 So Barry Weiss, like all conservatives, is currently trying to cash in on anti-trans hate and she shared an article published on her platform, The Free Press, about a mother who claims she was bullied or felt bullied into giving her child puberty blockers in an effort to alleviate the psychological distress that they were feeling. But the mother claims in this article that the puberty blockers didn't help and actually made their child much worse psychologically speaking. Now, Barry Weiss did not write the article. This was written by Emily Yoff, but it was published on her platform and she shared it on Twitter saying, Caroline was told that a puberty blocker would relieve her child's psychological distress, but that's not what happened. Now, we're not going to dive too deep into the story here, but I did read it, and it's exactly what it sounds like. A parent claims that they felt pressured by Washington University Transgender Hospital at the St. Louis Children's Hospital to put their child on sepulon, which is a puberty blocker. Now, the mother claims that once she approved this treatment for her child with gender dysphoria, it led to a lot of issues. Substantial weight gain as well as a decline in their school performance, mood, overall mental health, and the mother even claims that her child told a psychologist that they were having suicidal thoughts. So the overall takeaway after you read this article is that gender-firming care for trans youth is bad, and this is a scary phenomenon and parents who seek out gender-firming care for their children either don't really know what they're getting themselves into or they're being manipulated by politically motivated woke doctors. The problem is this story is propagandistic bullshit. This isn't a story about one child's bad experience with gender-firming care. This is a story about an ignorant parent who was probably predisposed to accept anti-trans propaganda already reluctant to approve gender-firming care for their child, struggling to grapple with the reality that their child is trans. And we know that this is the case because the child in this story spoke out and said that this is indeed the case. The child in question is Alex, and this is their story. Quote, I have reinstalled Twitter to respond to this story and make sure my voice is fully heard. I am Casey. My real name is Alex, but my mom decided it would be best to hide it for anonymity. But this is my story, not hers. This is not the Free Press' story. About a week ago, my mom contacted Emily Yoff without my knowledge and told her what was supposed to be our story. She expressed her frustration with the transgender clinic at Washington University, many of which are false perceptions that my mom has about doctors and the clinic. I learned of this article through my mom over the phone when she asked if it was okay that the Free Press published the article. I said that I wanted to read it first. When I read the draft, I was disgusted with what the reporter and my mom had made my experience out to be. Upon interviewing Emily Yoff myself, I was told that I had no say in whether or not the article was published. I asked if my consent was required to publish the article and the reporter told me, quote, that's not how these things work. After she had edited the article and published it, I had not found this out until 20 hours later. I was extremely frustrated. The article makes it out that my mother had no say in the implant of sepulon. This is completely false. My mother claims that she was pressured into saying yes by the doctors. A big issue they point out is that the doctors quoted suicide statistics in transgender adolescents. I do not deny that these statistics were quoted, but I also maintain that the doctors didn't say that I was at substantial risk of this. The article mentions that my grades dropped from A's and B's to D's and F's in a semester. This is a completely exaggerated statement. My grades were on a steady decline since 2020 due to unrelated mental health concerns. Speaking of mental health, the article claims that my mental health issues can be attributed to the sepulon implants. However, my personal experience shows that this is not the case. Since COVID-19, my mental health has been declining and it was already an issue. I was in counseling with the Washington University Transgender Care Center in which I was treated amazingly by my counselor. She was a friend to me and offered a great amount of support. This was taken away when my mom revoked consent for the sepulon. After she revoked consent, my father and I, along with the university, attempted to set up a meeting with my mom. She did not attend this meeting, claiming that she was not contacted. Later, she admitted that she was. So in other words, the mom, who was already seemingly reluctant to approve of gender affirming care in the first place, but the child, the father, and the clinic recommended it, tried to blame puberty blockers for her child's mental health decline and tried to stop the treatment, even though the child wanted it and it was recommended by the other parent and the doctors. And the mom actually responded to this thread, which was not a good idea because immediately she contradicted herself, saying, my child was in the middle of a mental health crisis and they chose to drop the counseling but keep the implant. Medical negligence. Now, the problem with this statement here is that in the article, she is the one who stopped the counseling. She was quoted saying, I also do not want Casey to receive any more counseling at the transgender center. He's not transgender. He's a 15-year-old child. The only further treatment I authorized as joint legal guardian is the removal of the puberty blocker and the subsequent aftercare. Please call me with any questions. So she's the one who stopped the counseling, not the clinic. And you can see a total change in her demeanor here. No longer is she this mom who's a little bit reluctant about gender affirming care but trying to do what's best for her child. In that quote right there, she's outright denying that her child is trans and purposefully misgendering her child who goes by they she pronouns. So this seems like a classic case of a hateful parent who refuses to accept their LGBT child. And furthermore, she explained why she didn't attend the meeting referenced in Alex's thread. Actually, babe, she writes patronizingly, they gave me two days notice and sent an email confirmation that only found last week. They were supposed to call me on speaker and never did. Also, I was not going to that meeting without an attorney. Let's get it all out there. So she's really showing her true colors here. And it's worth pointing out a couple of interactions that she had on Twitter that gives us a little bit more context that I think is really lacking in the article, obviously. So another parent of a queer child responded to her saying, As the parent of a queer child, the only reason your child needs to speak out now is because you felt the need to speak out and misrepresent their story. But she responded saying, this is actually my story about how I was treated as a parent at this center. Alex has a story too, but this article wasn't it. Don't confuse the two. And one more interaction that she had on Twitter where it's clear that her brain succumbed to right wing propaganda on this issue. So someone told her that she seems like an awful human being and an even worse mother, which I agree with. But she responded to that saying, only time will tell, I guess. Awful because I don't want my child experimented on. Okay then, I'll wear that label. Yeah, so that kind of tells you everything you need to know about her. Rather than trying to educate herself and understand her child's concerns, she seemingly got radicalized by anti-trans propaganda, blamed all of her child's problems on the doctors and gender-affirming care, and then tried to make an example out of her own kid for propaganda purposes. I mean, I guess as she put it, only time will tell if she's an awful parent. But unfortunately for her, it's already pretty obvious that she is indeed an awful parent and a pretty shady person. She's showing her true colors online and she responds to people. But I can blame her, but I also have to blame the opportunists in this story too, like Barry Weiss, who is choosing to keep the article up while knowing that it is a misrepresentation of the actual story. And I also have to blame the author, Emily Yoff, who hasn't responded to Alex's claims yet, and that's probably because she knew exactly that she was only telling one side of the story, because that was the goal. Her ultimate goal was not objective journalism. It was to fuel right-wing hysteria over gender-affirming care. She knew what she was doing, and we know that this was her goal because she retweeted a bunch of shocked reactions to her story. For example, this person shared it saying, Read this, my God! Another person said, Emily Yoff with a blockbuster on gender-affirming child abusers. So she got the exact response that she wanted. And there's more responses that she retweeted, but what I found really despicable and just sad overall is that Alex was sharing their Twitter thread to each of these retweets in a desperate attempt to get their story out and not allow their treatment to be used for anti-trans propaganda purposes. I mean, a 16-year-old child shouldn't be forced to correct the record when there are journalists who should be responsible enough to either delete the article or at a minimum include an update with Alex's side of the story now that they spoke up. But Weiss and Yoff aren't doing this. And it's because, again, objective journalism isn't the goal here. Anti-trans hysteria is the goal, and they got exactly what they wanted. So this is one of the grossest examples of unethical journalism that I've seen. And really, it's not surprising considering that the Free Press has also promoted the witch trials of JK Rowling in an effort to, I guess, sanitize the Harry Potter author's transphobia. I mean, look, if you want to be a commentator like Matt Walsh, that's fine. We can disagree on the facts and the substance, and we'll debate that. But when you publish blatant propaganda under the pretense of journalism in order to dupe unsuspecting people into believing this nonsense, that is where we just get into territory that I think is so evil. This is medically necessary life-saving care, and you're trying to pretend as if it's going to make children worse, not better. And that is just despicable. I would say that Emily Yoff and Barry Wife should be ashamed of themselves, but unfortunately, these immoral bigots lack the capacity for shame. And as a result, a 16-year-old trans teenager is forced to clean up the mess that they made. It's truly despicable, but totally predictable for the modern fascistic bigoted right.