Luka Hein is suing the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC) for allowing her to undergo a so-called gender-affirming surgery at just 16 years old, and for allegedly doing so after just two appointments with a therapist.
Now 21 years old, Hein says that she was struggling with her mental health after her parents divorced when she was a teenager, and often felt anxiety and depression as a result. She said that she turned to the internet to find the source of her problems, where she was groomed by an adult male and convinced to send him revealing photos as a minor.
Feeling fearful and traumatized by the incident, she felt it might be better to no longer look like a female. This is when she discovered influencers online who suggested that depression and anxiety were symptoms of a larger condition: being born in the wrong body.
Like so many young and impressionable teenagers, Hein began to believe that she was the opposite sex, and that is why she felt so out of place. She claimed that after her first one-hour therapy session she was diagnosed with gender dysphoria, and by her second appointment, Hein was referred to undergo a double mastectomy, often referred to as “top surgery.”
Hein’s lawsuit notes that the gender clinic at UNMC operates on the gender-affirming care model. “This means that UNMC staff do not question a patient’s self-diagnosis of transgender identification, no matter their age or the root issues from which they suffer,” the lawsuit states.
The complaint also states that UNMC, like many gender clinics around the country, used “deceptive euphemisms” rather than “accurate terminology.”
“The use of misleading descriptions, especially to children, is a deceptive trade practice . . . Leading patients toward a false horizon is not compassionate or ‘affirming’; it is deceptive,” the lawsuit asserts.
Hein went back to the doctors after undergoing the gender-affirming top surgery to inform them that she regretted the procedure and experienced pain from the operation and hormone treatments prescribed to her. The lawsuit claims that her doctor responded, “I guess this is just part of your gender journey.”
She told the Daily Mail that she felt “brushed aside” by healthcare providers.
“I don’t think kids can ever consent to having essentially full bodily functions taken away at a young age before they even know what that means,” Hein said. “I was talked into medical intervention that I could not fully understand the long-term impacts and consequences of.”
