“Stop transing gay kids!” That’s what a collection of pediatricians heard today when an activist who opposes pediatric gender-transition treatment interrupted the keynote address that Biden health official Dr. Rachel Levine gave at the American Academy of Pediatrics’ conference in Orlando, Florida.
“I have no time for intolerance,” Dr. Levine eventually said in response to a room that appeared less than half full.
The activist, Lauren Leggieri, who traveled to Orlando from her home in Philadelphia, was swiftly apprehended by security and escorted out of the conference hall.
Ms. Leggieri is a member of the activist group LGBT Courage Coalition, which was founded last year by Jamie Reed. Ms. Reed is the former case manager from the Washington University, St. Louis pediatric gender clinic who accused the clinic of providing sloppy care. She has since become a major activist opposing pediatric gender-transition treatment.
Ms. Reed first blew the whistle on her employer an article for Bari Weiss’ The Free Press in February 2023:
Ms. Leggieri was ultimately issued a trespassing summons by Orange County, Florida, police and released.
I spoke with Ms. Leggieri immediately afterward. I asked her why she protested the speech of Dr. Levine, who as the assistant secretary for health at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is highest ranking openly transgender official in the federal government and who is an avid supporter of pediatric gender-transition treatment.
Referencing the prescribing of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to minors with gender dysphoria, Ms. Leggieri said: “Because people need to know that basically what this is is homosexual conversion of proto-gay youth.”
Historically, research has found that many, if not most, prepubescent children with gender dysphoria grow out of it during puberty and ultimately grow up to be gay. However, much has changed in Western society since such studies were conducted, including the fact that socially transitioning gender-dysphoric children is eagerly encouraged in many communities. Gender dysphoria in youths has surged over the past decade and now most commonly develops among natal females during adolescence; whereas in previous generations, gender dysphoric children were quite rare and were most commonly prepubescent natal males. Today, 1.4 percent of adolescents and young adults identify as transgender, according to the Williams Institute at UCLA.
The American Academy of Pediatrics invited Dr. Levine to give a keynote address at their annual conference in Orlando despite the fact that both she and the AAP are entangled in the same scandal regarding pediatric gender-transition treatment. In June, internal emails from the World Professional Association of Transgender Health (WPATH) subpoenaed by the Alabama attorney general were unsealed by a federal judge. They revealed that both Dr. Levine and the AAP put what critics have characterized as undue pressure on WPATH to remove age restrictions on pediatric gender-transition treatment and surgeries in the update to the trans-care guidelines that WPATH published in the fall of 2022. WPATH did indeed cave to this pressure.
I asked Ms. Reed about Ms. Leggieri’s protest and what she felt was gained by her interruption of Dr. Levine.
“We achieved a number of goals,” Ms. Reed said. “We were able to thwart the AAP’s attempt at silencing all discussion of pediatric gender within their conference.”
On Friday, hours before the AAP’s conference in Orlando began, I published a months-long investigation in The New York Sun about internal turmoil at the AAP regarding holding the conference in Florida. Members of the organization’s LGBTQ affinity group saw visiting the state and providing it with business as anathema, given Gov. Ron DeSantis’ policies on abortion and LGBTQ-related matters.
I found that there are only three LGBTQ-related sessions out of 421 offerings at the AAP’s conference. However, there is a meeting on Monday afternoon of the LGBTQ affinity group that the organization has gone to great lengths to shroud in secrecy. I obtained the agenda through a public-records request, which I published along with scores of other internal AAP documents and emails here:
The AAP Files: Complete American Academy of Pediatrics Emails Showing LGBTQ Affinity Group Balking Over Florida Conference, Plus Background on Elusive Top Gender Doc Jason Rafferty
Dr. Levine has asserted without evidence that pediatric gender-transition treatment is “life saving.” Only one study has ever directly assessed the veracity of this oft-repeated claim. Published in February and based on robust national data from Finland, the study found that such treatment was not associated with an independent, statistically significant difference in the suicide death rate among gender dysphoric youth. (Supporters of pediatric gender-transition treatment have pushed back hard against this study and asserted that its threshold for statistical significance was too high.) Suicide deaths in this population, while higher than in their age-matched peers, were nevertheless rare.
Dr. Levine has also claimed that pediatric gender-transition treatment is “medically necessary.” WPATH emails unsealed by the federal judge in June revealed that members of the organization strategically planned to label such treatment with the “medically necessary” term so as to increase the chance that it would be covered by insurance.
“You are all complicit in homosexual conversion.” —Lauren Leggieri
At the AAP conference on Sunday, Ms. Leggieri interrupted Dr. Levine’s speech a few minutes in.
According to an audio recording I obtained, Ms. Leggieri shouted in the conference hall: “Why did you pressure WPATH to remove age restrictions? How does that help children? Most gender nonconforming kids grow up to be gay. Stop transing gay kids. You are all complicit in homosexual conversion. Stop transing gay kids. You are all complicit in homosexual conversion. Stop transing gay kids.”
Here is a video of the live audio feed of Ms. Leggieri’s interruption:
Ms. Leggieri was then apprehended by security and escorted out of the conference hall. She is sitting on the bench wearing white sneakers:
Police spoke with her and issued her a trespassing summons.
According to Ms. Leggieri, an AAP representative demanded to know how she had gotten into the conference hall. She refused to answer. Ms. Leggieri also declined to answer my questions about how she had gotten into the room.
“I’m just very disturbed that it’s 2024 and gay kids are still not protected.” —Lauren Leggieri
Ms. Leggieri, who is a home-improvement contractor, told me she was a gender-nonconforming lesbian and saw pediatric gender-transition treatment as an existential threat to gay people.
“I was a tomboy growing up,” Ms. Leggieri told me. “If I were a child today, I would have hit every single criteria for gender dysphoria in the DSM-V. And I’m in contact with a lot of detransitioners who are all gay, and they are now irreparably damaged” by gender-transition treatment. She said these detransitioners, who underwent a medical gender transition that they later regretted and sough to reverse, “will not have healthy sex lives. And I’m just very disturbed that it’s 2024 and gay kids are still not protected.”
I asked Ms. Leggieri if she believed there is such a thing as a transgender child. She said no. “Nobody can define what trans is,” she said. “And all the clinical criteria for it just describe proto-gay youth.”
“Nobody can define what trans is.” —Lauren Leggieri
Ms. Reed said that by interrupting the conference, “We show parents with affected children that they are not alone. We show detransitioners that we are fighting on their side. Finally, we seek to grow a movement by demonstrating how gay people can be peaceful but powerful and organize to protect these kids and families.”
According to another activist who was in the conference hall, as Ms. Leggieri interrupted Dr. Levine, the health official simply kept speaking. The speech itself, this source said, only briefly touched on gender identity specifically.
“Despite the criticisms that I face—you heard some here earlier—I have no room in my heart for discrimination. And frankly I have no time for intolerance.” —Dr. Rachel Levine
At the end of the speech, according to this activist, Dr. Levine said:
“Despite the criticisms that I face—you heard some here earlier—I have no room in my heart for discrimination. And frankly I have no time for intolerance.”
Dr. Levine then received a standing ovation.
Here are two videos from the early part of Dr. Levine’s speech, up until the point where she was interrupted:
“You all have puppies!”
Here is a transcript of Dr. Levine’s speech up until the point when she was interrupted by Ms. Leggieri:
“It is wonderful to be at the American Academy of Pediatrics. What a fantastic conference. You all have puppies. There are puppies in the exhibit hall. What conference has puppies? Thank you very much. I to pet a puppy. It was great. I would like to thank all of you so much for your work. Everyone in this room works every day to benefit the public, protect children from harm and make our communities whole, and you do that with empathy, compassion and understanding. You see people without discrimination, and strive to provide care and services without bias, prejudice or stereotyping, so that our nation's young people and their families feel seen, heard and cared for. I am so proud to be a pediatrician. Thank you.
“I am so proud to be a fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics since 1988. Think about that one. I fight every day to make our nation healthier, and that includes a nation where health equity that we fight for today will be normalized tomorrow. To build that more equitable future, I stay focused on my mission to make our nation a healthier better place in my office, the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health, our vision is healthy people, healthy communities and a healthy nation.
“For all our collective efforts, our collective efforts help pave a path for the next generation, we are stronger together, and we are building that equitable future together for our nation's children, healthy people, 2030, which is in my portfolio, defines health equity as the attainment at the highest levels of health for all people.
“And I firmly believe, believe that we have not made true progress unless we have all made progress. As the Assistant Secretary for Health, I’ve had the chance to travel around our nation to see first-hand what people are experiencing on the ground in a range of important public health issues.
“I’m going to highlight three critical areas: adolescent medicine, the impacts of climate change on health, particularly for our youth, and a brand new initiative that we are launching tomorrow called Who Is Medicine.
“As we all know as pediatricians, adolescence is a critical period of development, both physically and emotionally.”
I am an independent journalist, specializing in science and health care coverage. I contribute to The New York Times, The Guardian, NBC News and The New York Sun. I have also written for the Washington Post, The Atlantic and The Nation.
Follow me on Twitter: @benryanwriter.
Visit my website: benryan.net
"Stop transing gay kids!" Biden Admin Health Official Rachel Levine Interrupted By Protester During Pediatrics Conference Keynote In Orlando