Dozens more cases pending after New York jury finds doctors liable in teen sex change case, awards $2M to detransitioner 

At least 28 similar malpractice cases are pending nationwide after a New York jury Friday awarded a woman $2 million for the sex change she received at age 16 and later tried to reverse. 

Legal experts predict the Varian verdict could “significantly disrupt pediatric gender medicine,” The New York Post reports. And on Tuesday, the American Society of Plastic Surgeons issued a statement urging doctors to delay gender-related surgeries for patients under 19. 

Fox Varian, now 22 and a detransitioned woman, was awarded $2 million in damages – $1.6 million for past and future pain and suffering, along with $400,000 for future medical expenses. 

“It’s so hard to face that you are disfigured for life,” Varian told the jury. “No amount of reconstruction is ever going to bring back what I lost.” 

Varian was 16 when doctors told her transitioning from her biological sex to a male identity would resolve her mental and emotional struggles. The jury found a surgeon and a psychologist liable for medical malpractice for performing a double mastectomy on a 16-year-old girl. 

Varian’s attorneys argued psychologist Kenneth Einhorn “drove the train” by introducing and advancing the idea of transition, the New York Post reported. Varian’s mother, Claire Deacon, testified Einhorn warned Varian would commit suicide unless she transitioned and underwent surgery. 

“She was still anxious, she was still depressed, she still had all the same issues” after the transition, Deacon told the jury. 

Varian is said to have regretted the surgery immediately after her bandages were removed. 

A Westchester County Supreme Court jury in White Plains found Einhorn and surgeon Simon Chin failed to follow required procedures and didn’t adequately communicate while evaluating Varian. The jury concluded the failures constituted a departure from the standard of care. 

Varian stopped identifying as male and began detransitioning three years after the surgery. She filed the malpractice lawsuit in 2023, now the first detransition-related lawsuit to be decided by a jury. 

More cases pending nationwide 

Chloe Cole, a detransitioner who is pursuing her own lawsuit, said Varian’s case gives her great hope. 

“I am going to trial as well against my doctors with @Liberty_Ctr, and this gives me even more hope that I will get justice for myself,” Cole posted on X. 

Attorney Charles LiMandri, whose firm represents Cole and other plaintiffs, said the ruling “will forever change the legal landscape.” 

“It was a shot across the bow to all the doctors and malpractice insurance carriers that the financial risks – and the risks to doctors’ careers and reputations – are real and substantial,” LiMandri told The Free Press.