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Nov. 15, 2022 - Tulsi Gabbard Show
01:34:43
'Woke' Gender Lies, Child Abuse, and Mutilation - with Chloe Cole | The Tulsi Gabbard Show
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They told my parents that if they didn't allow me to transition, I would be at risk of suicide when I was never suicidal before I transitioned, ever.
They gave my parents this false premise of, would you rather have a dead daughter or a live son?
You would think that as divided as our country is, that at least there's got to be one thing that we can all agree is sacred, the well-being that at least there's got to be one thing that we can all But if this is what you think, you'd be wrong, because it's not the case at all.
We have leaders in today's Democrat Party who are actively pushing an agenda to sexualize our kids at very young ages in public schools and impose this radical gender ideology that actually encourages young kids We're good to
go.
At a time when kids should just be allowed to be kids, playing outside, playing with their toys, playing pretend, these kids are being asked questions and to make decisions about their so-called gender identity and what their sexuality is.
For kids in middle school and high school with their hormones raging and kicking in, this can be a pretty confusing time.
And instead of just acknowledging this, we have so-called progressive activists who are pushing this dangerous agenda that threatens the very health and safety of our kids, criminalizes their parents who are going out and expressing very real concerns about what their kids are being taught in school, and it also dangerously undermines fundamental truths.
Now, this is not just some fringe issue that's affecting a few people and that should easily be dismissed.
The reality is that the very people in our society that we are supposed to be able to trust the most, teachers and doctors, these are the very people who are perpetuating the falsehood that there is no such thing as women and that there is no such thing as biological differences between sexes and these are the very people who are perpetuating the falsehood that there is no such thing as women and that there is no such thing as biological differences between sexes and that Feelings change.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
But parents, meanwhile, are being told that they must support their 10-year-old, 11-, 12-year-old daughter going on puberty blockers, suppressing their hormones, or even going under the knife to remove their breasts, or else face the consequences.
And those consequences, they will be accused of child abuse and potentially face losing their child with the government coming and taking their kids away.
This is not some theory.
This is actually happening right now in our country.
Parents are having their kids taken away from them for something as simple as refusing to call their child by a different pronoun than their biological sex.
Now here's an example of what I'm talking about.
This past August, Boston Children's Hospital faced intense backlash after an official video they released was found out Where some of their doctors and hospital administrators are promoting what they call gender-affirming hysterectomies for young girls who identify as transgender.
Videos that they put out in this series tried to answer questions like, when does a child know they're transgender?
The hospital's very director of Gender Multi-Specialty Services Stated that children, quote, will often know that they're transgender from the moment they have any ability to express themselves.
And parents will often tell us this.
A child will often know that they are transgender from the moment that they have any ability to express themselves.
And parents will often tell us this.
We have parents who tell us that their kids, they knew from the minute they were born, practically.
And actions like refusing to get a haircut or standing to urinate, trying to stand to urinate, refusing to stand to urinate, Trying on siblings' clothing, playing with the quote opposite gender toys, things like that.
A good portion of children do know as early as seemingly from the womb, and they will usually express their gender identity as very young children.
Some, as soon as they can talk, they might say phrases such as, I'm a girl or I'm a boy or I'm going to be.
A woman or I'm going to be a mom.
Kids know very, very early.
So in the GEMS Clinic we see a variety of young children all the way down to ages two and three and usually up to the ages of nine.
When they come into the clinic they'll see one of our psychologists and we'll be talking to them about their gender, we'll be talking to their family about how to best support that child and how to make sure that that child has the space and support to explore their gender and do well throughout their development.
A gender-affirming hysterectomy is very similar to most hysterectomies that occur.
A hysterectomy itself is the removal of the uterus, the cervix, which is the opening of the uterus, and the fallopian tubes, which are attached to the sides of the uterus.
Some gender-affirming hysterectomies will also include the removal of the ovaries, but that's technically a separate procedure called a bilateral oophrectomy.
And not every gender-affirming hysterectomy includes that, and people who are getting gender-affirming hysterectomies do not have to have their ovaries removed.
Are you kidding me?
We're being told by these so-called medical professionals that a five-year-old girl who likes playing with trucks, or in my case, as a young girl who liked martial arts, or a little boy who's interested in his sister's Barbie dolls, that these are actually really cries for medical intervention and possibly irreversible sex change surgery?
This is how dangerous it is, what we're talking about, what's happening here.
Now, we have recorded phone calls and a since-removed webpage that shows the Children's National Hospital in Washington, D.C. was offering so-called gender-affirming hysterectomies to children younger than 16. If you do it for 16-year-olds, then yes, I'd love to schedule an appointment, a consultation, whatever you need.
If you don't mind me asking, what does your child gender change into?
So I can point you to the right direction.
Yeah, well, he transitioned to male.
You know, he already had the top surgery, and now we're looking for the hysterectomy.
Okay, beautiful.
So I'm going to transfer you to the GYN nurse line.
One of the nurses will give you a call to give you more information and to let you know the steps and the protocol that they do for that, okay?
Okay, so they would do it for that age?
Yes.
Okay, great.
Is it a common procedure that you guys do for that age?
Yes, we have all different types of age groups that come in for that.
For the hysterectomy?
Yes ma'am.
Okay, just out of curiosity, do you know like what's the youngest age you would do it on?
I'm not sure, but I have seen younger kids, and I'm not, you know, I'm not allowed to say that, but I have seen younger kids, younger than your child.
The gender-affirming hysterectomy surgery?
Yes.
Okay, I really appreciate your help.
According to a research paper that was recently published to the Journal of the American Medical Association Pediatrics, show that there has been a 389% increase in children receiving mastectomies from 2016 through 2019. I want to say that again.
Children receiving mastectomies.
The UCLA School of Law's Williams Institute published a study that found the number of transgender youth in America has doubled in just the past five years.
And when you look at these statistics, you've got to realize that this is not an accident.
This didn't just happen.
This is very intentional, and it's the consequence of this radical agenda that is being pushed on our kids.
They're rejecting the existence of objective reality by rejecting this most fundamental truth of the differences between a biological male and female.
Now, even as there are no long-term studies on the effects of these dangerous treatments on our kids, those in power and government and so-called medical professionals continue to push them.
Many of the standard protocols that they are pushing include puberty blockers and hormones, some of which were just recently flagged by the FDA because of their plausible link to serious brain disorder, cognitive problems.
Now that hasn't stopped President Biden from going and telling parents that, quote, affirming your child's identity is one of the most powerful things you can do to keep them safe.
To parents of transgender children, Affirming your child's identity is one of the most powerful things you can do to keep them safe and healthy.
You've got transgender U.S. Assistant Health Secretary Rachel Levine claiming these dangerous treatments actually empower our youth and that any dissent, anyone saying otherwise, is driven by political motives.
Trans youth need to be supported.
They need to be affirmed.
They need to be empowered.
There is no argument about the value and the importance of gender-affirming care.
There is no argument.
A lot of that is political.
I think that there are people that are using transgender individuals as a wedge issue, and so that is precipitating some of the very challenging and difficult bills in many of the states.
This angers me so much because of who is being harmed by these people in the most powerful offices in this country.
What they are saying could not be further from the truth.
Now the study from the International Review of Psychiatry found that 80% of those who identify as transgender and seek medical intervention eventually lose their desire to identify as the opposite sex.
Countless so-called transgender youths have grown to deeply regret their decision, citing it as the worst mistake of their lives.
At age 11, Chloe Cole was just a girl living in Central Valley, California, where like a lot of kids, she grew up roughhousing with her older brothers, playing outside in the dirt, playing video games.
She was a tomboy.
She found herself relating more to boys, struggling to make friends with girls, and just not really fitting in at school.
She got on her phone and started looking at social media and she heard people telling her, well, you're obviously a boy stuck in a girl's body.
Chloe told her family and her friends that she was a boy named Leo, and she began her medical transition at just 13 years old.
Shortly after that, she had a double mastectomy, her breasts cut off at age 15. After she had this surgery, she began to feel a deep sense of regret.
And that is what began her journey to detransition.
I realized after maturing a bit more that a child does not in fact know who they are at 12 years old.
I realized that I wanted to be what I always was and forever will be.
A woman.
With this realization came a series of challenges that were far worse than the transition.
Somehow, I had to get myself off these drugs and tell everyone in my entire life that I was not who I said I was.
My parents were shocked and felt like they failed me on every level imaginable.
My friends all turned against me because I was evidence that their beliefs were a lie.
I was a joke.
I was a fraud.
I was many years behind in development, incapable of feeding my future children, and worst of all, completely alone.
Well, it's good to see you again.
Yeah, it's really cool.
I knew you were going to be speaking in Nashville when we were there.
Yeah.
You know, have seen your videos on social media and, I mean, gosh, press conferences, all kinds of stuff, but it was really powerful to hear you speak in person.
Thank you.
How do you feel?
How do you feel about everything going on?
There's a lot going on.
There is a lot going on.
It's really exciting and I'm just...
I feel blessed just to be able to be involved in all of this, really.
Yeah.
Some people might have a more negative view.
You've been through a lot of challenges.
It's really powerful to hear you say that you feel blessed to have the opportunity to kind of be the voice that you are.
I know you've got some big news.
What's happening right now?
What's the thing that you're focused on and you're trying to push?
So, um, recently I testified in front of the Florida Board of Health for a second time and, um, they ended up passing a rule that would ban gender-affirming care minors.
So that was a, that was a pretty big win.
Um, so you had, you had a pretty significant role to play in that.
Tell me a little bit about like, how did you, how did you get there?
And when was the first time you went and talked to them?
There were two events.
One was a private meeting with the Board of Health, and the other was a testimony in front of the...
in a courtroom.
Okay.
And it was...
So this rule change had to do with making it so that minors would be prohibited from going through medical transition.
Is that right?
Yeah.
The first one was having to do with the Medicaid bill banning...
Banning Medicaid coverage for gender affirming care.
Okay, and then when did that happen?
This was...
I believe in June or August.
Oh, wow.
So it's been a busy year for you.
July or August.
That's pretty incredible to see how in just a few months period of time, you like, you know, obviously I've worked in politics and it is frustratingly slow most of the time.
And so, you know, you introduce a bill one year, it might take you five, six years just to get it passed through Congress or even sometimes at the state legislative level.
So It's got to be pretty cool for you to see just over the span of less than a year that kind of change being made that will really impact so many people.
Yeah, I can't really say that I expected this kind of change to come so quickly.
Or even that I was going to be doing this.
If you told me at the beginning of the year that this is what I was going to be doing, I wouldn't believe you.
Yeah.
You know, I've read obviously a little bit about your story.
The first time that I heard your voice and saw you was a video that I think you just did yourself on your iPhone and put out on Twitter.
And I don't know when this was, but I feel like it was maybe a couple of years ago.
So you said this was a video shot on an iPhone, right?
It seems like it.
You might be speaking about one of my first live interviews.
Oh, that might be it.
Yeah, it was with the Laura Ingraham show.
Okay.
So that first time that you spoke out publicly, what was going through your mind?
How were you preparing?
And did you know, what did you think the response would be?
So...
I mean, before I started speaking out publicly, I already knew that there would be kind of a negative back, there would be sort of a backlash from other transgender people and activists because I had already experienced it in my private life, I mean, before I even went public with this, and very early in my detransition, and even before, once I started expressing, like, regret and that I didn't like how it made me look and the health issues that it was bringing me, I would, um...
Other transgender people would start to get aggressive with me and start to tell me, oh, you deserve this, and you, you're not, you weren't stupid, you knew what you were doing to yourself, and they were telling me that by speaking out about the,
um, how transitioning has negatively affected me, I was harming other real transgender people, and I didn't want to cause problems for other people and I didn't want to get all this negative attention just for speaking about it and so I actually went silent for a little bit and I stopped talking about my experiences for a little bit until I realized that I was being silenced and
that what was happening to me was a very real thing and it's happening to other people as well and I can't just stay silent about it and so even though I knew that There might be a negative reaction from it and that I might be losing friends over it.
That somebody...
I don't know who else is going to speak out on it, so it's a responsibility that I have to take upon myself.
Amazing.
Have you found others as you've gone through this process who are of the few who've had the courage to speak out?
Yeah, so after I detransitioned, I started seeking Support from groups online, but it wasn't really until I made my Twitter and started speaking out publicly that I... It started with a bunch of parents and concerned adults, people who knew trans-identified kids and teens.
Speaking to me, coming forward to me with their own stories.
But then eventually, I started getting messages from detransitioners and seeing other detransitioners pop up.
And at first it was mostly adults, people who transitioned and detransitioned as adults.
And so eventually I ended up Meeting a few people who transitioned as minors, actually.
Literally have gone through what you went through.
Yeah.
I think that was one of the things that, as I learned a little bit more about your background and your story, that even I identified with that you grew up.
How many older, how many siblings do you have?
I have four siblings all older than me.
Okay.
And they're all boys?
Two boys, two girls.
Okay.
I grew up with older brothers, and I was a tomboy growing up.
I have three older brothers and a younger sister.
And, you know, there was a period in my life where I was, you know, I was 11, 12, 13 years old, and I was just like, man, my brothers are having a lot more fun than a lot of my female friends are, and I just want to have nothing to do with it.
I was like, yeah, I want to go and do what the boys are doing.
This is awesome.
And really, really, truly, truly was a very serious tomboy.
I was into martial arts and had short hair and just like the whole thing.
I was just like, yeah, whatever the girls were doing, it was not interesting to me whatsoever.
Yeah.
That's kind of how it was for me growing up.
What did you like to do when you were a kid?
I wasn't really like a physical sort of tomboy.
I mostly just stayed inside, played video games, did illustration, things like that.
I was sort of a more nerdy sort.
So what...
What happened then?
So you're 11 years old, and how do you go from being a nerdy kid, playing video games, having fun, to then beginning this journey that you've been on now since then?
The internet, that's how.
Really?
So I got my...
I got my first phone when I was 11, and very quickly after I started using social media, obviously, because I wanted to connect with other people my age.
I mean, everybody else my age had a phone and was using Instagram and Snapchat and things like that, so I made an Instagram account for myself.
I didn't really have a whole lot of friends at school.
Sometimes I would follow the people from school, but I was mostly...
I started to make friends.
I started to get involved in online communities more.
I mean, by this point I had...
I had just moved to a new school, and I didn't really have a whole lot of friends in person.
I didn't really get along with the people around me, and I was kind of getting mistreated both by other students and staff, so I just...
I turned to the internet, and...
Very quickly after I started making social media was when I started seeing a lot of LGBTQ content.
This was after...
LGBT, LGBTQ started to become a trending topic.
This was maybe like 2015, 2016, so...
In these online communities, like I said earlier, I was kind of a nerd.
I liked video games, comics, things like that, and in these communities around these series and games that I liked, for some reason there seemed to be a lot of teenagers who identified as transgender, non-binary, bisexual, things like that.
I started slowly getting more exposed to just general LGBTQ content.
And eventually, it was to the point that I was seeing a lot of other trans-identified teenage females my age, around 12 to 19 years old.
And it was always females who identified as boys.
Sounds pretty targeted.
Yeah, it stuck out to me how they seem to be so happy with themselves by doing this and how they seem to have a community of people who really cared about them and really had their backs and that they're...
It was almost kind of hopeful in that their families were accepting them and You know, as a kid who didn't really have a whole lot of friends and was always kind of on the tomboyish side and was a little bit awkward, that's something that I subconsciously wished for myself a little bit.
I didn't realize it at the time, but...
That's natural.
You know, especially, as you said, if you're not finding those friends, you're not finding that community and that place where you felt you fit in anywhere else.
Seeing it through the lens of social media, right, where things are obviously very curated and both by people who are posting content, but also by the social media algorithms themselves pushing things towards you.
The algorithm is very aggressive, especially on Instagram.
Yeah.
You've talked a little bit about...
Go ahead.
I just made an official account for Instagram, and the only information that I put in was that I was 18 years old and female.
And my whole Explore feed was...
I would say a third of it was women my age who were like...
In, like, very, like, sexualized poses or clothing.
I mean, a lot of them are wearing a lot of makeup or, like, they have very, like, idealized bodies.
Some of them have, like, obviously had, like, work done on their faces or bodies.
And that's been a thing for a while, actually.
And because I started using social media at a young age, I was exposed to stuff like that pretty young.
And, you know, I was just a...
I was only 11 when I first started to really see this and, you know, I was barely a few years into puberty and I didn't really look like an adult, but I started to develop some body image issues because I didn't understand that even if I didn't look that way, I wasn't exactly supposed to look a certain way because, I mean, I was only so old and, I mean, there's a lot of unrealistic images online anyways.
For women of any age, what to speak of kids who are 11 years old.
And even for men.
Yeah, exactly.
Same.
So at what point did you start to kind of go from, you know, exploring what was on social media and seeing these people who, you know, you said, they seem to look happy, right?
They seem to find some place of being where they belonged.
What happened next?
With the algorithm recommending that stuff to me so aggressively and just having me be exposed to it for so long at such an impressionable age, I feel like it was only really a natural progression that eventually, down the line, I started to question my own sexuality, my own gender identity, and start to change my expression a little bit.
You know, since I didn't fit in with other girls and I didn't look a certain way and I thought there was something wrong with me, the idea that maybe I wasn't a girl and that I was actually a boy started to make sense to me.
How did you change your expression?
It started with cutting my hair shorter and buying more boys clothing.
You were 11 at the time.
12. I was 12 when I started identifying as transgender.
Can you just share a little bit of what your conversation with your parents was like around this time?
Because I imagine obviously it's very confusing and you're trying to figure things out.
I'm sure they were trying to figure things out.
Yeah.
It took a while for me to come out to them, actually.
I wasn't exactly sure how they would react, so at first it just started with me coming out to some other family members and some people who I was closer to at school.
And then eventually, down the line, I wrote a letter to my parents and I left it on the dining room table.
The reason why I wrote a letter instead of Having the conversation...
starting the conversation face-to-face was because...
I mean, it was kind of an intimidating confession to make to them.
I can only imagine.
It's a big...
It was a big thing to admit, and I wasn't sure whether they would react negatively or positively.
And I kind of wanted to allow them some time to think about it as well.
And so I let them read over it and then eventually we had the conversation in person and they were supportive of me.
They wanted what was best for me, but they weren't really sure how to go about it because, I mean, they were just...
We're nerd people.
This wasn't really their expertise.
And it was, yeah, it totally wasn't a new thing at the time.
This was, what, like, 2017, I think, when I came out to them.
So it wasn't being talked about nearly as much as it is now.
And there weren't people who have detransitioned, like, speaking out about the negative effects of it then.
So there wasn't nearly as much information on this, at least non-biased information on it.
Yeah, exactly.
And I think it's so, you know, we hear this term gender-affirming care being thrown around left and right, obviously in the media, in different legislation that's being proposed, even, of course, the, you know, the Head of Health and Human Services at the federal level.
Talking about, hey, it's so important for parents and schools and so on, society to provide, even the government, to provide gender-affirming care, which, you know, whether you're parents or teachers, you are caring for kids and young people and you want what's best for them.
But the term is very misleading.
It is misleading.
So obviously your parents want what's best for you and are seeking some kind of expert guidance and help.
Who did you find to talk to as a family to help you through this?
They started with a child psychiatrist because, I mean, it really is a mental health issue.
Right.
And they got that right, but it actually was a mistake because they wanted to figure out, but it actually was a mistake because they wanted to figure out, my parents, they wanted to figure out why I felt and what to do about these feelings.
but that wasn't what happened at all.
It was just affirmation from then on, no questioning.
Was there anyone who was a medical professional at every step of the way who actually communicated to you, okay, here are the actual medical, physical, biological consequences of what those who are pushing this gender-affirming care maybe weren't telling you?
Yeah, so for every step in my medical transition, like my double mastectomy or the hormones and blockers, I was given consent forms with side effects listed, but a lot of it was just very vague.
Was it kind of like when you see the prescription drug commercials on TV and they're like, Oh, here's this beautiful, rosy picture of, you know, a family frolicking through the meadow on a beautiful, sunny day.
And then you have this, like, really, like, I don't know, kind of deep-sounding voice saying, oh, by the way, you know, you may have one of these 100 side effects.
And you're seeing this image, you're like, wait, something's not matching up here.
Not only were the side effects listed very vague, it wasn't a fully comprehensive list.
Yeah.
There were side effects not listed that I ended up experiencing down the line.
I mean, with so many of them listed, you don't know which ones you're going to get.
I was a perfectly healthy girl before, so I didn't think that I would really experience any of this.
I was a kid.
I was barely 13 when I started on testosterone and blockers.
What do they tell you that they would do?
What do they tell you that those would do?
Because we hear, you know, all these, and I'm curious, and I think a lot of people are really curious about, you know, we hear these terms, hormone blockers, puberty blockers, chemical castration, but it's, what do they tell you?
Like, okay, take this because it's going to do what?
And why?
We're basically told that the blockers would just be We just put a hold on my puberty and that they were reversible.
Actually, I don't know if that was told to me specifically, I know that's what they, um...
I've heard them say this, different people say this, that they are reversible.
Well, my case is kind of weird because I started blockers only a month before testosterone and they were prescribed together.
Why was that weird?
Usually they promote blockers as a way of pausing puberty and a way for the child to just decide whether they want to go with their natural puberty or go with an artificial puberty, more like the opposite sex.
But that's not how it works, because there's no development at that time.
I mean, sex hormones are involved in brain development, and if the brain development is hindered during that time, then how can they possibly make that decision?
That's so true.
But, um...
I think the reason why they put me on blockers was just to clear my body of the natural sex hormones before I wanted testosterone.
Because at that time you had made your decision and you wanted to move forward.
Yeah.
And they actually broke their guidelines at the time in doing this.
Wow.
What were they telling you?
Were they encouraging you?
What were they telling you as you were embarking on this?
What do you mean by that?
I guess I'm just wondering, if you're going in and you're talking to them and saying, this is what I want to do, I'm curious about what their reaction is in just saying, okay, well, this is what you want, here's what you do.
Yeah, that was pretty much how it was.
There wasn't any real questioning, except the first endocrinologist who I had been recommended to actually barred me from going on to get a prescription for blockers and testosterone because he...
He knew that this was developmentally inappropriate, that I was too young to be going on these, and he said that there may be concerns for my brain development, because they don't know how these treatments affect adolescent brain development.
But I mean...
As much as I should have listened, I didn't because every other- every other source I had and every other medical professional who was involved with this was pushing this as THE treatment.
Yeah.
No one really asking questions.
Yeah, and even with the supposed informed consent I gave, I mean...
All the side effects given on those forums, they were...
The forums weren't comprehensive, and I mean...
You know, since I was so young, it was like...
And healthy before I even started on this.
I was perfectly healthy before I started on this.
It destroyed my health.
Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, I'm just imagining some of my friends who have 11 and 12 year old kids, and I'm imagining them sitting in a doctor's office being given all of these forms to read over and to just, you know, I know adults who have a hard time going through and actually understanding You know, what they're being told by a medical professional or, you know, having to try to figure out what does this all actually mean in real life?
Not just what's on the paper, but in real life.
It's hard to imagine the position that you were in at such a young age.
I remember being in the room with my endocrinologist and she asked me, Are you aware that this may affect your fertility down the line?
And at the time I said, well, I don't really want kids.
Because I was a 13 year old girl.
I wasn't thinking about having kids.
Some people don't even know that they want to have kids until they're well into their 30s or 40s.
How can a 13 year old girl make that decision?
Exactly.
There was a proposition that was recently passed, a proposal that was just passed in Michigan this past Election Day.
Are you familiar with Proposal 3?
I believe I've heard of it.
It basically says that parents don't have a right to consent or even be informed if their child decides to go through this kind of transition.
They specifically refer to, they don't say a minor or a young child or refer to any age.
They specifically change the language through a constitutional amendment to refer to the individual.
So without any age reference or anything else, It takes away any right and responsibility that parents have to have a say in and provide consent or even be aware of this happening.
It's just stripping parents of their rights.
Yeah.
It's so horrible.
They told my parents that if they didn't allow me to transition, I would be at risk of suicide when I was never suicidal before I transitioned, ever.
So they told your parents that without any kind of indication or assessment of you?
And, yeah.
They gave my parents this false premise of, would you rather have a dead daughter or a live son?
That just breaks my heart to hear that.
I cannot even imagine how they must have felt.
How does any parent make that decision or respond to that?
And being told that not by just some random person on the street, but by someone who is supposed to be an expert.
They coerce them into allowing this Just basically threw out everything that we know about child development and said, oh, she's old enough to know what she wants for herself.
Children already know their gender by a certain age, so she knows what's good for herself.
Wow.
It's so, I mean, your story, Chloe, and your voice on this is so important because I know that there are other families and other kids who are struggling through this and not having, you know, probably a lot of people I'd imagine don't have someone that they can go to and have an honest conversation with someone they trust who will tell them the truth about what to expect or, you know, here's what the doctors or the social media people or, you know, whatever are saying.
And I think that's one of the most dangerous things about this is when we're talking about something that I mean what you've gone through has changed your life forever that it can't be undone and it can't be reversed and to have such a culture of fear be created where an honest dialogue is not even really allowed what to speak of encouraged It is harming kids,
of course, the most, and parents and families as well.
And that, to me, is just the most...
It's the most dangerous part about this for a society and people in power who claim to care about the most vulnerable, who claim to care about our kids, that everyone should stand together and take care of our kids, and using this term gender-affirming care as a means of bullying people, or worse, using the force of law to say, hey parents, if you don't...
And I saw a document from the federal government that basically said this.
That if parents are not providing quote-unquote gender-affirming care, that Child Protective Services may become involved.
And this has happened.
I know several people who have lost their children, lost custody of their children to another parent or even to the state for not affirming their child's gender identity.
And what is that?
Is it that they're saying, no, we're not going to allow our child to go through puberty blockers and surgery?
Or is it less than that?
Or even just referring to their child by the wrong, their given name by accident.
It can be something as little as that.
This is so frightening and disturbing.
You've talked a little bit about, you know, the impact of the social contagion on everything that's happening here.
Can you talk about kind of your experience with that and what that means and the effects?
Yeah, for me, I would really say that I was mostly influenced by social media.
But When I first started transitioning, I was kind of like the token transgender kid at school.
There weren't really a whole lot of other Actually, nobody else was transgender.
I was in middle school when I started transitioning both socially and medically.
It wasn't until I would say maybe my sophomore year of high school that I started noticing other teenage girls were starting to identify as LGBTQ and especially TQ. A lot of them were starting to identify As non-binary or experiment with different pronouns or even start calling themselves boys.
And it was never boys.
It was always girls who did this.
I never knew any trans girls at school.
It was always just...
It was teenage girls who identified as boys.
Why do you think that is?
I would think that would be factors similar to mine, like body image issues, social media, things like that.
Right.
What was it that drove you to take the big step past puberty blockers and testosterone to actually have surgery?
So, before I got the surgery, a few months after I started taking testosterone and blockers, I started binding, which means I was using a compression I started binding, which means I was using a compression device called a binder to sort of flatten the appearance of my chest and hide my breasts.
Um...
Because obviously I was trying to present as male and I didn't want that part of my body to be exposed because that would help me as actually being a female.
Usually people start doing this before they go the medical route, but...
I thought it was small enough for it not to be noticeable, but it wasn't until I had been actually groped within a school classroom that I realized that wasn't true, and I decided that I didn't want that to happen to me again,
and I was scared that For as long as my breasts were visible to the world that I would be at risk of being assaulted, and I decided to start hiding that part of myself.
And this went on for about two years.
I was using a binder for two years, and, um, it was a very uncomfortable experience, actually, because, I mean, it's a compression device.
It was like, um, It was very...
Sweating.
Like, it would stick to my skin while I was, like, exercising or, like, swimming or, um, like, walking home from school.
I live in a really hot area of California, so on some days I can get from, like, anywhere from, like, 90 to 110, and I would just be walking home that hot weather with this, like, t-shirt, jeans, and this really hot thing just squeezing me, my torso, and...
I mean, over time I got sick of it.
Yeah.
And...
I wanted to stop.
I wanted to be free of that and not have to do that anymore.
And...
You know, like I said, I had some body image issues.
I thought that my...
Before I transitioned, I thought that my breasts were too small for me to be pretty, and that it made me look like a boy, because I had some very regressive ideas about being a woman, and I wasn't really close to other women in my life, so I didn't really have anybody to really dispel or question those ideas.
Not only did I have body image issues, but While I was transitioning, I genuinely believed that I was a boy and I wanted to, because I believe this, I wanted to look like the boys my age and be able to not have breasts and be able to swim shirtless and just hang out without a shirt.
And so I started to Top surgery was presented as, no, a double mastectomy, it's called.
Top surgery is a euphemism here.
Wow.
Is that them just trying to make it sound like it's not as radical as it is?
Yeah.
It's almost kind of childish sounding, like it's...
Yeah.
Yeah.
It was presented as an option for me, and so I started to seek it.
When I was in sophomore year at this time, I was 15 years old.
And the puberty blockers, I imagined, were doing their job, and the testosterone was doing what it does.
Yeah.
I only had about three or four shots of the blockers, which continued for about a year or so, but I was on the testosterone for about three years.
So this was about the two-year mark on testosterone when I started seeking the double mastectomy.
Yeah.
So it seems like this is kind of like the next big juncture in this medical transition and also another opportunity for medical professionals to say, okay, hold on a second.
This is a very serious procedure.
Here are the ramifications and consequences that you will face.
The process of Actually getting the surgery was very expedited and they really should have stopped to think about what was really going on because as I went further into transition my mental state was rapidly deteriorating.
How so?
I started to experience suicidal thoughts and depression and I was diagnosed with social anxiety and I had a lot of things going on, like, while I was presenting as male, and I actually did pass as the opposite sex, and so I became attractive to girls my age, but I was still attracted to men, so I wasn't really interested in those girls.
Well, I did get sort of a feeling of validation that somebody was attracted to me.
I had...
I did not reciprocate it at all, and so my dating pool was very limited.
And I got to watch my peers, like, mingle with each other and get into relationships while I was just completely behind.
And so...
That was a pretty big thing that I was missing out on.
Right.
And...
I think the testosterone itself and just transitioning took a huge toll on me.
And it started to affect my grades.
I started filling a bunch of classes.
I'm pretty sure I had a zero GPA at some point.
And this kept getting worse as I progressed through high school.
But there really was no questioning of that.
There was no real psychological evaluation during my consultations for the surgery.
And I was allowed to go through it.
This is just, it's so...
It's such a clear dereliction of duty on the part of these medical professionals.
Exactly.
I can't even refer to them as professionals because even though they work in the profession of medicine, it is negligence.
It's dereliction of duty for them to not...
To uphold their own, you know, Hippocratic oath and to make sure that they're telling the truth and that any patient is able to make the best informed decision, what to speak of with a minor, with a child, still.
And no matter what they told me, I would not have been able to consent as a minor.
Right.
Before I went under the knife, I was informed that I would lose my ability to breastfeed, but I was 15 at the time and I didn't really understand what that meant because, I mean, you know, I was in high school, I was struggling with my grades, I was trying to fit in, and I had some trauma with the sexual assault.
And I had a lot of issues that weren't really being addressed.
To expect you to then say, oh, so someday you want to have kids or not?
It's just, you know, like you said, a lot of women don't know that well into their life.
It wasn't until I took a class on psychology and child development that I really started to understand what not being able to breastfeed might mean because that was when I learned that breastfeeding, I mean,
not only are breasts involved in, I mean, feeding the child, They also play a role in the bond between mother and child, and I might as well have severed that by having them removed, and when I learned that, I had a lot of guilt.
What was it that made you want to take that class?
I don't think there was really any particular reason.
I was just told that I remember one of my one of my one of my classmates was like, oh, you should take psychology.
It's it's really fun.
And I mean, it's really interesting because you're basically learning about yourself and the human race.
Hmm.
So it wasn't connected to anything that you were going through, necessarily.
No.
But it was life changing.
Yeah.
Wow.
How did you After you went through that class, did you feel comfortable talking to your parents about what you were feeling then?
By this point, my relationship with my parents is what was strained and I didn't really talk to them a whole lot.
Who helped you through this?
Was anyone there for you?
So...
After I finished that class, I kind of had a period where I just felt really awful, and I started to realize that I really regretted my transition, and I was realizing what it would really mean for me,
and that I was allowed to go through it when I wasn't really equipped to make that kind of Adult decision really and it wasn't until maybe about a few weeks after that I broke down crying.
I couldn't bear to face my mom like that because I had a lot of guilt.
I didn't want to It was painful to admit to them that this thing that me and the rest of the family was so invested in was a huge failure.
And I felt like a burden.
And so I couldn't even face my mom.
I could only manage to text her.
And it was a few days until we had that face-to-face conversation.
But I was crying to her about how I miss my breast and I wish that I was just allowed to grow and I miss being my femininity and I didn't know if I would ever be able to take it back.
I just didn't know what to do with myself and it stayed that way for quite a while.
I just kind of Existed for a bit, not really knowing what to do with myself until I decided to seek online support because I wasn't really seeing it from anywhere else.
I didn't really know what to do with myself.
And then I started to learn about detransitioning and how I'm not alone in this process.
Yeah.
My parents, they really were at a loss of what to do with me because, I mean, it felt like a huge failure for them, for all of us.
And other than them, I just didn't really have a whole lot of support because, I mean, the medical professionals They won't help me.
To this day, they've been very unhelpful and I just can't...
I can't even bring myself to reach out to them anymore.
I mean, I came out to...
I expressed to my gender specialist and my therapist and my endocrinologist and even my surgeon that I regret my transition, every step of it, and that I am detransitioning.
And their responses have been overall pretty unhelpful.
My endocrinologist, I requested some blood work from her a year back, just to test where my levels were at after going off testosterone.
And while I got the results back, I specifically requested that I was given the I told her that I no longer identify as male, I'm female, and I want the information for a female my age.
And I was given the guidelines for the average hormone levels for a teenage boy.
Really?
So that was the first taste of...
How unhelpful medical professionals tend to be with the transition.
Even from my gender specialist and therapist, they didn't really know what to do with me because...
I mean...
The affirmative care model was...
Anything other than that would be, in my state, considered conversion therapy.
And so they just kind of...
All they could really do was just listen to me and...
Just listen to me talking about my regret and...
My surgeon.
I reached out to him because this year I've had regressions in my healing after the mastectomy and I'm having some really bad complications, actually.
And...
He...
I haven't been able to get a physical consultation with him.
It was just a five-minute Zoom call and...
It felt very rushed.
It felt kind of...
It felt like he was being a little bit rude.
And the advice he gave me was just put some Vaseline on it.
Slap some Vaseline on it.
You'll be fine.
Are you serious?
And it worsened my condition for a little bit.
I have not reached out to them since.
I can't.
I know they're not going to help me.
This is the problem.
They say gender-affirming care, but as you're telling them, I am identifying as a female, they're not willing to support you and actually care for you.
Yeah.
I mean, gender-affirming care is a euphemism in itself because it's not affirming anything other than an illusion.
Exactly.
It shouldn't be about identity.
It should be about reality.
And yet reality was just completely brushed aside because I felt a certain way.
Yeah.
I think that's such an important point that you make, Chloe, about how the way someone feels at any given time does not equate who they really are and that it is an illusion.
And you've talked a little bit about, publicly, about how the bigger issue here, what's really happening, is a spiritual battle that's taking place.
And this isn't something that I've really heard many other people talk about.
Certainly no one who's gone through what you've gone through.
What do you mean by that?
What do you mean by a spiritual battle?
Sorry, is it okay if I take some time to answer this?
Do whatever you need.
Yeah, no problem.
Take your time.
I also need to use the restroom real quick.
Yep, yep, no problem.
For starters, the very idea of a gender identity is sort of...
It's very similar to a soul.
A lot of people who identify as transgender call themselves agnostic or atheist, but gender identity is sort of...
It's like a soul, basically.
It's this detached entity that's part of you, but it's not a part of your body somehow.
They're trying to change the definition of what it means to be female and male.
To them, it's no longer about sex, but it's about a feeling.
Right.
I feel that personally my transition and detransition was sort of a personal spiritual battle.
Sorry, there's just a lot to this.
I know, I know.
It's a really deep statement.
Because so much of the conversation around this is the most superficial one could possibly be when you're saying, hey, just because you feel this way, then that is who you are.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
It's a very complex battle around this very superficial idea.
Transitioning was presented as this cure for my distress And yet, it kept making me worse.
In every way, my physical health started to deteriorate, my mental well-being started to deteriorate, and my performance in every part of my life, whether it be from school and even just taking care of myself, just dropped the further I went into it.
But there were little moments towards the end of my transition, actually, that...
I think were an act of God.
I remember one night, I... I didn't realize it, but...
I was crying to myself for hours and...
I was just in the fetal position in my bed and I sort of snapped out of it and I realized that I was just sobbing.
I don't even know for how long, but I was just covered in tears, and I got up and I looked at myself in the mirror, and I heard this voice in my head say, You're not being honest with yourself.
You need to grow up.
I don't know.
I don't know what it was.
it felt like almost like a like an older sister speaking to me.
I think that was really one of the first moments that woke me up to the reality of things.
The spiritual battle is something that is not only affecting and impacting this whole debate and conversation around gender-affirming care and this trans ideology that's being pushed on kids in schools, especially from a really young age.
We also see it, this question of identity is really what's at the heart of it, right?
And we see this around identity politics where people are You know, trying to play to one group or another based on, you know, whether it's race or ethnicity, religion.
You see a lot of people in politics racializing everything, reducing people down to nothing more than the color of their skin.
Or, you know, you take your pick.
A very superficial feature.
It's completely superficial.
And it's so disconnected.
You mentioned a lot of people who are pushing this are people who are atheists or agnostic.
And that's really it, because if you are identifying with a feeling, Or even the color of your skin, then you're not recognizing the truth, which is, you know, our true identity of who we all are as spirit, as children of God.
And that everything else is, you know, it's like wearing clothes.
Yeah, and I think in doing that, it's really them subconsciously looking for some sort of faith, grasping for something to believe in.
Yeah.
It's no wonder, as you share the mental anguish and the confusion and the depression that you went through, Now as you look back, as you understand the truth, you can connect the dots and say, well, of course you're miserable.
If you forget that you're a child of God, then of course you're going to be miserable, right?
Of course it's going to cause confusion.
And it's really powerful that you opened your heart to God to be able to To understand that truth and to feel his unconditional love for you no matter what.
I don't think I could have gotten through this otherwise.
Yeah.
Thank you for being so willing to open your heart and to share your story with other people, Chloe, because it's so powerful and it's coming at such an important time where, you know, whether it's on social media or it's different external pressures or people in politics looking for power, I mean, they're really using and abusing kids and people for their own selfish gain.
Even the healthcare industry for their own profits, increase their own profit margins, seeing how they can make a lot of money from this growing trend.
With very few people willing to stand up and speak the truth, people like yourself who have gone through this and can speak from personal experience or others, Who actually care, care for others and have the courage to speak the truth and that's,
you know, when we have people who deny that we exist as women and that, you know, anyone can be a woman if you feel like it, uh, really what they're denying is truth.
Yeah.
And in essence, then therefore are erasing women, the very people that, that, uh, a lot of, a lot of politicians and other people claim, oh, you know, we got to stand up for women's rights and opportunity and equal Standing up for women's rights and they don't even know what women are.
Exactly.
Yeah, but they're presenting being a woman as not a biological, immutable fact.
It's just a feeling.
And yet in the way they do it, it's very superficial, very Very stereotypical, very oftentimes sexualized.
And I mean, it's no wonder that a lot of young girls these days don't want to grow into women.
Yeah.
And by telling them that being a woman is just a feeling, you're telling them that there's a way out.
And it's just not true.
It just leads them down to a path quite like mine.
What are the long-term consequences and effects that you're dealing with?
Um...
I've had some...
Maybe social or physical or just across the board?
Well, the physical side effects come to mind first.
From the blockers...
It's very likely that they've actually reduced my adult height.
My older sisters are 5'7 and everybody else in my family is like 5'10 to about 6'5 and I ended up at 5'3.
I was 13 so I was projected to have a few more years of growth and that was when my Puberty was halted I've gotten some some joint pains usually happens in my knees Recently I've had some I've had like shooting pains happening in both of my arms and my elbows and in my my wrists my fingers and I've been getting some
I've started getting some pain in my gums and my gums have started to recede a little bit and I think this is due to the blockers because they're known to cause changes in bone density.
Wow.
Which makes sense.
Yeah, and the testosterone...
Because your bones are developing.
Yeah.
The testosterone...
Because I was still growing while I was on it, I believe it's caused me to have an underdeveloped urinary tract, and so I have some issues with With urinary tract infections, I used to get blood in my urine and sometimes tissue.
It got really bad for a while and this was actually worsened after going off of testosterone for a little bit.
I was told In that consultation with my endocrinologist before I started testosterone at 13 that I may experience vaginal atrophy,
but I was never really informed that the atrophy could also affect other organs in my pelvic area such as my uterus or even my bladder and I think the combined Lack of development and atrophy is what's affecting my bladder right now and I can't say for sure because, I mean, my healthcare provider has been pretty unhelpful and I just can't get to the bottom of these things.
I mean, the way they treated my gender dysphoria and even other areas of my health Have been very similar.
In the past three years, it's basically just been, oh, let's consult with you over the phone, and there's no really getting to the bottom of the issue.
It's just treating the symptoms and giving me some sort of medications, whether it be antibiotics or God knows what.
Right.
some other experimental medication.
But since going off testosterone, in the first few months, I was very sickly, actually.
I lost a lot of weight.
I went down from 125 to, at my lowest weight, I was about 105. It wasn't a matter of like, I think it was two months.
I just completely lost my appetite for a while.
I've been slowly getting it back and my weight has been going up.
And I've been getting sick less frequently, but...
I can't say that I am really at where I was then.
But...
I... I'm very surprised that I started getting periods about two months after I stopped testosterone, because when I started on them, I was so young that they weren't regular yet.
I was only having...
I was only having them maybe every three to four months by that point.
So the fact that they came so soon and that they've been relatively very regular is a It's a very hopeful sign to me, but I'm really not sure about my overall reproductive health because I was so young when I started these treatments.
I don't know if they could have affected my eggs or some other factor that would affect my ability to conceive a child.
Obviously, I'm not going to be able to breastfeed because I don't have my breasts anymore.
With my mastectomy, I've had a lot of...
I think that's...
It's been affecting me the most emotionally and physically because...
This...
I will warn you that this will get a bit graphic.
I don't know, where are you going to...
Are you going to post this to, like, YouTube or some other website?
Okay.
I would recommend putting a timestamp here because...
Okay.
I will go into graphic detail here.
Okay.
There's just a little timestamp for people to skip it if they don't want to hear it.
So the way the mastectomy was done on me, they not only cut under my breast and removed the tissue and basically contoured it to make a more masculine appearance, they also described it to me like this to make it more digestible to me as a kid.
On an area of my chest, they would make a scrape, sort of like a deep knee scrape, but more controlled.
And they removed my nipples, and they basically put them into that area of scraped skin.
In a more, they called it, a more masculine position.
And I mean, there's all sorts of issues that come from that, like obviously because they sever the nerves and blood vessels.
There will be issues with sensation and blood flow.
But for me, the healing process hasn't been exactly linear.
I was...
The way it was presented to me, I would mostly be healed by...
Around a year or so, but it's been well over two years.
And earlier this year, the top layer of skin, which since the surgery has been pretty dry on the top, it's basically It's regressed in healing.
It's constantly, like, emitting this clear fluid.
I have no idea what it is, and the top layer of skin is just basically not there.
I have no idea what's going on, and I have to reach outside my healthcare provider to figure out what it is, and if I can even treat it, I'm just kind of...
At a loss of what to do with that right now, I just...
Right now, I'm just trying to keep the area clean and, like, covered up with bandages so it doesn't, like, get on my clothes.
Um...
But I... I'm just kind of stuck with this.
And there's no way of...
You know, there's no, uh...
I don't know.
I'm just thinking about, gosh, where are the resources that you could look to?
But this is part of the problem, right, is what you're going through.
They haven't done studies, expansive studies.
They can't predict and tell you, okay, Chloe, you're 18 right now.
Here's what you can expect in five years or 10 years or 15 or 20 years, what to speak of what's happening right now.
No, I've tried to like look this up online, like look up my exact symptoms and figure out what is going on.
There's just no information.
They say that usually the complications happen within like the first week or the first few months post-op, but this started to happen two years after the fact.
And I don't really know where to turn to.
I know we're going to be publishing this episode after your announcement on Tucker.
So if you're comfortable with it, I'd love for you to, and obviously we'll cut this part out, but You're filing a lawsuit.
Yes.
We talk about how these medical providers have been negligent and derelict in fulfilling their professional responsibility.
You're not just talking about it.
You're doing something about it.
What's going on?
You're taking on some powerful people in this.
I have to because there's a lot of other people who are in this situation, but they're all...
They're all adults and they're well out of the statutes of limitations to be able to take action for themselves.
Who are you suing?
I'm hoping to be able to create a precedent for other people in my situation to be able to take legal action and get compensated for their damages.
I am suing my endocrinologist, my surgeon, and the gender specialists who recommend me to that surgeon, as well as the hospital that operated on me and Kaiser.
Good.
Good.
Because they have not only been derelict in doing this to you, they have been derelict in continuing to help treat you.
Yes.
With all of the complications that you have now because of what they did.
Well, I'm glad you're taking on this fight, because not only for yourself, my gosh, with everything that you're continuing to go through, but to set that precedent for others, because I know you're not alone.
I know you're not alone.
And that's where I think your message to other parents and kids who are going through this or who have gone through this has such great power and impact.
So thank you.
Thank you for that.
Before we let you go though, I want to talk to you about, you just started an organization called D-Trans United.
Yeah.
And why did you start it and who's it for?
Um, I started because, I mean, there are a lot of, um, there are a lot of, like, online support groups for detransitioners that mainly focus on, like, um, just, like, having a sense of community and being able to find that support,
but there's, and being able to, um, find, like, medical, like, psychological resources, but, um, There aren't really any groups that are focusing on the activism side of things.
I want to be able to cover all those areas, but mainly focus on the activism.
Help empower people to lift their voices up.
Yes.
Yeah.
Um, when I was, when I saw you, when I met you and I was so excited to meet you in Nashville, uh, we were at a rally called, um, rally to end child mutilation.
And, uh, of course, Matt Walsh and the Daily Wire organized this, but I, I was, you, you wouldn't have known this, but I was standing, I don't know, maybe 30 feet behind you as you were speaking.
Um, And you were delivering such an incredibly powerful message and a powerful speech in front of thousands of people.
And I was seeing how you stood there strong and how in front of you, directly in front of the podium, There was this small but pretty loud group of people who were claiming that everyone gathered there was transphobic.
Fascists.
Fascists, exactly.
They had their signs, they had their bull horns and megaphones and banging on pots and pans.
They were really trying to drown out your voice.
What gave you strength?
Because your voice didn't waver at all through any of that.
Your knees didn't buckle.
And I want to ask you this because there's so much fear out there, Chloe.
As you know, there's so much fear for anybody to even ask a question about this, what to speak of, have a conversation, what to speak of a A kid or a teenager or a young person like you who's maybe going through this having the courage to speak up about it.
So as I was looking there, you were standing there like a rock and your voice had power.
Where do you find your strength and your courage to stand in the face of people who are actively trying to silence you?
I mean, I think I've already been through the worst part.
And I mean, I know I have the support of the people around me and my family and I know that I'm doing the right thing and that's really what keeps me going.
I want to keep doing that.
So with your new organization, D-Trans United, you want to help empower other people's voices and help bring more activists to this really important fight.
What's your advice to them?
What's your advice to the Chloe's maybe who might not have gone through everything that you've gone through to step up and speak out?
It gets better from here.
It's hard growing up as a girl, especially in this day and age, with social media and all these idealized and sexualized images of women's bodies and all these things that you feel like you can't match up to, but you are so much more than that, and adolescence is a really tough time, but It gets better from here, and the pain isn't forever.
Thank you.
Thank you.
You're surrounded by a lot of people who you know, but there's a lot of people who you don't know and you haven't met who are grateful for your voice, grateful for your courage, and are standing there, right there with you.
Keep on, please.
Don't let anyone, and I know there are a lot of people, don't let anyone shut you up or silence you.
I know you won't, because you are helping to save people's lives by doing what you're doing.
Thank you so much.
You're so awesome.
I'm grateful that you're alive and on this earth right now at this place in time.
And if there's ever anything that I can do to help support you and your efforts, Chloe, count me as one of the many who are standing ready.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Thanks for your time today.
It's great to see you.
Hope to see you.
Yeah, I really hope we can see you again.
Yeah, sounds good.
Thank you.
Take care.
Bye.
Unfortunately, we are living in a time where there is so much fear around this issue in particular.
We have the cancel culture.
We have attacks really being directed towards anyone who dares even ask a question.
About biology, about what their kids are being taught in school, about these decisions that children and families are making.
And this is why Chloe's voice is so essential right now.
Her story is incredibly powerful, and she's speaking from a place of first-hand experience that many others can directly connect with and relate to.
Her courage is to be commended.
I don't know how else to put it.
She started an organization called D-Trans United.
She talked a little bit about it.
And they recently sent a letter to the U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland talking about the long-term risks of gender treatments on kids.
Again, for those who are pushing this so-called gender-affirming care, they never talk about what the long-term health consequences are.
So I'm going to read a couple of excerpts from that letter to you and share with you her words and the experiences of many others.
She writes, Many of us were young teenagers when we decided on the direction of medical experts to pursue irreversible hormone treatments and surgeries to bring our bodies into closer alignment with what we thought was our true gender identity.
Many of us had extensive histories of mental illness.
Many of us had experienced significant childhood trauma.
But all of this was ignored simply because we uttered the word gender.
This utterance placed us on a narrow medical pathway that led us to sacrifice our healthy bodies and future fertility in obeisance to the claim that our suffering was a result of having a gender identity that did not match our biological sex.
In other words, we were born in the wrong body.
We didn't know better.
We were children.
We trusted our doctors.
Our parents were also misled.
They were told the common myth that if they did not affirm our new identities, which entailed fully approving our medical transition, then we'd likely commit suicide.
Given these options, what loving parent wouldn't choose to transition their child?
This is not informed consent, but a decision forced under extreme Now, as we read this and we hear this, it's hard not to be completely outraged by these so-called healthcare providers, these people who call themselves medical professions, who took this Hippocratic oath to do no harm, and yet they are pushing these procedures on our kids, mutilating their bodies and abusing them.
This is why both Chloe and I and others gathered together in Nashville recently to speak at the Rally to End Child Mutilation.
There were thousands of people who turned out that day to also lift their voices, standing as one to protect our kids.
The letter continues, We condemn all violence, threats of violence, and intimidation directed at physicians and hospital staff, without caveat, and anyone who engages in such behavior should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
We also cannot ignore the harms being carried out against countless children in the name of gender affirmation that constitute much more than mere threats.
We bear the literal scars of this medical violence.
We must not conflate passionate criticism with violence or incitement of violence.
The medical safeguarding of children should not be a political issue.
We must ensure that the already hot embers of political tribalism are not stoked.
Children deserve the best evidence-based medical care available.
Silencing the victims and critics of gender-affirming practices is not a pathway to truth and justice, but to ignorance and harm.
Please do the right thing.
Please do the right thing.
Is that so much to ask?
Is it?
Please do the right thing.
This is the plea coming from Chloe and coming from others who have shared this traumatic experience and journey who now have to live with the consequences of those who abuse their power.
This is also a call to action to every one of us.
We can't turn our heads away because we're afraid of the repercussions.
We can't stand silently by and think, oh, well, you know, this is not happening to me or to my family or to my kids.
The kids in this country, the children of this country need us to stand up for them.
They need us to come together and protect them.
We cannot abandon them during this time of need.
We can't allow them to continue to be mutilated and experimented on just because we're afraid of social stigma.
We're afraid of being shunned.
We're afraid of being called names on Twitter.
We're afraid of being labeled transphobic.
Just imagine what they're going through.
Our children are sacred.
They're vulnerable.
They're confused.
And they're being fed lies by the corporate media.
They're being fed lies by those in power in the White House, by the President of the United States.
They're being fed lies by these so-called healthcare professionals who are not healthcare professionals at all, who are derelict in their duty, and they're being fed these lies by radical activists in positions of influence as teachers in our schools, all pushing this very dangerous agenda.
So whether you're Republican or Democrat or Independent, our kids need us to stand up for them now.
We have to lift our voices for them.
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