Detransitioners Testify to Congress:
“They Did This to Me Before I Was Old Enough to Vote.”
They were children when it happened. Before they could vote, before they could sign a lease, before they could legally order a beer, licensed doctors prescribed them puberty-suppressing drugs, injected them with cross-sex hormones, and in some cases removed healthy breast tissue or other reproductive organs. The stated goal was to treat gender dysphoria. The outcome, many say, was irreversible harm.
Now they are testifying to Congress. Chloe Cole, who underwent a double mastectomy at 15. Prisha Mosley, who had her healthy breasts removed at 17 and is fighting a landmark malpractice case through North Carolina’s courts. Fox Varian, 22, who won the first-ever jury verdict against her surgeons in January 2026 — a $2 million award that sent a message to the medical establishment. They call themselves detransitioners.
Their accounts are sparking federal legislation, a wave of at least 28 active malpractice lawsuits, a landmark $10 million settlement forcing Texas Children’s Hospital to create the nation’s first-ever detransition clinic, and a policy battle over which states will protect children from procedures their advocates increasingly call experimental — and which Democratic-governed states will not.
- 28+active lawsuitsdetransitioner malpractice cases filed nationwide as of Feb 2026
- $2Mjury verdictFox Varian v. Einhorn & Chin — first-ever win at trial, Jan 30, 2026
- $10MsettlementTexas Children's Hospital pays AG Paxton; must open detransition clinic
- 25+state bansRepublican-governed states have restricted or banned pediatric gender procedures
- 119thCongressSenate HELP Committee and House both held hearings; Chloe Cole Act introduced
Chloe Cole was 12 years old when she identified as transgender. She was 13 when a California-based medical provider placed her on puberty blockers. At 15, she underwent a bilateral mastectomy — her healthy breast tissue surgically removed. By 16, she had begun to regret the decision and started detransitioning. She is now in her early twenties and has become one of the most visible advocates for banning pediatric gender procedures in the United States.
“Please, let me be your final warning.”
Chloe Cole · testimony before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government · July 27, 2023 · 118th Congress
Cole testified before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government on July 27, 2023, on her 19th birthday. The hearing was titled “The Dangers and Due Process Violations of Gender-Affirming Care for Children.” Cole told members her gender dysphoria was rooted in anxiety, autism, and social pressures — conditions she says were never addressed by her care team, which was focused instead on affirming a transgender identity.
During the hearing, Cole addressed one of the opposing witnesses — Myriam Reynolds, a professional counselor and parent of a transgender child — and broke down in tears, saying she didn’t hate her, that she saw her own parents in her, and that there simply hadn’t been enough guidance available when she was young. The moment became one of the most widely viewed clips from any congressional hearing that year.
Cole has since provided testimony to the Kansas Legislature (January 2025), appeared at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services as part of the rollout of Executive Order 14187, and in May 2026 canceled a planned University of Washington speaking event after alleging credible threats from protest groups. A federal law named after her — the Chloe Cole Act (H.R.5483 in the House, S.2907 in the Senate) — was introduced in 2025 by Rep. Bob Onder (R-MO) and Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN). It would impose a federal ban on puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgery for all Americans under 19.
Antifa has assembled a local militia, in their own words, to shut down this event. Their explicit threats have raised this event to a level our security team are frankly unprepared for. I will be back. Not just at UW, but to many campuses across the country. Because once conversations stop, that is when the violence begins.
Prisha Mosley, now 28, began gender transition at age 16. At 17, she underwent a double mastectomy. She later returned to identifying as a woman, and in July 2023 filed a malpractice lawsuit against the providers who treated her — naming Dr. Martha Perry (pediatrician, Cone Health), Shana Gordon (Tree of Life Counseling), Brie Klein-Fowler (Family Solutions counseling), and plastic surgeon Dr. Eric Emerson (Piedmont Plastic Surgery and Dermatology). All are based in North Carolina.
Mosley’s fraud claims were dismissed at the trial-court level. Her malpractice claims were also blocked, with the lower court citing North Carolina’s three-year statute of limitations. In September 2025, Mosley’s legal team filed an appeal to the North Carolina Court of Appeals. The Independent Women’s Forum has described the case as “the first to proceed through the courts against the professionals who treated her” — and a potential precedent-setter for dozens of similar cases nationwide. If the appeal is successful, her full malpractice case could head to trial in the summer of 2026.
“They made me a lifelong medical patient. I didn't understand what I was consenting to. I was a child.”
Prisha Mosley · paraphrased from public advocacy statements · Capitol Hill, Detrans Awareness Day, March 12, 2025
On March 12, 2025 — Detrans Awareness Day — Mosley visited Capitol Hill alongside Genspect USA to brief members of Congress and their staff. She was joined by other detransitioners, medical professionals, and legal experts. The briefings were part of a coordinated effort to build momentum for federal legislation and increased congressional scrutiny of gender medicine providers.
We are taking this case to the North Carolina Court of Appeals. What was done to me and to so many other kids was medical malpractice. These doctors had a duty of care and they failed it. We will not stop until there is accountability.
On January 30, 2026, a jury in White Plains, New York, returned the first medical-malpractice verdict ever won by a detransitioner in an American court. The plaintiff: Fox Varian, 22, of Yorktown Heights, New York. The defendants: psychologist Kenneth Einhorn and plastic surgeon Simon Chin. The verdict: $2 million — $1.6 million for pain and suffering, $400,000 for future medical expenses.
Varian had identified as transgender at 16 and received a double mastectomy, allegedly after inadequate psychological screening and without meaningful informed consent. She later detransitioned and filed suit in 2023. The three-week trial produced a unanimous jury finding that both Einhorn and Chin had violated the standard of care. The verdict was, as one journalist tracking detransitioner litigation noted in real time on X, the first of 28 filed cases to reach a jury — and the first to win.
Legal signal: Varian v. Einhorn was the first detransitioner malpractice case to go to trial in the United States and the first to win a judgment. The standard-of-care analysis — specifically the failure to conduct adequate psychological evaluation and obtain meaningful informed consent before authorizing irreversible surgery on a 16-year-old — now exists as a jury verdict, not just an advocacy claim. Defense attorneys in the 27 remaining active cases will need to contend with it.
Who is still in court: Chloe Cole’s case against her childhood medical providers is currently scheduled for trial in April 2027. Prisha Mosley’s case is on appeal in North Carolina. California Superior Court dismissed Kaya Clementine Breen’s suit against Dr. Johanna Olson-Kennedy in October 2025, citing California’s three-year statute of limitations — a ruling that detransitioner advocates are fighting at the state legislature.
On May 15, 2026, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R)announced a landmark settlement with Texas Children’s Hospital — the largest children’s hospital in the United States, based in Houston. The settlement requires the hospital to:
$10 million payment to the state of Texas for alleged healthcare fraud — billing Texas Medicaid using false diagnosis codes for gender-transition interventions.
Termination of five physicians— permanently and irrevocably, with hospital bylaw amendments requiring automatic privilege revocation for future violators of Texas’s ban on pediatric gender procedures.
Nation’s first-ever Detransition Clinic — a multidisciplinary clinic to provide medical care to patients harmed by prior gender procedures. For the first five years, all services will be funded by the hospital and provided free of charge.
Prohibition on future gender-transition services for minors, plus compliance and ethics monitoring.
Background: The case traces to whistleblower and surgeon Dr. Eithan Haim, who was the first to publicly allege that Texas Children’s was secretly continuing gender procedures for minors after the state’s 2023 legislative ban took effect. Paxton opened a formal investigation in 2023.
The settlement is the first time a major American children’s hospital has been forced to create a clinic specifically to assist patients harmed by gender medicine. Paxton, a Republican, called it historic. Texas Children’s, which had previously defended its gender program as medically necessary care, agreed to all terms without admitting liability on all counts. The settlement also establishes a compliance monitor and requires regular reporting to the AG’s office.
The 119th Congress has moved on multiple fronts. The Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, chaired by Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), held a hearing titled “Protecting Our Children: Exposing the Dangers of Irreversible Gender Transition Procedures on Minors” on May 21, 2026. The hearing, which also featured an investigation Cassidy launched into health providers performing the procedures, followed a formal demand that the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) comply with President Trump’s executive orders.
On the legislative side, H.R.5483 — the Chloe Cole Act — was introduced by Rep. Bob Onder (R-MO) and reintroduced in 2026 by the Department of Justice at the direction of Executive Order 14187. The Senate companion bill, S.2907, is sponsored by Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and co-sponsored by Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) and others. The bill would impose a nationwide ban on puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgical procedures for all Americans under 19, regardless of state law. It includes a private right of action allowing detransitioners to sue providers for damages.
The World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) publishes the Standards of Care (SOC8, 2022) that most American gender clinics cite as their clinical basis. WPATH’s SOC8 contains no minimum age recommendations for puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones.
Over a dozen systematic reviews — including analyses published by NICE (2020), York (2024), and McMaster University (2025) — have found the evidence base for the psychological benefit of puberty blockers for minors to be “very low certainty.” The Cass Review, a landmark 2024 independent review commissioned by the UK National Health Service, recommended no surgery for minors, “extreme caution” for hormones at ages 16-17, and puberty blockers only within a clinical research framework.
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and WPATH maintain their recommendations support these procedures. Senate HELP Chairman Cassidy has formally demanded that WPATH comply with Executive Order 14187 and provide documentation of its evidence review process.
On January 28, 2025, President Trump signed Executive Order 14187, “Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation.” The order directed federal agencies to stop funding, sponsoring, promoting, or assisting gender-transition procedures for anyone under 19. It ordered the Department of Health and Human Services to issue new guidance, directed the Department of Justice to review legal options, and led directly to the Chloe Cole Act being transmitted to Congress.
I am signing an Executive Order to protect children from chemical and surgical mutilation. The Federal Government will not pay for, perform, or promote the so-called 'transition' of a child from one sex to another. We are going to protect our children. And we are going to protect our families.
In April 2025, the White House released a formal “Report to the President on Protecting Children from Surgical and Chemical Mutilation,” summarizing findings across HHS, DOJ, and other agencies. The report provided the evidentiary and policy basis for the Chloe Cole Act and for HHS actions restricting federal Medicaid reimbursement of gender-transition procedures for minors.
These are children. They cannot vote. They cannot drink. They cannot drive. But under the radical Left's policies, they are being permanently mutilated before they are old enough to understand what is being done to them. That ends now. We will protect every American child.
A federal court issued a partial block of EO 14187 in March 2025, after a lawsuit by the ACLU and Lambda Legal. As of May 2026, litigation is ongoing. Several provisions remain in effect; others are enjoined while constitutional challenges proceed.
As of May 2026, more than 25 states have enacted laws restricting or banning gender-affirming procedures for minors. All of the enacted bans were signed by Republican governors. The pattern is consistent: states led by Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R-AR), Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX), and Gov. Kay Ivey (R-AL) moved first and fastest.
By contrast, states with Democratic governors have moved in the opposite direction. Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) has signed legislation making California a “sanctuary state” for families seeking gender procedures — shielding providers from out-of-state legal actions. Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY) and Gov. JB Pritzker (D-IL)have similarly maintained and expanded access. California’s statute of limitations, which courts applied to dismiss Kaya Clementine Breen’s lawsuit against Dr. Johanna Olson-Kennedy in October 2025, is the same one detransitioner advocates are fighting to change.
The states that have not enacted bans on pediatric gender procedures — where clinics continue to operate under WPATH standards — are overwhelmingly led by Democratic governors.
California: Gov. Gavin Newsom (D). Has enacted laws protecting gender clinics from out-of-state subpoenas.
New York: Gov. Kathy Hochul (D). No restrictions on pediatric gender procedures.
Illinois: Gov. JB Pritzker (D). No restrictions; has opposed federal intervention.
Massachusetts: Gov. Maura Healey (D). Active sanctuary-state policy for families seeking procedures.
Washington State: Gov. Bob Ferguson (D). No restrictions enacted.
Colorado: Gov. Jared Polis (D). No restrictions; Polis has been publicly vocal in opposing bans.
Across congressional testimony, court filings, and public interviews, detransitioners have identified a consistent set of failures they say the medical establishment has not acknowledged: inadequate psychological screening before irreversible procedures were authorized; failure to explore and treat underlying mental health conditions — including autism, anxiety, depression, and histories of trauma — that may have contributed to gender dysphoria; and absence of meaningful informed consent given the patients’ age and developmental stage.
The Fox Varian jury verdict specifically found that Kenneth Einhorn and Simon Chin had failed to meet the standard of careon both screening and informed consent. Prisha Mosley’s complaint against her providers similarly alleges that her pediatrician, therapists, and surgeon failed to conduct adequate psychological evaluation or to warn her of the long-term consequences of a double mastectomy performed at 17.
“I was a child. I had a vulnerable mind. They had a duty. They failed it.”
Prisha Mosley · public advocacy statement · 2025
Chloe Cole told Congress that her gender dysphoria was intertwined with anxiety and autism and that the gender-affirming care model she was placed in never once explored those connections before authorizing puberty blockers and then surgery. She has described the experience as being told that transition was “the only way to be happy” — a message that, she says, was wrong.
They were children. They could not vote. And yet licensed physicians — operating under guidelines from the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, reimbursed in many states by Medicaid — prescribed them irreversible treatments before their brains had fully developed and before the evidence base was anywhere near certain enough to justify it. The detransitioners now testifying to Congress, winning jury verdicts, and fighting malpractice appeals are not abstractions. They are the outcome. Twenty-five Republican-governed states have enacted bans. Democratic-governed states have enacted protections for the clinics. The $2 million verdict, the $10 million hospital settlement, and the 28 active lawsuits are the accountability the medical establishment was not going to impose on itself. The children who became plaintiffs are the ones who had to force it.