Rubber-Stamped Radicalism: How Activist "Therapists" Enable the Trans Medical Pipeline
- RADAR News
- 4 minutes ago
- 4 min read
In Junction City, Kansas (and virtually via telehealth nationwide) a mental health clinic called Curtis-Baker Therapeutic Services (CBTS) is operating as a fully licensed gateway into the medicalization of children. Led by LP Curtis-Baker, formerly Lindsey Curtis-Baker, the clinic provides WPATH-compliant transition letters for children as young as twelve. CBTS identifies as an "affirming," "sex-positive," and "anti-oppression" practice that offers services to minors both in-person and virtually. It also extends its reach through a co-owned facility in Laramie, Wyoming. This isn't a fringe facility. It is a prototype of a growing system: a fully embedded ideological operation, legitimized by licensing boards, funded by insurance (including Medicaid) and targeting vulnerable youth across state lines.
Curtis-Baker is a Licensed Specialist Clinical Social Worker (LSCSW) in Kansas and a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW) in Wyoming and Utah. Her website describes a therapeutic model rooted in intersectional feminism and the rejection of traditional moral or religious worldviews. Her approach is described as a "strengths-based, trauma-informed, sex-positive, anti-oppression, 2SLGBTQIA+ affirming, feministic focus." She openly advertises WPATH-compliant assessments and referral letters for hormone therapy, puberty blockers, and gender surgeries for minors.
This is not therapy. It is ideological indoctrination with a clinical license.
LP Curtis-Baker holds a Bachelor’s degree in Social Work from Kansas State University (2014) and a Master’s in Clinical Social Work from Washburn University (2017). She operates exclusively via telehealth and accepts Blue Cross Blue Shield, Medicaid, Ambetter, Optum, UnitedHealthcare, and Tricare (out-of-network), along with self-pay and sliding-scale options. She is verified through Psychology Today, with listings in both Kansas and Wyoming confirming their provision of gender-related services for minors. These listings include specialties such as trauma, suicidal ideation, self-harm, and depression — conditions often used to justify gender medicalization.
Curtis-Baker is also listed on the Flint Hills Human Rights Project as a "Queer Affirming Therapist" and has a legacy 7 Cups profile under the name Lindsey Baker. These listings further solidify their place in the activist mental health ecosystem. CBTS offers far more than gender-related services. Her menu includes domestic violence assessments, Batterers Intervention Programs (BIP), LGBTQ+ teen support groups, community education, and therapy for individuals, couples, families, and groups. She also provides clinical supervision for LMSWs, LSCSWs, LMFTs, and LCMFTs. According to the CBTS website, 5% of all proceeds are donated to True Colors, Thrive! of the Flint Hills, and 7220 Counseling Coalition – organizations that share their ideological mission and further embed this model across communities.
CBTS also offers CEU training and a wide spectrum of therapy modalities, including DBT skills training and EMDR. Curtis-Baker’s professional background includes work with clients facing homelessness, food insecurity, foster care involvement, child abuse and domestic violence cases, and elderly care in long-term facilities. This institutional experience forms the basis of what has become a highly politicized, activist-driven mental health model. Additional therapy types employed include narrative, person-centered, relational, mindfulness-based, and trauma-focused interventions.
But perhaps the most revealing detail is the team behind the operation. Every clinician at CBTS shares the same ideological framework. Ari English (they/them) writes WPATH letters and has worked for GLSEN and Wichita State University as an LGBTQ+ coordinator, actively promoting the removal of mental health gatekeeping for medical transition. Finn Kufahl (they/them) offers WPATH letters starting at age 14 and affirms kink, BDSM, non-monogamy, and psychedelic integration therapy. Pearl Truitt, EMDR-trained, currently serves as a school social worker for K–8 students. Laura Gunderson holds dual Master’s degrees in Social Work and Social Justice & Human Rights and has worked with CBTS and political advocacy organizations like True Colors Flint Hills. Darin Volwiler specializes in trauma-informed yoga therapy and anti-2SLGBTQIA+ policy analysis. Other staff include Melissa Dennison (trauma and addiction therapist), Melody McDowall (domestic violence expert and BIP manager), Dale Dennison (criminal justice specialist and BIP facilitator), and Alyssa Saverud (billing and insurance specialist).
These are not fringe actors. They are embedded professionals operating with institutional backing. Several have experience working directly with public school systems, and many are trained in therapies framed around social justice, anti-racism, and queer theory. Their focus isn’t simply healing trauma — it is reshaping how trauma is interpreted through an ideological lens.
Curtis-Baker is also co-owner of 7220 Counseling Coalition, the Wyoming-based sister clinic that echoes CBTS’s mission in full. Its homepage features a quote from actor Elliot Page and affirms that its providers do not hold religious bias, are LGBTQIA+ affirming, and are committed to anti-racism. It, too, provides WPATH-compliant assessments and serves minors through telehealth.
What’s especially troubling is how these practices bypass traditional safeguards like parental consent. By framing emotional struggles as confirmation of gender identity, therapists like those at CBTS act as gate-openers rather than gatekeepers, fast-tracking vulnerable youth into lifelong medicalization. And because this process is often funded through Medicaid or accepted insurance plans, it becomes systematized, normalized, and financially incentivized.
The language used — "affirming," "sex-positive," "anti-oppression" — is not neutral. It is the language of social justice, not psychology. These therapists are not simply offering support; they are embedding activism into the very foundation of clinical care.
The Curtis-Baker model shows how far this ideology has penetrated the institutions meant to protect children. Through licensing, telehealth access, public school collaboration, and insurance billing, they have created a pipeline that converts distress into diagnosis, and diagnosis into irreversible medical action.
This isn’t about affirming care. It’s about removing boundaries. It’s about dismantling parental rights. It’s about embedding activism into every level of a child’s support system and calling it therapy. Unless we name it for what it is — institutional grooming masquerading as healthcare — it will continue to expand, unchecked.
References
Thank you to our brilliant Research Department, led by Mandy, for their thorough investigation and for providing all the sources to share with our readers.
Curtis-Baker Therapeutic Services. Curtis-Baker Therapeutic Services.
Curtis-Baker Therapeutic Services. Our team.
7 Cups. Lindsey Baker, Therapist in Junction City, KS.
Family Health & Human Rights Project. Mental health.
7220 Counseling Services. 7220 Counseling Services.
Psychology Today. LP Curtis-Baker, LSCSW, Therapist in Junction City, KS.