Opponents of gender reassignment surgery for minors express worry regarding the potential for later regret among children who make such decisions. They are concerned that the child’s decision might be a temporary phase. These concerns have been reinforced by a recent case where a woman is suing her physician and hospital for precisely this reason.
On June 14, lawyers representing an 18-year-old named Kayla Lovdahl initiated legal proceedings against Kaiser Foundation Hospitals, the Permanente Medical Group, and several doctors. The lawsuit claims that the plaintiff struggled with a range of intricate mental health issues, including anxiety, fluctuations in mood, defiant and oppositional behavior, and gender dysphoria. Allegedly, Lovdahl’s mother inquired repeatedly about the possibility of her daughter being bipolar, as she herself has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
#Gender "medicine" isn't medicine at all.
— Sarah Parshall Perry (@SarahPPerry) June 15, 2023
It's chemical castration & juvenile experimentation
Minors need competent adults like @Miriam_Grossman to protect them from irreversible damage they incur on a whim–a whim monetized, socially influenced & pseudoscientific#Transgender https://t.co/KqUPS04Qe4
According to the lawsuit, at the age of 11, the plaintiff started to follow transgender influencers on social media and began questioning her own gender identity. She informed her parents that she identified as a boy, leading them to seek assistance from the defendants. The parents claim that Lovdahl was not adequately diagnosed, yet the doctors prescribed puberty blockers when she was 12 years old. Within six months, as alleged in the lawsuit, the doctors performed a double mastectomy on the plaintiff.
At the age of 17, the plaintiff reversed her transition process, but she is now without her breasts due to a doctor’s brief interaction with her. The lawsuit claims that the defendants failed to inquire, explore, or understand the psychological factors that led to Lovdahl’s identification as a boy. Instead, the medical staff relied solely on the testimony of an emotionally distressed girl who believed she knew what was best for herself when she was just a child.
Lovdahl is seeking financial compensation for medical expenses, pain and suffering, as well as legal fees associated with the lawsuit. In a statement released to the media, CEO Harmeet Dhillon of the Center for American Liberty, the organization representing Lovdahl, accused Kaiser of perpetuating this unscientific practice by allowing minors to undergo irreversible sex reassignment treatments.
