Children cannot begin to comprehend the life-long and permanent consequences of gender-altering efforts by gender activists in the medical field. That was a primary message of a House Judiciary subcommittee hearing on Thursday investigating an issue that has overrun much of the nation.
The testimony from detransitioners to medical doctors was clear – transgender medical procedures on children have a 100% failure rate.
Multiple women spoke out against the practice of sex changes for minors in the hearing on the dangers of medical transitions.
Chloe Cole: It's 'One of the Biggest Medical Scandals' in History
Chloe Cole began transitioning at the age of 13 with puberty blockers, hormone treatment, and a double mastectomy before she transitioned back to female. Some of the procedures are irreversible though. Testifying before Congress on her 19th birthday, Cole made an impassioned plea to the panel of lawmakers to stop gender medical treatments and surgeries.
"I speak to you today as a victim of one of the biggest medical scandals in the history of the United States of America. I speak to you in the hope that you will have the courage to bring this scandal to an end and ensure that other vulnerable teenagers, children, and young adults don't go through what I went through," she testified.
Cole then shared her transition in detail to lawmakers, testifying to the transgender treatments she received as a young teenager and how it changed her body forever. She said she "didn't need to be lied to," and needed therapy in order to work through her problems.
"So what message do I want to bring to American teenagers and their families? I didn't need to be lied to. I needed compassion. I needed to be loved. I needed to be getting therapy to help me work through my issues, not affirmed to my delusion that by transforming into a boy, it would solve all my problems," Cole said.
"We need to stop telling 12-year-olds that they were born wrong, that they are right to reject their own bodies and feel uncomfortable with their own skin. We need to stop telling children that puberty is an option. That they can choose what kind of puberty they will go through just as they can choose what clothes to wear or music to listen to," she continued.
"Puberty is a rite of passage to adulthood, not a disease to be mitigated. Today, I should be at home with my family, celebrating my 19th birthday, and instead, I'm making a desperate plea to my representatives. Learn the lessons from other medical scandals like the opioid crisis to recognize that doctors are human too. And sometimes they are wrong," Cole said.
"My childhood was ruined, along with thousands of detransitioners that I know through our networks," she testified. "This needs to stop. You alone can stop it. Enough children have already been victimized by this barbaric pseudoscience. Please let me be your final warning."
A POWERFUL WARNING: @ChoooCole testifies before Congress about why we must protect children & young adults from becoming lifelong medical patients at the hands of 'gender affirming care.'
‼️"My childhood was ruined, along with thousands of detransitioners. This needs to stop." pic.twitter.com/k6rN4RzNc0
— Independent Women's Forum (@IWF) July 27, 2023
As CBN News has reported, Cole is suing the Permanente Medical Group, Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, and Kaiser Foundation Hospitals for performing "supervised, and/or advised transgender hormone therapy and surgical intervention" for gender-transitioning medical treatments she received there as a minor, including a double mastectomy and hormone replacement therapy.
Later in the hearing, Cole was asked by Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) if she would like to respond to the other witnesses who had given their testimony. She chose to reply to Myriam Reynolds who had testified to the committee about her 18-year-old transgender son.
Cole was emotional as she told the lawmakers she knows Reynolds is scared for her child and that she sees her own mother and father in her.
"I understood that Mrs. Reynolds is scared for her child. And I just want to set the record straight that I don't hate her, I don't think anybody in this room hates her. In fact, I see my own mother and my own father in her," she said, beginning to become tearful. "And that clearly, she really loves her child, and she's been doing the best with what she's been given. And unfortunately, it's not much. And for that, I'm sorry. I mean I think every parent deserves the utmost grace and guidance with how to help their child."
"That being said, I don't wish for a child to have a same result as I did. I don't wish for anybody to regret transition and de-transition because it's incredibly difficult. It comes with its own difficulties, and it's not easy. And I hope that her child gets to have a happy and fulfilling adulthood."
Really heartbreaking clip here as detransitioner Chloe Cole breaks down speaking to another witness, the mother of a trans-identifying child:
"I see my own mother and father in her..." pic.twitter.com/J8kRyqirN3
— Mary Margaret Olohan (@MaryMargOlohan) July 27, 2023
Dr. Jennifer Bauwens: 'You Can't Change Your Sex'
In her opening statement to the committee, Dr. Jennifer Bauwens, director of the Center for Family Studies at the Family Research Council said, "Based on my 25 years as a physician providing trauma therapy to children and as a researcher investigating the psychological effects of traumatic stress, I'm here to express my concern about what has been termed 'gender affirming care'."
"I've considered it a privilege to practice, research, and train future clinicians, and be a part of a discipline aimed at protecting the most vulnerable in our society which are children," she continued. "But when it comes to gender transition procedures, my field is not operating as a helping profession. Instead, it is actively causing harm."
During her testimony before the committee, Bauwens agreed with Wyoming Republican Rep. Harriet Hageman when she asked if there was a 100% failure rate for sex change operations.
"That's right," Bauwens replied. "That's right. You can't change your sex."
"...there is a 100% failure rate for sex change operations, isn't there? Because it's not possible to change your sex." - @RepHageman
Men and women are different. Men cannot be women and women cannot be men. No amount of drugs and surgery can ever change that. pic.twitter.com/2UWK7cwreg
— Heritage Foundation (@Heritage) July 27, 2023
Bauwens pointed out that multiple other countries have already backed away from gender transition procedures.
"'Gender-affirming care' has created a monopoly on treatment options as it demands that it is the only way to treat gender dysphoria," she told the committee. "We should be innovating solutions to heal kids' gender distress, not coercing them onto a path that tells them they need to remove or change physical parts of who they are in order to be whole. This is why I'm calling on you to act on behalf of children."
"'Gender-affirming care' has created a monopoly on treatment options as it demands that it is the only way to treat gender dysphoria."
We should be innovating solutions to heal kids' gender distress, not coercing them "onto a path that tells them they need to remove or change… pic.twitter.com/JbQ2uUDzPS
— Family Research Council (@FRCdc) July 27, 2023
Paula Scanlan: 'Forced to Undress in the Presence of Lia, a 6-Foot-4 Biological Male'
Another woman testified about the trauma she's experienced as a result of the transgender agenda infiltrating women's sports.
Paula Scanlan, a former swimmer on the University of Pennsylvania NCCA Division 1 team with transgender swimmer Lia Thomas, says that as a sexual abuse survivor, she was traumatized by Thomas' presence in the shower room.
Scanlan told the lawmakers the university was indifferent about the concerns she and the other female swimmers on the team voiced about having to be naked in a locker room with a biological male.
"My teammates and I were forced to undress in the presence of Lia, a 6-foot-4 tall biological male, fully intact with male genitalia, 18 times per week. Some girls opted to change in bathroom stalls, and others used the family bathroom to avoid this," she said.
"When we tried to voice our concerns to the athletic department, we were told that Lia's swimming and being in our locker room was a non-negotiable, and we were offered psychological services to attempt to re-educate us to become comfortable with the idea of undressing in front of a male," Scanlan continued.
"To sum up the university's response, we the women were the problem, not the victims. We were expected to conform, to move over and shut up. Our feelings didn't matter," she said.
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