We’re at a point where the law is the only thing that can heal the harm done by doctors and psychologists in the name of gender affirmation.
Last week, 22-year-old Fox Varian successfully sued the doctors who conducted her process of transitioning from female to male, claiming negligence. Varian — once again living as a woman — will walk away with $2 million, but she’ll never get back her organs.
The case is an important milestone — the first time someone is being held to account for churning children through a medical system fueled by ideology rather than evidence. There are at least 28 similar lawsuits headed to trial.
“My guess is that a lot of the themes that came up in her case are pretty consistent through a lot of these cases — lack of collaboration, lack of proper training [or] experience,” Varian’s lawyer, Adam Deutsch, told The Post. “Knowing now that a jury will feel comfortable holding doctors accountable for this is something that I think every doctor should take seriously.”
The case is a profound indictment of a medical machine that extracted profit from youth suffering and failed to question whether children should be making profound decisions about their bodies before they can legally drink a beer.
At 16, Varian had been identifying as a boy — cycling through a cacophony of names, including Isabella, Gabriel and Rowan — for less than a year when Dr. Simon Chin, who practices plastic surgery in Westchester, removed her healthy breasts in 2019. This was allowed because, her lawyers claimed in court, psychologist Kenneth Einhorn “drove the train” for her transition.
Lawyers argued at the Westchester County Supreme Court in White Plains that Varian’s psychologist and surgeon failed to follow standards of care that would have saved her from trauma and regrettable surgery.
“This was not about ideology,” Deutsch told The Post. “This case was about medical malpractice. Every patient… is entitled to get care that is competent and standards-based.”
Varian’s lawyers allege that Kenneth Einhorn put “the idea in Fox’s head” to transition after the girl expressed feelings of gender dysphoria.
“This man was just so emphatic, and pushing and pushing, that I felt like there was no good decision,” Varian’s mother, Claire Deacon, mother told The Epoch Times. “I think it was a scare tactic. I don’t believe it was malice, I think he believed what he was saying — but he was very, very wrong.”
Deacon said that, although she was opposed to the surgery, she was intimidated into consenting when the psychologist claimed her daughter might otherwise commit suicide.
Varian’s lawyers allege that a host of other confounding mental health issues were not addressed, including social phobia, anxiety, depression, and autism.
Chin, meanwhile, was accused of meeting Varian just twice before her mastectomy, for 30 minutes each visit.
“These are very complex cases… and I think that [doctors] who are wading into this without that training and expertise, just like in any other area of medicine, can get themselves in trouble,” Deutsch told The Post. “I think Fox is very grateful for having the opportunity to come to court and prove that these doctors did not live up to the standard of care.”
Varian detransitioned three years later, but can never undo what was done to her body.
“It’s so hard to face that you are disfigured for life. No amount of reconstruction is ever going to bring back what I lost,” she told the jury, according to the Free Press.
This jury’s decision should send a chill down the spine of any doctor who casually prescribed life-changing medical intervention when children presented with psychological distress related to their gender.
It’s time we ask why doctors, culture, parents and institutions pressure children — who we agree are not old enough to make profound decisions in other areas of their lives — into permanent solutions for what might be temporary confusion.
Endless culture war arguments over transgender issues are tearing us apart and distract us from what is really at stake: children’s literal bodies.
This isn’t about litigating gender theory. It’s about ensuring doctors are held to account when they fail vulnerable kids who depend on them for guidance and support.