Gender Transition Surgery Done to Minors – Yikes!!

I was reading about the results of a recent trial involving a young woman who sued her surgeon and psychologist for malpractice after they performed a double mastectomy on her when she was 15 years old. Before you skip over this article, thinking it’s just an analysis of some convoluted legal theories – it isn’t. I’m going to briefly recap the high points of the trial, of course, but also talk about gender dysphoria and gender transition surgery done to minors.


Let me insert here what motivates me to write these articles. First, I am honored to have a platform to write these articles and they are, at times, cathartic. Second, I don’t write them to convince you my opinions are correct; I write them to, hopefully, have you think about issues you might not otherwise have considered and maybe give you some information you might not have seen. I try to write on issues in today’s news or, on some occasions, topics that just catch my attention. In any event, I’m hopeful that they just don’t add to the noise on the internet and you find them at least interesting and funny, when appropriate. So, on to today’s topic of gender affirming surgery performed on minors.


“Gender dysphoria” is defined as a state of distress or unhappiness caused by feeling that one’s gender identity does not match one’s sex as registered at birth. This is a topic that has bothered me for awhile – gender transition surgeries performed on minors with gender dysphoria and medical support like hormone therapies for minors.


Related to my having real problems with this type of permanent surgery done to a minor is the equally disturbing issue of parents, doctors, schoolteachers, school counselors, or many others within a child’s orbit enabling their gender dysphoria. Many parents enable their pre-pubescent child’s gender dysphoria rather than treat it as a mental condition and older studies have shown that 80-95% of children with gender dysphoria naturally stop, most when they reach puberty. I wonder if the remaining 5-20% would have stopped if they had not been enabled. I have seen what I consider sad and tragic Youtube videos of mothers saying their three-year old child was “born in the wrong body” and really identifies with another gender – which they’re fully supporting. First, they weren’t born in the “wrong body,” they were born in the body they have. Second, a three-year old barely knows which shoe goes on which foot, let alone the difference between male and female and which gender they are. And third, if you are a mother who has a son but wanted a daughter (or vice versa), please don’t try to imprint your twisted desires on an innocent child, seek professional help for yourself. There are some medical professionals who believe that early social transitioning, enabled by parents, can solidify a trans identity that might otherwise have gone away on its own. Sad. This is a subject that is impossible to accurately assign percentages to, for or against, in a “what if” situation and, I expect, much of it goes unreported.


Even more disturbing to me (actually, it pisses me off) are schoolteachers and/or counselors who enable a child’s gender dysphoria through such things as letting the child go by another name at school that matches their “preferred” gender or referring to them by using pronouns that match their preferred gender and they keep it a secret from the parents. How did we get to a place in America where the school thinks it has superior rights over the parents? My personal opinion is that the Democrats and far left’s support and constant rallying behind gender-affirming surgery and medical support for gender dysphoria is to blame. It may go deeper than that and I could be wrong; but, as my beautiful bride likes to tell me, I’m not always right but I’m never unsure.


The latest statistic I could find is that, as of early 2025, 25 states have banned or restricted gender affirming care for minors, which includes medical and surgical procedures. I haven’t done the state-by-state analysis but I would bet my usual dollars-to-donuts that we’re talking about the difference between living in a blue state versus a red state. The latest stats I reviewed showed the U.S. having 24 reliably red states, 19 reliably blue states, and 7 “purple” or swing states, so the math lines up pretty well on the number of states banning gender affirming surgery on minors and the number of red states – go figure!


If you are in a position to vote on these issues, especially as it relates to parents’ right versus schools’ rights, or gender affirming surgery on or medical support for a minor, please vote your conscience…and by “vote your conscience,” I mean agree with me – okay, just kidding. The freedoms we enjoy in this great country allow each of us to vote our own opinions and beliefs; I just ask that you to get involved and vote. By not voting, you are basically letting the other side go unchallenged.


I’ll end this article with a brief recap of what I consider are the important aspects of the trial I mentioned in the opening paragraph. The result, in my opinion, may cause some medical professionals to stop performing gender affirming surgery on minors because it will hit them in the pocketbook – and that, oftentimes and unfortunately, is the only way to change someone’s behavior. The young woman was awarded $2,000,000 ($1.6 million for past and future pain and suffering and $400K for medical expenses). Personally, I think it should have been $20,000,000 for two reasons. First, she deserves it. And second, it would send a much stronger message to the medical community.


The young woman who is the subject of the lawsuit, Fox Varian, had a sad childhood. Her parents separated when she was seven and a three-year custody battle ensued which saw her, in the end, estranged from her father. She had a myriad of mental health problems, including depression, anxiety, and social phobia. By the time she was 13 or 14, she was completely lost. By age 15, she started questioning her gender when talking with her psychologist. She changed her name twice to align with her preferred gender, cut her hair, started binding her breasts, and started telling people she was transgender. In 2019, 11 months later, she had her breasts removed. She was 16 at the time. She was one of thousands of minors who underwent gender transition surgery over the past ten years.


Three years after her double mastectomy, she stopped identifying as a transgender and began a process known as “detransitioning.” At age 22, she filed a lawsuit against her long-time psychologist and surgeon. Her case was the first malpractice case to go to trial from a detransitioner.


The trial included emotional testimony from Varian and her mother. Varian testified that the psychologist served as an enabler, repeatedly assuring her that the double mastectomy would greatly improve her well-being. Varian’s mother testified that the psychologist browbeat her into consenting to the surgery, telling her that her daughter would commit suicide without the surgery. What parent wouldn’t consent after such a warning from a medical professional. While this may have been self-serving testimony at trial, Varian said she immediately regretted the surgery after removing the bandages. Her mother testified that Varian was still anxious, depressed, and had all the same issues post-surgery. After the surgery, Varian began cutting herself. Self-mutilation, usually cutting or burning yourself, is a harmful way that some people cope with emotional pain, stress, anger, and sadness. Varian said that shame and the mental discomfort she had for having conflicting beliefs kept her from openly expressing her remorse for three years. At 19, she stopped identifying as a male and considered herself a woman…but an incomplete one. She testified that “It’s so hard to face that you are disfigured for life.” She has physical scarring, lack of sensation, nerve pain where her breasts once were, and she will never be able to nurse an infant. She testified, “No amount of reconstruction is ever going to bring back what I lost.”


Varian’s psychologist treated her for two-and-a-half years before her surgery. Varian’s attorney portrayed her psychologist as heedless, sloppy, and ill-equipped to handle a case as specialized as Varian’s. The attorney said the psychologist “didn’t know what the heck he was doing. His obligation was not to empower her with every crazy idea that came into the head of a 16-year-old kid.” The psychologist had received no formal training in transgender care. The referral letter the psychologist wrote to the surgeon made no mention of the diagnosis of gender dysphoria but, instead said that Varian suffered from “body dysmorphia” (a fixation on a perceived physical flaw) – a diagnosis that is widely accepted as a reason not to perform plastic surgery. There obviously was a lot more testimony concerning the two doctors’ actions in her case that convinced a jury to find for Varian and award her $2M. In my experience defending personal injury product liability cases, we were often faced at trial with not only monetary damages (awards) for past and future pain and suffering and medical expenses but punitive damages (an award of money to punish the wrongdoers malicious, willful, or reckless misconduct and to deter similar such misconduct in the future). In my experience, punitive damages awards can be huge (the largest reported punitive damages award was $145 billion (that’s “billion” with a “b” and other large awards in the $20 billion dollar range). The largest punitive damages award against my company, which was later reversed on appeal, was $60 million. I don’t know why punitive damages were not available to Varian as I am unfamiliar with medical malpractice litigation.


In the end, a vulnerable and fragile young woman received exactly the wrong care and must now suffer the consequences. Her doctors failed her and I’m hopeful this case and others in the future will dissuade such surgeries on minors in the future. Very recently, the American Society of Plastic Surgeons announced new guidance recommending gender transition surgeries be reserved for those 19 years old and older. I’m also hopeful that other states will join those banning such surgeries and medical support for minors – but I doubt most of the far left blue states will do so.


When I grew up, there were no issues of this type at all. I don’t know how America has arrived at a place where our children are undergoing life-altering, permanent gender affirming surgery.



Jerry Hashimura
Pahrump, NV

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