On March 13th, the Carolina Journal published the following op-ed by Laura Macklem, NC Values Press Director, entitled “Detrans movement reveals how medical community and activists prey on vulnerable”:
March 12 was Detrans Awareness Day, a date that provides an opportunity for those who fell victim to the cruel ploy of youth medical transitioning to educate others. Many victims of transitioning have been separated from their families, had their healthy bodies permanently mutilated, and seen their mental health ignored and further devastated. Voices of the detrans community need to be heard; their stories need to be told. They need and deserve compassion, advocacy on their behalf, and respect for being brave voices in a culture which rejects and shames those who choose to leave the medical transition cult.
When my youngest daughter was about four, she was often wild and mischievous. With a gleam in her eye, she would chase me around the kitchen with a manic laugh, pushing lizards towards me as I screamed. She played with trains and cars, loved to wrestle, and roughed her older sister up quite a bit. But she also liked dolls and tutus, wore boys’ boots while also sporting pink plastic necklaces in true pre-schooler fashion.
She said to me once, “Mom, I’m half Tom boy and half girly-girl.” When my daughter told me that, I never wondered if she was gender confused. But today, a child who utters those innocent words could be easily placed on a track to transgenderism by an activist adult or an agenda-driven physician.
We have a devastating cultural trend being pushed by activist medical professionals, public schools, social media influencers, and corporations. For some, pushing gender fluidity is a money-making scheme; for others it’s a political crusade to erase the idea of biological gender. Unlike other trends, this one leaves countless people emotionally devastated and irreversibly mutilated, burdened by a lifetime of staggering medical bills and a feeling they will never be themselves again. People who undergo transgender ‘medical treatments’ — whether they be hormones or surgery — must realize medicalized transitioning causes permanent changes, and will likely lead to medical problems requiring treatment for the rest of their lives.
Gender dysphoria is defined and diagnosed only as a psychiatric, not a medical condition, although many transgender patients say their mental health was never addressed before their physical transitions were authorized by medical professionals. A 2021 study indicated that 58% of those surveyed believed their gender dysphoria was caused by trauma or a mental health condition. Instead of addressing mental health issues first, youth are being fast-tracked into surgery and hormone therapies, which can cause sterilization, blood clots, cardiovascular disease and psychiatric disorders. Transitioners have reported joint disorders and bone density issues from puberty blockers, which are advertised on television like gender is a disease that needs to be fixed. But it’s not. Puberty blockers are actually cancer treatments being used off-label.
This highly profitable industry starts targeting children even as infants, with books like “Bye Bye Binary” and “Being You.” Youth are being pitted against their families by outside influences, including “glitter families,” who convince children their parents don’t love them if their transgenderism isn’t embraced. Because medically transitioning is new to the culture, parents are unsure how to address their children’s dysphoria.
A parent of one detransition survivor said, “We were told what to do, or our child would die. We were emotionally manipulated.”
So, their daughter was given a double mastectomy and testosterone shots, and she now lives in an altered body with chronic health problems and profound regret. Parents and children are being manipulated with fear tactics and brainwashing, and something needs to be done to protect both.
Detrans survivor Prisha Mosley said, “The moment I said the word gender, they were all over me,” referring to her therapists. “I was medicalized so fast.”
Chloe Cole started puberty blockers at age 13 and had a double mastectomy at age 15. Like many other children who chose to transition, both were influenced via the internet and social media. There is also documentation of “clustering” where gender dysphoria has been observed in particular schools and among friend groups.
Transgenderism is largely a social contagion, fed by public schools that fill their library shelves with transgender themes and offer clubs, which enhances the cluster effect. At a recent Senate committee hearing for a Parents Bill of Rights, teachers and school officials lined up to testify that secrecy between school officials and students about gender identity was essential to children’s mental health. The narrative that parents don’t love their children if they don’t agree to transitioning is a sinister message touted by activists who want to be affirmed themselves and change the culture.
North Carolina needs to protect these vulnerable young people from vultures in the medical profession who prey on their mental instability. Numerous gender clinics in North Carolina — UNC, ECU, Duke, Levine Children’s Hospital, and many more — are profiting off surgical and hormonal treatments to minor children. It is impossible for a young person to give informed consent to transgender “medical treatments” that irreparably damage their bodies and minds. The medical community should be held accountable.
Laura Macklem is the press and political director for NC Values.
