This past Thursday, Young Americans for Freedom hosted their second of three talks this semester, hosting renowned detransitioner and activist, Chloe Cole, speaking out in opposition to “gender-affirming” treatments. Miss Cole started her story with the emphatic statement, “I have spent my adult life trying to do one thing – protect children against transgender ideologies.”
As she was growing up, Chloe Cole described feeling a certain discomfort within her own body and feeling unconnected from other female role models around her. Instead, she gravitated towards male companionship and “tomboy” activities, which led her to conclude that perhaps, “she” was in reality meant to be a “he.”
The initial curiosity led to a personal questioning of her innermost identity and, eventually, to the gender-affirming treatments of puberty blockers, cross sex hormones and surgery. It was the doctors who had the majority of influence in her journey and decisions, as they ambushed her and her family in a whirlwind of lies about the “life-saving” treatments they could offer. This all happened in her early teenage years– a time when she should have been savoring the last moments of childhood and engaging with her first moments of adulthood – now clouded over by a search for identity.
Now, after many years of struggle, she travels the country with the message, “Stop abusing children!” She said, “Sometimes there will be people who get mad with me for saying this because it is a challenge to their ideology that they have spent decades building up, and they are also not willing to face reality.” What Chloe Cole is trying to do is tell the truth and protect children.
People promoting this ideology, specifically doctors, say the “gender-affirming treatments” will resolve everything and make life worth living again for the individual. Indeed, patients are often treated as having two options: transition or suicide. She notes that, “There is real desperation in these people, who have based their entire worldview on this ideology, and they perceive aggression toward it as a personal attack on their soul.”
She spoke also about the idea of the “ideological flood,” her name for the mess and destruction which happens to society as a result of this transgender ideology coming crashing through, as well as the need for cleaning up and restoration that implies. She talked about the massive strides which humanity has made in the last decades that make the wall of gender ideology seem merely a facade. “It is up to us to safeguard the generations which come after us.”
Chloe Cole spoke with true passion and understanding in her quest to uphold the dignity of human life. One of her closing remarks was, “I have the power to take everything that has happened to me and use it for good.” The same should go for each and every one of us– after all, all it takes is one person to make a difference in the world.