Chloe Cole, an 18-year-old detransitioned woman, announced Thursday she is suing the hospital that facilitated her sex change as a child, the first official lawsuit of its kind in the United States, the Daily Wire reports.
Cole, represented by the Center for American Liberty, the Dhillon Law Group, and LiMandri & Jonna LLP, is accusing the Permanente Medical Group, Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, and Kaiser Foundation Hospitals of "medical negligence," alleging that physicians coerced her into undergoing "gender transition" as a child.
By the time she was 13, Cole had developed several mental health comorbidities, including anxiety, depression, and body dysmorphia. After hours of exposure to "online transgender influencers," she decided she was a boy, according to the complaint filed to the Superior Court of California. When her parents sought guidance at Kaiser Gender Pathways Clinic in Oakland, California, the physicians "immediately affirmed Chloe in her self-diagnosed gender dysphoria."
Doctors, "ignoring her extensive comorbidities [and] her declining mental health condition," put Cole on puberty blockers and cross-sex hormone treatment from age 13 to 16. They performed a double mastectomy on her when she was 15.
"Chloe's family sought medical treatment for her at Kaiser," said Harmeet Dhillon, an attorney and the CEO of the Center for American Liberty. "Instead of caring for her and providing medically competent diagnoses and treatment, they permanently disfigured her for profit."
Twenty-two states have already passed or are considering bills that would ban medical transition treatments on minors. Cole has testified at many of these state hearings.
"I was 15 when you cut into my body, ripped out my breasts, and stitched me back up like I was your rag doll," Cole said in a press conference Thursday. "You are on the wrong side of history and will always be remembered as child butchers."
While Cole is the first to file a U.S. lawsuit against her practitioners, she is not the first to sound alarm about the medical methods for treating minors questioning their gender. Earlier this month, Jamie Reed, a case worker at the Washington University Transgender Center at St. Louis Children's Hospital, published a damning exposé on her former employer's "morally and medically appalling" behavior toward children. Both Missouri attorney general Andrew Bailey (R.) and Sen. Josh Hawley (R., Mo.) are conducting official investigations into the center.
"Once I announced my intention to seek justice, I have not stopped receiving call after call, email after email, of parents and patients that have been harmed by these same practices," Cole said. "Some of them even were butchered in the same building I was."
Charles LiMandri, whose firm is representing Cole, says his client was a victim of "ideological and profit-driven medical abuse" that resulted "in excruciating pain and suffering, permanent disfigurement, loss of enjoyment of life, and extreme emotional distress."
"Defendants' coercion, concealment, misrepresentations, and manipulation are appalling and represent an egregious breach of the standard of care," the complaint reads.