The Texas Supreme Court will hear detransitioner Soren Aldaco’s appeal next month in a lawsuit against her former therapist and Three Oaks Counseling Group over a recommendation letter that led to her double mastectomy at age 19. The court accepted her petition in December of last year after lower courts dismissed her claims as falling outside the two-year statute of limitations.
Aldaco, an Independent Women ambassador, has been seeking justice for the irreversible damage done to her body since July 2023.
“I think the moment that I realized I needed to pursue legal action was actually before I de-transitioned, shortly after the complications I experienced,” Aldaco told IW Features. “At that time, I began to open my eyes to the sort of hypocrisy of care that the practitioners I saw were giving me.”
The central legal question in Aldaco’s case is when the “harm” occurred: Was it when the therapist wrote the recommendation letter for a double mastectomy in February 2021? When the surgery was performed in June 2021? Or when Aldaco experienced severe complications weeks later?
The court’s answer will determine whether Aldaco’s lawsuit falls within Texas’s two-year statute of limitations, as set by the state’s.2003 Medical Malpractice and Tort Reform Act.
Aldaco’s team is arguing that harm took place once she underwent a double mastectomy.
“We feel that the date of harm is the surgery, and not the [therapist’s recommendation] letter [for the surgery]. The therapist had authority to revoke that access,” Aldaco said. “By her writing the letter and allowing the letter to be used, I experienced a harm that I wouldn’t have otherwise experienced in her decision to or not to endorse my double mastectomy, and I think that was an especially grievous error.”
“I believe we have a really good chance of getting justice there and that will open the door for so many people, especially in this issue,” Aldaco added.
According to Aldaco, the lawsuit, which originally included everyone who took part in Aldaco’s medical “transition” process, has come to a halt in many different areas due to limitations of Texas laws. The claims against her psychiatrist and nurse practitioner have been dismissed; the claims against her surgeons are still subject to appeal; and the portion of her case being heard by the Texas Supreme Court involves only her therapist.
“I was the fourth in the United States that was public about suing practitioners in this way,” Aldaco said. “I originally sued the psychiatrist. I sued the nurse practitioner who prescribed me hormones at age 17 without my mother’s consent. I sued the therapist who wrote the letter for my double mastectomy and then dropped me a month before I actually had the mastectomy.”
Aldaco said the healthcare system’s affirmation-only approach to gender confusion is influenced by ideology and money. For example, in the letter Aldaco’s therapist wrote recommending her for a double mastectomy, the therapist claimed Aldaco had lived as a boy for 12 continuous months, which was not true.
“The therapist had asked me what to put in the letter instead of the letter coming from her evaluatory expertise as a clinician, which is what the purpose of the letter actually is,” Aldaco said. “It appeared as if she was trying to do whatever she could to just get me what I wanted. Unfortunately, in this area of medicine, there’s this whole system of therapists who will recommend what you want for free, without following any sort of process.”
The efforts across the country to provide “gender-affirming care” to patients undermine medical professionals’ sworn oath to “do no harm,” Aldaco added. The procedures Aldaco underwent never changed her sex, they just modified her sexual appearance, causing many physical consequences in areas like fertility and sexual experiences.
“I had real problems that needed more than a placebo, that needed an actual treatment. And instead, I was getting a placebo that made me feel good for a moment,” Aldaco said. “The surgery and hormones made me think I had it all figured out, that brought me some sense of peace, because I thought I had it all figured out. And yet that deeper wound was left to fester because I was taking sugar pills when I needed an antibiotic.”
That’s why this lawsuit means more than justice to Aldaco. It is a way to shift the cultural acceptance of “gender-affirming care.”
“I think primarily my angle for the lawsuit is to impact the culture,” Aldaco said. “We are being so reckless in medicine, in this area, especially.”
Aldaco said she hopes her story will inspire other detransitioners to push back on the medical system that has exploited their confusion and vulnerability.
“Letting your life be for the greater good and contributing to something bigger than yourself is, I think, one of the best ways to find meaning,” Aldaco said. “To do something bigger than yourself is an amazing way to get some kind of justice.”
