Texas detransitioner shares how doctors and internet ‘cosplay’ groomed her into permanent surgery
Graphic Warning — The story contains a graphic image.
After undergoing life-altering surgeries she now regrets, Soren Aldaco is taking her fight to the Texas Supreme Court. The 23-year-old detransitioner claims online grooming led her to pursue medical intervention as a minor; now, justices must decide if her malpractice suit against her former doctors can proceed past the state's legal deadline.
Aldaco spoke to Fox News Digital in an exclusive interview about her journey, which began when she started using social media at age 11 and joined "these little art communities online where we would create characters and give them different names and appearances."
"I discovered the darkest corners of the internet. In these chatrooms, I was sexually groomed by adult strangers who used my love for art against me," Aldaco wrote in a Fox News op-ed. "I made friends with other little girls on art forums around the same time, many of whom had similar experiences. One such girl began identifying as transgender. She told me she felt like "a boy trapped in a girl’s body."
This is when she learned about people identifying as transgender.
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"I think transgender identity is very similar to cosplay in a lot of ways. You take on a new name, you take on a new appearance, almost like you're creating one of those characters online," Aldaco told Fox News Digital.
But it soon became more than just pretending online, saying she started to "feel like a boy" due to a combination of newfound male attention and her tendency to "engage in this fantasy of cosplaying."
"I was role-playing in these art forums, just like boyfriend, girlfriend role plays, cutesy, like innocent kid things. I mean, the most that we got into that was mature was kissing, right? But online, in those adult chat rooms, obviously I wasn't aware that there was more mature content that adults would end up leading me into," she said. "I ended up having this psychiatric episode and my family took me to a hospital where the psychiatrist that was responsible for my care pressured me to essentially come out to him as trans."
Aldaco claimed she didn't have intentions of doing so.
"This was something I never intended to do. I saw it as the role-play identity, and he insisted that it was safe to tell him, even though it was something I wasn't going to deal with 'til I was an adult," she said.
She shared how, over the next year and a half, she was involved in a support group and met a nurse practitioner that prescribed her testosterone.
WARNING: GRAPHIC FOOTAGE
Aldaco alleges that her transition was facilitated by medical professionals who ignored her underlying trauma and coached her to navigate insurance hurdles. According to Aldaco, her therapist showed no interest in exploring her history of being groomed, despite Aldaco’s explicit requests to discuss it. Instead, she claims the therapist fast-tracked her medical transition by drafting a surgical recommendation letter that contained a significant falsehood: It stated Aldaco had been living as a male for at least 12 months — a standard clinical milestone Aldaco says she had not actually reached.
The alleged misconduct extended to the surgical center, where Aldaco claims the staff prioritized "coaching" over care. She describes being told exactly what to say to secure insurance approval, including instructions to claim she wanted a phalloplasty (a complex genital reconstruction that uses tissue to create a penis) even though she did not. Aldaco alleges this was a tactical move by the center to maximize insurance payouts. When her provider initially denied coverage as "out-of-network," she says the center pressured her into a self-pay agreement, promising they had the expertise to force the insurance company to reimburse her at in-network rates.
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Aldaco said she experienced complications after her double mastectomy, and she was "ghosted" by her doctors afterward.
Aldaco believed that both the therapist and the nurse practitioner "projected" their experiences onto her and said they met through activist groups. Aldaco said the nurse practictioner had an adult child that identified as trans and the therapist had a trans ex-spouse, and said the therapist was treating her for relationship problems.
Aldaco said the nurse practitioner, who prescribed her hormones, did not confirm to do so with her biological mother.
"My stepmom was the one who took me to those appointments. She didn't have legal authority over me. And, the nurse practitioners didn't even ask her if she did."
"We filed our suit initially in 2023, and now it has made its way all the way up to the Supreme Court. This is against the nurse practitioner who initially prescribed me hormones, the therapist who wrote the authorization letter for my double mastectomy, and then the team that performed my double mastectomies and ghosted me afterward when I experienced complications."
The case is marked as pending, according to Tarrant County records.
In 2024, Soren Aldaco’s legal efforts faced a series of procedural dismissals in Texas courts. In April 2024, a judge dismissed some of her claims against medical providers involved in her hormone treatment. By November 2024, an appellate court also dismissed her case against her former therapist, ruling that the statute of limitations had expired.
State law mandates medical liability lawsuits be filed "within two years from the occurrence of the breach or tort or from the date the medical or health care treatment that is the subject of the claim."
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However, her case saw a major development in December when the Texas Supreme Court agreed to review these rulings, specifically to determine when the legal "clock" should begin for patients seeking to sue over sex-change procedures.
Her case being heard by the Texas Supreme Court only involves her former therapist and the associated counseling group who wrote a letter recommending surgery for Aldaco in Feb. 2021.
Aldaco said her goal goes beyond speaking out about transitioning.
"My goal with sharing my story is not only to put a stop to these interventions... but also just to bring awareness to the impacts of our digital habits on our kids," she said.
The attorney representing the therapist and the counseling center said they cannot comment on ongoing litigation, but did say, "The appeal is about proper understanding of the limitations provision of the Texas health care liability statute that Aldaco is proceeding under. It is not about the substance of Aldaco's claim."
Aldaco, who is a newlywed, said she has been experiencing health issues, including with her reproductive system.
Attorneys for the other health care providers involved in Aldaco's case listed in the lawsuit did not respond to Fox News' Digital request for comment.