Chloe Cole, a 19-year-old American activist, opposes harmful hormone therapies and “gender-affirming” surgeries. As a result of childhood confusion, she had her breasts removed at the age of 15, which scarred her for life. Today, she is sharing her experience with the world – in order to prevent what happened to her from happening to others. You can read more about the role of social media, parents and doctors in her story in the exclusive interview below.
Hello Chloe, I would first like to sincerely thank you for agreeing to this interview, even though you are very busy. I would like to start by asking you to tell us a little bit about yourself for those who don’t know you yet. Who are you, what brought you to where you are today, and what is your mission?
I am a “former trans kid” or “detransitioner”, but before that, I was a “trans-identified” teenager from California. I consider myself an advocate for the rights of children, parents, patients, and those who have already been hurt by the healthcare system.
As you yourself note, the world is increasingly flooded with the LGBT agenda, which has many different extremisms and beliefs. One of these is that gender is “fluid” and that a man can be a woman and a woman a man. What is your opinion on this?
I believe that just because someone says they feel that they can change their gender does not mean that they actually can. No science supports the idea that you can change your gender. It is also impossible to say that I feel like a boy – because I don’t know what it feels like to be a boy. I do not have a frame of reference for that feeling, and I never will. These statements are based entirely on gender stereotypes and should not be used for academic or medical purposes.
Do you think that gender can be “changed” or “assigned” at birth? Is gender simply biologically determined?
I believe that gender can only be observed at birth. This is in contrast to “assigned”, because it is a fixed characteristic determined by the development of the foetus.
The period of adolescence is an extremely difficult time for every human being, because that is when people start to change and search for their identity. This also involves experimenting with different things, including gender. When did you enter puberty, and how did it make you feel?
Puberty started a bit earlier for me, before the 4th year of primary school, or between the ages of 8 and 9. The early growth of my body, especially the growth of my breasts and hips, brought me attention from others around me, which often seemed like too much, and I didn’t always want it. I became very fixated on all these changes and quietly tried to navigate through the distress caused by my body image and developing sexuality without detailed guidance or any close female role models.
It is nothing new for girls to sometimes dress or behave like boys – and vice versa. I was more of a “tomboy” myself as a teenager. Did you experience that, too? What was it like? Do you think something like this is typical of that period? Does it perhaps disappear later?
Growing up, I was always – to varying degrees – prone to “tomboyishness” – and I still am. I am the youngest in my family, I have older siblings, so as a little girl, I played with toys for both sexes. I often spent time with my older brothers, with whom we played in the sandpit outside, with trains or Lego bricks, and we also played video games, although I also liked feminine clothes and dolls. My room was stereotypically girly until the onset of puberty.
Between the ages of 10 and 12, I started to refuse to wear dresses, handbags, bras and the like for a number of reasons – I, of course, started to enjoy spending time in more masculine company and preferred to wear less feminine clothes, but I also felt like I didn’t look right or wasn’t pretty enough to be feminine. Ironically – in the second half of my transition and as I got older, I started to adapt to a more feminine role and to enjoy cute and pretty things again. Now that I have connected with women of all ages from different generations, I notice that this is common to most women who are a bit more “tomboyish”.
As a teenager, who did you turn to with questions? Who was your “support system”, and how did they help you? Were your parents there for you, and how do you see your parents’ role in your teenage years now? Do you think that parents should support a child in absolutely every decision he or she makes? Should they set a limit if the decision could put the child’s life at risk in the long term?
I turned to my family, mostly my siblings; I am the youngest of five. They were very helpful, but as I got older, I started to turn to the internet more and more for answers to my bigger questions. Certain parts of the internet can be extremely biased, and these parts offered convenient answers to my questions, which, in the end, proved to be devastating for me and pushed me into gender ideology. Parents should guide their children in the direction that will enable them to succeed most in adult life, not just give them what they want in the short term.
You started taking puberty suppressants at the age of 12, as far as I know, and had a double mastectomy at the age of 15. Tell us your story … How did this happen, and how did your parents cope with it?
I started puberty suppressants (hormone therapy) at the age of 13 and had a double mastectomy at the age of 15. At 16, shortly after the operation, I detransitioned. Partly because of a psychology course I took in high school that outlined the importance of family, the maternal bond and the development of a child with both parents. I also “crossed back over” because the process caused me a lot of physical and psychological harm.
How did the doctors introduce hormone therapy and surgery to you? Did they try to discourage you from it? What was your “diagnosis”? Whose idea was it to do the surgery, and how long after the consultation with the doctor did you have it?
My diagnosis was gender dysphoria; they presented all the gender-affirming procedures as the only remedy to treat my dysphoric condition. My parents were told that I would kill myself if they did not treat me in this way.
How did the operation and recovery go? How did you feel – were you happy at that moment? Did you feel that you did the right thing, did you feel like you finally had the “right body”, in line with how you felt?
At first, it was difficult to distinguish, but over time, I realised that a large part of my depressive state was due to the damage that had been done to my body. It was very difficult to recover from the operation, and when I looked at my wounded breasts, I was horrified. I really don’t remember feeling like a boy after the operation, I was just a confused girl with big scars.
During the recovery process, did you ever feel that any of the doctors regretted their actions?
The doctors kept trying to push me into gender ideology. They told me that my regret was just part of my sexual journey, and they denied or ignored my medical complications.
How do you feel today, what are the consequences of hormone therapy and surgery? Are you taking any medication, and how are you coping with the pain after all this? What would you do differently if you could turn back time?
I still feel a lot of regret. I am doing well, because I am finding purpose in advocating for myself, for my friends with similar experiences, and for children around the world. I would not wish the effects of what I went through in my childhood on my worst enemy. It is horrible.
Where are the doctors who advised you to start hormone therapy and operated on you now? Have you sued them, and if yes, how far along is the process?
I am suing them, and the case will probably go to trial. The doctors are still doing it, but I will not stop until they pay for what they have done to me.
More and more children or adolescents are facing similar “identity crises.” What do you think is the reason for this? Are social networks also to blame? Do you think that the theory of “gender fluidity” is a social construct? Why?
Children, especially girls, are vulnerable to social contagions, such as the anorexia crisis that happened in the late 1990s and during the transition to the 21st century. What is happening now is just another social contagion. The only difference is that mass organisations are placing it in the sphere of a human rights issue, which prevents the medical community from examining it properly and realising its mistake. It is also used to discourage whistleblowers from speaking out, as they do not want to be called “transphobes”.
What advice would you give to young people who are also facing an identity crisis? What advice would you give to those who feel the need to change their bodies, who feel what they feel so strongly? How can you separate emotion from reason? What advice would you give to parents? How should they act in such a case, and how should they advise their children?
Children can feel “gender nonconformity” without damaging their healthy bodies. I do not want any child to feel as if they are “born wrong”, and I want to explain to children that there are a million ways to be a girl and a million ways to be a boy.
What parental advice did you want back then? What did you need when you were in distress?
For a parent to confirm this “delusion” is abuse. Today, all the data is available, and parents have the tools to understand that what they are doing is extremely dangerous. I would probably have outgrown it if they had left me alone at the time.
I have asked you so many questions, but I am very thankful that you have agreed to share your story with us and our readers. The world needs brave people like you. What is your message to us, to our readers and – ultimately – to the world?
My message is that no child is born in the wrong body; daring to be different without surgery or medication is true courage. We must end the biggest healthcare scandal in history. Anyone who is not yet helping us defeat this great evil must wake up and fight.
Tanja Brkić
