NYT Anti-Trans Podcast Finds Earliest Puberty Blocker Patient: Is Just Some Normal Happy Dude Now

The New York Times released an anti-trans podcast packed with disinformation. However, one of the most interesting portions was the interview with the first patient to take blockers.

Photo by Rafael Hoyos Weht on Unsplash

On Thursday, the New York Times released an anti-trans podcast on transgender health care hosted by Azeen Ghorayshi, a journalist at the paper known for elevating anti-transgender voices. The six-part series offers little in the way of new scientific insight; instead, it recycles audio from earlier articles that spread misinformation about trans care—material already widely critiqued by medical experts. Delivered in the Times’ trademark “both sides” tone, the podcast ultimately and absurdly casts Hillary Cass as the measured authority, despite her advisory team drawing heavily from organizations identified by the SPLC as anti-LGBTQ hate groups. Ironically, the most striking moment comes in episode one, when the show introduces the first trans patient in Europe to receive puberty blockers—now, decades later, simply a happy, well-adjusted adult living an ordinary life.

Identified only as “FG,” the podcast locates him on a quiet European street, living a contented life in his early 50s. “You’re just a man in the world,” Ghorayshi says. FG replies, cheerfully, “I got away with murder… I was the first person.” He adds, “The people that are close to me and the people that are close to me that I’ve told, I love to share… It’s nice to have someone to talk to about that, but it doesn’t have to be common knowledge.”

Ghorayshi then transitions to his life post-transition, revealing that FG now works in medicine. “But there is this coded… well, did he turn out okay? Did he succeed in life?” she asks. FG answers, “Exactly. If I were some loser then that could be another thing they could hitch to the bandwagon. I mean I could be a loser anyway regardles—I know many normal, cis people who are complete losers.”

FG would then go on to talk about his transition and his life since. His story would be familiar to many people in the United States who have paid attention to the fight over transgender rights. As a kid, he hated dresses and knew he was a boy. His gender dysphoria was intense, to the point of threatening self-harm, when he reached puberty. He was then allowed to be the first patient to receive puberty blockers at the original Dutch clinic providing care, whereupon he medically transitioned and has seemingly lived a happy and fulfilling life ever since.

While the opening story—and episode two, which features a similarly thriving transgender woman who transitioned young—offered a refreshing start to the podcast, it quickly became clear where things were headed. The narrator repeatedly steps in to assure listeners that these individuals are “different” from transgender people in America today, emphasizing that their “protocol” was different. The intent is transparent: to cast the progress in gender medicine and the increased accessibility of care in a negative light rather than a step forward.

Things quickly unravel from there. The podcast pivots to Laura Edwards-Leeper, one of the earliest providers of transgender youth care in the United States. While she’s framed as a voice within the field, readers familiar with my work will recognize her as a longtime opponent of improved access to care. Early in the backlash against trans rights this decade, Edwards-Leeper began championing heightened gatekeeping and opposing the expanding availability of care for patients long denied it. She also infamously authored a Washington Post op-ed promoting “Gender Exploratory Therapy”—a rebranded form of conversion therapy now favored by the far right and most recently cited, without disclosed authorship, in the Trump-Kennedy HHS report calling for nationwide bans on transgender care. If Edwards-Leeper is the “pro” trans voice in the podcast, you can only imagine how bad the rest would go.

On the other side, of course, is Jamie Reed, who is profiled heavily in episode four of the podcast. She is given a remarkable amount of time and introduced as a “whistleblower” for transgender healthcare, without mentioning that she has no experience guiding the care of patients at her clinic, as she is not a doctor. Despite this, Reed comes across as a heartless firebrand, willing to lie and misrepresent facts, who does not care about the impact of her actions on trans people who came through her clinic. At one point, when Jamie Reed gives credence to the idea that transgender people are destroying the family and cultural fabric, Ghorayshi points out, “you have an anarchy tattoo on your calf…”

It’s no surprise, then, that the podcast builds toward what feels like its ultimate argument: that the truth doesn’t lie with Jamie Reed or with trans advocates, but rather with Dr. Hillary Cass in the United Kingdom. Cass is granted an entire episode to present a one-sided view of transgender care. The Cass Review—written with input from several individuals affiliated with SPLC-designated hate groups, including a key advisor who helped Florida’s DeSantis administration craft its care ban—was never a neutral scientific document. It was a political pretext for restricting care in the U.K., and it has been wielded exactly as intended. Since its release, multiple studies, formal statements from medical organizations, and independent guideline reviews have challenged its findings. Many countries have moved forward with gender-affirming care rather than retreating from it—facts the podcast entirely omits.

Even with all its careful engineering to cast doubt on transgender care, the podcast can’t escape one stubborn truth: transgender people are thriving. From FG—the first person to receive puberty blockers at the Dutch clinic—to the many transgender youth and adults receiving care today who are thriving on that care. What ultimately emerges is a familiar contrast: between the cisgender commentators endlessly litigating our existence, the "both sides" posture the New York Times can’t seem to shake, and the actual people who undergo this care, who simply want to live, to work, to love, and to exist in peace.