Texas Woman Sues Medical Groups for $1M Over Physical Disfigurement After Teen Trans Surgery

Another woman who attempted a gender transition as a teenager is now suing the doctors who operated on her claiming they pushed her to "pursue a transgender male identity", take hormone replacement, and have a double mastectomy.

"I could not have wrapped my head around what it would be like for them to cut my incisions back open and manually drain blood clots from my chest cavity until I lived through that...until I was on that hospital bed having it happen to me," the now 21-year-old Soren Aldaco recounted. "At the time, I thought I was going to die."

Aldaco filed a lawsuit Friday suing several physicians and medical groups including  Texas Health Physicians Group, Crane Clinic LLC, and Mesa Springs LLC, for $1 million alleging they "deliberately and recklessly propelled Soren down a path of permanent physical disfigurement and worsening psychological distress."

These defendants pushed "experimental," "gender-affirming medical therapies, and administered a series of ruinous procedures and treatments" to Aldaco – a then vulnerable teenager struggling with a slew of mental health issues, the lawsuit contends.

"The repercussions of these interventions have led to Soren's permanent disfigurement and profound psychological scarring," the complaint alleges. 

It continues, "The Defendants' breaches of their fiduciary duties are only underscored by the fact that each Defendant met Soren and facilitated these 'therapies' at a pivotal juncture in Soren's life—when she was grappling not only with the universal challenges of adolescence and body image but also with a complex amalgamation of diagnosed mental health comorbidities and other psychological and social disorders."

Aldaco is now a part of a growing group of detransitioners suing healthcare providers who they feel pushed them to pursue permanent and harmful treatments without making any effort to properly diagnose their mental health conditions. 

As CBN News reported, Chloe Cole is suing a California-based healthcare company for gender-transitioning medical treatments she received there as a minor, including a double mastectomy and hormone replacement therapy. 

And 18-year-old Layla Jane announced her intent to sue the same organization in June alleging the providers pushed Jane's parents to consent to the use of puberty blockers and testosterone, and eventually a double mastectomy for their daughter with "fraudulent" information. 

Kayla Lovdahl, a California teen, is also pursuing a lawsuit against the group claiming she was coerced into hormonal and surgical transgender procedures including a double mastectomy at the age of 13.

"I think that nobody will understand the complications that come with these procedures and treatments until you experience them," Aldaco shared in a recent documentary by Independent Women's Forum.

Aldaco began to identify as transgender at the age of 11, but by the time she reach high school she had settled on identifying as "non-binary".

At the age of 15, Aldaco went to Mesa Mesa Springs Psychiatric Hospital for treatment after suffering a manic episode. 

It was there that she says a doctor pushed her to pursue a transgender male identity. 

"During those three days, and against Soren's expressed wishes not to discuss her gender identity, Dr. Nekkalapu relentlessly pressed her on the topic by prompting her with trans-related questions and affirmations," the lawsuit details.

It alleges that Dr. Nekkalapu did not conduct meaningful or comprehensive physiological examinations, but "appeared to simply jump to—and indeed encourage—the conclusion that the sole explanation for Soren's psychotic break was her needing to embrace a transgender identity, after only knowing her for mere minutes."

In 2019, at the age of 17, Aldaco was placed on "outrageously large, off-label dosage" of cross-sex hormones by a doctor with the Crane Clinic LLC after only a 30-minute meeting, reportedly without parental consent. 

During that visit, she says the physician failed to discuss the risks and consequences of taking those drugs. 

"When these cross-sex hormones eventually started causing severe complications in Soren's body, rather than reduce her dosage or take her off the cross-sex hormones completely, Perry [a nurse practitioner] simply referred Soren out to various medical specialists who could treat the specific symptoms that arose while continuing to prescribe and administer the cross-sex hormones," the lawsuit explains.

At the age of 19, Aldaco's relationship therapist wrote a letter qualifying her for a double mastectomy.

"Afterwards I began to suffer major complications," she shared. "We noticed bruising right away and despite sending photos to the physician we were given upon my discharge, we weren't taken seriously – at all."

The complaint reads, "Despite Soren sending graphic pictures of the pools of blood forming subcutaneously within her torso, her nipples literally peeling off of her chest, and explaining the immense pain she was experiencing, Dr. Santucci seemed as though he could not be bothered to see her and did not even advise her to seek emergency care. The most Soren managed to get from Dr. Santucci was a reluctant agreement that he would check to see if he could get her in the following day."

Aldaco went to the emergency room for treatment. 

"I knew I had been gaslit," she recalled. "This was not normal. A 19-year-old should not have been going through that." 

Aldaco identified as a transgender six months after that but while attending university she took a sociology class that changed her perspective. 

"My little sister is my pride and my joy," she shared. "I think I really took a step back and I thought what if she came up to me and said the things that I say to myself? What if she told me she felt her body was wrong when I know for a fact that she is perfect? That there is not a single thing about her that she needs to change."

"I felt like for the first time in my life I had a key to unlocking me," Aldaco expressed. 

Aldaco says she is now looking forward to having children, although she realizes she will not be able to take part in a key piece of that because of the double mastectomy.

"Ultimately," the complaint says, "what Soren realized is that over the rocky course of her adolescence, what she needed was an unbiased doctor, not an ideologue. And upon these realizations, she immediately felt and understood the wrongs she had suffered at the hands of the Defendants. With this lawsuit, Soren now seeks redress for those wrongs."

CBN News has reached out to Cranes Clinic LLC, Mesa Springs LLC, and Texas Health Physicians Group for requests for comment. Texas Health Physicians Group declined to comment. Cranes Clinic LLC and Mesa Springs LLC did not respond to the requests.
 

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