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Detransitioner to sue 'mutilators' who 'butchered' her body

Detransitioner Chloe Cole, 17, speaks about her experience undergoing trans medicalization as a young teenager in a meeting with Florida Surgeon General Joseph A. Ladapo in July 2022.
Detransitioner Chloe Cole, 17, speaks about her experience undergoing trans medicalization as a young teenager in a meeting with Florida Surgeon General Joseph A. Ladapo in July 2022. | Screengrab: Twitter/Joseph A. Ladapo

A detransitioner is suing doctors who performed body mutilating sex-change surgeries on her as a minor, seeking to hold accountable the “mutilators” who “butchered” her. 

Chloe Cole, an 18-year-old detransitioner residing in California, has filed a notice of intent to sue the medical facilities that performed procedures that have left her disfigured. The notice of intent to sue in California Superior Court lists three doctors practicing in the Los Angeles area and two medical companies based in California as defendants in the pending lawsuit.

The lawsuit will move forward 90 days after the publication of the notice of intent to sue, on Feb. 9, 2023, “unless this matter can be resolved prior to that time.”

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A detransitioner is a person who formerly self-identified as the opposite sex but has now become comfortable with their biological sex. 

In a statement announcing the letter of intent to sue, Cole described her teenage years as “a culmination of excruciating pain, regret, and most importantly injustice.” Cole recalled that she was “emotionally and physically damaged and stunted by so-called medical professionals in my most important developmental period.”

“I was butchered by an institution that we trust more than anything else in our lives,” she added. “What is worse is that I am not alone in my pain. I will ensure that the blood and tears of detransitioners like me will not be in vain. It is impossible for me to recoup what I have lost, but I will fight to ensure that no other children will be harmed at the hands of these liars and mutilators.”

Harmeet Dhillon, CEO of the Center for American Liberty, is representing Cole in her litigation. Dhillon vowed to “hold the ‘professionals’ involved accountable for their deliberate choices to mutilate children and financially benefit from it without regard to the human tragedies they’ve created,” adding, “We will break the cycle of them breaking America’s children before it’s too late.”

The notice of intent to sue elaborates on Cole's circumstances: “Chloe is a biological female who suffered from a perceived psychological issue ‘gender dysphoria,’” the document states. “Under Defendants’ advice and supervision, between 13-17 years old Chloe underwent harmful transgender treatment, specifically, puberty blockers, off-label cross-sex hormone treatment, and a double mastectomy.”

The notice classified Cole’s experience as a form of “medical experimentation,” adding, “She now has deep emotional wounds, severe regrets, and distrust for the medical system.” Specifically, the letter adds that because of acts carried out by the defendants, Cole “suffered mutilation to her body and lost social development with her peers at milestones that can never be reversed or regained.”

“Defendants coerced Chloe and her parents to undergo what amounted to a medical experiment by propagating two lies. First, Defendants falsely informed Chloe and her parents that Chloe’s gender dysphoria would not resolve unless Chloe socially and [medically] transitioned to appear more like a male. Chloe has been informed by her parents that Defendants even gave them the ultimatum: ‘Would you rather have a dead daughter or a live son?’”

The notice of intent to sue notes that “the vast majority of childhood gender dysphoria cases resolve by the time the child reaches adulthood, with the patient’s self-perception reverting back to align with their biological sex.”

According to the letter, “Despite an undeniable body of relevant medical literature, Defendants never once informed Chloe of the possibility, indeed the high likelihood, that her gender dysphoria would resolve, without cross-sex treatment, by the time she reached adulthood.”

“Defendants fraudulently concealed that information from Chloe that the only way to resolve her psychological condition was to undergo physical, chemical, and social transition to a male role,” the document added. 

Citing a longterm study finding that “gender dysphoric individuals who undergo sex reassignment continue to have considerably higher risks for mortality, suicidal behavior, and psychiatric morbidity as compared with the general population,” the letter lamented that “Defendants intentionally obscured these facts and defrauded Chloe and her parents in order to perform what amounted to a lucrative transgender medical experiment on Chloe.”

Although Cole was “advised that the distress she experienced because of her gender dysphoria would resolve as she transitioned,” her “distress always came back worse” following the “initial relief” that occurred after “each phase of transition.” Cole’s double mastectomy, which was performed on her at 15, caused her to experience suicidal thoughts and a deteriorating state of mental health.

Cole told Fox News opinion host Tucker Carlson last week that the doctors named as defendants in the letter committed medical malpractice. The notice of intent to sue outlined some of the claims of medical malpractice, including the absence of “specific information regarding the actual risks of the testosterone and puberty blockers” she was first prescribed at age 13. 

Side effects of puberty blockers include: “Permanent fertility loss, painful intercourse, impairment of orgasm, reduced bone development and inability to obtain peak or maximum bone density, stopped or stunted widening and growth of the pelvic bones for reproductive purposes, increased risk of osteoporosis and debilitating spine and hip fractures as an adult, increased morbidity and death in older age due to increased risk of hip fracture, negative and unknown effects on brain development, emotional liability such as crying, irritability, impatience, anger, and aggression, and reports of suicidal ideation and attempt.”

While much of the notice of intent to sue contains redacted information about the medical consequences of the experimental procedures performed on Cole's body, the document concludes with an assessment of damages caused by the drugs and operations performed on her body over the course of several years. Cole will seek $350,000 from each of the three doctors named as defendants in the lawsuit and both healthcare organizations where the procedures were performed, making it possible that she could be awarded up to $1,750,000 in damages altogether.

The notice of intent to sue comes shortly after Cole has emerged as one of the most prominent detransitioners in the U.S. Cole founded the support group Detrans United, established to provide detransitioners who regret their attempts at gender transitions with a platform to voice their “dissent against ‘gender-affirming care,’ [and] influence policy.”

Cole has voiced her dissent against sex-change surgeries for minors by calling into a school board meeting last month at Conejo Valley Unified School District in Ventura County, California. Cole expressed concern about the school district’s distribution of a book to 8-year-old students teaching that children could be born in the wrong body. Cole warned that exposing children to such material could lead them to make ill-fated decisions like the ones she made when she was experiencing gender dysphoria.

“I will not be able to breastfeed any children I have in the future and my sexuality has permanently been affected because I was allowed to make adult decisions starting at 13, and then again at 15,” she said at the meeting. “This is what happens when children are sexualized and exposed to developmentally inappropriate and confusing content and ideas from a young age. This is what happens when we treat children like adults and expect them to have the mental faculties for proper long-term decision making.”

In light of the concerns about the longterm impacts of puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and body-mutilating surgeries on minors, the states of Alabama, Arizona and Arkansas have banned such procedures for children younger than 18, while the Florida Boards of Medicine and Osteopathic Medicine voted to do the same earlier this month. The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services classified such procedures as a form of child abuse, as has the state’s Republican attorney general

Ryan Foley is a reporter for The Christian Post. He can be reached at: [email protected]

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