In 2020, Camille Kiefel had a double mastectomy, removing her healthy breasts to align with her ‘nonbinary gender identity.” Kiefel says doctors approved the surgery after two Zoom meetings without addressing the underlying mental health issues that she had battled for years.
A detransitioner, Camille once believed a non-binary double mastectomy would finally provide relief where 20- years of talk therapy with conventional modalities hadn’t; she lives with physical health issues from the surgery. Through improved diet, and directly addressing her physical health imbalances, her mental health resolved. She now brings awareness to the often overlooked, but undeniable link between physical health and mental health.
Camille determined that the discomforts that lead to her gender dysphoria were rooted in the state of her physical health all along—and they had been overlooked by her doctor, two mental health professionals, and a surgeon.
“Gender affirming treatments are experimental, risky and distributed inconsistently. Before we consider invasive surgeries, we must first look at all low-risk alternative treatments that address the physical health of the individual,” she shares.
In 2022, she filed a malpractice lawsuit against her social worker, therapist, and the gender clinics they work for, Brave Space Oregon and Quest Center for Integrative Health, after alleging they failed to properly screen her mental health issues before approving the mastectomy.
In an amended lawsuit, she further alleges that doctors did not discuss the risks involved with the proposed surgery.
Investigative journalist Benjamin Ryan was the first to report that a confidential settlement had been reached, “just days before the trial was slated to begin.”
Hellbound and Down 