The war against medical professionals mutilating children in the name of transgender ideology is not over, but it has taken a decisive turn this week. Like the thrilling victory on D-Day in World War II, a blow has been struck that puts a final victory in sight. Like the Allies in 1944, however, we must keep fighting.
Journalist Ben Ryan reported that Fox Varian, who had her breasts removed at the age of 16, was awarded $2 million on Friday by a jury in Westchester, New York. The 22-year-old, who no longer identifies as male, had sued both Simon Chin, the plastic surgeon who performed the surgery, and Kenneth Einhorn, her psychologist.
In an Epoch Times article published during the trial, Stacy Robinson reported that Varian’s mother, Clare Deacon, had testified that “psychologist Dr. Kenneth Einhorn insisted her daughter was at risk of harming herself since she was a teenager with depression and gender dysphoria.”
Though Deacon had said she would not approve the decision for a mastectomy and wanted the psychologist to focus on Varian’s other problems, such as her depression, autism, anorexia, body dysmorphia, and social anxiety, Einhorn insisted that “top surgery” was the only path forward. As Deacon testified, “This man was just so emphatic, and pushing and pushing, that I felt like there was no good decision.”
Though Deacon testified that she did not think Einhorn was intentionally malicious, she now believes he “was very, very wrong.” She described how, after being convinced to let the surgery happen, she became “physically ill.” The jury also decided that Einhorn and Chin were wrong and had made a serious “departure from the standard of care.”
Despite attorneys for Einhorn and Chin arguing that Varian brought up the possibility of surgery first and Deacon went along with it, it’s clear that the jury believed that the mother was manipulated into allowing her daughter to undergo this gruesome procedure. It probably didn’t help that Chin’s lawyer asked the jury what would have happened if they had not done the surgery and Varian had committed suicide – thus attempting the same sort of emotional blackmail on the jury that the pair used on Deacon. It is a positive sign that this popular argument made by trans activists (usually phrased as, “Would you rather have a live son or a dead daughter?”) no longer seems to have power over parents and jurors.
Thank God for this decision, which elevates the voices of parents and young men and women who were talked into such horrifying surgeries. For too long, these victims of the transgender medical complex, left scarred, disfigured, and confused by “professionals” promising to help them, have been viciously slandered and marginalized for speaking out about their experiences.
Ben Ryan, who attended the entire three-week trial and covers medicine on his Substack, has a list of 28 lawsuits by detransitioners to date, of which Varian’s is the first to both make it to trial and have a judgment rendered. Ryan observes that, though a number of the lawsuits “have run up against strict statutes of limitations,” appeals in these cases will continue to be made.
Further, Ryan believes that many of the appeals will be successful, as will the cases themselves. He really does think this is a kind of D-Day victory, writing, “My sources suggest that tort law might permanently destroy this field.”
More news reported on the same day as Varian’s victory seems to support this analysis: the University of Utah’s health system announced that they were “ending all remaining hormonal care for transgender youth.” The system there had already ceased to take in new patients after the passage of SB 16, a 2023 Utah law “which prohibited doctors from providing gender-affirming care to any new transgender youth patients.”
The University of Utah had, no doubt, like other health systems offering such “care,” been monitoring the case in New York.
It is important to remember, however, that even if the practice of chemically and physically mutilating confused kids is, God willing, eventually destroyed, there are a great many young people and their families still suffering the harm wrought on them by this corrupt medical regime. Fox Varian testified during her trial to the “shame” that she felt, adding, “It’s hard to face that you are disfigured for life.”
Also, despite the decision of institutions such as the University of Utah, there are still medical systems practicing this appalling and barbaric pseudo-care on others. Leor Sapir’s famous 2025 Free Press article, “‘We’re All Just Winging It’: What the Gender Doctors Say in Private,” detailed how medical professionals admitted they were doing these treatments without any real “supportive evidence.”
Readers can and should celebrate the victory in the battle at hand, but they also ought to keep fighting the war. And all of us ought to hold to account those politicians who have made possible and often funded this insanity.
As in any war, we also ought to make sure we help the wounded – as some organizations like the Themis Resource Fund are already committed to doing. Other groups, such as Sex Change Regret offer resources to detransitioners, parents, and anyone who has been affected in any way by “gender-affirming care.”
The war isn’t over. But the decision of the Westchester jury has turned the tide. We will make sure that no more doctors are “winging it” with the health of our young people.
David P. Deavel teaches at the University of St. Thomas in Houston. A past Lincoln Fellow at the Claremont Institute, he is a Senior Contributor at The Imaginative Conservative. Follow him on X (Twitter) @davidpdeavel.
