The more radicals push children down a transgender road, the more people will turn out like me: Angry at the abuse we experienced
Detransitioner Chloe Cole celebrates UK banning 'destructive' puberty blockers for kids
Detransitioner Chloe Cole shares the agony of gender-changing treatments on 'America Reports.'
Apparently, my story is too dangerous for doctors to hear. At least, that’s what the radical activists who control medicine think, because they tried to stop me from speaking out.
I learned this lesson at the American Academy of Pediatrics’ annual conference last week. I attended the conference to participate in a booth on mental health care for children. This issue is personal for me, because as a young girl, I desperately needed mental health care.
Starting at age 12, I was confused about my gender and tried to transition to a boy. Yet, by the time I was 16, I realized I’d made a terrible mistake. By then, I’d already received major hormone treatments and even a double mastectomy.
The political activists who control medical associations can’t tolerate dissent. (Courtesy Pamela Garfield-Jaeger)
But the more I tried to be a boy, the more unhappy I became. If I’d received the mental health care I needed, I would have realized that I was a girl and never tried to transition.
I’m not alone, and in fact, I was one of four detransitioners working the booth. All of us needed real mental-health care as kids. None of us needed the lies of transgender ideology. That radical worldview has irreversibly altered our bodies. Frankly, we experienced child abuse.
You know who agrees? Huge numbers of pediatricians – the doctors who are often the gatekeepers to transgender treatments.
At the conference, we spoke with hundreds of medical professionals who agreed that gender-confused children should receive mental health care, instead of being rushed down the road of invasive and irreversible drugs and surgeries. These pediatricians’ support for common sense – and basic medical ethics – was heartening to those of us who who’ve suffered.
But the American Academy of Pediatrics, which represents these doctors, is a different story. We knew going into the conference that the AAP has fully bought into the lie of so-called "gender-affirming care," which actually tries to turn children into something they’re not.
The AAP has pushed its members to help children change genders since 2018 and has been utterly unwilling to admit it’s wrong or even grapple with the mounting evidence that children are suffering.
The AAP’s radicalism was on full display on the third day of the conference. That’s when security suddenly showed up and demanded that our booth shut down immediately. Never mind that the AAP itself had approved the booth. Never mind that we’d been there for two days without incident. And never mind that virtually every pediatrician we talked with supported us.
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No matter. When one of my colleagues asked what we’d done wrong, security told her that one of us had violated the AAP’s rules at the previous year’s conference. But they wouldn’t tell us who. They also didn’t say that we’d done anything wrong at this year’s conference. They gave us a few minutes to break down the booth and get out. When one of my colleagues tried to go get her car, security made her walk through a loading dock instead of the main conference hall.
We didn’t know what we’d supposedly done wrong until nearly two weeks later. That’s when the AAP emailed one of my colleagues and said that "the content being presented and discussed at your organization’s booth did not match the description submitted in your organization’s booth application." It went on to say that unnamed individuals from last year’s conference had "violated these same Exhibitor Rules and Regulations" and "used deceptive tactics to gain access this year."
The more likely story is that the AAP wanted to silence us. I guess the only shock is that it waited three days to shut us down. Maybe its leaders were hearing that hundreds of the pediatricians they claim to represent actually stand with us. The political activists who control medical associations like the AAP can’t tolerate dissent. They have to make it seem like doctors fully support ruining the bodies and minds of young people like me.
Also telling: At the same conference, the AAP’s keynote speaker was Adm. Rachel Levine, the transgender assistant secretary of Health and Human Services in the Biden administration. Earlier this year, it came to light that Levine pressured another powerful medical organization to get rid of age limits for transgender procedures.
The message couldn’t be more clear. Like Levine, the AAP wants to make the full spectrum of transgender drugs and surgeries available to children.
No wonder the AAP kicked out our booth. But the medical establishment can’t silence us forever. The more these radicals push children down a transgender road, the more people will turn out like me: Angry at the abuse we experienced – and determined to save America’s kids from the evil of transgender ideology.
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Chloe Cole is the patient advocate at Do No Harm.
