Summary of the transcript and translation into French of his speech on YouTube.
Interview with Clementine Breen
Trad. Chat GPT - DeepL
Clementine Breen is a 20-year-old woman in detransition. She is suing Dr. Joanna Olson-Kennedy, one of the best-known advocates of pediatric gender medicine and early intervention. It all started with puberty, between the ages of 11 and 12, when her body began to change. She had always felt comfortable in a girl's body, even though she enjoyed certain activities considered masculine. The combination of wearing baggy clothes to hide her new breasts, playing with gender non-conformity, questioning her sexuality and feeling very uncomfortable about becoming a woman - linked to the sexual abuse she suffered in first grade - led Clementine to search online to see if she could be a boy or stop being a girl. Overwhelmed by the overwhelming feeling that something was wrong, she found in gender dysphoria a solution not to face what seemed unbearable.
At the age of 12, feeling unable to talk to her parents - who were caring for her older brother with psychiatric problems - she went to her college guidance counselor to share her deep discomfort and tell her that she was researching what it meant to be transgender, lesbian and bisexual, because she thought she fit one of these identities. Although Clementine links her discomfort with being a woman to sexual abuse, she believes her counselor misinterpreted and focused on the “transgender” factor. She immediately called her parents and talked to her classmates about what a transgender child was, saying that Clementine was transgender, that she needed another name and asking them to use male pronouns. At the counselor's request, his classmates wrote him little notes that, with a child's naiveté, congratulated him on being a boy. According to Clementine, what was an extremely complex subject was dealt with very simply.
Her parents reacted with surprise and tried to show her that it didn't make sense, but Clementine supported her position based on the online content. She recognized that she clearly didn't meet the diagnostic criteria, but that the results found in this content justified it. So her parents took her to Joanna Olson Kennedy's clinic, thinking a specialist would wake her up, but the exact opposite happened. At the first meeting, in less than 40 minutes, the diagnosis was made and the parents were encouraged to adopt a positive attitude towards Clementine. Today, the young woman is shocked by the speed of the process, since only three months elapsed between her “coming out” as trans and the medical diagnosis. The consultation took place with some urgency, including the recommendation to use puberty blockers before puberty progressed; an indication that suited Clementine, who never wanted to experience puberty again.
Despite the parents' concern and the discussion between them and the girl, and despite sensing that something was wrong, they went ahead with the process because they feared that Clementine's mood change and behavior at school would worsen. Her suffering was then treated with puberty blockers, but new problems arose: hot flashes and dizziness caused by a lack of estrogen, and breast deformation, the latter of which led Clementine to use Binder.
At no point was there any question as to whether the process was reversible or not, and the next step after using the blockers was testosterone. This is how she ended up being pushed to take testosterone more quickly, because there didn't seem to be any other option for her. Although hesitant, her parents eventually gave in to the decision to start testosterone, driven by the idea that there would be a high risk of suicide if they didn't agree. This was repeated by the doctor at meetings that Clementine did not attend. At the age of 13, she began self-administering testosterone injections, which were accompanied by self-mutilation. She has been followed since the age of 12 by Sudan Landon, a therapist recommended by Joanna Olson Kennedy, but considers the process superficial, despite the situation with her brother and her diagnosis of PTSD.
The testosterone caused a change in voice, a redistribution of body mass, mood swings and an intense increase in libido, and less than a year later, Clementine received the call for a mastectomy. She decided to have the operation quickly to get rid of her breasts, which had “shriveled” and become “strange” after taking puberty blockers. After the operation, when she realizes the trauma she has just undergone, she enters a state of mental confusion, with symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia. She is agitated, experiences visual and auditory hallucinations and delusions, making her think she is not human. Although she has been accompanied by psychiatrists, no one has suggested taking her off testosterone and treating her with psychiatric medication. Clementine is shocked to have paranoid and delusional thoughts, speaks of complex paranoid beliefs, says she is a man and that this is not considered a sign of psychosis, that no one has questioned her, not even her psychiatrist.
Joanna Olson began talking about the hysterectomy when Clementine was 17. But she was already engaged in a new psychotherapeutic process and began to think about what she was doing with her body and whether her actions towards her body were related to the trauma, but she didn't feel ready to face the fact that she wasn't trans. She gradually reduced her testosterone intake and found that after a detox process of a few weeks, with testosterone levels close to normal, her anxiety had disappeared, her insomnia had improved, she was less agitated and felt more lucid. In 2024, she decided to quit for good, and today regrets taking the hormones, feeling unable to experience emotions without their influence. At 12, she thought that female puberty would be the worst-case scenario for her, but at 20, she feels she has wasted eight years of her life creating a persona to escape the sexual abuse she suffered as a child.
Clementine feels that Joanna Olson Kennedy has treated her with real negligence. Clementine is well aware that meeting a doctor who is willing to do whatever the patient wants may at first glance be seen as something admirable, but it's not treatment. To treat is to take into account the uniqueness of each patient, without having a crude ideology to categorize, study and talk about them as a unit.
Sasha and Stella welcome Clementine Breen, a 20-year-old young woman who detransitioned after undergoing rapid medicalization as a child. Clementine was a patient of Dr. Johanna Olson-Kennedy, one of the most prominent advocates for pediatric gender medicine. Beginning at age 12, she was placed on puberty blockers, prescribed testosterone, and underwent a double mastectomy—all by the age of 14. In this episode, she shares her story, shedding light on the devastating consequences of fast-tracked gender-affirming care. Clementine discusses how following her surgery, she experienced severe mental health struggles, including dissociation, self-harm, and a suicide attempt, yet clinicians remained focused solely on continuing her transition despite her worsening mental status. Clementine shares how, years later, proper therapy allowed her to uncover deeper psychological and childhood issues, exposing the failure of superficial gender-affirming care to address underlying trauma. This conversation exposes the dangerous flaws in the gender medicine model and the lack of psychological evaluation for vulnerable youth. Clementine’s experience underscores the failures of the pediatric gender medical establishment, and the urgent need for accountability in a system that prioritizes affirmation over comprehensive care. For links and resources relevant to this episode, access the full show notes at https://www.widerlenspod.com/p/episod...
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