Three Cheers for Sanity: Case Dismissed
How I faced every therapist’s worst fear and lived to tell the tale.
Update: October 23, 2022
My blog is getting a new wave of attention since Fox News Digital Originals published this interview with me and corresponding article, Mental health professionals have 'abandoned' duty of care in treatment of trans youth, therapist says. I’m very grateful for the coverage, but unfortunately, it fails to mention my podcast. So if you’re landing here for the first time because of Fox, welcome. Please check out my podcast, You Must Be Some Kind of Therapist.
The article below was released June 10. On June 27, I released this conversation with Helen Joyce, available on YouTube (below) or as episode 11 of You Must Be Some Kind of Therapist. My conversation with Helen details the full story of what happened when strangers on the internet tried to threaten my license over my commitment to blowing the whistle on the harms of “gender-affirming care.”
So in addition to reading the original post, found below the video, I encourage you to listen to the full story, and subscribe to my YouTube channel, or follow You Must Be Some Kind of Therapist on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also check out the rest of my blog.
Thanks for your interest!
Clink clink clink!
Ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention please?
I couldn’t be more delighted to announce a very good thing. In case you haven’t already caught wind of the news via this viral tweet, the Oregon Board of Licensed Professional Counselors and Therapists has dismissed the investigation they recently opened against me.
Say what? Okay, let me back up a second.
Long story short, back in December 2021, a bunch of online trans rights activists (TRA’s) found a few of my blog posts and tweets, and rapidly piled on me with threats to report me to the board for alleged “conversion therapy” (not a thing I do) simply because I speak up for victims of gender medicine. I wrote the board this letter, and all I heard back was that it had been forwarded to the compliance department… then, crickets.
Then, in February, a single session of my ROGD parent support group was infiltrated by someone who subsequently made a board complaint too… but only after sending me a series of nasty emails and blog comments, and contacting acquaintances to slander my reputation.
On April 19, 2022, I received an official notification that I was being investigated for allegations made by these parties — only one of whom had ever met with me, once, in a group setting online; clearly all of whom were not well and had a bone to pick. I kept this news to myself while working closely with my lawyer, Patricia Campbell (shout out to Candice Jackson for introducing us!); my new friend Jake Wiskerchen, LMFT (you may remember him from episode 2; he also interviewed me recently on Noggin Notes); and my supportive partner. Meanwhile, I was still battling post-covid fatigue, coming down with a cold, had just landed in a new home (and I mean just, as in, four days prior), and was determined to stay on track with the plan to launch You Must Be Some Kind of Therapist May 15. Needless to say, if you contacted me during the past two months and didn’t hear back, now you know why! It was a crazy time.
The investigator asked me to provide certain records and a written response to absurdly worded, semantically problematic allegations. After reviewing these, he interviewed me by phone, and then requested the chart of a family that had not made a complaint but whose harrowing story the complainant had inaccurately referenced as evidence of my supposed conduct.
At first, we had been hopeful that he was preparing to present his findings to the Board at their next monthly meeting, June 3. We had worked within his timelines to allow for that. But then he told my lawyer he wanted to schedule a second interview with me. She offered him my earliest availability, and then… more crickets.
As I waited and wondered, I allowed the situation to slip to the back of my mind as much as possible, relinquishing control of what was no longer in my hands. I tried to re-focus on my life: family, health, clients, podcast, summer plans. I fantasized that maybe the investigator was taking so long because he was thoroughly doing his research and learning a lot in the process. Perhaps he was listening to my interview with Jennifer, or more recently, Helena. Perhaps he himself was a father and had his own concerns about his children being indoctrinated in schools, like this week’s podcast guest Amy Sousa discussed with our Twitter mutual, fierce mama bear Gabrielle Clark recently in this video on Amy’s own channel, Known Heretic. Perhaps the entire board was waking up…
Time passed. I had accepted the disappointing reality that my case wouldn’t be presented until the next monthly meeting in July. And then, yesterday, out of the blue, there it was: an official notification from the investigator that the board had heard my case June 3 after all, and dismissed it. They thanked me for my patience.
Intermission: Time for a victory dance
This is a weight off my shoulders. An opportunity to celebrate. An invitation to rest and enjoy the summer.
I was prepared to do whatever I had to do. I had been told many times, “you have an army of parents behind you.” I was ready to unleash that army, to have them flood the board with testimonials. I was telling myself, “I shouldn’t be afraid of the board; they should be afraid of me. I have the power of the consumer on my side.” I was psychologically preparing myself for the worst case scenario —losing my license —and wrapping my mind around Plans B and C: a transition to full-time writing and speaking; “parent coaching” now available to desperate parents around the country I’ve heretofore had to turn down for help (since I stick within the bounds of professional psychotherapy, which I am only licensed to practice in Oregon); perhaps going on the offense with lawsuits. But I didn’t want to give up my ability to practice unless I absolutely had to. I love being a therapist, I worked hard to get here, and if I do say so myself I’m damn good at it.
But now I don’t have to worry about that. I can go on practicing, plus writing and podcasting, plus doing all the other advocacy I find meaning in volunteering time toward. And now instead of fighting a battle for myself, I am available to help others in their battles.
On that note, Deb Fillman recently interviewed me for her channel, The Reason We Learn, exploring the question: Are We Pathologizing Childhood and Adolescence? I also interviewed with Vera Lindner for her upcoming documentary on detransitioners (title & exact release date TBA) and Abigail Shrier for her upcoming book on the adolescent mental health crisis. Volunteers at Partners for Ethical Care have been hard at work putting together a campaign to send postcards to therapists around the country providing resources on gender, including their podcast, The Witness, which shares intimately true stories of gender’s impact on families, as well as my own podcast. And I’m available for more opportunities to help where I can.
The other key element of what this victory represents to me is that it’s another opportunity to embolden other therapists to take similar risks. Humans spend an inordinate amount of time catastrophizing our worst fears and so often we limit what we view as possible for our lives in order to avoid those potential catastrophes. Many therapists’ greatest fears include having to confront their licensing board over alleged misconduct and facing the potential threat of loss of licensure. Well, guess what — this therapist faced that fear, walked through that fire and lived to tell the tale. I made it through okay.
