Chloe Cole: Doctors 'grateful' to hear detransitioners' perspective before AAP booted us out
Detransitioner Chloe Cole, who underwent a double mastectomy at age 15, says doctors at an American Academy of Pediatrics conference were listening to her story before she and others opposed to “gender-affirming care” for minors were booted out.
The AAP is the largest association of pediatricians in the United States. Over the weekend, the Alliance for Mental Health attempted to attend the organization’s national conference and exhibition in Orlando, Florida. According to The Daily Wire, the group invested over $25,000 in a booth to engage with conference attendees.
At the booth were Cole, along with detransitioners Abel Garcia, Soren Aldaco and Nicholas Flowers, alongside activists Erin Friday and January Littlejohn.
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In a post on X about the event, Cole wrote that AAP members "listened, most had never thought about a detransitioner, we felt heard… until they kicked us out. Simply for telling our cautionary tale."
Cole has shared her story of how she became an outspoken advocate against allowing minors to take drugs or have irreversible body-mutilating surgeries. The detransitioner was a teenager struggling with various mental health issues when she started identifying as a boy. She was prescribed puberty blockers and testosterone at 13, and at age 15, she had her breasts removed, an action she now regrets.
On the third day of the AAP event, however, a security guard instructed Cole and the other advocates to leave. Footage shared by The Daily Wire shows a security guard saying that he didn't have all the information and was merely acting on the AAP's behalf.
The guard said that one of the group’s members allegedly violated “the code of conduct last year” and that the advocates had 10 minutes to break down their exhibit and turn in their name badges.
“They don’t want detransitioners here at the AAP,” Littlejohn says about her exchange with the security guard in the video. “They want to pretend that they don’t exist. What’s really sad is our information was really well received by the pediatricians here.”
“We are very concerned about the mental health of people with gender dysphoria, and it’s really time that the AAP acknowledge the harm that’s occurring."
In a Monday X post, Cole said the "vast majority" of "practitioners and attendees we spoke to at our booth were both curious and grateful to hear about our perspective.”
“Many pediatricians' concerns lie with the health of their patients. The AAP leadership’s ultimate goal in kicking us out is to make it more difficult for doctors to do the right thing, to obtain the truth,” Cole stated. “Their goal is money and power, at the cost of the lives of children."
The American Academy of Pediatrics did not immediately respond to The Christian Post’s request for comment.
Earlier this month, a coalition of 22 Republican state attorneys general sent an eight-page letter to the AAP. Citing the “Cass Report,” the letter demanded that the organization retract its renewed 2018 guidance regarding the purported reversibility of puberty-blocking drugs for children with gender dysphoria.
The attorneys general warned that puberty blockers can cause interference with neurocognitive development, compromised bone density, as well as infertility and sterility when combined with cross-sex hormones.
"Telling parents and children that puberty blockers are 'reversible' at the very least conveys assurance that no permanent harm or change will occur," the letter stated. "But that claim cannot be made in the face of the unstudied and 'novel' use of puberty blockers to treat gender dysphoria."
According to the AAP’s website, next year's national conference and exhibition is titled “We Are Champions for Children” and have Rachel (Richard) Levine, a man who identifies as a woman, as a scheduled keynote speaker.
Levine serves as the assistant secretary for health for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Earlier this year, The New York Times reported that the HHS official pushed the World Professional Association for Transgender Health to remove age limits for trans surgeries and other interventions.
Samantha Kamman is a reporter for The Christian Post. She can be reached at: samantha.kamman@christianpost.com. Follow her on Twitter: @Samantha_Kamman
