Congress is considering a nationwide ban on transgender procedures on minors such as puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and sex-change surgeries. Tens of thousands of American children have undergone such procedures. On Wednesday, the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions heard testimony from both sides of the issue.
Chloe Cole, a 21-year-old woman who began trying to become a boy at the age of 12, said she is one of many “detransitioners” who regret the experience and attempted to reverse the procedures. She told the committee she believes trans procedures on minors should be outlawed in the U.S.
“This is child abuse,” she said. “We already have other forms of legislation that make other forms of abuse against children illegal. This is no different and we need to act now.”
Cole said Congress should make sure that more children don’t suffer the same agony she has experienced. At age 15, both of her breasts were surgically removed. Just one year later, she realized it was a terrible mistake.
“The peace and self-acceptance that I was promised never came,” she explained.
Cole testified that, like many teens, she felt uncomfortable in her changing body. Turning to social media, she had learned about transgenderism and became convinced that she needed a sex change.
“Before I even had a consultation, medicalization was already on my mind,” she said, “because these ideas were already going on in my head, that this was an inherent medical condition I had, that somehow, on some level, I was a young man and that I would not be able to survive without going through this.”
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Shannon Minter, Legal Director for the National Center for LGBTQ Rights, told the committee that transgender procedures on minors are the right course for some troubled kids and that the government has no right to intervene in a family decision.
“Few principles in American law are more settled than the right of parents to make medical decisions for their own children in consultation with their doctors,” Minter said. “Parents exercise that right every day for every other medical condition their children may face. Parents, not politicians, know their children best.”
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However, Cole claims doctors don’t give parents much of a choice, often coercing them by saying if the parents don’t agree to the trans procedure, the child will commit suicide.
“The central thesis that attempts to justify child transitioning is, ‘Transition your daughter or bury her,'” Cole said. “That’s the lie my parents were told, and every parent of a trans-identified child I know was told the same thing. Let me say that one more time. The entire premise of transgenderism is that, ‘I will take my own life if I don’t transition.'”
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Dr. Kurt Miceli, a psychiatrist and internal medicine physician who serves as Chief Medical Officer for Do No Harm, told the committee the medical profession should admit it made a mistake in giving puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and performing trans surgeries on minors.
“Two dozen systematic reviews find no credible evidence supporting these interventions, not for overall mental health improvement, and not for preventing suicide, which is thankfully very rare,” he said. “Meanwhile, the known or expected harms include infertility, sexual dysfunction, bone density problems, cardiovascular disease and markedly elevated mortality.”
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Research also shows that most children with gender confusion grow out of it by adulthood.
There’s currently no scheduled date for a vote on the nationwide ban. However, 27 states have enacted their own restrictions. And earlier this year, the American Medical Association, as well as the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, recommended against trans procedures on minors.
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