On May 21st, the New York Post published an article detailing the lawsuit and settlement of the case of Camille Kiefel, a detransitioner who, in 2022, sued two mental health professionals who had provided her with the letters required to receive gender affirming surgery, claiming malpractice. In the first paragraph of the piece, the Post includes the false claim that the settlement in Kiefel’s favor was in the amount of $3.5 million just days before the case was to go to trial.
Following the publication of the article, it spread like wildfire among right wing outlets and anti-trans figures, resulting in numerous posts and responses from people like Riley Gaines, Marsha Blackburn, Graham Linehan, and even Elon Musk celebrating their historic victory against trans healthcare.
Except that the reported $3.5 million settlement is a fabrication
While it is true that Kiefel did settle the case out of court, the $3.5 million figure was the number originally requested in the suit. A request typically represents the grandest dreams of the plaintiff if a case gets to a jury. A pre-trial settlement, typically, would be for a much lower figure.
Another falsehood is that the settlement happened days before trial, rather it was days before a hearing for summary judgement. In other words it was just days before the judge would have had a chance to preemptively rule in favor of one party or the other. The actual trial remained weeks away. [see note at the bottom for links to trial information]
In February of 2025, Kiefel’s other lawsuit against her surgeon was dismissed with prejudice following a trial, and an order was issued for payment to be made to the defendants by the detransitioner plaintiff, Kiefel. While the exact details of the settlement are unknown, the case did not seem to have been trending in Kiefel’s favor.
But this poses the question: where did the New York Post get its information from?
The answer is surprisingly simple, the Post article is a cross-post of an article originally published by Fox News. There is, however, one key difference, the article in Fox does not assert that the settlement was for $3.5 million.
Digging a little deeper shows that the original posting of the article, which was archived on the day of publication, contained the same error as the later New York Post reprint. In the intervening time, Fox issued a correction, moving the $3.5 million figure to another paragraph to make clear that that was the original lawsuit amount, not the settlement amount. They did not, however, make any actual note that a correction had been made in the article itself, nor, it seems, did they notify the Post of the correction.
In turn, though, Fox did not pull the number or timing of the settlement from thin air. They credit an article posted by Ben Ryan on his Substack as their main source regarding the settlement.
Ryan had published his article covering the settlement three weeks prior on April 29th, describing the piece as a “scoop” in a Twitter post, although the settlement occurred in early January. While his piece did not assert the settlement total, it did make the claim that the settlement had occurred days before trial rather than weeks and made no mention of the dismissal of Kiefel’s lawsuit against her surgeon.
Following the Post’s publication of Fox’s story, Ryan posted on Twitter, noting the error in the Post’s reporting, but nevertheless thanked them for citing him as a primary source, also seemingly unaware that it was a cross post of reporting from Fox in spite of the Post’s clear marking of it as such.
One voice that attempted to make itself heard in the face of all this misinformation was that of Julie Rei Goldstein, a trans actress who also closely follows and documents detransitioner lawsuits.
“The fact that it was settled like two days before the judge was set to hear a motion for summary judgment leads me to believe that she was not in the strongest position,” said Goldstein in an interview with Assigned Media, “She was afraid that it was going to get dismissed, so decided to just cut her losses.”
Ultimately, the exact details of the settlement are not public knowledge. However, what is clear is that the story has not been handled with care by those reporting on it, and the results of that carelessness has been turned into a weapon by the anti-trans crowd to further their own agendas.
Trial information can be found here by searching Case# 22CV29327 for Kiefel’s suit against the mental health professionals, and Case# 24CV10314 for her suit against the surgeon.
Valorie Van-Dieman (they/she) is an Associate Editor at Assigned Media. @valorievandieman.bsky.social
