Author: johntarheel76

Angelina Jolie Plans to Flee the Country This Year

Read more at The Daily Beast.

Angelina Jolie appears ready to close the chapter on her life in the United States, with her final obstacle to leaving set to be resolved in a few months.

The Eternals star has been waiting for twins Knox and Vivienne to turn 18 in July before making a long-considered move abroad, telling reporters at the San Sebastian Film Festival that while she still “loves” America, she no longer “recognize[s]” it the way she once did.

The comment underscored a shift that has been years in the making for the Academy Award winner, who has increasingly framed the U.S. as just one stop in a much more global life.

Jolie, 50, has been open about that mindset across multiple interviews. Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter in 2024, she described Los Angeles less as a permanent home and more as a practical base for raising her six children. Calling her multi-million dollar home “a place where I raise my children,” she said, before adding that the “humanity that I found across the world is not what I grew up with here.”

That global pull has long competed with the realities of her custody arrangement with ex-husband Brad Pitt. The former couple shares six children—Maddox, 24; Pax, 22; Zahara, 21; Shiloh, 19; and twins Knox and Vivienne, who turn 18 this summer. Until now, Jolie’s ability to relocate has been constrained by the need to remain close to Pitt, 61.

A source close to the star told People that the restriction is finally lifting. The insider said Jolie “never wanted to live in L.A. full-time” and has been quietly preparing for a move once her youngest children reached adulthood. With that milestone approaching, she is now reportedly taking concrete steps—including preparing to sell her Los Feliz estate.

Jolie purchased the $24.5 million home in 2017, a year after filing for divorce from Pitt. At the time, she told Page Six the decision was driven by proximity: she “wanted it to be close to their dad,” who lived just minutes away.

The property—featuring six bedrooms and 10 bathrooms—served as a central base during years of custody negotiations and legal disputes.

Now, that chapter appears to be ending. In a September 2025 interview with Variety, Jolie emphasized that she has “always lived internationally,” pointing to her network of family and friends across the globe.

If there is a frontrunner for her next home, it is Cambodia. Jolie has repeatedly described the country as deeply personal to her, dating back to her time filming 2001’s Lara Croft: Tomb Raider film. It was there that Jolie adopted her eldest son, Maddox, in 2002 and has maintained close ties ever since.

Jolie has repeatedly referenced Cambodia as a place that feels like home “in my heart.”The star said she felt compelled to produce her 2017 film They Killed My Father about the Cambodian genocide after coming to fall “in love with its people,” describing “becoming a part of a Cambodian family” as life-changing.

n a separate interview with People, the actress dove deeper into her connection with Cambodia. Revealing that she and her son Maddox frequently travel back and forth, sometimes spending months there at a time—a reflection of the family’s enduring connection to the country.

The Daily Beast has reached out to Jolie’s team for comment.

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Trump’s new State Dept. nominee said lesbian union leader should get death penalty

Read more at LGBTQ Nation.

Jeremy Carl, President Donald Trump’s nominee to head the Bureau of International Organization Affairs, deleted thousands of social media posts before his nomination. One was a May 2023 post calling for the killing of Randi Weingarten, the lesbian president of the American Federation of Teachers, a major American labor union representing over 1.8 million professionals in education, healthcare, and public service.

In a May 2023 post, Carl wrote, “If the U.S. were a serious nation, Weingarten would be tried for crimes against America’s children and would get the death penalty.”

Right-wing critics hate Weingarten (who is a Democrat) for supporting school closures during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, opposing the use of public taxpayer money for private “school choice” voucher programs, and speaking out against so-called “parents’ rights” groups that largely push anti-LGBTQ+ school policies.

Carl deleted this and thousands of other posts, including numerous racist posts saying that white people had “already surrendered” to Black people and ones that pushed the Great Replacement conspiracy theory, an antisemitic and white supremacist conspiracy theory that claims that a cabal of powerful Jewish people want to “replace” white Americans and Westerners with non-white immigrants and people of color (especially Black people and Muslims) to fundamentally change the nation’s racial makeup and political culture.

In a recent Senate hearing, Carl said he believes people of color are “erasing white culture,” but he struggled to define what white culture is. Carl’s nomination may fail, as Sen. John Curtis (R-UT) said he’d vote against him because of his long history of anti-semitic comments.

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Adult trans patients left reeling after Massachusetts hospital cancels vaginoplasties without explanation

Read more at LGBTQ Nation.

Trans women in Massachusetts may be suffering the effects of the Trump administration’s campaign to erase transgender identity from American society, but their hospital won’t confirm or deny it.

Several trans women scheduled for vaginoplasties with a highly regarded doctor specializing in the gender-affirming procedure were informed over the last few weeks that their surgeries had been cancelled and they wouldn’t be able to reschedule them, WGBH reports.

“I’m crushed. I can’t stop crying,” said one patient identified as Avery, who used a pseudonym. “This surgery was life-changing because it finally gives me the body that’s right for me. It has been ripped away with no explanation or follow-up plan.”

Avery’s hospital is UMass Memorial Health in Worcester, Massachusetts, and her surgeon is Dr. Ashley Alford, who introduced an innovative vaginoplasty technique never before used in New England. The surgery involves utilizing abdominal tissue and robotic technology to create a more realistic and functional vagina than other common procedures produce.

Avery had spent months preparing for the surgery, including a switch to a more expensive insurance plan that would cover the procedure.

Then it was cancelled. Avery said she pressed hospital staff for answers and learned that all of Dr. Alford’s appointments had been cancelled. She received no other explanation.

Among the six patients of Dr. Alford’s that were interviewed, all said they’ve received calls in the last two weeks canceling their appointments at UMass; more are identified in a subreddit devoted to the situation, which one describes as “unbelievably confusing.”

Despite the abrupt cancellations, the UMass health system says it’s not curtailing gender-affirming care.

“Although appointments may at times need to be canceled or rescheduled due to the availability of a specific provider, nothing has changed in UMass Memorial Health’s commitment to providing comprehensive, evidence-based health care, including gender affirming care, to all members of our community,” the statement read.

Dr. Alford had no comment on the nixed appointments and procedures.

The second Trump administration has issued a wave of orders curtailing the rights of transgender people, including attempts to end gender-affirming care for minors (early with his executive order addressing so-called “Child Mutilation”) and later, in December, an announcement from Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. that any hospital providing gender affirming care for minors would lose Medicare and Medicaid funding.

UMass’s abrupt cancellations of surgeries for trans adults conjure a nightmare scenario for older patients reliant on gender-affirming care.

Chrissi Bates, an advocate for transgender healthcare and Alford’s first patient to undergo the advanced vaginoplasty procedure, sees a hidden hand behind Alford’s sudden unavailability.

“We all love Dr. Alford. We all doubt that it’s her that wants to leave,” said Bates, who planned on seeing Alford for post-op appointments. “It’s really disheartening to hear that UMass is just caving to this unjust kind of healthcare agenda that’s being pushed by the Trump administration.”

Most of all, the UMass patients in Worcester want answers.

“If it is Dr. Alford being pushed out due to concerns from the Trump administration, who’s to say that’s not going to happen in Boston?” said Kara Earp, a North Carolina transplant who moved to Massachusetts just for the gender-affirming care. Her appointment with Alford was cancelled, as well.

“I probably won’t actually be happy until I wake up from surgery and it’s all over with,” she said.

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Tennessee’s newest anti-LGBTQ bills go against U.S. Supreme Court rulings

Read more at WPLN News.

Tennessee lawmakers have advanced a host of anti-LGBTQ bills that would run counter to U.S. Supreme Court precedent.

Two measures, both proposed by Rep. Gino Bulso, R-Franklin, would challenge landmark cases that legalized same-sex marriage and established protections for discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.

Rep. Gloria Johnson, D-Knoxville, questioned the legality to going against Bostock v. Clayton County, which established that LGBTQ people are protected from discrimination under the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

“We’re talking about federal law that supersedes state law,” Johnson said. “You can’t just ignore the federal law. So, therein is the problem for those of us who believe in our U.S. Constitution.”

Bulso answered, arguing that, “The Civil Rights Act of 1964 does not govern all employers. It only governs employers with more than 15 employees.”

The legislation, Bulso said, would only apply to small businesses — but could jeopardize federal funding by putting the state at odds with federal law.

There’s a similar fiscal note on another of Bulso’s bills that would challenge Obergefell v. Hodges. Bulso argued that the opinion only dictates that public actors must recognize same-sex marriages, not private citizens.

Tom Lee, member of the Board of Directors of the Tennessee Pride Chamber, spoke against the bill, arguing that it could allow discrimination against LGBTQ couples.

“Imagine if under this bill a private employer said, ‘Well, you can’t take family leave because I, as a private citizen, don’t recognize — using the language of the bill — your purported marriage,’” Lee said. “Or a bank says, ‘You’ll pay the higher rate (for unmarried couples). We’re not bound by the 14th Amendment. You’re not married in our eyes.’”

Both measures advanced Wednesday along party lines.

Other measures proposed this year would expand previous bills aimed at LGBTQ Tennesseans. State law that allows teachers to ignore a student’s preferred pronouns would expand to include honorifics like “Mr.” or “Mrs,” and the state’s drag ban would expand the type of businesses that could be penalized under the law.

Marcus Ellsworth with the Tennessee Equality Project said that the legislature wants to consider queer people obscene at a time when all people, regardless of gender or sexuality, are struggling.

“What is actually obscene is that every year we have to watch our state prioritize wasting time, money, and resources, fabricating ways to hurt us,” Ellsworth said.

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Indiana BMV bans trans people from correcting drivers licenses

Read more at LGBTQ Nation.

The state of Indiana just banned trans people from updating the gender markers on their driver’s licenses.

Advocate reports that the state’s Bureau of Motor Vehicles added a small statement to its website on Monday saying that it will no longer allow people to change their gender on state IDs, even if they have a court order.

The notice can be found by clicking through several webpages on the state’s BMV website:

Gender Change Rule Update

Effective Feb. 12, 2026, the BMV will no longer provide customers with the option to change their gender on their Indiana credential by using a court ordered gender change or physician statement per Amended Rule 140 Indiana Administrative Code section 7-1.1-3.

Indiana has been rolling back transgender people’s rights for the past few years. In 2014, trans people were allowed to update the gender marker on their birth certificates with a court order. In March 2025, Gov. Mike Braun (R) signed an executive order banning the practice. The ACLU sued to stop the executive order.

In January 2020, the Indiana BMV stopped allowing people to choose an “X” gender marker on their driver’s licenses, after about a year of allowing it. Then-Attorney General Curtis Hill said that the BMV had overstepped its authority in allowing the nonbinary gender markers and said that “only the General Assembly” has the power to decide if nonbinary gender markers are allowed.

In 2023, then-Gov. Eric Holcomb (R) signed a ban on gender-affirming care for trans minors that also forced trans youth in the state to detransition if they were already receiving hormone therapy.

Holcomb vetoed a transgender sports ban in 2022, but the state legislature overrode his veto that year. The state expanded the ban to include college sports in 2025.

The Movement Advancement Project says that only three states – Texas, Tennessee, and Florida – completely ban trans people from updating the gender marker on state IDs.

Indiana Youth Group, an LGBTQ+ organization in the state, denounced the rule change.

“Denying people the ability to update the gender marker on their identification is not only discriminatory; it is dangerous,” they said in a statement. “In an increasingly hostile climate, mismatched identification can expose individuals to harassment, threats, and violence. It can also create serious barriers to employment, housing, and access to essential services.”

In 2020, a study from Drexel University found that transgender adults with gender-affirming IDs have better mental health than those whose IDs do not match their gender identity.

The study examined data provided by 22,286 trans adults in the 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey and found that those with gender-affirming identification — such as passports and driver’s licenses — were 32% less likely to be classified as seriously psychologically distressed. They were also 22% less likely to have seriously considered suicide within the last year and 25% likely to have made a suicide plan within the last year.

“Having IDs that don’t reflect how you see yourself, and how you present yourself to the world, can be upsetting,” said lead researcher Ayden Scheim. “It can also potentially expose people to harassment, violence, and denial of service.”

“Having accurate identification should be a fundamental human right. While many of us take it for granted, obtaining IDs can be very difficult for trans people. This is an area where tangible and relatively simple policy changes could aid public health.”

If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available. Call or text 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org. The Trans Lifeline (1-877-565-8860) is staffed by trans people and will not contact law enforcement. The Trevor Project provides a safe, judgement-free place to talk for youth via chat, text (678-678), or phone (1-866-488-7386). Help is available at all three resources in English and Spanish.

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Same-sex couples just won a crucial Supreme Court victory in the Philippines

Read more at LGBTQ Nation.

In a precedent-setting decision that could bode well for the legalization of same-sex marriage in the Philippines, the country’s Supreme Court has ruled that same-sex couples can be considered co-owners of property acquired over the course of their relationship.

The ruling came about based on a lesbian couple that is decidedly not interested in getting married, the Philippines Star reported.

The ruling promulgated on February 5 and penned by Associate Justice Jhosep Lopez made its way to the country’s highest court after the two women had lived together for several years. In that time, they purchased a house and lot in Quezon City, and registered it under only one partner’s name.

Then they decided to split.

The two women initially agreed to sell the property and divide the proceeds equally. Knowing they wouldn’t benefit from community property laws afforded to married couples, the partner who officially owned the house and lot signed an “acknowledgment” confirming that the other had paid for roughly 50% of the purchase and renovation costs of the property.

Then she reneged on the deal.

After she denied the other woman’s co-ownership and refused to sell, the scorned partner went to court, filing a case based on the signed acknowledgement.

A back-and-forth over culpability, damages, and lack of proof ensued across two courts and appeals before the case landed at the nation’s highest court.

A case pitting a similar but married plaintiff and defendant would normally fall under Article 147 of the Philippines Family Code. That article applies to couples who are legally eligible to marry and “presumes” joint ownership of property acquired during cohabitation, the high court explained.

But because the Family Code limits marriage to a union between a man and a woman, the high court held that the case of the battling lesbian couple necessarily fell under Article 148, which applies to those prohibited from marriage and requires proof of actual contribution for a property to be considered common. 

That signed “acknowledgement” provided the proof.

“Having admitted the actual contribution of petitioner, their corresponding shares are prima facie presumed equal. Thus, with Article 148 of the Family Code and the Acknowledgement executed by respondent, petitioner is a co-owner to the extent of 50% share of the subject property,” the ruling read. 

“Considering that there is co-ownership between petitioner and respondent, then each co-owner may demand at any time the partition of the thing owned in common, insofar as her share is concerned. Having rightful interest over the subject property, petitioner has the right to demand the division of the subject property,” Judge Lopez added.

Legislation legalizing civil unions or full marriage equality for same-sex couples in the Philippines has been stalled in the country’s Congress over multiple sessions.

Concurring opinions in the case noted the gap between public opinion, which is generally supportive of LGBTQ+ rights in the Philippines, and legislative action.

Justice Lazaro‑Javier recognized “the prevailing values in modern society as well as the glaring yet unjustified difference in the treatment of heterosexual couples vis-à-vis their homosexual counterparts,” while the majority ruling called on Congress to address the issue at the core of the case more broadly.

“Mostly, public reason needs to be first shaped through the crucible of campaigns and advocacies within our political forums before it is sharpened for judicial fiat,” the court said.

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2 celebrities among 12 people arrested in anti-gay sweep in Senegal

Read more at LGBTQ Nation.

Two of Senegal’s highest-profile celebrities were among 12 people rounded up and charged with committing “unnatural,” or homosexual, acts, among other crimes, police in the capital of Dakar announced Sunday.

Pape Cheikh Diallo, a widely admired TV and radio presenter, and Djiby Dramé, a popular musician, were two of the men charged in the case linked to an individual who has admitted to knowingly spreading HIV, according to The New York Times.

An HIV-positive individual “confessed to knowingly infecting about ten people he had contacted, primarily through WhatsApp groups,” authorities said.

Police didn’t elaborate on who the individual is or his connection with the other men, but all 12 men were remanded to prison while a judge investigates the case.

A preliminary indictment from prosecutors added a charge of money laundering to the evidence used to initially round the men up, Senegal news site Seneweb reports. All of the men broke down in tears as the judge announced their pretrial detention.

“A lot of what’s being said in the media about Pape Cheikh is not true,” said a lawyer for TV presenter Diallo, Abdou Dieng, after the hearing. Other lawyers in court declined to comment.

Diallo, 42, is best known for interviewing celebrities on TV and radio, and enjoys a large fan base of young people on TikTok, with about three million followers.

Dramé, also in his 40s, appeals to older Senegalese and is well known for duets with his wife that feature prominently at weddings in the country. They host an annual high-society gala that celebrates Bazin, the luxurious damask cotton fabric with roots in West Africa.

Stop Homophobie, a Paris-based LGBTQ+ rights group with ties to Senegal, condemned the arrests. The state action will further expose the community to stigma in the devoutly Muslim country, the group’s director told Seneweb.

Senegal earns a score of 4 out of 100 on the Equaldex Equality Index.

The Senegal Penal Code states, “whoever will have committed an improper or unnatural act with a person of the same sex will be punished by imprisonment of between one and five years.”

As well as Diallo and Dramé, one of West Africa’s most iconic artists has been swept up in the controversy surrounding the arrests. TFM, the country’s most-watched television channel and Diallo’s employer, was founded by Senegalese singer Youssou N’Dour, described by Rolling Stone as “perhaps the most famous singer alive” in Senegal and much of Africa.

Islamist critics of “degenerate” Western values are implicating N’Dour in the scandal over his connection with Diallo as his “boss” at TFM.

“Whoever plays games with Islam will suffer the wrath of God,” said one reply to Seneweb’s story of the arrests.

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A Republican governor just vetoed a GOP-led anti-trans bill.

Read more at LGBTQ Nation.

New Hampshire Gov. Kelly Ayotte (R) vetoed an anti-transgender bathroom and sports bill last Friday. Republicans in the state legislature won’t likely have enough votes to override her veto.

The bill, S.B. 268, sought to carve out exceptions to the state’s 2018 anti-discrimination laws (which protect people from discrimination on the basis of “gender identity”) and ban trans people from accessing any restrooms, locker rooms, prisons, detention centers, and non-voluntary treatment centers that match their gender identity. Furthermore, the bill sought to ban trans women from any “athletic or sporting events or competitions” in which “biological males” have physical advantages.

“There are certain limited circumstances in which classification of persons based on biological sex is proper because such classification serves the compelling state interests of protecting the privacy rights and physical safety of such persons and others,” the bill stated, echoing right-wing rhetoric about trans people being a risk to other people’s safety, especially in locker rooms and toilets.

The broadly written bill neither explained how the law would be enforced nor provided any special penalties for violating it. As such, enforcement would have likely depended on individuals filing complaints if they shared a facility with a trans person, leaving state legal authorities to investigate and prosecute such claims.

“I vetoed a nearly identical bill to this one last year,” said Gov. Ayotte, according to The New Hampshire Bulletin. “I made it clear this issue needed to be addressed in a thoughtful, narrow way that protects the privacy, safety, and rights of all Granite Staters. Unfortunately, there is minimal difference between Senate Bill 268 and the bill I vetoed last year, which [Republican] Governor [Chris] Sununu vetoed the year prior.”

When Gov. Ayotte vetoed a similar bill last year, she said, “I believe there are important and legitimate privacy and safety concerns raised by biological males using places such as female locker rooms and being placed in female correctional facilities. At the same time, I see that [this bill] is overly broad and impractical to enforce, potentially creating an exclusionary environment for some of our citizens.”

It’s unlikely that Republican state legislators will have the votes they need to override Gov. Ayotte’s veto in both chambers. New Hampshire state law requires a two-thirds majority vote in both the House of Representatives and the Senate to override a governor’s veto. While the 16 Republicans in the state’s 24-member Senate could reach that threshold, the 222 Republican legislators in the state’s 400-member House could not.

LGBTQ+ advocates cheered on Gov. Ayotte’s veto.

“This is a huge relief for every transgender or gender nonconforming person in New Hampshire,” said Aimee Terravechia, executive director of the statewide LGBTQ+ organization 603 Equality. “In a time of unrelenting legislative attacks and misinformation campaigns around transgender people and their rights, Gov. Ayotte’s veto affirms the basic rights and dignity for all Granite Staters. Transgender and gender nonconforming people deserve safe access to public spaces as they go about living, working, and contributing to our communities. Bathroom bans simply have no place in New Hampshire.”

Heidi Carrington Heath, executive director of NH Outright, said, “This veto is a win for the Granite State, and sends a much-needed message to LGBTQ+ youth and families that they are welcomed and valued members of our communities. Today, Governor Ayotte stood in a long tradition of New Hampshire values protecting freedom and individual liberty. Like all youth, our LGBTQ+ young people deserve access to all of the spaces and places they need to thrive, and this veto helps ensure they can continue to do just that.”

Chris Erchull, senior staff attorney at GLAD Law, said, “We’re pleased with Governor Ayotte’s veto of S.B. 268, which keeps the bipartisan nondiscrimination law passed in 2018 intact and ensures all Granite Staters – including our transgender friends, neighbors, and co-workers – continue to have fair and safe access to our public spaces. Though S.B. 268 will not be the last politically motivated attack on LGBTQ+ people we have to confront in this legislative session, this is a moment worth celebrating – and an opportunity for more Granite Staters to come together in support of fairness, dignity, and freedom for all.”

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Virginia governor gives voters a chance to erase their state’s anti-marriage amendment

Read more at LGBTQ Nation.

Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger (D) signed legislation that sent several potential state constitutional amendments to voters this past Friday, including a measure that would remove the state’s ban on same-sex marriage from the state constitution, which was originally passed in 2006.

While the state’s ban on marriage equality has not been enforced since the 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges Supreme Court decision, which legalized marriage equality in all 50 states, advocates for its removal say that it is discriminatory and could be enforced if Obergefell were ever overturned.

“We want to make sure that Virginia families know that here in Virginia, it is not just a Supreme Court decision that protects them, but it is also our state constitution,” Spanberger said in comments during the signing ceremony. “It’ll be a big step for Virginia to ensure that every family knows that Virginia is a place that welcomes them, appreciates them, and sees them for the wonderful family and Virginians that they are.”

“So before I get too emotional on that one, I will start signing.”

LGBTQ+ issues played a large role in the 2025 Virginia gubernatorial campaign, with Republican candidate Winsome Earle-Sears running ads throughout the election season that accused Spanberger of wanting “boys to play sports and share locker rooms with little girls” and letting “children change genders without telling their parents.”

At a debate later in the year, Spanberger pointed out Earle-Sears’ opposition to anti-discrimination laws and her opposition to marriage equality. Earle-Sears blurted out, “That’s not discrimination!” when Spanberger brought up how Earle-Sears believes “it’s OK for someone to be fired from their job for being gay.”

LGBTQ+ advocates hailed the marriage ballot initiative measure.

“Twenty years after banning marriage equality, it’s time for our commonwealth to fully complete our evolution – and finish the job on protecting marriage equality for all,” said Equality Virginia Executive Director Narissa Rahaman in a statement. “It’s up to all of us to vote on November 3, 2026 to safeguard marriage for all Virginians and remove the stain that exists in our constitution. We have come too far over the past 20 years to have any doubt that Virginia voters will support love and dignity for all couples this November.”

Spanberger also signed a bill that will send a reproductive rights amendment to voters in the fall. The proposed amendment would give Virginians a right to reproductive health care and include IVF, contraception, and abortion.

“This amendment protects families’ entire scope of reproductive needs,” said state Sen. Jennifer Boysko (D), who introduced it in the Virginia Senate.

“I look forward to spending ample time in advance of the 2026 elections campaigning to make sure that people understand the importance of this constitutional amendment,” Gov. Spanberger said last year, according to the Virginia Mercury.

Spanberger sent two other constitutional amendments to voters on Friday. One would automatically restore voting rights for convicted felons who finished their prison sentences (they currently have to appeal to the governer after their sentences are over to get their voting rights back), and the other would allow the state’s General Assembly to change the state’s congressional district map in the middle of decades in order to respond to other states doing the same, according to WOBC.

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Detransitioner who regrets mastectomy wins $2 million in malpractice lawsuit against doctors

Read more at LGBTQ Nation.

A woman who sued her doctors over a breast removal surgery she received when she was 16 and identified as transgender has been awarded $2 million in damages, marking the first time a detransitioner has won a medical malpractice lawsuit over the care they received as part of their transition.

Multiple right-wing news outlets are calling the decision “historic,” but even the woman’s lawyer is downplaying its significance, insisting the case was never about “the legitimacy of gender-affirming care.”

As The Free Press first reported, on Friday, a jury in New York State sided with 22-year-old Fox Varian, who sued her psychologist and a plastic surgeon, accusing them of failing to adhere to standards of care around gender-affirming care for minors. According to the New York Times, Varian claimed that her doctors did not obtain adequate consent or adequately inform her of the risks associated with a double mastectomy she received in 2019 and came to regret.

As multiple outlets have reported, Varian suffered from depression, anxiety, social phobia, eating disorders, and body-image issues as an adolescent, and was diagnosed with autism at 14. Court documents reportedly show she began questioning her gender at 15. She changed her name multiple times, used he/him pronouns, began binding her breasts, and told her psychologist, Kenneth Einhorn, that she wanted to transition.

According to both the New York Times and the Epoch Times, Einhorn, who has no formal training in treating transgender patients, claimed in court that Varian insisted she needed top surgery. In October 19, nine months after Varian expressed a desire to transition, Einhorn referred her to plastic surgeon Simon Chin.

Crucially, however, Einhorn referred to Varian’s diagnosis as “body dysmorphia” rather than gender dysphoria in his letter to Chin. He also reportedly referred her to an LGBTQ+ nonprofit center for additional counseling, where Varian continued to express uncertainty about her gender. However, Einhorn never followed up with the center. According to the Epoch Times, both Einhorn and Chin admitted in court that had they known about Varian’s continued uncertainty, they would not have referred her for the surgery or performed it.

As both the Epoch Times and the New Republic noted, the jury was not asked to issue a verdict on whether minors should receive gender-affirming surgeries — such procedures are already exceptionally rare — but whether Einhorn and Chin had adhered to accepted standards of care.

Dr. Loren Schechter, president-elect of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), which sets medical standards for gender-related care, even testified as an expert witness on behalf of Varian. Schechter testified that he believed the Einhorn and Chin’s decision to approve the surgery was based on “assumption and inference,” according to the New York Times.

“This case was a medical malpractice case, not a referendum on gender-affirming care,” WPATH said in a statement following the verdict. “When care is delivered ethically and responsibly within these guidelines, the integrity of the field is strengthened.”

Similarly, Varian’s lawyer, Adam Deutsch, issued a statement echoing arguments he’d made in court. “This was never a debate over the legitimacy of gender-affirming care,” he said, according to the Times. “It was about whether medical professionals met the standards that covered their own profession.”

Einhorn and Chin “just didn’t have the experience to deal with someone questioning their gender identity,” Deutsch added. “At the bottom of all of this was a lack of collaboration between the two of them, and lack of communication to follow through.”

At the same time, Benjamin Ryan, an independent journalist who covered the case for The Free Press and who has been critical of gender-affirming care for minors, suggested in a video promoting his reporting that the verdict “could help reshape the legal landscape around youth gender medicine.”

Describing the jury’s verdict as “decisive and historic,” Ryan said that Varian’s case “marks a turning point” and “could contribute to a reckoning over lax assessment standards by care providers when they consider whether irreversible medical interventions should be offered or given to minors with gender dysphoria.”

He said the case “signals a growing wave of detransitioners turning to the courts” and noted that by his count, nearly 30 similar civil cases are currently working their way through courts across the U.S. But as the Times noted, it remains unclear what impact Varian’s case will have on other cases.

Following Friday’s verdict, the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS) released a statement advising against conducting “gender-related breast/chest, genital, and facial surgery” on people under the age of 19. While the February 3 statement does not mention the Varian case, as the Times notes, it marks the first time a major American medical association has shifted its guidance on gender-affirming care for minors.

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