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In August 2017, Drew Razny walked into the Mazzoni Center in Philadelphia seeking help for confusing mental and emotional struggles. He didn’t know what gender dysphoria was, let alone whether he was experiencing it. He simply knew something was wrong and he wanted to fix it.
“I didn’t know if I was transgender. I didn’t know what was going on,” he told CatholicVote in a Sept. 30 interview. “I just knew I had something going on, and I was seeking help to fix it, not aid it.”
He was quickly told, “Good news, you have gender dysphoria and it’s treatable.”
That moment launched a six-year journey through hormone therapy, identity confusion, major surgeries, and personal devastation — a path Razny says he was rushed into without full understanding or proper care. Now, he’s speaking out and suing for coercion and medical malpractice.
From confusion to hormones in 30 minutes
Razny was 32 when he underwent what he believed was a basic evaluation before speaking with a mental health professional. Instead, after a brief physical by a physician’s assistant, he was diagnosed and encouraged to begin hormone replacement therapy (HRT) immediately, he told CatholicVote.
Meeting with a Mazzoni “certified therapist,” he recalls being asked strange and highly personal questions, including: “When you were younger, did you ever play with Barbie dolls?”
He replied that he played with everything — trucks, cars, and Barbie dolls.
“She said, ‘Oh, well, you know, if you play with Barbie dolls, that’s the first indication that you’re actually a female. You’re born into the wrong body,’” Razny recalled.
In just 30 minutes, he was prescribed hormones and told the HRT regimen was the only path to resolving the gender dysphoria he was told he had.
“They said, ‘If you ever want to stop, you just stop. It’s no big deal. You can just stop. Everything goes back to the way it is right now.’ She called it a reset button,” Razny said.
‘I fully believed I was a woman’
Though things felt normal at first, Razny said the hormones soon began to change everything.
“I honestly believed that I was a woman,” he said. “I stopped watching football. I stopped hunting and fishing. I started paying attention to wanting to get my nails done and my hair done. And it was the craziest thing in the world because I could not control what I was starting to like.”
Still, he initially refused surgery.
“I had no interest whatsoever in mutilating my body,” he emphasized. “There was no reason to do that.”
Despite his refusal, the clinic kept pressuring him, he said.
“Two or three years goes by, and every time I go to Mazzoni, [they said], ‘Hey, why don’t you go get breast implants? Hey, we can get you set up for a vaginoplasty.’ It just continued and continued and continued,” Razny recalled.
An unwanted transformation
By 2022, Razny had been living on HRT for several years and — after continued suggestions from the Mazzoni Center — finally agreed to consider breast augmentation. He was referred to Dr. Kathy Rumer in Philadelphia, a surgeon known for performing gender-related procedures and now one of the people named in his lawsuit.
Though Razny said he found her abrasive, he felt cornered.
“She was very brash and I personally didn’t like her,” he said. “But she was the only one that accepted my insurance. So I kind of really didn’t have a choice in the matter unless I wanted to pay for things out of pocket.”
During their single consultation, Rumer pitched the surgery as no-risk and easily reversible.
“She said, ‘If you don’t like [the implants], I can take them right back out,’” Razny recalled. “‘If you don’t feel good, if you don’t feel confident in yourself, you can take them right back out. We can reverse the surgery. It’s really not that big of a deal. It’s a little bit painful, but, you know, it goes away pretty quickly. Your insurance is going to pay for it, so what do you have to lose?’”
Razny was clear: He didn’t want anything excessive.
“I told her, ‘I do not want large implants,’” he remembered. “I just want — I want to look more feminine, right?’ Because at that time, I believed I was a woman. So, you know, a more feminine appearance was definitely appealing to me.”
They agreed on 450cc implants, enough to produce a modest B or C cup. But when he woke from surgery, the first thing he did was look down.
“She put in 900cc gigantic implants,” he said. “Enormous. Size double G.”
Stunned, he demanded an explanation from Dr. Rumer.
Her answer: “[She said] the smaller implants ‘didn’t look right’ because I have a larger frame,” Razny said. “I’m a man. I have a larger frame.”
Razny said his wife was furious.
“Her husband’s b**bs were bigger than hers,” he joked. “It was a good joke for a while. It really was. My wife has a great sense of humor — and thank God she does, because if she didn’t, we wouldn’t still be together.”
‘I told them to stop’
Despite his prior hesitation, Razny eventually agreed to schedule a vaginoplasty with Rumer. The single consultation took place virtually, during which she presented a PowerPoint outlining the next steps.
The process moved quickly. Rather than being guided through any real discernment, Razny was simply given a list of therapists and psychologists who, he was told, would provide the required letters of approval for surgery with little to no questioning.
Within a short time, he was cleared for surgery.
“[Rumer] made the procedure sound quick, simple, easy,” Razny said, adding that she assured him a short hospital stay would lead to a greatly improved sex life and an overall better future.
But on the day of surgery in February 2023, as he was being prepped, he said a sense of dread overwhelmed him.
“We walked through the door… and a security guard immediately separates my wife from me,” he remembered.
When he insisted on seeing his wife, the guard said it wasn’t possible due to COVID-19 protocols.
“We can’t have anybody else back there,” he was told. “She has to sit in a secured waiting room and that’s the way it is. If you have a problem, talk to your doctor.”
As nurses began inserting IVs and giving him medication, he pleaded again: “I want my wife.”
They continued preparing him for surgery. In pre-op, he grew more desperate.
“I said [to a nurse], ‘Ma’am, I am not going one step further until I either speak to my doctor or my wife.’” Razny said. “‘I am not doing this until I speak to my wife. So either get me Dr. Rumer or get me Amanda Razny, one of the two. I don’t want to hear anybody else.’”
When Rumer finally emerged from the operating room, she warned him that canceling would mean waiting nearly a year to reschedule and incurring charges for the operating room time.
Still trying to stop the process, he begged the anesthesiologist.
“His name was Frank,” Razny recalled. “He sits on the edge of my bed and goes, ‘Hey, I heard you have some jitters.’ I said, ‘I don’t have jitters. I kind of know I’m making a mistake. I need to stop. I need to see my wife. Please go get me my wife.’”
The anesthesiologist reassured him, dismissing his concerns.
“He goes, ‘Well, listen, everybody goes through this,’” Razny said. “And he went into this five-minute spiel of how this is going to be the greatest thing ever and everybody who comes through has the same objections.”
Razny persisted: “I said, ‘I appreciate talking to you. Go get my wife. Now.’”
Instead of honoring his request, the anesthesiologist changed the subject.
“He goes, ‘Oh, look, you didn’t get one of your bags. Hang on a second.’” That’s when, Razny said, “I went to sleep, and woke up with the surgery done.”
He later realized: “The bag he had to switch out was freaking sedation.”
According to his wife, Amanda, the first words out of his mouth upon waking up were: “Amanda, I tried to stop them. I told them to stop and they wouldn’t stop.”
In the hours and days that followed, Razny and his wife attempted to alert hospital staff about what had happened. He demanded to speak to the chief of the hospital, recounting how he had explicitly asked not to proceed. Staff spoke with the nurse, the anesthesiologist, and Dr. Rumer.
“The next day, right before I got discharged,” he recalled, “[Rumer] came back to my room and said, ‘Hey, sorry, mistakes happen. Have a nice day.’”
Complications, silence, and super glue
What followed was days of extreme pain, bleeding, and total inability to walk.
“Every time I go to stand up I pass out — not just fall over, physically pass out,” Razny remembered. “Out cold.”
Before surgery, Rumer had assured them her office would be available around the clock if any complications arose.
“She had said, ‘Our office is open 24 hours,’” Razny said. “‘You can come back. There’s never going to be an issue.’”
But when his wife, Amanda, tried to call the office — day and night — there was no response.
It wasn’t until their friend, a local primary care doctor, stepped in that they were finally able to reach someone. Upon inspection, the doctor found that his surgical stitches were coming apart.
“She said, ‘You have holes in the stitching. There’s physical holes there,’” Razny said.
Using her connections, the doctor finally got Rumer on the phone.
“Her answer was, ‘Well, if you’re a doctor, use super glue,’” Razny said. “‘Glue it shut.’”
Four days after surgery, Razny returned for his follow-up appointment, still in severe pain and unable to reach anyone at Rumer’s office for days. The visit, he said, was rushed and traumatic. Rumer removed his catheter and surgical drains without warning, then used super glue to seal the incisions shut.
“[It was] one of the worst pains I’ve ever felt in my entire life,” he said, recalling how she pulled out more than six feet of packing material.
When he told her he had been passing out from the pain, Rumer assured him that it was “perfectly normal.”
When he asked why no one had warned him, she said, “‘Well, if you’re such an expert in the medical field, why are you even here?’” according to Razny.
He reminded her that she had promised 24/7 availability, and yet they weren’t able to reach her after calling consistently for three days.
Rather than apologizing or addressing his concerns, Rumer dismissed him. If the complications didn’t resolve, she told him bluntly, “you’re going to need a revision surgery.”
Razny told her he had no interest in undergoing another operation — something he hadn’t even realized was a possibility until that moment.
“She goes, ‘Well, you’re going to need a revision,’” Razny recalled. “‘And by the way, insurance doesn’t cover revisions and I don’t pay for revisions, so I’ll let you know how much it’s going to be for your revision surgery.’”
Losing his family — then finding clarity
By April 2023, his wife had reached her limit.
“My wife is not a lesbian,” Razny said. “My wife does not want to be with a female. My wife wants to be with a man.”
She filed for divorce and left with their children. The state placed a protection order on Razny, labeling him mentally unstable. For 50 days, he couldn’t see or talk to his wife or kids.
But during that time, he no longer had access to his hormone medication — it had been left at home when he was forced to leave. With no way to refill his prescription, he ran out — and everything began to change.
“Once I was off it for about 30 days, I started to think clearly again,” he said. “And one night I said, ‘Oh my God, what did I do?’”
He began attending church and meeting with a local pastor, still presenting as a woman but seriously considering detransitioning.
The pastor made it clear he wouldn’t help if the only goal was to repair Razny’s marriage — this needed to be about building a relationship with God.
“That’s what I did,” Razny said. “I built a relationship with the Lord.”
Roughly two months later, a court lifted the no-contact order with his children, though one remained in place for Amanda. The next morning, moved by what she described as a calling on her heart, Amanda let the children call him.
He spent nearly seven hours on the phone with them. That night, Amanda called too. They talked until morning. He told Amanda he had been off hormones for nearly three months and that his thinking had changed.
“I’m really considering detransitioning,” he told her.
She was confused — she had believed this was what he truly wanted. But he explained that his desire to transition had come under the influence of HRT.
The next day, they went to church together and spoke with the pastor. Amanda soon dropped the protection order so they could communicate freely, and she paused the divorce proceedings.
The fight to detransition — and be heard
With the relationship beginning to mend, Razny decided to seek professional help to detransition.
“We figured [the Mazzoni Center] got me into this mess, they can get me out of it,” he said.
With help from Amanda, Razny contacted Mazzoni Center to ask about detransition options. But the response was blunt: “We don’t take people out of that community,” they said. “We only put them in.”
One staff member offered an alternative — relabeling him as “female-to-male” so that insurance would cover the reversal. Razny refused.
“That’s deceptive,” he said. “I’m not a female. I know you guys want me to be, but I’m not.”
He then reached out to Rumer, who had previously assured him the surgery was reversible. So he scheduled an appointment.
During their call, Rumer described the plan in detail: a mastectomy, sculpting the chest, and attempting to construct a penis.
“She said, ‘It’s no big deal. Not much pain.’” Razny recalled. “I said, ‘Boy, this all sounds really familiar. You told me that before. I should have stopped you the first time, but I’m smart enough to stop you this time.’”
He declined the procedure, and never contacted her again.
‘I have to speak out’
Now living in Tennessee, Razny says he and his wife moved there intentionally — to be in the Bible Belt and focus on their faith before worrying about anything else. But as awareness grew in both the media and the culture about the dangers of gender ideology and the medicalization of children, Razny felt he couldn’t stay silent.
He explained that as more troubling information came to light, like children being put on hormone treatments before they’re even old enough to know what color they like, the sense of urgency intensified.
“What they’re doing to kids is absolutely an atrocity,” he said.
He began opening up to a few trusted people at his church, and he came to the realization that he had to take action. He decided to sue both the Mazzoni Center and Rumer – not for personal gain, but to try to protect other people.
“Rumer needs to be stopped. Mazzoni needs to be stopped,” he said. “I fully believe that it’s going to take somebody of faith and somebody who’s been through it to take these organizations on — and I just happen to fit the bill on both.”
>> Man alleges he was coerced into ‘gender transition’ surgery, sues for malpractice <<
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