By Erin Reed | WASHINGTON- Dr. Riitakerttu Kaltiala, the chief physician in the adolescent psychiatry department at Finland’s Tampere University Hospital, published an article on Monday on Bari Weiss’ platform, “The Free Press.”
According to Dr. Kaltiala, renowned institutions like the American Academy of Pediatrics and the AAP of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry are “silencing” the “truth” about gender-affirming care.
She omits, however, the alarming allegations of wrongdoing at her own gender center in Finland, her connections to conversion therapists and anti-trans organizations, how those practices got into her center, and her involvement in American advocacy against trans care.
The show’s name and its claims are ultimately untrue because many of her patients believe that the only thing she has pioneered in gender-affirming care is their suffering.
Dr. Kaltiala began her medical career in criminal and youth psychiatry before moving up to become the university hospital’s chief psychiatrist of adolescents. She was tasked with opening a gender clinic in 2011, despite the fact that her previous research portfolio had little to nothing to do with gender medicine.
Her medical practice’s specifics remained a mystery to American audiences for years. The urgency of anti-trans legislation in the United States at the time had not even begun, and the public’s perception of a chief psychiatrist working in an acclaimed gender clinic appeared to be marginal.
When the wave of legislation aimed at trans people peaked in the early 2020s, this dramatically changed. These measures’ proponents looked for ways to give their stance a facade of scientific trust in an effort to refute accusations that their stance was based on religious discrimination. The anti-trans right found a few Scandinavian clinics, like Dr. Kaltiala’s clinic, to be extremely valuable because they gave the impression that they were experts in their field.
Disturbing reports from Dr. Kaltiala’s patients about their doctor encounters began to circulate at the same time. Kehrääjä, a Finnish LGBTQ+ platform, asked for feedback from many of the clinic’s patients. What it discovered was shocking.
The article described an alleged incident in which a doctor allegedly asked a young girl to “describe to me how you masturbate,” alluding to the debunked theory that some transgender people are fetishists that was once used to invalidate them.
A transgender child was also said to have received advice that bottom surgery “sometimes functions correctly” and to be “quite short for a man” due to his stature. After being informed that his interests were “too girlish,” his therapy was immediately suspended.
Many patients have reported that in the office, they were addressed by their old names and pronouns, a practice that reportedly persisted despite changes to their legal names. The doctor refutes these claims, but Dr. Kaltiala’s claims support a similar stance.
She once told a trans child, “Acceptance means saying, ‘So you’re the child who feels like y’all,'” in an effort to disprove the validity of trans people’s gender identities. These claims are supported by patient accounts that, regardless of any legal name changes or if they had been living in accordance with their gender identity prior to arriving at the office, children were referred to by the sex assigned at birth.
Similar to Leor Sapir, an advocate from the Manhattan Institute opposed to care, she opposes allowing transgender children to change their IDs, saying that “it would be reckless to cement their gender self-identification in state paperwork.”
What’s it like to know that you’ll never be as good as a real man?
The doctor reportedly employs gatekeeping techniques that were less prevalent in more recent standards of care. “How does it feel to know you’ll never be as good as a real man?” one patient claims. The patient also asserted to Kehrääjä that the staff would usually expect him to exhibit solid, traditional masculinity.
Some patients claim that the “real-life experience” in your gender identity did not start until after diagnosis, despite the clinic’s requirement that you have it in order to receive care. The requirement of “real-life experience” and the enforcement of gender stereotypes are more in line with how trans people were treated in the 1970s than they are today. Amnesty International has denounced these techniques.
The patient’s confirmation of what appears to be “gender exploratory therapy,” a novel kind of conversion therapy, may be the most unsettling aspect. This approach, which is becoming more and more popular among right-wing opponents of trans care, aims to delay transition continuously while attributing a trans identity to factors other than an individual’s actual gender experience.
Because of this, important treatment is never taken until trans youngsters decide that transitioning is no longer possible or until they reach adulthood. The American College of Pediatricians, an organization with a misleading name that the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has labeled as an anti-hate group, has also endorsed this type of conversion therapy, which is supported by many in the Christian right of the United States.
Here is a list of alleged “causes of being trans” that gender exploratory therapy aims to “explore” while postponing transition eternally. The patient information from Dr. Kaltiala’s office indicates that the doctor attempts to explain transgender identification on many of these unsupported “causes” of being trans. The record is from “Families of ROGD Kids.” You can see that the amount of “really trans people” is listed as a very small number, implying that not the majority of people who identify as trans are really trans.
“It seems like the entire process is about looking for different explanations for the child’s trans identity.” One family told Kehrääjä that the possibility that trans identity could be an innate, immovable trait is only thought of as a last resort. Some accounts of experiences at the clinic describe delaying the transition and rejection of care until adulthood, many of which claim the encounter was distressing or harmful.
“At this clinic, we offer experimental intervention.”
Dr. Kaltiala claims that gender-affirming care is dangerous, but in reality, it is her practices that are dangerous to her patients. She has explicitly endorsed gender exploratory therapy, stating that “At this clinic, we offer experimental intervention.” when delivering a speech to the Florida Board of Medicine advocating the banning of gender-affirming care. The harms of this institutionalized, therapeutic gaslighting are evident in patient reports solicited from others who have undergone exploratory therapy.
People have reportedly suffered as a result of the clinic’s protracted waiting lists. Some apparently sought care outside of the country’s borders in search of prompt treatment. One family, for instance, received a diagnosis from an independent physician who authorized the use of puberty blockers. Despite this, the doctor reported the client to child protective services and complained about a crime. Although there were no legal repercussions as a result of these actions, Dr. Kaltiala’s office eventually stopped treating the patient.
Gender-affirming treatment saves lives and is not “dangerous.” A recent study from the prestigious health journal The Lancet, which was released on July 26, emphasizes that gender-affirming care is a type of preventative care. It is linked to a higher quality of life and is essential to the well-being of trans children.
Numerous studies have demonstrated that it significantly lowers death rates—some research reports a startling 73% decline—and produces positive psychological effects. A collection of more than 50 publications compiled by Cornell University, all of which highlight the advantages of gender-affirming care, support its support.
In her post, Dr. Kaltiala tells a lot of different lies. For instance, she asserts that up to 80% of transgender kids will “desist” from their gender identity, a statement supported by decades-old data that has been largely refuted by more recent studies. She supports the notion that “social contagion” is a factor in the development of transgender care, arguing that so-called gender dysphoria is being diagnosed by “gender clinics around the world.”
However, on average, trans students are aware of their gender identity for a long time—often 4 to 8 years—before they tell their parents. More than 60 eminent psychological organizations have rejected the use of “Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria” and other similar ideas, which imply that transgender youths’ gender dysphoria appears suddenly as a result of social contagion.
She also strongly supports the notion that gender-affirming treatment lacks “high quality” evidence, according to a GRADE analysis conducted by national experts. Health professionals, as well as several US courts, including national authorities in Arkansas and Georgia, have vigorously disputed this claim. A randomized controlled trial, which is not ethically possible for gender-affirming care, may be necessary for a study to be conducted that results in a “high quality” score. In reality, the majority of health care lacks “high quality” GRADE scores because it would be challenging to obtain permission to withdraw treatment if it was known from scientific experience and empirical data that it is possible to save lives.
See this section of a Georgia federal court decision that assesses this specific claim:
Dr. Kaltiala has become a key figurehead for an anti-trans movement, so she cannot be characterized only as an objective health researcher. She has a close relationship with many of the important figures in trans care restrictions. She has appeared in a podcast by Genspect, an institution known for opposing gender-affirming treatment up to the age of 25, making fun of transgender kids on social media, and promoting Moms for Liberty—a fervently traditional anti-LGBTQ+ “parental rights” organization in the United States.
Dr. Kaltiala and Stella O’Malley, the founder of Genspect, who has referred to trans girls as “porn-initiated” fetishists and claimed they warrant “no empathy,” appeared together in a podcast about the organization. Similarly, she collaborated with Patrick Hunter of the Catholic Medical Association, a DeSantis-hand-picked Florida Board of Medicine member who was crucial to the state’s treatment restrictions. She gave a testimony to help outlaw treatment at the Florida Board of Medicine hearing.
Worry may be raised if Dr. Kaltiala served as the sole chief adolescent psychiatrist in an American private health facility. Instead, she oversees the gender system at one of Finland’s only two hospitals that cater to trans youngsters. She can have a significant impact on policy thanks to her rise to prominence and the antiquated techniques she uses to treatment for trans children in her clinic. Next, that impact is emphasized and singled out to contribute to the ban on treatment in the US.
Additionally, her willingness to support dangerous policies against trans patients has led to her purchase in the most influential groups that are opposed to transgender rights. Her history was retweeted by JK Rowling. Leor Sapir of the Manhattan Institute shared it. The tale was blasted by the far-right Alliance Defending Freedom. Likewise did Seth Dillon. Elon Musk has also joined in on the conversation about her.
The dominant narrative for the past few years has portrayed Finland as a “progressive area” for transgender medical that eventually changed its mind after “careful examination of information.” The exact procedures at the nation’s main clinic, however, have received little attention. The front-line peoples’ experiences with a healthcare system replete with abuse and political agendas are now coming to light.
