In a first-of-its-kind lawsuit for Canada, an Indigenous transwoman is suing the Province of Alberta, a Montreal hospital, two physicians and one unnamed nurse for damages after undergoing vaginoplasty surgery in 2009. This is likely the first of many such lawsuits in Canada.
In a statement of claim filed in the Court of King’s Bench of Alberta last month, Lois Cardinal, 36, alleges that she underwent penile-inverting gender-reassignment surgery without proper consent, without having met surgical criteria, without adequate counselling or knowledge about the procedure, under “financial coercion and fraudulent misrepresentation” and after having verbally withdrawn consent, to a staff nurse, on the day of the surgery. She was 21 at the time.
None of the allegations have been proven in court.
Cardinal alleges that the surgery resulted in sterilization and “constant vaginal pain.” She also claims she “was not informed about how the surgery would affect her identity within the First Nations Community, and ability to practice and pass on Nehiyawak cultural traditions.”
The lawsuit alleges several causes of action: battery of a sexual nature; breach of fiduciary obligations; negligence; and numerous Charter violations, including cruel and unusual punishment, and the right to life and security of the person.
Cardinal is seeking monetary damages, as well as declarations that her Charter rights were violated and that she “was subject to assault, battery and trespass on the person of a sexual nature, or, in the alternative that the defendants were negligent in their failure to fulfill the legal requirements of consent for (gender-reassignment surgery).”
Cardinal is not the typical transgender-identified person you hear about in the media or in activist circles. Cardinal prefers to be referred to as “transsexual” rather than “transgender.” What that term denotes, in the minefield of today’s gender ideology culture war, is that Cardinal makes no claims about being a literal female. A “transsexual,” to Cardinal, is a male who is more comfortable dressing and appearing as close to female as possible.
“I don’t care what pronouns people use when describing me,” Cardinal told the National Post.
She is one of many Albertans who met with Premier Danielle Smith to help design the province’s controversial trans legislation that (in part) prohibits puberty blockers and hormones for transgender-identified youth under the age of 16.
Cardinal said she informed Smith about the lack of specialized follow-up care for patients like her, who receive out-of-province, or out-of-country, gender surgery. The Alberta government has since been attempting to recruit trans-care specialists.
Cardinal’s lawsuit is unique in that it is not a detransition lawsuit. Nor is it a lawsuit about underage consent to life-altering procedures, or a parent fighting the medical transition of their child. It is not a lawsuit about regret over a mistaken identity, but rather over having fallen for a cure-all for gender dysphoria, the diagnosable psychiatric condition that afflicts some (not all) transgender-identifying people.
As alleged in her statement of claim, Cardinal was led to believe that the genital- and fertility-destroying surgery “was the last necessary stage in the treatment of gender dysphoria.” In other words, she believed that if she went through with the procedure, she would finally be cured — and happy. But that didn’t happen.
The promises of trans care do, in fact, come across as panacean in nature: become your true, authentic self; gender-affirming care saves lives! The evidence to the contrary, however, keeps piling up. The latest, a retrospective study in the Journal of Sexual Medicine, looked at 107,583 patients to see how gender-reassignment surgery affected their mental health.
It found “that those undergoing surgery were at significantly higher risk for depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation and substance use disorders than those without surgery.” The researchers concluded that, “Gender-affirming surgery, while beneficial in affirming gender identity, is associated with increased risk of mental health issues.”
Trans activists have a habit of conveniently dismissing the claims of detransitioners who were harmed by the medical care they received, with a common refrain being, “Well, they were never really trans at all, and they clearly have ulterior motives!” They won’t be able to so handily dismiss people like Cardinal, however, who are not walking back their gender identity, but are pointing at the same medical scandal, just from a different angle.
In her claim, Cardinal describes feeling as though “she was in the wrong body” from around the age of eight. The “born in the wrong body” narrative is the same one used by trans activists and those who provide gender-affirming care: they insist that each of us has an internal, metaphysical gender identity that can be out of alignment with — and is more important than — our physical self.
Cardinal experiences the feeling of a “gender identity,” but knows that it’s just that — a feeling — not a soul-like essence that has the power to override the truth: that Cardinal is a male who was gravely harmed by a ghastly and unnecessary surgery. The chronic, daily pain it left her with led Cardinal to apply for medical assistance in dying (MAID). She was denied.
“I felt extremely numb, with a sense of hopelessness when I was denied MAID, as I was forced to sit with the pain that my body experiences from the surgery. Where do I turn for help?” Cardinal said in an interview. “I would have gone through with it, but in the end it was considered a human-rights concern. Should I fight for my right to die with dignity? That’s another battle I am not ready for, nor seeking at the moment.”
None of the defendants provided a comment for this story. Dr. Pierre Brassard did not respond to a request for comment. The Hôpital du Sacre-Cœur-de-Montreal cited patient confidentiality. I was unable to contact the estate of Dr. Lorne Warneke.
Cardinal hopes that her lawsuit will encourage others harmed by gender-affirming care to come forward and hold medical practitioners accountable for the damage they’ve caused. “Absolutely, it sets the precedent for those who have regrets with transitioning and the medical harms caused from it,” she said.
As the body of (damning) evidence grows to prove what a horrific medical scandal gender-affirming care is, there is no doubt that more patients like Cardinal — not a detransitioner, but still grievously and irreversibly harmed — will come forward. Hopefully they all receive the justice they seek.
National Post