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Stop the mutilation of our girls with so-called ‘gender-affirming care’


 By Kelsey Bolar | Fox News | Published March 11, 2023 10:00am EST

Read more at https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/stop-mutilation-girls-gender-affirming-care

Friday, in Sacramento, Calif., a group of detransitioners, parents, and allies gathered at the state capitol building in honor of Detrans Awareness Day.  They came together to raise awareness about the growing group of individuals who say they’ve been irreparably harmed by the gender industry. 

Among them is Prisha Mosley, a female detransitioner who was prescribed male hormones as a minor and underwent a double mastectomy shortly after turning 18. Today at 25, Mosley describes feeling like a “medical monster,” suffering from a long list of prolonged side effects, including such severe vaginal atrophy that she can no longer use tampons. 

DOCTORS WHO ‘PUSHED’ PEOPLE INTO SEX CHANGE OPERATIONS ARE NO HELP FOR THOSE WHO WANT TO ‘DETRANSITION’: CLAIM

The effects of the “mutilation” that Mosley describes falling victim to as a child is not unlike the horrific procedure of female genital mutilation, which involves partial or total removal of the external female genitalia. 

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As a result of her medical transition, Mosley is unable to have a normal sex life, says she feels as though she’s “robbing” her boyfriend of her breasts, and doesn’t know if she’ll ever be able to bear her own children. 

According to data from the World Health Organization, more than 200 million girls and women alive today have been subjected to FGM and, annually, more than 3 million girls are still at risk of being subjected to the procedure. FGM is nearly universally recognized as a violation of the human rights of girls and women, and a violation of the rights of children. And yet, in the U.S., under the guise of “gender-affirming care,” a modern-day version of the practice is being widely accepted and promoted to young girls.

Instead of calling it FGM, activists have bubble wrapped their modern-day mutilation in pleasant-sounding terms such “top surgery,” “bottom surgery,” and “reversible” hormonal treatments for children and adults who identify as transgender. 

TRANSITION SURGERY STUDY RAISES QUESTIONS ABOUT LONG-TERM RESULTS ON QUALITY OF LIFE AFTER ‘TOP SURGERY’

Yet, like FGM, procedures offered to those who suffer from body image issues and/or gender confusion incorporate medical interventions that can mutilate their sex organs. These effects aren’t limited to vulvoplasties and hysterectomies, which are two of the more extreme surgical procedures offered under “gender-affirming care.” 

As Jamie Reed, a whistleblower who oversaw the treatment of thousands of minors at The Washington University Transgender Center at St. Louis Children’s Hospital, recently described:

“[G]irls were disturbed by the effects of testosterone on their clitoris, which enlarges and grows into what looks like a microphallus, or a tiny penis. I counseled one patient whose enlarged clitoris now extended below her vulva, and it chafed and rubbed painfully in her jeans. I advised her to get the kind of compression undergarments worn by biological men who dress to pass as female. At the end of the call I thought to myself, ‘Wow, we hurt this kid.’

“There are rare conditions in which babies are born with atypical genitalia—cases that call for sophisticated care and compassion. But clinics like the one where I worked are creating a whole cohort of kids with atypical genitals—and most of these teens haven’t even had sex yet. They had no idea who they were going to be as adults. Yet all it took for them to permanently transform themselves was one or two short conversations with a therapist.”

This is an atrocity. And disproportionately, it’s an atrocity that’s affecting the bodies of women, as girls account for a significant majority of minors receiving “gender-affirming care.”

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While critics are quick to dismiss evidence of “social contagion” among teenage girls, even the World Professional Association for Transgender Health and its activist president, Dr. Marci Bowers, have recognized that social influences may be driving some transgender identification in youth. 

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This perhaps explains why detransitioners are a rapidly-growing group gaining more visibility and attention, despite claims by some transgender activists that detransitioning is rare or not a “real thing.” Yet the harrowing stories of former trans-identified individuals serve as a cautionary tale against medical transitioning, as professionals appear either unable or unwilling to treat the often-severe medical complications caused by puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgeries. 

At its root, gender ideology teaches vulnerable and impressionable girls to medicalize the natural insecurities that they face. In pursuit of “acceptance,” professionals then send them down a devastating path that includes drugs used to castrate male sex offenders and, in some cases, irreversible surgeries.

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European countries such as the U.K., Sweden, Finland, and most recently Norway have moved to sharply limit these practices for minors after a systematic review of evidence found that the risks to “gender-affirming care” outweigh any benefits. 

Here in the U.S., aside from a few brave states such as Florida pushing back on “gender-affirming care,” we’re moving in the opposite direction. Activists, medical professionals, and politicians are doubling down on their support for the mutilation of healthy bodies by smearing attempts to ban these procedures as bigoted and dangerous—attacks not unlike those once used to legalize and normalize FGM.

For his part, President Joe Biden has made his position clear: “Affirming your child’s identity is one of the most powerful things you can do to keep them safe and healthy,” he said in a 2022 video message speaking directly to parents.

But sadly for the Biden administration, it’s not enough to irreversibly destroy the future sex lives and reproductive abilities of youth by encouraging experimental drugs and treatments in the U.S. According to a leaked internal memo from Secretary Antony Blinken, the Biden administration may begin pressuring other countries to push vulnerable youth into hormones and surgeries. 

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As Manhattan Institute scholar Leor Sapir put it, “Under President Biden, it would appear that cultural arrogance and ‘colonialism’ (as defined in the contemporary academy) are once again staples of American foreign policy.”

With Detrans Awareness Day following on the heels of International Women’s Day this week, it’s time to stop mincing words. We must treat gender ideology as a human rights issue. And we must be clear, the Biden administration is on the wrong side.

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Kelsey Bolar is a senior policy analyst at Independent Women’s Forum and executive producer of the Identity Crisis documentary series. 

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‘Detransitioners’ Are Being Abandoned by Medical Professionals Who Devastated Their Bodies and Minds


BY: KELSEY BOLAR | FEBRUARY 10, 2023

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2023/02/10/detransitioners-are-being-abandoned-by-medical-professionals-who-devastated-their-bodies-and-minds/

detransitioner Prisha Mosley sits on a bed in her room telling her story
Health providers won’t help detransitioners who seek to undo the damage of transgender surgery and hormones.

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After being swarmed by health providers who enabled her to medically transition as a minor, Prisha Mosley now says she’s been abandoned by the medical community as she attempts to navigate a complicated and painful detransition.

“I was under the impression that my doctors, who were transitioning me, loved me. They said they didn’t want me to die, they were saving my life, they were worried about me, and they wanted me to be healthy and happy,” Prisha told me. “Clearly, they don’t love me. As soon as it’s not profitable, they don’t want to help.”

Prisha has a slew of medical complications dating back to the more than five years she spent on testosterone and a double mastectomy that a plastic surgeon performed shortly after she turned 18. Many of those complications surround her endocrine system, which encompasses the hormones that regulate nearly every process in the body, from metabolism to growth and development, emotions, mood, sexual function, and sleep.

“I was hoping that if I could get my endocrine system working, I could be on less psychiatric medicine because low testosterone and estrogen will cause depression and anxiety, both of which I’m medicated for and don’t really like being medicated for,” she said.

Prisha also hopes that with estrogen supplements, she’ll experience some muscle and fat redistribution. After years of testosterone broadened her neck and shoulders, she now carries more weight in her upper body, which causes her chronic pain. Her throat is sore, she can no longer sing or raise her voice, and she suffers hair loss, as well as hair growth on her body, which she has to treat with costly laser hair removal sessions.

Another side-effect Prisha is seeking medical attention for is severe sexual dysfunction, which is so bad, she says she can no longer use tampons.

“I used to be able to, and now I can’t,” she said. “And that sucks. There’s pain, there’s irregular periods, and atrophy.”

No Medical Professionals Will Help

Hormonal care to fix her endocrine system, she hopes, could help her become more feminine — and perhaps fertile again. But she said every primary care physician, endocrinologist, obstetrician, and gynecologist she’s approached on her insurance list has turned her away or said they can’t help.

“I could call and be rejected every single day,” according to Prisha.

Professional organizations that represent many of these providers claim to offer open, inclusive, supportive care for “transgender” and “gender diverse” individuals. That offering, it appears, doesn’t apply to individuals seeking to detransition.

Prisha isn’t the only detransitioner who feels abandoned by the medical institutions that pushed her into wrong-sex hormones and surgery. Over the past year, Independent Women’s Forum has documented multiple stories of detransitioners who also report being abandoned by medical and mental health professionals after deciding to detransition.

“I reached out to every physician, every therapist who is involved with this, and I haven’t really gotten any help at all,” said Chloe Cole, an 18-year-old who was fast-tracked down a medical transition as a child by a team of eager doctors. Left to navigate the detransition process on her own, Chloe stopped taking testosterone “cold turkey,” and is still struggling with urinary and other complications that doctors have yet to help fix.

Cat Cattinson, a woman who medically transitioned to a wrong-sex identity in her 20s before realizing it was a major mistake, said access to medical care from providers who are knowledgeable is one of the major barriers detransitioners face:

Because of the experimental nature of gender medicine, doctors know very little about the long-term effects of medical transition and even less about the health-care needs of those who detransition. Surgeries, obviously, are irreversible, but hormonal interventions can also have lasting effects requiring treatment to mitigate. Testosterone caused irreversible changes to my vocal cords, resulting in daily discomfort and pain, but most ENTs [ear, nose, and throat doctors] and other voice ‘professionals’ are not informed about how testosterone affects a female voice or how to help someone in my situation.

Prisha doesn’t know why she’s been turned away from so many doctors and medical providers — whether it’s about money, politics, or a lack of knowledge to help. If it’s the latter, one might ask why medical professionals are allowed to put individuals, including minors, on drugs and “treatments” that they’re unable to later undo or address, should that patient change his or her mind.

Whatever the reason, the inability to access medical attention is having a profound effect on Prisha, beyond her physical health.

Prisha’s Mental Health Struggles

Prisha, who attends school in Big Rapids, Michigan, has a long and complicated history with borderline personality disorder, anxiety, depression, and other mental illnesses. Now 24, Prisha says she used transitioning as a cover for her deeper-rooted mental health issues.

Since detransitioning, Prisha’s been in dialectical behavior therapy to manage her borderline personality disorder — therapy she credits with saving her life.

“When I treated that, all of the symptoms started getting better,” she said. “Nothing that I did to transition treated those things that were causing me mental suffering.”

But now as a detransitioner, even her therapy treatment is in disarray. A few months back, Prisha lost her health insurance because she couldn’t afford it. Under her new insurance, instead of being charged $10 per therapy appointment, she is being charged $96, an increase she wasn’t aware of for five months. Prisha now owes nearly $3,000 to her therapist, a service she depends on.

Upon going public with her story, Prisha started a campaign to raise money for breast reconstructive surgery, something she wishes to pursue to resolve the “phantom breast syndrome” she often experiences, and to appear more feminine. 

But because the surgery is not deemed “a medical necessity,” Prisha would have to pay for it fully out-of-pocket. She would also need at least two surgeries to stretch her skin and reconstruct her breasts, estimated at more than $11,000 each. During this process, Prisha says she was told she would risk losing her nipples, which her plastic surgeon removed and reattached in more masculine positions.

The dream of breast reconstructive surgery and the $4,000 she’s raised for it thus far were put on hold, as Prisha is left using every penny she has to pay for her therapy and basic health insurance coverage.

“I feel like it’s like a bottomless pit — the medical needs, and I need the therapy because I can barely do this,” she said. “And I’m absolutely not going to, once again, medicalize my body without taking care of my mind.”

Now in debt and being rejected by one doctor after another, Prisha is at a loss for what to do. In an act of desperation, she turned to Plume, a company that has raised millions of dollars to connect patients with physicians who can prescribe them “gender-affirming hormone replacement therapy” online, including a “one-time medical letter of support for surgery with a one week turnaround time” for a fee of $150. But this time, instead of affirming her identity as the opposite sex, Prisha sought the help of Plume to get blood tests and hormone treatments to affirm her true sex: a woman.

Screenshot of Plume website.

After paying $99 and scheduling an appointment with a provider, Prisha said she was “ghosted” 40 minutes before the appointment. Plume hasn’t responded to Prisha’s requests for an explanation or even a refund. She suspects the provider canceled last minute because Prisha disclosed that she was “detrans” in initial paperwork she completed just minutes before the canceled appointment. After she submitted her intake forms, “All contact dropped off,” Prisha said. She then took to YouTube to share her devastation.

“I don’t know what to do, I don’t know who to go to because no one will help,” Prisha said through tears. “I was really hoping that they would care about me and help me. I just want to feel better. I just want to be better. I don’t want my body to be like this anymore. I’m in pain. … I can’t take it anymore.”

Independent Women’s Forum reached out to Plume to ask whether the company offers its services to detransitioners. Plume did not respond to our request. 

The situation led Prisha to consider self-medicating. But due to her family history with mental illness and addiction, she’s doing everything in her power to resist that path.  

“I’m feeling pushed to go that route because no doctor will help me,” she said. “It is deeply triggering my [borderline personality disorder] abandonment and rejection issues. It’s really easy to slip into the mindset that everyone hates me, I’m a medical monster, I’m bad and evil, and I deserve this.”

“It’s just being abandoned,” Prisha added. “I feel abandoned.”

Kelsey Bolar is a contributor to The Federalist and a senior policy analyst at Independent Women’s Forum. She is also the Thursday editor of BRIGHT, a weekly newsletter for women, and the 2017 Tony Blankley Chair at The Steamboat Institute. She lives in Washington, DC, with her husband, daughter, and Australian Shepherd, Utah.

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Detransitioners slam trans agenda in schools: ‘Children deserve better’


By Ryan Foley, Christian Post Reporter

Read more at https://www.christianpost.com/news/detransitioners-warn-of-harm-posed-by-schools-transgender-agenda.html/

A sign outside a classroom taken in 2016. | REUTERS/Tami Chappell

A group of detransitioners spoke at a recent school board meeting in California amid concerns about public schools exposing students to gender ideology, warning that such content increases the likelihood that minors will rush to embrace “irreversible” decisions to their long-term detriment. 

Three young adults who formerly identified as trans spoke at a school board meeting for the Conejo Valley Unified School District in Ventura County, California, last week. Chloe Cole, an 18-year-old woman who has launched a support group for individuals who have come to regret undergoing gender transitions called Detrans United, was among three detransitioners who told their stories to the school board at a recent meeting. 

Detrans United shared their testimonies on its Twitter account Thursday, noting that the purpose of their remarks was to “voice our concerns about their policies that allow confused children to come to harm.” Cole indicated on her Twitter account that the distribution of a book introducing 8-year-olds to the word “transgender” was the primary reason she decided to call into the school board meeting. 

Cole shared screenshots of the book, titled Call Me Max, which declared that although “transgender is a long word,” it “means something simple.” The book laid out how “trans means going across” while “gender means being a boy or girl or a little of both.” Another page of the book adds, “When a baby is born, a grown-up says, ‘IT’S A BOY!’ or ‘IT’S A GIRL!’” 

Call Me Max embraced the idea that trans-identified children know that they were born in the wrong body from birth: “If a brand-new baby could talk, sometimes that baby might say, ‘NO I’M NOT!’ When a baby grows up to be transgender, it means that the grown-up who said they were a boy or a girl made a mistake.”

The school board meeting that Cole and the two other detransitioners called into was held on Oct. 11, which coincided with National Coming Out Day, an occasion that encourages LGBT youth to come forward about their sexual identities. One speaker addressed National Coming Out Day in her remarks.

“Growing up, I hated dresses and skirts. I hit puberty at 9 years old and I hated my developing breasts,” Cole recalled. “I hated growing into a woman. I didn’t identify at all with the women around me.”

Cole explained that her discomfort with her biological sex led her to decide that she “wanted to become a boy.” She began socially transitioning by adopting a boy’s name for herself, cutting her hair and wearing boys’ clothes.

“My parents were supportive but they weren’t sure what to do with me, so they sought the help of mental professionals who manipulated them into allowing me to do whatever I wanted to do with myself,” Cole said. She began to take puberty blockers at age 13, and had her breasts amputated at age 16. 

Cole lamented the lack of time between her initial referral to receive the double mastectomy and the surgery itself, which amounted to six months. “Very quickly, I was given what I wanted but it was far from what I needed. Two years later, I was still suffering from major complications,” she added. While Cole did not specify when exactly she began to regret taking significant steps to change her gender, she elaborated on the long-term consequences of her hasty decisions. 

“I will not be able to breastfeed any children I have in the future and my sexuality has permanently been affected because I was allowed to make adult decisions starting at 13, and then again at 15. This is what happens when children are sexualized and exposed to developmentally inappropriate and confusing content and ideas from a young age. This is what happens when we treat children like adults and expect them to have the mental faculties for proper long-term decision making.”

Cole concluded her testimony with a message to the school board: “You are placing children in direct harm. Children deserve better.”

A round of applause followed Cole’s remarks. After Cole finished speaking, another detransitioner, Cat Cattinson, began to outline her concerns about gender ideology in public schools in remarks delivered via telephone: “I was introduced to gender ideology when I was 13 years old. I began identifying as the opposite sex, a man, and believing this negatively affected me for the next 15 years.”

“For the record, coming out as gay is entirely different than coming out as another gender,” she suggested. Cattinson condemned surgeons who are performing mastectomies on underage girls, saying it’s an “irreversible procedure that will prevent this person from ever breastfeeding.” In addition to her status as a detransitioner, Cattinson used her experience as a molecular biologist to dismiss the central idea of gender ideology.

Cattinson added: “Humans cannot change sex. It’s impossible and trying to appear as the opposite sex comes with significant health risks such as infertility, osteoporosis and many more as well. Puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and surgeries are irreversible.”

As her remarks came to a close, Cattinson contended that “there is a serious lack of quality research that any of these interventions improve mental health or prevent suicide in the long term.” Like Cole, Cattinson’s remarks drew a round of applause.

Abel Garcia, a male detransitioner, also addressed the board to speak out against “the push that they are doing right now to our children with the transgender ideology.” Garcia stressed that “we cannot expect children as young as they are right now to believe that they can change their sex with cross-sex hormones and irreversible surgeries.”

Garcia detailed how he had breast implants at age 21. Implying that he did not have the maturity to make such a decision, the detransitioner told the board: “I cannot expect a child, a high school male or elementary child, to understand the full extent of damages that will be done to their bodies if an adult like myself wasn’t able to.” 

For her part, Conejo Valley Unified School District Trustee candidate Lisa Powell insisted in a Twitter post shortly after the board meeting concluded that “CA state law requires schools to support and affirm transgender students.” “As a trustee, I will support and affirm our transgender students — not only because it’s the law, but because it’s the right thing to do,” she vowed.

CA state law requires schools to support and affirm our transgender students. As a trustee, I will support and affirm our transgender students – not only because it’s the law, but because it is the right thing to do.— Lisa Powell (@Powell4CVUSD) October 12, 2022

At the previous school board meeting on Sept. 20, a parent slammed the Conejo Valley Unified School District for its response to a seventh-grade boy masturbating in class. She attributed his inappropriate behavior to the school district’s sex education curriculum.

“It does not take an expert to figure out what happens to a 13-year-old boy when he’s staring at mostly naked girls wearing underwear to school and being exposed to concepts like oral and anal sex in seventh grade,” she said. “They let children write the dress code. The Teen Talk comprehensive sex ed is not age-appropriate and neither are supported by parents and teachers have spoken out adamantly against this.”

In a statement published Monday, the Conejo Valley Unified School District has decried what it has described as “on-going social media warfare and print disinformation campaigns” as part of an effort to “create false narratives from email snippets, social media posts, half statements made at Board meetings, and printed disinformation.” 

According to district leadership, “What was once lively discourse at our Board of Education meetings during public comments and agendized topics has escalated to a concerted and organized effort to create chaos and further narratives that are unfounded and simply have nothing to do with current action items nor Board duties and business.”

Besides noting that district officials experienced death threats, the statement did not provide specific examples of actions it found troubling. It did, however, proclaim that the “sensationalizing of rumors and months-old reported incidents must stop,” in what appeared to be a veiled reference to the remarks at the Sept. 20 board meeting regarding the in-class masturbation that took place in May. District officials suggested that “these fictitious narratives are being wrongly used to politicize incidents involving our students.”

The Conejo Valley Unified School District crafted a fact sheet, which was last updated on Oct. 14, to respond to parental concerns about the sex education curriculum. It states that parents can opt out of the curriculum if they so choose.

https://player.edifi.app/embed/index.html#/channels/Generation-Indoctrination:-Inside-the-Transgender-Battle/27801

Ryan Foley is a reporter for The Christian Post. He can be reached at: ryan.foley@christianpost.com

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