An Australian woman is suing her former psychiatrist for professional medical negligence after he advised her to undergo gender-transition treatment.
Jay Langadinos, who no longer identifies as a man, attended sessions with Dr. Patrick Toohey in her teens and early 20s, during which he reportedly affirmed her gender dysphoria and recommended she receive testosterone hormone therapy, a double-mastectomy, and finally a hysterectomy, or the surgical removal of the womb. Her case was first reported by the Sydney Morning Herald.
During each consultation, the first when Langadinos was only 19 years old, Toohey found “no contraindication” between the serious medical interventions and his patient’s gender dysphoria, according to court claim filed in the New South Wales Supreme Court. The doctor approved the procedures, the last of which, the womb extraction, was completed when Langadinos was 22 years old.
Now 31 years old, Langadinos argued that her psychiatrist should have referred her to another psychiatrist for a second evaluation and opinion before she rushed into having irreversible reconstructive changes done to her anatomy. The statement of claim alleges that Toohey “knew or ought to have known” that Langadinos should have had her case examined further before approving more dramatic medical measures.
In November 2016, in therapy with Dr. Roberto D’Angelo, Langadinos said she “came to the realisation that she should not have undergone the hormone therapy or the first and second surgeries.” After she had the surgeries, her mental health issues only worsened, she said. Langadinos’s situation is part of a growing body of statistics suggesting that young gender transitioners, especially girls, are likely to experience deep regret for their decision later on in life.
Her gender dysphoria seemed to stem from confusion over her sexuality when she was a young girl attracted to other girls, she told The Age and the Herald. Internet searches confirmed to her that she was transgender.
“And because of the definition of dysphoria, I thought, ‘That’s what I have.’ I decided that I must be transgender because of my discomfort that I had in my body,” she said.
Langadinos said she “has suffered and continues to suffer from injuries and disabilities” due to the damage inflicted on her body by the surgeries, such as loss of breasts, uterus and ovaries, anxiety and depression, and impaired psychological functioning, the Herald reported.
While many corners of the U.S. medical field, such as Boston Children’s Hospital ,still aggressively promote minor gender transitioning, many European countries such as England, France, Finland, and Sweden, have started to exercise much more caution. For example, last month England’s National Health Service shut down the UK’s only children’s gender service at London’s Tavistock clinic after doctors reported that they felt “pressured to adopt an unquestioning approach” to affirming and treating gender dysphoria in child and adolescent patients.