US woman sues after 'gender affirming' double mastectomy

That’s the other issue… if she’s inclined to be litigious then chances are she’d have sued them at the time if they refused.

She was 30 years old at the time of having the procedure and it didn’t occur to her then that having her breasts cut off meant she wouldn’t be able to breastfeed?!

Was there not a case or was it disproven as not true where a Dr was told if they didn't perfom trans affirming surgery they'd be struck off?

This was always going to happen, it was only a matter of time.
The lawyers have already started circling, it’ll be as common a lawsuit as PPI in a few years

The question for me is: is it ever acceptable and ethical to perform a double mastectomy on a healthy woman with no sign of breast cancer or no genetic risk of breast cancer?

To put it another way, is there a case for saying that women who are genuinely trans should, with appropriate counselling and time for reflection, be able to take an informed decision that they want their breasts removed?

Or is it more the case that the desire to have one's healthy breasts removed is itself a sign of psychological disorder that needs treating, and that doctors should never agree to it?

A lot hinges on the way the courts answer that question.

But isn't this where we are headed with a potential ban on talking therapies for people who believe they have gender dysphoria?
If a specialist isn't allowed to explore WHY a patient isn't comfortable in their own skin and has to only affirm their belief, this is where we end up - with people who were never challenged on their belief and therefore truly believed that hormones/surgery would sort them out, only to find out when it's too late that they didn't.

I wonder why the doctors who performed the mastectomies are not also being sued?

People have successfully sued tattoo artists for tattooing them whilst the recipient was obviously inebriated. Something to do with questionable consent / imbalance of power which would only be strengthened for doctors.

If doctors are treating a patient with known mental health issues and trauma, there should be increased due diligence to check the suitability of the treatment. That's assuming it can ever be considered suitable to treat body dysmorphia with surgery.

She was about 30 when it was done though - not a teenager - granted it all sounds a bit rushed in the final stages, but it had been considered by her for 4 years.
Doesn't she bear a lot of the responsibility?

So now there is one suit in Australia, Ritchie's here in the UK and one that we know of in the USA.

I suspect that it will depend on the outcomes of these suits but I do expect there will be quite a few. And that may be one of the only ways to stop this 'affirming only' treatment plans. The fact that it has been pushed onto clinicians the way it has, will have to have significant ramifications.

As Joanne Rowling said, (which echoes what has long been said here and elsewhere), this is medical scandal and it will be used as case study material for many disciplines in the future.

If it's a mental illness, they should be having treatment for that mental illness, not being fast-tracked to mutilating surgery or other physical treatment such as hormones or hormone blockers.

If it's not a mental illness, what sort of illness do they have which requires surgery? If their body is healthy, they don't have a physical illness, so the surgery is cosmetic surgery and should be viewed the in same way as any other cosmetic surgery.

Are there any other possibilities of what 'trans' might be? Possibly only the belief system which says that people can be literally 'born in the wrong body'. Which should be treated the same way as any other belief system which has no basis in science.

I’ve been saying for a while that there’s going to be a flood of legal cases from people who regret what has been allowed to happen to them, particularly children/young adults who look back in horror when they grow up and ask “Why didn’t you protect me?”

I saw that headline and thought “So it begins”.

She thought she was trans. She was treated as though this is an actual thing.

'Trans' does seem to be something which cannot be defined. What is it? Since we are told that very young children can 'be trans', this must be something which is comprehensible even to those young children, and yet none of the advocates for trans being a real thing seem able to offer any sort of definition of what 'trans' is.

Tattoo artists aren't Doctors, though I wonder about the liability for more 'out there' body modifications which, I suspect, the majority won't touch.

Do they have rules about facial tattoos? Genuine question.

They aren't permitted to tattoo under 18s.

I think they can be sued if they screw up. It's being alleged these 'Doctors' screwed up. She wasn't trans, she was mentally ill. A mental health practitioner should be expected to notice that before recommending irreversible surgery.

Would Camille still sue if there was no money involved and it was just for the legal precedent?

So she asked for the surgery or they unprompted told her to have it?
Also think if she hadnt been given it she would have sued, but hopefully this will deter other medical staff from agreeing to do this.

This is the problem - when they're wanting to transition, it's legitimate, and no they're not mentally ill how dare you suggest such a thing.
Then, once transitioned, should they decide to detransition, suddenly it's oh yes of course it's a mental illness, and now I'm going to sue because I never ever thought I might change my mind.
Being trans is either a mental illness or it's not, you can't have it both ways.
If I got a tattoo and then changed my mind about it, how far would I get if I sued the tattoo artist for disfiguring my body ffs 🙄

It's the fact that it's backed up by ideology which needs the scrutiny. Plenty of people have body dysphoria, and I'm quite certain they aren't all recommended for surgery. Because it's acknowledged that it's a mental condition.

She thought she was trans. She was treated as though this is an actual thing.

The irreversible nature of the surgery is one thing, but it's the reasons why she was recommended to have it in the first place that needs looking at.

I suspect the lifelong inability to breastfeed shows a loss that is beyond “cosmetic” and cannot be remedied.

You could argue that the appearance related aspects can be improved with implants etc but you can’t fix the loss of function.