A Westchester County verdict found two clinicians liable for skipping safeguards and failing to secure fully informed consent before an irreversible surgery on a 16-year-old patient. 

Fox Varian, now 22, won a $2 million malpractice award against two New York clinicians who approved and performed a double mastectomy when she was 16 and identifying as male. 

According to reports, jurors found Kenneth Einhorn and Simon H. Chin liable in Westchester County Supreme Court in White Plains after concluding that important safeguards were skipped in the lead up to the surgery. The award reported was $1.6 million for pain and suffering plus $400,000 for future medical expenses.

Varian’s lawyers argued her clinicians moved too quickly to “affirm” a minor without sufficient screening for other mental-health issues, including things like depression or body dysmorphia in addition to ensuring truly informed consent for the irreversible procedure.

Varian’s mother testified she opposed the surgery but felt pressured, particularly by fears about suicide into consenting anyway. (RELATED: Virginia Judge Blocks Democratic Redistricting Push, Casting Doubt on April Referendum)

The case raises uncomfortable questions for institutions that have treated “gender-affirming” pathways as routine. The leading professional guidelines emphasize careful, individualized decision-making, and recommend patients reach the age of adulthood to be candidates for gender-affirming surgery. 

Gender-affirming surgeries can have real mental-health effects and they depend heavily on age, screening, and accompanying mental health conditions. (RELATED: Virginia Nurse Fired After TikTok Threats Against ICE Agents)

Studies of youth gender services have highlighted gaps in high-quality evidence on long-term psychological outcomes for medical operations in adolescents, contributing to policy moves in the UK to restrict certain treatments to research settings while evidence is developed.

Many critics believe the surgery for minors should be illegal, because it is irreversible, and minors are uniquely vulnerable to pressure, anxiety/depression, and short-term thinking. A mastectomy, phalloplasty, or vaginoplasty cannot be “paused” or meaningfully undone if a teenager later experiences regret or shifts in identity. The World Professional Association for Transgender Health states that the guidelines recommend patients reach the age of adulthood to be candidates for gender-affirming surgery.