Thread by @benryanwriter

A Legal First That Could Change Gender Medicine

At 16, Fox Varian got a mastectomy while undergoing a gender transition. She sued her psychologist and plastic surgeon for leaving her ‘disfigured for life.’ Benjamin Ryan reports from the courtroom.

Read the @TheFP article: thefp.com/p/a-legal-firs…

Follow and support my Substack, where I cover pediatric gender medicine: benryan.substack.com. I was the only reporter to attend the entire three-week trial and will be providing more in-depth reporting and commentary on the case.

The opening of my Free Press article:

Fox Varian had a turbulent childhood. Her parents split when she was seven, triggering a three-year custody battle that ultimately saw her estranged from her father. She suffered from a constellation of mental health problems, including depression, anxiety, and social phobia. She was diagnosed with autism and bounced around various schools. Her first period sent her into a meltdown, and she battled disordered eating and body-image issues. By mid-adolescence, she was completely lost.

At 15, she began questioning her gender during sessions with her psychologist. She changed her birth name, Isabella, to Gabriel, which she saw as androgynous. Over the next two months, she cut her hair short, began binding her breasts, switched her name again, to Rowan, and started telling people she was transgender.

In December 2019, 11 months after she started this public social transition, Varian underwent surgery to remove her breasts. She was 16 years old.

Varian, who adopted the name Fox at 18 and is now 22, is one of thousands of minors who underwent gender-transition surgery over the past decade. And she is just one of the young people who have come to regret permanently addressing what was only a temporary identity shift.

Three years after her mastectomy, Varian stopped identifying as transgender and began a process known as detransitioning. In May 2023, she filed a medical malpractice lawsuit against the two principal Westchester County, New York, care providers who oversaw her gender transition: her long-time psychologist, Kenneth Einhorn, and Dr. Simon Chin, who performed the mastectomy.

On Friday, a jury in White Plains, New York, awarded Varian $2 million in damages. Varian’s case is the first malpractice suit from a detransitioner to go before a jury, and I was the only reporter to attend the entire three-week trial. Represented by personal-injury attorney Adam Deutsch, Varian said she had been injured by the defendants due to their deviation from standard practices and a lack of informed consent. While there are no guarantees in medical malpractice lawsuits, legal experts believe Varian’s victory could inspire a wave of similar cases that would significantly disrupt pediatric gender medicine.

Claire Deacon, mother to Fox Varian, the detransitioner who won a $2M jury award after suing her care providers over the mastectomy she got at 16, testified that Varian's psychologist, Kenneth Einhorn, browbeat her into consenting with threats of her child's suicide.

I report for @TheFP:
thefp.com/p/a-legal-firs…

Subscribe to my Substack for further in-depth reporting about the case. I was the only reporter to attend the entire three-week trial. benryan.substack.com

Dr. Loren Schechter, the head of gender-affirming surgery at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago and the president-elect of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), testified that gender-transition surgery is not form of suicide prevention. thefp.com/p/a-legal-firs…

What can go wrong when care providers subscribe blindly to the "affirmation-only" ethos that swept across the United States in the 2010s.

Kenneth Einhorn, psychologist to Fox Varian, did not question her desire for a gender-transition mastectomy, Varian testified in her civil trial against him. It cost her her breasts and him $1.4 million in damages.
thefp.com/p/a-legal-firs…

I also published this complementary piece about my Free Press article on the $2M detransioner jury award in which I discuss how those caring for Fox Varian misinterpreted her gender-related distress as signs she was meant to grow into a young man. In fact, she was terrified of being a woman. benryan.substack.com/p/i-report-for…

Subscribe to my Substack, where I cover pediatric gender medicine, and kindly support my reporting: benryan.substack.com

I spoke with @MegynKelly's show about Friday's historic $2 million jury award to Fox Varian, a detransitioner who sued her care providers over the gender-transition mastectomy she received at age 16. I covered the trial for @TheFP and was the only journalist to attend the whole three-week trial in White Plains.

Apple podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tru…

Spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/6VeLw8…

YouTube: youtube.com/watch?v=25h7sp…

Here is my article for The Free Press: thefp.com/p/a-legal-firs…

@megynkelly @TheFP I'll be speaking on Substack Live with the great @Meghan_Daum today, Monday, at 6pm ET about my reporting on the historic $2M jury award that the detransitioner Fox Varian received on Friday. I was the only reporter to attend the entire trial.
open.substack.com/live-stream/10…

The $2 Million Detransitioner Lawsuit Case File Is Sealed. But I Have Those Records. Here Are Some Of Them.

I obtained all the case files in the Varian v. Einhorn lawsuit before they were sealed at the start of the trial. And I was there to record how the jury voted on the over 20 questions put before them.benryan.substack.com/p/the-2-millio…

I’m too tired to go into all the details, but as usual @JulieRei only sort of gets the facts right. Julie, please read my reporting on the case. See above for my Free Press article and two Substacks, in which I include all the jury questions—a key missing detail in your limited take on the case. You’re stuck with me, because I was the only reporter to attend the whole trial and the transcripts are sealed. As for trained gender specialists being immune to these lawsuits, Olson-Kennedy is one and she didn’t assess Clementine Breen before putting her on blockers on her first appointment.

@megynkelly @TheFP @meghan_daum @JulieRei This is a remarkable find by @byrne_a: Dr. Loren Schecter, president elect of WPATH and head of gender-affirming surgery at Rush Univ, appears to have done a 180 on whether gender-transition surgeries prevent suicide:

This attack on my work over on Bluesky is so typically narrow minded and myopic, given that, as this court case demonstrated in unsparing and excruciating detail, Fox Varian, the plaintiff, *was not transgender.* She got sucked up into the trans-care system and came out maimed.

I would ask people such as this Bluesky crank if they care anything for people like Fox. They seem very eager to dismiss her suffering as acceptable collateral damage for a higher cause.

@megynkelly @TheFP @meghan_daum @JulieRei @byrne_a I had a great chat with @meghan_daum about the successful detransitioner lawsuit:

@megynkelly @TheFP @meghan_daum @JulieRei @byrne_a I went on The Ann and Phelim Scoop to discuss my reporting about the $2M jury award in the nation's first detransitioner lawsuit to make it to trial.

@megynkelly @TheFP @meghan_daum @JulieRei @byrne_a I went on the @ScottJenningsKY show to discuss my reporting for @TheFP about the nation's first detransitioner lawsuit to go to trial. It reached a $2M jury award on Friday.

@megynkelly @TheFP @meghan_daum @JulieRei @byrne_a @ScottJenningsKY It’s always great to talk with @BuckAngel, who as the number one trans man in America is nevertheless hated by trans activists for being some sort of, what, transphobe? We talked about the historic $2M verdict in the detransitioner lawsuit.

@megynkelly @TheFP @meghan_daum @JulieRei @byrne_a @ScottJenningsKY @BuckAngel I went on @MegynKelly's radio show to discuss the $2M detransitioner lawsuit: megynkelly.com/2026/02/02/det…

@megynkelly @TheFP @meghan_daum @JulieRei @byrne_a @ScottJenningsKY @BuckAngel x.com/anish_koka/sta… x.com/anish_koka/sta…

@megynkelly @TheFP @meghan_daum @JulieRei @byrne_a @ScottJenningsKY @BuckAngel x.com/anish_koka/sta… x.com/anish_koka/sta…

@megynkelly @TheFP @meghan_daum @JulieRei @byrne_a @ScottJenningsKY @BuckAngel My appearance on @CBSNews:

@megynkelly @TheFP @meghan_daum @JulieRei @byrne_a @ScottJenningsKY @BuckAngel @CBSNews Reposting this one, after they did some edits:

@megynkelly @TheFP @meghan_daum @JulieRei @byrne_a @ScottJenningsKY @BuckAngel @CBSNews I spoke with @sometherapist:

@megynkelly @TheFP @meghan_daum @JulieRei @byrne_a @ScottJenningsKY @BuckAngel @CBSNews @sometherapist The YouTube version of the @sometherapist interview:

@megynkelly @TheFP @meghan_daum @JulieRei @byrne_a @ScottJenningsKY @BuckAngel @CBSNews @sometherapist I spoke with the @NewYorkSun about the detransitioner lawsuit.

@megynkelly @TheFP @meghan_daum @JulieRei @byrne_a @ScottJenningsKY @BuckAngel @CBSNews @sometherapist @NewYorkSun I spoke with the Lisa Wexler Show in Connecticut about the Fox Varian detransitioner lawsuit.
shows.acast.com/the-lisa-wexle…