In yet another devastating blow for the transgender industrial complex, a second detransitioner has won a settlement against two medical professionals who hastily signed off on her gender transition surgery.
As first reported by independent journalist Benjamin Ryan, 36-year-old Camille Kiefel reached a settlement in January in a malpractice case against Amy Ruff, a licensed clinical social worker and her employer, Brave Space, and Mara Burmeister, a licensed counselor and her employer, Quest Center for Integrative Health. The story has just recently gained traction as dozens of detransitioners – individuals who stop or reverse their gender transitions – have begun suing their medical providers.
In 2020, when Kiefel was 30, she underwent a double mastectomy. At the time, she identified as nonbinary and believed that the irreversible surgery would solve her gender distress. She has since reverted to identifying as a woman – her biological sex – and says that the surgery left her with multiple health complications, including bouts of vertigo, tinnitus, and persistent feelings of cold and numbness.
Ruff and Burmeister effectively rubber-stamped Kiefel’s request for the surgery and wrote her a referral letter after just two Zoom sessions lasting less than an hour, according to The Post Millennial. As the suit alleges, neither woman considered Keifel’s history of mental health issues or the underlying causes of her gender confusion before jumping straight to approving surgery.
The settlement details are not yet known, but Kiefel initially sought $3.5 million in damages. The case was resolved before a judge was set to rule on a summary judgment motion which could have ended the case without a full trial.
For years, conservatives – and Americans with basic common sense – have been warning about the dangerous delusions of the gender ideology movement. While exact numbers are difficult to ascertain, one study finds that as many as 50,000 people underwent transgender surgeries from 2016 to 2019 alone. Many thousands more – some as young as 14 years old – have also been prescribed cross-sex hormones and puberty blockers that will do irreversible damage to their development and could leave them infertile for life, all under the banner of “gender-affirming care.”
Yet those concerns were dismissed by the so-called “experts” at groups like the American Medical Association, which said that the procedures were not only safe, but would also help people address their gender confusion (even though delaying surgery and attending counseling had been proven to help people grow out of their gender dysphoria).
In recent years, detransitioners like Kiefel have begun speaking out about their experiences and seeking to hold medical professionals accountable for the harm they wrought on vulnerable patients.
Among the most prominent early detransitioners was Chloe Cole, who had both breasts removed as a teenage girl. She shared how the surgery meant she could never nurse her own kids. Tragically, Cole can be considered one of the lucky ones. Confused girls and women who undergo “bottom surgery” or take cocktails of cross-sex hormones lose the ability to become mothers at all. It’s the same story for many men who sign off on the chemical and physical mutilation of their sex organs.
Others also spoke up and eventually secured legal victories. The first was Isabella “Fox” Varian, a 22-year-old woman who previously believed that she was a man. Varian won the first medical malpractice lawsuit against medical providers for transgender procedures.
At just 16 years old, Varian’s psychologist encouraged her to have her breasts removed to help her with her gender confusion, as AMAC Newsline previously reported. A surgeon complied, despite the fact that this serious surgery would permanently alter the teen’s body. In January, a jury voted in a groundbreaking decision to award Varian $2 million in damages.
Much like Varian’s case, Kiefel alleges that those who were supposed to help her ultimately ignored her underlying mental health conditions, including anxiety and depression, and instead focused on encouraging her to stop identifying as a woman. As The Post Millennial reported, Kiefel found two years after the surgery that it “had worsened her mental health and well-being, including increased suicidal ideation.”
Kiefel’s tragic story is much like that of other detransitioners who realize that no amount of drugs and surgeries can address the underlying mental health struggles that often accompany gender confusion.
Thankfully, resources to help people detransition may soon be more available, and Texas is one of the first states to lead the charge. As part of an investigation into fraudulent billing for pediatric transgender surgeries, Texas Children’s Hospital agreed to create the nation’s first “detransition clinic.”
“This Detransition Clinic will help patients reverse the damage caused by ideologically-motivated physicians who harmed patients by performing dangerous medical interventions,” Attorney General Ken Paxton announced on May 15.
Victories like these are important battles in the larger war against gender ideology and the transgender industrial complex. In the years ahead, we are likely to hear more heartbreaking stories like Kiefel’s as part of the movement to finally force doctors and therapists motivated by politics instead of science to face accountability.
Matt Lamb is an AMAC Newsline contributor and associate editor for The College Fix. He previously worked for Students for Life of America, Students for Life Action, and Turning Point USA. He previously interned for Open the Books. His writing has also appeared in the Washington Examiner, The Federalist, LifeSiteNews, Human Life Review, Headline USA, and other outlets. The opinions expressed are his own. Follow him @mattlamb22 on X.
