- The lawsuit was filed June 14 in California’s San Joaquin County Superior Court
- In it, Kayla Lovdahl says she underwent a single 75-minute evaluation at age 12
- It claims doctors didn’t notify her about psychological and other lasting affects
By ALEX HAMMER FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
PUBLISHED: 10:53 EDT, 18 June 2023 | UPDATED: 11:55 EDT, 18 June 2023
A young detransitioned woman who is suing the medical professionals responsible for her transition claims doctors spent just 75 minutes vetting her before setting out on the life-altering ordeal – back when she was just 12 years old.
Now 18, Kayla Lovdahl filed the lawsuit last week in California‘s San Joaquin County Superior Court, accusing multiple Bay Area professionals of fast-tracking her treatment – while flouting factors such as her poor mental health.
It specifically names doctors Lisa Kristine Taylor, Winnie Mao Yiu Tong, Susanne Watson, and Mirna Escalante as defendants, for providing Lovdahl with puberty blockers, testosterone, and a double mastectomy in the span of just a few months.
Instead of warning Lovdahl about the finality of the treatment – or advising her to explore her gender issues through psychotherapy – the providers automatically, and erroneously, declared the youth to be transgender, the suit claims.
Also named in the sensational suit – which comes amid a growing chorus of ‘detransitioning’ youths expressing regret over their life choices – is the hospital who removed her breasts, and the provider who presided over the six-month process.
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This case is about a team of doctors who decided to perform a damaging, imitation sex change experiment on [Lovdahl], then a twelve-year-old vulnerable girl struggling with complex mental health co-morbidities,’ the 35-page filing reads.
‘[Lovdahl] needed care, attention, and psychotherapy,’ it continues of the NorCal medical officials supposed mishandling of the situation. ‘Not cross-sex hormones and mutilating surgery.’
The lawsuit goes on to lay out how Lovdahl – who goes by the pseudonym Laya Jean – would detransitioned last year at the age of 17, ultimately regretting her and her doctors’ decision.
Forced to undergo psychotherapy sessions to undo the mental damage wrought by the procedure, Lovdahl and her lawyers write their prognosis was premature – and gave the then-impressionable preteen the ‘erroneous belief’ she was transgender.
To come to that conclusion, the suit states, clinical psychologist Watson – who also serves as the clinical director of Kaiser Foundation Hospitals’ ‘Transgender Clinic’ at the Oakland Medical Center – held a single, 75-minute transition evaluation.
During the sit-down, Watson is said to have not disclosed any of the lasting health risks associated with a young child taking ‘off-label puberty blockers and high doses of powerful male hormone drugs’ – after discerning Lovedahl was transgender.
Taylor and Tong, a endocrinologist and plastic surgeon employed under the Oakland-based hospital system’s umbrella, all agreed with their colleagues’ assessment, starting her on puberty blockers and testosterone at age 12.
The double mastectomy happened a few months later, and left Lovedahl without the ability to breastfeed at any point in the future.
The trio, the suit claims, ‘immediately, and negligently, affirmed [Lovdahl’s] self-diagnosed transgenderism without adequate psychological evaluation,’ and ‘failed to inform [Lovdahl] of the significant increased suicide risk’ that follow such treatments.
The suit also states that after Taylor’s meeting, the three ‘coerced’ Lovdahl and her parents to undergo the treatment regimen – in part by warning the family ‘it is better to have a live son than a dead daughter,’ in reference to her potential suicide.
DailyMail.com has reached out to them for comment – as well as a fourth Kaiser doctor named in suit, pediatric endocrinologist Escalante, who referred the family to the trio in the first place.
The lawsuit went on to condemn Kaiser Permanente for allowing the invasive surgery at such a young age.
‘There is no other area of medicine where doctors will surgically remove a perfectly healthy body part and intentionally induce a diseased state of the pituitary gland misfunction based simply on the young adolescent patient’s wishes,’ it said.
After detransitioning, she says she began regular psychotherapy sessions to help her mental health, ‘which is the care she should have been receiving all along’, the lawsuit states.
‘The vast majority of cross-gender identified children, if medically treated in early adolescence, risk regretting the decision after they are old enough to realize their losses,’ Lovdahl added.
She said the ordeal left her with ‘deep physical and emotional wounds and severe regrets’.
She also claims the hospital and doctors did not provide her and her parents proper ‘informed consent’, which would have introduced therapy sessions, something she says was never offered.
In a statement, her lawyers criticized the procedures as ‘an insane form of child abuse’.
‘We believe cases like this are the best way to stop them, especially in liberal states like California, where reckless ideologues are pushing this radical agenda,’ said attorney Charles Limandri.
Kaiser Foundation Hospitals has been contacted by DailyMail.com for comment.