A hearing for Senate Bill 55, known as the SAFE Act (Save Adolescents from Experimentation) was held on Wednesday, March 19, before the Senate Health & Social Services Committee.

The bill has not been released from committee and likely never will.

Senate Bill 55 would prohibit gender transition procedures for children due to the potential for irrevocable harm occurring when there is a significant probability that children will come to identify with their biological gender without such treatments.

As the bill’s sponsor, I had three witnesses provide testimony remotely.

They were Jamie Reed of the Courage Coalition, a Pediatric Clinic whistleblower, Camille Kiefel, a detransitioner, and Dr. Christopher Casscells.

I found out later that another detransitioner was prepared to offer testimony. Prisha Mosley had registered, was in the que and had put her hand up to speak, but was not acknowledged.

The testimony she was prepared to offer appears later in this Senate newsletter.

What’s interesting about the testimony of Jamie Reed is that she is a Democrat, is a self-proclaimed liberal and is married to a transman.

Together they are raising her two biological children from a previous marriage and care for three foster children that they hope to adopt.

In 2018 Jamie worked as a case manager at The Washington University Transgender Center at the St. Louis Children's Hospital.

In an article Jamie authored, she said the center’s working assumption was that the earlier you treat kids with gender dysphoria, the more anguish you can prevent later on. 

“This premise was shared by the center’s doctors and therapists. Given their expertise, I assumed that abundant evidence backed this consensus. I left the clinic in November of last year because I could no longer participate in what was happening there,” Jamie wrote. 

“By the time I departed, I was certain that the way the American medical system is treating these patients is the opposite of the promise we make to ‘do no harm.’ Instead, we [were] permanently harming the vulnerable patients in our care.”

“Almost everyone in my life advised me to keep my head down. But I cannot in good conscience do so. Because what is happening to scores of children is far more important than my comfort. And what is happening to them is morally and medically appalling.”

There is much more to Jamie’s story that I will be glad to send to anyone interested in learning more about why she is determined to risk ridicule and speak out. Send a request to bryant.richardson@delaware.gov.

I don’t have enough time to write about what happened during the entire hearing, which lasted more than two hours, but anyone interested in hearing the testimonies of Camille Kiefel and Dr. Christopher Casscells can listen to the entire hearing here.

The challenge I faced in presenting Senate Bill 55 was to introduce overwhelming evidence about the dangers to youth who are subjected to gender transition procedures and to dispel biased and inaccurate information from those who profit from providing treatments.

Having the most current factual information available is crucial when it comes to deciding the best course of action for protecting the development of our youth. 

Senate Bill 55 provided for compensatory damages, injunctive relief, declaratory relief, or any other appropriate relief for those injured by actions prohibited by this Act.

A physician or healthcare professional making the referral for or provision to a child would be subject to discipline by the appropriate licensing entity or disciplinary review board. 

Despite a lack of studies demonstrating the long-term risks and benefits to using puberty-blocking drugs, some healthcare providers are prescribing those drugs for children who experience difficulty identifying with their biological sex. 

Studies demonstrate that the majority of children who are gender nonconforming or experience difficulty identifying with their birth sex comes to identify with their biological sex in adolescence or adulthood, rendering most physiological interventions unnecessary. 

One of the points I made was to question how children can agree to treatments without being fully capable of understanding the risks. 

How do you explain the long-term risks to a 12 year old? 

I recently went to an orthopaedic surgeon about possible back surgery. The doctor explained to me all the risks, even those occurring in less than one percent of those going through such surgeries.

Is a child able to understand the risks, especially the long-term risks associated with gender transition procedures? 

In just a relatively short period of time gender dysphoria has become a widespread problem.

It is spreading as a social virus and infecting the minds of young people in search of acceptance.

When a child is struggling with their identity, they should not be subjected to irreversible harm from hormones and surgeries.

In her writings about being a whistleblower, Jamie Reed ends with this warning:

“Experiments are supposed to be carefully designed. Hypotheses are supposed to be tested ethically. 

“The doctors I worked alongside at the Transgender Center said frequently about the treatment of our patients: ‘We are building the plane while we are flying it. 

“No one should be a passenger on that kind of aircraft.”

Testimony of Prisha Mosley

My name is Prisha Mosley. When I was a teenager, I was fraudulently administered a gender transition as treatment for my mental distress. 

I was struggling with trauma, depression, an eating disorder, and a personality disorder. 

These medical interventions, which were administered onto my previously healthy body, disrupted my natural progression into adulthood and have left me with irreversible side effects, the nature of which are painful and unfair. 

I deal with the loss of body parts, loss of my health, and loss of the opportunity to breastfeed my son after giving birth.

Testosterone and surgery were supposed to transform me into a man, but the promises my doctors made were lies. 

I was promised male puberty, but instead developed PCOS (polycystic ovary syndrome) and pre-menopause. I was not warned that I would be facing chronic pain, hormone imbalance, or that transition would not fix my trauma. 

Transition was described by my doctors as a magic bullet to fix all of my problems. 

Mammals cannot change sex. There are no trans children, only ideologically captured activists and doctors who lie and twist distress into an identity. 

No child benefits from being needlessly injected with hormones and given amputations based on their feelings. 

Making cosmetic alterations to the secondary sex characteristics does not cure mental distress, but worsens it. 

Children deserve to grow up with their health intact and to receive ethical and evidence-based treatment when they are distressed. 

They deserve better than to be medicalized for profit and then abandoned by doctors when they face complications like I did.

Doctors are not informing patients about the irreversible consequences of being medicalized for a trans identity, and there’s no one to help put the pieces back together once you experience regret.

Prisha Mosley

Detransitioner and Advocate