Prolific ‘Gender-Affirmation Surgeon’ in Massachusetts Mysteriously Cancels All Surgeries
Dr. Ashley Alford advertises herself as the “highest-volume vaginoplasty surgeon in New England.” That means she performs surgeries on male genitalia in an attempt to make her patients appear to be female.
Yet Alford, prolific in performing “robotic peritoneal flap vaginoplasties,” has suddenly canceled all of her surgeries. The reason could be as simple as a family emergency or sickness, but the hospital she works at, UMass Memorial, has yet to provide an explanation despite repeated prompting from patients.
That has led people to speculate that Alford could be facing some sort of legal trouble related to her surgeries or that she could be facing pressure to no longer perform transgender surgeries. One patient said Tuesday that the hospital is now describing Alford as being on personal leave.
GBH reported last week that it had spoken with six of Alford’s patients, all of whom told the same story of their surgeries or appointments being suddenly canceled.
One patient who previously had “bottom surgery” and had a revision surgery scheduled with Alford, Hannah Garceau, told GBH that his appointment to discuss the surgery with Alford was suddenly canceled. Garceau said that when he tried to reschedule the appointment, he was told by the hospital that the appointment could not be rescheduled at that time. He reported that a hospital staffer had told him, “I think there’s been some changes. So I’m not sure exactly what’s going on.”
Another patient who did not give his name said that he was “crushed” that his surgery was canceled and that he couldn’t stop crying. “This surgery was life-changing because it finally gives me the body that’s right for me,” he said. “It has been ripped away with no explanation or follow-up plan.”
This may very well be a simple case of a surgeon going on leave for personal reasons, but people are wondering if it could be connected to the threat of lawsuits facing doctors performing transgender procedures. In January, a jury awarded a woman, Fox Varian, millions of dollars after her doctors were found to have engaged in medical malpractice by approving and performing a double mastectomy on her when she was just 16 years old. There are currently 28 lawsuits that have been filed by detransitioners, according to Mark Trammell, general counsel at Center for American Liberty.
In an event hosted by the Federalist Society Wednesday titled “Who is Liable in Detransition Cases?” experts explained that so-called “gender-affirming care” remains quite profitable, causing it to continue in spite of growing public opinion against it. “We seem to have the weight of public opinion in constraining some of the expansion of gender identitarianism, but we see gender-affirming care continue to proliferate,” said Sarah Perry, vice president and senior legal fellow at the organization Defending Education. (RELATED: Is This the End of Transgender Hysteria?)
“Bottom surgery” can fetch up to $100,000, said Erin Hawley, senior counsel and vice president at the Alliance Defending Freedom. But what is now a $10 billion a year enterprise is beginning to face some headwinds.
“Right now, we are seeing automatic insurers begin to reassess their coverage for gender clinics, and state legislators are renewing debates over the ethical and financial accountability of institutions performing these surgeries on minors,” said Perry.
Of course, even as there is some reassessment of gender treatments for children, the overwhelming majority of surgeries are done on adults, and these surgeries remain largely outside of public debate. This is in spite of the fact that there are high rates of complications. (RELATED: The Med-Mal Floodgates Are Open Thanks to the Fox Varian Case, and Thank God for That)
A study published last year in Annals of Surgery on “robotic peritoneal flap vaginoplasty,” the surgery Alford is known for performing, found that 16 percent of patients had a follow-up “bottom surgery.” Eight percent of patients reported giving up on “dilating” their “neovagina” at their last appointment, while 8 percent of patients were reported as being anorgasmic. This particular surgery has only been performed for about the past 8 years, meaning there has been minimal study of it. “There is a lack of long-term outcomes data for gender-affirming vaginoplasty to inform patient decision-making,” said the Annals of Surgery study. (RELATED: Of Lobotomies, Anorexia, and ‘Gender-Affirming Care’)
Complications that can occur include wound dehiscence, superficial surgical site infection, hematoma, viscus injury, venous thromboembolism, graft expulsion, and deep surgical site infection.
Perry explained that right now, we are seeing individual doctors, hospitals, and associations back off of “gender-affirming” surgeries, but that this is only being done “piecemeal.”
“The polling seems to indicate that we want to slow down on gender transition, we want to slow down on a lot of these expansions. But the gender medicine juggernaut continues to churn apace,” Perry said. This, she said, results from “the profitability of so-called gender-affirming care as an industry.”
It seems more likely that Dr. Alford’s surgeries have been canceled because of her own personal reasons, but in this environment, all eyes are on surgeons who perform so-called “bottom surgeries.” Will they stand strong against the growing tide of lawsuits and keep cashing in, or will they bow out in fear?
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