An Ontario detransitioning woman who had her breasts and womb removed to change her gender to male is suing medical and health practitioners for failing to consider other treatments during her mental health crisis before ushering her on an irreversible journey she regrets.
“Michelle’s stated desire to become transgender was never challenged and it was treated to the exclusion of her other serious mental health issues, closing the door to alternative treatment options,” her statement of claim says.
The claim says the defendants “permitted Michelle to self-diagnose as transgender and prescribe her own treatment without providing a differential diagnosis or proposing alternative treatments.”
In her statement of claim filed in court in November, Zacchigna says she had difficulty forming relationships with classmates in elementary school and was often bullied.
By the time she was 11, she engaged in self-harming behaviour, including cutting her arm with a knife. This continued into early adulthood.
When she was 20, she tried to kill herself and she was referred by her family doctor for psychotherapy, where she was treated for social anxiety and clinical depression.
About a year into therapy, she engaged with an online community around gender nonconformity.
“Michelle came to believe that her biological sex of female did not match her true gender identity of male,” her claim says.
At a Toronto health centre, Zacchigna was prescribed testosterone hormone therapy in 2010 after three appointments. The doctor there became her family physician.
The claim said neither her mental health nor counselling records were consulted and there was no screening “for any other mental health diagnoses or developmental disabilities,” her claim says.
n detransitioner who had breasts and womb removed sues doctors | National Post