The lawsuit that could end the gender panic

A detransitioner has been awarded $2 million in damages. Could this be the turning point in the struggle against gender identity ideology?

It is curious that one of the proven cures for human hysteria is the threat of legal action. During the Salem witch trials of 1692, the supposedly ‘tormented’ girls who had accused villagers of cavorting with the devil ‘cried out’ against a gentleman from the nearby town of Andover. He promptly issued a writ for defamation, and the girls swiftly retracted their claim. It turns out that the forces of God will back down from Satan when faced with the prospect of a lawsuit.

This week, a jury in New York has awarded $2 million in damages to a detransitioner called Fox Varian. Now twenty-two years old, Varian had previously struggled with her gender identity and was subjected to a double mastectomy at the age of sixteen. Both the surgeon and the psychologist were found culpable for not following the standards of care or communicating adequately with each other during the consultation period.

Varian no longer identifies as transgender, but the damage has been done. During the trial, she said she regretted the surgery almost instantly. ‘I immediately had a thought that this was wrong,’ she said, ‘and it couldn’t be true’. After surgery, she recalled the pain in her chest as being akin to ‘searing hot… ripping sensations’ and that she felt ‘shame’ at the fact that she was now ‘disfigured for life’.

It goes without saying that no medical professional should be complicit in the mutilation of a child who is so clearly in need of psychotherapeutic support. According to research by the Manhattan Institute, between 2017 and 2023 around 6,000 girls under the age of eighteen had undergone double mastectomies. Worse still, at least fifty of these children were under twelve-and-a-half years old. Activists have routinely claimed that no minors are being subjected to ‘gender-affirming’ surgery. This is a lie.

What now for the many thousands of detransitioners who have grown up to regret their treatment? Even puberty blockers have been linked with testicular atrophy, increased risk of cancer, osteoporosis and impaired brain development. It is shocking enough that all of this was encouraged by those in a position of authority and trust, but we should never forget that it was in the service of a pseudo-religious belief in a gendered soul.

This was hysteria, plain and simple, and not even the brightest minds were immune from falling under its spell. No reputable study has found that ‘gender-affirming medicine’ is beneficial to patients, and yet the medical establishment kowtowed to activist pressure. It is reminiscent of the judges and ministers of Salem, going along with nonsense out of fear that they too might be accused of witchcraft.

Some doctors had been sounding the alarm for a long time. For instance, twenty-one leading experts in paediatric gender treatment wrote an open letter to the Wall Street Journal in July 2023. This is what they said:

‘Every systematic review of evidence to date, including one published in the Journal of the Endocrine Society, has found the evidence for mental-health benefits of hormonal interventions for minors to be of low or very low certainty. By contrast, the risks are significant and include sterility, lifelong dependence on medication and the anguish of regret. For this reason, more and more European countries and international professional organizations now recommend psychotherapy rather than hormones and surgeries as the first line of treatment for gender-dysphoric youth.’

Most significantly, these experts pointed out that there was no secure evidence that puberty blockers reduced the risk of suicidal ideation. In February 2024, this was confirmed in a study published in the British Medical Journal, based on a group of Finnish adolescents who were being treated for gender dysphoria between 1996 and 2019. This was a key development, because for years activists had been threatening parents with a kind of twisted ultimatum: ‘Do you want a happy little girl or a dead little boy?’

Given the dearth of evidence for gender-affirming medical intervention – and the sheer volume of detransitioners who now have to live with the consequences – perhaps the successful lawsuit against Fox Varian’s surgeon and psychologist will be the beginning of the end of this pseudoscientific mania.

This, after all, is precisely how the Satanic child ritual abuse panic of the 1980s came to an end. During this hysteria, hundreds of allegations were levelled against parents and carers on the basis of no evidence at all. Psychiatrists, therapists and other medical practitioners had used suggestive and leading interviewing techniques, promoting discredited notions of repressed memories, and convincing patients to collude in a fantasy. Families were torn apart, there were lengthy trials, and lives were ruined. Once the lawsuits started coming in, it was all over.

The historical parallels are stark, and while it will take many decades to undo the damage wrought by gender identity ideology, Fox Varian’s lawsuit is undeniably significant. It sets an important legal precedent, one that will deter doctors from encouraging children to undertake needless surgery in the future. While basic human morality and professional ethical standards have proven to be insufficient, perhaps money will eventually make all the difference.

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