A Jaffrey, NH detransitioner is suing the local clinicians who brushed aside concerns about her autism and severe mental health disorders and pushed her down a path of testosterone and harmful, unnecessary surgeries.
The plaintiff, Amanda Stewart, 39, suffers from physical deformities, chronic pain, bone weakness, and heart problems, as well as life-long regret. “She lives in daily pain from the effects of the unnecessary surgeries and years of taking enormous amounts of cross-sex hormones,” the suit states.
“They also took the natural beauty I possessed, so I lost any chance I could ever have with men,” Amanda said. “Then they took my fertility through surgery. Most men want a family and for their wife to at least look decently presentable and normal.”
“They prey on autistic people,” she said of gender clinicians. “I felt experimented upon to the point of financial and social ruination so that doctors, hospitals, and the pharmaceutical companies could get rich.”
The suit makes the following allegations:
- Dartmouth Health Endocrinologist John Turco misled Amanda into thinking she could become a man and administered high levels of testosterone beginning in 2007 when she was 22, She couldn’t give true informed consent because she was vulnerable and unstable. When she was 14 she suffered the trauma of her mother’s death. She had autism and a history of anxiety disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and paranoid thinking. Turco also disregarded the requirement that cross-sex hormones “should not be administered without adequate psychological and medical assessment before and during treatment,” according to the Benjamin Criteria, which determined Dartmouth Health’s standard at the time. These criteria were set by the Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association which later became known as the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH). WPATH continues to determine standards of care for gender clinics.
- Dr. Turco ignored warnings that the testosterone was worsening her mental and physical health. For example, he continued to prescribe testosterone after she expressed concerns about skin rash and her bones feeling sore and hollow. She also had psychotic episodes leading to homelessness, and a hospitalization for delusional and paranoid thinking. Amanda said she found testosterone addicting and that it caused mania. “I never knew what mania was until I took testosterone,” Amanda said.
- Dr. Turco ignored evidence that Amanda’s mental health improved when she discontinued testosterone on her own and he continued to prescribe it. For example, he noted that when she stopped testosterone in 2014 she was the best he had seen her in years.
- Dr. Turco later recommended that she have a mastectomy to remove her healthy breasts as well as surgery to remove her uterus, and ovaries, and “vaginectomy with closure” without letters of recommendation from mental health professionals.
- In 2011, Dartmouth Health Plastic Surgeon Mitchell Stotland removed her healthy breasts without a letter of recommendation from a mental health professional. “Despite Amanda’s mental health issues, Dr. Stotland inexplicably noted that Amanda was ‘stable psychologically.’” She suffered complications from the surgery.
- In 2012, Obstetrician and Gynecologist Valerie Bell performed the hysterectomy and oophorectomy, and closed her vagina at St. Joseph Hospital, Nashua, despite not having letters of recommendation from mental health professionals. “Dr. Bell had recommended these procedures despite noting certain concerns for ‘psychiatric problems.’”
- Counselor Michel Finegan of Monadnock Family Services encouraged Amanda to continue taking testosterone when she questioned whether it was good for her. “Mr. Finegan encouraged Amanda to continue taking testosterone without establishing that she was an appropriate candidate under the Benjamin Criteria. He advised her to “sit in the discomfort and not change anything in the hope of gaining insight and awareness of self.”
- Primary Care Physician Jennifer E. Madden, M.D. “cleared” Amanda for a double mastectomy and hysterectomy despite not having letters of support from mental health professionals. Madden, who identifies as a transgender woman, was affiliated with St. Joseph Hospital. Madden recommended the mastectomy based on the speculation that “she might become more functional in society.”
- Dr. Bell, Dr. Stotland, Dr. Turco, and Dr. Madden misrepresented that surgeries were medically necessary and that there were no alternatives. They also didn’t accurately describe the permanent consequences of these surgeries.
Related: Is Dartmouth Health’s Pediatric Gender Clinic Destroying Kids’ Sexual Function?
Other defendants in the lawsuit are Dartmouth Health, St. Joseph Hospital, Cheshire Medical Center, and Monadnock Family Services. Specific allegations are medical malpractice and negligence, civil conspiracy, and negligent infliction of emotional distress.
Amanda is represented by Concord NH Attorney Roy S. McCandless on behalf of Campbell Miller Payne, a law firm specializing in justice for detransitioners.
Image Credit:
- License: Creative Commons 3 – CC BY-SA 3.0
- Attribution: Alpha Stock Images – alphastockimages.com
- Original Author: Nick Youngson – nyphotographic.com
- Original Image: thebluediamondgallery.com/legal/malpractice.html
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Author: Stephen Scaer
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