Jury awards detransitioner $2M in medical malpractice case

A jury in White Plains, New York, found a psychologist and surgeon liable for malpractice after they supported and performed a double mastectomy on a teenage girl. At the time of the surgery, the 16-year-old identified herself as a male. Now 22 and no longer referring to herself as transgender, Fox Varian was awarded $2 million in damages, which included $1.6 million for past and future pain and suffering, and another $400,000 for any future medical expenses. 

She received the court win after a three-week civil trial in the New York Supreme Court. While Varian’s court documents were sealed, reporters from The Epoch Times and The Free Press attended the trial. 

What did the jury find? A six-member jury found that Varian’s psychologist and surgeon ignored procedural guardrails while pushing Varian towards surgery, according to The Epoch Times and The Free Press. Instead, the surgeon and psychologist skipped over these steps, which the jury said was a departure from the standard of care, according to The Epoch Times.

What did attorneys argue? Varian’s attorney argued that the surgeon and psychologist should have ensured her psychological conditions, which included anorexia, depression, ADHD, autism, and body dysmorphia, were more fully treated before moving ahead with surgery. 

Attorneys for the psychologist and surgeon contested that Varian did not express regret for the surgery until years later, according to The Epoch Times. Instead, Varian lived as a male or non-binary person for a long time following the procedure, argued the psychologist and surgeon.

Have there been other cases like this? More than two dozen detransitioner cases have been filed across the country, according to Benjamin Ryan, the reporter who covered the trial for The Free Press. Varian’s case is the first to go before a jury and the first to win a judgment like this, he said.

Dig deeper: Read Christina Grube’s report on allegations that a California law forced educators to hide information about a student’s so-called gender identity from parents.