WHITE PLAINS, NEW YORK—A New York jury awarded $2 million to detransitioner Fox Varian in a landmark medical malpractice case over a double mastectomy she underwent as a minor, marking the first such verdict against providers of gender-affirming care for adolescents.
The six-member jury in Westchester County Supreme Court found psychologist Kenneth Einhorn and surgeon Simon Chin liable after a three-week trial, delivering the decision on Jan. 30. The award included $1.6 million for past and future pain and suffering, along with $400,000 for future medical expenses.
Varian, now 22 and living in Yorktown Heights, filed the lawsuit in 2023, alleging the providers deviated from standards of care by rushing her into irreversible surgery without properly addressing her underlying mental health issues or obtaining informed consent. At 16, she identified as transgender and sought the procedure in 2019, but later regretted it and detransitioned, embracing her female identity.
Court records showed Varian faced a challenging childhood, including her parents’ divorce at age 7, a custody battle that estranged her from her father, and diagnoses of autism, depression, anxiety, social phobia, and disordered eating. By 15, she began questioning her gender, cutting her hair, binding her breasts, and changing her name multiple times. Einhorn referred her to an LGBTQ center in Albany, where she attended two sessions and expressed doubts about her identity, feeling pressure from family, peers, and culture. Despite this, she proceeded to surgery less than a year after socially transitioning.
During the trial, Varian’s attorneys argued that Einhorn omitted key details about her mental health in his referral letter and failed to request notes from the center that might have revealed her uncertainties. Chin met with her for only an hour across two appointments in the nine weeks before the operation and did not discuss potential regret or the possibility that surgery might not resolve her psychological struggles. Both defendants admitted the process did not meet care standards, including ensuring stable gender identity for at least six months, and acknowledged they would have reconsidered if aware of her doubts.
Varian took the stand to describe her experience, saying she lacked the maturity to decide on or cope with the surgery’s consequences at that age.
“I was 16, and I was really, really mentally ill, obviously,” she testified. “I obviously wasn’t mature enough to make the decision to have surgery, and I certainly wasn’t mature enough to handle the aftermath.”
She added that facing permanent disfigurement remained difficult, with no reconstruction able to restore what she lost.
Her mother, Claire Deacon, testified that she consented to the procedure out of fear her daughter might commit suicide, a concern echoed in arguments about pressures on families. Varian’s lawyer, Adam Deutsch, contended the providers abandoned safeguards, stating they had chances to slow the process, explore issues, and follow protocols but instead proceeded without them.
The case drew attention from whistleblowers in the field, including Jamie Reed, a former caseworker at Washington University Transgender Center clinic in Missouri. Reed called the verdict the “tip of the iceberg,” suggesting it validated concerns about minors being fast-tracked into surgeries without exploring alternatives. She described how families often faced warnings of potential suicide if procedures were denied, though no evidence supported such claims. Reed added that the approach sometimes resembled a belief system rather than medical standards.
There are at least 28 similar lawsuits underway across the United States.
Author: Mario Lotmore
