Wearing a black cowboy hat, a red “America First” T-shirt, and a silver cross, you would never know Matt Rey was born female.
At 24, Rey transitioned from female-to-male (FTM). Now 32, Rey is experiencing serious health complications resulting from an overprescription of testosterone and a mastectomy.
Rey is part of a growing number of “detransitioners” returning to the gender of their birth—now warning youth considering “gender-affirming care” not to do it. “While I understand transition does not go badly for everyone, many trans people can have health complications later in life. If you are young, please don’t do this to yourself. Transitioning is NOT for kids. Parents, don’t do this to your children! The risks are too high,” Rey wrote on Twitter.
“Gender-affirming care,” which includes the administration of hormones and sex reassignment surgery, is claimed by advocates to save lives, however, this proposed remedy may actually be what’s driving the high mortality rate in the transgender community.
Authors of a recent Danish study of transgender suicide wrote: “Transgender individuals may be exposed to systemic negativity regarding their trans identity in the form of bullying, discrimination, exclusion, and prejudice, which in turn may result in alienation and internalized stigma, mental health problems, and, ultimately, suicidal behavior.”
The Lure of Incentivized ‘Gender-Affirming Care’
Rey experienced gender dysphoria at a young age. “When I was 5, my mom walked me over to the girls’ clothing section and she was looking at girly outfits. I was looking at the boys section, and wondering why she wasn’t taking me there,” Rey told The Epoch Times.
As a confused and isolated teenager, Rey looked to the internet for answers. FTM individuals who shared glamorous stories about transitioning convinced Rey that a new identity was the solution to happiness.
Turning to the gender identity clinic at the Tavistock Institute in the UK, Rey was surprised to learn that access to “gender-affirming care” was so easy—one visit with a primary doctor, two consultations at the gender identity clinic, then bloodwork—were all it took to begin the transitioning process.
Rey’s bloodwork indicated high levels of testosterone. “One of the doctors said I was ‘intersex’ because of this, but that is not how you diagnose that,” said Rey. “I probably had PCOS, which was not diagnosed at the time. I didn’t even question it, because when you go to a doctor, you expect to be told the truth. When they told me that I was intersex, it made me want to transition, because it made sense as to why I experienced all this confusion all my life.”
The “I” in “LGBTQIA+” represents “intersex,” an umbrella term used to categorize a person having both male and female sex characteristics. These include differences in anatomy, hormones, chromosomes, or reproductive organs. A typical intersex diagnosis requires a physical examination and genetic testing, neither of which were included in Rey’s medical evaluation.
“Gender-affirming care” services are being incentivized by both public and private institutions. Patients like Rey are often steered in the wrong direction of care, jeopardizing their mental and physical health (pdf). Organizations providing “gender-affirming care” can contribute to the confusion around gender identity, sexuality, and the possibility of an individual being intersex, a condition that is actually very rare.
Rey, like many in the LGBT community, is against the push for children to transition and is concerned these procedures are being incentivized by the medical community. “Therapists are being paid today to affirm gender rather than do thorough work on a client’s psyche,” said Rey.
A Social Contagion With Dire Consequences
Dr. Miriam Grossman, a board-certified child and adolescent psychiatrist and author of “Lost in Trans Nation: A Child Psychiatrist’s Guide Out of the Madness,” in an interview with MG Show stated that the idea of being born in the wrong body is dangerous for kids and has no foundation in medicine or biology.
Grossman says kids are being indoctrinated to believe these ideas and when authorities, teachers, guidance counselors, and internet influencers tell kids this—they believe it. “This is why we have something like a 5,000 percent increase in the number of kids who are identifying as something other than what their body is,” she said. “It’s a social contagion.”
A social contagion is a phenomenon of feelings or behaviors that spreads among peer groups, usually with adolescents and more common with girls, explained Grossman. There are many examples in psychiatry of past social contagions, such as suicidal behaviors, cutting, and eating disorders. “That’s why we have entire groups of girls who are friends from school or from online, and they are going together to a Planned Parenthood or to a gender clinic to get injected with testosterone,” she said.
Grossman is urging parents to become educated and to inoculate their families against this destructive contagion.
Indoctrination Under the Guise of Affirmation
As an outspoken critic of gender ideology, Rey is an active member of Gays Against Groomers, a nonprofit organization of gays against the sexualization, indoctrination, and medicalization of children under the guise of acceptance and equality.
“If the truth is told, gender ideology is removed from schools, kids are not taken to drag shows, and agendas are not being pushed down people’s throats, only then will we be able to recover and prevent these atrocities from happening,” said Rey.
The social obsession over gender is doing more harm than good by pressuring individuals to take drastic steps to fit into an identity without considering the implications on their well-being, explained Rey. In 2021, Rey noticed that Hollywood was beginning to push transgenderism, and shortly thereafter, mainstream media followed suit.
The craze surrounding gender affirmation is a social trend that according to Rey, is doing irreparable harm with intentional coercion tactics to exploit vulnerable people. Anyone calling them out is referred to as “transphobic,” including Rey, who embraced transgenderism.
Rey believes this radical pressure is driving the high transgender mortality rate. “There’s this cult-like mentality to be a victim and romanticize this ideology, it sets you up for failure. The only way for people to really help is by telling the truth. The lies are causing a lot of harm to actual trans people,” said Rey. “The radicals are forcing their beliefs on everyone else so that public tolerance is dwindling and people with actual gender dysphoria are not getting the help they need.”
The Unseen Side of Transitioning
“Would you rather have a living daughter or a dead son?” This fearmongering phrase is commonly used to manipulate parents into supporting their child’s “gender-affirming care.”
In Rey’s experience, “gender-affirming care” is sold as the only solution to improve the mental health of individuals struggling with gender dysphoria. Yet “gender-affirming care” can exacerbate mental health problems rather than improve them. “When the facade goes away and you see that you can’t really be the opposite sex, it begins to wear on you. It sets you up for a lot of disappointment,” said Rey.
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