Tipsheet

Detransitioner Will Sue Doctors, American Academy of Pediatrics Over Irreversible Transgender Care

A woman who was given experimental so-called “gender-affirming” care when she was a minor is suing her doctors and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) for knowingly lying about the impact of the treatments, according to a report from The Daily Wire

Reportedly, Isabelle Ayala, 21, was 14 years old when she was committed to a hospital for suicidal thoughts. During her hospital stay, she met with Dr. Jason Rafferty, who said that Ayala “meets criteria to consider hormonal transition” after one brief meeting with her. Six months into taking testosterone, Ayala tried to commit suicide. The treatments continued until Ayala moved away and quit them “cold-turkey.”

The lawsuit points out that Ayala “is an unfortunate victim of a collection of actors who prioritized politics and ideology over children’s safety, health, and well-being.”

“Isabelle is now twenty years old and longs for what could have been and to have her healthy, female body back,” the lawsuit says. “The changes the testosterone have had on her body are a constant reminder that she needed an unbiased medical expert willing to evaluate her mental health and provide her the care she needed, rather than a group of ideologues set on promoting their own agenda and furthering a broader conspiracy at her expense.”

The lawsuit names the doctors at the Hasbro Children’s Hospital Gender Clinic who provided Ayala’s experimental, detrimental transgender care, as well as the AAP. The organization has long pushed for the use of this kind of experimental care for minors. In 2018, Rafferty and his colleagues published the AAP’s mission statement supporting “care of transgender and gender-diverse children and adolescents.” 

“We know that family and community support are essential for any child’s healthy development, and children who are gender-diverse are no different,” Rafferty, the lead author of the statement, said. “What is most important is for a parent to listen, respect and support their child’s self-expressed identity. This encourages open conversations that may be difficult but key to the child’s mental health and the family’s resilience and wellbeing.”

According to the lawsuit, AAP’s policy statement “misleadingly presented its purported evidentiary support but was also rife with outright fraudulent representations.”

“Defendants have doubled- and tripled-down on their commitment to the policy statement and its ‘affirmative model’ of treatment, while continuing to promote and profit off it,” it added.

Last year, Townhall covered how Chloe Cole, now 19, would suing the organizations and doctors who facilitated the irreversible “gender-affirming” surgeries and treatments she endured as a minor. Cole underwent a double mastectomy when she was 15.

“My teenage life has been the culmination of excruciating pain, regret, and, most importantly, injustice,” Cole shared. “It is impossible for me to recoup what I have lost, but I will ensure no child will be harmed at the hands of these liars and mutilators. I am suing these monsters.”