A Florida woman who medically transitioned from female to male as a 14-year-old is suing the American Academy of Pediatrics — alleging she was whisked through the process as a minor by “a collection of actors who prioritized politics and ideology over children’s safety, health, and well-being.”
Isabelle Ayala, now 20, is also suing her doctors in Rhode Island in a first of its kind case, filed in Providence/Bristol County Superior Court.
“I just really don’t want this to happen to other vulnerable young girls,” Ayala, who lives in Wellington, Florida, told The Post. “I don’t want puberty to be the enemy. I don’t want our natural biology to be the enemy.”
Her story is the subject of a new documentary produced by the Independent Women’s Forum.
“What I find so interesting about Isabel is that she’s a soft-spoken individual and not someone seeking out attention,” IWF director of storytelling and executive producer Kelsey Bolar told The Post. “She’s really doing this for the right reasons.”
Ayala says she was sexually assaulted as a child and began precocious puberty at age 8 — both experiences she says made her resent her femininity and believe she was better off male.
“I decided to transition because of just a series of unfortunate things that I had tied to being female. And those things made me hate being female,” Ayala said.
At 11, she found solace in the transgender activist community on Tumblr, and thought, “This is going to fix me.”
She learned from trans activists that fabricating suicidal ideation is a surefire way to get a testosterone prescription quickly. So, at age 14 she did just that: “I learned that from the internet that… I had to convince [my doctors and family] that if they don’t affirm me, I’m gonna kill myself.”
Ayala said she was referred to a gender clinic and diagnosed with gender dysphoria by transgender health expert Dr. Jason Rafferty. According to the lawsuit, he determined she “would benefit from being put on cross-sex hormones” in a single visit that lasted less than an hour.
The AAP did not respond to requests for comment.
Ayala alleges that her previous diagnoses of autism, ADHD and PTSD were largely overlooked by her healthcare providers.
The lawsuit claims her doctors “falsely represented that cross-sex hormone therapy was the only treatment option available to Isabelle to effectively treat her gender dysphoria, as well as her anxiety, depression, PTSD and suicidality.”
Less than a year into treatment, Ayala said, she actually did attempt suicide.
“She was a guinea pig under one of the top experts in this field of so-called gender medicine,” Bolar said. “She was hitting rock bottom, and he continued to put her down this experimental path of medicine.”
By age 17, in 2020, Ayala felt the urge to begin presenting femininely again. A YouTuber who had detransitioned inspired her to identify as a woman again — and she soon realized her transition had been a massive mistake.
Three years on, according to the lawsuit, she still struggles with unwanted body hair, vaginal atrophy and an altered bone structure from the testosterone.
“She has since contracted Hashimotos’s disease, an autoimmune disease that only the males in her family have a history of, from taking testosterone,” the suit claims.
Ayala filed her lawsuit in October, naming seven doctors and 15 John Does she accuses of “civil conspiracy, fraud and medical malpractice.” Among the physicians named is Dr. Jason Rafferty, the doctor who she alleges prescribed her testosterone on her first visit.
“There was zero mental health diagnosis, zero psycho behavioral diagnosis, nothing other than simply taking Isabelle’s word for what she needed,” Ayala’s lawyer, Jordan Campbell, alleged to The Post.
Dr. Rafferty is the chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics’s LGBTQ+ Health and Wellness Committee. While treating Ayala, the suit alleges he was actively authoring the AAP’s guidance on gender affirming care.
The guidance, which was published a year later in 2018, is touted as a standard of care for physicians treating trans youth across the country.
Ayala — who claims she was the “guinea pig” of Rafferty’s developing guidance — has also sued the AAP for underplaying the risks of treatment.
“Because of Isabelle’s unique fact pattern in terms of being treated by Dr. Rafferty while he was drafting this statement, we’ve sued the AAP itself for a civil conspiracy,” Campbell explained.
Although other detransitioners have sued medical providers, Ayala’s case is the first to target the AAP directly. The Academy did not respond to The Post’s request for comment.
Ayala is seeking compensatory and punitive damages as, she alleges, she continues to suffer the medical consequences of her transition.
“It’s really mostly just been doctor’s appointments and pain management for me right now, which is not great because we have bills to pay,” she said. “My mom’s working very hard to try and keep us afloat, but there’s not much I can do physically.”
Ayala’s documentary is the eleventh in the IWF’s “Identity Crisis” series.
“There was one point where I was really depressed over my situation, especially when I couldn’t do anything about it,” she said. “But I’m a lot more hopeful now.”