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Texas detransitioner shares how doctors and internet ‘cosplay’ groomed her into permanent surgery
Graphic Warning — The story contains a graphic image.
After undergoing life-altering surgeries she now regrets, Soren Aldaco is taking her fight to the Texas Supreme Court. The 23-year-old detransitioner claims online grooming led her to pursue medical intervention as a minor; now, justices must decide if her malpractice suit against her former doctors can proceed past the state’s legal deadline.
Aldaco spoke to Fox News Digital in an exclusive interview about her journey, which began when she started using social media at age 11 and joined “these little art communities online where we would create characters and give them different names and appearances.”
“I discovered the darkest corners of the internet. In these chatrooms, I was sexually groomed by adult strangers who used my love for art against me,” Aldaco wrote in a Fox News op-ed. “I made friends with other little girls on art forums around the same time, many of whom had similar experiences. One such girl began identifying as transgender. She told me she felt like “a boy trapped in a girl’s body.”
This is when she learned about people identifying as transgender.
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“I think transgender identity is very similar to cosplay in a lot of ways. You take on a new name, you take on a new appearance, almost like you’re creating one of those characters online,” Aldaco told Fox News Digital.
But it soon became more than just pretending online, saying she started to “feel like a boy” due to a combination of newfound male attention and her tendency to “engage in this fantasy of cosplaying.”
“I was role-playing in these art forums, just like boyfriend, girlfriend role plays, cutesy, like innocent kid things. I mean, the most that we got into that was mature was kissing, right? But online, in those adult chat rooms, obviously I wasn’t aware that there was more mature content that adults would end up leading me into,” she said. “I ended up having this psychiatric episode and my family took me to a hospital where the psychiatrist that was responsible for my care pressured me to essentially come out to him as trans.”
Aldaco claimed she didn’t have intentions of doing so.
“This was something I never intended to do. I saw it as the role-play identity, and he insisted that it was safe to tell him, even though it was something I wasn’t going to deal with ’til I was an adult,” she said.
She shared how, over the next year and a half, she was involved in a support group and met a nurse practitioner that prescribed her testosterone.
WARNING: GRAPHIC FOOTAGE
Aldaco alleges that her transition was facilitated by medical professionals who ignored her underlying trauma and coached her to navigate insurance hurdles. According to Aldaco, her therapist showed no interest in exploring her history of being groomed, despite Aldaco’s explicit requests to discuss it. Instead, she claims the therapist fast-tracked her medical transition by drafting a surgical recommendation letter that contained a significant falsehood: It stated Aldaco had been living as a male for at least 12 months — a standard clinical milestone Aldaco says she had not actually reached.
The alleged misconduct extended to the surgical center, where Aldaco claims the staff prioritized “coaching” over care. She describes being told exactly what to say to secure insurance approval, including instructions to claim she wanted a phalloplasty (a complex genital reconstruction that uses tissue to create a penis) even though she did not. Aldaco alleges this was a tactical move by the center to maximize insurance payouts. When her provider initially denied coverage as “out-of-network,” she says the center pressured her into a self-pay agreement, promising they had the expertise to force the insurance company to reimburse her at in-network rates.
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Aldaco said she experienced complications after her double mastectomy, and she was “ghosted” by her doctors afterward.
Aldaco believed that both the therapist and the nurse practitioner “projected” their experiences onto her and said they met through activist groups. Aldaco said the nurse practictioner had an adult child that identified as trans and the therapist had a trans ex-spouse, and said the therapist was treating her for relationship problems.
Aldaco said the nurse practitioner, who prescribed her hormones, did not confirm to do so with her biological mother.
“My stepmom was the one who took me to those appointments. She didn’t have legal authority over me. And, the nurse practitioners didn’t even ask her if she did.”
“We filed our suit initially in 2023, and now it has made its way all the way up to the Supreme Court. This is against the nurse practitioner who initially prescribed me hormones, the therapist who wrote the authorization letter for my double mastectomy, and then the team that performed my double mastectomies and ghosted me afterward when I experienced complications.”
The case is marked as pending, according to Tarrant County records.
In 2024, Soren Aldaco’s legal efforts faced a series of procedural dismissals in Texas courts. In April 2024, a judge dismissed some of her claims against medical providers involved in her hormone treatment. By November 2024, an appellate court also dismissed her case against her former therapist, ruling that the statute of limitations had expired.
State law mandates medical liability lawsuits be filed “within two years from the occurrence of the breach or tort or from the date the medical or health care treatment that is the subject of the claim.”
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However, her case saw a major development in December when the Texas Supreme Court agreed to review these rulings, specifically to determine when the legal “clock” should begin for patients seeking to sue over sex-change procedures.
Her case being heard by the Texas Supreme Court only involves her former therapist and the associated counseling group who wrote a letter recommending surgery for Aldaco in Feb. 2021.
Aldaco said her goal goes beyond speaking out about transitioning.
“My goal with sharing my story is not only to put a stop to these interventions… but also just to bring awareness to the impacts of our digital habits on our kids,” she said.
The attorney representing the therapist and the counseling center said they cannot comment on ongoing litigation, but did say, “The appeal is about proper understanding of the limitations provision of the Texas health care liability statute that Aldaco is proceeding under. It is not about the substance of Aldaco’s claim.”
Aldaco, who is a newlywed, said she has been experiencing health issues, including with her reproductive system.
Attorneys for the other health care providers involved in Aldaco’s case listed in the lawsuit did not respond to Fox News’ Digital request for comment.
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US allows Russian oil tanker to reach Cuba amid blockade as Trump says island ‘has to survive’
The U.S. government will allow a Russian tanker full of crude oil to reach Cuba, effectively easing a blockade that has pushed the island into an energy crisis, according to a report.
The Russian-flagged tanker, the Anatoly Kolodkin, was headed for Cuba on Sunday, carrying an estimated 730,000 barrels of oil, The New York Times reported, citing a U.S. official who had been briefed on the matter.
The tanker Anatoly Kolodkin was just off the eastern tip of Cuba on Sunday, ship tracking data showed.
“We have a tanker out there. We don’t mind having somebody get a boatload, because they need … they have to survive,” President Donald Trump told reporters on Sunday when asked about the report.
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“If a country wants to send some oil into Cuba right now, I have no problem whether it’s Russia or not,” he added.
Trump had sought to restrict oil shipments to Cuba in an effort to pressure its government.
The U.S. government has temporarily eased some sanctions on Russian oil shipments to help stabilize global energy markets amid disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz following U.S. and Israeli military strikes on Iran that began last month.
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The Anatoly Kolodkin, which departed from Primorsk, Russia, could soon dock at the Matanzas port in Cuba if it remains on its current path, according to tracking services MarineTraffic and LSEG.
The oil would provide significant relief to Cuba, where President Miguel Díaz-Canel has said fuel shortages have persisted for months, forcing strict gas rationing and deepening the island’s energy crisis.
The U.S. capture of then-Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro in January stripped a key Cuban ally who had been providing oil to the island on favorable terms.
The Trump administration then blocked all Venezuelan oil shipments to Cuba and vowed to impose punitive tariffs on any third country that supplied shipments to the island, forcing Mexico to stop its exports to Cuba.
Another ship, the Hong Kong-flagged Sea Horse, was also carrying about 200,000 barrels of Russian fuel to Cuba, but was rerouted to Venezuela.
Lionel Richie knows the fame game can be a challenge, and issued a warning to rising celebrities after Chappell Roan faced backlash following a negative fan encounter.
During a sit-down with his son-in-law, Joel Madden, the Good Charlotte frontman admitted he hadn’t once heard his father-in-law complain about fans approaching him in public.
“I was invisible once,” Richie explained, before acknowledging that he has a difficult time ignoring fans. “They want to say something to you. And you can see it on their face. They want to say something. And for me to ignore them, would be the worst.”
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He added, “Sometimes you meet the person you idolize the most, and you’re sorry you met them.
The “All Night Long” singer said, “I made a promise to myself – I’m never going to be that. Never.”
Richie noted that star status isn’t for everyone.
“The thing that happens a lot of times is, I tell people when they get into the business, there’s one thing you didn’t calculate,” he said. “I hope you like people.
“Because if you don’t like people, here’s how it’s going to sound. You spend the first half of your career going, ‘Look at me, look at me, look at me, look at me, look at me.’ And then you finally get famous. ‘Don’t look at me. Don’t look at me. Don’t look at me.’”
He added, “The universe gave you what you asked for. Now what is it about people that you don’t like, or you want to be famous and rich without the people? It doesn’t work like that. You have to be able to engage.”
While in town last week to perform at Lollapalooza Brazil, the “Pink Pony Club” singer allegedly directed security to scold his daughter after she spotted Chappell having breakfast at the hotel in São Paulo, according to professional soccer star Jorginho Frello.
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Chappell, 28, addressed the incident on Instagram stories and later denied the fan encounter after the “very upsetting” situation caught the eye of Rio de Janeiro Mayor Eduardo Cavaliere.
In a statement shared on X, Cavaliere said that Chappell was no longer welcome to perform in his city.
“I mean that as long as I’m in charge of our city — this young lady @ChappellRoan will never perform at Todo Mundo No Rio,” he wrote in a statement translated from Portuguese. I doubt that Shakira would do that! By the way, @FrelloJorginho, your little one is already the guest of honor from the organization in May!”
The “Good Luck, Babe!” singer jumped on social media Sunday morning to explain her “half of the story” while lying in bed.
“I didn’t even see. I didn’t even see a woman and a child. No one came up to me. No one bothered me,” the musician confided in her followers while lying in bed. “I was just sitting at breakfast in my hotel, I think these people were staying at the hotel as well.”
“I did not ask the security guard to go up and talk to this mother and child. They did not come up to me. They weren’t doing anything.”
She added, “I do not hate people who are fans of my music. I do not hate children. Like, that is crazy.”
“I am sorry to the mother and child that someone was assuming something, that you would do something and that if you felt uncomfortable, that makes me really sad. You did not deserve that.”
Jorginho, a midfielder for Campeonato Brasileiro Série A club Flamengo, wrote on Instagram stories that his family went through a “very upsetting situation” involving Chappell prior to her Lollapalooza Brazil set.
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He claimed online that his 11-year-old daughter was reprimanded by Chappell’s security for looking at the singer.
“The worst part is she didn’t even approach her,” he wrote. “She simply walked past the singer’s table, looked to confirm it was her, smiled, and went back to sit with her mum. She didn’t say anything, didn’t ask for anything.”
Jorghino wrote that after his daughter walked by, “A large security guard came over to their table while they were still having breakfast and began speaking in an extremely aggressive manner to both my wife and my daughter, saying that she shouldn’t allow my daughter to ‘disrespect’ or ‘harass’ other people.”
He added, “It’s sad to see this kind of treatment coming from those who should understand the importance of fans. At the end of the day, they are the ones who build all of this. I sincerely hope this serves as a moment of reflection. No one should have to go through this, especially not a child.”
Zimbabwean comedian Learnmore Jonasi faces a lawsuit for $27 million after making a joke about the lyrics to the opening song of the Disney film “The Lion King.”
While appearing on the One54 Africa podcast last month, Jonasi jokingly claimed that “Nants’ingonyama bagithi Baba,” the opening African chant to the song “Circle of Life,” translates to “Look! There’s a lion! Oh my god!”
South African composer Lebohang Morake, otherwise known as Lebo M, the vocalist behind the opening chant, accused the comedian in a legal document on March 16 of making “false statements of fact about the meaning of the ‘Nants’ingonyama’ composition” which he insists translates to “All hail the king, we all bow in the presence of the king.”
He claimed Jonasi was diminishing the song’s value, which could have a negative impact on Morake’s reputation and estate, and is seeking more than $27 million in damages.
In an Instagram video on March 13, Jonasi acknowledged speaking to Morake about the joke, which reportedly led to a harsh confrontation.
“When this man first approached me, he approached me with the attitude of saying that I am disrespecting his work, right?” Jonasi said. “And I was like, ‘No, actually, I am a big fan of yours. I actually love the song.’ And therefore, this was just a joke, and comedy has always had a way of starting a conversation. I told him this. This is now your chance to educate people because now people are listening.”
Jonasi claimed that Morake referred to him as a “self-hating” Black man and “idiot” for telling the joke.
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“I realize I’m not actually having a conversation with someone who wants to do that. This person is literally not attacking the joke but my character,” Jonasi said.
Jonasi revealed that he was later served with the lawsuit days later during one of his comedy shows at the Laugh Factory in Los Angeles.
“I now have a gluten allergy, anxiety. I got served. I am now American,” Jonasi joked in a video of the performance.
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Fox News Digital reached out to representatives for Jonasi and Morake for comment.
In an interview with the New York Post on Friday, Jonasi, who has launched a GoFundMe page for legal support, denied the allegations in the lawsuit, arguing that the joke has built up more interest in the film and song.
“I’ve actually gotten a lot of messages saying, ‘Hey that joke actually made me wanna go back and watch the movie again.’ It has revived people’s interest in the song. It actually made it more relevant,” Jonasi said.
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