Authorities urged to investigate Miami sex-change doctor after patient nearly dies post-mastectomy

A group of campaigners is calling for complaints made about Dr. Sidhbh Gallagher, a Miami-based gender surgeon who removes the healthy breasts of girls as young as 13 and markets her services via social media, to be investigated after one of her patients shared a harrowing account on TikTok of post-surgical complications. 

Earlier this year, five groups filed an official complaint to Biden’s Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for alleged false promotion of services to minors, and one of the complainants told the Daily Mail that the investigation is all the more important in light of the young patient’s horrifying story.  

That former patient was Rylan, a trans-identified female from Ohio who told the gruesome story of needing to have over half a foot of dead, rotting tissue removed after Gallagher allegedly dismissed, at times jovially, the alarming signs of post-op complications. Rylan had chosen to fly to Florida for the medically unnecessary bilateral mastectomy because Gallagher was one of the few surgeons in the country willing to perform "top surgery" on overweight patients.

Alix Aharon, co-founder of Partners for Ethical Care, a grassroots organization campaigning for better care for youth struggling with gender-related issues, accused the FTC of dragging its feet regarding the complaint against Gallagher which was made 10 months ago.

"The FTC has been sitting on a complaint about Dr. Gallagher for nearly a year and hasn’t moved on it," Aharon told the Daily Mail. "In the complaint, we were concerned about her practices of promoting herself on social media to a vulnerable population. And we believe this victim is sadly going to be the first of many if our complaint is not listened to."

Another group involved in filing the complaint was Our Duty, an international network of parents who wish to protect their children from gender ideology. They too have renewed calls for the investigation to be conducted.

“This woman needs to be stopped,” an Our Duty US spokesperson told the Daily Mail. “The regulating agencies need to prioritize investigating Dr. Gallagher.” 

The complaint filed in February alleges that Gallagher and her clinic have "engaged in unfair, false, and deceptive practices in the aggressive advertising and marketing to minors of their plastic surgery services, namely mastectomies of healthy female breasts, as proven safe, effective, and medically necessary."  

It goes on to allege that Gallagher’s videos are "part of a brand marketing scheme designed to create an online media persona for Gallagher as an entertaining celebrity surgeon in order to appeal to hundreds of thousands of underage social media users, advertise Gallagher’s ‘gender affirming’ plastic surgery services, and sell them to a vulnerable and impressionable population of children and youth experiencing distress with their gender identity and developing bodies."

The five groups involved in filing the complaint are Genspect, Rethink Identity Medicine Ethics (ReIme), Our Duty, the Cardinal Support Network, and Partners for Ethical Care.

Gallagher, who jokingly calls herself Dr. Teetus Deletus, regularly promotes her breast amputation service to her large social media following of teenagers using the hashtag "Yeet the Teets". She also posts photographs and memes on TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram as a way to connect with hundreds of thousands of young followers, and her satisfied customers respond with photographs of their newly unbandaged chests bearing fresh mastectomy scars. A disturbingly high number of them also bear the scars of past self-harm.

Gallagher recently told the New York Times that she performs breast amputations on about 40 patients a month, and roughly one or two of them are under 18. Younger patients are usually at least 15, though she has operated on one 13-year-old and one 14-year-old, she said, justifying this by explaining that both teenagers had extreme distress about their chests.

Rylan, the trans-identified female from Ohio, published an article on Medium documenting the alarming post-op complications that almost proved to be fatal. After sharing photographs of the oozing, infected incision, Rylan claims Gallagher brushed it off and even jokingly called the agonizingly painful gaping wound a "blowhole," and quipped that Rylan was "menstruating."

"I do not regret top surgery. I regret choosing Dr. Gallagher," said Rylan, who still identifies as transgender.

Gallagher shared a video on TikTok responding to Rylan’s viral post, stating that while confidentiality laws prevent her from being specific, she was "really saddened" and promised to "do better" in the future.

She explained that her jokes and quirky bedside manner are a way to ease patients’ anxiety and regrets that Rylan felt dismissed. The celebrity surgeon vowed to make more "educational videos" so that her young patients "know exactly what they’re signing up for when they sign up for top surgery."