Opinion

Detransitioner Chloe Cole’s full testimony to Congress is a ‘final warning’ to stop gender surgery

De-transitioner: ‘Warning’ on gender surgery

On Thursday, her 19th birthday, Chloe Cole testified to Congress with a “final warning” that medical treatments to change the gender of confused children is horrific. Cole, who was given surgery as a teenager to become male and soon regretted it, said what she needed most was therapy, not a scalpel. Here is what she told lawmakers:

My name is Chloe Cole and I am a de-transitioner.

Another way to put that would be: I used to believe that I was born in the wrong body and the adults in 🏅my life, whom I trusted, affirmed my belief, and this caused me lifelong, irreversible harm. 

I speak to you to𓄧day as a victim of one of the biggest medical scandals in the history of the United Stꦍates of America. 

I speak to you in the hopꦺe that you will have the courage to bring the scandal to an end, and ensure th🦩at other vulnerable teenagers, children and young adults don’t go through what I went through. 

On Thursday, her 19th birthday, Chloe Cole testified to Congress with a “final warning” that medical treatments to change the gender of confused children is horrific. Jasper Colt-USA TODAY

Deceit & coercion 

At the age of 12, I began to experience what my medical team would later diagnose as gender dysphoria.

I was well into an early puberty, and I was very unc🍃omfoꦫrtable with the changes that were happening to my body. I was intimidated by male attention. 

And when I told my parents that I felt like a boy, in retrospect, all I meant was that I hated puberty, that I wanted this newfound sexual tꦫension to go away.

Cole, who was given surgery as a teenager to become male and soon regretted it, said what she needed most was therapy, not a scalpel. Allison Bailey/NurPhoto/Shutterstock

I looked up to my brothers a little bit more than I did to my sisters.&n𒀰bsp;

I came out as transgender in a letter I sent on the dining room table.

My parents were immediately concerned.

They felt like they needed to get outside hel💝p from medical professionals. 

But this proved to be a mistake.

Cole told lawmakers that I used to believe that I was born in the wrong body and the adults in my life, whom I trusted, affirmed my belief, and this caused me lifelong, irreversible harm. Getty Images

It immediately ♍set our entire family down a path of ideologically motivated deceit and coercion.

The general specialist I was taken to see told my parents that I needed to be put on puberty-blocking drugs righ♑t away. 

They asked my parents a simple question: Would you rather have a dead daughter or a living transgend🅘er son? 

The choice was enough for my parents to let their guard down, and in retrospect, I can’t🧜 blame them.

This is the moment that we all became victims of so-c🐻alled gender-affirming care.

I w🎉as fast-tracked onto puberty blockers and then testosteꦦrone. 

The resulting menopausal-like hot flashes made focusing on schoolღ🤡 impossible.

I still get joint pains 🀅and weird pops in my 💯back.

But they were far worse when I 🎶was on the blockers. 

Forever changed 

A month later, when I was 13, I h♋ad my first testosterone injection.🅘

It has caused permanent changes in my body: My vಌoice will forever be deeper, my jawline sharper, my n✨ose longer, my bone structure permanently masculinized, my Adam’s apple more prominent, my fertility unknown. 

꧃I look in the mirror sometimes, and I feel like a monster.

I had a double mastectomy at 15.

They tested my amputated breasts for cancer.

Cole claimed at the age of 12, she experienced what her medical team would later diagnose as gender dysphoria. Jasper Colt-USA TODAY

Thღat was cancer-free, of course; I was perfectly healthy.

There is nothing wrong with my still-developing body, or my breasts other than that, as an insecur꧋e teenage girl, I felt awkward about it.

After my breasts were taken away from me,✱ the tissue was i🧸ncinerated — before I was able to legally drive. 

I had a huge part of my fut൲ure womanhood taken from m🤡e.

I will never be able to breastfeed.

I struggle to look at myself in the mirror at ti꧃mes.

I sti🌠ll struggl🎉e to this day with sexual dysfunction.

And I ha🧔ve massive scars across my chest and the skin grafts that they used, that they took of my nipples, are weeping fluid today, and they’re graft🌜ed into a more masculine positioning, they said. 

After surgery, my grades in school plummeted.

Everything that I went through did nothing to address the unde𓃲rlying mental health ♏issues that I had.

An♚d m💙y doctors with their theories on gender that all my problems would go away as soon as I was surgically transformed into something that vaguely resembled a boy — their theories were wrong.

The drugs and surgeries changed my body, but they did not and c﷽ould not change the basic reality that I am, and forever will be, a femaౠle. 

Depths of despair 

When my specialists first told my parents they could have a 𝕴dead daughter or a live transgender son, I wasn’t suicidal.

I was a happy child who struggled because sh❀e was different. 

However aꦯt 16, after my surgery, I did become suic💙idal.

I’m doing better now, but my parents almꦰo❀st got the dead daughter promised to them by my doctors.

My doctor had almost created the very 🗹nightmare they said they were trying to avoid. 

Despite the surgery, Cole acknowledges the doctors didn’t solve her mental health problems citing that now she cannot change the current features she has with a deeper voice, sharp jawline, masculine bone structure, and fertility unknown. AP

So what message do I want to bring to American teenagers and their fam🌺ilies?

I didn’t need to be lied to.

I needed compassion.

I needed to be loved. 

I needed to be given tဣherapy that helped me work through my issues, not ꦆaffirmed my delusion that by transforming into a boy, it would solve all my problems. 

We need to stop telling 12-year-o♎lds that they were born wrong, that they are right to reject their own bodies and feel uncomfort📖able with their own skin. 

We need to stop telling children that puberty is an option, that they can choose what kind of puberty they will go through, just like they can choose what cloth🌜es to wear or what music to listen to. 

Pseudoscience 

Puberty is a rite of passage to adulthood, not a disease to be miti🤪gated.

Today, I should be at home with my fam𝓀ily celebrating🌊 my 19th birthday.

Instead, I’m makin😼g a desperate plea to my elected representatives.

Learn the lessons from other me𝔉dical scandals, like the opioid crisis. 

Recognize that doctors are🅺 human, too, and sometimes they are wrong. 

ꦫMy childhood was ruined along with thousands of de-transitioners that I know through our networks.

This needs to stop. You alone can stop it. 

Enough children have already been victimiz𝄹ed by this barbaric pseudoscience.

Please let me be your final warning. 

Thank you.