‘Detransitioner’ Is Suing Her Pro-Trans Therapist For Malpractice

On Wednesday, the Texas Supreme Court heard opening arguments in the case of a woman seeking damages for medical malpractice in gender transition.

Soren Aldaco, a detransitioned woman who suffered from gender dysphoria as a teen and underwent a double mastectomy at 19, is suing Barbara Wood and Three Oaks Counseling Group for recommending the senseless mutilation and allegedly falsifying information to secure it.

A Timeline Argument

In July 2023, Aldaco sued multiple practitioners involved in her surgery for negligence and fraud, but lost in a trial court and court of appeals that held the two-year statute of limitations had by that time expired.

On Wednesday, Aldaco’s lawyer argued that Wood can be held liable for injury because Texas’s two-year statute of limitations for medical malpractice had not expired before Aldaco filed the suit. Wood’s defense claims that the date of the letter she signed recommending Aldaco’s surgery, not the date of surgery itself, should determine when the statute of limitations commenced.

That difference is the driving question in Aldaco’s eligibility to sue. The date of the signed letter falls outside the statute of limitations; the date of the surgery falls within. A second, 10-year maximum deadline exists in Texas law, barring a suit filed 10 years after alleged malpractice, serving as a backup defense for Aldaco’s claim.

Strict Deadlines, Delayed Regret

The extreme harm caused by opposite-sex hormones and transgender surgeries can take years to materialize, and in Texas, a strict tort reform law stands as a roadblock for those seeking reparations.

The Texas legislature passed a law, upheld by the state’s Supreme Court in June 2024, banning practitioners from prescribing puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to minors. Shortly after, the state’s Attorney General Ken Paxton sued multiple practitioners who continued to do so illegally.

But legislators have yet to address revisions to the decades-old statute of limitations, established years before transgender mutilation became mainstream practice. The topic is currently slated for another legislative look in 2027 — not soon enough for those living with the long-term impact of the irreversibly ruinous procedures.

Sixty Republican legislators signed a letter on Feb. 9 supporting Aldaco’s case, demanding a way forward for prosecuting gender transition providers. “Do no gender-modification harm to Texans — or find no shelter from liability claims,” the letter reads. A grassroots effort to stop gender transition medicine, led by Protecting Texas Children, published a coalition letter to draw attention to the case, listing state and national organizations “standing with us in the fight for detransitioner justice,” in an X post. “This is bigger than one case. This is accountability. This is justice.”

Underage Prey

Aldaco’s history mirrors that of the thousands who have fallen prey to transgender medicine. According to a lengthy interview with podcast host Allie Beth Stuckey, Aldaco was raised in a turbulent home by multiple caregivers and sought community and identity online, where she learned to self-harm and posed as altered-gender personas.

As a minor, a nurse practitioner she met at a transgender support group prescribed Aldaco hormones. He was essentially “recruiting” patients from the support group, Aldaco said, influencing children and their parents.

At the time of her surgery, Aldaco said she was taking multiple mental health medications, had been hospitalized for a manic episode, and struggled with anxiety and depression.

Although Aldaco had only received telehealth counseling from her therapist for “relationship issues,” Wood signed a recommendation letter for a double mastectomy. Wood provided the letter in February 2021, and Aldaco underwent surgery in June.

The aftermath of the surgery was brutal, physically and mentally scarring. Aldaco documented excessive bruising and swelling that would eventually require drains from the surgery sites. The clinic staff was less than receptive, evading responses to her concerns and repeatedly requesting that she sign a nondisparagement agreement, she said.

Legal Precedence

The arguments come on the heels of a recent, groundbreaking decision in a New York court, where a jury ruled against a psychologist and plastic surgeon who contrived a surgery similar to Aldaco’s for a 16-year-old girl in 2019. A court awarded the plaintiff $2 million in damages, sending a strong message to health care practitioners engaging in the maiming and disfigurement of gender dysphoric youth.

Proponents of transgender surgeries claim that Fox Varian’s case does not indicate fault in the field, just rare and isolated cases of malpractice. Aldaco strongly disagrees.

Her entire support group of minors received hormones from one nurse practitioner, who had even greater reach in their conservative area of north Texas, she said, indicating the widespread malpractice in “transgender medicine.”

“It takes time to realize you have regret, that you were taken advantage of or mistreated,” Aldaco said. “It’s extremely hard, mentally. You don’t want to admit that you’ve hurt yourself or that parents have hurt their kids.”

Detransitioners often fear they are the exception, Aldaco said, and publicizing the harm of transgender surgery will vilify the procedures and further isolate them.

Furthermore, most lawyers do not have experience yet in detransition cases. This makes representation hard to find, Aldaco said. “Sometimes losses have nothing to do with merit.”

Just days after the Varian ruling, the American Society of Plastic Surgeons and American Medical Association published updated guidance on transgender surgery for minors, distancing themselves from the procedures after years of clamoring for easier access.

Though the Varian ruling is a victory for the thousands of men and women manipulated and coerced into irreversible medical mutilation each year under the guise of “transgender care,” Aldaco believes her case has even broader reach in Texas.

“The harms didn’t occur until after I had the surgery, so this issue is bigger than my case and detransition cases,” Aldaco said. “This case applies to any Texan claiming medical malpractice.”

If the Supreme Court rules in her favor, Aldaco’s suit will be remanded to a lower court to proceed.

Legal wins impact medical guidance and can ultimately lead to the readoption of sane beliefs.

“The way the culture changes is through the courts,” Aldaco said. “We’d like to think the courts are neutral, but they are made up of people with subjective interpretations. We’re doing the right thing by going through the courts, but we’re not going to see the impact for a minute.”

Ashley Bateman is a policy writer for The Heartland Institute. Her work has been featured in The Washington Times, The Daily Caller, The New York Post, The American Thinker, the Ascension Press blog, and numerous other publications. She previously worked as an adjunct scholar for The Lexington Institute and as editor, writer, and photographer for The Warner Weekly, a publication for the American military community in Bamberg, Germany. She and her brilliant engineer/scientist husband homeschool their six children.