A detransitioner says that, as a teenager, he was encouraged to continue using puberty blockers by a pediatric urologist who was later arrested on child pornography charges.
In a declaration filed Wednesday in the Federal Trade Commission’s lawsuit against the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, Jonni Skinner described his experience with Dr. Bryan Sack, a pediatric urologist who, according to Skinner, dismissed concerns that transition drugs may have been connected to his worsening urinary symptoms.
Skinner wrote that he began seeing Sack in 2018, when he was 15, after an endocrinologist at a gender clinic referred him to the urologist. At the time, Skinner said, he was taking several transition-related drugs, including Histrelin, a puberty blocker.
In the declaration, under a section titled “My Health Deteriorated on Transition Drugs,” Skinner said his urine became “strawberry colored” and appeared to contain “flakes of skin.” He also described urinary accidents at school, appetite loss, hot flashes, night sweats, genital pain, and severe muscle cramps throughout his body. The symptoms, he said, became so painful that he could no longer ride his bike.
Skinner said he and his mother raised those concerns with Sack, asking whether the puberty blocker or other transition drugs could be linked to hematuria or incontinence. According to the declaration, Sack told them no and said the drugs had been used for decades.
Skinner wrote that Sack offered no useful advice or prescription. In his medical chart, Sack reportedly attributed the symptoms to “dysfunctional social voiding,” tied to bathroom use issues at school. The chart also referred to Skinner with female pronouns.
After that diagnosis, Skinner said, his school pushed him to use the girls’ bathroom and ended his access to the nurse’s office. He eventually had the puberty blocker removed from his arm in late 2018, shortly before turning 16. Within a few months, he said, he stopped urinating blood.
The Mayo Clinic lists bloody or dark urine among possible side effects of Histrelin, along with muscle, joint, and chest pain.
Years later, Sack was arraigned on six felony charges related to possession of “child sexually abusive material,” Skinner noted in the declaration. Sack pleaded not guilty in early June to federal charges of receiving and possessing child pornography depicting a minor under the age of 12, according to local reporting. He had been working at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Toledo, Ohio, which fired him after learning of the arrest.
Authorities arrested Sack after executing a search warrant at his Michigan home. According to the criminal complaint, investigators found multiple nude images of prepubescent girls in sexually suggestive poses linked to an email address and screen name associated with him.
Skinner, who describes himself as an autistic homosexual man from small-town Michigan, said he now believes his childhood gender nonconformity was natural. “Lots of gay men like me have similar childhood memories,” he wrote. At the time, however, he said adults treated his femininity as evidence that he was confused about being male.
He also argued that autistic children are disproportionately represented among minors who undergo gender-related medical interventions.
The FTC, joined by Alaska, Iowa, Nebraska, and Texas, sued WPATH on Wednesday, accusing the organization of misleading minors and parents about the safety, effectiveness, medical necessity, and consensus behind gender-transition treatments. The lawsuit alleges that WPATH’s professional members benefited financially from those claims while children and families bore the costs.
Skinner has also spoken publicly about his experience. In April, he testified before the California Senate Judiciary Committee, where he criticized legislation backed by Democratic state Sen. Scott Wiener related to conversion therapy. Skinner said medical and mental health providers never seriously examined why he felt the way he did before placing him on blockers and hormones.
“They poisoned my body with blockers and hormones, arresting my puberty and messing with my development,” Skinner told lawmakers. He described himself as a 23-year-old gay man still living with the consequences of those decisions.
