Transgender adult suing doctors who did this "to her" as a child.

I guess the concept of parental consent didn't land with these doctors. The idea of doing this to kids is pretty troubling.

What I Suffered Being ‘Transgender’

I’m suing the people who did this to me, and the Texas Supreme Court heard my case this week.

By Soren Aldaco, WSJ

Feb. 11, 2026 3:09 pm ET

When I was 11, I began identifying as transgender. I had gone down a rabbit hole of websites and niche online forums. There I met a friend—an artist who was 14—whom I admired and looked up to.

We both felt different, out of place in society. Born 10 years earlier, we would have been called tomboys. Instead, we writhed under the pressure of the “female role.” The internet told us the logical conclusion of that struggle was to identify as boys.

I come from a broken home. While my mother and stepfather always loved me, my stepfather became severely disabled when I was 3, leaving me feeling as though I had to raise myself. I eventually reached out to my biological father around a decade later. When he and my stepmother saw my distress—and were told by a psychiatrist that this distress was related to my transgender identity—they began to consider the benefits of affirming me in my transition.

Too young to vote or drink, I became immersed in the idea that hormones and surgeries would fix me. At the transgender support group I attended, most of the focus was on who was starting hormones and how it was going for them. I was envious—I wanted the same feelings of affirmation they had. Many of them were on hormones prescribed by a nurse practitioner who attended the group.

When I was 17, I went with my stepmother to see that nurse practitioner, who prescribed testosterone and estrogen blockers 30 minutes later. These hormones were one of the many medical interventions I pursued in my teens. At 19, I had “top surgery”—a euphemism for an elective double mastectomy. My surgeon made sure to facilitate my physical transition as much as possible, spoon-feeding me talking points for insurance coverage. I donned rainbow hair, medical knee braces and prescription compression socks to my surgery date. I was on more than 10 different medications when I went under the knife.

After this surgery, I suffered major complications. I had severe bruising all down my rib cage, along my sides and on my chest. My surgeons repeatedly dismissed me when I came to them with these problems.

Eventually, I sought care at a local emergency room, where hospital personnel told me only breast oncology would see me. These doctors were kind—used to working with vulnerable women. The realization that I had been gaslit sunk in as I watched them cut my scars back open, empty out nearly three cups of blood, and sew in Penrose drains.

I made the decision to face who I really was—without the medicine, without the hormones or additional surgeries—six months after this experience. While taking classes at the University of Texas at Austin, I began to make sense of my transgender identity through the lens of human development. Piecing together my turbulent family life and adolescent internet habits, among other things, it dawned on me that I had never been “born in the wrong body.” There was no way to be born in the wrong body at all.

Today, at 23, I’m giving myself the grace to understand my gifts and purpose. Through this journey of self-exploration I have come to realize how coercive gender-identity ideology was for me, disguising harm as compassion. I also realized that sometimes the compassionate response is the one that sets firm boundaries.

When I sued my medical providers in 2023, holding the line between helping and enabling was my aim. In Texas, the statute of limitations for medical malpractice claims is generally two years from the date the malpractice occurred. Unfortunately, people disagree about whether “malpractice” refers to the action itself or the harm the action causes. My legal team and I are arguing that it’s the harm the action causes that matters.

As a seventh-generation Texan, going before the Supreme Court of Texas was never something I saw myself doing—let alone doing because I listened to my doctors. Yet here I am. The state high court heard oral arguments in my case on Wednesday.

I’d like to think that these days I’m realistic. I know how the law works. My case could still fail for reasons that have nothing to do with what happened to me. What I experienced at the hands of my nurse practitioner, therapist and surgery team was wrong. People like me deserve justice. I believe that God places burdens on people who can carry them, and I trust that whatever comes next will be made right in time.

Ms. Aldaco is an Independent Women ambassador.