Detransitioner Chloe Cole gave evidence before a Senate committee in the US last week, recounting her personal story about the damaging treatments that have destroyed her life. 

Chloe bravely spoke about being a victim of one of the greatest medical scandals in history. She is calling on lawmakers to bring the scandal to an end and save others from the trauma she has endured. 

At the age of 12 I began to experience what my medical team would later diagnose as gender dysphoria. I was well into an early puberty and I was very uncomfortable with the changes that were happening to my body. I was intimidated by male attention and when I told my parents I felt like a boy, in retrospect, all I meant was that I hated puberty, that I wanted this newfound sexual tension to go away.

Chloe explained that she looked up to her brothers more than her sisters and that she “came out” as transgender in a letter she left on their dining room table. Her parents immediately sought medical help which Chloe said led her family down a path of ‘deceit and coercion.’

Chloe described the moment they became victims of “gender affirming care” when a specialist falsely argued that it was necessary to start puberty blockers if they wanted a living son instead of having a dead daughter. 

This was said even though Chloe was not suicidal.

At only 13 years old she was on puberty blockers, then testosterone, that resulted in menopause type symptoms including hot flashes and weird joint pains.

My voice will be forever deeper. My jawline sharper. My nose longer. My bone structure permanently masculinised. My Adam’s apple more prominent. My fertility unknown. I look in the mirror sometimes, and I feel like a monster.

I had a double mastectomy at 15. They tested my amputated breasts for cancer. Now it’s cancer free of course, I was perfectly healthy. There was nothing wrong with my perfectly healthy body, or my breasts, other than that, as an insecure teenage girl, I felt awkward about it.

After my breasts were taken away the tissue was incinerated. Before I was even able to legally drive, I had a huge part of my future womanhood taken from me. I will never be able to breastfeed. 

Chloe described how difficult it is to look at her scars. She explains that her nipples are still weeping fluid to this day. Her underlying issues were not addressed, and she only vaguely resembled a boy. No amount of medical intervention could change the fact that she was and is female.

Chloe’s message is that lying to children will not help them. Compassion, love and therapy is required, not drugs and surgery. She emphasised that puberty is not optional, it is “a right of passage to adulthood, not a disease to be mitigated.”

She concluded with a plea to lawmakers to stop this travesty.