That didn’t take long! (Well, actually, it did.)
On February 3, 2026, the American Association of Plastic Surgeons announced that “sex-change/transgender” surgery should not be performed on minors. A day later, the American Medical Association made a similar statement, saying the research doesn’t support the practice. That’s a massive change. A big U-turn. It happened fast, and way too slowly.
These statements came out just days after a New York state court jury awarded de-transitioner Fox Varian, a 22-year-old woman, $2 million for the bodily harm and suffering she endured at the hands of a psychologist and a surgeon.
As a gender-confused 15-year-old, Varian had her healthy breasts removed – a double mastectomy – encouraged by the psychologist and performed by the surgeon. It’s something she now deeply regrets, and it’s irreversible.
During the trial, it emerged that the psychologist told Fox’s mother (who opposed the surgery) that not doing so would put her daughter at great risk of suicide. Sadly, many parents and children in Pennsylvania and across America have been emotionally coerced by similar (and patently false) assertions, with permanent, devastating results.
Thankfully, it seems clear that the $2-million verdict was a trigger that quickly caused some key medical organizations to retreat from their heretofore unwavering support for “transitioning” teens and minor children. We expect more to follow—tumbling dominoes pushed over by the threat of additional financial loss as more detransitioner lawsuits queue up. Money talks.
As fast as that happened, this burgeoning reversal has taken too long.
Transgender ideology took off like a rocket after the 2014 Obergefell Supreme Court decision legalizing so-called same-sex marriage. In short order, schools were promoting this counter-reality to children and teens, telling them one could change their sex. Social media and Hollywood amplified the message. Schools began transitioning children and hiding it from parents.
Add to that the COVID lockdowns, which severely impacted mental health and helped create more and more desperate and confused kids and teens looking for answers. The adults – the education establishment, the medical professions, and our political leaders – failed them. And now, the lawsuits.
Things could have been different. Common sense and reality could have prevailed during this time. There were voices in the wilderness decrying this harmful ideology and fighting back against it.
Our Independence Law Center took early cases and clients to push back against the transgender agenda – in places like Honesdale, Hempfield, and Boyertown. There were losses and a win or two at the time, but there was a lot of pushback, especially in the media and in some courts.
For example, in a key bathroom privacy case in 2018, our Chief Counsel, Randall Wenger, was dressed down by the judge in a Federal Courtroom in Philadelphia when he used the phrase “opposite sex” to describe a person of the opposite sex. Here is how that was reported in “World Magazine”:
Only four minutes into Thursday’s oral arguments in the Pennsylvania case — Doe v. Boyertown Area School District — U.S. Circuit Judge Theodore McKee stopped plaintiffs’ attorney Randall Wenger and forbade him from defining the words “sex” and “opposite sex.”
“When you use the word ‘sex,’ you complicate the discussion,” McKee told Wenger. “It’s not that simple. That’s why I use the term transgender boy or girl to try and get around that problem.”
Wenger replied, “Those terms stand in contradistinction because transgender wouldn’t make any sense apart from the terms.” But McKee again interrupted and demanded that Wenger use “respectful” words.
“I know, for reasons beyond my comprehension, you don’t approve of those terms, don’t like to use those terms, but it greatly enhances the communication,” McKee said.
Such was, and in some places still is, the delusion that accompanies the transgender ideology. But the dam is breaking. We are on the right side of history.
Our policy and communications team, through Right-to-Know requests, discovered and publicized that tens of millions of Pennsylvania taxpayer dollars have been spent on transgender surgeries and other interventions for minor children. They exposed perpetrators, including the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, as leading outposts for these dangerous procedures.
All this to say – there were voices, like ours and others across the country, calling out this dangerous and damaging ideology for years, spurred and assisted by common-sense supporters, and enduring much criticism and even attacks for doing so.
This positive change we’re seeing came quickly, and took a long time. There’s still more work to be done. Speaking out, even when it’s not popular, is vital.
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