Texas’ Supreme Court has ruled that “detransitioner” Soren Aldaco’s medical malpractice suit may continue, after it was dismissed by a lower court for being filed too late.
Aldaco—now in her early 20s—is seeking over $1 million in damages from a transgender clinic, after she reportedly underwent a botched double mastectomy as a teenager as a part of her “gender transition.”
The lawsuit was filed in July 2023, claiming her surgery was prompted by a counselor’s recommendation letter full of false information about her gender identity. She has since detransitioned both “medically and ideologically.”
Timeliness
The trial court concluded that her claims were time-barred under the Texas Medical Liability Act (TMLA), which requires her claims to have been filed within two years of the incident.
The court reasoned that Aldaco’s claims trace back to the February 2021 letter rather than the June 2021 surgery. Since Aldaco did not send the defendants written pre-suit notice of her healthcare liability claims until May 2023, the court determined she failed to meet the two-year deadline.
On appeal, the Second Court of Appeals in Fort Worth affirmed the decision, reasoning that even if Wood’s letter did not cause compensable damage until the surgery, it still represents the start date for Aldaco’s liability claims.
Aldaco filed another appeal, arguing that “the court of appeals unraveled decades of precedent and gutted this basic tenet when it concluded that Ms. Aldaco should have sued the Wood Defendants within two years of February 22, 2021, ‘even if’ the Wood Letter did not cause her any ‘compensable damage until she underwent surgery.’”
She also claimed the court of appeals ignored the express language of subsection (b) of the TMLA, which expressly “permits claims to be brought under the TMLA up to ten (10) years from the date of the act or occurrence.” This deadline serves as an absolute outer cutoff.
Aldaco argued that situations such as hers are precisely why subsection (b) exists, and that the court of appeals rendered it meaningless, “detrimentally altering the rights of a plaintiff in Texas to bring a legitimate cause of action for personal injury resulting from medical malpractice.”
The Supreme Court of Texas granted Aldaco’s petition for review in December 2025, and oral arguments were heard in February 2026 before all nine justices.
The Ruling
On Friday, the Supreme Court of Texas ruled that Aldaco filed the lawsuit before the limitations deadline set by the TMLA.
“Had Aldaco sued after receiving Wood’s letter but before undergoing the surgery, her claims of negligence and fraud would’ve failed as a matter of law because a tort had not yet occurred,” wrote Justice James P. Sullivan.
“[T]here was no bodily injury Aldaco could’ve discovered until her double mastectomy was performed on June 11, 2021,” he reasoned. “Her two-year limitations period could start running on that date—not because she could’ve discovered her injury, but because that’s when the ‘tort’ she alleges first occurred.”
The Court therefore came to a clear and unanimous decision.
“Soren Aldaco sued the therapist who enabled her elective double mastectomy. The court of appeals deemed her claims time-barred by the statute of limitations in the Texas Medical Liability Act. We reverse,” reads the opinion.
The case is being remanded to the trial court to finally proceed on the merits.
If you or anyone you know has information regarding court cases, please contact our tip line: scorecardtips@protonmail.com.
