SACRAMENTO, California (LifeSiteNews) – On March 10, the California State capitol will become host to what may be a record turnout for Detrans Awareness Day, an event highlighting individuals who have experienced and repudiated firsthand the dark side of transgender “affirmation.”
The Daily Wire reported that the event, organized by the nonpartisan group OurDuty, is meant to “honor those harmed by the gender industry and ignored by mainstream media and politicians on the left, bravely exposing the gender industry’s lies” and is “anticipated to be the largest ever.” More than 20 “detransitioners” (individuals who tried living as the opposite sex but reverted to their true identity) are slated to attend.
The event has been met with much invective on social media, including threatening comments that organizers “need their teeth punched out” and should “know how to properly wash pepper sprayed eyes.”
“It is not an anti-trans rally, it is a call for caution around medical transitioning to prevent vulnerable individuals from being met with the same regret,” said 18-year-old Chloe Cole, who says she was medically transitioned after doctors told her she had a “male brain in a female body.” Despite the threats, she said, “I will always speak out on behalf of the others that don’t have a voice, the kids, the families, the adults that have been affected by this will no longer suffer in silence.”
Last March, after the previous Detransition Awareness Day, Medscape Medical News covered a forum giving voice to firsthand accounts affirming the above from more de-transitioners around the world, who also spoke about the biases, blind spots, and negligence on these points from the medical establishment. A representative example of the participants, “ex-transgender” Michelle Alleva, argued that the need for strong evidence supporting a favored course is now disregarded in the name of a cultural agenda.
Alleva contends that pro-transition studies often suffer from failure to follow-up with patients over a long-enough period of time, and that transition regret is difficult to track because of the number of regretful patients who do not follow up with their doctors. She also argues that “informed consent” for transition procedures cannot be satisfied without a thorough mental evaluation of a patient, not to mention the unknown variables of the interventions themselves.
Studies find that more than 80% of children experiencing gender dysphoria outgrow it on their own by late adolescence, and that even full “reassignment” surgery often fails to resolve gender-confused individuals’ heightened tendency to engage in self-harm and suicide — and may even exacerbate it by reinforcing their confusion and neglecting the actual root causes of their mental strife.
On top of those issues, experts outside the medical establishment further warn that surgically or chemically reinforcing gender confusion imposes irreversible harm on children such as infertility, impairment of adult sexual function, and reduced life expectancy, as well as the psychological toll of being “locked into” physical alterations regardless of whether they change their minds when they mature, as attested to by many individuals who “detransitioned” back to their true sex.
The issue is grimly illustrated in the story of Yaeli Martinez, a 19-year-old to whom “gender transitioning” was touted as a possible cure for her depression in high school, supported by a high school counselor who withheld what she was going through from her mother. The troubled girl killed herself after trying to live as a man for three years.
“While the exact number of detransitioners is unknown, and more research is needed, the number appears to be steadily rising,” DW’s Christina Buttons wrote. “A forum created in 2017 for detransitioners on Reddit appears to be adding over 1,000 members a month, and now has nearly 45,000 members.”
More information on Detrans Awareness Day can be found on the event’s website.