RALEIGH — Prisha Mosley, a detransitioned individual, is urging the North Carolina General Assembly to pass a bill that would extend the statute of limitations on filing related malpractice lawsuits.
Mosley spoke to North State Journal about undergoing gender transition treatments in Gaston County that started when she was a teen, saying she she incurred deep emotional distress and permanent physical issues from the process.
Mosley, 27, said she’s been working with lawmakers and lobbyists on legislation for a couple of years that would prohibit minors from getting procedures like she did, which started when she was 16.
She described a detransitioner as “someone who was medicalized based on their self-reported gender identity and came to realize that we weren’t able to change sex and instead incurred medical harm.”
“The detransitioners don’t necessarily have any procedures to ‘go back,’” said Mosley. “A lot of us are struggling to find health care at all. In fact, it basically just means that we’ve stopped making the harm worse.”
One bill Mosley backs is House Bill 606, which would extend the statute of limitations for individuals who underwent a gender transition intervention to sue for malpractice by allowing such claims to be filed within 10 years from the date the claimant reaches 18 years old.
The bill also prohibits medical professionals or entities from seeking contractual waivers of liability for these services, declaring such waivers invalid.
Additionally, the bill would prohibit the use of state funds, directly or indirectly, for surgical gender transition procedures, puberty-blocking drugs for minors or state prison system inmates or those in misdemeanor confinement programs. The exception would be for imminent medical complications from prior procedures, and the restrictions would not apply to the State Health Plan for state employees.
The bill passed the House 69-41, with three Democrats voting in favor, and awaits action in the Senate.
Mosley, who now lives in Michigan, says she supports the bill because it would enable her to sue for malpractice, but she also wants others to have the option of using the legal process beyond North Carolina’s current statute of limitations.
In 2023, Mosley filed a fraud and malpractice lawsuit in Gaston County Superior Court, alleging medical providers told her transitioning from female to male would fix her mental health issues. While that lawsuit is still pending, the malpractice portion of the lawsuit was dismissed because the statute of limitations had expired.
“I wasn’t able to sue my doctors for medical malpractice,” Mosley said, explaining that people like her who believe they were harmed and defrauded by their doctors face an uphill battle to “get over the sunk cost fallacy” and finding legal help.
“You only have three years to do that in North Carolina, and that’s just not enough,” she said.
Mosley juxtaposed the three-year statute of limitations period to three years she was on testosterone and believed her doctors, who told her she was “going through male puberty” and was transforming into a man.
“I still believed the lie by that much time, and I was harmed as a result of just believing and trusting my doctors,” Mosley alleges.
When asked what she would tell lawmakers to see the bill and other related legislation move forward, Mosley said, “Sex is immutable, and anyone saying otherwise is selling a lie.”
“They probably have money to make off of that lie, but humans, mammals cannot change sex,” Mosley continued. “And hating your body is not a medical condition that requires chemical or surgical intervention.”
Mosley attributed most of her mental health issues to being the victim of a sexual assault at age 14, and her lawsuit details significant mental health struggles, including anorexia, depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder and self-harming actions such as cutting.
Doctors prescribed puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones after she stated issues with not liking her menstrual cycle.
“I actually adopted a trans identity at 15, but the medicalization started when I was 16 with Depo-Prevara (a birth control medication) to stop my periods, and then within a matter of months, I was put on testosterone,” said Mosley.
Mosley said the medicalization started when she was seeing a nutritionist for her anorexia. She said she told the nutritionist she didn’t like getting her period because of the weight gain.
“I told her that I didn’t like my period, and I wanted to be a boy,” said Mosley. “And then all of a sudden, a pediatric endocrinologist was visiting me and giving me shots that would stop my period. And then later I was getting testosterone to transform into a boy, which never happened.”
Mosley said she was on hormones for about seven or eight years.
“I spent a long time believing what my doctors and the activists said about trans identity and the new life, and a new self and the dead name, and all of the hope that came with those lies,” said Mosley.
By 18, Mosley had a double mastectomy.
When asked if her parents had concerns about the medicalized path she was headed down, Mosley said her parents were against it, “but our family was like in a crisis and the doctors took advantage of that.”
“I was extremely suicidal,” she said. “I was literally trying to kill myself frequently and cutting myself and having key issues with everything, even leaving my bedroom. And so my parents were desperate.
“My mother recently revealed to me that there was a period of time in which all she tried to do was prevent me from killing myself. And eventually, my doctors said to them, ‘Would you rather have a dead daughter or a living son?’ My parents, who are already in this state and very afraid, said they were coerced into consenting.”
Regarding working with lawmakers on the topic, Mosley noted that the treatment of those who destransition has become a political issue.
“It’s definitely become a politicized issue,” said Mosley. “And not a lot of doctors are willing to interact with the detransitioners because it’s seen as a political move to do so, even though we’re just people who need care, who no longer subscribe to the idea that people can be born in the wrong body and that healthy bodies need medicine.”
Mosley was one of two detransitioners at an April 5 press conference hosted by the NC Values Coalition in support of House Bill 606, but also in support of Senate Bill 516/House Bill 791, the Women’s Safety and Protection Act.
A little over a month later, on May 8, House Bill 606 passed the House by a vote of 69-41. The measure passed a first reading in the Senate the following day and was referred to that chamber’s Rules and Operations Committee.
House Bill 606 isn’t the first measure to tackle gender surgery issues in North Carolina.
After a successful veto override, the state’s General Assembly enacted legislation in 2023 that banned surgical gender transition procedures on minors as well as prohibiting prescribing, providing or dispensing puberty-blocking drugs or cross-sex hormones to minors with some exceptions.
Under that law (House Bill 808), medical professionals violating the ban can have their licenses revoked. Minors who underwent any surgeries or took any of the drugs have the right to sue under that legislation.
At least 24 other states have similar bans on gender-affirming treatments for minors.
In 2023, a 9-year-old transgender boy from Durham sued over House Bill 808, along with the Biden administration later intervening as an interested party in another case. In February 2025, the Trump administration withdrew the Biden administration’s statement of interest in the case.
Those lawsuits hit a snag with a 2024 report on internal files obtained from the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), which has been cited as the preeminent source for gender affirming care and the use of hormone drugs and puberty blockers.
The WPATH files included incidents of such care being appropriate for a 10-year-old girl, a developmentally delayed 13-year-old and individuals with serious mental illnesses. The files also described serious, irreversible physical conditions such as sterilization, tumors and death.
