Past posts have highlighted the difficult journey of DetransitionerChloe Cole. She has lawyered up and is suing her doctors for malpractice.
At 15 she had a double mastectomy. Now at 18, she is warning the world about the mutilation of children.
"As an adult, I will never be able to breast-feed whatever children I will have. I don’t even know if, because I was put on puberty blockers and testosterone at only 13 years old, I don’t know if I’ll be able to conceive a child naturally," she said. "I made an adult decision as a child."
"I want to hold the adults that put me in harm’s way accountable because what happened to me is horrible, but it also didn’t only happen to me, that’s the worst part. It’s happening to children all over the U.S., all over the West, and it’s spreading all over the world," she said.
In the Netherlands, the number of people going to gender clinics with doubts about their sex is increasing dramatically. How many of them will later regret any surgery? HP/De Tijd spoke to Maarten, who went into transition at 16 to become a woman. Now he regrets his hormone treatment and facial surgery. “They never discussed self-acceptance with me.”
"On the internet, I watched YouTube channels of transgender people telling how great their lives were. There were also American psychologists - at least that's what they called themselves - offering help and claiming: if you doubt your gender, you are not ‘cis’ anyway. If you do doubt, you are ‘trans’." (“Cis” or “cisgender” means you have no problem with the gender you were born with - ed.)
One explanation for the trans boom is that it has made society increasingly open-minded about sex and gender, lowering the threshold for coming out with a different identification. The question is whether this adequately explains the explosion of trans cases. Something like social acceptance never suddenly changes, so why would this lowering of the threshold apply predominantly to teenage girls? Another explanation is that gender studies and queer theory have evolved into a subculture and ideology, trans ideology, which has spread via the internet and has a strong appeal to teenagers who are insecure, isolate themselves, get into that subculture online and turn on each other. It is cool to be trans, but trans is not a disease or condition, it is an identity, a “marginalised” identity, that has to fight for rights and recognition. More trans clinics, for example, and less medical “gatekeeping”.
Maarten: "On trans forums, I also talked to older trans women who had transitioned later in life and they said, ‘You are still young, you can still stop puberty. Look at me, I still look male; I only transitioned after puberty. You can prevent that, but you have to start as soon as possible.’ That got me worked up."
“I was 16 when I ended up at the gender clinic of the UMCG, Groningen's university hospital, via my GP. During one of the consultations I had there, my mother came along. She said she didn't believe I was trans. That my problems had to do with other things, like my homosexuality and my parent’s divorce, but they didn't listen to her. I had the impression that they thought: that woman just doesn't want her son to be trans.”
Marian: “I said during the first interview at the gender clinic that I was worried that maybe other things were going on with Maarten. I asked: what are the checks that he won't regret it later? They replied that the procedures were careful, that they did extensive psychological testing and that regrets were very rare.
"During a later conversation, I mentioned that Maarten still did not want everyone to know, that he also did not wear girls’ clothes and make-up, and that I wondered if his problems were not because he did not accept his orientation and was highly gifted, which made him feel different from others. I said I was afraid that transitioning might exacerbate the problems. That was hard to say in front of Maarten. As a parent, I had a dichotomy: I wanted to support my child, but I also had my worries. I just wanted my child to be happy - as a boy or a girl; it didn't matter to me.
"I trusted that I could safely hand over my child and his problems to the experts. But we swam into a trap. Pretty soon, he was diagnosed with gender dysphoria. Maarten dismissed my concerns: after all, the experts had made the diagnosis, so it was correct."
After testosterone inhibitors, estrogen pills, face surgery (to look more feminine), and just before a scheduled vaginoplasty, Maarten realized after all the changes he was not any happier and so decided to Detransition.
Marian: "Maarten has been damaged for life. I'm so sorry I didn't listen to my feelings better and get cross with him. But I also wanted to support him, you understand? They need to be much more careful with children who suddenly think they are trans during puberty. They need to look much more closely to see if there are no other issues at play."
Maarten: "I'm in therapy now. My therapist was shocked that this could have happened under the supervision of psychologists. I think those psychologists should have said: you have such a complex past, first go into therapy to process all that and then come back. I wouldn't have liked that, but I would never have come back, I'm sure.
Shrier is a graduate of Columbia College who went on to earn a bachelor of philosophy degree from the University of Oxford and a JD from Yale Law School. Her book Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughterswas named a “best book” by The Economist and The Times of London. [2020, 2021]
The reviewer in the Times of London says:
“Irreversible Damage….has caused a storm. Abigail Shrier, a Wall Street Journal writer, does something simple yet devastating: she rigorously lays out the facts.”
