Liberals Seethe After Gavin Newsom Does Something Sort Of Sane For Once

Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom has made a feeble effort to distance himself from the worst excesses of the left. It’s cast him out of the good graces of certain Californians. And, in their telling, into the hands of President Donald Trump. 

The New York Times (NYT) claims many “families of transgender minors” in California are “angry with the Trump administration, but also with Gavin Newsom.”

“Families and trans advocates say they feel betrayed by [Newsom], as well as by healthcare administrators, who they say have capitulated to an administration intent on turning transgender children into scapegoats,” the article reports.

Two prominent California medical centers, which provided so-called “gender affirming” treatments for children, were recently shuttered.

Dubiously ascribed intent aside, it comes as no surprise that the sort of people likely to create “transgender” children would protest any impediments to that child’s “transition.” These are leftists ne plus ultra. 

Venture even an inch outside that narrow band of radicals for a contrary opinion.

The NYT’s comment section, a somewhat reliable bellwether for liberal sentiment, generally concedes that children should not be subject to hormonal and/or surgical interventions on the basis of professed gender dysphoria. One of the most popular “Reader Pick” comments, with 542 endorsements, begins: “I’ve never voted for Trump but on this issue, he’s right.” (RELATED: Democrats’ Favorite Tranny Admits Party Went Completely Overboard On LGBTQ Bullying)

The NYT does little to establish why they’ve given Newsom partial credit in this regard, besides the governor’s tentative foray into common sense in March. Newsom characterized male participation in female sport leagues as “deeply unfair” in a podcast episode with conservative commentator Charlie Kirk. 

🎥 On the issue of men in women’s sports, Gavin Newsom said it himself: “It’s an issue of fairness. I completely agree…the unfairness of that.”

Yet here we are, with the Trump DOJ filing a lawsuit against California for violating Title IX.

Newsome is a coward and unworthy of… pic.twitter.com/eHPLZ27j6D

— Erika Donalds (@ErikaDonalds) July 9, 2025

The remark hardly makes Newsom a Republican. After all, the Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a lawsuit against California in July for permitting male student athletes to compete in female student sport leagues.  Newsom scrambled away from the question of “gender affirming care” for minors in a July 14 appearance on the Shawn Ryan Show.

Newsom’s office called the suggestion that he hasn’t done enough to protect transgender Californians ‘insulting,’” according to the NYT. 

Not to worry. The NYT reserves most of their blame for the Trump administration. 

The outlet focuses on two California medical centers “sharply cutting back gender-related treatments for transgender youths under pressure from the Trump administration.” 

The first is Stanford Medicine, which “paused providing gender-related surgical procedures” for patients under the age of 19, according to a statement given to The Angeles Times. Stanford Medicine cited a “careful review of the latest actions and directions from the federal government” and “consultations with clinical leadership” as informing its decision. 

Oh look! Stanford stopped doing the thing Democrats told us wasn’t even happening.

Stanford Medicine ends surgical sex changes for minors after pressure from Trump adminhttps://t.co/ZGoRj7Q7om

— Libby Emmons (@libbyemmons) July 1, 2025

The second medical center referenced by the NYT resides within Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. The hospital was formerly home to the “largest clinic in the United States for transgender youth,” according to the clinic’s medical director, Dr. Johanna Olson-Kennedy. The clinic closed July 22. 

The NYT briefly spoke to Olson-Kennedy’s medical practice: “Her approach, which prioritizes early intervention, has inspired deep loyalty from many of her patients, but it has also attracted fierce condemnation from conservative groups and scrutiny from other clinicians.”

They neglect to mention the medical negligence litigation filed against Olson-Kennedy by former patient Kaya Clementine Breen. Breen filed suit against Olson-Kennedy and Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, among other defendants, in December 2024. 

Breen’s parents were “completely surprised” by the revelation from a school counselor that their daughter was transgender, according to the filling. So they “decided to take [Breen] to ‘the experts.’” Breen had her first consultation with Olson-Kennedy at 12 years old, reads the complaint. 

From there, “Olson-Kennedy and the team at LA Children’s immediately and unquestioningly ‘affirmed’ [Breen] as transgender, and at her very first visit, after mere minutes, Dr. Olson-Kennedy diagnosed Clementine with gender dysphoria and recommended surgical implantation of puberty blockers,” the lawsuit alleges. 

Breen’s complaint claims Olson-Kennedy “performed no mental health assessment … She involved no other providers or health care professionals in this purported gender dysphoria diagnosis and recommendation for puberty blockers.”

Consider NPR’s coverage of the Los Angeles clinic’s closure on “All Things Considered.” Reporter Megan Jamerson tells listeners, “Gender-affirming care for minors often starts with psychotherapy, sometimes progresses to puberty blockers or hormones and rarely involves surgery.” 

L.A. Children’s has shut down its youth gender clinic under federal pressure.

They treated kids as young as THREE YEARS OLD.

They performed over 160 surgeries on minors.

Clinic director Johanna Olson-Kennedy is being sued for prescribing puberty blockers after one visit—
and… pic.twitter.com/DN0ZcaDj6N

— Genspect (@genspect) July 22, 2025

This doesn’t quite accord with Breen’s lawsuit, which asserts Olson-Kennedy “simply took a handful of platitudinal statements from a scared, confused, and traumatized barely-12-year-old girl to give a life-altering diagnosis and handed her the prescription pad.”

“It took Dr. Olson-Kennedy and the team at LA Children’s a single visit to send Clementine down a life-altering, traumatic, body-disfiguring, and irreversibly damaging path of transgender medicalization.” By age 14, the complaint reads, Breen would receive a double mastectomy. 

This isn’t to dismiss the Trump administration’s efforts to prohibit the chemical and surgical mutilation of American children. Trump established his presidential tone with an executive order signed Jan. 28, reading: “It is the policy of the United States that it will not fund, sponsor, promote, assist, or support the so-called ‘transition’ of a child from one sex to another, and it will rigorously enforce all laws that prohibit or limit these destructive and life-altering procedures.” The DOJ recently subpoenaed more than 20 doctors and clinics “involved in performing transgender medical procedures on children.”  (RELATED: Trump Admin’s Dismantling Of Gender Ideology Leaves Activists, Legacy Media Reeling)

The Trump administration is turning up the heat. But hospitals also face an increasingly disturbed public on both sides of the aisle. Not to mention an emerging class of litigants with no shortage of defendants to sue. 

Indigo Insure, which offers medical malpractice insurance, published an article guiding physicians how to “reduce liability” in “detransition lawsuits” in December 2024.

“Regardless of where the courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, may end up, the real check on gender-affirming care for minors may come from the multi-million-dollar lawsuits now being filed against the physicians and healthcare centers that provide the care,” the author concludes. 

One way or another, this horrific chapter appears primed for closure. Maybe Newsom jumped off the bandwagon quickly enough.

Follow Natalie Sandoval on X: @NatSandovalDC