Jamie Reed whistleblower saga:

• Two months after publishing the allegations of former case manager Jamie Reed, Bari Weiss’ Free Press managed to turn up Caroline, a single, solitary divorced parent who was willing to say on the record that she was unhappy with treatment at the Transgender Center in St. Louis.

• Neither her kid nor the child’s father agree with Caroline’s view of the center. They both want treatment to continue, but Caroline has withdrawn consent, causing the withdrawal of treatment. The withdrawal of treatment, however, did not result in the forcible removal of an implant from the teen in question.

• While Caroline attempted to back up Reed’s story, this parent still contradicts key claims made by Reed in numerous places.

• After publication, a person claiming to be Caroline’s 16-year-old nonbinary child tweeted about their frustrations with the story, and with Yoffe’s approach to the concerns they had pre-publication. A person claiming to be Caroline responded to them on Twitter.

• Multiple lines of circumstantial evidence tend to support the idea that the Twitter account did belong to the teen in question. A couple news organizations have written about their story and implied they verified the teen’s identity. Assigned considers it extremely likely to be them, but not confirmed conclusively.

There’s a lot to find unpleasant in the story by Emily Yoffe. It misgenders the 16-year-old nonbinary youth at the center of the story (who Yoffe refers to as “Casey” but is believed to be named Alex), throughout. Yoffe explains the misgendering is being done because Casey’s mom prefers to misgender them, and for “clarity.”

One particularly concerning passage concerns a plan by Caroline to have Casey’s pediatrician remove an implant containing puberty blockers, against the child’s will. No mention is made of the obvious practical and ethical issues which would prevent a doctor from agreeing to this bizarre scheme. Throughout the piece it treats the possibility of forcible removal of the implant from Casey as if it were a perfectly normal thing that a divorced non-custodial parent ought to be able to ask for, rather than highlighting the invasive and ethically fraught ramifications of forcibly removing something from a human being’s body without their consent.

screenshot from the Free Press

It’s a sleazy piece, and those are just some examples of its sleaziness. It also directly contradicts some of Reed’s key allegations.

In Reed’s affidavit, the former case manager stated that cross sex hormones after puberty blockers make youth permanently sterile (this is untrue, while infertility is a risk, most patients can regain fertility by going off cross-sex hormones). She further stated, under penalty of perjury, that doctors did not share this information with parents or children.

screenshot from Jamie Reed’s affadavit

Caroline, who is supposedly supporting Reed’s allegations describes both a handout including this information and a conversation with the doctor about the potential for infertility. This information was not only shared with both parents and children, but singled out as a special topic of discussion. And, this all happened at the commencement of puberty blockers, which on their own have no negative impact on fertility.

screenshot from the Free Press

Another place where Caroline’s story fails to substantiate Reed’s allegations is over the question of parental consent. Reed alleges that the Center routinely issued puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones without parental consent.

That’s not what Caroline describes. Instead, she objects to not having adults’ only meetings where her child was absent, and makes it clear that her consent was necessary throughout the process.

screenshot from the Free Press

The Free Press story included some quotes from Caroline’s child, who the piece makes clear is continuing to identify as trans and uses they/them pronouns. None of the quotes chosen for the piece disputed their mom’s version of events, or expressed discomfort or objection to the story.

After publication, however, a person claiming to be the teen in question posted a thread on Twitter. There are numerous circumstantial reasons to tend to believe the story. The account, which was created in 2019, has old tweets referencing being a trans teen of the right age, living in Missouri, and having parents who were divorced or separated.

The teen, who said their real name was Alex, explained in a thread that they hadn’t wanted the story to go forward, and felt their mom had misrepresented many of the facts. For example, they said their grades began slipping before they received the puberty blocking implant, and that their mental health struggles started with the pandemic, not the implant. They felt Yoffe treated them dismissively when they asked if their consent was needed for the story to go forward, and that Yoffe failed to include substantive responses they had to their mother’s version of the story.

A basic tenet of journalistic ethics is that journalists are supposed to fully and fairly represent the views of people central to their reported stories, especially if those stories are critical or negative. If Alex is the teen in question, Yoffe seems to have completely failed in her duty both to the subject of her story, and to the truth. By failing to question whether Caroline’s story was accurate, she failed to allow readers of the Free Press the information necessary to understand Caroline, her motivations, or understand the questions around what really happened with this family.

We’ve written before that Weiss' Free Press is not a news outlet. The coverage of this story only cements the picture of it as a vanity press and a propaganda mouthpiece.