“She just sent me onto a pipeline of destruction.” Former Patients of Canadian Pediatrics Society's New President Speak Out
Canadian pediatrician Dr. Natasha Johnson's appointment to lead the society has alarmed three families I spoke with after she fast tracked their adolescent children for gender-transition drugs.
Canadian pediatrician Dr. Natasha Johnson’s appointment as the new president of the Canadian Pediatric Society has alarmed three families I spoke with for a new investigation I’ve published today in The New York Sun. I hope you will take the time to read it.
Each of these families shared strikingly similar stories with me. They all had children who suffered from severe mental illness and who, after a short period of cross-sex identification during their adolescence, wound up in Dr. Johnson’s pediatric gender clinic at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. They were all fast tracked to receive gender-transition drugs absent an assessment by a mental-health professional. And all the parents reported strikingly similar stories about how their concerns about this treatment path were minimized and even stigmatized by Dr. Johnson.
Dr. Johnson, as I previously reported, said at a 2022 conference that the concerns of parents about putting their kids on gender-transition drugs “should not be prioritized.”
I’ve spent a quarter century gravitating toward gravely serious and often upsetting subjects as a reporter—infectious disease, climate change, gender medicine. I’ve never been particularly interested in writing about anything that wouldn’t render most people anxiety ridden and depressed. Usually, the subject matter at hand doesn’t get to me. But I must say, the phone calls I had with one of Dr. Johnson’s former patients, who was in tears at multiple points during our conversations about what she had been through in this woman’s care, left me stricken.
Fortunately, I could do something with that grief. I could tell her story. So I hope you’ll read about it, and I hope you’ll help spread the word. Here’s a tweet about it if you’d like to share that.
One of the families I spoke with was brave enough to go fully on the record. Faith Groleau, now 26, was a patient at Dr. Johnson’s gender clinic for about a year and a half starting at age 17. She and her mother, Amy, both spoke with me at length. And Faith was generous enough to share with me documentation of two complaints she filed against Dr. Johnson and the clinic’s endocrinologist, Dr. John VanderMeulin (neither of whom responded to requests for comment.) And she has given me permission to publish them in full below.
The two documents are the responses that Ms. Groleau received from the Inquiries, Complaints and Reports Committee of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario, or CPSO. The committee declined to take actions about either of her complaints, in both cases saying essentially that it could not properly adjudicate conflicting claims about what went on behind closed doors.
I appreciated the chance to review these documents, because they were the only opportunity I had to hear from either of these doctors about the complaints against them from their former patients and their parents with whom I spoke.
As I reported in the Sun, the CPSO sent me this reply to my inquiry:
A representative for the college told the Sun that due to confidentiality policies, it could not comment on any complaints it might have received about a physician. The college, the representative said, “does not set clinical practice guidelines, which fall under the purview of professional medical associations and medical experts.” The college’s role, the representative continued, “is to set expectations for safe, ethical practice and to ensure physicians meet established standards.”
The complaint about Dr. Johnson
The complaint about Dr. VanderMeulin
I am an independent journalist, specializing in science and health care coverage. I contribute to The New York Times, NBC News, The Free Press, UnHerd and The New York Sun. I have also written for the Washington Post, The Atlantic, The Guardian and The Nation, among many others. Follow me on X: @benryanwriter. Visit my website: benryan.net
Thank you as always for continuing to investigate and share these stories. As a parent of a 20 y/o trans identified natal daughter (who has been on testosterone for 2 years after a 30 minute visit to a clinic under the informed consent model) who has to remain stealth at the moment in order to maintain connection with her, I am continually grateful to those who are open with these painful narratives and the carelessness with which the kids have been treated -- and to you for asking the questions and laying the accounts out with both journalistic integrity and care. I yearn for the day when I feel free enough to share our own family's experiences with the "professionals" we have encountered. I know I am far from alone.
Absolutely egregious, thank you as always for your outstanding reporting, Ben.