Event: Fox Varian

Last month, a twenty-two-year-old woman named Fox Varian won a lawsuit against her prior doctors who coaxed her into getting “top surgery” (a double mastectomy) when she was sixteen so that she could “live” as a boy. The surgery ultimately left her physically scarred and “deeply unhappy,” according to the New York Post. This lawsuit represents a major victory for opponents of prepubescent sex change treatments, especially parents, who are often pressured into complying. This case has been described as a “landmark” lawsuit. It marks the first time any de-transitioner has successfully sued physicians for medical malpractice and won. Those of us who believe that protecting the dignity of the human person extends to treating gender dysphoria as a mental illness rather than a case of “born in the wrong body” are cheering, no doubt. But festina lente—make haste slowly. These cheers are the same ones we heard when Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022—cheers so loud, they drowned out the voices of those asking: “Are we prepared for what comes next?” Now, Illinois, New York, and California must contend with the pro-life movement’s inability to answer that question. Let’s not make the same mistake twice. In 2024, Ohio and Missouri passed versions of the ACLU’s supposedly abortion-specific ballot referendum—except they weren’t abortion-specific. This same amendment is now in play in Virginia and is sure to be introduced in numerous other states over the next few months, where it will usher in language that makes “reproductive freedom” a constitutional right—a right that encompasses “infinite subjects,” according to Mary Catherine Martin, an attorney with the Thomas More Society, potentially superseding even our freedoms of speech and religion. Notably, one of the key groups that’s sure to be impacted by this is parents of minor children—specifically, minor children who want to…