Detransitioner Chloe Cole scorches LA Times for suggesting movement could cause 'death' of trans children
Detransitioner Chloe Cole blasted the LA Times for its characterization of her in a story about her movement against gender change surgeries for minors.
Detransitoner Chloe Cole pushed back against an LA Times story that questioned her "motives" for sharing her detransitioning experience while implying that her movement could lead to the "death" of transgender children.
"This article is insane," Cole wrote on X last week. "They heavily insinuate that by speaking about my own personal experience, it will literally kill children. This is the same rhetoric that almost killed President Trump. I already fear for my life every time I step on a stage, thanks for heating up the rhetoric, LA Times."
The article, headlined, "How California teen Chloe Cole emerged as a leader of the ‘detransition’ movement — and a right-wing icon," casts a negative light on Cole's effort to educate the public against gender treatments and surgeries, which began after her own experience with transitioning as a minor.
The story accused Cole, who underwent a double mastectomy at 15, of trying to "erase transgender children" by speaking out about her regrets about transitioning and calling for a ban on the same medical treatments and sex change procedures "she once received."
The story also cites critics who suggest that the 19 year-old's detransition movement could contribute to higher suicide rates among the transgender community.
"She said her movement — one that others warn will lead to the harm and even death of transgender children — is ‘beautiful’ and ‘about love," the article states, quoting Cole from a recent event in Sacremento.
"Major medical organizations condemn the policies that Cole promotes, and LGBTQ+ activists warn that people like her are a danger to already vulnerable youths," the Times article goes on. "They worry that the amplification of her story is part of an organized effort by conservatives to discriminate against LGBTQ+ young people whose access to care is crucial to their well-being, citing high suicide rates among transgender people."
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The article adds, "Most of Cole’s critics don’t deny her personal story in the same way that she discredits the experiences of hundreds of thousands of transgender youths. But as her profile rises, they question her motives."
The LA Times goes on to quote Dr. Marci Bowers, president of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), who stated that gender-related medical intervention "is right for the ‘vast majority’ of patients and that doctors are required to follow ‘careful and deliberate’ standards. Surgery for minors is rare, she said, and reserved for severe cases.
"Gender diversity is a human condition that has always existed and deserves access to healthcare — and whose access can be lifesaving," Bowers, an OBGYN who has performed "thousands" of sex-change surgeries, told the LA Times.
The article, which notes Cole's recent endorsement of former President Trump, said Cole told them she doesn't "believe in the concept of a trans kid or that transgenderism is an innate identity.
"It’s just something that is an action. ... It’s something that I believe comes from other factors in your life, other stressors," she's quoted as saying.
It goes on to detail Cole's lawsuit against a nationwide medical group and its doctors who Cole has accused of performing a "mutilating, mimicry sex change experiment" on her.
"She has turned her transition process — which she once viewed as the reflection of supportive parents, uncommon for LGBTQ+ youths — into a nightmarish cautionary tale," the Times story reads.
After her initial response to the article on X, Cole wrote in a follow up post, "This only fills me with more conviction and more determination btw. There is not a single thing on this earth that would stop me from speaking out against the mutilation of our children."
Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, who recently spoke out about his own child's transition experience, replied to Cole's post, writing, "WPATH is a criminal organization."
"Yes," Cole wrote. "Butchering and sterilizing kids not just for money, but because they are passionate about it."
The Los Angeles Times told Fox News Digital that their "reporting on this topic speaks for itself, and we encourage people to read the story for themselves."
Neither Cole or WPATH responded to Fox News Digital's request for comment.
Cole told Congress last year that she was diagnosed with gender dysphoria and fast-tracked onto puberty blockers and testosterone, of which she received her first injection of at age 13.
At the time, she was struggling with a multitude of mental health co-morbidities, including anxiety, depression, pubertal struggles, learning disabilities, autism spectrum symptoms and concerns about being sexually abused or raped in addition to ongoing confusion regarding her gender. But instead of "cross-sex hormones and mutilating surgery," she "needed love, care, attention, and regular weekly psychotherapy, not cross-sex hormones and mutilating surgery," according to her lawsuit.
She has said that the treatment was presented to her and her parents as the only option to prevent suicide, though she did not experience suicidal thoughts at the time.
She has since detransitioned and has become a vocal opponent of transgender care for minors.