I love it. Dr Sidhbh Gallagher calls herself Dr Teetus Deletus, talks about yeeting teets, and has 273,000 followers on TikTok. The Daily Mail thinks this is a scandal. I think it is a surgeon who has worked out exactly how to reach the people who need her.

Let me tell you what is actually happening here. A complaint was filed with the US Federal Trade Commission by Genspect, a network led by Stella O'Malley, along with groups including Our Duty and Rethink Identity Medicine Ethics. The complaint accuses Dr Gallagher of using social media to "deceptively" steer vulnerable teenagers into gender-affirming surgery. The FTC does not appear to be pursuing it. The clinic has received death threats. And the Daily Mail has written it up as if the FTC complaint itself is the verdict rather than one network's political filing.

What Genspect actually is

Genspect is not a neutral consumer protection body. It is an organisation that opposes gender-affirming care for young people as a matter of policy, and several of its affiliated voices have connections to the same gatekeeping networks whose work underpins the internationally discredited Cass Review. Filing a complaint with a regulator is not evidence of wrongdoing. It is a tactic, and a transparent one.

The complaint says Dr Gallagher "glamorises, romanticises and valorises" medical gender transition. Yes. That is what it looks like when a surgeon is genuinely proud of the work she does and the people she helps. Celebrating a marginalised group, as her clinic put it, is not a marketing trick. It is the bare minimum of dignity.

On the language: yeet the teets

The Mail clutches its pearls at "yeet the teets" and "Dr Teetus Deletus" as if clinical language were somehow more honest. It is not. What Dr Gallagher has done is speak in the register of the people she serves. Trans and non-binary young people are not intimidated by the language she uses; they recognise it. That is entirely the point. Accessible, joyful communication about something that has historically been shrouded in shame and secrecy is not deception. It is progress.

The complaint objects to teenagers watching her videos and commenting that they cannot wait until they are old enough for surgery. The Mail presents this as sinister. I read it as young people who have found a surgeon they trust, who speaks their language, who is not ashamed of what she does, and who gives them something to look forward to rather than years of waiting in a system that treats their needs as a problem rather than a care pathway.

The "growing regret" claim

The article invokes "growing numbers who come to regret their procedures" without naming a single source. Regret after gender-affirming surgery exists and deserves compassionate attention. It does not, however, justify denying care to everyone else. The published evidence, including data cited in the WPATH Standards of Care 8 and the Endocrine Society guidelines, consistently shows that regret rates following gender-affirming surgery are low, and that the outcomes for people who receive appropriate care are significantly better than for those who are denied it or made to wait. If the Mail has contrary evidence from a named source, it should print it.

The "rapid-onset gender dysphoria" framing embedded in the piece, the suggestion that a "disproportionately large number of girls" seeking to transition "may amount to a fad", is not a clinical finding. It is a talking point drawn from a deeply contested paper that has not survived serious scrutiny. More young people are coming forward because more young people finally have the language, the visibility, and in some cases the access to do so. That is what happens when stigma reduces. It is not contagion.

What is actually at stake

Dr Gallagher performs between 400 and 500 gender-affirming surgeries a year. She carried out 13 top surgeries on minors last year. Her clinic is under political attack, receiving death threats, and the complaints filed against her come from organisations whose stated goal is to restrict access to the very care she provides. The FTC is not pursuing the complaint. Florida's political climate speaks for itself.

Trans young people deserve surgeons who are good at their jobs and who are not ashamed of doing them. They deserve care described in language that does not make them feel clinical, deviant, or pitied. Dr Gallagher gives them that. Her name is the whole point, and it is a very good one.

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Dr Helen Webberley, Gender Specialist and Medical Educator.
helenwebberley.com