Chloe Cole Suing Former Doctors for Medical Malpractice
The teen claimed, falsely, that she won’t be able to breastfeed, and radically overstated the risk that gender affirming care made her infertile.
by Evan Urquhart
Anti-trans activist and detransitioned woman Chloe Cole is suing the doctors who provided her with puberty blockers, hormone therapy, and chest masculinization surgery (which Cole and her lawyers refer to as a “double mastectomy”), with the help of the Center for American Liberty, a legal nonprofit that pursues far right causes. The suit, which can be found here, names hospitals and insurance providers associated with Kaiser Permanente, as well as two medical doctors, and a psychiatrist. It alleges that Cole has experienced health problems as a result of the treatent, although it’s difficult to give a full picture of what is being claimed, as a large portion of this section is redacted in the legal paperwork. It further alleges that the informed consent process was faulty.
According to the legal paperwork, Cole began experiencing gender dysphoria at nine years old, and was first given information about medical transition in 2017, when she was at 12, and described her gender dysphoria to her primary care doctor. About seven months later she began puberty blocking medications, and a month after that, in February of 2018, she began testosterone therapy. At 15, in 2019, Cole sought and recieved chest masculinization. About two years after that, in 2021 she decided to cease taking testosterone and detransitioned. The paperwork says that Cole has undergone procedures to remove excess hair, and that she’s done voice therapy to have a more feminine sounding voice (the documents claim this voice work has been unsuccessful, but Cole’s voice sounds quite pleasant and reads as a woman’s in this interview with Tucker Carlson.)
According to the legal paperwork, and Cole’s public statements, the 18-year-old believes she will never be able to breastfeed a child. There may be good news for Cole on that front, however, because there are some trans men who have breastfed successfully after top surgery (the likelihood depends on how much breast tissue remains, as well as the health of the nipples, and is not known until the breast tissue swells in preparation for childbirth). There have also been trans women who have breastfed their children. Humans of both sexes normally have breast tissue, and the hormonal changes that induce breast milk can do so on any mammal, including cisgender male humans.
Cole also expresses in interviews that she fears that she may never be able to carry a child. There’s good news on that front for Cole as well, however, because recent studies suggest that the risks of permanent infertility from testosterone therapy have been overstated.
Cole’s lawsuit is likely to get a lot of play in right wing media, so we’ll likely be covering it further in the future. We did reach out to Cole for comment, as she requested via Twitter, but she had not responded as of publication. This story will be updated with comment from Cole if any is forthcoming.