First detransitioner medical malpractice lawsuit to go to trial leads to $2M award

A New York jury awarded $2 million to a 22-year-old woman who sued her former psychologist and plastic surgeon for malpractice over a double mastectomy she received at 16. The trial marked the first time a detransitioner’s malpractice case has gone before a jury and ended in a financial judgment.

The verdict, delivered last week by a six-member jury in New York Supreme Court in Westchester County, found both the psychologist and surgeon liable for failing to meet the standard of care in treating Fox Varian, who has identified as transgender at the time of the surgery but later detransitioned and no longer does, according to The Epoch Times.

Jurors awarded Varian $1.6 million for past and future pain and suffering and $400,000 for future medical expenses.

They determined the providers did not follow adequate protocols, including thorough communication and evaluation prior to performing surgery, and concluded these failures constituted a “departure from the standard of care.”

Varian’s mother, Claire Deacon, testified that she opposed the surgery but eventually gave consent after being warned her daughter might take her own life without it.

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When she was only 16 years old, a surgeon removed the healthy breast of Fox Varian with the support and recommendation of a psychologist. On Friday, a jury found these medical professionals guilty of malpractice and awarded Varian a settlement of $2 million ($1.6 million for past and future suffering and an additional $400K for future medical expenses).

Like the majority of young people who are confused about their bodies during adolescence, Varian has embraced her female body and identity as she has matured. At age 22, she is one of a growing number of “detransitioners,” a group of people who we were assured of just a few years ago did not exist.

To be clear, the jury did not rule against the therapies, medications and surgeries that are used in so-called trans “medicine.” Rather, they ruled that the doctors failed Varian in this particular case.

Even so, this verdict will encourage and enable other cases like it to proceed. According to the New York Post,28 “detransitioner lawsuits” are already in process across the United States. Also, the size of the financial penalty in Varian’s case should push even more medical professionals and institutions away from experimenting on the bodies of children.

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Wesley J. Smith’s petition above followed the recent news that a woman given a double mastectomy when she was 16 was awarded $2 million in a first-of-its-kind malpractice judgment for a detransitioner.

The case of 22-year-old Fox Varian was easy to miss; its resolution, highlighted by independent reporter Benjamin Ryan, was mostly ignored in mainstream press. But Varian’s lawsuit against her psychologist and plastic surgeon contained a familiar story for anyone who’s followed these kinds of cases (or who listened to NR’s Detransitioners podcast series): Her mother was led by medical professionals to believe her daughter’s breasts had to be removed to treat her gender dysphoria; she resisted, then eventually relented.

With this judgment, other detransitioners see hope that physicians urging these interventions will eventually be held similarly accountable — and that more patients will come forward.

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