By Dan Hart

Lawsuits filed by young people who were permanently disfigured by procedures attempting to reassign gender are multiplying, and more and more professional medical associations are backing away from endorsing the procedures for minors. Experts like Walt Heyer, who formerly spent eight years living a transgender lifestyle, say it’s just the beginning of a burgeoning movement.

On January 30, a New York jury awarded 22-year-old woman Fox Varian $2 million after she sued a psychologist and a plastic surgeon for deviating from standard medical practice and informed consent when they pushed her toward getting a double mastectomy at the age of 16 amid feelings of confusion over her identity as a female. Three weeks later, the Center For American Liberty announced that a court date of April 5 had been set for Chloe Cole, the 21-year-old national advocate against transgender procedures, who is suing Kaiser Foundation Hospitals for greenlighting gender reassignment procedures that included a double mastectomy and hormones when she was only 15.

The rapidly changing landscape toward widespread disavowal of so-called gender reassignment procedures for minors is now enveloping professional medical associations, who were once the primary advocates of the procedures. On February 3, the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS) became the first major medical association to publicly recommend against the procedures for minors, stating that surgeons should “delay gender-related breast/chest, genital, and facial surgery until a patient is at least 19 years old.” In response to ASPS’s announcement, the American Medical Association (AMA) appeared to partially reverse its position as well, stating that it “agrees with ASPS that surgical interventions in minors should be generally deferred to adulthood.”

For Walt Heyer, a senior fellow at Family Research Council and co-author of the new book “Embracing God’s Design,” the cultural tide is clearly turning, especially in light of the rise in lawsuits against purveyors of these procedures.

“[W]hen the lawyers get a hold of this and it starts getting into the jury trials and juries are making the decisions, this is when things change,” he told Tony Perkins during Thursday’s “Washington Watch.” “[The] second part of that is the medical malpractice insurance goes up. And then the doctors, they go, ‘Wait a minute, now it’s costing me $2 million a year for medical malpractice. I can’t afford it. I’ve got to stop doing it.’”

Heyer further emphasized that the gender reassignment industry is rooted in saddling fear and guilt onto parents of children suffering from confusion over their biological sex. “[It’s] emotional blackmail. ‘Your kid’s going to commit suicide if they don’t have hormones and surgery,’ which is a total lie. The fact of the matter is, they’re [more likely] to commit suicide … after having the hormones and surgery.”

“Or kill someone else,” Perkins interjected. “Or kill someone else, which we’re seeing more and more of now,” Heyer agreed.

Last week, an 18-year-old male who began undergoing transgender procedures at age 12 committed the largest mass shooting in Canada since 2020, killing eight people and injuring 25 others. The shooting continued a troubling pattern of transgender-identifying individuals committing mass murder, including at Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis in August 2025 that killed two children and injured 17 others, and at Covenant School in Nashville, Tenn. in March 2023 that killed six people.

Heyer underscored that those who think they are actually “transitioning” to the opposite sex by undergoing reassignment procedures are living a charade, as he himself experienced. “I look at this and realize … this whole thing about hormones and surgery — the fact of the matter is, it never changed my gender, right? So the whole thing is sort of a medical fraud to begin with. It’s masquerading. It’s all cosmetic. So I say, I never transitioned. I didn’t detransition because it never happened.”

As Heyer went on to contend, the way to help those struggling with gender confusion is to identify the underlying comorbidity disorders and to treat those directly, especially trauma.

“A lot of it is spiritual,” he explained. “And we’re dealing with demons who are coming after our children, kids who are struggling with things that happened, like [what] happened to me in my early childhood. … I was sexually abused, and … even as an adult, I thought I was trying to repair what had happened in my early life and thinking if I had my genitals cut off, then I wouldn’t be sexually abused again. … When we say these people have mental illness, I can testify to the fact that they do.”

Heyer concluded by urging the church to get involved in helping those struggling with gender confusion. “Pastors need to speak to this. … [‘Embracing God’s Design’] was designed for pastors to help their congregation understand they don’t have a trans kid. … [S]omething has happened to that child. And let’s help find out what it is and get them the help they need.”

Dan Hart is senior editor at The Washington Stand. This piece was originally published here.