Featured Image Credit: Kaya Clementine Breen/Getty Images/ATU Images
Topics: Transgender, Mental Health, News, US News, California, Health
Niamh Shackleton
Topics: Transgender, Mental Health, News, US News, California, Health
A student is suing several doctors for allegedly 'fast-tracking' her transition surgery.
Last week, Kaya Clementine Breen filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles County Superior Court against multiple California healthcare providers and hospitals for alleged medical negligence, stating that she was wrongly diagnosed with gender dysphoria.
At the age of 11, she was 'struggling with the thought of developing into a woman' and thought that her life would possibly be 'easier' if she was a boy.
Advert
Kaya then spoke to her school counselor at the time about how she was feeling, and they apparently told her 'that she was transgender and called her parents to tell them the same thing'.
The then-middle school student was taken to a children's hospital in Los Angeles by her parents and was diagnosed with gender dysphoria.
Mayo Clinic defines gender dysphoria as 'the feeling of discomfort or distress that might occur in people whose gender identity differs from their sex assigned at birth or sex-related physical characteristics'.
It's thought that Kaya was also suffering with mental health conditions like anxiety, depression and undiagnosed post-traumatic stress disorder at the time (PTSD), the lawsuit further claims.
By the time she was 12, she started receiving puberty-suppressing medication, and from ages 13 to 19, took cross-sex hormones.
As well as this, Kaya had a double mastectomy at the age of 14, after which her 'mental health progressively declined' following her treatments, the suit claims.
Kaya's lawsuit further alleges: "This case is about a team of purported health care providers who collectively decided that a vulnerable girl struggling with complex mental health struggles and suffering from multiple instances of sexual abuse should be prescribed a series of life-altering puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones, ultimately, receive a double mastectomy at the age of 14."
Speaking to NBC about the filing on Thursday (December 12), Kaya said that she wished that someone suggested therapy rather than gender-specific treatment, however, she added that she doesn't believe the health practitioners 'intentionally acted in poor faith'.
"In retrospect, I wish that somebody had suggested real, genuine therapy first, instead of gender-specific therapy, because really the only therapy that I received until much later was specifically focused on gender dysphoria, and didn’t connect my gender dysphoria to anything else," she told the news outlet.
It was when Kaya started dialectal behavior therapy earlier this year that she started to question her transition.
"I sort of started questioning my own gender identity and if I was doing this for the right reasons.” she said.
Several parties have been named in her lawsuit, including a handful of doctors and healthcare centres located across California.
If you’ve been affected by any of these issues and want to speak to someone in confidence, contact the LGBT national hotline at 888-843-4564, available Monday to Friday 4pm-12am ET and 12pm-5pm ET on Saturdays.