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Michelle Zacchigna: Detransitioner who 'regrets' having breasts and uterus removed for gender change to sue doctors

The claim says the defendants permitted Michelle to 'self-diagnose as transgender' and prescribe her 'own treatment' without providing a differential diagnosis

If you or someone you know is considering suicide, please contact the National Suicide Hotline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).

OTTAWA, CANADA: A 34-year-old detransitioning woman who had her breasts and womb removed to change her gender to male is suing medical and health practitioners who carried out her transition. Michelle Zacchigna filed a lawsuit in Ottawa against the 8 health professionals, including doctors, psychologists, a psychotherapist and a counsellor who have prescribed her testosterone treatments and gave her a bilateral mastectomy and a hysterectomy during what she describes as a "mental health crisis."

In just over a decade, Zacchigna went from seeing a therapist to being referred for hormone therapy by doctors who she had limited interaction with. It even included one health expert whom she interacted with for less than an hour for undergoing irreversible surgery in 2010. "I will live the rest of my life without breasts, with a deepened voice and male-pattern balding, and without the ability to get pregnant," she wrote according to Daily Mail. "Removing my completely healthy uterus is my greatest regret," says Michelle. 

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What are Michelle Zacchigna's accusations?

Zacchigna claimed that the medical experts failed to properly address her mental health needs and suppressed female characteristics with testosterone and allowed her to undergo irreversible procedures on her body. She started consulting Dr Nadine Lulu after a suicide attempt in 2008. He became a regular therapist for her and put her forward as an "ideal candidate" for hormone therapy in July 2010.

She then reportedly spoke to a therapist that spring at a Toronto support group for less than an hour before she got the suggestion for hormone therapy. Rupert Raj, one of the therapists running the group, is a defendant in the case, as well as Dr Rick Lindal, who had apparently not met Michelle before recommending her for hormone therapy. In 2010, Zacchigna started her transition with these recommendations from multiple medical professionals in the space of a year. 

Dr Pamela Lecce, Dr Cavacuiti and Dr Suzanne Turner apparently did not consult with a psychologist before prescribing Michelle testosterone. The 34-year-old frequently had to deal with mental health issues until Lulu sent her for a full psychological exam with a Dr Rowden. Under him, several diagnoses were made but her gender dysphoria was left unexplored. After a couple of years she was still left battling with her identity. A professional referred her for a procedure to remove her uterus which was completed in May 2018. 

However, it was the diagnosis in 2015 that she would come back to when deciding to detransition in 2020. "As a little girl, I was bullied daily — by my peers, by older children, and sometimes even by younger children. It felt like everyone in my elementary school knew that I was 'different,'" she wrote in a post for the Gender Dysphoria Alliance about a troubled time at school feeding into anxiety and depression. "My mom once recalled a time when the school bus was pulling up to my house, and she could hear the entire bus full of children chanting cruel things at me."

Later in life, she says, she "began connecting with the LGBT community online" and "found out that many people who identify as asexual were also gender variant." She wrote that she thought more about gender and became convinced she "had been bullied because I was trans and just didn’t know it." 

 "It took me 10 years to figure out why I could have falsely believed something like this, and why so many professionals could have wrongly encouraged it," she said in a crowdfunding video. "I can imagine that there are a lot of people who will eventually find themselves in my position, some of them vulnerable adults like I was and some of them too young to understand the long term consequences." 

Some similar cases

MEAWW previously reported that a detransitioner, has spilled beans about his struggles claiming he was made to believe that he was a woman trapped in a male body. The person who goes by the name Shape Shifter also said that he underwent gender reassignment surgery after being “brainwashed” but now he misses a sense of belonging.

The outlet also reported that retired Navy SEAL Kristin Beck, who made headlines almost a decade ago after transitioning from a man to a woman, decided to switch back to the sex of his birth. He also slammed the transgender health services, urging America to "wake up." Beck is now detransitioning and reverting to his previous name Chris Beck claiming that his sex change "destroyed my life". Moreover, he slammed his 2014 interview with CNN where he claims he was being used for propaganda.