When Missouri lawmakers took up bills to ban transition care for minors, Chloe Cole, an activist from California, traveled to Jefferson City to offer her story as Exhibit A.
After living as a transgender boy for years and getting a mastectomy at 15, Ms. Cole says she felt stifled by a male identity and distraught by her body’s changes. She decided to detransition, returning to her female identity.
She also decided to speak out. She has told her story in Florida, and in Idaho, Kansas, New Hampshire, Ohio, South Dakota, Tennessee and Utah. Republican lawmakers typically listen attentively, sometimes in tears. In March, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida relayed Ms. Cole’s story in his State of the State address, while she received a standing ovation.
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As Republican-controlled state legislatures have passed over a dozen bills banning transition care for minors this year and have moved to restrict care for adults, Ms. Cole and fewer than 10 activists like her — people who transitioned and then changed course — have become the faces of the cause, according to a New York Times review of news coverage and legislative testimony.
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These activists are fixtures at legislative hearings and rallies. Their experiences have been splashed across conservative media as cautionary tales. In Wyoming, a lawmaker named his bill to ban transition care for minors “Chloe’s Law.”
Most people who transition do not change course. And yet, the influence of these activists has been striking.
Their stories of regret and irreversible physical transformation have tapped into strong emotions about rapidly shifting gender norms — from hardened prejudice to parental worry. Lawmakers have used these accounts to override objections from all major medical associations, which oppose bans on transition care, as well as testimony from the far larger number of transgender people who say transitioning improved their mental health.
“They don’t really care,” said Chelsea Freels, 17, a transgender high school student in Missouri who testified at legislative hearings there to oppose bills that Ms. Cole supported. Ms. Freels says hormone therapy has helped her thrive. She is more comfortable socially and deeply involved on the robotics team. But she says Republican lawmakers look away when she tells them this story.
“They’re on their phones,” she said in an interview. The Missouri legislature last week passed a ban on transition care for transgender youth.
Leaders in the conservative movement say it is important to amplify the voices of people who feel they have been misled by doctors and want to warn others.
“We are glad to work with individuals who are willing to stand up to the corrosive effects of gender ideology, especially when it is being pushed on children,” said Jay W. Richards, the director of the DeVos Center for Life, Religion and Family at the Heritage Foundation.
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But many transgender-rights activists and others warn that the outsize emphasis on a minority is distorting the policy debate.
“Why are we indicting the treatment of trans youth rather than saying: What infrastructure needs to be in place to ensure that trans kids are properly evaluated?” said Dr. Madeline Deutsch, the president of the United States Professional Association for Transgender Health. “This is like saying: ‘We have unlicensed drivers on the road, so we need to basically get rid of automobiles.’”
So when she published an essay in 2019 saying that her transition “was all a sham” and that she wanted “to live again as the man that I am,” conservatives took immediate notice.
Laura Ingraham invited Ms. Shupe on her Fox News show. The Heritage Foundation, whose Daily Signal news site had published her essay, offered to fly her to Washington to oppose an anti-discrimination bill. A radio producer for the Family Research Council sent her a Bible inscribed with her birth name and called her “America’s new hero.”
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After living as a transgender boy for years and getting a mastectomy at 15, Ms. Cole says she felt stifled by a male identity and distraught by her body’s changes. She decided to detransition, returning to her female identity.
She also decided to speak out. She has told her story in Florida, and in Idaho, Kansas, New Hampshire, Ohio, South Dakota, Tennessee and Utah. Republican lawmakers typically listen attentively, sometimes in tears. In March, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida relayed Ms. Cole’s story in his State of the State address, while she received a standing ovation.
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Continue reading the main story
As Republican-controlled state legislatures have passed over a dozen bills banning transition care for minors this year and have moved to restrict care for adults, Ms. Cole and fewer than 10 activists like her — people who transitioned and then changed course — have become the faces of the cause, according to a New York Times review of news coverage and legislative testimony.
Image
These activists are fixtures at legislative hearings and rallies. Their experiences have been splashed across conservative media as cautionary tales. In Wyoming, a lawmaker named his bill to ban transition care for minors “Chloe’s Law.”
Most people who transition do not change course. And yet, the influence of these activists has been striking.
Their stories of regret and irreversible physical transformation have tapped into strong emotions about rapidly shifting gender norms — from hardened prejudice to parental worry. Lawmakers have used these accounts to override objections from all major medical associations, which oppose bans on transition care, as well as testimony from the far larger number of transgender people who say transitioning improved their mental health.
“They don’t really care,” said Chelsea Freels, 17, a transgender high school student in Missouri who testified at legislative hearings there to oppose bills that Ms. Cole supported. Ms. Freels says hormone therapy has helped her thrive. She is more comfortable socially and deeply involved on the robotics team. But she says Republican lawmakers look away when she tells them this story.
“They’re on their phones,” she said in an interview. The Missouri legislature last week passed a ban on transition care for transgender youth.
r, it is difficult to say how many will transition medically — many transgender people do not — and precisely how many will later change course. Methodology, demographics and even the definition of detransition vary widely from study to study, which typically show that between 2 percent and 13 percent of people detransition, and not always because of regret.
Leading medical groups in the United States, including the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Medical Association, say transition care should be available to minors and oppose legislative bans. Many experts say policymakers should ensure access to high-quality care, including thorough individual evaluations to determine which treatments are appropriate and at what age.Leaders in the conservative movement say it is important to amplify the voices of people who feel they have been misled by doctors and want to warn others.
“We are glad to work with individuals who are willing to stand up to the corrosive effects of gender ideology, especially when it is being pushed on children,” said Jay W. Richards, the director of the DeVos Center for Life, Religion and Family at the Heritage Foundation.
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Continue reading the main story
But many transgender-rights activists and others warn that the outsize emphasis on a minority is distorting the policy debate.
“Why are we indicting the treatment of trans youth rather than saying: What infrastructure needs to be in place to ensure that trans kids are properly evaluated?” said Dr. Madeline Deutsch, the president of the United States Professional Association for Transgender Health. “This is like saying: ‘We have unlicensed drivers on the road, so we need to basically get rid of automobiles.’”
‘America’s New Hero’
Elisa Rae Shupe was well known in the transgender rights movement: first as an outspoken transgender woman, and then as the first American to change her legal sex to nonbinary.So when she published an essay in 2019 saying that her transition “was all a sham” and that she wanted “to live again as the man that I am,” conservatives took immediate notice.
Laura Ingraham invited Ms. Shupe on her Fox News show. The Heritage Foundation, whose Daily Signal news site had published her essay, offered to fly her to Washington to oppose an anti-discrimination bill. A radio producer for the Family Research Council sent her a Bible inscribed with her birth name and called her “America’s new hero.”
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How a Few Stories of Regret Fuel the Push to Restrict Gender Transition Care
In the campaign to ban gender therapies for minors, Republicans have amplified a group of activists who no longer identify as transgender, overriding objections from transgender people and medical experts.
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