Earlier this month, the news broke that up to 1,000 families were likely to sue the soon-to-be-shut down Tavistock gender clinic over allegations that the “affirmative” model resulted in thousands of children being put on hormones and puberty blockers and given surgeries without fully understanding what they were consenting to or being aware of the irreversible damage they were incurring. Legal experts and commentators have been predicting a wave of medical malpractice lawsuits for years; many wondered if the Tavistock class-action is a harbinger of things to come.
A story in the Sydney Morning Herald by Julie Szego indicates that Australia’s gender ideologues may also be facing a judicial reckoning. Jay Langadinos is suing psychiatrist Dr. Patrick Toohey for professional negligence for prescribing her masculinizing hormones without doing the necessary psychiatric evaluations in May of 2010, when she was struggling with gender dysphoria and erroneously identifying as male. She was referred to Toohey by her endocrinologist. On her first visit, Toohey diagnosed her with gender dysphoria and “found she was suitable for hormone therapy, in this case testosterone, which encourages the development of male secondary sexual characteristics.”
At their second appointment in February 2012, Toohey approved Langadinos for a double mastectomy—the removal of her healthy breasts—which she underwent in April. In May at their third appointment, Toohey approved a hysterectomy, stating that he could not discern “any psychiatric contraindication to proceeding with hysterectomy as part of gender transition.” In November of that year, at the age of 22, Langadinos had her womb surgically removed. But with each surgery, Langadinos found herself feeling more deeply depressed despite her belief that hormones and surgeries would bring her happiness.
