Juno News - ‘Former trans kid’ leads fight against gender ideology (Ft. Chloe Cole)

00:00:00.000 Hi everybody, welcome to the Rupa Subramanya show. I'm Rupa Subramanya. I hope you're all

00:00:21.720 doing well wherever you're tuning in from. Thank you once again for coming back to the show.

00:00:27.540 Today I am joined by Chloe Cole. She's a very prominent detransitioner from the US. 0.99

00:00:35.780 She's become an activist on transgender issues and currently suing Kaiser

00:00:42.000 hospitals in the US for pushing her into transitioning instead of properly 0.86

00:00:48.600 treating her. Hers is an incredibly important and powerful voice in the

00:00:54.480 gender ideology debate. And I am absolutely delighted to have her on the show. Chloe,

00:01:00.120 welcome. Welcome to the show. It's a real privilege to have you on on my show. I've

00:01:07.620 been wanting to chat with you for a while. I've been following your journey for quite

00:01:11.880 some time. So let's start by let me start by asking you more about your about your

00:01:19.840 personal journey of transitioning and then de-transitioning. What was it like to realize

00:01:26.500 that you wanted to de-transition and what challenges did you face during that process?

00:01:31.900 I think it was probably the deepest pain I've ever experienced in my whole life.

00:01:39.240 I was, it was something that I was in for years and I felt like I couldn't make my way out of it

00:01:44.840 for the longest time. And upon realizing that I made the wrong choice and that there'd be permanent

00:01:54.940 consequences to it, that I may never be able to have children of my own and my breasts are completely

00:02:03.560 gone and I've had a huge part of my sexuality as a woman and a part of myself as an aspiring mother

00:02:11.920 and would never be able to breastfeed. I think, and it's still something that still affects me to this day,

00:02:19.380 it's still one of the most deeply painful realizations I've come to. And the way back from my transition

00:02:31.420 hasn't been easy on the medical front or socially or emotionally. I haven't really gotten the appropriate

00:02:40.800 care that I needed from any of my providers, any of the doctors who got me into the situation in the

00:02:46.520 first place. And that includes my therapist. I've, I still have a lot of deep-seated trauma from

00:02:53.920 going through what I did. And while it's been long enough that I've recovered fairly well from it,

00:03:04.000 there's still a lot of things that I need help getting sorted with. And I just can't trust my

00:03:12.980 healthcare provider with helping me with that anymore because I've tried, I've tried to reach

00:03:17.060 out to them. And from each doctor, I've gotten a response that either wasn't helpful or it's made my

00:03:27.080 situation worse. And I lost the transgender community after I decided to detransition. 1.00

00:03:37.120 Just talking about my regret, they found it offensive. And they told me that my experience

00:03:44.700 wasn't important, that it's not very common, so it's not significant. And just by talking about the

00:03:54.720 pain and regret of transitioning, I was harming the transgender community because they said I was

00:04:03.860 talking about experience and pushing it on other people. And in doing so, I was preventing people

00:04:10.980 from getting the care that real transgender people needed. And so I was harassed and bullied until

00:04:18.140 I stopped speaking about my experience for a while.

00:04:20.580 Yeah. I mean, this is an extraordinary amount of stress and trauma for a young person to take.

00:04:29.000 How old are you, Chloe?

00:04:32.920 You're 18 now. So how old were you when you went on the path to transitioning? And at what age did you

00:04:41.520 realize that you felt that you had made a horrible mistake? And, you know, what was that timeline like

00:04:50.840 for you, those intervening years in between?

00:04:56.500 I was 12 years old when I started to identify as transgender. And shortly after, I started to do things

00:05:04.880 like cutting my hair shorter, and taking on a new name as part of my new presentation and identity.

00:05:13.120 And then, almost less than a year afterward, was when I was actually put on the treatments, which

00:05:22.880 was PB blockers, and then testosterone, when I was 13 years old, and I was just into my eighth grade year.

00:05:28.480 And I underwent a double mastectomy when I was 15 years old, right after my sophomore year of high

00:05:36.560 school. And it wasn't even a year afterward, when I was 16, that I came to the realization that transition

00:05:43.840 was causing more harm than it was doing me good.

00:05:46.560 And what kind of harm, what was it doing to you? And for the layperson, you know, I count myself as one,

00:05:57.760 things like puberty blockers, and these things sound, this sounds like very, very harsh medication.

00:06:05.680 You know, what are the effects that this has on a young person's body?

00:06:09.520 I mean, I'd say that these treatments were harmful for me in every way imaginable.

00:06:20.400 They stunted my physical and sexual maturation, as well as my personal, emotional, social,

00:06:30.640 and cognitive development.

00:06:32.240 Before I was put on the puberty blockers, the first endocrinologist I was referred to

00:06:39.760 told me that I was too young to be put on these treatments, that he didn't know

00:06:46.640 what kind of effects it might have on my development, and especially my brain development.

00:06:52.880 But I wasn't told these concerns by any of the other doctors, and other doctors pushed it as

00:06:59.200 the only treatment possible, the only thing that could treat my gender dysphoria.

00:07:03.600 And they told my parents that there was no other option, that it couldn't wait until I was an adult,

00:07:09.040 that it had to happen now. And if it didn't, then it would be very likely that I would kill myself.

00:07:15.600 They told them that it was a life or death situation.

00:07:17.520 But the blockers, the medication I took specifically was called Lupron.

00:07:28.160 And I took it for about a year, and I had about three to four shots in total.

00:07:35.600 And they work by suppressing the body's production of sex hormones. 0.99

00:07:42.800 And historically, they've been used in children who have precocious puberty.

00:07:49.840 I didn't know this until after I stopped taking them, but they've also been used in the past

00:07:54.480 to sterilize sex offenders and in cancer treatments.

00:07:59.680 Okay.

00:08:00.880 And I was taking these treatments for a condition that was purely psychological.

00:08:05.760 It was for the distress I had around my body that was treated as a life or death condition,

00:08:15.280 with no other cure.

00:08:18.320 So I was already a few years into taking blockers, so I had already started my period,

00:08:23.200 I'd say maybe a year or less, before being put on it.

00:08:26.880 And as part of the treatment, my menses would seize, but not before it would induce a very,

00:08:40.560 very heavy period, about two weeks after the first shot.

00:08:46.480 But because I was already into puberty, it basically induced a chemically artificial state of menopause.

00:08:56.880 And so I was experiencing symptoms like hot flashes and itching all over my limbs and body.

00:09:08.240 And even if this was something I was told about, I don't think it's something that

00:09:16.240 you would really be prepared for until you actually experience it.

00:09:20.880 Even, it was hard for me as a child, a 13 year old to take on something

00:09:27.040 that women don't usually experience until they're in their late 40s to their early 60s. 1.00

00:09:36.320 I was going through menopause when I was in eighth grade.

00:09:41.280 And this treatment was, I hated being on it.

00:09:46.240 I wanted to have my sex hormones back. I was very lethargic throughout the day.

00:09:50.160 And the physical and psychiatric symptoms made it really difficult to focus on things like my schoolwork

00:09:57.680 or just to be happy.

00:10:00.080 Yeah.

00:10:00.400 And so when I started on testosterone about a month later, I felt amazing because now my body,

00:10:09.680 I thought was finally healthy again.

00:10:11.200 And I had my energy back and I had increased libido.

00:10:17.280 And I was very confident just because of the, um, that's one of the psychiatric effects of testosterone.

00:10:26.880 And I started having my voice drop and then the physical changes happening within a few weeks.

00:10:34.160 I would say it was a very powerful drug and it was very dramatic.

00:10:39.040 What were some of the physical changes that, uh, that, um, that, uh, you experienced, um,

00:10:48.240 yeah, a month, you say a month into being on puberty blockers.

00:10:52.960 Yeah.

00:10:54.320 Apart from the menopause.

00:10:55.440 Blockers, I didn't really have any physical changes per se, other than I was very lethargic and very sleepy.

00:11:02.880 Okay.

00:11:04.160 But the, the testosterone, um, the change in my voice happened very quickly and it dropped very deep.

00:11:13.120 Okay.

00:11:13.200 Throughout high school, I actually had a deeper voice than most of the boys my age and even some of my teachers.

00:11:18.720 Yeah.

00:11:19.120 Um, but after that came the changes to like the shape of my face and my body, I started developing

00:11:28.240 more muscle and my hair and eyebrows started to get thicker and my body hair and facial hair started

00:11:33.840 to, started to appear.

00:11:36.160 And, um, I had a really bad body image disorder that went undiagnosed throughout the duration of my

00:11:46.400 transition. And for a while being on testosterone resolved those feelings temporarily because now

00:11:54.240 I was finally, I finally looked the way that I thought I wanted to. Before I transitioned,

00:12:02.160 I thought that because I wasn't very curvy, because I was on the muscular, the skinny side,

00:12:07.520 and because my breasts and hips weren't particularly developed, that I would never make a pretty woman,

00:12:13.680 that there was no point in even trying. And that the reason why I looked more like a boy, I thought,

00:12:19.840 was because I was supposed to be one. That somehow, I had the soul and the mind of a man.

00:12:29.840 And that I wasn't supposed to be a girl. And that that was one of my signs. But

00:12:35.760 after a while, as I started to progress through my transition and look more and more like a boy,

00:12:48.560 as soon as I went into my freshman year, I actually looked like and was was perceived as by my peers as

00:12:56.000 a boy. And it felt great being recognized as the person that I was identifying as,

00:13:05.680 as the man that I thought I was. But

00:13:09.040 I mean, I, it was, it was really nice for a while, because I was bonding with other males.

00:13:22.560 And I was making friendships and getting social opportunities that I didn't really have before.

00:13:29.680 And so I thought that I was so I was so ugly that nobody would ever love me.

00:13:35.840 So were you easily accepted by your, your male friends in school? Was that was that transition,

00:13:44.480 for lack of a better word? Like, did you see that change for you dramatically? Did,

00:13:49.680 were they easily accepting of the fact that you had, you were now one of them, so to speak?

00:13:56.880 I mean, before, before I transitioned, I was mostly hanging out with other boys anyways.

00:14:03.600 And I got along, I would say they were the people who I got along most with. But as I got older,

00:14:09.840 and as we all started to hit puberty and go to go into middle school,

00:14:15.440 the dynamics started to change, and I couldn't be as close to them as I wanted to. And now whenever

00:14:22.960 I had a close relationship with a boy, it was expected that I would be in a relationship with him,

00:14:28.720 or that they would, or they would end up developing feelings for me when I just wanted to be friends.

00:14:35.760 And this change in dynamic was really difficult for me because growing up, I often thought of myself

00:14:40.800 as being one with them. I didn't want anything more than that, for the most part. And

00:14:47.120 it was, it was something that I was, growing up, really difficult for me to adjust to.

00:14:58.800 And so having that sort of camaraderie back was, it made me really happy.

00:15:07.040 And now there were girls who were developing crushes on me. And sometimes I would get girls

00:15:14.800 like confessing their feelings to me. Other times, there were some not so pleasant experiences with

00:15:21.760 them. Like I had girls who were, because I was a boy, they thought they could get away with like touching me,

00:15:28.400 or like, trying to get me to like, hug them or kiss them, without me wanting to do so. And

00:15:37.840 I think before I get into this, it's important to, for me, for me to mention that I had a fear of being sexually assaulted,

00:15:46.400 and it actually ended up happening while I was transitioning. And it was an incident I had in

00:15:55.520 eighth grade, where somebody who was bullying me throughout the school year actually went too far,

00:16:00.480 and looked me in the eyes, and groped one of my breasts. And this was before I was making an effort 0.97

00:16:08.320 to hide my chest. So they were visible. And that was what prompted me to start using

00:16:15.760 a compression device called a binder to hide my breasts, because I didn't want that to happen 1.00

00:16:20.080 ever again. And it just reaffirmed my belief that I had before that, in being a woman,

00:16:30.080 I was being vulnerable, especially to things like this, and that I would be in danger. And I wanted

00:16:36.400 to protect myself in doing so. But I didn't realize how much this sexual trauma played into my desire to

00:16:47.920 transition. And unconsciously, part of my motivation to continue transitioning was to avoid being sexually

00:16:58.880 assaulted ever again. But I actually experienced more sexual assault, while I was presenting and

00:17:05.280 being perceived as a boy, than I ever did as a girl.

00:17:11.520 Yeah, that's, that's extraordinary. And, you know, so you're on testosterone, you're supposed to feel

00:17:21.600 some sense of euphoria. And then, but you're also experiencing these challenges, you know, as a person

00:17:29.600 who's transitioned, you still have your breasts, you're still being perceived. I mean, I just, I just find

00:17:38.000 it extraordinary that, you know, while you're transitioning, the social dynamics around you,

00:17:43.600 that was also changing rapidly, right? The girls were interested in you, the boys saw you as one of

00:17:50.480 them. And, but, but, but tell me, Chloe, like, how strong was, was the feeling of gender dysphoria?

00:17:59.200 That, I mean, was it, I guess my question is, you know, why, why did the medical community,

00:18:04.880 you know, these are people who are supposed to take care of you, they're supposed to do no harm?

00:18:11.040 You know, why was it so easy for a doctor to just say and tell your parents that, that, you know,

00:18:17.520 you, you, you were experiencing strong gender dysphoria, and that you had to be put on this 0.99

00:18:23.680 transition, you had to put, be put on this path to transitioning?

00:18:28.240 It wasn't always like this. I mean, previous decades, especially with children, they used to

00:18:36.960 take the approach of just waiting and seeing how this condition progressed. And most of the time,

00:18:43.440 children would grow out of this, this feeling. But neither me nor my parents were informed of this.

00:18:49.280 And now the protocol is to incessantly affirm the feelings and whatever identity the patient has

00:19:00.400 over actually looking into why they are feeling this way, why they don't want to associate with

00:19:08.000 their own sex and the distress that this feeling might come from. And I live in California where they

00:19:16.880 have a law banning conversion therapy, but in the definition of conversion therapy, they include

00:19:24.560 gender identity. And if a doctor takes pretty much any other approach than affirming a patient's

00:19:34.960 perceived gender identity, then they could lose their license, because that's considered conversion therapy.

00:19:41.280 Mm hmm. So really, there was no other choice. It was a systemic failure all around.

00:19:52.320 Yeah, it most certainly sounds like it. And why? I mean, I know, you know, beyond saying that it was

00:19:58.720 systemic, it was systemic failure. What, what is it that the medical community gets out of, you know,

00:20:05.760 what, what, what are they gaining from this? You know, how do they come out of this? How do they

00:20:13.760 benefit from encouraging young people like you to go on puberty blockers and, and, and, and, you know,

00:20:22.000 and get, you know, a mastectomy and so on? Is it money? Is there a commercial angle to this? What's,

00:20:30.480 what's going on? Part of it is ideological. But it's also very profitable to put about to put a

00:20:41.680 patient on these treatments, especially the younger you go, the younger you sterilize a child. And 0.66

00:20:47.840 the more medications you put them on, the more surgeries they undergo, the more money you make

00:20:56.480 off of them. And especially once they're on hormones long enough, or once they get their sex 0.86

00:21:02.160 organs removed, their bodies are no longer capable of producing a healthy amount of sex hormones on

00:21:08.640 their own anymore. So they'll be, they'll be dependent on pharmaceuticals for life. And that's

00:21:17.040 not to mention that pretty much being on, on any of these treatments for an extended period of time

00:21:24.960 will guarantee that you'll experience some sort of serious complication down the line.

00:21:30.880 And more likely than not, they'll just prescribe you another medication for that.

00:21:35.360 And that's what happened with me. I haven't gotten my fertility checked, but I've had my period start

00:21:50.160 about two months after stopping testosterone. So I am hopeful that I'll be able to conceive,

00:21:54.720 but I don't know how things like my egg quality while were affected while I was supposed to be developing

00:22:01.280 or whether the lack of growth in my hips might affect my ability to vaginally birth. But

00:22:10.480 I, I remember in one of my appointments with my endocrinologist,

00:22:17.040 before I started on testosterone, she told me that I

00:22:22.000 would probably experience something called vaginal atrophy down the line.

00:22:27.040 And the way that was explained to me was that this is a condition that, um,

00:22:34.160 due to the lack of estrogen in the body, the walls of the vagina start to atrophy, meaning that 1.00

00:22:42.880 they get thinner over time. And this might make things like sex painful, and it might cause tearing or

00:22:53.680 bleeding, but it could be addressed by taking topical estrogen. And that was the route that I went.

00:23:01.440 But

00:23:05.440 I was 13 years old, and I wasn't sexually active yet, so I didn't really understand what any of this meant.

00:23:11.520 And it wasn't explained to me that this atrophy wasn't affecting this one organ. It was actually

00:23:22.400 the rest of the reproductive system and pretty much on the organs in the pelvic region. 0.93

00:23:30.240 And eventually, I actually started to experience complications with my urinary tract as well,

00:23:37.680 mostly UTIs, but also sometimes even like blood clots or clots of tissue in my urine.

00:23:47.600 And I, in the same appointment, she also told me that

00:23:52.160 being on the testosterone would probably affect my fertility as an adult, but I was still a kid.

00:23:59.520 I wasn't thinking about having kids of my own. I didn't know how important that would be to myself

00:24:05.360 yet. And so I just said, I'm fine with that. Because I didn't know how important that was to me.

00:24:15.920 And fertility preservation wasn't presented as an option to me either. But I thought that,

00:24:24.160 well, I mean, if I want to have kids of my own, then I could just do like IVF or surrogacy or something

00:24:30.560 like that, because we already have technologies like that. But I didn't understand then that it's

00:24:35.360 really not that simple. And that treatments like that come with a whole host of their own complications,

00:24:44.320 especially for the child. And I was at an age where I didn't know yet what things like ovulation

00:24:58.640 or cervix were yet. I didn't know what the fallopian tubes were. I didn't know that there were four stages

00:25:05.920 in the menstrual cycle. All I knew was that there is a period, and that after and before it begins

00:25:15.840 and stops, somehow I could get pregnant. And none of the adults who were supposed to help me understand

00:25:23.280 the risk of these treatments helped me to understand any of this. Something that, by being on these

00:25:31.040 treatments for an extended period of time, it would affect all those things.

00:25:39.600 So, yeah, I mean, it's just hard for me to process what you're saying and what you've been through.

00:25:48.160 It, it, it's just quite an extraordinary journey that you've been on and you continue to be on this.

00:25:57.200 And, you know, and I want to talk a little bit about your activism. But before we get to that,

00:26:02.960 you, you mentioned to me, you mentioned in some interviews that, that social media played a role

00:26:10.320 in introducing the idea of transitioning to you. Can you tell us how this happened? I mean,

00:26:16.880 how did, how did social media do this in shaping your understanding of your gender?

00:26:25.360 I mean, throughout a lot of elementary school, I was getting bullied. I found it really difficult

00:26:34.560 to socialize and get along with my peers and also to regulate myself emotionally.

00:26:41.040 And after I moved neighborhoods, I was back to square one with having no friends and finding it difficult

00:26:54.000 to build myself back up socially. And that was the same school year that my school district started

00:27:00.160 to roll out devices, laptops for all the students. And they allowed, they allowed the students to take

00:27:10.080 these devices home once they hit fifth grade. And they didn't really have any filters on these laptops

00:27:18.400 for a few years. And so you could access pretty much any website you wanted to.

00:27:22.240 And this sort of helped to foster the internet addiction that I had through a lot of my my childhood

00:27:31.840 and adolescence. But I ended up getting my first phone when I was 11 years old. And most of my other

00:27:41.600 peers already had one for a few years. And they were all using apps and websites like Instagram and Snapchat

00:27:50.000 and kick. And I wanted to see what I was missing out on. So naturally, I started making my own social

00:27:56.720 media accounts. And because I'd always been on the tomboyish side, there were a lot of I really like

00:28:05.600 things like like video games and certain shows and comics and other media. And so the the communities

00:28:13.840 that I browse on social media were mostly around those things. And I started noticing

00:28:26.720 that some of the members in these communities would sometimes they would make posts that weren't

00:28:32.240 really necessarily related to the media, but about their own personal lives. And a lot of these members

00:28:40.240 were young people, preteens to people in their early 20s, who identified with LGBT. And many of them were

00:28:54.720 transgender, young women, around my age, who identified as males.

00:29:00.960 And just hearing them talk about the way they felt around their bodies, and themselves as women,

00:29:16.320 and not really feeling like they are women.

00:29:24.560 I found it really relatable because growing up, I was a bit on the tomboyish side. And it was

00:29:30.480 especially difficult for me to to fit in with other kids and other girls. And I always felt like

00:29:37.360 there was something that was setting me apart from the other kids. And now it seemed like I had an

00:29:44.800 explanation for this feeling, why I was so different from from the other girls.

00:29:50.080 Why I didn't act like, or feel like, or I thought even look like the other girls.

00:30:04.160 And, I mean, throughout a lot of my development, that was something that was a huge source of pain for me.

00:30:11.040 And now I thought, I finally understood why. It was because I wasn't supposed to be one.

00:30:24.160 Before I came to this conclusion though, I kind of switched between a few labels, mostly like around my sexuality.

00:30:32.080 I thought that for a while, maybe I was bisexual, or maybe I was pansexual.

00:30:40.320 Maybe I just wasn't straight.

00:30:45.280 And then eventually that became, well, maybe it's not my sexuality that's the issue.

00:30:51.280 Maybe it's my gender because I've never totally felt like a girl. I don't even understand what

00:30:58.800 that's supposed to mean. But, you know, I've always felt like I related more to my older brothers

00:31:05.680 and my dad than I did my mom and my sisters. And I, the older I got, the less I wanted to associate

00:31:16.480 with things that were feminine.

00:31:20.880 Yeah, incredible. Because what you're describing is, you know, I went through that as a kid as well.

00:31:27.760 And, you know, some of what you're saying, you know, I was very much a tomboy. I didn't really

00:31:32.480 identify with girls. I didn't, mostly identified with male figures in my life. And I also partly

00:31:40.800 grew up in the Middle East where, you know, that time it was very unsafe for girls to be on their 0.98

00:31:48.160 own. And I experienced instances where men, you know, would try to touch you. And then I felt very

00:31:56.160 vulnerable and ashamed of my, the fact that I was a woman. I thought that as a girl, that if I were a

00:32:02.000 boy, nobody would touch me and I would be safe. And so I completely relate to what you're, you know,

00:32:08.560 with some of the stuff that you're saying. And it's just, I often wonder, you know, what if this,

00:32:15.520 this had been available to me at that time, you know, what would I have done? And I think, you know,

00:32:20.960 I just, I obviously I grew out of it. And as I got older, I started identifying more with,

00:32:27.760 you know, feminine things, but, but it is, you know, it is, I feel like it's, this is more common

00:32:35.280 than, than people realize it is. Right. And you would think the medical profession would be aware

00:32:41.600 of this, that, that this, this is, this is not a decision you can just make just on the fly. And

00:32:48.400 that, you know, you, you get a patient who is identifying strongly, you know, and, and then,

00:32:55.840 you know, it shouldn't be that easy to just then decide that this person is in need of this therapy.

00:33:02.160 Having spoken to other women who haven't transitioned these feelings, especially when you're growing up

00:33:11.760 around the fear of being a woman or not wanting to grow up into a woman from a girl. Yeah. 0.82

00:33:23.920 It's pretty common and a lot, if not most women experienced that growing up. Yeah. And there's

00:33:29.440 a lot of women out there who have tomboy phases. Some never grow out of it, but that's okay because 1.00

00:33:35.120 yeah, it doesn't make them a man. It just makes them unique.

00:33:38.800 I think you've hit the nail on the head here. I think part of what is missing from these

00:33:43.680 conversations is the fear of the challenges of being a girl, you know, challenges of, you know,

00:33:52.000 you know, being, being a girl, you know, when you're growing up and, you know, I'm sure boys have their

00:33:58.960 own challenges, but I feel like, you know, especially if you're a girl and you're growing up in a certain

00:34:03.600 kind of environment, you know, it's not easy. And I think that's completely missing from this

00:34:08.560 conversation, you know, or the conversations around gender dysphoria. We're not dealing with 0.78

00:34:14.560 the actual problem here.

00:34:15.840 That was a huge part of it for me. Yeah.

00:34:22.400 I grew up thinking that being a woman was only being going to be difficult.

00:34:28.560 That there wasn't really in it. There wasn't really anything in it for me that I didn't want

00:34:35.120 to get pregnant. I didn't want to have children of my own that I didn't want to go through the process,

00:34:39.760 the painful process of pregnancy or childbirth or having periods every month and eventually

00:34:46.240 going through menopause and being judged for aging. I didn't see any benefit this because

00:34:55.040 what I would hear from other women would always downplay the importance 0.98

00:35:01.120 and the gifts that all of these things really bring, because even if you don't want to have

00:35:07.920 children of your own, that's still something that's the ability to create life is something

00:35:13.760 that's sacred. It should be celebrated. But it was nothing that

00:35:23.440 was really explained to me growing up.

00:35:28.800 And

00:35:33.040 I often heard that boys have it easier, that boys are better, they're stronger, they're smarter,

00:35:39.520 they're faster, they're better in every way. And that the grass is greener on the other side. But

00:35:48.400 I mean, I'll never actually be a boy, of course, because I was born, I was conceived as a woman,

00:35:57.840 and no treatment could ever change that. But I mean, I passed quite well as the opposite sex.

00:36:06.880 And during that period of time in my life, I kind of got to have a glimpse at the hardships that men,

00:36:14.400 and especially young men face. And I feel like it can be a pretty lonely experience.

00:36:22.320 And while transitioning has caused irreversible harm to my body, and it's taken a lot of things for me that 0.99

00:36:36.080 I'll never get back. I think the one thing that I can appreciate about it is that it's really

00:36:46.080 opened my mind up, my eyes up

00:36:50.080 to the difficulties that men face. And it's helped me to appreciate the men in my life.

00:36:56.080 So give me some examples. I mean, what did you, you know, learn about the difficulties that young men face?

00:37:06.400 Well, socially, the structure is quite a bit different.

00:37:15.680 There is a bit of a hierarchy that I found it difficult to, uh,

00:37:26.320 to move up in, because I wasn't raised as a boy. And I didn't, there were a lot of

00:37:31.040 social nuances that I didn't really pick up on for a while. Because I didn't know that these were

00:37:42.560 things that I was going to face. And, um, it's a lot more difficult to be intimate

00:37:51.520 with your peers, with your friends or your family. And there's a lot that's expected of you emotionally.

00:37:58.400 You're supposed to bottle your emotions up and just be a man and take things as they are.

00:38:05.440 And there's not really a whole lot, a whole lot of room to,

00:38:08.960 to talk about your personal hardships or what you're going through.

00:38:11.680 Yeah. Um, so Chloe, you've, I want to talk a bit about your activism, uh, against, uh, gender 0.51

00:38:22.560 affirming care. Uh, you've been very vocal in your opposition to gender affirming care for minors.

00:38:30.000 Um, uh, even testifying in favor of legislation that would limit such care. Uh, can you tell us,

00:38:36.400 can you tell us why, why you believe minors and their parents should not be able to consent

00:38:41.600 to such care? Um, I mean, I wouldn't really call it care, but I would say that gender affirming care is

00:38:56.160 very much a misleading term. It's neither a form of care nor is it gender affirming because

00:39:05.840 if it were affirming a person's gender, it would be helping them to become comfortable in their own

00:39:13.520 sex, in their body, and to discover the underlying causes beneath the gender dysphoria and what's

00:39:22.400 the possible traumas and other issues that this feeling stems from.

00:39:30.400 Um, because a lot of these patients, they have some sort, some form of either sexual trauma or familial

00:39:41.120 trauma. And a lot of it comes from very, very early childhood. And even knowing this,

00:39:51.200 these providers often don't go into this, but oftentimes they'll have this information on file

00:39:56.400 and they won't do anything about it. They'll just treat it as a completely standalone issue.

00:40:03.200 But in psychology, I don't think that there's any part of the mind that isn't interconnected with the

00:40:09.600 rest. But about a year after I stopped transitioning, I decided that I started to,

00:40:21.200 to want speaking up. I started, I decided that I wanted to start speaking up about my experience,

00:40:27.040 having been through the process of transitioning and eventually detransitioning as a kid. And

00:40:35.520 my motivations in doing so were that I wanted to expose the transgender community and how

00:40:51.760 it takes vulnerable children and young adults and how it treats the people whose transitions are a

00:40:59.280 failure. But I also, um, wanted to highlight the experiences of children who have been through this

00:41:07.920 process. Because at the time I was active in communities online that were focused on detransition,

00:41:16.080 but most of the people in these communities were grown adults who had been through the process of

00:41:22.320 transitioning medically as adults. There weren't any children that I knew of at the time, but I knew that

00:41:32.480 if this happened to me, this must be happening to at least hundreds, if not thousands of other children.

00:41:41.840 Yeah.

00:41:42.320 But we might never know if nobody ever speaks up about it. And I felt the responsibility

00:41:47.760 to take that upon myself because I don't want what happened to me to happen ever again to any other

00:41:56.400 child, because this is never an appropriate treatment for children ever.

00:42:01.680 Yeah. No, you're doing extraordinary work in, uh, you know, in, and being a voice, uh, to,

00:42:07.680 for those who can't speak up and, um, you know, I, you know, I, you know, really, um, admire your courage,

00:42:15.920 uh, and as do a lot of people, um, I, I believe you're in a lawsuit right now. Um, how does your

00:42:22.240 experience with the medical system relate to the lawsuit that you filed? Can you tell us a bit about

00:42:27.440 that? Right. So I'm suing my healthcare provider, Kaiser Permanente, as well as my doctors, including my

00:42:38.000 surgeon who removed my breasts, my endocrinologist, my, my endocrinologist who put me on hormones and

00:42:43.360 blockers and the gender specialists who referred me to the surgery. And we're suing on the basis of

00:42:54.800 medical malpractice and fraud because they not only gave me the atrogenic treatments that caused me

00:43:04.240 harm. These treatments also failed to address, failed to resolve my gender dysphoria, and they

00:43:11.920 failed to diagnose the underlying causes beneath my gender dysphoria. And they lied to my parents that

00:43:18.960 there was no other option that these treatments would be beneficial in the long run, that if

00:43:26.320 I wasn't put on them, it was very likely that I would die. I would die from being unable

00:43:34.320 to transition. And we were withheld a lot of important information about these treatments

00:43:43.360 and about transition in general.

00:43:47.920 Did you, I mean, when, when the doctor is saying this to your parents, did your parents at any point,

00:43:53.360 like, or you, I mean, did you exhibit any suicidal tendencies for example?

00:43:57.520 No, no, I wasn't suicidal until after I started transitioning. And I don't believe I was in the

00:44:04.080 room for this either. I think this is an appointment that my parents were having one-on-one with the

00:44:08.720 doctors. I didn't know that was said until after I stopped transitioning and I had a conversation with

00:44:15.280 my parents about it. Wow. So you found out about this much later when, when, when, in fact, I would,

00:44:22.240 I would think that the, you know, of course, you know, hindsight is always 20-20 and, you know,

00:44:27.760 you can't go back into the past and change any of this stuff. But I would think that the obvious

00:44:32.560 question to you is Chloe, I mean, are, do you, do you feel like, do you have suicidal tendencies because

00:44:37.840 of the gender dysphoria that you're experiencing? And that would be an obvious question to ask someone

00:44:44.800 who's experiencing this, right? But was that, was that ever, did they ever, part of the psychiatric

00:44:51.360 evaluation that you had to undergo? Was that, was that a question that was ever posed to you?

00:44:58.480 I believe so. I mean, it was five or six years ago, so it's really quite difficult to remember. But, um,

00:45:10.080 I feel like

00:45:12.000 from what I can remember, the process of my diagnosis wasn't thorough enough. They

00:45:25.920 had on file that I previously had a diagnosis of ADHD that I had some very strong symptoms of autism

00:45:34.960 and other, and that I had social difficulties and that I had symptoms of a body image disorder.

00:45:46.640 But none of this was ever taken into consideration during the diagnosis or the treatment for my gender dysphoria.

00:45:54.320 Yeah. Yeah. I, you know, I know we, we say systemic failure, but I feel like there's something more, uh,

00:46:07.120 insidious happening here. Um, and, um, and what, what do you expect, uh, to, um, to get out of this lawsuit?

00:46:15.200 What is the message that you're trying to send, um, if, if the lawsuit, uh, goes your way?

00:46:24.480 I want to stop other doctors from ever performing these treatments on children ever again.

00:46:30.720 And I hope that in doing this, that I can create a precedent for other detransitioners and other people 1.00

00:46:39.200 who regret or have been harmed by these treatments to get the justice and care that they need for themselves.

00:46:48.880 Yeah. Uh, you, you mentioned, you've talked about your parents, uh, in other interviews and, you know,

00:46:54.640 you, you've made it very clear that you don't blame them and that they were under intense social pressure

00:47:00.480 to consent to the treatment and the surgery. Um, what, what do you think parents, um, you know,

00:47:07.120 who are listening, uh, to this, you know, um, you know, what, what do you think the role of parents

00:47:12.720 in these decision decisions should be? Uh, and what, what, what do you think should be done to support them?

00:47:23.200 It's a really difficult thing to hear about your child coming from these, these doctors,

00:47:34.560 these people who should be the professionals in the situation, who you should be able to trust that if

00:47:44.800 you don't let your child make this life altering decision,

00:47:48.720 then their blood is going to be on your own hands as a parent.

00:47:54.720 But these doctors are basically using emotional manipulation tactics,

00:48:01.840 tactics, tactics employed by abusers, to dupe these parents into letting their kid

00:48:10.240 create the own course, create the course of their own treatment.

00:48:13.520 And when it comes down to it, this whole thing is based on lies and pseudoscience.

00:48:25.280 And as a parent, you have,

00:48:31.200 you have to, um, be logical while also being emotionally available to your children,

00:48:38.800 letting them know that you love them as they are, that the issue is not their bodies or the way that

00:48:46.160 they were born. It's the way that they perceive their body in their own mind. And that is what needs

00:48:52.960 to change, not the way that they look, not the way that their form is, but how they feel about it.

00:48:58.560 Yeah.

00:49:01.760 But you have to remember that

00:49:08.800 you have to uphold reality and you can't affirm your child's perceived identity.

00:49:16.640 I think it's abuse to let a child believe that they were in fact born in the wrong body,

00:49:22.160 that this isn't the way that they're supposed to be.

00:49:23.840 And it's been established for years and you don't need to be an expert to understand that

00:49:36.240 you're born either male or female and that nothing can change that and that there's nothing wrong with

00:49:42.720 that. We're born the way that we're meant to be. God made us the way we are for a reason.

00:49:47.840 And that's okay. That's beautiful. And it's to be appreciated. And these differences between men and

00:49:56.400 women are to be celebrated because we're not rivals or counterparts. 0.97

00:50:03.360 Yeah. And that truly would be gender affirming in a real sense.

00:50:07.040 You know, I want to ask you about the process of detransitioning. We know what transitioning involves.

00:50:19.920 What happens when you stop taking these drugs, these injections? You know, what is your body going through

00:50:28.720 as a result?

00:50:29.360 I didn't really get any guidance on how I should have went off of hormones. So I pretty much just

00:50:42.640 went off in the cold turkey. It was just one final shot, no tapering of doses. I just couldn't stand

00:50:51.120 taking those medications anymore and seeing how it was changing my body and me as a person.

00:50:59.360 But going off of it cold turkey presented a lot of difficulty for me.

00:51:09.360 Both in terms of my physical and mental health, it became really difficult to regulate myself

00:51:16.880 emotionally because of the extreme hormonal imbalance in my body. And I would have really

00:51:25.280 severe episodes. And I think emotionally that was rock bottom for me. That was the worst I'd ever been

00:51:36.160 in my life. And it was really difficult for me to get out of. And it was affecting all my relationships.

00:51:42.080 I pretty much didn't have any friends by the time that I was in my senior year.

00:51:45.360 And physically, it made me really sickly. I had a lot of colds. I didn't really have much

00:51:59.120 in the way of an appetite. So I dropped about 20-25 pounds within two months. And I became underweight.

00:52:09.360 And the UTI-like symptoms started to worsen for a while. And that was when the tissue

00:52:20.480 started to appear in my urine. And it's since disappeared. I've tried to reach out to

00:52:25.040 like an OBGYN, a EuroGYN to try and figure out what was going on with my body. But they didn't respond

00:52:35.040 quickly enough. And it was hard to get a physical appointment with these people. And they often just

00:52:43.200 like made diagnosis that were pretty much just assumptions over email based off of my symptoms

00:52:52.560 without really any sort of examination. And so I was prescribed antibiotics, or I was recommended

00:53:00.080 to take some other medication. But they never really got to the root cause of whatever this was. And so I

00:53:12.720 just, I guess, because now that it's gone, now that it's resolved, I'll never know.

00:53:17.200 Yeah. And my having reached out to my gender specialists, I just found like I wasn't really

00:53:29.440 getting any help psychologically. And at one point, she even told me like that this regret

00:53:37.600 I had from transitioning was just another part of my gender journey. Absolutely disgusting, 1.00

00:53:43.120 just totally dismissive of everything that I'd been through. And my surgeon, um, I reached out to

00:53:50.800 because for almost a year now, as of now, I've had this serious complication from the skin grafts that

00:54:02.320 they used in my mastectomy. They've started to leak fluid, and I have to wear bandages over my chest

00:54:08.080 every day because of this. And it won't stop. And I have no idea what it is. I've tried to, I got an

00:54:15.920 appointment with him. And the whole time he was very dismissive of me and my concerns. And his advice

00:54:24.560 was just to put Vaseline on the wound and keep covering it with bandages. And in doing so, it actually

00:54:30.400 caused me to have a skin infection. And that was the last time I went to him. I just can't bring myself

00:54:42.640 to go back. I can't trust that any of these people are going to help me now.

00:54:47.680 Is that, is your experience, uh, de-transitioning and, you know, and this, this kind of care, um,

00:54:54.640 which is not really care, uh, is that, is that, uh, uh, uh, representative of, uh,

00:55:00.400 the experiences of other de-transitioners that they, you know, they're experiencing these issues

00:55:05.360 and they, they're not really getting the help that they need, uh, to deal with it?

00:55:11.520 Um, yeah, I mean, I've spoken to a lot of other de-transitioners, um, and this seems to be a pretty 1.00

00:55:18.800 common theme in that after stopping transition, you pretty much just get put, kicked to the side

00:55:27.200 by your own doctors who helped you to get these treatments. And they pull a complete 180 on you

00:55:36.000 saying like, oh, well, we don't really have any, any data on patients like you or, oh, I've never had

00:55:42.560 a patient like you. So I'm either not sure how to treat you or I'm just going to outright refuse to

00:55:50.000 treat you. Um, and I mean, there's no codes in place in healthcare for people who stop transitioning

00:55:59.840 or regret their transition or have had some sort of complication from these treatments.

00:56:06.160 So there's nothing for doctors to really abide by when deciding how to treat us.

00:56:13.040 I want to ask you a question about your, uh, activism. Um, you know, you've, um, aligned yourself

00:56:20.160 with some would say some controversial figures like Marjorie Taylor Greene. Um, can you tell us

00:56:26.160 why you chose to work with these individuals and, um, and you know, as, as a young person,

00:56:32.560 what, what is it like to navigate these political landscapes for you?

00:56:39.840 I don't necessarily share all the views of people I work with, but I'll work with anybody

00:56:48.240 who's willing to stand against the mutilation and sterilization and abuse of thousands of children,

00:56:54.960 whether they're Democrats or Republicans or on the left or on the right. It doesn't matter to me because

00:57:02.880 well, I guess you'd say that politics would be the water in which I'll say I'll sail my ship.

00:57:14.080 Yeah. It's not an issue that is political. It's been politicized. The left has managed to make it a

00:57:21.840 political issue, but at heart, this is about children and it's about family and upholding reality.

00:57:30.560 And that's something that anybody should stand for no matter whatever side they're on.

00:57:37.200 Well, it's something that will affect all of us. And it is.

00:57:40.320 Yeah. And what is the appropriate age according to you for someone to transition or do you believe

00:57:44.880 that transitioning per se should just be banned? What if you're say 22, 23 years old or something, 1.00

00:57:51.600 you're an adult and you decide that, you know, I've given this enough time, I'm still,

00:57:58.480 you know, feeling a strong gender dysphoria. I, and I think I'm an adult now and I am an adult now.

00:58:06.160 So I'm going to do this. What would you say to that? I mean, you oppose, clearly you oppose it for

00:58:14.160 children, but what, what about adults and what age do you think you have to be to make that kind of

00:58:20.080 decision for your body?

00:58:24.160 Um, I don't think it's ever appropriate for anybody under the age of 18, but I think 0.65

00:58:32.720 even for those under the age of 25 it's for most people, it's not going to be an appropriate choice

00:58:45.840 for them to be able to make because you're still quite young. And I think in order to make a decision

00:58:55.840 on this, because this is going to affect every single area of your life. And it's going to affect

00:59:00.640 the way that you experience your family, your familial, romantic, sexual, platonic, and work

00:59:08.720 relationships. It's going to affect the way that you experience sexuality down to the way that you

00:59:16.400 experience orgasms or sexual attraction and your fertility and the way that you think and socialize.

00:59:24.720 That is a lot to expect

00:59:26.320 that of somebody who is so young. It takes a lot of experience in the world. A lot of years lived.

00:59:37.440 And knowledge, not only around these topics, but around things like family and having children.

00:59:47.440 And I don't think that for most people under the age of 25 that they'll be able to make a decision

00:59:59.360 on this with informed consent. It takes a lot. And it doesn't necessarily mean that you have to

01:00:08.400 be a certain age. As soon as you turn 18 you can transition. It takes a lot of

01:00:12.560 a lot of introspection and a lot of proper psychological evaluation to be able to make this choice.

01:00:23.760 Because a lot of the time these issues,

01:00:25.520 gender dysphoria is accompanied by childhood familial or sexual trauma or learning disorders or other

01:00:42.080 conditions such as autism, ADHD, depression, anxiety, social anxiety, body image disorders,

01:00:49.680 cluster B personality disorders, and the list goes on.

01:00:55.440 Yeah. You know, you touched upon something earlier in the conversation we spoke about,

01:01:02.560 you know, what is the motivation here? Is it commercial? And you said, I think it's commercial,

01:01:08.000 but it's also ideology. What is this ideology? I mean, what, again, is the end goal of this ideology?

01:01:15.680 Like when I think about ideology, like I'm thinking of communism, for example,

01:01:20.400 it has a very specific goal. What is the ideology here at play? You know, and what are they hoping to

01:01:27.680 achieve by creating a population of transgender people? You know, what is to be gained?

01:01:36.960 I think it's just another part of the breakdown of family and the devaluation of men and women in their

01:01:50.480 natural roles. While gender ideology supposedly seeks to make gender expression more open and to not enforce

01:02:03.680 gender roles by encouraging transition in individuals who are just naturally gender conforming. You're

01:02:15.040 pretty much strictly adhering to those gender roles by saying, on one hand, there are no differences between

01:02:21.440 the sexes. But on the other hand, those differences are so vast that

01:02:25.520 that if you're not completely like, if you don't act or behave completely as expected of your sex,

01:02:36.560 that you're actually of the other sex. But you'll notice that a lot of these children who identify as

01:02:47.280 transgender, many of them are not particularly close with their own parents. Not only are they gender 0.51

01:02:57.360 non-conforming, which I don't think is a bad trait in itself. And it doesn't necessarily mean that you

01:03:04.960 are of the other sex. But a large part of it for me, and a lot of my friends who were trans, I think,

01:03:14.560 was that both of our parents, our mothers and our fathers were in the working force. And so our mothers

01:03:25.920 didn't really have much time, were very busy. They didn't have very much time to spend with their own

01:03:33.760 children and foster that sort of connection at home, which is very important for a developing child.

01:03:41.600 And a lot of parents now, in general, they're not really as engaged in the lives of their own

01:03:53.120 children now. They're often very tired from work. And so they're more interested in, say, watching TV,

01:04:04.000 or spending time with other adults or resting. But they don't really make time

01:04:09.040 time to spend with their own children. And they're letting the screen parent their own kid.

01:04:16.160 And because of that, their kids are getting exposed to content such as pornography,

01:04:23.760 which is indicated in a lot of girls' body image disorders, as well as these online communities that 1.00

01:04:33.200 are seemingly innocent, but are breeding grounds for things like sexual grooming, or in my case,

01:04:44.560 the transgender community. I wasn't directly exposed to the transgender community at first.

01:04:52.080 It happened for me through fan bases around video games and cartoons that I liked.

01:05:01.360 It's very subtle, but a lot of the internet can be a very dangerous place, especially for somebody

01:05:08.880 who has a mind that's still developing. And there's that sort of generational difference

01:05:14.640 that a lot of older people really aren't aware of.

01:05:19.360 I mean, it's even, you know, it's even bad for adults, I think. I mean, it's a dangerous place,

01:05:28.800 even for, you know, I sometimes get sucked into a certain kind of thinking because of something that

01:05:35.280 I've viewed on Twitter, or, you know, in a certain kind of, in a certain world, and it gets sucked into

01:05:43.280 that world. So it, you know, just imagine what it would be for a young person. Yeah, right. It's,

01:05:49.280 it's easy, especially when you have an impressionable, an impressionable mind, you get sucked into some

01:05:54.800 sort of ideology. Right. I mean, in a lot of these spaces, there is a lot of antinatalist,

01:06:03.360 anti-mother, anti-parenthood, anti-family ideology. And that was part of what affected my view of what

01:06:11.040 being a woman would be like, because it was like, a lot of the feminist dogma that I was being exposed 1.00

01:06:17.840 to on websites like Instagram and Tumblr, would talk about how painful the female experience is, 1.00

01:06:25.920 how horrific and useless things like pregnancy and childbirth were. And sometimes they would even

01:06:32.960 describe the fetus in the mother's womb as some sort of parasite that was just feeding off of the

01:06:43.120 body of the mother, rather than a symbiotic relationship. And things like that made it very,

01:06:54.640 very, it made me very, very afraid of becoming a woman and eventually experiencing those things for

01:06:59.440 myself. The terminology that they would use, the way, the horrific, disgusting way that they would

01:07:08.640 describe processes like pregnancy, and even just being a mother in general, it was very, very anti-woman.

01:07:18.480 And it would often, a lot of it would sort of ridicule, not only these processes,

01:07:25.360 but mothers and their own, their own families, and the traditional role of the woman. 1.00

01:07:35.760 And

01:07:38.800 even being feminine, doing things like shaving, or wearing makeup, or just going out and presenting

01:07:47.520 yourself femininely. I had a lot of shame around these things because I was actually very hyper-feminine

01:07:55.200 when I was a very young child. And I actually got bullied for it a little bit by boys. And so I

01:08:01.600 stopped presenting that way. And seeing stuff like that further reinforced it. It told me that,

01:08:06.720 no, I shouldn't be this way. I shouldn't want to be girly or a mother.

01:08:13.600 Yeah, well, I can completely relate to that. You know, a final question for you,

01:08:19.760 Chloe, because I know you, you know, you're, you're very busy and, and you need to get to other things.

01:08:26.960 You know, since you've begun speaking, speaking up, and, you know, and, you know, and through your

01:08:33.440 activism, how do, have, you know, has there been a growing community of D transitioners who've come to

01:08:41.440 you and, and, you know, and spoken to you about their own experiences? And, you know, do they, I'm sure

01:08:48.800 they see you as a role model, but you know, what, you know, what's next for you?

01:08:56.400 Yeah, I, since I've started speaking out, I've met a lot of other D transitioners, especially 0.55

01:09:06.560 other girls who have been through the medical transition process, while they were still children,

01:09:12.720 adolescents. And there's been a few people who've told me like, thank you so much for speaking up,

01:09:18.480 like you've helped me to, to garner the courage to be able to speak out about my own experience.

01:09:26.400 And I've actually met quite a few of these people in person, and it's been, it's been a wonderful

01:09:34.160 experience. And I'm really, I'm really thankful that I've, that I had, that I even had this opportunity to

01:09:41.600 not only talk about my own experience and advocate for other people in the situation, but to meet other

01:09:50.320 people who know this pain and to foster each other's growth and to help everybody heal from this.

01:10:00.400 Yeah. I mean, that's extraordinary. You're doing that at, at the age of 18. And, you know, I know,

01:10:06.800 I know these decisions, I know what's, what's happened to you, you know, is irreversible in some

01:10:13.680 sense. And, but I, but hopefully through your activism and you speaking out, you're not just a

01:10:19.520 role model for people in the de-transitioning community. I think you're a role model for everybody,

01:10:24.560 really. And I, I, you know, including, including for someone like me, I, you know, I just applaud your

01:10:32.320 courage and, you know, for speaking out on a very emotional and complex issue. You're wise beyond,

01:10:38.560 beyond your years. And, and I, you know, and I just wish you all the very best for whatever is coming up

01:10:45.200 next. Good luck with the lawsuit. And I really want to thank you for coming on to the show and sharing

01:10:51.440 your experience, your very powerful experience with us. And I hope you'll be back on again soon.

01:10:58.480 Thank you very much. Thank you. You take care. You too.

Juno News - May 25, 2023

‘Former trans kid’ leads fight against gender ideology (Ft. Chloe Cole)

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript