Let us pause a minute and reflect on a key fact – there is a doctor who performed surgery to remove the healthy breasts of a 13 year old girl, a doctor who apparently still has a license to practice medicine.
During her interview, “Cole told…Tucker Carlson she is ‘devastated’ at the loss of her breasts and has trouble coping. ‘As an adult, I will never be able to breast-feed whatever children I will have. I don’t even know if, because I was put on puberty blockers and testosterone at only 13 years old, I don’t know if I’ll be able to conceive a child naturally…I made an adult decision as a child.'”
In a Notice of Intent to Sue letter dated November 9, 2022, Cole’s lawyers outlined their allegations against the Kaiser Foundation Hospital and the doctors who treated this young woman’s “gender dysphoria”; “Defendants coerced Chloe and her parents to undergo what amounted to a medical experiment by propagating two lies. First, Defendants falsely informed Chloe and her parents that Chloe’s gender dysphoria would not resolve unless Chloe socially and medical transitioned to appear more like a male. Second, Defendants also falsely informed Chloe and her parents that Chloe was at a high risk for suicide, unless she socially and medically transitioned to appear more like a male…Both of these statements were false..”
As Cole’s lawyer’s explain, “First, the vast majority of childhood gender dysphoria cases resolve by the time the child reaches adulthood, with the patient’s self-perception reverting back to align with their biological sex. In such situations, the dysphoria resolves without any cross-sex chemical or surgical interventions…Defendants never once informed Chloe of the possibility, indeed the high likelihood, that her gender dysphoria would resolve, without cross-sex treatment, by the time she reached adulthood.”
Second, “a long-term follow-up population-based study…found that gender dysphoric individuals who undergo sex reassignment continue to have considerably higher risks for mortality, suicidal behavior, and psychiatric morbidity as compared with the general population. In other words, in a large number of cases, suicidality and psychiatric issues are not resolved by sex reassignment…Defendants intentionally obscured these facts and defrauded Chloe and her parents in order to perform what amounted to a lucrative transgender medical experiment on Chloe.”
The Notice also states that “it is important to note that the relevant Kaiser…facilities and institutions where Chloe received treatment have failed to enact policies and procedures preventing the risky, inadequately studied, and essentially experimental treatment that occurred in Chloe’s case. Indeed, to the contrary, the facilities and institutions actively promote, encourage, and advertise the availability of these treatments on minors, which represents an additional clear and egregious breach of the standard of care in this case.” Further, “(r)ecommending, supervising, prescribing, and advising inadequately studied, off-label, high risk treatments on Chloe, between 13 to 17 amounts to medical experimentation on Chloe, and represents gross negligence and an egregious breach of the standard of care.”
In any medical malpractice case, one issue is whether or not the patient gave consent to the treatment, and “assumed the risk” of the procedure. “Briefly, under the legal doctrine of informed consent, a doctor must provide enough information to help the patient make rational healthcare choices…In trial practice, medical malpractice defense attorneys almost always introduce the informed consent into evidence…The concern, of course, is that a signed document might confuse or prejudice jurors into a belief that the plaintiff was more aware of the potential risks of the intervention than might have been the case…in any case, such consent – even fully and thoughtfully performed – does not acknowledge the acceptance of risk of negligent treatment.”
Cole’s attorney’s address the issue of consent head-on; “(I)t is quite clear that…the informed consent forms and discussion regarding these treatments were highly deficient from a standard of care perspective and constituted intentional fraudulent concealment… the hormone therapy consent form… fails to meaningfully identify any risks of hormone therapy and puberty blockers…(despite there being) extensive documented known risks of such treatment, none of which were included in the form.”
Further, “(t)he informed consent form for the breast removal surgery identified some basic risks of the surgery, and loss of the ability to breastfeed. However, it failed to disclose the experimental nature of the surgery and the lack of long-term studies for performing this surgery at such an early age as a treatment for ‘gender dysphoria.’”
The Notice continues; “(b)oth consent forms also entirely failed to inform Chloe of the significant probability that her gender dysphoria would resolve by adulthood, resulting in severe regret and harmful physical changes to her body that can never be reversed…Defendants never verbally advised Chloe of this potential risk. To the contrary, Defendants advised Chloe that her gender dysphoria would only resolve if she underwent sex-reassignment hormones and surgery, which proved to be false. This inadequate consent and Defendants’ failure to properly advise Chloe and her parents of the associated risks and the experimental nature of the treatment, represents gross/reckless negligence and is an additional breach of the standard of care.”
Cole’s lawsuit, once brought, could be the turning point for the use of hormone blockers and gender reassignment surgery for minors. “Analysts like Dr. Jay Richards, director of the DeVos Center for Life, Religion and Family at the Heritage Foundation warn, a legal slugfest could be coming to the U.S., as more young people detransition and regret the permanent damage to their bodies. ‘We’re going to have thousands of young people who are de-transitioning, they’re going to be mad at what’s happened and so I honestly think maybe it’s 5 years maybe it’s 10 years, that this is all going to end,'” according to Richards.
For the past seven years, we have watched this horrific trend in child abuse continue and expand. Rather than deplore the practice, too many in the media have cheered for the mutilation of sexually-confused children. But minors who underwent these barbaric procedures have now matured, and realized the wrong done to them.
Legal actions for medical malpractice by detransitioned young people like Chloe Cole may finally bring these medical experiments on impressionable and vulnerable minors to an end.
Judge Wilson served on the bench in NYC
Illustration: Pixabay