,
16 tweets,
8 min read
Read on Twitter
1. LONG THREAD: Double mastectomies for young teens in the United States, in contrast to concerns voiced by former @NHS @TaviAndPort clinicians in 8th April @thetimes articles.
Thread includes more leaked posts provided by our source in the affirmative-parent Facebook group.
Thread includes more leaked posts provided by our source in the affirmative-parent Facebook group.
2. On 8th April, a former clinician at @taviandport described to @thetimes her unease about possible regret by females who undergo double mastectomies: “What can we do? We can’t reverse that. Do we suggest fake breasts?”
archive.is/FYWSN#selectio…
archive.is/FYWSN#selectio…
4. Compare this to audio clip of Johanna Olson-Kennedy, director of @ChildrensLA gender clinic, telling her audience at Gender Spectrum last summer that a regretter getting fake breasts “later in life” is no problem; they can just “go and get them.”
5. It’s no secret that Olson-Kennedy approves of –and has published a study about—“chest surgery” for youth as young as 13 years old. She discusses all of this in a longer excerpt from her talk at the 2018 Gender Spectrum conference.
6. The study was published in 2018 in the Journal of the American Medical Association (Pediatrics). 
7. In a new batch of leaked posts from the affirmative-parent FB group, members discuss double mastectomies provided to young adolescents. In several threads, surgeons who purportedly operated on 13-16 yr olds are named. (More about surgeons later in this tweet-thread.)
8. One parent (whose child underwent double mastectomy at 13) thinks 12 isn’t too young. The theme, unsurprisingly, is that such early surgeries are life-saving.
9. What to do when Dad believes the child ought to wait until 18 to make such a life-altering decision?
10. Who is approving these surgeries for minors? In at least some cases, endocrinologists and pediatricians. One recalcitrant psychiatrist was “dumped” when she wouldn’t go along with it.
11. In some cases, it appears that private insurance is paying for double mastectomies for middle-schoolers.
12. TransFamilySOS is mentioned as a resource in multiple threads to help pressure insurance companies. Pulling money out of a child's college fund seems to be another strategy to help cover costs.
13. TransFamilySOS, the org frequently mentioned as a resource for pressuring insurance companies, was founded by Kathie Moelig, whose 14-yr-old underwent double mastectomy (reported in the San Diego Union Tribune in 2016).
transfamilysos.org/founder/
sandiegouniontribune.com/lifestyle/peop…
transfamilysos.org/founder/
sandiegouniontribune.com/lifestyle/peop…
14. Public insurance (Medicaid) also covers double mastectomy for minors in some states. But if Medicaid won’t, some people (according to this post) are evidently committing insurance fraud by claiming another reason for the procedure.
15. Per the authors of many posts, there's no dearth of US surgeons ready & willing to perform double mastectomies on young teens. NOTE: 4thWaveNow has not independently verified claims made in screen-captured posts vis-à-vis minimum age approved by MDs for double mastectomy.
16. As one might expect, according to some members, “Dr. Jo” has been instrumental in advocating to push the envelope on minimum age for surgeries (as well as cross-sex hormones).
