Victims Strip the Mask From the Gender Ideology Cult

Chloe laughed and chatted cheerfully as she skimmed the menus in front of us. We were seated next to each other that night after speaking on a panel about the dangers that the gender ideology movement poses to children. 

She is articulate and earnest, and her serious expression when speaking publicly makes it easy to forget just how young she still is. But I was quickly awakened to that reality as she paused over the virgin cocktails on the menu, asking me if I thought one looked appetizing. 

When the mocktail — a fun pink concoction in an aesthetic glass — came, she was delighted. I realized with a pang that she isn’t old enough to legally order herself a drink, yet she was old enough to permanently alter her body. 

Chloe is one of several young women I focused on when writing Detrans: True Stories of Escaping the Gender Ideology Cult (Regnery, May 2024). We spent many, many hours going over the particulars of her early adolescence: who she was spending time with, what social media she was consuming, what her family was like, whether her peers at school were interested in transgender issues, and more. 

I learned from her what I have heard from all the detransitioners who have dared to speak up. They were duped into attempting the impossible: changing from a woman to a man, or a man to a woman. They were love-bombed and embraced by the activist transgender community — and then cast aside when they tried to question their transitions. 

Chloe, Luka Hein, Prisha Mosley, Helena Kerschner, and Abel Garcia: all of these individuals were struggling with mental health issues when they first questioned their gender. They needed compassionate care, patience, and truth. But doctors, therapists, and counselors promised them that their mental health issues would resolve if they began so-called “gender-affirming care” practices: puberty blockers, hormones, and surgeries. 

Some of these individuals needed parental consent since they, like Chloe, were minors at the time. I often encounter the notion that children who undergo attempted gender transitions have parents pushing them down this path for evil and narcissistic reasons. This certainly happens, and I have reported on it before. But the detransitioners with whom I spoke largely encountered gender ideology on social media, or through peers and resources at school. Their parents had absolutely no idea how to handle the situation. 

It is a conundrum that no parent should have to face: your beautiful little girl comes to you and tells you not only that she is a boy, but also that her school therapist has affirmed her identity, her transgender friends online believe she is heroic and brave, and she is confident her mental health issues will evaporate if she begins “gender-affirming care.” 

Many parents are not equipped, either politically or spiritually, to handle such a revelation. Helena Kerschner’s mother panicked and completely shut down, telling her daughter that she was not a boy and that the discussion was over, leaving Helena to stew in her own devastation and emote online to transgender friends and activists. These activists only encouraged her, of course, and pushed her further away from her mother. 

Chloe Cole’s parents, like many others, panicked and looked for professional guidance from doctors and therapists. According to Cole’s lawsuit, those medical professionals asked them the now-infamous question “Would you rather have a dead daughter, or a living son?”

No parent wants a dead daughter. 

The “medical professionals” put Chloe on puberty blockers and then on testosterone injections. Her body changed dramatically as the hormones set in, affecting her bone density, muscle growth, fat redistribution, hair loss, hair growth, sexual urges, and more. The hormones cause many girls to lose their ability to sing, scream, and cry. They also cause emotional discomfort, including intense rage attacks.

Finally, she underwent a double mastectomy, wherein Dr. Hop Nguyen Le removed both her breasts, according to her lawsuit.

Per her lawsuit against Kaiser Permanente, Chloe had never considered whether she wanted to have children, let alone nurse them. She was never told that the procedures might inhibit her from ever being able to conceive or carry her own child.

In fact, her legal team argues, the doctors pushing her down this path had represented that Chloe’s suicide risk would increase unless she obtained a gender transition. Their claims were based on the activist lie that “gender-affirming care” will prevent a child from committing suicide. (Research has found, contrary to those activists’ claims, that gender-affirming care actually increases the likelihood that youth will attempt suicide.)

“[T]his emotionally supercharged suicide threat and this false decision-making dichotomy backed Chloe and her parents into a corner,” her lawyers said in her lawsuit. “They felt they had no option but to continue moving forward with transition and surgery.”

There came a point when Chloe realized that her surgery and hormonal interventions had not, in fact, lessened her mental health issues. She did not feel better — she had not achieved the perfect transition that she had desired.

Her lawyers alleged that the testosterone cut several inches off of her potential adult height; potentially stunted her neurological development; resulted in severe atrophy of her reproductive organs; and left her with more facial hair, wider shoulders, an Adam’s apple, a bigger ribcage, and underdeveloped hips. Her “top surgery” still causes her huge amounts of pain and distress, and she suffers ongoing complications with her mastectomy grafts.

And yet she is incredibly cheerful. She travels the country (and the world) speaking to lawmakers, activists, and concerned citizens young and old about what she has endured. She wants young men and women who are pondering the gender transition route to pause, breathe, and give themselves the gift of adolescence.

She is joined by a growing cohort of other detransitioners, including Helena, Luka, Prisha, and Abel, men and women who are brave enough to speak out about their personal tragedy and trauma — the lies they were told, the manipulation they experienced, and what it has cost them. 

They didn’t have anyone to warn them. Now, they are the voice of caution. 

It is hard to stress how important this is, particularly given the way in which transgender activists have harnessed social media to push transition and hide any kind of dissent. Chloe’s story can’t be ignored. It is too honest, too earnest. It is her lived truth.

Her voice, and the voices of the other detransitioners, are playing a radical role in the ongoing fight against gender ideology.

And the tide is turning.

In Europe, at least five countries are taking steps to protect children from gender transitions following the release of the monumental Cass Report, which found that “for most young people, a medical pathway will not be the best way to manage their gender-related distress.” 

Already, across the United States, we have seen legislators bring forward 642 bills aimed at fighting sexual or ideological content in classrooms, protecting children from gender transition procedures, and keeping boys out of women’s spaces, including locker rooms, bathrooms, and prisons.

The majority of Americans do not support gender treatments for children. And the Biden–Harris administration, which has put out messaging in the past claiming that “early” transgender procedures are “crucial” to the health of transgender-identifying youth, appears cognizant of this disapproval. 

In early July, the White House flip-flopped on the topic, first telling news outlets that the Biden–Harris administration did not support transgender surgeries for children, before reaffirming support for irreversible procedures for minors after “intense pressure” from LGBTQ groups.

The flip-flopping followed reports that the top transgender-identifying leader in the Department of Health and Human Services, Rachel Levine, successfully pressured the World Professional Association for Transgender Health to remove age requirements for minors to get irreversible transgender procedures. 

The Biden–Harris Department of Justice has now turned its sights on whistleblowers from Texas Children’s Hospital: Dr. Eithan Haim and nurse Vanessa Sivadge. After the state told Texas Children’s to stop performing gender transition procedures, these two brave individuals exposed an alleged secret transgender medicine program that continued to take place at the hospital.

They have since both received visits from FBI agents, and, in June, the Department of Justice charged Haim with “obtaining protected individual health information for patients that were not under his care and without authorization.” If convicted, he faces up to ten years in prison and a $250,000 maximum possible fine.

Haim and Sivadge have put their livelihoods, reputations, and family lives on the line to shine a light on the grisly realities of gender transitions for children. They deserve to be heard. Chloe, Luka, Prisha, Helena, Abel, and all of the detransitioners daring to share their stories in the face of so much hate also deserve to be heard.

The gender ideology movement is one based on euphemism and deception. These true stories will set us free.

Mary Margaret Olohan is a senior reporter at the Daily Wire and the author of Detrans: True Stories of Escaping the Gender Ideology Cult.

Subscribe to The American Spectator to receive our fall 2024 print magazine.

The post Victims Strip the Mask From the Gender Ideology Cult appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.