The terrible cost of transitioning comes later
Episode Stats
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148.94139
Summary
Faith Groulo and Kelly Lynn Pirrie share their story of transitioning to present themselves as males, regretting it, and coming back to life as their natural self. They discuss the dangers of drugs and surgeries, and how to detransition.
Transcript
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Good evening, Western Standard viewers, and welcome to Hannaford, a weekly politics show.
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My guests this week are Faith Groulo and Kelly Lynn Pirrie. And before I go any further,
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I should warn viewers that some of this may be hard to watch. Faith and Kelly Lynn
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are women who transitioned to present themselves as males, regretted it, and have transitioned
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back again. The experience has been difficult, painful, and a profound well of regret for both
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of them. And they are not back where they started. That is, it is not now all as if it had never
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happened. For the benefit of others, however, they join me today to tell their stories.
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Faith, Kelly Lynn, welcome to the show. Thank you.
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Faith, can I start with you? Just tell us, please, what happened?
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So I was gender questioning by about 15 years old. I had found a show called I Am Jazz. And so science
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was telling me that this little boy could be a little girl. And I believed that the doctors
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wouldn't do it if it wasn't okay. So I was justified in my thinking that going against
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my religious family was okay, that their concerns were just because they were old fuddy duddies
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and they didn't know what they were talking about. So by 16, I was seeing doctors and I was given
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puberty blockers. By 17 and 18, I had been approved for top surgery and I was given testosterone,
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which is the cross-sex or wrong sex hormone for me. And by 18, I had aged out of the clinic because
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it was specifically for youth. So the doctors who diagnosed me and prescribed my medications did not
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follow up with me. I was deemed a successful transition to them. However, by 2020, because of
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COVID, the testosterone I was getting, they ran out of the vials. So I had to get a more expensive
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medication that I couldn't afford. So I was changing medications without much supervision.
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And then it was changing the dosage as well, without much supervision. By 22 years old, I realized
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I didn't need to rush and I really wasn't using it consistently. So I stopped all medications.
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And I, around 23, 24, found some information that basically solidified the idea to me that my
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doctors didn't really know what they were doing, essentially allowed me to diagnose myself
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incorrectly and just affirmed that rather than actually questioning any of it. And so I began to
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detransition April of this year, actually, and started to come back out as my natural self.
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Stopping all medications and no longer further pursuing any surgical or chemical changes.
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And I believe you told me earlier that you had not had any kind of surgery.
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Okay. Kelly Lynn, can I ask you then, please, what's your story?
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I grew up, I'm an adult who lives with a history of childhood sexual exploitation. In that house,
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there was a lot of abuse, drugs, and alcohol. When my mother left her pedophile husband,
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he went to jail for sexually interfering with me. Then she got back together with my biological dad. He
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also was an alcoholic. My 20s, my 30s were cycles of drugs, alcohol, sobriety, relapse, and just circling
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in that. In my early 30s in 2002, I got clean and sober. And in that process, the degree of social
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anxiety, the discomfort I was living in women's support recovery, and it felt like the emotions
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of the people around me were just happening to me. And I met some individuals who were transitioning
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themselves. And I was asking them about it. And they're like, oh, people who question,
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like, you're wondering if you really are a woman. And the only people who are trans question that.
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And then when I spoke with my drug and alcohol counselor about that, she was in what's called
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the affirmation model. So she affirmed that, of course, a man living in a sport recovery house
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would be incredibly uncomfortable. It wasn't about my, like, I look back now and I realize that I
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wasn't able to regulate my emotions around so many other people. So I was constantly trying to control
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the other women. So just affirming my discomfort with my sex as it being about
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the envy I had for men was this feeling of being a male.
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Okay. I think, I think a lot of women do see advantages in being male. You have obviously both
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looked at it from a male point of view, as well as a female view. How would you answer them if they
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said to you, oh, so I want to be a man because, and then cited off all these advantages that they
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perceive. I start again with you. I would first ask if they know all of the risks,
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truly of what they might be doing to themselves, which unfortunately you can't possibly because we
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haven't had proper clinical trials. So nobody really knows long term what happens to kids who are
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on these drugs. And any information we have is not too great. And how about, how would you answer
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them, Kelly? What motivates men to do the things they do to make the sacrifices they make for their
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career is very different than what motivates women. I learned that during my years as a long-haul
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trucker. I was in a specialized industry where 90 percent of my colleagues were men.
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So you were a truck driver as a woman? No, when I looked like a man, when I had a six-inch beard,
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all of my co-workers thought I was a man. I really learned that men and women think very differently
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about stuff. I'd worked there for about five years and one of my colleagues commented that you realize,
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my legal name then was Kenneth. So he's like, you realize, Ken, that we are all very afraid of you.
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And I'm like, why? I'm like, so calm, so easy going. He's like, exactly. No one has even seen you
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mildly upset. So they were convinced that if they ever upset me, I would just explode because I've
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never been in the hierarchy and figuring out where guys get mildly upset and aggressive towards each
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other and they figure out where they are in the QE. And of my 45 co-workers, nobody knew where I was in
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the QE. So it was a moment of going, men think about things very differently than women do. Even
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looking like a man, even being on testosterone, I didn't understand their world and their worldview.
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I don't want to make light of this in any way, but who knew? This is such an important decision
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that especially a young person would make, that you've told us that the doctors didn't give you
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very good advice. You've said that your parents were, you described them as old-fashioned fuddy-duddies who
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went to church. I can imagine what their advice to you would have been. And then you mentioned a
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program that you had seen, a jazz or something. I am jazz. I am jazz. What is that? So jazz Jennings
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is an individual who was transitioned when they were younger. Born a boy, about two years old. Mom saw
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little boy dressing in dresses, playing dress up with his sisters, and said, oh dear, he must be a girl.
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And ended up taking him to doctors who transitioned him at a very, very young age, started
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re-blockers, gave the cross-sex hormones, eventually had surgeries. This was all televised on TLC.
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All of it. All of the surgeries. A 17-year-old little kid. So it, that made it seem very, very normal and
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commonplace. Not only that doctors were doing this surgery, but it was being televised like it was
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nothing, you know. And jazz seems extremely happy in these videos, for the most part, because that's
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how it's supposed to be portrayed. Where is he now? Yeah, there's been some emotional issues.
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Even in the shows nearing the end of it, it was seeming like this poor kid didn't know who they were,
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and didn't feel like themselves. And mom just kept saying, oh no, it's okay. You're exactly who we say
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you are. Don't worry about it. It's okay. Like, there was no attempt at dealing with the emotional
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distress. It was just continue affirming whatever's been done. And that's just, you know, you can only
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do that for so long. So he's a physiologically mature, 20, early 20s, right? I think he's 19, 20.
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Yeah, I believe he's younger than I am. Unable of experiencing arousal. Like, neurologically
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incapable from the drugs and the surgery. So cannot mate bond with another human being.
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Well, that would seem to be, first of all, I think the scope and scale of this is that around about
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the five-year period from 2018 to 2023, according to the government of Canada, there were 600
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young women under the age of 18 who had sexual reassignment surgery, roughly half of which
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How does it... What is available to... I think we do the surgery under the provincial health programs,
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but if you want to go back, do they help you do that? No? Okay. So you're... What sort of expenses
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are you involved with to transition back to a woman you were? Well, what's called breast restoration surgery,
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I cannot access in British Columbia without the approval of the Trans Care BC. So my doctor will be...
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I'm in the stage of getting the paperwork together. My doctor will send an application into Trans Care BC,
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the people in charge of transitioning, to request that I be allowed to have access to surgery to
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restore the appearance of having breasts, because I had a complete bilateral mastectomy in 2008.
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What are the physiological effects when you transition? What do you experience? How does your...
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How does your way of life change? And then how does it change again when you transition back?
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Now, you were just on the... You were just on the chemicals. I'm going to ask you about yours in a
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moment. How does it go? Essentially, for me, I had already started puberty by the time I was 16.
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So they shouldn't have given me puberty blockers anyway. And so when they did,
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it completely interrupted the puberty I had already started going through. I went through menopause.
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I was then given testosterone, which is a known carcinogen, and it forces you to go through a
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male-like puberty, which I got a deeper voice. My facial hair and body hair started growing in darker
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and thicker. I gained more muscle mass, and it was distributed differently than it would be for a woman,
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which made me fit differently in clothes. But the problem is male clothes still didn't fit properly
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because I had the bone structure of a woman because I didn't get the puberty blockers before puberty.
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So that didn't really help anything. My balance actually went funny because if you're on puberty
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blockers and testosterone, your breasts essentially deflate. And I was also using a chest binder,
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so it made them squish down. So my center of balance actually got shifted. Puberty blockers,
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because I did not finish out my puberty properly, it stunted my physical growth,
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my emotional and mental growth. It actually keeps you stuck in a teenage-like state mentally,
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because you don't grow up to be able to make those long-term decisions because you're suppressing
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all of the hormones that are supposed to help you do that. With me, I actually was fortunate. I ended up
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going off of the blockers a little early because I was on birth control, which did something similar,
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but the doctors still didn't really know what they were doing. Just kind of let me do what I wanted
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and experiment on myself. And so when I went off of the puberty blockers, my system kind of kick-started
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again a little bit. So then I came out of menopause, got to go through it backwards again.
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And then once I was off of testosterone, I ended up trying to finish out puberty. I'm still in the midst
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of doing that in my 20s. And I'm realizing my joints haven't fused properly. I may have incontinence
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issues because I've gone in and out of menopause now. And so my pelvic floor may be weakened. I may
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have liver problems, potentially. That's a common side effect now. That's the testosterone, yes.
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And then there's also the option of the spinal cord doesn't fuse properly all the time. And so there
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are people who get compression fractures because of that, because they're not getting the proper hormones
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in there. I may also be infertile, but we don't know that until I actually try to have kids.
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I'm very optimistic that I'm fortunate enough not to be. But, you know, we don't actually know until I
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try it. But yeah. And I'm one of the luckier ones. Like I have come out essentially unscathed in a lot
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of instances compared to that. So, you know, I'm sure the worst case for those who did not come out
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unscathed in a few words, what? So there were some people that I was transitioned at the same
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time as who have now since attempted to detransition or desist, but the government would only cover the
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actual tissue removal. If you didn't have the money to cover the reconstruction part, then you're a girl
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now with no breasts or nipples. Some of them also will have hysterectomy. Some of them will have
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a phallus made. There is someone in the States, Scott Nugent, what they go by, born a female,
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was transitioned as an adult, made these decisions as an adult, and through all of the surgeries ended
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up with horrendous infections that almost killed them several times, are now still killing them. The
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forearm that the phallus was made out of is now not functional properly, and they get chronic
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infections in the arm and the hand that's attached to that arm, they may have to lose that as well.
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And these are decisions that an adult made, and now we're giving those complications to children.
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Good gracious. Yes. Were you ever suicidal? Yes. They weaponized that completely. So
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were you suicidal because you wanted to be a different gender, or were there other issues?
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There were several other issues that were overlooked. So those issues were not properly diagnosed,
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and you were allowed against the wishes of your parents, who would have been the most interested in
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in your welfare. Do teachers have a role in this at all?
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Fortunately not, but I was surrounded by a lot of people who were very into the affirmation model,
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and our teachers had the signs of it's a safe space and all inclusion, and there were actually several
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trans individuals in the schools that I was around. So I was exposed to it, but then there was also a local group
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of there was one trans adult and a supportive adult. They had a youth group, basically, like a support
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group for gender questioning or trans youth, and it was specifically for 17 and under.
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Is there anybody who could have headed you off from the course of action that you took?
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Is it that they don't know or that they don't care? I presume don't care. Don't care to know.
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I see. Kelly Lynn, you've heard Faith's story, probably not for the first time. What's your
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comment on what she experienced that you reflect upon your own experience?
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Well, in a similar way as an adult, there's so much information they didn't give me.
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Like they didn't tell me that, they told me that taking testosterone, I'd have the same health risks
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as a male, as any other male, actually. Women on testosterone, especially with me, I have obesity.
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I have a highly elevated risk of type 2 diabetes, which I now have and I'll live with for the rest
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of my life. They didn't talk about how our secondary sex...
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Can I stop you there? Were these doctors in general practice or are these specialists in this field?
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Yes. They would have known and they should have...
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Yeah, they should have informed me and discussed with me because I already had...
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I asked, what are the health risks? And I was specifically going to an endocrinologist because
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I already had hypothyroidism, which is considered an autoimmune disease and type 2 diabetes is also
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considered an autoimmune disease. So the proper course of action when a doctor is prescribing a new
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medication or a medication off-label, when they observe something out of the normal, is to inform
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the pharmaceutical company that owns the patent. This is what I'm seeing in my patient population.
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It appears that that is not happening as it's intended to happen in this field. And the WPATH files
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indicated the degree to which WPATH discourages the endocrinologist, it trains,
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from doing this because they were actually discussing instances of liver cancer in females taking
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We are almost out of time, which is a dreadful shame because this is a deep, very, very deep subject.
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what you think of the legislation recently put before the Alberta legislature which would restrict
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children under the age of 18 from receiving the first of all surgery and I think under the age of 17
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from receiving the kind of chemical interventions that you yourself received.
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Are we doing a good thing here or are we sentencing frustrated young people to kill themselves because
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I believe the legislations would have helped because the doctors would have been forced to
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do a proper cognitive assessment. And if the doctors actually treat the suicidal ideation and the root
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cause of that, for one, a lot of these kids may not even be trans in the first place. And the ones who
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are will learn how to live well-rounded lives before they even have to get any chemicals.
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So by the time you were 18, you might not have wanted to do this?
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No, absolutely. I wasn't even sure when I went in. I simply just said to my doctors,
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hey, I saw this thing online. I think this might be what it is, but you're the expert. So like,
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let me know, do the testing and all that and figure it out. But they didn't test me properly.
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You don't just let somebody walk in and say, I have cancer. Can I have chemo? You don't give them
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chemo. You have to do a test first. But if you don't properly test them and just hand them out
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all the time, like the other thing as well, me getting these drugs when I wasn't supposed to have
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them, people who actually needed them now can't have them. So what kind of a test would have been
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appropriate for you? Knowing I had other mental health issues, not presuming that
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me being sexualized when I was young was just happenstance, because that seems to be a common
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theme. And they just bring it into the diagnostics as well, saying that just seems to be a theme.
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That's OK, though. You're still trans. And it's like, I wasn't, though. And if they can make a mistake
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once, they can make a mistake again. And that's just unfortunate. They need to have a better system there.
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Youth need an opportunity to pause and to think. As an adult, I thought I was informed. I had no idea
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how politicized the trans lobby has made research. And I am pleased to support the
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policies of Premier Daniel Smith and her government and her stance to end the bullying,
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especially in regards to the doctors and the researchers and the state of the research,
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that there will once again be open debate about what's going on in the medical field and
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Look, I think you two are incredibly brave to take your stories public and to stand out in the open
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and tell them, knowing that there could very well be people who are militantly opposed to what you are
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now, the message that you are now trying to put out. What is the name of your organization?
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The hardest part of getting something started is
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we are told that it would be better death before de-transition. So it's this idea that we are
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shameful for existing. I've been told telling my story is a threat to trans healthcare.
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So there's a real effort to silence our voices.
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There was a trans advocate at the rally the first weekend in November who was saying that
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de-transitioners' voices shouldn't even be heard on this issue.
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Well, that's a pretty common reaction from the left when they hear something that they can't answer.
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One last question that I know some of our viewers are going to want to know are things with mum and dad.
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My father actually passed away in about 2021, but I was able to be very close with him beforehand.
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And my mum and I are getting significantly closer.
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Okay. Kelly Lynn, Faith, thank you very much for joining us today and being as open and frank
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about your personal stories as they are. This is one of the issues of our day.
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It won't last forever because these kinds of things don't.
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There's something else and heaven only knows what it'll be.
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But for today, you are voices for a reason and I don't suppose the premier of the province minds at all.
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But you're saying if this set of rules have been in place in Ontario, you wouldn't be in this position today.
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But if we Über die and have been for today, hold on for your past.
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It's really hard for everyone for the five years.
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