As the number of American youth who identify as transgender continues to grow, more and more teens and young adults are detransitioning. Some of these people claim that their decision to switch genders was a symptom of other issues they masked under the guise of gender dysphoria, at the urging of online activists and the transgender community.
According to detransitioners who spoke to Fox News Digital, some people choose to speak out about their transition experiences after detransitioning, but in doing so, they can become transgender activists. They say they often face harsh attitudes from the community.
Transitioner Luca Hein is now 21 years old, but he transitioned at age 16 after going through a difficult period in his early teens, including changing schools, his parents' divorce, and online grooming that led to police intervention. After that, she said, she began to become “extremely” and “dissociated” from her own body.
Hayne explained that she started hating things about her body, including her breasts and her period, which combined with her depression, made many of her existing problems worse. She was prescribed hormonal contraceptives to stop her periods and antidepressants to “promote dissociation” from her body.
“While this was happening, I began to close myself off and withdraw more and more into online spaces,” she told FOX News Digital. “In these online spaces, normal teenage anxieties, like not liking your period or feeling self-conscious about your body's growth and development, your curves, your growing breasts, are being replaced by people who are like, 'Oh, this is it. “It's not just a normal teenage experience, this means you're actually a boy born in the wrong body,” she explained.
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Luca Hein began gender reassignment treatment when he was 15 years old. (Courtesy of Luca “Bunny” Hayne)
“Obviously it was an idea from someone who had gone through trauma and was completely disconnected from their own body. All of a sudden I thought, 'Okay, yeah, that makes sense.'”
Hayne said her 14-year-old self took this explanation as validation for her feelings and “lived with it,” ignoring deeper questions about her past and the trauma she had faced.
“During that time, no one objected to what was happening after I came out. Even though the experts knew the history, they said, 'Okay, yeah, this is the problem.' “I knew there were other co-morbidities in my life, but I couldn't resist,” she said. “My parents were told that they were at risk of suicide if they did not affirm the mantra, 'Would you rather have a dead daughter or a living son?'”
Hayne had a double mastectomy at age 16 and received testosterone treatment a few months later. Since then, even before her transition, Hayne has faced backlash for questioning aspects of the transgender community, including calls for a redefinition of biological sex, she said. Told.
“In high school, that made me pretty unpopular with other transgender people. They didn’t like it… At a youth pride event, one of them almost punched me in the face because of it. It was like that,” she said. she said.
After detransitioning, Hayne said she became vocal about her experiences and faced slurs and threats in the trans activist community that had previously embraced her. She said that instead of accepting people who she claimed were “nice,” Ms. Hayne said, “They are always the most miserable people I have ever met, and they are always so mean.” she said.
Now in her early 20s, Luca has reverted to the gender assigned to her at birth.
Hayne is willing to face backlash and criticism because she believes in telling her story, but she believes the voices of detransitioners are often not heard by the public. He blamed it on the hatred and intense backlash he received from the gender community.
Hayne said she began experiencing extreme anxiety and chest pain before testifying, and the stress she felt from speaking out about these issues reached a peak where she was forced to refrain from appearing in person because her body could no longer handle it. said. In some cases, she encountered people, such as elected officials, who claimed they were “killing people” by sharing their stories.
“It's interesting because I can't think of many other medical practices where the victims of these practices are treated this way,” she said.
“When you have a child or a teenager and they come to you and they're suffering and you say, 'I think everything is wrong, right down to my physical being,' , that's one of those things.'' … Look into the child's eyes and say, “Yes, you're doing everything wrong. We're going to make sure you change everything, and it will get better.'' What kind of adult can say that? she added. “You're just reality-affirming every negative perception they have of themselves instead of helping them overcome it.”
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In March, Hain challenged Nebraska Sen. Megan Hunt on the floor of the state Capitol, claiming that transgender surgeries would “never happen” in her state. Hayne tweeted a photo of her breasts, which bear the scars from a double mastectomy she underwent in Nebraska when she was 16 years old.
“That's ridiculous,” Hayne said. “It's a mental gymnastics loop where it happens. 'Okay, well, it's happening, but not very often.' That's a good thing and you have to accept it.''
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen these measures happen as quickly as these issues, especially for transitioning people, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom,” she added.
Detransitioner Chloe Cole had a double mastectomy at the age of 15. (Twitter/Screenshot)
Chloe Cole, who is now 19 but began transitioning at 13, echoed Hayne's sentiments, explaining that she began experiencing hate from the transgender activist community before going public with her transition. did.
“When I once talked about my experience and how damaging transition had been to my life, even saying that I regret transitioning, a transgender friend in this community who I once looked up to “The immediate reaction from them, who I thought was my second family… was now completely against me,” she said.
Cole said the same people went out of their way to tell her that she would never be pretty again and that there was no point in going back to being a woman because she looked better as a boy. Told.
“Every step [of my transition]I was actively encouraged to take it further and celebrated for what I was doing, but now, when I spoke honestly about it, now it was painful for me. , they told me I had to stop talking about my experience and that I was hurting others in the community by making them afraid that they too would think that way.'' she said.
Cole has been touring colleges across the country in recent months because she feels this is an important issue to speak out about, and she says she has experienced protests and backlash against her presence at every school. Told.
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“For example, there was a protest yesterday. [trans activists] '' Cole recalled. “I had never seen anything like this before. It was like a drag queen dance ritual at a concert, and one of the men who was cross-dressing there told me that I had a double mastectomy. She knowingly went out of her way to intimidate me by waving her fake breasts in my face. At 15 years old, she just completely mocks my experience and women in general.”
“This is a very ideologically captive group of people, many of whom are not very mentally stable. Many of them have severe trauma that is not being addressed.” Cole explained. “They are not receiving medical treatment… [which] They actively encourage you to fall into increasingly unhealthy lifestyles. ”
“They are convinced that genocide is actively being carried out against them and their children, and that any backlash against this is a backlash against their lives,” she added. “Basically, they are being told that they are losing their basic human rights and their right to health care.”
One common accusation against detransitioners is that they are themselves “transphobic.” Cole said when he first started speaking publicly about his experience, he struggled with it.
“This is a group that I used to be a part of that I loved, and that rejection, losing something that had been all I really knew for a long time, was a huge thing, so it was very difficult for me mentally. “It was very painful. It's a sore spot for me,” she said. ”
Chloe Cole testifies before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, holding a hearing on the government's gender-affirming child care. (Jasper Colt-USA TODAY)
But I'm over it now,” she added, adding, “These words, these threats are empty and I realize these people are hurting. I was once in their shoes too. But I can't imagine they're that blinded by this ideology. I think they deserve better.”
In another example on a college campus, it was believed that Mr. Cole's story would be psychologically traumatizing to transgender students, and that Mr. Cole considered it incredibly weak, leading to professors saying that Mr. Cole He is said to have canceled classes in anticipation of the visit.
“If you can't stand a 19-year-old girl coming onto your campus to talk about her life experiences, what else can you stand?” she asked. “You are a grown adult. It is not my responsibility to be your mother or your therapist. There are things in life that are not comfortable, but you still have to face them.”
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Cole said it's shocking how people go after her character, ignore her story completely, or make fun of what happened to her body, but she hopes that in the future, other transitioners and Continuing her story, she said the close relationships she has built with people who have called off their transitions keep her motivated.
“When you know there are other people and other entire communities that are affected by this, it makes you want to fight for them and make you want to stop history from repeating itself.” she said.
