I’d like to direct your attention to a podcast series from the New York Times entitled “The Protocol”. The six-part series details the foundation and spread of the processes used to treat children dealing with gender identity disorder called the “Dutch Protocol”. After listening to all five hours, I was struck by the amazing similarities to a previous podcast series I’ve recommended: “Sold a Story” from American Public Media–which details the foundation and spread of the processes used to teach children to read through the Reading Recovery program–which is responsible for several generations of illiterate and sub-literate Americans.
In both podcasts, we learn from the reporter how practices used with a small, homogenous group of kids appeared to produce amazing results. In the case of Reading Recovery, it was a classroom in a rural New Zealand school where kids were given picture books and encouraged to “read” on their own–“deciphering” the words based on what they were seeing in the illustrations. The process was championed by Marie Clay–who published a report on what she had seen and created a curriculum built around it. In the case of the “Dutch Protocol”, Peggy Cohen-Kettenis, a psychologist in the Netherlands, is credited with developing the idea of combining intense therapy with the use of puberty blockers to prevent development in children and eventually hormone treatments to deal with gender dysphoria–with reported improvements in the mental health of the first handful of patients.
The similarities continue in the widespread adoption of both programs without extensive research, or the use of control groups to determine the effectiveness of them versus non-use. It took just a few years from the publication of Clay’s first reports on Reading Recovery for it to become the required literacy curriculum in New Zealand and Australia. Two years after that, Ohio State University brought Reading Recovery to the United States–where it was quickly adopted by local school districts across the country as a “revolutionary new way to teach reading”–even though all of the evidence to support that claim was circumstantial and not backed by research or study. The “Dutch Protocol” was first used in 2006 and gained fast traction after one report was filed by Cohen-Kettenis that attracted attention in several other European countries. The protocol would finally come to the US in 2015, first with a clinic in Boston–and then spreading to facilities and practices across the country–again, based on one small study.
In both podcasts we also learn that the “Americanization” of those processes moved them away from the initial programs–omitting some very important steps. In the case of Reading Recovery, the program was initially designed for those that were only struggling in reading under standard curriculum. But US schools were using it as the basis for teaching all kids–regardless of ability. The pivotal first step in the “Dutch Protocol” was intensive therapy with a child where long-standing gender dysphoria was established and all other alternatives were ruled out. American clinics–in part, because they were overwhelmed with demand for gender transitions from teens who had never before expressed dysphoria–would skip past that step. One clinician interviewed for the series reported her clinic would prescribe puberty blockers to kids after one appointment–with just one hour of therapy.
Proponents of both Reading Recovery and the “Dutch Protocol” also actively criticized and demonized those who may have opposed using the processes–or who dared question their effectiveness. With Reading Recovery, teachers and administrators actively opposed standardized literacy testing, invariably claiming that “one test isn’t an indication of how well a child can read” and complaining that they had to “teach to the test”. Parents that demanded additional help to get their kids up to proficiency were met with resistance and told their kids weren’t “trying hard enough” and those that pushed for the research-based Science of Reading curriculum were labeled “Right-wing kooks looking to undermine public education”. Clinicians that questioned the “American protocol” faced similar blowback–being labeled as “transphobic” or “putting children’s lives in danger” by calling for research that would include some dysphoric kids not be treated with puberty blockers, so they could be used as a control group to compare results with those receiving the treatment.
And both podcasts end with political action being used to terminate the processes and effect change. The use of Reading Recovery as a main literacy curriculum is now banned in 14-states–including Wisconsin. Forty states have passed laws requiring curriculum based on the Science of Reading for elementary school children–again, including Wisconsin. And in most of those states, those measures were approved on a large, bi-partisan basis, as lawmakers on both sides eventually came to agree that Reading Recovery fundamentally failed to teach kids the foundations of reading. New Zealand and Australia were among the first countries to ban its use–after being the first to adopt it. As of now, 25-states ban the use of puberty blockers and hormone treatments for minors as part of gender dysphoria care. But those bills have largely been approved by partisan majorities. And this week, the United States Supreme Court upheld those bans. Meanwhile, similar bans–or requirements that the extensive therapy threshold be met first–have been adopted by several European countries that were the first to widely adopt the “Dutch Protocol”. And there, the support has been far more bi-partisan.
Sprinkled within each of the podcast series are emotional personal stories as well. “Sold a Story” features numerous interviews with parents frustrated with their kids illiteracy turning to personal tutors–whose first steps were invariably to teach the child using phonics and vocabulary techniques. There are also a few teachers who express deep regret that they got caught up in the convenience of turning over the responsibility to learn to the kids themselves, instead of going through the dull drudgery of phonetic instruction, and then admitting that they did long-term damage to those they thought they were helping. In “The Protocol”, the first person to go through the “Dutch Protocol” shares how that person has succeeded in life and has found true happiness in living as another gender. But that person also expresses disdain for all of the celebrities, internet influencers, and teenagers of today who claim to be transgender or non-binary, questioning their real internal feelings and accusing those folks of jumping on a bandwagon fueled by social media.
The comment section under the “The Protocol” story is exactly what you would expect from New York Times readers. “This reporting is harmful”, “Stories like this will put trans children’s lives in danger”, and “This will only provide fodder for trans-phobic Republicans to continue to push for their hateful bans” can be found in numerous posts. If someone from that outlet had put in the effort that Emily Hanford did with “Sold a Story” and reported on the failure of Reading Recovery, the reaction likely would have been the same. “Why give right-wing ideas like this any public acknowledgement?” and “I’ll trust educators to know how to teach children to read–not researchers at universities” would be guaranteed responses.
I hope you will take the time to listen to “The Protocol” and gain a greater understanding of the topic of treating gender dysphoria in children. And I strongly encourage you to listen to “Sold a Story” as well, to better understand why school districts face the uphill climb they will be dealing with for several years to get students back to proficiency in reading. And hopefully you take a minute to consider what we adults owe our children–because these are two examples where we did not.
