Male Nurse Lurked at Trans Kid Meetings to Find ‘Clientele’ for Hormones, Lawsuit Alleges
Mary Margaret Olohan /
A male nurse practitioner hung around meetings for “transgender children” to find “clientele” for cross-sex hormones, according to a new lawsuit on behalf of a detransitioning young woman.
Soren Aldaco’s suit alleges that she visited the transgender “support group” Trans-Cendence International in Fort Worth, Texas, a nonprofit 501c3 organization “dedicated to the support, well being, and health of our Trans/Gender Diverse community.”
Here she was connected with Del Scott Perry, who was widely known throughout the organization as “the guy” who will prescribe testosterone to youth “upon request,” according to the lawsuit.
“This group hosts meetings for transgender children and their supporters,” the lawsuit says. “TCI would pair transgender children and adolescents with ‘elders’ to purportedly help guide them in their ‘gender journey.’”
Aldaco reportedly learned that she could get testosterone through word of mouth within the group. Since Perry was attending most of the meetings (though he himself is not transgender), he easily connected with her.
Her complaint describes Perry as “the cross-sex hormone provider for most of the children and adolescents who frequented the group.”
“Perry had apparently built this list of clientele from the group over a period of months or years of attending these meetings with another member of the group,” the complaint adds.
Trans-Cendence International has not responded to requests for comment about Perry’s presence at these so-called support groups, which critics accuse of affirming the misconceptions of young people with gender dysphoria. Perry and Texas Health Physicians Group, where he practices, also did not respond to requests for comment.
“Unless otherwise stated TCI does not provide mental health services, legal services, or healthcare,” the organization’s website says. “We’ve gotten to know a lot of professionals, however, and might be able to get you connected with the right resources.”
The very first time that Aldaco and Perry casually met, “Perry immediately confirmed to her that, as with the other young girls and boys in the group, he could and would prescribe” her “the testosterone she wanted if and when she visited his office,” Aldaco’s lawsuit says.
So she did: On Jan. 28, 2020, Aldaco went to Perry’s office for her first appointment, the complaint notes. That visit lasted about 30 minutes, and during it, Perry wrote her prescriptions for her first round of cross-sex hormones, “anastrozole (an estrogen blocker) and testosterone cypionate (together with the anastrozole, the ‘cross-sex hormones’).”
Her lawsuit describes the off-label dosage as “outrageously large.”
“Perry gave her instructions on how to inject herself with the drugs and sent her on her way,” the complaint says. “Notably, to this day, it is still clinically uncertain what the long-term consequences are for the use of these cross-sex hormones in minors, but certain grotesque risks are well known within the medical literature including, for women, infertility, vaginal atrophy, bone density and growth complications, and many other disfiguring side-effects.”
According to Aldaco, Perry failed to discuss not only the risks that she was incurring by taking these drugs, but also the “irreversible consequences” that would ensue. He didn’t discuss any alternatives, the lawsuit says, “instead deferring” to her wishes “to take testosterone like the other kids at TCI.”
Even worse, he allegedly didn’t “discuss or address” any of her mental health issues or existing comorbidities or conduct any psycho-behavioral mental health analysis before providing her “first injection of life-altering cross-sex hormones.”
She was only 17 at the time.
“Perry never sought or obtained any written parental consent from [Aldaco’s] parents to guide her down this path,” the lawsuit says.
Like many other detransitioners, Aldaco soon discovered that the cross-sex hormones were causing her severe complications. But rather than taking her off the hormones, or reducing her dosage, Perry “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.”
In fact, at this point in time, [Aldaco] was so sufficiently gaslit by Perry that she dismissed at least one of these medical specialist’s advice to discontinue use of the cross-sex hormones because they were likely the source of her side effects. When she heard that cautionary advice, as compared to the immediate certainty and unqualified affirmation coming from Perry that continued cross-sex hormones were the proper course, [Aldaco] ironically wrote off the doctor as being a bigot who was behind the times and merely pushing an agenda without [Aldaco’s] best interest at heart. To [Aldaco], the advice coming from the doctors seemed less certain, less emphatic, and thus less persuasive than the ‘gender-affirming’ medicalization course Perry had laid out for her. So she stuck with Perry’s plan despite the fact that a more cautious approach was being suggested by an actual medical doctor, as opposed to Perry’s advice, which was only that of a nurse practitioner.
So Aldaco continued taking the hormones, “pursuant to Perry’s prescription,” until November 2021 when she “realized and discovered Perry’s egregious breach of care.”
Perry was practicing under the guidance and supervision of Texas Health Physicians Group, the lawsuit emphasizes, specifically noting that “at all relevant times, THPG facilitated, allowed, and acquiesced in Perry’s reckless prescription of cross-sex hormone to minors.”
“[Texas Health Physicians Group’s] lack of such responsible oversight enabled Perry’s reckless treatment and created a dangerous environment that directly contributed to and caused [Aldaco’s] injuries,” the suit says.
Aldaco, who is now 21 years old, filed her lawsuit Friday in the Tarrant County District Court of Texas. She alleges that her doctors behaved more like “ideologues” than medical professionals and that they did not properly take her autism, depression, anxiety, and other comorbidities into account when they evaluated her for an attempted gender transition.
“The repercussions of these interventions have led to Soren’s permanent disfigurement and profound psychological scarring,” the suit alleges. “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.”
“Despite these telltale signs demanding caution and therapeutic resolution,” the suit emphasizes, Aldaco’s physicians “deliberately and recklessly propelled” her “down a path of permanent physical disfigurement and worsening psychological distress.”
Aldaco is one of a growing number of young detransitioners, particularly women, who have begun filing lawsuits against the medical establishment for facilitating their attempted gender transitions. A detransitioner is someone who sought to change his or her gender through hormonal or surgical interventions and ultimately regrets this attempt and returne to living as his or her biological sex.
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