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Nov. 3, 2023 - Candace Owens
01:16:01
The Shocking Truth About Trans Surgery: Briana Ivy’s Story
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All right, guys, welcome to another special episode of Candace Owens.
I'm really excited about this discussion today.
I'm going to be joined by 22-year-old Brianna.
Brianna was born a male and began taking hormones at 15 years old and eventually went on to have sex reassignment surgery, which resulted in serious pain and complications.
Brianna's story is an important one, and I'm so grateful to be able to share it.
Welcome, Brianna, to Candace Owens.
Thank you so much for having me.
I'm truly honored that you have given me the opportunity to do this and share this with you.
You've already been so pleasant talking to you.
And one of the things that we spoke about off camera was, I said, it's not going to come up because we're talking to each other, so I'm going to be saying you, you, you.
But even when I said, you know, I wouldn't be comfortable if I had to call you she, you were like, it's totally fine.
Yeah, that's the least of the things that you hear about.
But I'm going to call you Brianna because you've changed your name.
And I don't think that's disrespectful. I used I am he.
I'm very happy to call you Brianna because, like I said, I changed my name when I got married.
You've changed your name. You're now Brianna.
And so I want the focus of this conversation to just be really respectful for people to really hear your story because I think what you are doing today is so incredibly brave.
And I know that it's going to come with tremendous consequence to you.
But I also think that it is going to put you on a path of being there for other people who need to hear this story.
So Brianna, you reached out to my team to talk about your story.
And so let's just start there.
Let's start with your childhood and leading up to the moment where you started having feelings of confusion.
Yeah, so I grew up with my mom and my dad and I don't have a lot of memories from then.
I know that it was a bit of a tumultuous time.
My parents split.
I was around four years old and then I went off with my mother.
And it was from there we lived, just me, her and my sister, just in an apartment together, up until she remarried and found a new partner.
And it was around that time that I started grade school.
And that's when immediately I had those first feelings of a lot of confusion about my gender, the way I wanted to be perceived, the way I wanted to look to other people.
And I had so much discomfort just being lumped in with other boys, and that started when I was like six or seven.
Okay. Yeah. And so you're realizing right when you get socialized that maybe I'm not really fitting in with the boys.
Yeah. And did you feel like you wanted to hang out more with the girls or do more of what the girls were doing?
Yeah, absolutely. I was a very feminine young boy, like all the way down to my voice, my mannerisms, the way I spoke.
I immediately would go to the girls' line when we would line up in school.
And actually my teachers were okay with it because they knew that that's where all my friends were.
So I definitely had started showing those traits like immediately when I was around other kids and even when I was at home as well.
You know, it's really interesting because now that this LGBTQIA, the conversation has gotten so big in the country, I go back to my own childhood and I think, do I remember any boys that were more feminine?
And the answer is absolutely.
I remember... Particularly one boy who was always playing with the dolls, never cared to play with the boys at all.
He was always with us.
Today, that individual is a married gay man.
What do you think, in your mind, made you think, maybe I'm not just gay, but maybe I'm trans?
When did you first have that sort of a thought?
Yeah, I was 12. It was between 12 and 13.
And I didn't really know, because a lot of people just called me gay throughout school, so it just kind of made sense.
And so I did go along with that.
But I had no idea even what being transgender was, what a trans person was, until I saw it online and I saw it on TV. And when I was 12, 13 years old, that was when the show, the TLC show wasn't out, but Jazz Jennings was doing interviews and her family was doing interviews.
The show hadn't premiered until a few years later, but there were a lot of interviews online and it was a story that was picking up at the time.
And I also was exposed to a lot of transgender people online.
Okay, so this is really interesting to me.
Yes. Because when I speak around college campuses, I try to explain to them that I didn't graduate with a single trans person, but we weren't being exposed to trans ideology.
This wasn't an option. And so maybe people that were more feminine, but when I grew up, were being introduced to Ellen DeGeneres.
You could be a lesbian, you could be gay, and that's what people chose to do.
So what you're talking about is culture.
And culture matters.
So you're going, I definitely like to do more of what the girls like to do.
I'm definitely more effeminate.
And here is Jazz Jennings and the media is telling the story and it's super impactful.
It's super interesting.
Jazz Jennings is doing the rounds.
Was that the first time that you said, maybe I'm that too?
Yes.
Absolutely.
I remember sitting there and watching an interview of her.
I believe it was ABC or I believe Barbara Walters was one of the first that did it with Jazz Jennings and her mother.
And seeing that, I immediately connected with it because it reminded me of myself.
It reminded me of when I was that same age because we are very similar in age.
And I immediately saw myself in her shoes and then seeing how the discussion of a girl's brain and a boy body at 12 years old, I don't know why it clicked with me.
And that was something that I just felt aligned with, especially because I was always around girls.
I liked all the things that the girls were doing.
And so it just kind of made sense the way it was portrayed to me.
Right. Yeah. And it really convinced me that that was me.
So what's your next step?
First, let's talk about the online influential world because it's not just the Jazz Jennings thing.
What's running parallel to that?
What social media sites are you on?
It was definitely, so this was the early 2010, so it was YouTube.
That was primarily the main one.
Yeah, I think it was mostly there.
Instagram and Twitter really popularized just a few years after that, but that was where I was exposed to the most.
It was Jazz Jennings.
And then also I saw a lot of older transgender adults and I saw a common theme of their biggest wish being that they transition when they were young so that way they believed that they would look better and they would be treated better.
And I remember having that idea from then on that doing this young will pay off and that you have a much better chance at a happy life.
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So what's going on at home at this moment?
So your mother at this point is remarried, correct?
Yes. You said you have a sister.
I do. And they obviously realize you're not fitting in with the guys.
You're a little bit more effeminate.
How are you being treated at home?
Did it ever pop up in their mind?
Are they watching Jazz Jennings with you and going, hey, maybe that's you?
Or are they saying, no, I don't think that that's what's going on here.
Yeah, so immediately when my mom remarried after my biological father, it was a very rocky relationship.
It wasn't the greatest environment for me and my mother and my sister.
And so my sister is eight years older than me, so she kind of went on her own pretty quickly.
And so it was just me and my mother.
She was only with that man until I was about 13.
And that was around the time that I started to have these thoughts of being transgender.
And then quickly after, she met someone who is now my current stepfather.
All three of us lived together.
And then that was when I decided that I was going to tell them that I believed I was transgender.
I wrote them a letter, and I just kind of explained what I was feeling.
And I actually, I remember writing out what other trans people were saying to do online when, if you feel like this and you think you're trans, This is how you should transition.
It's what you should do. I wrote them and I was like, I think this is what I'm supposed to do.
And they read it and none of us knew anything about transgender people.
We were still having the gay marriage conversation at that time.
So it just wasn't prevalent at all.
There was no one in our community, no one in the media really discussing it.
It was really those interviews with Jazz and then the people that I found online.
And so my parents and I, at that point, quickly after I told them that, we decided to go to a gender clinic for guidance.
Immediately to the Gender Clinic for Guidance?
Yeah, not long after that. Okay.
And then, so at this point, you've now had three different men in your life that, you know, could have impacted your childhood.
Your biological father, which you said you don't really have much from memory.
Yeah. We still have a relationship, and we did visit throughout the time, but then it decreased over time.
And so we still care for each other, but our relationship isn't as close as it used to be.
The reason why I'm prodding that is because a lot of times when we dialogue with people who consider themselves detransitioners, which I want to be very clear to my audience, you are not a detransitioner.
But when you speak to a lot of people in that community, you'll hear stories of something that happened to them when they were a child.
And you see this all, by the way, all across the board on TLC, if you've ever watched
My 500-lb Life.
Yes.
And once they get into their stories, there's always this thing where, well, when I was
four, I was molested or I had a bad relationship, and I wanted to get rid of my identity.
I wanted to just be somebody else.
And you're saying this didn't happen to you.
This was just you felt like, you know, I know I don't fit in with the guys.
Nothing happened in your background that could have made you feel like you didn't like who
you were.
There were a few things.
Um...
It was hard because of this I just had so much shame throughout my entire childhood and even up till now recently.
That's been the biggest theme that I've lived with.
Shame. Yeah. I remember being in school and I had safety with the girls but with other boys I wasn't.
They would taunt me.
They were cruel. I had instances where they would touch me inappropriately.
And I didn't know how to speak to anybody about that.
Because there was just a culture there where being feminine as a boy was very wrong.
And none of the other boys liked it.
Luckily the girls were always like a safe place for me.
But I remember...
I remember, and I truly don't believe he meant it intentionally, but I do remember being little, and I did hear my biological father make comments a couple times about gay people.
I remember it, and it stuck with me, even though I was so young, and I don't think that he meant it to antagonize me, but I still have that memory today.
And I remember feeling disgusted by the thought of me growing up as a feminine man.
I could not envision myself as an adult gay male.
Like, I just, it just felt gross to me.
And I just didn't like anything really about me.
So what you're saying right now is actually really important.
Really important. And you might not even realize it because it's probably a chest you haven't opened in a very long time of where did I get this feeling that something was wrong with me?
Like why did I want to get rid of this identity?
And part of it is sort of homophobia, right?
It's like I don't want to be a gay guy.
I don't want to be that.
That would be really bad.
My dad has already said that that's not a good thing to be.
What would be a better option than committing to being a gay man?
And I had that exact thought.
I thought transitioning into a female is the better of the two.
And I could see that as my future.
It seemed better to me.
It seemed more acceptable to me.
That is absolutely fascinating.
And I'm so grateful that you're sharing that.
And I know that's super personal to kind of go back into your childhood and revisit earlier traumas, but I think that's amazing to share that.
And so you are now seeing that there's this other option.
You're thinking, Okay, I don't have to be a gay man.
That's great. My dad's not going to be let down by this.
Because I remember this old comment that he said.
And this person, you know, I Am Jazz is sharing his story and how he has transitioned.
And I have covered, I've gone back and looked at some of the I Am Jazz stuff.
Terrific. It's very dangerous when I look at it now with adult eyes.
Because I realized, because I watched I Am Jazz when I was younger and And I was like, wow, this is super interesting.
And then you watch it as an adult and you realize that they were making this stuff seem really easy and really amazing.
And that Jazz was going to be the first to do this in the public eye.
And the family's great and everything's fine and everything's easy.
And you're accepting that.
You now go to your family.
You write this letter.
You say, I want to transition.
And you immediately go to a gender clinic.
What is a gender clinic?
What happens when you walk through the door?
A gender clinic is basically full of doctors, nurses, various specialists like psychiatrists, social workers, endocrinologists, surgeons, all within a network or a hospital, but they are all focused on gender-related care or gender-affirming care is typically what they refer to it as now.
And just to remind the audience, how old are you at this time?
14. Yeah, about 14.
Okay, so you get there on the first day and you must be excited.
Yeah, I thought that this was like finally the first time I would feel like a normal person.
And who's the first person that you speak to when you get there?
I believe it was a clinical social worker.
I do not remember her name because that was sort of like the preliminary before any prescriptions or any sort of like diagnosis is you had to sit with a social worker.
And it was very brief.
It was about 30 minutes. And it wasn't really that comprehensive.
It kind of just asked me, oh, like, how do you identify?
What makes you feel like this?
Is this something you think you'd really want to do?
But yeah, like I said, about only half an hour.
And then I had a prescription for hormones, and then I also received...
Well, wait a minute. You're telling me 30 minutes?
Somebody sits down with you?
Yeah, 30 minutes. And then you meet with the doctor who becomes your primary care.
And so I had that assigned to me.
And she's the one that then writes the prescription.
That easy? Yeah.
You get a prescription? Mm-hmm.
What did you get a prescription for?
Yeah, so I received hormones, the estrogen, I received a testosterone blocker, and then only twice did I have the blocker injection, because I was 14 at the time, so puberty was going to start.
And the injection, I'm not sure if a lot of people are familiar with, it actually lasts an extended amount of time.
So it's only, I believe, once every three to four months is typically.
It's varying times that it's administered, but mine was about, I had it twice over that.
I had once every three months, and then I began hormone replacement.
So you didn't have to speak to therapists.
You didn't have to come in every week.
Let's unpack your childhood.
It was social worker, 30 minutes.
Here's a doctor. And now you can start blocking your puberty.
Yes. You just have to do it one time.
It's kind of just like a preliminary.
It's like they're checking a box.
We talked and here you are.
Before we get into your next step, now that you're 22 and you're looking back on that, what do you think about that, the idea that you just did this very easy 30-minute interview and were handed prescriptions and were able to block your puberty?
I look back on it and I wish I had more time.
I wish I was really allowed to speak and sit with someone that gave me the space to really take the time to talk about everything.
Because I was so young that all I wanted was a miracle.
All I wanted was a quick fix.
I wanted something that would just get rid of the shame immediately.
And that's what I was made to believe it was.
And so I just took it and I was thrilled.
Yeah. Yeah. So you start these injections and explain for my audience, as we're not aware, what does your body go through?
What does it feel like? Is it a high?
Is it a low? Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, immediately it's a high.
It feels so powerful that it feels like you take control and you're going to look the way that you've always felt like you should.
And I didn't observe a lot of changes at first.
I feel like things really started to show up when I began the hormones.
Because I only had the injection twice.
When I began hormones, I noticed changes actually pretty quickly because I was so young.
Like a lot of things changed.
Can you describe some of the physical changes that happened?
Yeah, I lost a lot of hair across my body, completely thinned out.
Because I was so young, I had significant breast development just from that.
My body shape completely changed.
Your voice doesn't change with estrogen.
Mine was just always like this.
My hair changed.
I remember it became a lot thicker, fuller.
Almost everything. Like, I watched my body completely change in real time.
Wow. And how quickly from first taking the first pill to, you know, noticing like, oh, I'm starting to look a little bit more effeminate?
I'd say about a year or two. Very quickly.
Yeah, very quickly. Okay, so you're happy in that first year?
Yeah. It felt good.
It felt good. I felt like I was finally being fully feminine in a way that I felt like would be more acceptable to people.
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And then how does that work?
I guess, what was the reception like at school?
You talked about how you were being bullied by the guys and the girls felt like a safe space.
Now you're becoming one of the girls.
What is the social impact of what you're doing?
Yeah, so it was in that time that I started this was right before high school.
My family and I decided to move just so that way I could kind of restart, let go of some of the things that were happening with the people around me before.
But it was definitely a noticeable thing.
The community was well aware that there was going to be a transgender child coming.
I remember there were conversations about it before school even started.
My mom and I met with the principal and officials at the school to talk about the bathroom and how to navigate that.
For me and my mother, our biggest priority was not only my safety, but everybody's.
We were never there to ever cause a problem, to ever make other people uncomfortable, because that doesn't make me feel better, to make my community uncomfortable and to make them feel threatened.
So my mom and I said, what is a solution that can not only protect me, but also protect everybody else from people that don't feel comfortable sharing that space?
So they allowed me to use the girls' restroom, but for a while I used an independent one, like a teacher's.
Because I think it was for everybody's safety and comfort.
It was the right thing to do.
That's really interesting too because a lot of the social conversation is around, well, we need to make trans people comfortable and think about whether or not women are comfortable, whether or not the other parents are comfortable with this, and whether or not another parent is comfortable with their child in that certain circumstance.
So it's nice to even hear that you guys had that consideration.
Yeah, absolutely. And that's something I'm very in disagreement with in the current conversation.
So your mom sounds like she really loves you.
Yes. And I think that sometimes parents that go through this with their child, it's not always an act of love.
I think sometimes when you see people on social media and they're kind of...
Absolutely. This is my five-year-old, and then I think it kind of becomes about them and the attention that they can garner.
Your mother sounds like she's picked you up, she's moved, she's taken you to this gender clinic.
Did she have any pause at all throughout this to go, am I doing the right thing?
What was your sister thinking?
Was there ever any pause in your family questioning, like, is this experimental?
Is this the right way?
Or was it just, yes, we all feel like we're doing the right thing?
It was hard because it's so complex what was going through with me and my family's minds at the time.
We all just were so uneducated on transgender people, how it works, what's the right way to navigate it.
We turned to that gender clinic because we were desperate.
We were vulnerable.
I know that I was on the brink of giving up before I started.
I just didn't want to live anymore.
And I know that my mom knew that and she was willing to do whatever it took to keep me here.
Yeah. So it was out of love.
Yeah. Or it was like my person that I love more than anything, the son that I gave birth to, is telling me that he's going to commit suicide because he doesn't like his identity.
Yeah. And I need to go through this journey.
And I think any parent can understand how that would feel if you really felt that that was the option for your child.
And so your mother, you're saying, is turning to the professionals.
Yeah. And handing it over.
And I guess a year later, now your mom is seeing that you're happy You're happier a year.
You're happier with the way that you look.
You're starting at this new school.
And people understand that you are a trans student, so that's known.
Were you bullied at all? Yes.
I was completely alone at school for most of the time.
I remember people asking me questions about my genitals like the first day, and that was a big debate within the school.
It was a big conversation.
I pretty much didn't speak to anybody for like the first three years.
Wow. Yeah.
So still quite lonely.
Yeah. Yeah. I thought that I would feel brand new and my mental health did not get any better.
Wow. So that was kind of the promise.
Once you get on this path, everything's going to get better.
It wasn't so much because you were still being bullied one way or the other.
And things took a very different shift, I would say, in terms of my mindset and even the medical side of things.
So within transgender people, we call it passing.
That's when you're transitioning to present as another gender.
When you walk out into the world and people immediately assume you to be that gender, that's being referred to as you pass.
And so that began for me when I was about 17.
I had enough physical change that I would speak to people, I would go places, and they would just immediately recognize me as being female.
And my mental health still wasn't better.
The way I felt about myself didn't get better.
I was still so desperate for something.
And then that was when I became really desperate for surgical intervention.
How did it impact, before we get to the surgery, you're a teenager at this time, and obviously teenagers are starting to look at other people.
Who are you attracted to?
How does that impact your relationships as you're trying to explore the dating world, the early dating world of being a teenager like all of us went through?
Yeah. I've always been attracted to men, but I had no experience dating.
It really wasn't possible.
And so I actually still don't have very much.
I don't really know how to.
Especially because being on hormone replacement, I had really no sexual feelings at all.
Interesting. I... I mean, I have had some, but I've never really had a sex drive.
The combination of the blockers and the hormones, it just completely stops it.
I don't really fully know what that's supposed to feel like, even today.
And I've read that before on my show.
Actually, they consider it a very high chance that it's going to essentially deplete your sexual drive altogether.
And it has. Absolutely.
So you maybe weren't aspiring to that as much as other teenagers were.
No, and I didn't know that that was going to happen either.
I thought that this was just going to make me into a biological female, and I was going to experience...
What all of my friends were, but there was a lot of things I was completely blind to.
And that was one of them.
So at this point, you are realizing, okay, I'm passing now.
People don't even question this.
People think that I'm a female, and yet I still feel this void.
Something still is not clicking.
And so you then go, maybe I've got to do something more drastic.
I still felt empty.
I felt... I just didn't know who I was supposed to be.
And in my mind, I turn back to social media.
I turn back and I look at other transgender people.
And something very prevalent in the transgender community, specifically among Transgender females is that surgery is almost a status symbol.
That was something I saw as a teenager and the most successful and the ones that looked the happiest were the ones that had every procedure done.
They seemed like they lived better lives.
They seemed like people saw them the way they wanted to be seen and that they had made it, that they did it the right way.
And that's all I wanted. I thought that that was what I was missing.
Like, it just felt like, oh, maybe I'm not transitioning enough.
And so, I gotta keep going.
And this is the effects, by the way, of social media in general.
Yeah. Right? It doesn't...
Even if you're talking about, oh, well, transitioning.
We were talking about wealth, status, you know, having a following.
You look the happiest. It's the Kardashian mindset.
Well, they look... They have so much.
They look so happy. Yeah.
And so what you're saying is the people that went the furthest.
You were having that exact same thing happen to you.
It's, you know, it's the psychology of social media.
Yeah. And you're going, well, all I have to do is...
This person clearly just did more procedures and look at them.
Social media... They're obviously happy.
Everything that you see on social media is essentially a highlight reel.
And you're thinking, that's what I need next.
Yeah, absolutely.
How did you begin that conversation, even, with your mom?
Yeah. It really began with the doctor I was seeing within the gender clinic.
They basically, any procedure you want, they can kind of direct you in that path.
They can get you into a consult for it.
They can make it happen really quickly.
And I remember my mom, stepfather, and I, a very common theme every time we were in the gender clinic was that You, these surgeries and doing all this young, you won't even really feel transgender.
You'll feel, you'll look like a biological female.
You'll be one. And that came up a lot once I got to the bottom surgery.
But that was a common thing that was present within the clinic.
And that was something that I picked up on really fast.
And then adding in social media and the older trans people I was seeing, seeing jazz, it gave me the idea that I almost wouldn't have to be transgender, because if I do this all really young and fast, then I feel like I can skip that.
And they made it feel real.
They made it feel like that was a real thing.
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So when did you have the conversation with your parents that I think, you know, I want to take this next step?
Yeah, since I was, I think I was 18.
Yeah. Is that the rule?
Do you have to be 18 to do it?
Yeah, at the time I did.
Okay. Mm-hmm. What is the process?
How does one even prepare psychologically for this?
Are you just consuming content of people talking about it?
As soon as I was about 17 and 18, I started to plan out The procedures I wanted.
And I had already had two by the time I was 19.
And so then at that point, immediately, maybe six months after, I was going in, getting ready for the bottom surgery.
And I discovered a surgeon from TikTok.
And that was my first consultation.
And she's probably the most popular one on there.
Are you allowed to name her?
Yeah. Her name is Dr.
Gallagher. Dr. Gallagher.
Yes. So I'm not on TikTok.
I think I'm a little too old.
But I do know that these kind of surgeons, like Dr.
Miami, who are telling women to get their butts done and it's going to be fine, even though it's an extremely dangerous surgery, they kind of start a fad of like, it's going to be super easy and it's going to be great.
So you're finding a doctor that's like that, but on TikTok.
Yeah. So what did you do?
Did you reach out to the doctor? Yeah.
Yeah. I mean, she's on TikTok and she's like using popular sounds and making jokes and like discussing these procedures so lightheartedly.
And when you perceive that, At the time, I was like, it definitely downplays what these surgeries really entail.
These are not even comparable to typical plastic surgeries.
These are completely reconstructive, but they're being treated in the same manner as almost like getting breast implants.
All right, so I just want my audiences to be able to hear these TikToks from Dr.
Gallagher, so we'll cut to that right now.
Ladies and gentlemen, take a listen. So that is Dr.
Gallagher, and Dr.
Gallagher does sound fun and pop, and it's going to be super simple, and you're going to be great.
So when you reached out to Dr.
Gallagher, what did Dr. Gallagher say to you?
Yeah, she immediately had me come in for a consultation, and we talked about the surgery.
She said, oh yeah, like this is kind of a rundown of what it is.
And she talked about, so there's a few different techniques that you can do in terms of a male to female surgery.
She had gone over two of them, and she That was really it.
I didn't realize that immediately after my appointment, she relocated to Florida.
So that was when I was referred to Dr.
Joshua Roth.
He studied under her, and then that was how I came into contact with him.
She sent me to him. Okay, so you are seeing Dr.
Joshua Roth based out of Indianapolis?
Yes. And how does your consultation go?
Very similar to Dr.
Gallagher. I mean, they literally, they handed me a blue piece of paper and it was like taking an order.
Like, oh, how do you want us to do the surgery?
Here's three different ways we can do it.
And they told me that there was a certain technique that is a breakthrough.
And that it is going to be identical to a typical biological female genitalia.
And they said that this is brand new and this is like a miracle almost.
So essentially, they're talking to you like you're lucky you, lucky candidate.
There's some cutting edge technology.
You're going to be among the first to be able to access this.
And you're kind of looking at a menu.
I have looked into, you know...
Yeah.
Absolutely. So the most common and the most long practiced is referred to as penile inversion.
That is when the inside of the organ is composed of the penile tissue and it is exactly how it's stated.
It's inverted almost internally.
That's been the longest form of the surgery.
There is another one that is also practiced.
It's called the sigmoid colon graft.
That's where they take a graft of the sigmoid portion of your colon and they use that for the internal organ.
There's a lot of complications with that.
You typically have a colostomy bag.
There's also smell associated with that, risk of infection.
It is possible, although a lot of surgeons don't prefer it.
And then what I had was something I had never heard of until I went to Dr.
Roth, and it was called the peritoneal pull-through vaginoplasty.
Okay. So this, they went in laparoscopically into my stomach, took out the inner lining of the skin, and it's called the peritoneum, and they used that graft to create the internal organ.
Wow. Wow.
That sounds extremely painful.
It was. Yeah.
And the TikTok doctor wasn't making it sound too painful.
No. And neither was Dr.
Joshua. No. They made it, I think, he told me like four to six week recovery.
Wow. And it was anything but that.
And had you seen other influencers?
Actually, which procedure of those did we know?
Which one Jazz received?
I believe...
I actually am not sure.
Yeah. Yeah, because I know for her, and similar to me, but I believe it was more severe in her case.
She was on blockers a lot longer than I was.
And so she had a micropenis.
And so there's no tissue to do a penile inversion.
Yeah. Because you're not developed enough.
Yeah. And for me, even though it would have been possible, they said it really wasn't ideal.
It wouldn't have been very significant.
And so I was left with either the colon option, which is not very favorable, but then I was presented with this miracle.
Okay. And so you went with the miracle.
Yeah. And how long after you decide, like, this is the one I want, do they give you time to change your mind?
I think they submitted insurance approval really fast after that.
I think it came back in two weeks.
Surgery date was booked. Wow.
It was just a few months later.
What's really incredible about that is just to make the conversation wider is how difficult it is for people to get insurance to cover procedures that are life or death for them.
And yet you're telling me that this is actually kind of a cosmetic procedure.
You get back in two weeks.
We can do it. It's done.
Let's get you onto the operating table.
How are you feeling?
Give me how you're feeling the night before.
I thought that I was going to feel...
Like a normal person, for once.
You're excited. Yeah.
Like, this is the promise that my family and I have been sold since I was a kid, is that we will make her into a real woman.
She doesn't have to deal with what older trans people go through.
She won't have to look in between.
We will do it all young and it will be perfect.
Like, I mean, my mother and I to this day truly believed that up until recently.
Wow. So your mom's excited.
You're excited. You're thinking this is like an answered prayer.
Yeah. Everything's going through.
The insurance has gone through.
And you're going to come out and...
Be a woman. Yeah, I mean, they were ready.
He made it seem like, and he also, and that's something I think we can get into further, is there's a lot of conflicting information within gender healthcare.
One thing that I was told directly by the doctor, and the surgeon, Dr.
Roth, had actually privately called my parents and had conversation with them.
Telling us both separately that it's best for me to do this as young as possible so that way I recover better and I'll heal better and I'll look better.
He had told my mother and stepdad that privately and then he had also told me that in our appointment.
So you trusted this doctor?
Yeah. Why wouldn't you?
Yeah. These are the professionals.
Yeah. Why would they want to harm you?
Why would they want to put you at a risk for anything?
They just want you to be happy.
Yeah. So what happens during the procedure?
The procedure was seven hours and immediately I woke up.
I could not walk for the entire duration I was in the hospital.
I had severe pain all over my body.
I actually had an epidural in because of the pain.
I could not use the restroom and just a few days later I had blood clots in my legs.
I had a DVT. It's a deep vein thrombosis.
It's a large clot that was in my leg and they only discovered it because I had a fever.
So from there I had to be on blood thinners for three months and I had to do injections.
Every day. I was in so much pain.
It was searing pain.
Searing pain.
And I was in the hospital for about maybe two weeks.
And during my time there, I remember there was an intense fascination with what was being done to me.
I remember specifically nurses at the hospital.
Residents of the hospital, various people there would come in.
They would look at me.
They would tell me, this is so cool.
We've never seen someone as young as you have this done.
We've never seen this surgery done here.
I remember people coming in and out.
I remember Dr. Roth would bring in multiple residents to just watch me while I was sitting there.
And I couldn't walk. I couldn't move.
I was in so much pain.
Wow. And yeah, people just came in and it was like a science class.
Like you weren't a person.
No. Literally like it was a science class.
Like he's, you know, Dr.
Frankenstein. Yeah. Look at this.
Look what I've created. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. You're on an epidural.
I can only imagine that as someone who's given birth and being on an epidural.
And these are your private parts.
Yeah. And immediately from there, nothing was recovering.
It got worse over time.
Immediately going home...
This is not typical and they told me this wouldn't happen, but during a procedure like this, they completely shorten your urethra because obviously you don't have a penis anymore.
So they have to cut it and put it right at the body.
And mine was so swollen that I had a catheter in for about a month attached to a bag.
And I could feel it like every second.
And you also have to dilate when you have this procedure.
So basically, they're essentially like plastic, like large, almost like toys.
Yeah. Very similar to that.
And you have to put them in and leave them in for 30 minutes at a time.
With that pain. And it felt like a knife inside of me.
But I was terrified to not miss a second because then I would feel like all of this was going to waste and I would lose everything that I thought I had wanted for so long.
But every single day the pain was worse and the bleeding was worse.
I would bleed all over the bed every time I would do it.
And I knew even just a month, two months in, something was really wrong.
The way dilation works is they give you four different sizes, and you are supposed to work up to the largest.
But I was going backwards.
I would try so hard.
The surgeon told me, oh, you just have to make it fit.
You just have to put it in.
And I couldn't. I couldn't.
I felt like I was being shredded inside.
And I had no idea what was happening.
I would try and call the doctor.
I would say, this feels wrong.
There's just no way that this is what it's supposed to be like.
It looked horrific on the outside.
And it still doesn't really look like any kind of genital.
It looks like something in between.
And I remember that even from when I had the surgery.
I looked horrible on the outside.
And everything felt wrong in my body.
And I would try and call for help.
And he said, oh, it's just normal.
Try using more lube.
Take deep breaths.
Try a different angle, like using a pillow.
And it made no difference.
And I was constantly being told that.
And even when we went in for checkups...
He just kept saying things were fine.
He was like, oh, things are fine.
My mom would be there. He was like, oh, this is fine.
And I would ask questions. I'm like, what about this pain?
I'm still bleeding. I'm still having discharge coming out.
I'm still in so much pain.
Even two months later, I would walk and it would feel like there was a brick right here.
It was just nonstop pain.
And he said, oh, it's fine.
It'll go away. And then just a few months later, I got to a point where I called him and I said, this pain is not going away.
It's getting worse by the day.
When I try and dilate, I feel like I'm ripping myself apart.
And he said, just take antibiotics for two weeks.
And I never had an infection.
It wasn't until the end of that year that I finally called and I said, I need to come in.
Like, there's something so wrong here.
And I don't understand why no one's actually had me come in and really look.
They finally had me come in.
They did an ultrasound.
And they did, it's called a vaginoscopy.
It's where they go in and look.
And there was no infection.
What was happening was I had scar tissue all internally from the new organ and it was collapsing and causing my pelvic floor trauma.
And he told me, there's no recovering this.
Like, there's just no way.
Like, your body's completely rejecting it.
And so... He said, you can just stop dilating.
It's going to close up either way.
And he said that there was just really no other way to fix it besides another surgery.
And I cried. And I cried in that room because I fought.
I fought for this to work.
And when it didn't, That was the reason I never finished school, because I was recovering that whole year.
I thought that all the pain that I had been through, and I put my family through, was for nothing.
And I cried in that room, and all he said was, I'll give you a minute.
I'll give you a minute. And then he came back in.
Thank you. I'm sorry.
I apologize. You are so fine with all the time you need.
I mean, this is really emotional.
Yeah. And so he came back in and he told me, well, we'll have to do it again.
And this time we're going to have to use a graph from the colon.
So we're going to have to do it that way. He sent me to another specialist pretty much just a few months later because in order to do that surgery, you have to have a colorectal specialist who takes the graft.
I met with him and he said, there's no way I will do this to you.
He said, your pelvic floor is so traumatized in these MRIs that it will be severely worse complications if it happens again or you could lose your life.
And I felt like my world was over.
And then I went back to Dr.
Roth and I said, why is he saying this?
You told me that, oh, just meet with him and then he'll tell you kind of how it'll work and then we'll get you in for the second one.
He said, that's not possible.
Like, it can be done. So he sent me to another one.
I met with him. The second colorectal specialist said the same thing.
He said, I will not operate on you.
This just can't be done.
He said, what's happened to you the first time will happen again, if not in a worse way.
And he refused. And I went back to Dr.
Roth and I left a voicemail and I said, this is the second surgeon saying this and you're still telling me to do this second surgery.
Like, I'm confused.
Every other doctor is refusing to almost kill me from doing this.
And I lost contact with him.
He disappeared. Yeah.
Dr. Joshua Roth.
Well, I just want to say that he sounds like an absolute monster.
And in my view, he should be put into prison for what he did to you.
And because he's never going to have the spine to say it, I want you to know that I am so sorry for what happened to you.
That is horrific. This should happen to no one, especially when you're entrusting your life to people that are supposed to be professionals, gawking at you as you come out of surgery, bringing people to come look at his work, and then being a coward and hiding from the consequences of what he did.
In my view, he should be in prison for what he did to you.
It is the worst kind of assault, in my view.
And I was only 20. You were 20.
Just beginning your life, really believing that this was going to make your life better, and you cannot even contact him.
No. It is the most disgusting thing that I've honestly ever heard that somebody could do to somebody.
And I can't imagine the pain and the grief that you and your mother have gone through and your sister have gone through and your family has gone through realizing that you were used like you were a science project to somebody.
It wasn't until that moment that everything that they had told us was a lie.
And that's why I get frustrated.
And that's what brought me here today.
I see so many people now in this year advocating for the exact process I went through.
But in reality, when people have that kind of surgery, the best candidates are people that have gone through a full male puberty.
They have all sexual functionality.
They have all of their organs and tissue intact.
But you go into the gender clinic and they'll tell you, if you want to look good and be treated better, start now.
Start young But then you give up everything
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To know that...
Even us having this conversation is a risk.
Every person should hear this conversation.
Whether you view yourself as a trans person or you're not a trans person, whether you're a gay man, information is power.
If you had heard this conversation, you may have waited.
Oh my God, yes. Right? So how does it make you feel to know that there seems to be almost a conspiracy to stop this truthful narrative?
I mean, you are someone, you are living as a trans person.
You are not saying you are detransitioning.
You are from the bottom of your heart sharing your story to help people.
And yet this conversation could potentially be blocked.
Oh yeah, they actively do that.
I've sat back and I've had to live with this for so long because anytime I had shared this story privately, especially to other transgender people, I was told that I should be grateful that I got to do all this so young.
I was told to never say that because it would make us all look bad.
And I was told that Oh, well, you can still have sex in other ways.
It doesn't really matter.
I was... It was just...
They were coming up with excuses to try and make it seem like it's okay.
Right. That this happens to people.
And so has the pain subsided with time?
Mm-hmm. It has subsided. Okay, so you're not physically in pain every single day.
Yes, fortunately, no.
But it's within the last few months I started to really look into what was done to me because I was so young when I said yes to it.
I mean, I was young...
When I started blockers and hormones, I remember being in that office and they said, oh, you know, like, if you do want to have a kid, you have to freeze your sperm, but it's like expensive and it costs this much.
Are you okay with, do you want to do that or not?
But I was 14, and so I really didn't think about ever having a kid.
You're thinking about, like, how much is this going to cost right now?
Yeah. Like, I mean, it's expensive.
You have to pay every year. And it just didn't make sense.
I was like, oh, like, I'm not thinking about kids.
Like, who cares? And now, just within this last year, it's one of my biggest regrets.
And same with the procedure.
I just wanted a miracle.
And he painted the rosiest picture in the world.
It wasn't until within a few months...
I tried to look into what it was that was done, because I noticed that there was nobody talking about this surgery, this technique I had.
And that's because the first time it was done was in 2017, in New York.
It actually was never intended for transgender patients.
It was for biological women who have deformities or are born without genitalia.
And so this is a way to correct that.
And so in New York, they pretty much just copied and pasted the surgery onto a biological man to see if it would work.
Wow. Yeah, it's only been done, like, really a handful of times.
It's not even really widely offered.
Even Dr. Gallagher doesn't do it.
Yeah, Dr. Gallagher is the one that recommended you?
Yeah, to Dr. Roth. Have you been able to reconnect with Dr.
Gallagher? No.
Okay. No. To let Dr.
Gallagher know what happened to you?
Yeah, I have known none of their information anymore.
Right. I've only seen what I've seen from her.
And now she's letting people, like, book the surgery through text.
I saw that within the last few weeks.
In my view, and I know that a lot of people watching this are going to have the same view, the entire system failed you.
The entire system victimized you, preyed on you, and then victimized you.
And I think that there's no question as to that.
And I would like to believe that there is something that can be done at the end of this.
I would like to believe, and I know that you know Walt Heyer who changed my life and made me such a passionate advocate in terms of getting people to hear this side, that people are suing doctors, that hospitals are being sued for doing this.
You've gone through physical trauma, you have gone through emotional trauma.
Where do you get recompensated for all of that, all of the grief that you have lived through?
That's another part of it.
It took a lot from myself and my family.
I believe upwards of maybe 170,000.
And a lot of the money that I had saved, it was pretty much drained from this.
I pretty much had to start over.
And I have tried to explore legal possibilities, but it's really complicated because basically in order for any lawyer to take up the case, a board of other surgeons will have to decide if they believe it's really experimental or not.
So it's up to other doctors to decide if I can even pursue legal action.
What? You can't sue it as just a patient that's been wronged by the hospital?
No. If the doctors believe it's not by definition experimental, then I have no case.
Okay. And which hospital was this that performed this procedure?
This was Riley Children's Hospital downtown Indiana.
Children's Hospital. Yeah. That's another thing I discovered recently within the last week, a few months before my surgery.
And this is available on his Instagram.
He gave a presentation to IU Health and Riley Hospital presenting pediatric transgender surgery.
So he's a really big advocate for that.
And I would bet that he uses what he did to you as an example of a successful surgery.
Yeah. I would guarantee.
I performed the first whatever procedure at this hospital.
And he's probably earning a name for himself right now, despite what he's done to you.
So I'm glad that you're doing this for a lot of reasons, but I also know that making him famous in this capacity
is going to be good because people will hear this and other parents will hear this.
And there's going to be somebody out there that is going to feel really driven
to do something about this.
Thank you.
This is Riley Hospital.
And I have a note here that they even went so far as to wipe all of your medical records.
Is that accurate?
Yeah, I immediately, that's the first thing when I decided that maybe there is a chance
to have some sort of legal resolution to this.
I tried to go back in and access what was on my file and it's just there's nothing.
There are all these dates listed of every day I was even in that hospital from the first day to the last and everything is blank.
Everything is blank and I just don't have access to anything.
I've tried to get in contact with people and I just keep getting denied or I have to call back.
Why do I not have access to anything?
Why is it that when I open my clinical summaries of every appointment I'm there, why is it all empty?
There's no paper trail of anything that happened to me anymore.
I think that was very intentional.
And I am hopeful that somewhere out there, there was a lawyer that is listening to this podcast who is as incensed as I am, who wants to help you find the answers to that.
I want to talk about your mental health since this procedure, since realizing that there's no way that we can fix this.
Having been sold a dream and told that everything was going to be really simple and recognizing that actually you were severely taken advantage of.
What did you go through?
What have you gone through?
Because this really just happened to you.
I mean, you're only 22.
My mental health was destroyed.
I couldn't finish school because I was so behind, so I didn't.
I didn't know.
It made me question who I was really supposed to be.
The life I was supposed to have.
Because everything that I had been told for the last almost 10 years was not true.
And so now I'm stuck. And I have all these feelings about wanting to have a family, wanting to be in a relationship, wanting to have those experiences that other people have.
And I don't even know how to feel that because I have none of those feelings.
Even in that area, it's very numb.
It doesn't even look like an actual genital.
It looks in between. And every day when you look at it, it's just painful.
And I don't know how I'm supposed to ever have those experiences that other people have.
Because I decided so young to give it up.
Well, the first thing I want to say to you is that you're only 22 years old, so I don't want you to think that because you went down this path that your life is over because it's not.
And I think that the whole world is about to open up for you because you're doing something really brave.
And usually it takes bravery first for things to change.
There are people that have come back from wars and have no legs, and they have families.
There are people that were burned from head to toe, you know, and they have families.
They've survived a fire. So don't consider yourself to be some person that's deformed, and this is all never going to happen.
I want you to know that. Thank you.
Never get caught in the right now.
something that someone said to me when I was younger because I you know, we all go through our
Suicidal phases and why me and you know for different reasons, but somebody said to me no matter what you are
going through You know in a couple of years
You're not gonna be in that same circumstance in your end So when you're at your lowest and you go through a moment
and you're thinking about this thing and you're going well This is you know, I've been deformed by this doctor and I
am telling you that two years from now You're gonna be like that you're in a different place. Yeah,
and you're right. You're absolutely right It's definitely painful to retell this kind of story.
But within the last few weeks, I was at a really low point.
And I woke up one day.
And I had shut out God for so long.
And that was at the point that I needed Him more than ever.
And I felt it. And from that day forward, I knew that I had the chance to turn this into something good.
I knew that I had the chance to give people truth that a lot of people don't.
Because no one is willing to explain exactly what this does to you.
No one who has ever started this as a kid is willing to explain what you actually give up to do this.
And the lies that they'll tell you and the fact that doctors in these gender clinics will take vulnerable children and families and they'll sell them a promise because they're desperate.
They're desperate and it only gets worse because in reality a lot of transgender doctors Are really activist first.
That's, for example, Dr.
Roth, he actively pushes to open these clinics, actively pushes to push these surgeries further and further.
That's their main focus before even practicing the medicine.
And they're well aware of this.
And transgender people, especially children, have the most complications and you are a lifelong check.
I still go to the same people that did that to me because I can't stop my hormones.
I have no organs to produce them.
So I have to take something.
So there's a financial incentive that locks in, which is why I'm so stunned at how quickly they confirmed and insurance said they would pay for it when people need life-saving procedures and insurance won't pay for it.
But it kind of turns you into this lifelong patient of theirs.
And I will be. Yeah.
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But I'm telling you, you just do not think that your life is over.
I just want to express that to you because people will be watching this.
No, definitely not anymore. God is real.
Yeah, absolutely. And at my moments where I have cursed God the most when I was younger, like, I don't believe in God.
If there was a God, why would I be raised poor and this and that's not fair?
And I look at that stuff now as an adult and I realize that God chooses everybody to go through their challenges.
God picked you to have this experience as crazy and as insane and why you're going to inevitably go through.
There's a reason. You're right.
Absolutely. And I don't know it, and you don't know it, but if you just keep going forward, you're going to figure it out.
And then one day you're going to look back and you're going to say, thank you God for the horrors that you put me through because it allowed me to this.
No, you're right. And that's something I've realized recently is that...
I often felt the need to try and explain every part of it.
And if I couldn't, I rejected it.
And I realized that it doesn't need to be.
Because when I stick to it, and what he laid out for me, it works.
And it makes me feel whole again.
Right. And I knew.
That I just wanted to give up.
I didn't feel like a human.
But he reminded me that I still am.
And that I can give people another chance to take their time before they sacrifice everything for this.
Well... I think you were already perfect the way God made you.
And the thing that you were searching for was the exact way that you came out.
And sometimes it's a journey really back to yourself.
Yeah. Back to yourself.
Like there was never anything wrong with you.
Things happen to us.
We lose ourselves. And I think that you are probably just at the beginning of a journey to find out who you are.
Yeah. So, I know that you're going through a lot right now.
You are going to get tons of flack and also tons of support for sitting down with me.
Anything that you're nervous of?
Anything that you are excited about in this next chapter?
I'm so excited that people get to hear a real story of what being a transgender child is like because it's very hard to find.
Very hard to find anyone that will go into detail because the ones I have spoken to are completely silent because they're ashamed.
It's only after I decided to first speak about it that I've now had so many reach out to me who have been through horrific medical experiences and they're ashamed, just like I was, and they never want to acknowledge it again.
I'm really excited that other families that I know are so vulnerable and desperate like we were.
I know that it's not parents that just want to use their trans kid to make a political statement.
It's parents that just want their kid to feel normal because they don't want to lose their kid.
They don't know what to do.
And that was my family.
And I'm glad that I can show them that there is no need to let these doctors tell you to rush this because you just cannot go back.
Even if I decided one day to just try and go back, that's more expenses I have to pay to have things undone.
And even trying to switch the medications would probably destroy my body as I've been developed in a certain way for so long.
Like, it's so... Like, none of this is reversible.
And in that, you need to take your time and let your...
And really talk to your kids.
Know your kids. Like your kids don't even know themselves.
And so I'm really happy that this can be an opportunity for them to see that there are so many sacrifices made as a kid in order to do this.
And it's not all worth it.
I am scared because I know how personal this can be to a lot of people.
I know I've already been threatened many times, me and my family, if I ever talked about this or shared this.
And more than anything, I want my parents protected.
The guilt and the shame that I feel because I felt like I dragged them through this because I was desperate to feel normal.
And the pain that they went through when they saw this kind of fall apart.
That's more than anything.
I can handle really anything. I've been through a lot.
But they don't deserve that.
Well, I can say that I'm grateful that I got to sit down with you because I got to see this side of parenting because I have wondered.
I've just thought to myself, what kind of parents would do this to their child?
Why wouldn't they educate themselves about this?
And I think what you have given me is really humanizing as a parent what happens.
And especially because the doctors reinforce that idea.
They're like, would you rather have a dead child?
Yes, I've heard that.
And that's pressure on a parent, and sometimes the parents believe that.
They believe that to be real.
And of course, there are always going to be those parents who are doing it for likes and for clicks, but then there are people who are legitimately concerned about their child and don't want to lose their child.
And so I'm grateful to you for illuminating that aspect for me.
I think it helps to soften the conversation so that everybody can understand each other better.
Brianna, where can people go to find you?
Because I think you're going to have your inbox flooded.
By people seeing this.
Because it's such a powerful conversation.
And they're just going to want to send you words of encouragement.
Absolutely. I feel certain about that.
Yeah. I'm definitely most prominent on Instagram.
I do model in Chicago.
And I also do a lot of creative directing.
So my Instagram is just Brianna, B-R-I-A-N-A underscore I-B. Okay.
That's the same on YouTube as well.
I've only done two videos kind of talking about this because it's just a hard story to tell.
But I think it's a story that needs to be told.
It absolutely is. And from the bottom of my heart, thank you so much.
And I promise you that me and my husband will be praying for you and for the rest of your journey.
Thank you. God bless you. Such a wonderful conversation.
Thank you. Just want to say thank you, Brianna, for sharing your story.
And thank you for all of you back at home just for joining us.
Being willing to dive into this uncomfortable topic, so much for all of us to learn on both sides of the equation.
And if anything else, I think just from the bottom of both of our hearts, we just want people to have access to true information and not censored information so they can make the best decisions for their lives.
Thanks, you guys, so much for listening today.
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