LGBT

Jury Awards $2 Million to Young Woman Who Underwent ‘Transgender’ Surgery at 16

A New York jury awarded Fox Varian $2 million dollars in a malpractice lawsuit against medical professionals who attempted to socially and surgically “transition” her to look like the opposite sex. 

This is the first time a “detransitioner” has won a medical malpractice suit against those who caused irreversible psychological and physical damage to a person struggling with sexual identity confusion. 

Varian underwent a double mastectomy in 2019 when she was only 16 years old, hardly competent to consent to an operation that left her with scarring, ongoing pain, and the inability to ever nurse a child. 

Four years after her surgery, she filed a lawsuit against her psychologist, Kenneth Einhorn, who had written a referral letter to Dr. Simon Chin, the surgeon who performed the double mastectomy on the teenager.    

Writing at The Free Press, Benjamin Ryan explained that the jury decision hinged on “whether the care providers failed to observe standard safeguards and whether any deviations from those standards injured the patient.”

Ryan reported that Varian was 15 when “she began questioning her gender during sessions with her psychologist.” Born Isabella, she first changed her name to Gabriel, identifying as androgynous. 

“Over the next two months,” Ryan explained, “she cut her hair short, began binding her breasts, switched her name again, to Rowan, and started telling people she was transgender.” 

Finally, only “11 months after she started this public social transition, Varian underwent surgery to remove her breasts.” 

Ryan evinced sympathy for Varian’s mother Claire Deacon, who was pressured to approve the surgery, reporting: 

Varian testified that Einhorn served as an enabler, repeatedly assuring her that the mastectomy she desired would greatly improve her well-being. Deacon testified that Einhorn browbeat her into consenting to her daughter’s surgery, threatening that she would otherwise commit suicide.

“Varian’s attorney Adam Deutsch had asked the jury for $8 million in damages,” The Epoch Times reported, adding that the jury award included “$1.6 million for past and future pain and suffering, and another $400,000 for future medical expenses.” 

Ryan attended all three weeks of the jury trial in White Plains and said this verdict “could change gender medicine,” adding, “There are nearly 30 known civil suits filed by detransitioners to date (the first was filed in 2022), almost all of them malpractice cases structured similarly to Varian’s.”

He explained: 

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.

Other young women who were damaged by “transgender” drugs, hormones and surgeries, and who have filed lawsuits against medical institutions and professionals who harmed them, applauded the jury decision. 

Chloe Cole filed a lawsuit in 2023 alleging that Kaiser Foundation Hospitals, The Permanente Medical Group and three doctors had improperly treated her sexual identity confusion with chemical and surgical interventions, leaving her with “deep physical and emotional wounds, severe regrets, and distrust of the medical system.”

Doctors prescribed powerful puberty blockers and testosterone to Cole when she was only 13, performing a radical double mastectomy on her when she was only 15. 

Cole stated in a post on X, “I couldn’t be more happy for Fox Varian. Detransitioners need justice.” 

Prisha Mosley is another young woman who filed a lawsuit alleging medical fraud against those who used chemical and medical interventions in an attempt to make her look more like a male. Her lawsuit stated: 

Instead of telling Prisha the truth and informing her accurately and fully, Defendants lied to Prisha. They lied when they told Prisha she was actually a boy; they lied when they told her that injecting testosterone into her body would solve her numerous, profound mental and psychological health problems. …  And they lied by omission, withholding critical information from her about the long-term adverse health consequences and permanent damage these “treatments” would cause her, and failing to inform her of alternative courses of treatment for her psychological problems and ensure she had a clear understanding of those alternatives.

Part of her case was dismissed, but Mosley has appealed that decision. 

In an appearance on The Ingraham Angle, Mosley told Laura Ingraham how encouraged she was by the jury’s award to Varian: 

I think this sets an incredible precedent for detransitioners like me, who are trying to hold our doctors accountable. To see a win, an agreement from a jury that this patient was wronged, especially in a blue state like New York, is especially encouraging for detransitioners like me.

As Christians, we must have compassion on children — and adults — wrestling with sexual identity confusion. But true compassion means protecting strugglers from harmful and damaging drugs, hormones and surgeries.

Legal victories can’t undo the irreversible damage caused by these treatments. But, as legal experts told Benjamin Ryan, “Major jury awards could drive up malpractice insurance rates and perhaps even drive providers who fear reputational damage out of the field entirely.”

Related articles and resources: 

DOJ Targets Those Mutilating Children with ‘Transgender’ Drugs and Surgeries

Do Not Fall for the ‘Affirm Them or They Will Die’ Lie

Expert in ‘Transitioning’ Children Admits ‘We Were Wrong’ About Puberty Blockers

Focus on the Family: Counseling Consultation & Referrals

Focus on the Family: Transgender Resources

Four Brave Young Women File Lawsuits Alleging Harm from ‘Transgender’ Interventions

More Hospitals Stop Mutilation of Sexually Confused Children

New Video Equips Parents and Counselors to Help ‘Gender Dysphoric’ Children

ReFOCUS with Jim Daly: Addressing Gender Identity with Honesty and Compassion

ReFOCUS with Jim Daly: Chloe Cole: Gender Reassignment Surgery Regret

Transgenderism and Minors: What Does the Research Really Show?

Washington State Citizens Fight for Parents’ Rights, Girls Sports

Supporters of parents’ rights and girls sports submitted two citizen initiatives to the Washington State Legislature. 

Restoring the Parents’ Bill of Rights, IL26-001, repeals sections of legislation passed in 2025 that stripped parents of their rights in education. 

The measure guarantees parents have access to their children’s instructional materials and school records; requires parental notification when schools provide medical services; allows parents to opt children out of surveys, questionnaires and sexual education; and assures families their religious beliefs will be respected. 

Initiative Measure IL26-638, Protecting Fairness in Girls Sports, prohibits “male students from competing with and against female students in athletic activities with separate classifications for male and female students.” 

Brian Noble, CEO of the Family Policy Institute of Washington, explained to the Daily Citizen, “Both initiatives are a demonstration of how citizens in Washington can impact policy despite conservatives being significantly outnumbered in both the Washington House and Senate.” 

He added: 

God has given us a scriptural mandate to be engaged actively on the battlefield of the public square. Scripture calls Christians to steward all that God has created, including the governmental sphere.

Let’s Go Washington collected more than 416,000 signatures for the parents’ rights initiative and more than 445,000 signatures for the girls sports measure. Valid signatures from 308,911 voters are needed to send the measure to the legislature. 

Brian Heywood, leader of Let’s Go Washington, commented on the two measures to the Washington State Standard, bluntly stating, “This is not a partisan issue, this is a common sense issue.” 

The measures have “broad support,” he added, with more than half of the signatures coming from liberals and independents. 

Both proposals are “indirect initiated state statutes,” citizen-initiated ballot measures that are first presented to the Washington Legislature. According to Ballotpedia, the Legislature then has three options:  

  1. Adopt the initiative into law without sending it to the voters.
  2. Reject or not act on the initiative, in which case it is placed on the ballot for voters to decide.
  3. Approve an alternative version, in which case both the original proposal and the legislative alternative are placed on the ballot at the next state general election.

Current reports suggest the legislature will let the measures go the voters in November. 

The Parents’ Bill of Rights has a convoluted history. In 2024, Let’s Go Washington submitted enough signatures to send Initiative 2081, the first version of A Parents’ Bill of Rights, to the state legislature. The initiative passed and was signed into law. 

But then the legislature engaged in some tricksy behavior by passing HB 1296, a law which undermined local control of schools, supposedly “balanced” student rights with parents rights and actually eliminated some parents rights. Among other things, the legislation: 

  • Increased the time for schools to share records with parents from 10 business days to 45. 
  • Removed a parent’s right to access certain public school records, including medical or health records, and records of any mental health counseling.
  • Eliminated a parent’s right to be notified by public schools prior to medical services or medications being offered or referred to his or her child (even when it will cost parents).
  • Stripped the parental right to be notified and opt a child out of personally invasive surveys, assignments, role-playing activities, recordings or other student engagements. 
  • Removed a parent’s right to be notified if his/her child is taken or removed from a public school campus to stay at a youth shelter or “host home.” 

The new measure restores the original Parents’ Bill of Rights, rolling back the damaging effects of HB 1296. 

The Protecting Fairness in Girls Sports measure is also very much needed in Washington State. In December, Washington’s alternative weekly newspaper The Stranger reported, “In Washington, trans girls and boys have played with, and against, cis girls and boys for nearly two decades.” 

“Cis” is a term made up by transgender activists to designate real boys and girls, rather than those who mimic the opposite sex with clothes, makeup, drugs, hormones and surgeries. 

Washington’s Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) requires all local educational agencies “to allow all students, including transgender and nonbinary students, the opportunity to participate on the interscholastic sports team that most closely aligns with their gender identity.” 

The U.S. Department of Justice and U.S. Department of Education are currently investigating OSPI for allowing “males to participate in female sports and occupy female-only intimate facilities, thereby raising substantial Title IX concerns.” 

Family Policy Institute of Washington, a Focus on the Family-allied organization, supports both initiatives. Noble told us: 

FPIW has proudly supported these initiatives, and we will continue to advocate for parental rights and the safety of our children as these initiatives move through the legislative process. 

Focus on the Family also supports parental rights in education and protecting girls and women’s sports. We trust Washington Christians and conservatives will engage with the initiative process and support these to important measures. 

Related articles and resources: 

Family Policy Institute of Washington

Let’s Go Washington : Rally to Support The Initiatives

Athletes Rally at Supreme Court to Keep Boys Out of Girls Sports

Department of Justice Launches Title IX Task Force to Protect Women’s Sports

Focus on the Family Transgender Resources

How to Get In Touch With Your State Policy Group

Meet Three Heroes Working to Protect Colorado Children

President Trump: ‘There are Only Two Genders: Male and Female’

Supreme Court to Hear Title IX Girls Sports Case

Top 5 Moments From Supreme Court Arguments Over Girls Sports

Trump Signs Executive Order Protecting Women’s Sports and Spaces

Yes, Girls Care When Boys Take Their Trophies

Colorado Bill Would Force Parents to Accept Child’s New ‘Gender Identity’

The Colorado General Assembly is threatening parent’s rights if they oppose “transitioning” their child to a new “identity.”

In cases where parents divorce or separate, Senate Bill 26-018 mandates that courts take into consideration whether or not a parent supports a child’s “identity as it relates to a protected class” when “determining parenting time and allocation of decision-making responsibility.” 

The bill references a Colorado law that includes “gender identity” and “gender expression” as protected classes. 

A parent in a custody dispute who refuses to embrace a child’s rejection of his or her sex would be penalized by the court, granting preference to the parent who favors “transitioning” their child. 

This is already happening in Colorado — and across the nation — as courts and child protective service agencies are removing sexually confused children from parents, but SB 26-018 codifies this abuse of parental rights into law. 

The bill, Legal Protections for the Dignity of a Minor, also suppresses court records of a minor’s name change, hiding the child’s original name and sex. 

In Colorado, 14-year-olds can initiate a legal name change without parental consent, and one parent can petition to change a child’s name and identity, without the other parent’s permission, as long as a judge decides this is in the “best interests” of the child. 

The parent pushing a child toward dangerous, experimental “transgender” medical procedures gains an advantage in custody cases over the parent who believes in biological reality. 

This is the second year in a row Colorado’s state legislators have tried to force parents to agree with a child’s sexual identity confusion — or lose out in custody battles. 

In 2025, as the Daily Citizen reported, the state passed House Bill 1312, Concerning Legal Protections for Transgender Individuals. 

Governor Jared Polis signed the bill into law, despite vehement opposition from thousands of Colorado citizens who signed petitions, attended rallies at the Capitol, testified against the measure, and made phone calls and sent emails to the governor and legislators.

That bill originally had a provision which would have allowed the government to remove children struggling with sexual identity confusion from their parent’s custody if they “misgendered” or “deadnamed” their child — meaning they simply affirmed their child’s true sexual identity and given name.

Because of the backlash, that provision was finally dropped, but the final version of the bill still contained horrible provisions. HB 1312, now the law, allows a student to choose a different name and sexual identity while at school — and requires staff to lie by using the student’s “chosen name” and recognize his or her new identity.  

HB 1312 also requires schools to allow “each student to choose from any of the options provided in the dress code policy.” So boys may wear girls clothing — and vice versa. The law is facing litigation from several parents’ rights groups. 

Colorado is one of many states where courts and child protective service agencies are already attacking parents who do not support their child’s sexual identity confusion. 

Erin Lee, founder and director of Protect Kids Colorado, recently stated in an interview: 

I’ve now helped over a dozen families in Colorado who have lost custody of their children, even in two parent loving households, for not affirming their child’s gender confusion.

In a post on X, Lee pointed to families in Arizona, California, Indiana, Maryland, Montana and Texas where one or both parents lost custody of their children so they could be medically damaged by transgender interventions. 

The parental rights activist, who works to protect children from transgender harms, spotlighted SB 26-018 in a separate post on X, saying:

Once again, Colorado is passing laws to TAKE CHILDREN AWAY FROM PARENTS who will not trans them. If you won’t tell your child they’re born in the wrong body & sterilize them, the state will take them. (Her emphasis.) 

Lee encouraged Coloradans to fight back against this destructive legislation — as does Focus on the Family. 

Related articles and resources: 

Colorado Legislature Passes Radical ‘Transgender’ Bill With Amendments

Colorado Law Mandates Health Insurance Coverage for ‘Transgender’ Mutilations

Focus on the Family Testifies Against Nightmare Bill, Colorado’s Radical ‘Trans’ Legislation Advances

Meet Three Heroes Working to Protect Colorado Children

Parents’ Rights Groups Sue Colorado Over Radical Trans Law

Protect Kids Colorado

Radical Colorado ‘Transgender’ Bill Threatens Parents’ Rights and Free Speech

Sign These Three Ballot Petitions to Protect Kids and Parental Rights in Colorado

Proposed Executive Order Would Protect Parental Rights

A pro-family, pro-child coalition urged the Trump administration this week to issue an executive order protecting parental rights and the religious freedom of Christian parents and foster parents.

The proposed order, which the coalition workshopped with the White House Domestic Policy Council on Wednesday, would:

  • Explicitly affirm parents’ constitutional right to raise their children according to their religious beliefs.
  • Repeal federal foster care rules preventing or obstructing people who affirm biological sex from becoming foster parents.
  • Prohibit organizations from using federal funds to remove children from parents who do not affirm same-sex attraction or sexual identity confusion.
  • Remove federal funding from organizations which help children conceal sexual identity confusion from their parents.

These four recommendations would prevent federal and state governments from unconstitutionally withholding adoption and foster care licenses from Christians or taking children with sexual identity confusion away from loving, Christian parents.

States like Colorado, Massachusetts, Vermont, Oregon, Washington and California require prospective foster parents to affirm a child’s same-sex attraction and sexual identity confusion.

In 2024, the Department of Health and Human Services released regulations giving progressive, “gender affirming” foster care placement organizations privileged status over biology-affirming ones.

Policies like these prevent people like Jessica Bates, Bryan and Rebecca Gantt, Brian and Katy Wuoti and Mike and Kitty Burkes from fostering or adopting some of the estimated 400,000 children in the U.S. foster care system.

Parents in many states can also lose custody of their children for failure to affirm their same-sex attraction or sexual identity confusion.

The Indiana Department of Child Services took custody of Mary and Jeremy Cox’s 16-year-old son after the couple refused to affirm his “transgender identity.” A court eventually found the Cox’s had not abused their son — but the state never gave him back.

He remained in the department’s care to receive treatment for an eating disorder which had worsened while he was away from home.

The Coxes are just one of innumerable heartbreaking examples of state agencies taking children from loving parents who affirm biological. Erin Friday, one of the coalition leaders who met with the White House on Wednesday, says the number of families in this situation far exceeds most people’s expectations.

“The public is unaware that children are being kidnapped by child protective services and family judges because these cases are usually sealed or there are confidentiality laws that prevent parents from going public,” she told The Daily Signal.

Christian parents need not have their child taken to suffer under child protective agencies’ scrutiny.

Erin Lee received an unexpected visit from the Colorado Department of Human Services after she tried to hold her daughter’s public school accountable for secretly teaching gender ideology.

“We managed to evade losing our children that day, but I’ve met many parents who weren’t so lucky,” Lee, who eventually saved her daughter from damaging sexual identity confusion, told the Daily Wire.

She continued:

I also had a six-year-old and an infant at the time and I shudder to think that I could have lost all three of my kids for being a good parent, for being unwilling to lie to my daughter and send her down a path of self-hatred and destruction.

Laws and policies penalizing Christian parents and prospective foster parents for questioning “gender affirming care” are increasingly ludicrous given the mounting evidence proving sex-rejecting procedures harm minors.

The Department of Health and Human Services’ own, peer-reviewed report found “transgender” medical interventions — including puberty blockers, wrong-sex hormones and surgeries — pose “significant, long term and too often ignored” harms to children.

It’s about time America’s foster care systems reflect reality.

Additional Articles and Resources

Wait No More

Wait No More Suitcase Bundle

When Government is Hostile to Christian Foster Parents

President Trump to Sign Executive Order Strengthening Foster Care

Christians Banned as Fathers to the Fatherless

Christian Families Are Not Second-Class Foster Parents

‘Art Club’ Documentary—One Family’s Escape from Gender Ideology, and the Bigger Trend Sweeping the Nation

Radical Colorado ‘Transgender’ Bill Threatens Parents’ Rights and Free Speech

Riley Gaines Asks For Colorado Parents to Help Save Girls’ Sports and Defend Parental Rights

Court Frees Christian Mom to Adopt, Stops Oregon’s Gender Ideology Adoption Mandate

Indiana Family Loses Custody of Son Over Religious Beliefs; Supreme Court Won’t Hear Case

Thank You, Senator Scott, For Leading Charge to Stand Up for Parents and Children in Foster Care

Massachusetts DCF Denied a Catholic Couple’s Foster Care License — Now, They’re Being Sued for Religious Discrimination

18 States Sue HHS for Protecting Children From Sex-Rejecting Procedures

A coalition of 18 states on Tuesday filed a lawsuit to block the Trump administration from protecting children from sex-rejecting, mutilating procedures.

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., at a Protecting Children event on December 18, announced multiple regulatory actions the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) would take to protect children from “transgender” medical interventions.

The department is working to fulfill President Trump’s executive order, signed on January 28, 2025, Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation.

The secretary revealed that earlier on Dec. 18, he signed a declaration: “Sex-rejecting procedures are neither safe nor effective treatment for children with gender dysphoria.” It establishes new standards of care and rules out interventions like puberty blockers, opposite-sex hormones and surgeries, which “fail to meet” those standards.

The secretary may “exclude individuals or entities from participation in any Federal health care program” if they fail to comply with the declaration.

Secretary Kennedy drew from a comprehensive review, which HHS released earlier this year, of the evidence for treating children with gender dysphoria. It found there is “very weak evidence of benefit” for “medical interventions, such as puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgeries, that attempt to transition children and adolescents away from their sex.”

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is also proposing a rule barring hospitals from performing sex-rejecting procedures on children under age 18 as a condition of participation in Medicare and Medicaid programs. Nearly all U.S. hospitals participate Medicare and Medicaid.

“This proposal seeks to clarify that hospitals participating in our programs cannot conduct these unproven procedures on children,” said CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz in a press release. “CMS will ensure that federal program standards reflect our responsibility to promote the health and safety of children.”

The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon, is led by the attorneys general of New York, Oregon, and Washington.

It argues the Kennedy Declaration “exceeds the Secretary’s authority and violates the Administrative Procedure Act and the Medicare and Medicaid statutes.” The attorneys general are asking the court to strike down the declaration and prevent the Trump administration from enforcing it.

“Secretary Kennedy cannot unilaterally change medical standards by posting a document online” New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement. “And no one should lose access to medically necessary health care because their federal government tried to interfere in decisions that belong in doctors’ offices.”

Joining the lawsuit are the attorneys general of California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, Rhode Island, Vermont, Wisconsin, and the District of Columbia, as well as the governor of Pennsylvania.

At the Protecting Children event, Fox News’ Chief Washington Correspondent Mike Emanuel asked Kennedy about the possibility of Democrat-led states and LGBT-activist groups filing lawsuits against HHS’ actions, tying the administration up in court for the next several years.

“I think that’s going to happen,” Kennedy replied, joking, “The number of lawsuits with my name on it right now is almost beyond counting.”

“We know what we’re doing is legal,” he added. “And if people sue us, they’re welcome to, but we’re going to win the lawsuits.”

The Trump administration is exactly right – and deserves commendation – for protecting children from damaging and mutilating transgender medical interventions. Let’s hope and pray it quickly prevails in court.

The case is Oregon v. Kennedy.

Related articles and resources:

Counseling Consultation & Referrals

Transgender Resources

Understanding “Transgenderism”

Teenager Identifies as Transgender

Responding to a Transgender-Identified Family Member

Support for Parent Whose Adult Child Identifies as Transgender

God’s Amazing Grace in a Transgendered Person’s Life

Chloe Cole: Gender Reassignment Surgery Regret

FDA Sends Warning Letters to Companies Promoting Sex-Rejecting Breast Binders

HHS Will Block Hospitals From Performing Sex-Rejecting, Mutilating Procedures on Children

HHS Releases Report on Harms of ‘Transgender’ Medical Interventions for Minors

Photo from Getty Images.