As any young child would, Clementine Breen trusted her doctors, believing they had her best interests in mind. She was just 7 years old when those medical professionals convinced her she was suffering from gender dysphoria, leading her to undergo transformative, irreversible bodily surgeries she said she regrets today.

Now, Breen is holding them accountable. In December of last year, Breen filed a lawsuit with the Superior Court of California in the hopes that the healthcare providers who pushed her to transition will be found liable for medical negligence. 

Breen’s complex body image issues began at a young age. After experiencing sexual trauma as a child, Breen told IW Features she was not able to fully process what had happened to her.

“Even though I wasn’t aware of why I was so anxious about puberty, I started getting really, really terrified,” Breen said. “I started getting kind of depressed and having weird behavioral issues.”

Confused about her trauma response, Breen began skipping class and searching for answers on the Internet. In her Google searches, gender dysphoria popped up frequently, and she began to wonder if medical intervention could help her deal with this emotional baggage, especially if it helped her avoid puberty.

By age 12, Breen confided in her school’s guidance counselor, who recommended she visit a doctor specializing in transgender-identifying children. It was at this time Breen discovered puberty blockers, which she mistakenly thought could alleviate her anxiety and reverse what she thought was gender dysphoria. 

At her first doctor’s visit, Breen said everything was already moving “very fast.” The doctor, she said, considered her case “very textbook” and allegedly failed to ask in-depth questions about her childhood and sexual abuse.

According to Breen, after she spoke with the doctor privately, the doctor then spoke with her parents, making them feel as if they had to let their daughter go through irreversible medical surgery for her self-image to improve. 

The doctor allegedly told Breen’s parents that Breen was “high risk” for suicide, and she scared them with the question, “Would you rather have a dead daughter or a living son?”

Breen said her parents eventually agreed to puberty blockers and testosterone pills after pressure from the doctor and her school guidance counselor. 

At 14 years old, the testosterone injections began to cause Breen excruciating pain, though Breen’s doctors insisted the hormone and puberty blockers were “working” because she was adjusting better socially. 

But she wasn’t. The hormonal interventions were supposed to reduce Breen’s alleged dysphoria, but she said testosterone actually made her feel more insecure in her bodily image. She recalled bad cramps and even uterine atrophy because she had never developed a menstrual cycle. Additionally, Breen developed new insecurities about her breasts, which she said had shrunk from the hormonal treatment. 

Breen wanted answers. After reconvening with her doctors, she said they tried to push for another “gender-affirming” procedure––a hysterectomy to remove her female reproductive organs. 

Though she turned down the hysterectomy, Breen did undergo a double mastectomy, known in the transgender community as “top surgery.” But according to Breen, the doctors never gave her a full explanation of what to expect afterwards. 

“It’s just not something they really kind of sat me down and talked me through,” Breen said, adding that if she had taken their advice to get a hysterectomy, she would have been “a lifelong medical patient.” 

Breen said she still wonders why her therapist and doctor did not make the crucial connection to the sexual abuse and trauma she experienced. Instead her childhood trauma reportedly was dismissed, and the sexual trauma from which she was suffering at the time of her medicalization similarly was ignored.

“Nobody in the process caught that — how cavalier I was about it and how excited I was to sort of self-amputate this part of my body that had put me as a target essentially because of the [sexual] abuse,” she said.

According to Breen, any time she brought up her concerns or past, her therapist and doctor would assure her, “Well, if you cure the gender dysphoria, you’ll feel better.”

In 2024, Breen decided to stop her hormonal treatment since she had begun suffering from insomnia, psychosis, and attention deficit disorder issues. 

Immediately upon stopping testosterone, she said her psychological symptoms disappeared and she was able to sleep. Her hormones started to return to normal, and when she finally got her first period Breen said she was overwhelmed by strange emotions: “I couldn’t even buy pads without shaking.” 

When Breen thinks about all of the changes she agreed to do to her body, she believes medicalization was her own kind of self-harm, encouraged by medical professionals who should have had her best interest in mind. 

Breen holds her healthcare providers responsible for much of this damage, arguing they never gave her the chance to provide truly informed consent. She said her doctors pushed their own agenda onto Breen and took advantage of her young, impressionable age instead of paying attention to Breen’s concerns and past trauma. 

“How can a child even consent to things like losing their fertility or losing the ability to breastfeed?” Breen asked. “I didn’t know what breast tissue looked like. Nobody asked me, so how could I even consent if you’re not going to check if I even know what I’m doing?”

Breen has since sued the various California healthcare professionals who were responsible for her treatment, including providers at the Center for Transyouth Health and Development at the Children’s Hospital in Los Angeles (CHLA), the Gender Confirmation Center of San Francisco, and University of California, San Francisco Community Hospitals. Her legal representatives, Campbell Miller Payne, PLLC, said they are “honored to represent Clementine as she pursues justice against the healthcare providers who took advantage of her trust and have caused profound, irreversible harm.” 

In this new process of detransitioning, Breen said she feels as though she has been forced to explain herself every step of the way. In contrast, she said that as a child, even though she was not able to articulate how she felt about her gender, not one medical professional pressed her for an explanation. 

“I hope that doctors can take a step back and really think about the consequences of what they’re doing and what they’re doing to so many children,” she said.

Jordan Campbell, founding partner of Campbell Miller Payne, PLLC, added: 

“As with the number of women we represent who have stepped forward to tell their stories with Independent Women, Clementine is incredibly brave to speak out, tell her story, and endure the pushback and criticism, all because she believes that doing so is all worth it if it prevents another vulnerable kid like her from suffering the same harm that she did.”

Today, Breen attends the University of California, Los Angeles, and aspires to become a film director one day. 

Despite the opposition to her case and her story, Breen said she feels confident about standing up against ideologically driven medical practitioners. Her hope, she said, is to raise awareness for all the children and families who, without their consent and knowledge, are being led into permanent, life-changing procedures. 

They may be confused and hurting, just as Breen was as a child. But everyone deserves the opportunity to figure out their own identity and purpose without being forced down a dead-end path that upends their lives completely.

Breen certainly deserved that choice. But even without it, she said she feels like she’s been given a second chance to learn, grow, and now fight for change.

“I know who I am,” Breen said. “I am a woman.”