A teenager, in the US, who transitioned to a boy at a young age and later de-transitioned back to a girl has sued the doctors and hospitals that handled her gender treatment for failing to protect her as a minor, lindaikejisblog reported.
18-year-old Kayla Lovdahl, born a girl, alleged that four doctors and the Kaiser Foundation Hospitals rushed her through the gender treatment, causing her " deep physical and emotional wounds and severe regret.”
Kayla, who hails from California, is now seeking unspecified damages.
According to the lawsuit filed in California State Court, at age 12, Kayla decided she was 'a boy' after learning about the transgender community online.
The lawsuit alleged that “They essentially handed Kayla the prescription pad and allowed her naive, emotional, childish rollercoaster of feelings to dictate the so-called ‘treatment’ that she would receive.”
It further said, by age 12, doctors allegedly prescribed puberty blockers and testosterone for Kayla without providing sufficient psychological screening and also told her parents: “It’s better to have a live son than a dead daughter.”
At 13, Kayla's healthy breasts were removed in a double mastectomy to masculinize her chest.
The lawsuit also stated that clinical psychologist Watson - who also serves as the clinical director of Kaiser Foundation Hospitals' 'Transgender Clinic' at the Oakland Medical Center - held a single, 75-minute transition evaluation of Kayla before the gender change treatment.
However, by age 17, Kayla realized that the gender treatment was all a mistake and that the professionals around her had failed to protect her seeing that she was a child.
Kayla said in a YouTube interview, “The hardest part was being sold something that I believed was going to help me and make me feel better, only to do it and come out on the other side not feeling any better,” “I could always have waited, but I can’t undo it.”
Kayla’s attorney Mark E. Trammell of the Center for American Liberty told The NYPost that the hospital and doctors “breached the standard of care that they should be held to as medical professionals” by allowing her to transition so quickly.
'This case is about a team of doctors who decided to perform a damaging, imitation sex change experiment on [Lovdahl], then a twelve-year-old vulnerable girl struggling with complex mental health comorbidities,' the 35-page filing reads.
'[Lovdahl] needed care, attention, and psychotherapy,' of the NorCal medical officials', 'not cross-sex hormones and mutilating surgery,' Trammell argued.
Lovdahl and her lawyer wrote that the girl was forced to undergo psychotherapy sessions to undo the mental damage done by the procedure, which prognosis they insisted was premature - and gave the then-impressionable preteen the 'erroneous belief' she was transgender.
In a statement, a representative for Kaiser Permanente told The Post: “When adolescent patients, with parental consent, seek gender-affirming care, the patient’s care team carefully evaluates their treatment options and then a multidisciplinary team of physicians and other experienced professionals are available to provide the patient and their family with information, counseling, and other support.
“Care decisions always rest with the patient and their parents or guardians and, in every case, we respect the right of patients and their families to make informed decisions about their health.”
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