A distraught father begged in vain for a leading plastic surgeon not to remove his 20-year-old daughter’s breasts in a transgender operation, telling him in an excoriating letter that he was about to destroy her life.
The father told consultant Mohsen El Gammal that his daughter suffered depression, and as a way through ongoing mental health problems had previously turned to self-harm and then starving herself before embracing the ‘trans cult’.
In the heartbreaking letter, he tells Mr El Gammal, who boasts of carrying out 1,000 such operations: ‘Ultimately, my daughter is a depressive.
‘She sought the highs that came from cutting herself; from starving herself; from being taken for a boy; from taking testosterone; and now from having her breasts removed.
‘She needs to learn that life is not one long adrenaline buzz. That happiness is a more moderate feeling, comes from within and derives from finding place and purpose in life.
‘You are fuelling her problem. Not helping to resolve it.
‘Please do not remove my daughter’s breasts.
‘Ultimately, my daughter is a depressive.
‘She sought the highs that came from cutting herself; from starving herself; from being taken for a boy; from taking testosterone; and now from having her breasts removed.
‘She needs to learn that life is not one long adrenaline buzz – that happiness is a more moderate feeling, comes from within and derives from finding place and purpose in life.
‘You are fuelling her problem. Not helping to resolve it.
‘Please do not remove my daughter’s breasts.
‘You will, in one day – a day you will quickly forget – ruin her life for ever.
‘You will take from her the opportunity to breastfeed her child; you will take from her the opportunity to have a normal, wide-ranging pool of people from whom to choose her partner in life; you will irreparably harm her.
‘She is 20 years old.
‘Which of us knew at 20 what we would know or think at 30?
‘Which of us understood ourselves in the way we do at 60?
‘Which of us did not do things we almost immediately regretted?
‘If you do choose to operate, perhaps you will take the time while she is anaesthetised to look at the extensive scarring on her arms and legs.
‘These are the scars of the self-harming craze she participated in during her mid-teens.
‘This was before she got into starving herself.
‘All this before she started participating in the trans cult.
‘Perhaps you will reflect on the mere two appointments with a GP for my daughter to get a private prescription for testosterone.’
‘You will, in one day – a day you will quickly forget – ruin her life for ever.
‘You will take from her the opportunity to breastfeed her child; you will take from her the opportunity to have a normal wide-ranging pool of people from whom to choose her partner in life; you will irreparably harm her.’
The father, who asked to remain anonymous to protect his daughter’s privacy, released the letter to The Mail on Sunday to highlight his powerlessness to protect her.
He says he has never received acknowledgement of the letter, sent in May to the private Cadogan Clinic in Chelsea, west London.
His daughter had a double mastectomy operation last month.
The father told Mr El Gammal: ‘She is 20 years old.
‘Which of us knew at 20 what we would know or think at 30?
‘Which of us understood ourselves in the way we do at 60?
‘Which of us did not do things we almost immediately regretted, never mind things which we look on in disbelief but a few years later?
‘How can you possibly believe that she is truly able to give informed consent to what you are going to do to her?
‘She cannot see round the corner, never mind beyond the horizon.
‘You know this and yet are prepared to rely on a piece of paper on which she signs away her future well-being.
‘If you do choose to operate, perhaps you will take the time while she is anaesthetised to look at the extensive scarring on her arms and legs.
‘These are the scars of the self-harming craze she participated in during her mid-teens.
‘This was before she got into starving herself. All this before she started participating in the trans cult.
‘Perhaps you will reflect on the mere two appointments with a GP that were necessary for her to get a private prescription for testosterone.
‘Perhaps you will reflect on the professional capture within the therapy industry, which leads every therapist she has spoken to to affirm her decision as real rather than question its reality.’
He added that ‘instead of attempting to reconcile the confusion of the mind with the body, the futile attempt is made to reconcile the body to the confused mind’.
He told the surgeon: ‘When you go home after you have destroyed my daughter’s life and well-being, long after you have forgotten her name and her operation, long after you have spent the money you were paid for this butchery, long after you have retired, she and those who love her will have to live with the consequences of your actions.
‘But I hope you will still be alive when this malpractice is revealed for what it is: the enabling by the medical profession of pseudo-science in the same way as surgeons in 1930s Germany, the USA and elsewhere sterilised the ‘feeble-minded’ in the name of eugenics.’
NHS England plans a review of adult gender clinics after whistleblower staff raised misgivings about quality of care, but there is no suggestion that private clinics will be part of that review.
It will follow the investigation by leading paediatrician Dr Hilary Cass into NHS children’s gender services, which recommended that 17 to 25-year-olds should be seen at centres for children and young people rather than adult clinics.
The father’s release of his letter to Mr El Gammal follows US tycoon Elon Musk revealing he has ‘lost’ his son Xavier, 20, who is now known as a woman called Vivian after being prescribed gender-change drugs in the pandemic.
SpaceX and Tesla owner Mr Musk denounced ‘gender-affirming care’ as ‘evil’.
The father who wrote to Mr El Gammal said: ‘Women and men can be whatever they want to be.
‘They don’t have to conform to anyone’s stereotypes, and by making them do that we’re leading young people to take life-changing drugs and have life-changing surgery at an age when they don’t really get what the long-term consequences are.’
The clinic said last night that it is unable to comment on a family disagreement.