WEBVTT - Detransitioning with Chloe Cole 0:00:00.120 --> 0:00:03.400 Chloe Cole was twelve years old when she decided she 0:00:03.480 --> 0:00:06.560 was transgender. A year later, at thirteen, she went on 0:00:06.600 --> 0:00:10.880 puberty blockers and testosterone. At fifteen, she had major surgery, 0:00:10.960 --> 0:00:14.120 getting a double misectomy. Only a year later, at sixteen, 0:00:14.320 --> 0:00:17.840 she realized she had made a horrible mistake. Now she's eighteen, 0:00:17.960 --> 0:00:21.240 she's de transitioned, and she's speaking out, trying to protect 0:00:21.360 --> 0:00:23.919 children from being put through what she went through, and 0:00:24.000 --> 0:00:26.639 she joins me on this episode to discuss her personal 0:00:26.720 --> 0:00:30.000 journey and why adults are pushing young people to transition. 0:00:30.440 --> 0:00:40.000 Stay tuned for this can't missinterview with Chloe Cole. Chloe, 0:00:40.000 --> 0:00:41.839 it's an honor to have you on the show. I 0:00:41.960 --> 0:00:44.599 just wanted to tell you upfront that I really respect 0:00:44.760 --> 0:00:47.320 what you're doing and just trying to bring awareness. I 0:00:47.400 --> 0:00:49.959 know that it is scary. It's hard to stand up 0:00:50.040 --> 0:00:52.839 against the mob, so just want to thank you for 0:00:52.920 --> 0:00:54.520 your courage in doing so. 0:00:54.720 --> 0:00:56.040 And thank you for having me. Lisa. 0:00:56.160 --> 0:00:59.040 What's that been like to stand up against the mob 0:00:59.240 --> 0:00:59.680 with this. 0:01:00.240 --> 0:01:03.560 I never really expected to be doing anything like this 0:01:03.600 --> 0:01:06.920 in my life. I mean throughout most of my childhood 0:01:06.920 --> 0:01:09.080 and teenhood, I was like a really shy kid, and 0:01:09.080 --> 0:01:10.959 I was kind of like on the artistic side, so 0:01:11.000 --> 0:01:12.920 I mostly just like kept myself and I thought that 0:01:12.959 --> 0:01:16.319 I would pursue I would pursue a career in something 0:01:16.840 --> 0:01:19.680 artistic related, which I probably will down the road. I 0:01:19.720 --> 0:01:21.959 never thought that I would ever be doing something like 0:01:22.000 --> 0:01:25.920 public facing or public speaking. It's been quite the adjustment 0:01:25.959 --> 0:01:28.800 over the past year, but I found that I actually 0:01:28.880 --> 0:01:31.440 really enjoy doing it. I get a lot more support 0:01:31.520 --> 0:01:33.840 than I do backlash, and. 0:01:34.200 --> 0:01:35.000 That's really nice. 0:01:35.280 --> 0:01:38.480 But I get my fair share of hate just for 0:01:38.640 --> 0:01:41.920 talking about my experience having conditioned as a kid and 0:01:42.560 --> 0:01:44.360 what it's been like going through that as a kid 0:01:44.440 --> 0:01:45.360 and coming back from it. 0:01:45.440 --> 0:01:48.320 Well, I'm glad to hear you're getting more support than hate. 0:01:48.440 --> 0:01:51.040 That's comforting. I'm glad to hear that. You know. 0:01:51.080 --> 0:01:54.520 Before we get into your story specifically, I wanted to 0:01:54.560 --> 0:01:57.600 ask you, why do you think there is such a 0:01:57.640 --> 0:02:00.520 push right now to encourage young people to transition. 0:02:01.120 --> 0:02:05.600 The narrative right now is that the younger you start transitioning, 0:02:05.840 --> 0:02:09.160 the better, because when you start a kid on puberty 0:02:09.160 --> 0:02:13.960 blockers and hormones and cross sex hormones, then if there 0:02:14.040 --> 0:02:17.320 is fork, they won't have the undesired secondary sex characteristics 0:02:17.320 --> 0:02:20.680 that would usually pop up during puberty, and therefore that 0:02:20.720 --> 0:02:24.000 won't cause them any further dysphoria or discomfort with their body. 0:02:24.360 --> 0:02:27.720 But that narrative isn't really taken account just how difficult 0:02:27.800 --> 0:02:29.919 it really is to transition as a minor, and how 0:02:30.000 --> 0:02:33.280 dangerous these treatments are the younger you are and while 0:02:33.320 --> 0:02:33.919 you're developing. 0:02:34.040 --> 0:02:35.920 How dangerous are these treatments. 0:02:36.160 --> 0:02:38.840 They call it life saving care, but it's really life 0:02:38.840 --> 0:02:42.160 threatening if anything, and it's absolutely not care. I mean, 0:02:42.760 --> 0:02:45.560 they say that things like puberty blockers and cross sex 0:02:45.560 --> 0:02:48.280 hormones are reversible, but none of the treatments that I 0:02:48.280 --> 0:02:52.000 have been on, which I've had, I've had my puberty blocks, 0:02:52.520 --> 0:02:56.959 I've been onto stosterone, and I underwent in double misseectomy. 0:02:57.400 --> 0:02:59.480 None of them were safe and absolutely none of them 0:02:59.520 --> 0:03:03.040 were verse. I'll never be able to get that lost 0:03:03.080 --> 0:03:06.520 growth or my breast back ever. And on top of that, 0:03:06.600 --> 0:03:10.640 I'm experiencing very serious complications from all three. 0:03:10.720 --> 0:03:12.040 What are those complications? 0:03:12.440 --> 0:03:14.799 While while I was on the blockers, because I was 0:03:14.800 --> 0:03:16.720 already a few years into pure be, it basically put 0:03:16.840 --> 0:03:21.440 me into a chemically induced state of menopause, and so 0:03:21.600 --> 0:03:25.880 I was very lethargic, and I had a reduced appetite, 0:03:26.320 --> 0:03:29.720 and I was kind of depressed throughout the day because 0:03:29.720 --> 0:03:31.480 I didn't really have much energy. And on top of that, 0:03:31.520 --> 0:03:37.000 I was I was experiencing menopausal symptoms hot flashes and 0:03:37.600 --> 0:03:40.880 itching all over my body while I was thirteen, and 0:03:40.880 --> 0:03:45.000 that's something that normally I would have not experienced until 0:03:45.560 --> 0:03:47.920 I hit maybe my fifties and sixties, as I actually 0:03:48.000 --> 0:03:53.600 went into a natural menopause, But the disosterone. I haven't 0:03:53.600 --> 0:03:57.120 gotten a fertility test, but it's very likely that I 0:03:57.240 --> 0:03:59.440 might have impacted my fertility in some way because my 0:03:59.520 --> 0:04:02.320 hips were not expanding and developing as they should have 0:04:02.360 --> 0:04:03.760 been through my puberty. 0:04:04.000 --> 0:04:06.000 I don't know what effect could have had. 0:04:05.840 --> 0:04:09.120 On things like the quality of my eggs or the 0:04:09.160 --> 0:04:12.040 overall health of my reproductive system, but I was told 0:04:12.640 --> 0:04:16.400 that it might cause atrophy in my vaginal area and 0:04:16.560 --> 0:04:19.200 my fertility. Granted, I was told this when I was 0:04:19.240 --> 0:04:20.800 only thirteen years old, and I didn't really know what 0:04:20.800 --> 0:04:22.920 any of that meant. I wasn't even sexually active yet, 0:04:22.920 --> 0:04:25.279 and I was I didn't even know what things like 0:04:25.320 --> 0:04:28.640 ovulation or the four stages of the menstrual cycle where 0:04:28.680 --> 0:04:30.480 I only knew that there was a period and somehow 0:04:30.560 --> 0:04:33.599 I could get pregnant after it started. I didn't really 0:04:34.040 --> 0:04:37.719 fully understand how things like that worked because I was 0:04:37.760 --> 0:04:40.240 a kid, and because I didn't have I wasn't far 0:04:40.320 --> 0:04:44.520 enough and to my education to have any comprehensive education 0:04:44.600 --> 0:04:45.279 on things like that. 0:04:45.480 --> 0:04:46.240 I was really young. 0:04:46.520 --> 0:04:49.960 And it also I wasn't informed that that atrophy would 0:04:49.960 --> 0:04:52.240 actually spread to the rest of my reproductive system and 0:04:52.240 --> 0:04:54.760 even organs in the pelvic area that are outside of 0:04:54.800 --> 0:04:57.720 that system, which it ended up affecting my urinary tract 0:04:57.720 --> 0:05:00.320 as well. After a while, I started to exp experience 0:05:00.400 --> 0:05:02.919 a lot of urinary attract infections and then eventually I 0:05:02.960 --> 0:05:06.200 start getting blood and even tissue in my urine, which 0:05:06.240 --> 0:05:09.120 has since stopped. I still do have some issues with 0:05:09.200 --> 0:05:11.920 the urinary tract, like not being able to fully empty 0:05:11.960 --> 0:05:15.120 my bladder and the misseectomy, I think is where some 0:05:15.200 --> 0:05:18.720 of the worst complications come from. I mean, all will 0:05:18.720 --> 0:05:21.320 never be able to breastfeed obviously, now that the tissue 0:05:21.440 --> 0:05:22.760 is gone from my body, I'm not going to be 0:05:22.760 --> 0:05:27.120 able to grow it back by any means. And they 0:05:27.240 --> 0:05:30.320 severed my areolas and the stalk of the nipples, so 0:05:30.320 --> 0:05:32.760 I'm never going to be able to breastfeed. I've also 0:05:32.839 --> 0:05:35.400 had some nerve damage because of that, and luckily it's 0:05:35.400 --> 0:05:37.440 not too bad, but I've lost pretty much all of 0:05:37.440 --> 0:05:39.600 the erogenous sensation that I would have had in there. 0:05:39.880 --> 0:05:42.560 So I've had a large part of myself as an 0:05:42.600 --> 0:05:46.880 adult woman, a large part of my sexuality, of myself 0:05:46.960 --> 0:05:50.480 as an aspiring mother, taken from me. And now the 0:05:51.120 --> 0:05:53.559 skin graphs that they use and the surgery are leaking 0:05:53.600 --> 0:05:56.920 fluid every day, every moment, and I have no idea 0:05:56.960 --> 0:05:58.760 what the flute is. I can't really do anything about 0:05:58.760 --> 0:06:00.839 it because I've tried to go to my surch to 0:06:00.880 --> 0:06:03.560 try and figure out what it is, and he gave 0:06:03.600 --> 0:06:05.600 me advice that actually made it worse, and he was 0:06:05.680 --> 0:06:08.640 very dismissive of my concerns and all these complications that 0:06:08.680 --> 0:06:12.360 I've had. I haven't gotten any help from my doctors since. 0:06:12.200 --> 0:06:15.280 My heart breaks hearing you know, talk about that and 0:06:15.360 --> 0:06:17.720 just laying out what you went through because you were 0:06:17.760 --> 0:06:19.919 a baby. I mean, I'm thirty eight years old, so 0:06:19.960 --> 0:06:21.880 a twelve year old in my eyes as a child. 0:06:21.960 --> 0:06:24.160 As a baby, you were thirteen when they put you 0:06:24.240 --> 0:06:28.039 on puberty blockers, fifteen when you underwent a double misseectomy. 0:06:28.160 --> 0:06:31.360 Nobody at that age thinks about the future in this way. 0:06:31.400 --> 0:06:35.240 Nobody at the age can comprehend a major surgery like that. 0:06:35.440 --> 0:06:37.520 Do you feel like these adults preyed on you? 0:06:37.720 --> 0:06:39.760 This is absolutely a form of preying on me. 0:06:40.040 --> 0:06:44.800 They gave me a fraudulent treatment which was eatrogenic and 0:06:44.880 --> 0:06:48.000 cause more issues down the line, and failed to treat 0:06:48.400 --> 0:06:51.599 my original diagnosis. And it was under the guise of 0:06:52.240 --> 0:06:56.239 life saving care, gender affirming care that this would resolve 0:06:56.400 --> 0:06:59.039 my generous for you and help me to become my 0:06:59.120 --> 0:07:00.520 true self as a man. 0:07:00.760 --> 0:07:01.760 But that never happened. 0:07:02.000 --> 0:07:03.920 And while I truly did believe that I was a man, 0:07:04.400 --> 0:07:06.720 nothing that I could have ever done to my body, 0:07:07.120 --> 0:07:09.800 no matter what injections I took, no matter what drugs 0:07:09.800 --> 0:07:13.080 I was on, no matter what parts of my body 0:07:13.120 --> 0:07:17.240 I had taken off or stitchback on, nothing would have 0:07:17.240 --> 0:07:20.840 made me a man, because that's something that's determined at 0:07:20.840 --> 0:07:21.800 the moment of conception. 0:07:22.440 --> 0:07:26.200 And it's an emotional blackmail, is what I'm hearing. Because 0:07:26.480 --> 0:07:28.440 they go to parents and they tell them that you know, 0:07:28.480 --> 0:07:30.640 you're otherwise going to commit suicide if they don't go 0:07:30.680 --> 0:07:33.080 along with this, and then they go to kids and say, 0:07:33.080 --> 0:07:35.200 you're not who you were born to be. 0:07:35.640 --> 0:07:36.280 You're not right. 0:07:36.400 --> 0:07:39.080 You have to change yourself in such a substantial way 0:07:39.600 --> 0:07:42.760 to undergo surgery. I mean, so it's an emotional blackmail, 0:07:43.360 --> 0:07:44.000 is what it is. 0:07:44.200 --> 0:07:45.800 That is exactly what they told my parents. 0:07:45.920 --> 0:07:48.040 What do your parents think of this? Now? You know? 0:07:48.360 --> 0:07:49.520 Where are they on all of this? 0:07:49.800 --> 0:07:52.200 They feel like they've been duped by the doctors as 0:07:52.320 --> 0:07:54.440 much as I have. I feel like I really feel 0:07:54.440 --> 0:07:57.920 like they were, even if they didn't experience it directly, 0:07:58.320 --> 0:08:00.840 they were just as hurt through this tree. It was 0:08:01.760 --> 0:08:04.280 really hard for them to watch me try and become 0:08:04.360 --> 0:08:07.320 somebody that I wasn't and just get worse over time. 0:08:07.720 --> 0:08:09.239 And they were correct at the start. 0:08:09.320 --> 0:08:12.800 They thought that this was just a result of distress 0:08:12.840 --> 0:08:16.560 I had from things that weren't necessarily related to my sex, 0:08:17.080 --> 0:08:22.440 especially because of my difficulties growing up with school and 0:08:22.680 --> 0:08:26.239 interacting with my peers and making friends and not really 0:08:26.240 --> 0:08:29.400 fitting in with other kids my age, especially the girls. 0:08:29.840 --> 0:08:32.199 They thought of it as a mental health issue and 0:08:32.240 --> 0:08:35.480 that by sending me to a therapist that it would 0:08:35.520 --> 0:08:38.080 be worked on and that this issue would resolve. But 0:08:38.840 --> 0:08:40.839 the doctors never did that. They never went into any 0:08:40.880 --> 0:08:43.920 of the underlying causes behind my gener dys for you, 0:08:44.080 --> 0:08:48.200 and instead they just affirmed this false identity. I had 0:08:48.559 --> 0:08:53.360 this idea, this delusion I had that I wasn't my parents' daughter, 0:08:53.800 --> 0:08:54.800 I was actually their son. 0:08:55.320 --> 0:08:58.559 You'd mentioned the mental health aspect of this isn't what 0:08:58.600 --> 0:09:00.959 you think is going on with a lot of these 0:09:01.000 --> 0:09:03.960 young people who you know are just facing confusion and 0:09:04.000 --> 0:09:05.280 trying to figure themselves out. 0:09:05.480 --> 0:09:07.600 That's absolutely where it comes from. There is kind of 0:09:07.600 --> 0:09:10.400 a social contagion aspect to it. None of my peers 0:09:10.840 --> 0:09:13.559 were transgender at the time that I started transitioning, and 0:09:13.760 --> 0:09:16.480 I didn't learn about this from school or in class. 0:09:16.720 --> 0:09:19.800 I never heard about things like gender sexuality in the 0:09:19.800 --> 0:09:22.840 classroom ever, and I graduated just last year. It was 0:09:23.000 --> 0:09:25.360 entirely from social media that I learned about this from. 0:09:25.600 --> 0:09:27.400 I was using the Internet. 0:09:27.000 --> 0:09:30.600 A lot because, like I said, I didn't really get 0:09:30.600 --> 0:09:32.200 along with my peers, and I didn't feel like I 0:09:32.240 --> 0:09:33.880 had much in the way of the community, and I 0:09:33.920 --> 0:09:38.360 wasn't particularly close to any of my family members, probably 0:09:38.400 --> 0:09:40.160 due to my age difference between me and the rest 0:09:40.160 --> 0:09:43.800 of my siblings. But I also wasn't like any evolved 0:09:43.840 --> 0:09:47.080 in any sports or clubs at school, and so I 0:09:47.080 --> 0:09:49.200 didn't really feel like I had anywhere to turn, and 0:09:49.200 --> 0:09:52.720 I was also being bullied. I decided that I would 0:09:52.760 --> 0:09:55.920 take to the Internet and just find my community on there, 0:09:56.360 --> 0:09:59.719 and the screen certainly was a lot more engaging than 0:09:59.720 --> 0:10:01.720 what I had going on in real life in my 0:10:01.800 --> 0:10:05.560 classes with my peers and elsewhere. It didn't help that 0:10:05.640 --> 0:10:09.480 my school district was handing out lap pops to kids 0:10:09.880 --> 0:10:12.000 at the youngest grade levels possible, and as soon as 0:10:12.000 --> 0:10:14.199 they hit fifth grade they get to take them home. 0:10:14.440 --> 0:10:17.400 Throughout most of my school years, they were not using 0:10:17.920 --> 0:10:22.280 any firewall protections or any programs to like block off 0:10:22.320 --> 0:10:24.480 things like social media programs, so you could access just 0:10:24.520 --> 0:10:27.280 about any app or service you wanted. I then got 0:10:27.320 --> 0:10:30.000 my first phone when I was eleven, and of course, 0:10:30.000 --> 0:10:32.079 because all my peers had one, they were all using 0:10:32.120 --> 0:10:33.760 social media. That was the first place I went to 0:10:33.800 --> 0:10:35.439 because I wanted to see what I was missing out on, 0:10:35.880 --> 0:10:39.200 and I ended up browsing a lot of communities around 0:10:39.240 --> 0:10:41.760 like the video games and cartoons that I really liked, 0:10:42.280 --> 0:10:45.200 and that was how I discovered the transgender community. I 0:10:45.280 --> 0:10:49.000 noticed that a lot of these other young people who 0:10:49.080 --> 0:10:52.160 identified as transgender were very much like me. They had 0:10:52.200 --> 0:10:54.800 a lot of the same interests, like the shows I watched, 0:10:55.559 --> 0:10:59.240 and their feelings around themselves and their body image, and 0:10:59.280 --> 0:11:01.800 just how they related to other people, especially their same sex. 0:11:02.360 --> 0:11:05.559 I really felt like I related to it, their struggles, 0:11:06.080 --> 0:11:08.920 their their upbringings, and so I started to feel like 0:11:08.960 --> 0:11:13.680 a sense of belonging, even though I wasn't really interacting 0:11:13.760 --> 0:11:16.520 with anybody directly in the community at the time, I 0:11:16.600 --> 0:11:19.680 was mostly just browsing these communities. I finally felt like 0:11:19.679 --> 0:11:23.199 I had an explanation for why I felt so different 0:11:23.320 --> 0:11:26.320 from other kids my age, and I really clung on 0:11:26.360 --> 0:11:30.080 to this explanation. I thought that the reason why I 0:11:30.080 --> 0:11:31.400 didn't fit in with other kids. 0:11:31.240 --> 0:11:33.800 Why I was so awkward, why I was so boyish, why. 0:11:33.679 --> 0:11:35.640 I felt like I didn't even look like a girl, 0:11:36.520 --> 0:11:39.439 was because I actually had the brain of a boy, 0:11:39.640 --> 0:11:42.360 and it was just destiny for me to become one. 0:11:42.640 --> 0:11:45.240 That's kind of a straight pape line for these kids 0:11:45.280 --> 0:11:50.120 who don't necessarily conform to things like gender roles, traditional 0:11:50.160 --> 0:11:54.360 gender roles, or don't really have much of a community, 0:11:54.520 --> 0:11:58.319 aren't really close with their family or their parents, whose 0:11:58.559 --> 0:12:04.040 parents don't really bring them to church or raise them 0:12:04.040 --> 0:12:07.679 with like a strict belief system and don't really make 0:12:07.720 --> 0:12:12.880 them grow up playing like sports or playing an instrument, 0:12:13.679 --> 0:12:17.400 or fostering them encouraging them to build up thrown hobbies 0:12:17.840 --> 0:12:21.559 as a means of building themselves when they lack. When 0:12:21.600 --> 0:12:24.240 a kid lacks that sort of structure, they'll still search 0:12:24.240 --> 0:12:26.360 for it in some other way and they'll cling onto 0:12:26.400 --> 0:12:27.240 whatever they can find. 0:12:27.360 --> 0:12:29.640 We're going to take a quick commercial break more with 0:12:29.760 --> 0:12:35.200 Chloe Coal on the other side, it sounds like, you know, 0:12:35.280 --> 0:12:38.920 young people just searching for for acceptance, you know, searching 0:12:39.120 --> 0:12:41.720 for you know, as we all do when you're young 0:12:41.760 --> 0:12:44.120 and trying to figure yourself out and you're trying to 0:12:44.120 --> 0:12:46.840 figure life out and you're dealing with hormonal changes and 0:12:46.880 --> 0:12:49.440 all these different things that happen as a young person. 0:12:49.760 --> 0:12:52.400 You know, you had mentioned, you know, going on social media. 0:12:52.559 --> 0:12:54.600 How big of a role do you think social media 0:12:54.920 --> 0:12:58.960 plays in this increased you know, transitions that are happening 0:12:59.000 --> 0:13:02.400 in the United States. What role does social media have 0:13:02.520 --> 0:13:02.920 in all of this? 0:13:03.320 --> 0:13:04.680 I mean, that's how a lot of kids are finding 0:13:04.720 --> 0:13:07.720 out about this. It's very easy to find these communities. 0:13:07.720 --> 0:13:11.240 I didn't find. It wasn't directly presented to me as 0:13:11.280 --> 0:13:13.120 soon as I started social media. It started for me 0:13:13.200 --> 0:13:18.520 in communities, in fan bases around video games, shows, anime, 0:13:19.080 --> 0:13:20.360 and musicians. 0:13:19.840 --> 0:13:20.360 That I liked. 0:13:20.800 --> 0:13:23.360 A lot of the users in those communities there is 0:13:23.360 --> 0:13:27.240 a big overlot between being in those communities and identifying 0:13:27.520 --> 0:13:31.440 as like as gay or bisexual, or transgender or non binary. 0:13:31.679 --> 0:13:33.400 I think part of that is a lot of the 0:13:33.520 --> 0:13:37.000 users in these communities are just kind of offbeat kids 0:13:37.760 --> 0:13:40.960 who don't really have, like I said, much of a 0:13:41.000 --> 0:13:45.040 community in real life or a connection with their own family, 0:13:45.440 --> 0:13:47.440 and they don't really feel like they have anybody to 0:13:47.480 --> 0:13:51.880 bond with over these these series of media or these 0:13:52.000 --> 0:13:53.880 these musicians or these interests that they have. 0:13:54.160 --> 0:13:55.280 And these communities tend to. 0:13:55.240 --> 0:13:58.160 Be very liberal because of that, and so it leads 0:13:58.160 --> 0:14:02.840 to acceptance of questioning, acceptance of just about anything from 0:14:02.880 --> 0:14:05.719 sexuality to different lifestyles to. 0:14:06.320 --> 0:14:07.439 The way that you identify. 0:14:07.679 --> 0:14:10.120 You look at the timeline you know for you, So 0:14:10.640 --> 0:14:13.319 you make this decision at twelve that I think I'm 0:14:13.320 --> 0:14:17.200 a boy, thirteen puberty blockers, fifteen double miasectomy, regret it 0:14:17.280 --> 0:14:20.280 a year later. I mean that is a very quick timeline. 0:14:20.840 --> 0:14:25.240 Were there no professionals, no doctors, no one that was like, 0:14:25.320 --> 0:14:27.760 you know what, Hey, maybe we should just take a 0:14:27.800 --> 0:14:30.360 pause on this. You should think this through, Chloe, You're 0:14:30.400 --> 0:14:33.920 so young. Were there any experts that were trying to 0:14:33.960 --> 0:14:35.400 slow this down for you? 0:14:35.640 --> 0:14:39.160 I had one doctor and it was the first uncrinologist 0:14:39.400 --> 0:14:42.680 who had an appointment with He said that I was 0:14:42.760 --> 0:14:44.760 just too young to be on these treatments and that 0:14:44.800 --> 0:14:47.480 he was afraid of how it might affect my brain development. 0:14:47.800 --> 0:14:50.160 But I didn't hear about this from any other doctor 0:14:50.640 --> 0:14:51.800 or any other source that I had. 0:14:51.920 --> 0:14:55.840 They call it gender affirming, obviously, you know, a term 0:14:55.920 --> 0:14:58.360 to make it sound like this is a kind thing 0:14:58.680 --> 0:15:00.840 to be doing for young people people. Why do you 0:15:00.880 --> 0:15:02.720 think they use that term specifically? 0:15:02.840 --> 0:15:06.880 They say that it's affirming the gender identity of the patient. 0:15:07.520 --> 0:15:11.600 But that's the problem. It's affirming nothing more than a delusion. 0:15:12.000 --> 0:15:15.680 It's not reality. It's not affirming anything real. It's not 0:15:15.720 --> 0:15:18.960 affirming your real gender. To be taking away parts of 0:15:19.000 --> 0:15:21.720 your body and sterilizing yourself. It really a lot of 0:15:21.800 --> 0:15:25.800 these phrases are just covering up and even sort of 0:15:25.800 --> 0:15:30.000 infantilizing what these treatments and what this path really means. 0:15:30.360 --> 0:15:31.400 It makes it easier to sell. 0:15:31.560 --> 0:15:34.320 How hard is it to transition? They put you on 0:15:34.400 --> 0:15:36.680 puberty blockers for a number of years, you know, you 0:15:36.760 --> 0:15:37.960 undergo this surgery. 0:15:38.120 --> 0:15:40.160 How hard is it to go back? How hard is 0:15:40.160 --> 0:15:41.080 it to detransition? 0:15:41.360 --> 0:15:44.720 I mean, it's difficult enough to go off of these 0:15:45.280 --> 0:15:49.040 powerful drugs and deal with the hormonal imbalances that result 0:15:49.040 --> 0:15:52.800 from it, as well as the surgeries and having had 0:15:53.120 --> 0:15:57.560 your secondary sex characteristics mutated. But as of right now, 0:15:57.960 --> 0:16:01.880 there's absolutely no standard of care for people like me 0:16:02.520 --> 0:16:05.640 who regret their transition and want to go back. I 0:16:05.640 --> 0:16:08.000 mean I had to figure out how to do it completely. 0:16:07.640 --> 0:16:09.800 On my own. I wasn't getting any guidance. 0:16:09.400 --> 0:16:14.520 At all about things like how I should stop taking testosterone, 0:16:15.040 --> 0:16:20.200 or what my options might be for my reconstruction, or 0:16:20.760 --> 0:16:24.360 the complication that I'm already having for my surgery, And 0:16:24.440 --> 0:16:26.640 I just haven't really gotten any of the appropriate care 0:16:26.680 --> 0:16:31.800 that I've needed my even psychologically. My gender specialist told 0:16:31.800 --> 0:16:35.280 me that in the midst of me talking about the 0:16:35.320 --> 0:16:38.200 pain of my transition to regret that it was just 0:16:38.320 --> 0:16:43.440 another part of my gender journey, right, and my undercinologists 0:16:43.720 --> 0:16:45.480 when I told her that I was going off of hormones, 0:16:45.840 --> 0:16:49.320 I requested that I get regular blood tests to try 0:16:49.360 --> 0:16:51.680 and figure out where I would be at in terms 0:16:51.880 --> 0:16:55.160 of like my body producing its own natural hormones and 0:16:55.240 --> 0:16:58.400 how my homone levels are in comparison to where they 0:16:58.400 --> 0:17:01.040 should be at When I got the results back every time, 0:17:01.400 --> 0:17:04.800 I was given the guidelines for a teenage boy. So 0:17:04.880 --> 0:17:08.000 absolutely all around, I just didn't get any of the 0:17:08.000 --> 0:17:11.320 help that I needed. There's no codes for patients like me. 0:17:11.720 --> 0:17:14.480 They have absolutely no standards of care in place for 0:17:14.560 --> 0:17:15.680 dtrunsitioners at all. 0:17:15.840 --> 0:17:18.320 So they lead you down this path and then they 0:17:18.440 --> 0:17:21.639 abandon you when you decide to no longer go on. 0:17:21.720 --> 0:17:23.960 It just about yeah, I mean, there is no discussion 0:17:24.320 --> 0:17:27.520 of what it might look like if I were to 0:17:27.560 --> 0:17:30.920 regret this and to decide to stop taking these treatments. 0:17:31.119 --> 0:17:33.520 I didn't even know what the word dtrenition was until 0:17:33.560 --> 0:17:36.000 after I stopped transitioning. I had never heard it before. 0:17:36.080 --> 0:17:41.680 Quick commercial break more in D transitioning. You know, there's 0:17:41.720 --> 0:17:44.760 so much money in this. I saw one report saying 0:17:44.800 --> 0:17:48.480 that the industry surrounding transgender surgery is expected to reach 0:17:48.560 --> 0:17:50.840 five billion by the end of the decade. How much 0:17:50.840 --> 0:17:53.879 of this push do you believe is financially motivated. 0:17:53.520 --> 0:17:57.560 Almost completely, actually, I mean it's financially motivated as well 0:17:57.600 --> 0:18:00.840 as ideolog ideologically motivated, I think, and that's another reason 0:18:00.960 --> 0:18:04.200 of why people are pushing this on children younger and younger. 0:18:04.280 --> 0:18:07.440 It basically guarantees them to life of being a patient 0:18:07.640 --> 0:18:10.879 and a slave to the pharmaceutical industry by interfering with 0:18:10.920 --> 0:18:13.720 their puberty. The younger you do it, and once their 0:18:13.760 --> 0:18:17.280 sex hormones are either compromised or removed, they're not able 0:18:17.520 --> 0:18:21.239 to produce their own sex hormones anymore naturally, and so 0:18:21.280 --> 0:18:24.840 they have to be reliant on exogenists hormones of either 0:18:24.880 --> 0:18:29.400 sex to live basically, otherwise they'll be in an artificially 0:18:29.440 --> 0:18:31.600 induced state of meenopause for the rest of your life. 0:18:31.800 --> 0:18:34.280 At a very young age, there's pretty much a guarantee 0:18:34.560 --> 0:18:36.440 at least one of the treatments that you'll be on 0:18:36.720 --> 0:18:39.359 that you'll have some sort of complication from them, and 0:18:39.400 --> 0:18:43.840 it will either require surgical or pharmaceutical intervention. These complications 0:18:43.840 --> 0:18:46.240 and these medications just keep piling up, and you become 0:18:46.359 --> 0:18:47.040 very profitable. 0:18:47.240 --> 0:18:49.920 What would you tell young people who are feeling lost 0:18:50.000 --> 0:18:52.720 right now and potentially considering going down the road that 0:18:52.760 --> 0:18:53.320 you went down? 0:18:53.600 --> 0:18:55.240 I think you get the nail on the head that 0:18:55.600 --> 0:18:59.640 feeling lost like this is just another part of growing up. 0:19:00.119 --> 0:19:03.000 I don't think you're really supposed to feel like you've 0:19:03.119 --> 0:19:06.800 found your path, and so maybe after your twenties, and 0:19:06.840 --> 0:19:08.800 for some people it takes even longer than that. 0:19:09.080 --> 0:19:10.680 I mean, there's a lot of people who. 0:19:11.119 --> 0:19:14.200 Are in their forties and fifties and they still don't 0:19:14.240 --> 0:19:17.080 know whether they want to be on that same career 0:19:17.080 --> 0:19:21.160 path their whole life, or whether they want to have children. 0:19:21.400 --> 0:19:25.440 Being young is just exploring yourself, is just part of it. 0:19:25.680 --> 0:19:28.800 And I think it's ridiculous to expect a child, or 0:19:28.840 --> 0:19:31.119 even most people under the age of twenty five, to 0:19:31.160 --> 0:19:33.920 be able to make a decision that will affect pretty 0:19:33.960 --> 0:19:36.920 much every single part of their life, from the way 0:19:37.000 --> 0:19:42.040 that they experience their sexuality down to basic bodily functions 0:19:42.240 --> 0:19:46.480 like orgasm, the people that you're attracted to, your romantic 0:19:46.960 --> 0:19:51.160 your platonic and familiar relationships, your fertility, the overall picture 0:19:51.160 --> 0:19:53.840 of your health, and the way that you socialize. It 0:19:53.920 --> 0:19:56.360 is a lot for somebody to take on, especially while 0:19:56.400 --> 0:19:59.520 they're so young and while they're still discovering themselves. It's 0:19:59.560 --> 0:20:02.760 not fair to expect them to push them into making 0:20:02.800 --> 0:20:04.639 a decision that will affect them for the rest of 0:20:04.640 --> 0:20:08.280 your life in every single way possible. And it takes 0:20:08.560 --> 0:20:11.119 a lot of years, a lot of experience in the 0:20:11.119 --> 0:20:15.480 world to know whether this is something that you might want. 0:20:15.720 --> 0:20:19.000 And oftentimes a desire to go down this route stems 0:20:19.040 --> 0:20:24.120