Briana Ivy, a 22-year-old who transitioned at 19 after hormone therapy at 15, details her seven-hour vaginoplasty gone wrong—extreme pain, blood clots, and irreversible complications like pelvic floor trauma and a "failed" urethra. Two specialists denied a corrective colon graft due to death risks, while Dr. Roth allegedly used her case to promote pediatric surgeries. Now estranged from her identity, she warns parents against rushed medical decisions, citing activism-driven clinics prioritizing transition over well-being. Her rare public testimony aims to expose the emotional and physical toll of early interventions, urging transparency in irreversible procedures. [Automatically generated summary]
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.
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.
unidentified
Yeah, that's the least of the things that you hear about.
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.
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?
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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?
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.
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...
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.
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?
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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.
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.
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. 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.
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. 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.
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unidentified
Hi, I'm Aisha, and I just wanted to share my journey with how the clinic has helped me come along this way.
I had just moved to LA to pursue a career.
I found myself going through an unplanned pregnancy.
I was debating whether or not I was even pregnant, so I did an online search and I found the clinic.
And for sure I was doing this.
I made the appointment. I showed up to my appointment.
I spoke to one of the counselors and took a test.
While I was waiting, they talked to me about different pregnancy choices and different options and information that helped me be more educated.
The test is positive.
To confirm, I got an ultrasound of the pregnancy test and it was for sure positive.
And I got to hear and see my baby for the first time.
Hearing the heartbeat made me cry.
And it was certain that I was going to keep my baby forever.
And from time to time, I still go to the clinic to get additional services like baby clothes and diapers and other things.
And I've had so much support from everyone, the staff, the volunteers.
I now see my daughter and I cannot imagine my life without my happy, lovely, joyful, smart baby.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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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.
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.
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.
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.