Second Detransitioner Sues Kaiser Permanente
Kayla Lovedahl’s story of detransition is similar to Chloe Cole’s. She also has the same lawyers and, apparently, saw some of the same doctors.
by Evan Urquhart
Kayla Lovdahl, a young detransitioned woman from California, is suing the same hospital and many of the same doctors as Chloe Cole, and using the same lawyers to do it. Much like Cole, Lovdahl alleges that her severe mental health issues were not sufficiently addressed by doctors she saw who specialized in treating youth gender dysphoria. Lovdahl believes she was misdiagnosed after she came out as transgender at the age of 11, leading her to start testosterone at 12 and receive top surgery at 13, which she now regrets. Like Cole, Lovdahl is represented by the Harmeet Dhillon and the Dhillon Law Group, LiMandri & Jonna LLP, and Center for American Liberty, a conservative nonprofit also helmed by Harmeet Dhillon.
The lawsuit, which was announced in March using the pseudonym “Layla Jane” to refer to Lovdahl, and has now gone forward using her real name. This is similar to the process used for the rollout of Chloe Cole’s lawsuit a few months prior, in which Chloe Cole’s legal name (Chloe Brockman) was finally revealed in the court filing.
At least one far-right outlet has been confused by all the pseudonyms into falsely reporting that there have been a total of three lawsuits by detransitioners against Kaiser Permanente. Other outlets seem to largely have avoided this error, but Lovdahl’s suit has been covered widely. Here it is in the Daily Mail, Fox News, and the Daily Caller.
Lovdahl’s lawsuit, much like Cole’s, reads primarily as a narrative, one well suited to fill the needs of right-wing media outlets that frequently cover detransitioner stories. While the details of Lovdahl’s story are specific, much of the other material seems to have been repurposed from Cole’s lawsuit. One example is found in the lengthy discussions of the desistance rates for gender dysphoria in youth that present a false picture of the research into desistance. (A federal judge recently found that claims such as these are based on ideological convictions, not medical evidence.)
Here’s the language in Lovedahl’s suit:
screenshot from Kayla Lovdahl’s lawsuit
…and here’s the same language in Cole/Brockman’s:
screenshot from Cole/Brockman’s lawsuit
As with Cole, the true facts behind the lawsuit remain impossible to guess at. These complaints represent only Lovdahl’s version of events, and representatives of Kaiser Permanente are unable to comment publicly due to the confidential nature of patient records. Again like Cole, Lovdahl’s lawsuit does not name her parents as either co-complainants or as defendants. This is unusual because the decision to consent to gender-affirming treatment ultimately lay with both women’s parents, putting them at the very center of what is being alleged to have happened.
More is likely to be known about the circumstances around Lovdahl’s treatment when a response is made by Kaiser Permanente. Until then, the lawsuits primary function has been to drive news coverage hostile to transgender healthcare.