
Boy, 16, was given estrogen at L.A. juvenile hall, suit says - ColanR
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-07-15/teenage-boy-was-given-estrogen-developed-breast-tissue-while-in-l-a-county-juvenile-hall-lawsuit-alleges
======
floatingatoll
This doctor must lose their medical license for life. At _best_ they are
wildly incompetent, at _worst_ they are maliciously inflicting harm upon a
teen for personal or political reasons.

Giving estrogen to men usually causes _irreversible sterility for life_. The
doctor would have known this. The pharmacist would have known this. That they
chose to proceed with the risk of _sterilizing_ a boy without notifying his
parents implies horrific things about the doctor's view of the lack of
humanity of their patient.

Edit:

I added "the risk of" to the previous paragraph, as elsethread notes that the
sterility outcome usually requires much longer dosing intervals. Noted, but if
I remember correctly, men pursuing a change in gender are expected to sign
their name or initial in the box at least ten times in a row in order to
receive their prescription — once for each side effect, due to the severity
and permanence of those side effects. Both doctor and pharmacist had a
professional duty to review those severe side effects with the patient and
their legal guardian.

~~~
pgcj_poster
> men pursuing a change in gender are expected to sign their name or initial
> in the box at least ten times in a row in order to receive their
> prescription

This is not true, at least not anywhere I've gotten Estradiol.

Also, while I'm sure you intended to be respectful with your comment, most
people getting this treatment see themselves as women who are changing their
bodies to match their gender, not as men who are changing their gender.

~~~
jjeaff
How should one phrase that sentence without it becoming completely confusing?

Would it be offensive to say "a person with an x and y chromosome"?

Even though gender is only a social construct... for some reason, taking
estrogen will have totally different effects on a person, depending on that
gender.

~~~
aidenn0
It's always going to be confusing but I believe "transgender woman" is
unambiguously someone assigned male gender at birth who identifies as a woman.

~~~
Foober223
What if a biological male is assigned female gender at birth? Would they be
transgender, or just female?

~~~
andykx
1\. When is that going to happen? (Genuinely curious if it does happen)

2\. It is really up to the person.

~~~
eggsome
Regarding 1:

[https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-34290981](https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-34290981)

------
non-entity
> Prior to that, Ouchi said, his client felt compelled to take the pills
> because he feared that disobeying Wang would have a detrimental effect on
> his pending criminal case.

Makes you wonder what all kind of shady medical shit is done in jails and
prisons.

~~~
coronadisaster
I have seen a cop order a medic to give sedative to a human that was being
choked by said cops for more than 10 minutes (he was basically already dead
when they injected him). Search for Tony Timpa on Youtube if you want to see
the video. And they were joking while killing him. And last but not least,
they all kept their jobs. All humans can be bastards.

~~~
dmix
> And last but not least, they all kept their jobs

Police unions are some of the most powerful organizations. Not being able to
fire bad actors is one of the worst parts of unions. I've never understood why
there hasn't been a movement to reform them. Their coworkers get stuck with
them too and bringing the whole unit down.

Instead we're always sold some nostalgic narrative of past golden eras of
unions. Glossing over all the warts and cruft built up over time. We're long
overdue for modernized unions.

~~~
watwut
It is more that their definition of bad actor is different. Cops that break
rank and complain and testify are fired or demoted. Cops that do that stuff
are promoted.

------
ed25519FUUU
> _“Estrogen is not a treatment for ODD. I can’t be more emphatic about that,”
> McGough said. “You won’t find a reference anywhere that supports the use of
> estrogen for ODD.”_

Well certainly the doctor got this theory from someplace. They believed this
young man would be better behaved if he had less testosterone and more
estrogen, and went ahead with a treatment against scientific evidence (and
ethics quite frankly).

So where did the doctor get this theory? Let's ask ourselves that question,
and follow up with this question: what other theories are medical and science
professionals getting that aren't science based?

~~~
Damorian
Not to defend the doctor, but common sense? Sex hormones obviously have a huge
effect on behavior, and anyone who has interacted with both men and women can
see these effects. I'll refer you to the following study to answer your
question about "non-science based theories and treatments":
[https://www.bmj.com/content/363/bmj.k5094](https://www.bmj.com/content/363/bmj.k5094)

~~~
ashleyn
Not that I think "oppositional defiant disorder" is even a sound
classification to begin with, but the lawyer's assertion that estrogen is not
an accepted or common treatment for males with ODD is spot on. This was done
solely with the intent to harm, by offending a deep and fundamental aspect of
the person in question.

------
ralmidani
In the US, the criminal justice system is not concerned primarily with
reforming criminals or deterring future crimes. It’s concerned mostly with
making the lives of people convicted or accused of crimes (many of whom are
innocent or otherwise had extenuating circumstances) absolutely miserable,
retribution taken to the extreme (tangentially, I’m not against retribution in
principle, but don’t think it should always be the only reason to punish
someone). And any sort of “non-compliance” while retribution is being exacted
leads to the misery being dialed up. Is there any civilized country other than
the US where long prison terms in sadistic conditions is considered “normal”?

~~~
syshum
Retribution should not be a part of any justice system. As retribution is not
justice.

Restitution, Rehabilitation and isolation should be the 3 goals of a true
justice system.

Victims should have a path to restitution when possible (some crimes this is
not)

Criminals should have a path to rehabilitation when possible (some crimes this
is not)

For when the other 2 fail, Isolation is the final step, isolation means we
isolate people that have been proven to be a danger to others and do not have
the ability to be rehabilitated.

Retribution is just unethical, it makes the population of a system of
retribution to be no better than the criminals they are abusing.

Support for retribution is a visceral reaction but holds no value or place if
the goal is justice.

~~~
whack
You have made a series of claims, but not given any reasons to back them up.
What theory of ethics/justice are you invoking, when you claim that
retribution/deterrence is unethical and should not be a goal of our justice
system. If a billionaire is found guilty of pedophilia, and offers to build
for himself a lifetime "prison" that is really a 5-star resort, should he be
allowed to do so? According to your argument, the answer is yes, as long as he
is equally isolated.

~~~
syshum
>>What theory of ethics/justice are you invoking

Mainly Zero-Aggression principle, under which the only ethical use of force is
for defense of either yourself or others, and only to the extent eliminate the
aggressive force being applied.

>>If a billionaire is found guilty of pedophilia, and offers to build for
himself a lifetime "prison" that is really a 5-star resort, should he be
allowed to do so?

That is a strawman and a red herring all in one. No a person should not be
allowed to build their own guided cage, however the prison s/he is sent to
should be humane, where s/he would not be physically abused by other inmates
or guards, not be subjected to physical or psychological abuse, should be
provided basic nutrition, and health care, etc

This can not be said to be true for the US prison system today

Further the system I advocate for would provide for massive amounts of
restitution for the victim(s) of this billionaire, unlike the system of today
which holds the criminal has a "debt to society" but not necessarily their
victims where any restitution would be secondary to the retribution offered to
society as "payment" for this debt

I advocate for victim restitution being the primary goal, and hold that
society is owed nothing in the equation.

This once a person is isolated from society and can not harm anyone, continued
abuse or violence is unethical, "punishment" in captivity is unethical.

~~~
whack
>> _If a billionaire is found guilty of pedophilia, and offers to build for
himself a lifetime "prison" that is really a 5-star resort, should he be
allowed to do so?_

> _That is a strawman and a red herring all in one. No a person should not be
> allowed to build their own guided cage_

This is a direct implication of what you're proposing. The fact that you don't
like the implication, doesn't make it a strawman.

You stated that the only goals of the criminal justice system should be
rehabilitation, restitution and isolation. Allowing a billionaire pedophile to
sequester themselves in a self-funded 5-star resort, is consistent with all of
your stated goals, while still being minimally aggressive, and maximizing
their welfare. If you find this objectionable, you need to revise your earlier
claim.

------
mattyfo
Something doesn't add up with this story and I suspect it's going to come out
in the lawsuit.

If the doctor REALLY did want to lower testosterone levels in the 16 year old,
there's a slew of medications that would have been more effective (Spiro,
Lupron, Bica, etc). That amount of Estradiol isn't going to do much to lower T
levels.

~~~
ggggtez
It's possible the doctor knows something the parents of the kid don't. You
don't treat the symptom (high T levels) you treat the disease (the behavior
disorder). It's possible there is something about the boy's medical history
that made it seem like this treatment would work better for his body
chemistry, perhaps.

~~~
grugagag
It is possible that the doctor refused to talk not to ruin his case in court.
But it is also possible he is incompetent and simply blew it.

------
stupidcar
This reads like the plot of a dystopian young adult sci-fi novel. Children who
resist authority being diagnosed with a "behavioural disorder" and being
forcibly given hormones by an evil doctor. Yet apparently this is the reality
of modern society.

~~~
dsun179
I remember when I had "strange behaviors" as young boy. Some times later i was
circumcised. 30 years later I still suffer from it.

I want to get kids soon. I hope they get a strange as I was. Stupid, funny,
dangerous.

~~~
__blockcipher__
You might already be aware, but it is possible to reclaim most of what was
lost via the principle of tissue expansion. It’s called foreskin restoration
and allows you to regrow basically everything except the frenulum/ridged band.

It’s time-consuming and takes awhile to learn how to tug properly, and in a
certain sense can be psychologically painful to go through, but the results
I’ve personally seen so far have been very encouraging.

Sorry again to hear what happened to you.

~~~
restorer
Off topic, but I have always felt like something was taken from me re: my
circumsion as a child.

Do you have any resources or guides you recommend on restoration? I've looked
in to manual tugging and some of the stretching devices. The devices don't
seem practical to wear around discreetly on a day to day basis, and I haven't
gotten manual technique to show results yet.

~~~
__blockcipher__
I haven’t tried devices. I mainly do MM3 (andre’s method) and MM2. It took me
quite some time to learn how to tug effectively.

Results are very slow and I started from a very tight cut. I’m still not even
at a “loose cut” level so I have quite a bit left to go.

Not sure if you’ve heard of it, but red light therapy makes a big difference
in the rate of tissue expansion.

[http://www.jmbe.org.tw/files/1641/public/1641-4366-1-PB.pdf](http://www.jmbe.org.tw/files/1641/public/1641-4366-1-PB.pdf)

I think adding RLT to manual methods will drastically improve your results.
Just a couple sessions of fairly high intensity RLT a day does wonders.

—-

TL;DR: like you I’m still figuring things out. But I’m pretty encouraged
overall.

------
swayvil
"oppositional defiant disorder"

That's what they call mouthy rebels these days

~~~
nullc
Meh. It's a real thing.

A small but not trivial portion of the public immediately lapses into a near-
rage at anything that appears to be an authority figure. People seem to grow
out of it.

Maybe it's PTSD from poor interactions with past authorities, maybe it's some
kind of pack hierarchy hold over, who knows-- but it appears to be a pretty
widespread phenomena.

It doesn't stop being real just because the description could also be abused
to dismiss someone who has a legitimate complaint about a particular
authority.

~~~
pavelrub
The claim that "it's a real thing" doesn't mean anything other than that some
people exhibit certain behaviors that some other people decided to group
together, give them a name, and put it in DSM-5. None of this refute GP's
claim that "that's what they call mouthy rebels these days".

------
Animats
Google: Oppositional defiant disorder: A condition in which a child displays
argumentative behavior towards people in authority.

Really.

Not violence. Just "argumentative behavior".

~~~
mantap
The Wikipedia page for that is something to behold, reading it you get the
distinct impression that someone has succeeded in convincing the psychiatric
profession to make an entire stage of human development into a disorder.

------
jml7c5
In this thread could we have people preface their comments with the intent
they're assuming of the doctor? It seems to be a split between "the doctor was
using an non-indicated treatment { in an attempt at gender-bending | for
unknown reasons }", and the discussion is a disaster because everyone is
talking past each other.

------
oedmarap
Tangential is yesterday's JRE podcast with Abigail Shrier[0] who's a
journalist for the Wall Street Journal.

The interview discusses her new book's findings about hormone therapy given
specifically to teenage girls through the means of "informed consent", which
led to terrible developmental and reproductive damage that was in most cases
irreversible.

[0]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtftWcgXjdg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtftWcgXjdg)

------
atarian
It's been a while since I've done biology, but if the boy was ingesting
estrogen in a pill form, doesn't that also put additional strain on the liver?

~~~
floatingatoll
Testosterone carries a significant risk of liver damage — even if it's
injected. Estrogen doesn't, ingested or otherwise.

~~~
Twixes
That's interesting. Why the difference?

~~~
floatingatoll
I'm not sure if science knows why yet.
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3897047/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3897047/)
may be a good starting point, but IANAYD etc.

------
cafemachiavelli
As someone who recently had surgery for gynecomastia that I've had since
puberty, I feel sorry for the kid and hope the breast tissue will naturally
resolve.

The event is confusing for several reasons - not only are testosterone levels
not linked to ODD, even if they were, there are drugs that can gently reduce
testosterone production. Estrogen isn't one of them.

------
neonate
[https://archive.is/NSV1u](https://archive.is/NSV1u)

------
at_a_remove
One thing not addressed here is that the surge of estrogen during puberty is
what causes your long bones to fuse at the ends and you stop growing. It is
possible that this young man's growth may have been permanently capped by this
irresponsible behavior.

------
syspec
The I love when people have perfect names. The victims lawyers name is Ouchi.

This is pretty tragic, reading the article there is no way this is an isolated
incident

~~~
Peepootoler
Wang, Oh, Ouchi... Asian names can be hilarious for an English speaker. The
incident itself is not that hilarious on the other hand.

~~~
LyndsySimon
The reverse is also true - I recall reading an artucle that lists English
names and their (often offensive) homonyms in Cantonese.

------
0xy
The doctor should be stripped of their license.

~~~
microcolonel
Given that nobody seems to be able to account for his decision, it seems like
maybe he should be in prison.

If somebody assaults my testicles and renders me infertile, that is an
extremely serious crime; this doctor may well have done the equivalent (along
with completely destroying the boy mentally) with the stroke of a pen.

~~~
newacct583
Came here ready to be horrified at the gender paranoia living under the
surface of HN, was actually surprised with how reasonable everyone was. Except
this comment.

None of those symptoms (infertility, "complete mental destruction" or, heh,
"assault on the testicles") are alleged here. He got an inappropriate drug,
possibly punitively. And that's horrifying enough without painting figurative
spectres of the unimaginable cruelty of... emasculation?

~~~
microcolonel
You did not read the complete details of the case (or frankly, even read the
comment you're replying to). The dose was large enough to give him
gynecomastia, which the other inmates bullied him for, and for which he will
require surgery. His father reports that his son's personality is completely
different, he is now a total shut-in.

> _He got an inappropriate drug_

He was injected† with non-indicated (as in, there is no literature on this
rogue prescription) contradictory sex hormones during _adolescence_ and under
duress; I don't know why you're downplaying this, I hope it's just because you
don't know what this means.

> _infertility_

Infertility is a common outcome of sex hormone therapies.

> _...the unimaginable cruelty of... emasculation?_

If suppressing gender dysphoric people is wrong, how can it be moral to
medically intervene to deprive an adolescent of _the normal functioning of his
body, and an already solidified gender identity?_ Using non-indicated medical
interventions to emasculate or defeminate somebody who is already secure is a
form of extreme cruelty, from basically any moral frame, yes.

† Correction from helpful reply: not injected, taken as pills. I got the
"injection" thing from this thread, had thought it was pills before.

~~~
newacct583
> He was injected with non-indicated contradictory sex hormones during
> adolescence and under duress; I don't know why you're downplaying this

I'm not downplaying this at all. It's you who are boosting your interpretation
because of "assault on the testicles", "mental destruction", "sex hormone",
and other things that tell me what you're really upset about is his
masculinity and not his well being.

No, I don't think this is any worse than had he gotten an equivalently
dangerous drug (say, fentanyl for sedation, which has also been alleged in
juvenile detention facilities IIRC). And I'm point out the fact that you do
is... unseemly.

~~~
fphhotchips
This is worse precisely because of the reasons transphobia is bad. This poor
boy has been forced - by a medical professional, no less - into a place on the
gender plane that is different to the one that he identifies as. The
psychological effects of that are _horrifying_ , and the physiological effects
are potentially permanent.

There's nothing wrong with being trans and going through HRT so long as you do
it with full and knowing consent. You do that because you feel deeply
dysphoric about the gap between the body you've been forced into and your true
identity, but it's not without cost. To force both the cost and dysphoria onto
someone is, again, truly abhorrent.

~~~
jml7c5
>This poor boy has been forced - by a medical professional, no less - into a
place on the gender plane that is different to the one that he identifies as.

Where are you getting this intent from? I don't see anything in the article to
suggest this was the doctor's goal.

~~~
ShroudedNight
It may well not have been the objective, but that was the rather unsurprising
result. Depraved indifference; behaviour that can lead to criminal liability.

------
michaelmrose
Is it the Danny Wang in Duarte CA?

------
lowdose
A woman that uses the pill as birth control consumes 0.00365 gram of estrogen
a year. At a consumption price of the pill for $300 a gram of estradiol is
thus worth $82,191.79. Compare that to $44 for a gram of gold and you wonder
if big Pharma is ready for disruption?

~~~
bluedevil2k
You’re not factoring in labor, packaging, pharmacy profit, pharmacist wages,
insurance company profit. If you think you can do it cheaper, then go for it

~~~
hellotomyrars
When Florida is importing drugs from Canada instead of buying them
domestically then its pretty self-evident that it can be done for cheaper.

Not sure if this is an earnest defense of the state of healthcare costs in the
US but you'd have to be deluded if you think that the rampant profit-seeking
in the US for healthcare is merely the cost of doing business.

~~~
refurb
Estradiol is a generic drug and generic drugs tends to be _cheaper_ in the US
than Canada[1] and the EU. The US generic drug market is incredibly
competitive.

It's brand name drugs that are cheaper in other countries.

[1][https://www.who.int/intellectualproperty/events/en/R&Dpaper2...](https://www.who.int/intellectualproperty/events/en/R&Dpaper2.pdf)

------
christkv
They should make the doctor take the treatment he prescribed for the kid for
the same duration. Only fair he experience what he did with malice.

------
throwaway_pdp09
> was diagnosed with oppositional defiant disorder, or ODD, two days after he
> was arrested and housed at Eastlake Juvenile Hall in June 2019, the lawsuit
> said. Medical records reviewed by The Times show that the teen’s
> testosterone levels were “slightly high” when the doctor who diagnosed him
> prescribed daily doses of estrogen

This is sickening, not so much for the drugging but the 'oppositional defiant
disorder' interpretation. Knuckle under, kid.

However, simply on a factual basis (I assume the story was based on an
established practice anyway), I remember as a kid reading a story in 1001
nights where some male child was castrated to stop him being bolshy. They do
that to animals for the same reason and with the same effect. There's
precedent.

~~~
tchaffee
Castration reduces testorone. Estrogen does not reduce testorone as far as I
know. Which is why transgender women take both estrogen and testorone
blockers. If the doctor had prescribed a testorone blocker you might have a
point about precedent.

