Ep 166 | De-Transitioner Exposes Dark World of 'Gender-Affirming Care' | Chloe Cole | The Glenn Beck Podcast
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Transcript
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There's There's been a dizzying spike in the number of children who identify as transgender or non-binary.
Five years ago that number was 15,000 children between the ages of 6 and 17 were diagnosed with gender dysphoria.
Last year there were 42,000 and that's just the number of kids who have been diagnosed.
At every stage of the process, they have to be encouraged to transition by adults in important positions, doctors, therapists, teachers, coaches, counselors, all the way up to the President of the United States.
And that's how bad things are.
Our president nominated a transgender activist to the Department of Health and entertained a TikTok celebrity who plays a cartoonish stereotype of a woman.
They're always recruiting new victims and devoted to making it as easy as possible for minors to transition at whatever cost.
And by transition, I mean a name change or updated pronouns.
This is a lot more
than just that and more than playing dress-up.
For the first time in human history, at least recorded history, kids as young as six are receiving puberty blockers, hormone treatments, even surgeries that include irreversible mutilation of genital parts, hysterectomies, and mastectomies.
All in the name of compassion.
But I don't think that that is compassion.
Despite major censorship and progressive bullying around the issue, transition regret is becoming more and more common.
A growing number of people who have transitioned have realized that trying to change their gender doesn't solve their emotional or mental problems the way they thought it would.
And as you will hear today, it can often make the problems much, much worse.
Our guest today, after getting her first iPhone and logging on to Instagram, she says she became brainwashed by gender ideology at 11.
At 13, she began medically transitioning to a boy.
At 15, she had a double masectomy.
At 18, she has had to grieve the fact that she'll never be able to experience the sacred part of motherhood and and even breastfeed her own child.
But now she's on a mission, and I'm telling you, a very brave mission.
Pray for this.
Pray for this young woman.
She is extraordinarily brave.
She says her mission is to expose the darkness and the lies of the transgender movement to save other children here in America and
around the world.
Today, please welcome our podcast guest, Chloe Cole.
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Hi, Chloe.
Hi, there.
How are you?
It's a happy, happy face.
You're
a brave woman.
And thank you for coming in.
Thank you.
And
I just want to explain: if you're watching, she's got a blanket because it's about 62 in here.
That's about what we keep the studio at 62.
And so
I hope you're comfortable.
I want to preface this with
this is a subject that you just can't have a frank conversation on.
And people on both sides are going to be pissy about whatever anybody says.
But we have to have this conversation.
And as a dad,
I tried to explain to my 16-year-old daughter that compassion
without truth and without
full knowledge and expression is not compassion.
And
there's a trend in our country and in our world where
I don't care what the subject is, you're either with the right people or you're out of society.
And it's extraordinarily dangerous and you unfortunately have felt it firsthand.
Yeah.
So talk to me.
You're eight years old and you're a tomboy.
Yeah.
You have two sisters.
Two brothers.
Two sisters and two brothers.
Okay.
They're all older than me.
Right.
And you didn't like dresses or, you know, frilly stuff, right?
I mean, I was kind of, I was kind of in between on those things.
Like, I, I had influence from both sexes growing up because I had so many siblings.
And I mean, I actually, when I was younger, I actually loved wearing dresses and skirts and things like that and playing with dolls.
And I also like playing video games, my older brothers, and like playing with their Legos and their toy guns.
I know a lot of girls that are tomboys.
Yeah.
And that doesn't make them in the wrong body.
It just.
Everybody's different.
Everybody's different.
So did anybody think, did you think, eight years old, I'm in the wrong body?
I mean, the idea never really came to me until I started using social media.
Actually, I got my first phone when
I was 11.
And, you know, because I wanted to fit in with all my other friends who had phones at the time, I made
my first social media account on Instagram and Snapchat and on Instagram.
I mean, I wasn't actually supposed to be using it so young because the minimum age is actually 13, but they don't really.
They don't actually check that.
Yeah.
But
I saw a lot of things on there that I really shouldn't have at that age.
Like what?
I mean, the content from other women,
other young women,
a lot of it is like
they post themselves in like really like skimpy outfits or like really really sexualized poses or they're
they're wearing like a bunch of makeup or they've got like they've they like edit or like filter their bodies, or they even have like
plastic surgery either done on their faces or their bodies.
And
I mean, aside from that,
a lot of it was just like complaining about like
just how tough
growing into a woman is, like, how scary periods and the possibility of pregnancy and the pain of childbirth, and then eventually going through menopause.
And
I find that
nobody,
no girls or women really ever talked about like the great things about being a woman and the great things that come with all those things.
And I find that this,
not only was it like this on the internet, but even from like the
girls and women that I grew up around me with
were kind of like that as well.
It's really interesting to me that
our society, and we've been doing it for a long time,
says that they're empowering women, but at the same time,
they're not.
They're empowering a specific type of woman
that will assume a stereotypical male role.
And that doesn't make that bad, but it...
Our society is not celebrating the other side.
I've talked to moms all the time who say,
I'm just a mom.
What do you mean you're just a mom?
That's the hardest job out there.
I agree.
So that's what, in my generation, we had
people saying, you know, girls saying, how can I be happy with my body with all these magazines?
But it's a hundred times worse now online, and nobody seems to talk about it.
Yeah.
I mean, not only did I have like a
I was kind of insecure about like my like being like being feminine a little bit.
I mean, growing up.
I mean, a lot of the content, the
like comics and books and cartoons I would read or watch as a kid were kind of
kind of like downplayed like the role of like the the girls.
Like it was always like about the boys and the girls were always like getting in the way or they were like really stupid,
not really, not really helping.
But
I also,
because I was using social media so young and I was seeing
like these very idealized images of women,
I mean, as I was just a kid and I wasn't like, I was only a few years into puberty, I wasn't very developed, but I also didn't understand that I wasn't really, most women aren't really supposed to look like that, but I started developing some body image issues.
And
down the line, I was actually diagnosed with body dysmorphia well after I transitioned.
Okay, so
you go from not having any idea, none of these ideas really crossed your mind.
Yeah.
11, you get the phone.
Then when do you start to say, I'm in the wrong body?
How long
after 11?
So at around that time, I also started to get like a lot of LGBTQ content in my feed, especially like trans, like non-binary or
things like that.
Right.
And a lot of it was coming from other young women as well, like
ages maybe like 12 to early 20s.
And,
you know,
I was kind of an awkward kid.
I'm actually on the spectrum, so I've kind of struggled a little bit with socializing with, especially with other people my age and making, keeping friends.
And I found that as I got older, it got more difficult to make friends, especially with other girls my age and
girls are vicious yeah they are vicious yeah
but
it just kind of struck me how like how happy these people outwardly seemed to be and how when they came out to their families and their friends they were
accepted
yeah
so that was something that
even if I didn't realize realize at the time, I wish that I had for myself.
But you didn't find that.
Not really, no.
Okay, so before we get there,
let's take it the next step.
Did you initiate this and say,
I'm non-binary, I think I'm in the wrong body?
What happened?
Who did you first tell and what happened?
Yeah, so naturally, after some time, after being exposed to stuff for
a little bit, I started to wonder like
what am I?
Who am I attracted to?
What's my sexuality?
What's my identity?
And I kind of like switched through,
switched between labels like bisexual, pansexual, and it went on to
agender, bi-gender, non-binary.
And then eventually I settled on maybe I'm just not a girl and I'm actually a boy.
And I started to cut my hair shorter.
I came out to...
Do you think this would have happened
without the
media and the popularity of this?
No, not at all.
I wouldn't even have known what it was.
Okay.
But
I came out to my older sister and some closer family members and friends at school first, and then...
Without my parents knowing, I started buying clothes out of the boys' section.
And then after a few months,
I came out to to them.
I wrote a letter because I was afraid of having that conversation, starting that conversation face to face.
And I wanted to allow them some time to think about it.
So I just left a letter on the dining room table.
It is
frightening to talk to your parents about, and I've, as a parent, have had conversations like these.
And
if you don't, and I don't know your situation with your parents, but if you don't have a conversation where you, you don't have a relationship where you feel I can say anything and they'll never stop loving me, it's tough because
your age at that time, you don't really know that.
You don't know that.
What was your parents' reaction?
They were a little shocked, actually.
They didn't really expect this.
I mean, they knew I was like a bit of a tomboy, but they never really saw this coming.
And, you know, they were normal people and they didn't really know what to do about this.
They weren't like really experts on the subject, and so they wanted to turn to the real experts or
doctor.
Yeah,
they saw it as like a psychiatric issue, which they were right about that, but it wasn't treated as such by my therapists or any physician who is involved in my transition.
More with Chloe in just a second.
When the alarm clock goes off in the morning and you open your eyes, is pain the first thing you think about?
Used to be for me, how am I going to face another day of this?
For years, I suffered every day from just debilitating pain that really focused on my hands.
It was impossible really to do anything.
And I didn't think I would be able to even do this, pick up a pen, write a note, write a letter, or paint a painting anymore.
All of those things were so important to me, and I thought I lost them forever until I started taking Relief Factor.
And I will tell you, I didn't believe in it.
My wife made me take it.
I took it and
i was actually surprised that it worked uh you know it's all natural and blah blah blah uh so i don't you know okay all right medicine doctor it's not witchcraft it is science developed by doctors and it is it is great worked for me and about 70 of the people who try it go on to order more month after month so maybe this is for you too relieffactor.com call 800 for relief 800 the number for relief it's relief factor.com
When you went to the doctor, I'm assuming that your mom and dad had the best intents and just don't, they want you safe and they want you happy.
They loved me and they wanted to figure out what was going on.
Correct.
Well, I felt this way and
that was just never figured out.
Unfortunately, it just went straight to, oh yeah, she's a boy.
And behind my back, they actually told my parents that if I wasn't allowed to basically do what I wanted in my transition, that I would be at risk of suicide.
Oh my gosh.
Yeah.
Had you said that to the doctors?
No, I didn't.
I wasn't suicidal until
I wasn't suicidal until I was
a few years
into my medical transition.
Wow.
Okay.
So
the doctors
didn't probe on what is happening to you in your life.
They didn't talk to you about anything.
They just accepted that you should be a boy?
Yeah.
And there is very little psychological evaluation.
I did have some stuff going on at home and at school, but I mean, it was just never really probed into.
It was never really considered as having any relation to my gender dysphoria.
I was diagnosed with gender dysphoria, I think, by a
I don't think it was by the first therapist I saw because he never really did anything actually.
But I think it was.
Wow.
I think it was a gender specialist.
And,
you know, all the research I did on transitioning before, and like the
even like the
medical professionals who I saw basically presented transition as the only means of treating dysphoria.
No alternatives were even brought up, really.
It was basically just so if you believe you're a boy, then you're actually the boy.
So I
understand,
and you can go into this or not.
It's your choice.
But some of the issues, like at school, were you were
some boy
was quite inappropriate with you, and that
made you so uncomfortable, and you didn't want to be a girl.
Part of that was you didn't want to be a girl because of that.
Is that true?
This actually happened while I was early in my medical transition, a little down the line before I started started to, before I started.
But I mean,
a lot of my girlfriends and
some of the women I knew growing up had a history of being victims of sexual assault or stalking or abuse or rape.
And all these stories I would hear.
made me really afraid of eventually experiencing that for myself.
And from a young age, I had a really bad fear of like being assaulted or raped.
Oh my gosh.
And so when that happened, you started to bind your breasts.
Yeah.
Right.
And I was actually, it is a little unusual because at that point I was
several months on testosterone and blockers.
Usually most
trans-identified women
will start binding long before they start like the medical process.
But I mean, I wore kind of like loose shirts and I was at the time maybe like a beecup or so.
So I didn't think that like my chest was very noticeable but um
that incident where he
the boy who was bullying me groped me um
made me very conscious of the appearance of my breasts and I wanted to hide them from the world forever.
Gosh.
And no doctor ever talked to you about that.
No, I actually never brought this up.
But did they give you the opportunity?
Did they ask probing questions that would have gotten you there?
They probably have, but
I never really spoke up about it because
shame?
Yeah, that, and I kind of just told myself, you know, I was trying to become a boy, and I was like, I just told myself to man up, basically, and I downplayed the incident in my head, and I didn't really realize just how it affected me.
But also, I knew that at the time I wouldn't really be able to speak out about it because if I told my parents, then they would bring it up to
the school,
the school office, and I know the school would probably just give the kid a slap slap on the wrist, and he would maybe be suspended for a few days and then come back and maybe do something worse to me.
Wow.
Holy cow.
What a...
I can't imagine growing up today.
I mean, when I first saw Bruce Jenner, I mean, I grew up when he was an Olympian.
When I saw him tell his story and
before,
was it before or right after
he became Caitlin, I thought,
I feel so horrible that he spent his whole life feeling like that.
I don't want anybody to feel like that.
It's a terrible feeling.
I still struggle with it to this day.
It's got to be horrible, horrible.
And
you want to be compassionate.
I mean, I don't,
you know, Bruce Jenner, Caitlin Jenner, whatever, whatever, it doesn't affect me.
But I don't know
what the compassionate thing is.
But I think, and help me out on this, I think until you've become an adult and you've settled, I don't think if I would have made decisions on anything,
if I would have had a tattoo, I probably had a Popeye tattoo on my face today.
You know, you just don't make good decisions at that time.
What is the most compassionate thing to do?
I mean, it it really depends.
You have to wait until the individual is an adult and preferably a fully developed adult.
But they'll say to you,
well, yeah, but there's no puberty blockers.
They can't, if they miss that window, then they miss it forever.
It's not true.
I mean, I know a lot of people who have transitioned well into their adulthood, like
Buck Angel and Sarah Higdon and a few others, and
they're pretty satisfied with their transitions there's there shouldn't be a rush to
make things make kids do things at an age where they're known to make rash decisions so gender affirming care is what you received right but it wasn't really affirming anything other than metallusion
Explain that.
I mean, I genuinely believe that I was a boy, but that couldn't possibly be true because
I was born female and sex is an immutable trait.
But they'll tell you that sex and gender are different.
That's where the argument kind of falls apart.
But
there's a lot of places where it falls apart, actually.
But
it doesn't make sense.
They say like there's...
They say that gender is like,
I mean, they say all sorts of things about it.
Like
it's like in the brain and it's immutable, but also that it's like this detached entity from the body that somehow determines
who you are.
Kind of like a soul almost.
It just, it doesn't make sense.
Okay, so
you had this gender-affirming care.
You had parents who were lied to and were just, I mean, I,
honestly, I don't know what to do.
As a parent, I don't want to do, all I want to know is, is my child happy and healthy?
And how can I help them navigate?
This is all new stuff to parents.
They have no idea.
So, your parents are lied to on top of it.
And
so, you start taking the blockers and everything.
What is that like to take the blockers and then to take testosterone?
What happened?
What did that feel like to you?
Yeah, so
I'd say the
amount of time between getting like the dysphoria diagnosis and actually getting like the prescriptions and then starting on the blockers and the testosterone was really, it was only a matter of months.
It hadn't even been like a full year.
It was only a few months after that I started that I talked to my gender specialist and I was like,
I want to go the medical route.
I want to start taking testosterone and become
more, yeah, more like my
real self, this image of myself that I had in my head.
The first endocrinologist I was referred to actually had,
he said, no, he did not allow me to go on these treatments because he said that there would be concerns for my brain development because I was so young,
he didn't really know
how that might affect my cognitive and emotional development going forward.
But
I should have listened.
We should have listened.
But I mean, we heard this from nobody else.
He's a very brave doctor.
He's probably been fired or had to resign by now for doing that, honestly.
Because you saw the doctor in California, right?
Yeah.
Guarantee
he's either silenced himself or he is no longer working.
And it shouldn't be that way, but.
Have you reached out to him?
I have not.
You should.
And just say.
I've thought about it.
Yeah.
I mean, especially if he's really struggling to know that somebody.
I mean, there's a lot of doctors in this situation who
want to speak out, but they just can't.
They feel
stifled.
Oh, I know.
I know.
And I don't know if that's scarier or the doctors that truly believe this.
I'd say it's equally pretty scary.
But it was very easy to just get referred to another endocrinologist who, after like two or three appointments, gave me and my mom the consent forms and like the side effect forms to sign off on.
And two months after that was when I think I was given my first blocker shot.
And then
did you feel anything when that came in?
Did you
any changes happening to you or is that just stopping progress?
I mean, it stopped the natural development of the sex hormones in my body.
Right.
That caused a few side effects,
which I was informed of.
You were fine.
No.
I'm not sure because
while I was on them alone without the testosterone, because I had, you know, after all the sex hormones were like flushed out of my body, I just felt kind of depressed.
Right.
And so.
and nothing yeah yeah it was like I was waking up basically waiting for the first testosterone shot every day but um
after a while because it basically puts the body into a state of artificial menopause I started experiencing hot flashes which were really bad like I couldn't wear like pants or warm clothes in the winter and they would make my whole body itchy and whenever whenever they would come up it was really hard to focus on
whatever yeah oh my wife has gone through it and she it was it was hell it's hell no 13 year old should have to go through that no no
so then you get your first shot of testosterone what did that feel like to you it was
i mean for lack of better words it was euphoric i mean i finally had like i i had my energy back and
you know i started
It was like this big milestone for me.
And, you know,
after some time, after maybe a week, I started noticing my voice was starting to drop.
And after a few weeks to a few months, my features started to get more
more squarish, more masculine.
And my hair started growing thicker.
And I started growing some muscle.
And I mean, I felt good about myself.
I felt like I looked good.
Did you feel differently?
Or did you just see things differently?
I'm sorry, this is probably a stupid question, but I've never talked to anybody who's done this.
So do you, did you,
when you got your energy back, was it a different kind of energy or did it feel like when you felt good as a girl?
I mean, it's kind of hard to gauge how much of it was just like a...
Actual and thinking?
Yeah.
Okay.
I would say it's probably a little bit of both.
I mean, testosterone has...
Maybe it's kind of an exaggeration to say it like this, but sort of like a stimulant effect.
I mean, it gives you more energy, more drive to do things,
become a little more competitive.
We are dealing with so many massive issues, and we're not.
I mean, I'm so honored that Chloe would sit with us and talk about this today, but this is not a
normal conversation to have, even though it's such a huge part of what's happening in America.
Same thing with abortion.
We didn't talk about it for a long time, and
we need to.
We need to do everything we can to protect life.
It's a very dark place that I think the progressives are taking us, but there is a light, and that light is pre-born.
That light is God.
That light is you.
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okay so you start getting that then i was in eighth grade at the time i was i was 13th
grade
it was the second half of my eighth grade year did you get the this is what year 26 20 2018 2018 yes so this is not like the dark ages this is like now
and at the height of everybody saying oh celebrate and accept and Yeah.
Right.
Did you get that acceptance?
I mean,
I had some friends online who would like celebrate every, basically every big milestone in my transition and like kind of,
I guess you'd say, like affirmed me.
But
I mean, my family was accepting.
I wouldn't say that they celebrated my transition specifically, but they were loving.
Did you get that feeling when you thought, wow, these people are doing this and they're popular and they're happy and I want to do that?
That feeling that you had at 11?
I would say a little down the road.
When I was in eighth grade,
I was still in middle school, and so
the people around me weren't really the nicest at school.
I don't think girls, until maybe, well, I don't know
until at least 18.
I think they're vicious oh yeah they are yeah
some girls didn't treat me yeah very nicely when I was transitioning they would um
and how they would ask some legitimate questions but other times they would just like harass me a little bit and
I mean it kind of was like an outcast amongst my my peers
because you're a neither world
yeah
So, and how did the boys react to you?
It kind of depended.
Like, most of them were like,
what is going on?
Yeah.
Right.
But I made some friends who were boys, and they're fun to be around.
And I made some pretty good friendships with them.
Boys are pretty much dogs.
They're just like...
Whatever.
Yeah, exactly.
That's what I liked about them.
And by the time I got into high school, I was on testosterone for long enough that,
I mean, I passed as the opposite sex pretty well my voice was deep enough and I didn't really have to worry about anything other than like getting like my my files changed but
throughout high school nobody actually really knew that I was transgender even
so you go to a bigger high school or a different high school yeah yeah
nobody knows your past so you're just accepted as a boy yeah so I mean some people who I know I knew in like elementary middle school knew and then I was outed behind my back a few times to like a small number of people, but nobody could really guess that I was a girl.
I mean, I was just a short guy to them.
Right.
I'm not that tall.
I'm like 5'3 ⁇ , 5'4 ⁇ .
But I mean, considering my age at the time, I was only like 15,
14, 15, 16.
So it was kind of just like maybe it's like a late bloomer or something.
So are you still binding your breast at this point?
At what point do you decide to have the mastectomy?
So
I'd say about halfway into my sophomore year was when I decided that I wanted to get a mastectomy.
I was 15 at the time and
by this point I had been binding for maybe about like two, two and a half years and
I was really sick of it because
binders are basically like these compression devices that cover the torso and in the chest area there's like a
there's like a
like compression fabric to basically flatten the appearance of the breasts
and
some some people get like really bad like breast, rib, back pain from it.
I never really.
Can I tell you?
I think this, to me, is akin in a child.
It is akin to when the Chinese used to bind women's feet.
I mean,
this is just not good.
It's not good.
Yeah, I...
I never really experienced pain, but I did have discomfort from
it.
It was sticking to me whenever I would work out or like swim.
And I didn't realize this until after my breasts were gone.
But they actually deformed my ribs a little bit because they did.
Yeah.
I think it's mostly because I was still growing when I was using one.
They basically pushed the breast into the rib cage.
And I wasn't like large-chested or anything.
I was rather small, and I had a very small build.
And it fit well.
And it still caused damage.
Is that going to affect any of your internal organs organs in the years to come?
It's not too bad.
I don't think it's a good idea.
It's just a little bit.
But it is noticeable.
So
when you went in for a double mastectomy, was there anyone who said,
real problem, don't do this?
No, there wasn't really like any psychological evaluation, which
before
in the the months before I got my mastectomy actually,
I had like a note from one of my doctors to my school basically saying that I would be taking leave because I was in a lot of distress.
Over the course of my transition,
I actually developed more psychiatric issues as time went on.
You know, I was I kind of thought that like
I was really a boy and by doing this I would become
I would become at peace of myself.
I would become whole.
But it just tore me apart more and more.
Okay, so wait, wait, wait.
Was there a period of time where you thought this is going to be great?
And
I'm transitioning now medically, and it is good.
I was very sure until the end, until after
my surgery.
And so when did the doubts start to come in?
Just after the surgery?
It's kind of complicated because, I mean, right after the surgery, like the moment I woke up to the moments
the first few days at home, post-op,
I was pretty happy.
I mean, I was...
Even though you were in pain, you were happy.
The pain wasn't too bad.
It was like a deep muscle soreness.
But the pain from the pain medications...
It caused me like some really bad digestive issues and I had to go off of them within like two days.
That was the most physically painful part about it.
But eventually reality kind of struck me like I would
I wasn't allowed to like shower for a week basically just to protect like the
yeah.
But after I was like allowed to and I started bathing and I had to like take care of my my dressings and these big wounds on my chest, it was like
I can barely look at myself.
Like
the thoughts of maybe this isn't the right thing um
didn't start until like a while after though because
i did start feeling some grief but i couldn't really identify what the feeling was because it was like i was so invested in this i was maybe like three or four years into transitioning at this point
and like everybody around me knew me as leo and um
You know, I didn't even look like a girl at this point anymore.
And
it was just hard to think that it was
the wrong thing.
You're too deep.
When people get deep into something, the hardest thing is to
admit to yourself, uh-oh, this was wrong, and change.
That's one of the reasons why I said you're so amazingly brave.
So amazingly brave.
Thank you.
So
you start to have these feelings of, uh-oh,
were you longing to be a girl?
Were you realizing that it's this is a lie?
That I'm going to be happy being this was a lie?
Or what was it that you were feeling?
At first, it was like, wow, I really miss like looking feminine, being pretty.
And
I would like secretly, I was so embarrassed about it.
I shouldn't have been because, you know, I was actually, I'm actually a girl and there's like, there's nothing wrong with any of that.
But behind my parents' back, I basically bought like some makeup and
like skirts and stuff and like I would just like kind of like stay in my room and just like play video games while while wearing this stuff and not really go out like that but
I sort of I started to withdraw a little bit from like the people around me and my surroundings I would just kind of just be just stay in my room like play video games all day and just draw and just be in my own world because I didn't didn't want to live in reality.
I didn't want to live in a reality where I looked like a boy and I felt stuck like that.
Eventually my grade performance started to drop.
I mean this is around the time that
COVID restrictions started to come into place and they started doing like the distance learning model.
And
so
that made it a lot harder for me and I was kind of
I was kind of just stuck in this headspace because
like, I couldn't really
go out and like see my peers or anything.
So I was stuck on, yeah, I was stuck in my room, stuck in the internet all day.
And eventually, I stopped paying attention to my classes and
basically just withdrew from the world as a whole.
And
my parents decided to take me out of school and put me into an online-only program.
And during the
second quarter of the online program, I was taking a psychology class and
there were some chapters on child development and
parenthood.
And
there was
like a lesson on how
Like breastfeeding and physical contact plays a role in
in the bond between mother and child and then eventually goes on to affect like child development, like psychological, emotional development, problem solving.
And I realized that like
I was told before my surgery that I would lose my ability to breastfeed, but I didn't really think this was important because I saw myself as a man and men don't do that.
And
I could just use formulas.
Yeah, exactly.
I didn't know what parenthood would look like for me because I wasn't thinking about that.
I was thinking about like getting my schoolwork done and fitting in.
When that hits you,
that I can't
chest feed, I can't breastfeed a child if I want to someday.
And
I realized
like not only did I lose the ability to naturally feed my kid, but I also could
it's so much more than just feeding them, like it plays a role in
it's an important part of the bond
between a mother and her children.
And I didn't know this, but when I realized that I took this away from myself, I felt like a monster.
Like, I
that was probably my worst.
I was probably at rock bottom at that point, and I just spent a few weeks just
at my absolute lowest.
And
it wasn't until like maybe like two weeks later after I finished that lesson that I was like
this is all wrong and I regret every single step of this this shouldn't have happened and
it's it's
it's just made everything worse and I feel like I'll never be able to go back and
that is true in some ways.
I'll never be able to feed my children.
I don't know if I'll be able to safely carry a child to term because I was so young when I started medicalization.
But
that night when I made the realization, it was like...
It was kind of like coming out
all over again,
but even
scarier this time because like me and my parents and my family were so invested in this and it was all for nothing.
And
I just felt like such a tore apart.
Yeah, and I couldn't even bring myself to talk to my mom face-to-face about it.
So
I texted her, and I texted a friend about it, and
I called him.
But
it took a while for me to be able to have that conversation face-to-face.
And, you know, sometimes my mom would check up on me, like asking me if I was okay coming to my
room to bring me food and stuff.
But
it took a while to really,
I guess, get the ball rolling and figure out where to go from there.
I stopped taking testosterone almost immediately, and that impacted my health quite a bit, actually.
Because of the deficit of sex hormones in my body, I got
I was like really um I was having really bad like mood swings and I was very prone to like emotional outbursts and um
I was not at my most stable.
I wasn't very nice and
I did I did lose a few friends all of them actually every friend that I had at school and
I lost quite a few you know you're you know all of this is okay right you know that
you know that this is this was not
you being a monster.
This was not you,
you know, this was you as a kid making decisions
that honestly shouldn't have been, in my opinion, shouldn't have been
made.
And they shouldn't have been.
Shouldn't have been options for you.
But not to blame anybody else, but you know that anything that happened,
you can release that.
You know that, don't you?
Good.
But
I got very sickly afterward as well.
I dropped like 25 pounds within a matter of two months, and I was prone to getting ill.
And
testosterone had some side effects for me.
Maybe after like a year to a year and a half I started developing like some urinary tract issues and by going off testosterone it actually worsened for a little bit.
And did you start taking hormones?
No, I just
stopped taking testosterone.
Stopped taking testosterone, basically had to wait it out.
And
I did get my period about two months after the fact, which I think
I'm very lucky for because
sometimes it never comes back, right?
Yeah.
They came very soon, and
they've been very regular since, which is
a miracle, I think, because when I started,
I was so young that they hadn't even regulated yet.
I only had about like three to four per year.
So I guess there must have been at least some development having gone on my body somehow, luckily.
There was a story this week that came from the Netherlands.
The Dutch are
buying farmers out or just pulling their property away because the farmers
aren't going to be able to grow anything or have
ranches anymore because of the
nitrogen that is now being outlawed, you know, because of the World Economic Forum and global warming.
This is coming to America.
This is a very big deal that people just don't understand what's coming.
Good Ranchers is there.
I started looking for a company that would support ranches like mine.
I mean, I don't need it.
Luckily, I don't depend on ranching as my business.
However, There are people in my community, ranchers, who are barely holding on because they just can't afford to stay open.
And if the government keeps twisting the knife, they're out.
And that means we won't have either farms, they'll all be big industrial farms, or
you'll have a rancher that just can't keep up with the price.
And so they're not making meat anymore.
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And 100% of that meat comes from a good rancher here in America.
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How's your friend network now?
I mean, it's not exactly where I want it to be.
Some of my old friends really strongly disagree with what I'm doing now.
And
they haven't really.
Are they transitioned?
Yeah, I have a friend who
is
biologically female, like like me but um transitioning to like a male identity and
so is it is it because
you've betrayed or you what what is the problem yeah um i've i had a few friends before who were transgender both online and
excuse me that's all right in person but um
they a lot of them they cut ties with me or they started like um like harassing me because
um
i mean i think there's a lot of factors like jealousy and fear of being wrong themselves um a lot of them say things like you don't deserve parents who loved you enough to let you let you transition or you you were 13 you weren't you weren't a baby you knew exactly what you were doing to yourself
are these people your age or older
Around my age, if not like a few years older.
I find that a lot of them are very,
very
stunted in a few ways, and so they don't really understand
just the weight of the situation, unfortunately.
And they're going.
Almost all of them are going through their own thing right now.
Like, no mentally healthy person would be saying these things.
They're afraid and they're...
They're struggling themselves.
And seeing me going down having been having gone down this route further down this route than they have being jealous of that but also seeing that I was
after so much time and effort I was still wrong.
That's I think that's that's terrifying for them.
So there's a lot of mixed emotions and they can't really they can't really handle it and
they just if it truly is about accepting people who for who they are
you know who I was when I was 20 is not who I am today,
you you know, and
we grow, we change, we're different, we learn.
Absolutely, and nobody really talks about this, but the way you feel about transition will change over the course of one year, two years, five years, a decade, several decades.
And there's kind of a honeymoon phase with each, with each, uh, with each stage of, with each part of the process.
And I didn't really know about this until I went through all of it.
And I'm just trying to
warn them now.
They're all adults and I can't really their parents can't really do anything about them transitioning, but I just...
I'm worried for them, and I don't want them to end up the same way that I am now, or if not worse.
What do you wish would have happened
if you had to replay it and you'd be like, this is what should have happened?
What what should that have been?
I shouldn't have been allowed to medically transition at all.
I wish there was a more thorough assessment and more trust between
me and
my healthcare provider because there were some things that I couldn't really trust the adults with, unfortunately, like the groping incident.
How do you mean you couldn't trust an adult with that?
I just felt like speaking about it would just make the situation worse.
And
maybe that was kind of on me, but
I don't know.
Growing up, I just kind of had like a sort of like a mistrust of the adults and even some of the people around me.
So what is the compassionate thing
to do?
13-year-old, let's start with the doctor.
What is the compassionate thing to do?
Probe more and
bar them from any
treatments.
Okay.
Until they're an adult and they're at a point in time when they're
in a mental state that that is healthy and they're able to be fully informed and able to consent.
Yeah, right.
You don't have anything else.
When you first go through puberty, it is confusing already.
What's the most compassionate thing a parent can do?
Because your folks sound compassionate.
What should I, if you were my daughter, what should I do to show support and compassion?
I mean, really the best thing to do is to show them love without affirming the delusion.
Tell them that
they're not a boy and they never will be, but you accept them as they are and there's nothing that they need to change about themselves.
Right.
But if you want to wear boy clothing,
no problem.
Right?
But calling
you would have, when you were 15, if you were a friend of my daughter and you came over to my house
and
they would have introduced you as Leo.
I would have called you Leo.
I mean, you wouldn't even have known.
But if I did, I still would go, hey, Leo.
But I would tell my daughter, Leo is
not a boy.
But unless I knew you will, I wouldn't say that to you.
But I would tell my daughter,
she's a she.
Okay.
Is that wrong to do that?
And not say
I don't judge Leo.
I'm happy for Leo if Leo is happy.
But here's the truth.
That's not compassionate in today's society.
That's wrong.
But it's only the truth, and
there's nothing wrong with telling the truth.
What do you say to people who say,
no, pronouns, whatever you pick,
I have to say that, because it's the only right thing to do.
Because I just want you to be happy.
Yeah,
it's complicated.
I mean,
that's really tough.
I refer to people by the name and the pronouns they they want me to, but unless they go out of their way to like
disrespect me.
Right.
And like, for instance, I've never had a problem with Caitlin Jenner.
Never.
Don't have a problem.
But that's an adult.
Exactly.
You know, when a child,
or I'm sorry, I'm just getting to the point where 25 years old is still a child to me, but when somebody who hasn't really gone through life yet decides I'm Bambi, a deer,
I have a hard time.
But if you're 50 years old and you're, I'm, no, I'm a furry animal.
Okay, whatever.
Whatever.
That makes you happy.
Fine.
It's interesting that we're allowing kids and young adults to
make these decisions that affect their overall health and their fertility when, I mean, mean,
most people, a lot of people don't even know that they want to have kids until they're well into their 30s or 40s.
I would if 15 years old, if a vasectomy was a thing, so I never had kids, count me in.
Yeah, um, I remember the endocrinologist, the one who affirmed me, um,
asked me, like, do you know that this treatment may affect your fertility?
I was like, oh, I don't want to have kids because I was 13.
Yeah, right.
I don't know a kid that wants a kid.
How's your safety?
I mean, it's.
Don't tell me anything that you shouldn't.
I don't want to make it worse for you, but do you fear for it at all?
A little bit, yes.
I mean, I haven't been recognized in public, but it might be getting to the point where I have to worry about that.
I mean,
I have old friends in my area who
strongly disagree with me, and they're not very friendly towards me.
And I mean,
all over the country, there's people like that
who,
I mean, I get really
hateful, really violent threats sometimes.
I had somebody make two accounts on Twitter just to tell me that they were making
like a sex doll out of me, basically, out of my image.
And some people
threaten violence or threaten to kill me or assault me
just for speaking out and
giving my peace.
Can you define what a woman is?
Adult, human, female.
But what is it?
It's that simple.
What does that mean?
Well, adult just means fully developed physically, mentally,
and
human.
Homo sapiens.
I don't think I'll have to explain that.
But
female just means that you produce or your body is
centered around the production of the large gamete, the the ova, the eggs.
It's that simple.
And just because you can't produce it
doesn't mean for reasons like menopause or being too young or having some sort of condition doesn't make you doesn't make you not female.
It's just
you're not able to.
Right.
Right.
If you could go back and talk to your 11-year-old self
and
really have her listen.
Try to put yourself where you were, where you thought you knew.
What would you say to her?
That's a hard one.
I feel like I would have a lot to say, but I think
one of the important things would be that,
I mean,
it's
in such an image-oriented society, it's kind of and especially with the advent of social media, it's really hard for young girls to really recognize this.
But I mean, your worth is so much more than your looks.
I would tell her to
spend a little less time off
of the internet and social media, go out a little bit more, maybe play a few sports to
really focus on
something other than
my body and the internet, and
just
it was really hard to make friends at the school I was at, but I could have been a little closer with my family.
I feel like I would have been a lot happier if I was.
Talk to a parent.
Your daughter or your son comes home and says,
I don't know what I am, but I think I'm in the wrong body.
How do the parents deal with that?
I mean,
I think the conversation should start with trying to get to understand each other and
letting your child know that you love them,
but that there's absolutely nothing wrong with them, that there's no such thing as being born in the wrong body and that they're they're fine just as they are.
But as a parent, it's really important to get down to the bottom of why they're feeling such a way and where they got the idea from.
And
basically going from there, chances are you might have to restrict their social media usage or take away their phones entirely.
Boy, I tell you, in some states, California, you could be a gender denier and you'd have your child taken from you.
Yeah.
I actually know a few parents who have had their
who lost all custody custody of their children because they won't affirm their kids.
Are they heroes or monsters?
They're absolutely heroes.
Because they fight for their kids.
I have to tell you, I just love you so much.
You are, you came in and you smiled and you, there are times that I can see deep sadness in you, but you are a delightful person.
You really are great.
Thank you.
Yeah, thank you.
Thank you.
Thanks for coming in.
Thank you for having me here.
God bless.
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