Conservative group suing Kaiser over transgender care
The conservative nonprofit Center for American Liberty said Thursday that it has filed a lawsuit against Kaiser Permanente alleging that it provided inappropriate gender hormone therapies and surgical procedures to a teenager who later de-transitioned.
The teenager at the center of the lawsuit is Chloe Cole, 18, who has been outspoken nationally about her experiences with gender dysphoria, which led to her starting puberty blockers and hormone therapy at age 13 and getting a double mastectomy at 15. She decided to de-transition when she was 17.
In the time since, her case has become a political touchstone for conservative groups pushing against transgender rights and access to gender-affirming care for young people.
The lawsuit, filed in San Joaquin Superior Court in Manteca on Wednesday by the Center for American Liberty along with the Dhillon Law Group and LiMandri & Jonna LLP, states that Cole was diagnosed with gender dysphoria at age 9 and was treated at Kaiser clinics in the Bay Area between ages 13 and 17.
She said she decided to de-transition after realizing she might want to have children someday and she wouldn’t be able to breastfeed them.
De-transitioning is uncommon, according to the National Center for Transgender Equality. In a 2015 survey, about 8% of transgender respondents said they had de-transitioned at some point, though in most cases it was temporary and they later resumed transitioning. Only about 0.4% of respondents said they detransitioned because they had realized gender transition was not what they wanted.
“Research tells us that the overwhelming majority of people who transition medically are satisfied with their decision to do so,” said Rodrigo Heng-Lehtinen, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, in a statement. “Of the small number of people who have de-transitioned, more than 80% did so because of external pressures such as rejection from family and discrimination in education or employment.”
Conservative groups have held up de-transitioning as a reason for delaying or restricting access to gender-affirming care for children and adolescents.
Cole has become a poster child for rightwing resistance to transgender care, making appearances on conservative media and offering testimony on transgender legislation in several states, including California. In September, she spoke against a bill, introduced by Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, to make California a sanctuary state for children seeking gender-affirming care. The bill was passed and the law went into effect in January.