Eight Rhode Island medical providers appeared to testify on March 7th in support of a bill shielding gender doctors from lawsuits filed by out-of-state plaintiffs. Two doctors were obstetricians — ironic considering they support sterilizing children, which actively destroys their future patient pool. The bill was held for further study.
Senate Bill 2262, titled Healthcare Provider Shield Act, is more of a healthcare provider sword to brandish against vulnerable patients harmed by “gender-affirming care” because not only does it insulate gender doctors from out-of-state lawsuits, it creates a cause of action for doctors to sue their vulnerable patients back. As a result, patients are not only deterred from having their day in court, but can be punished for it too.
I testified as a proxy for Dr. Michelle Cretella, the former Executive Director of the American College of Pediatricians and current Chair of its Sexuality Committee. Dr. Cretella is also a pediatrician consultant to detransition litigation attorneys.
This is Dr. Cretella's testimony I delivered as a proxy which caused Lifespan pediatrician Dr. Emily Allen to identify Dr. Cretella as part of a "hate group" and make unsubstantiated "disinformation" allegations. 3/3 pic.twitter.com/8SmyyMelnK
— Nicole Solas, Sued by the Teachers Union (@Nicoletta0602) March 8, 2024
Legislators may not always read written testimony emailed before hearings with a hasty 48-hour notice. Given the concerning number of ideological Rhode Island medical providers lobbying for legislation to suppress medical malpractice lawsuits likely to expose and repudiate the medical fraud of “gender-affirming care,” it was critical that legislators heard Dr. Cretella’s testimony in person.
Dr. Cretella opposed the bill and cited two Rhode Island detransition lawsuits filed last October along with the WPATH files. She stated:
And we can expect a surge of similar well-warranted malpractice lawsuits. Thanks to a whistle-blower in the World Professional Association of Transgender Health, the world learned this week that Dr. Joyce Asseler and her fellow WPATH health professionals knew that by an average age of 32 years, 27% of children transitioned young with puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones and surgeries express regret over “sacrificing their fertility.
In chilling closing remarks, Dr. Cretella warned legislators:
The physician inventor of lobotomy received the Nobel Prize for medicine in 1949 and the practice was not repudiated until 1967. The State of Rhode Island has no interest in protecting ‘gender experts’ who are the equivalent of yesterday’s expert lobotomists. Rhode Island has every interest in giving every harmed patient their day in court.
Dr. Emily B. Allen, a Lifespan pediatrician testifying on behalf of the Rhode Island Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, attacked Dr. Cretella’s organization stating it is “classified as a fringe LGBTQ hate group” by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). She added that Dr. Cretella’s testimony was:
…riddled with disinformation, offensive and inflammatory language, omissions, and misrepresentations of research, and were not rooted in real science or evidence-based medicine. … It is scary to see other states impose civil and criminal penalties on pediatricians and other providers for practicing medicine in line with the best evidence and professional standards.
This is bold testimony in light of the recent National Health Service’s (NHS) ban on prescribing puberty blockers to children outside of clinical research, which was most certainly “rooted in real science [and] evidence-based medicine” after a review of published evidence by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) showed there was “not enough evidence to support the safety or clinical effectiveness of PSH [i.e. “puberty blockers”] to make the treatment routinely available at this time.”
Dr. Allen is also an assistant professor at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University with no peer-reviewed publications and only non-peer-reviewed publications including “10 Ways To Be Kind To Your Vagina.” Her medical groups, Lifespan and the American Academy of Pediatrics, are two of several defendants in one Rhode Island lawsuit filed by detransitioner Isabelle Ayala—a lawsuit that may not have been filed if Rhode Island had already passed the Healthcare Provider Shield Act.
After the hearing, I asked Dr. Allen whether she read the WPATH files and what she knew about the Southern Poverty Law Center. Dr. Allen responded that the Southern Poverty Law Center was “the standard” even though she knew only “some about them.” Pediatricians citing political propaganda to discredit other physicians’ scientific arguments against “gender-affirming care” for kids should lose all credibility as physicians.
She refuted Dr. Cretella’s citation of the 27% regret rate of adults rendered infertile by childhood gender dysphoria treatments alleging it was based on “outdated definitions of gender dysphoria.” Dr. Cretella later responded to Dr. Allen’s refutation stating:
[Dr. Allen] just proved she didn’t read the report. The 27% regret rate cited by Dr. Asseler is specifically over ‘sacrificing fertility;’ it was so high because as children (ages 8-13), the gender-confused kids said they never wanted babies, but by an average age of 32, they realized they desperately wanted children but were made permanently sterile by their teens. The diagnosis of gender dysphoria is correct. The claim that any child is trapped in the wrong body or that their gender identity is innate and immutable is science fiction.
Dr. Allen then added that Dr. Cretella’s testimony contained:
…language that I know is really hurting the kids who may be listening … and the parents and the families who are trying to do what is right for their kids.
When I pressed Dr. Allen to substantiate her claims of “disinformation” in Dr. Cretella’s testimony, Dr. Allen said she stood by her testimony but would not speak on camera because it didn’t “feel genuine” to her. She emphasized again that the language in Dr. Cretella’s testimony was “very hurtful and really harmful for a lot of people, very inflammatory.” When I contended that Dr. Cretella’s testimony was scientific, Dr. Allen demurred, repeating that our conversation was not “genuine.” Dr. Allen offered to meet at a later date and provide written information but did not respond to a request for comment on this story.
Other medical provider witnesses echoed Dr. Allen’s emotional appeals supplanting scientific arguments to shield gender doctors from lawsuits. For example, Dr. William Dewitt, Medical Director of Open Door Health Clinic, testified to his clinic “being targeted on social media by individuals and groups motivated by fear and hatred.” Perhaps he is referring to my own post on X questioning the age threshold in his clinic’s advertisement for “gender-affirming medical care for children and adolescents.” There is no hatred in asking for the ages of children starting “gender-affirming care” treatments, but Dr. Dewitt is right to note that there is fear, which is well-warranted given the alarming number of children whose lives have been destroyed by doctors claiming to help them.
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Nicole Solas is a senior fellow at Independent Women’s Forum (iwf.org).
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.