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When I was 12, I tried to transition my gender.
Everyone supported me.
Therapists told me I was doing the right thing.
Doctors put me on puberty blockers and then cross-sex hormones before cutting off my breasts — a double mastectomy.
My parents’ health insurance covered everything.
The medical establishment believed I should transition, based on the idea of “gender-affirming care.”
The message I got was loud and clear: Transitioning was the best decision I’d ever made.
At age 16, I realized I’d made a mistake.
I wanted to turn back, to detransition, to be the girl I’ve always been.
But as soon as I said that, no one supported me anymore.
The therapists? They told me I was confused — that I was just on a “gender journey.”
The doctors? They didn’t want to provide the treatments and procedures to reverse what they’d done.
They looked at me like I was crazy — like I was asking for something totally outside the bounds of medicine.
After a while, they wouldn’t talk to me, either.
My parents’ health insurance? It wouldn’t cover a penny of my detransition.
It was happy to pay for cutting off my breasts but not reconstructive surgery.
It wouldn’t even cover mental-health care.
My parents and I are on the hook for tens of thousands of dollars for the care I need, with no end in sight.
Everywhere I turned, the medical establishment effectively told me detransitioning isn’t real or doesn’t matter.
This is the dark side of gender-affirming care: It only affirms in one direction.
If you want to change genders, great. If you regret your decision, too bad.
I’m now 19. My chest is still bandaged where my breasts should be.
I have urinary-tract issues from all the chemicals that were pumped into my body.
When I look in a mirror, I sometimes don’t recognize my own face because the testosterone changed it.
Every minute of my life is filled with physical pain and mental anguish.
The medical establishment acts like I don’t exist, but I do.
And I’m not the only one.
More and more young kids are going down the same dark road as me, trying to change genders at 12 years old or even younger.
Many are doing so out of social pressure — what experts call “social contagion.”
But they aren’t transgender.
Nearly two-thirds of children who aren’t happy with their biological sex ultimately change their minds as adults, becoming happy with who they really are, according to a new study.
That’s why a rapidly growing number of people are doing what I’m doing and detransitioning.
But they’re generally finding what I’ve found — the same medical establishment that encouraged them suddenly ignores them.
They’ll struggle to get the mental-health care they need.
They’ll struggle to get the treatments and surgeries they need.
And they and their families will struggle to find health insurance that pays for their medical needs.
Instead, they’ll pay through the nose for decades to come.
As I’ve learned, gender transitions aren’t reversible, despite what I was told. I’ll need psychiatric and pharmaceutical help for the rest of my life.
So will countless people who’ve started down the same road as me.
We deserve to be seen, to be heard, to be helped.
I’m asking states to pass a Detransitioner Bill of Rights that, at the very least, requires health insurance to cover the cost of detransition.
I’ve testified to four state legislatures this year alone, and Arizona’s Senate passed the bill of rights in March, with the House doing the same any day now.
This is a basic matter of justice, fairness and equality.
If the medical establishment is going to break children’s minds and bodies, it should be required to help fix them, too.
All I want is the same level of support I got when I started to transition at age 12.
I didn’t know what was being done to me.
Now the people who did it shouldn’t be allowed to ignore me.
Chloe Cole is the patient advocate at Do No Harm.