The Daily Signal - Best of 2023: Chloe Cole and Her Journey Into and Out of Transgenderism

Episode Date: December 26, 2023

Between Christmas and New Years, The Daily Signal is looking back at the most popular interviews from the year. Enjoy episode one of our "Best of 2023" series! “Social media introduced this idea that I could be a boy,” Chloe Cole says.   Cole began telling her friends and family that she was a boy when she was 12 years old after she was introduced to gender-identity ideology through social media. She started taking testosterone and puberty blockers at 13 and had a double mastectomy at 15.  At 16, she detransitioned.  “I decided to stop transitioning entirely,” Cole says. “It was too much for me, and I knew that I couldn't keep lying to myself.” Cole joins “The Daily Signal Podcast” to explain how she became involved in the transgender movement—and why she ultimately decided to walk away. Today, Cole is working to prevent other young people from making the same irreversible mistake she did.  Enjoy the show. Looking for resources? Check these out: https://changedmovement.com/ https://ourduty.group/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Tuesday, December 26th. I'm Virginia Allen. Merry Christmas. It is still the Christmas season. And I hope that you all had a wonderful Christmas day yesterday. I am with my family in South Carolina this week, just enjoying a bit of a slower pace. And I hope that you all are getting to do the same. We are continuing a beloved tradition this week here on the Daily Signal podcast every year between Christmas and New Year's, we bring you the best of the Daily Signal podcast from the year. These are the shows that received the most listens across podcast platforms. So essentially, you vote all year long when you listen to the Daily Signal podcast and you determine at the end of the year what those most popular shows were. And then we enjoy getting to look back on the year at some of our favorite conversations. We are starting our series out strong today and going all the way back to an interview that I was honored to do with Chloe Cole in January. Chloe Cole is a detransitioner.

She began telling her friends and family that she was a boy when she was 12 years old. And she was introduced to gender identity ideology through social media. She started taking testosterone and puberty blockers at the age of 13. And she had a double mastectomy when she was only 15 years old. At the age of 16, she decided to detransition. Well, during our conversation today, Chloe Cole explains how social media played a big role in her decision to transition in the first place. She explains why she ultimately made the choice to walk away from transgenderism. Stay tuned for my conversation with Chloe Cole.

But before we get to that, I do want to take a minute as we near the end of the year to explain how you, You can be even more so a part of our Daily Signal family and a part of our Heritage Foundation family. As many of you are aware of, the Daily Signal is the news outlet of the Heritage Foundation. And the Daily Signal podcast is a product of the Heritage Foundation, which is one of the world's most influential and trusted think tanks. We've been operating since 1973. Heritage works in Washington, D.C., and across the country to develop conservative policy solutions, to the most critical issues facing America today. And those are issues that we then often talk about right here on the Daily Signal podcast,

sometimes with Heritage Foundation experts. And Heritage is fighting every day in a war against failed leftist policies that threatened to destroy our country. And we need your help to keep on doing just that. So please consider making a tax-deductible gift in support of the Heritage Foundation and the Daily Signal before December 3rd. If you want to give, just go to heritage.org. Again, that's heritage.org.

Together, we can take back America. It is my honor today to welcome to the show, former trans kid, Chloe Cole. Chloe, thanks so much for being here. Thank you for having me. So, Chloe, you're 18 years old. Where did you grow up? I grew up in the Central Valley, California.

Okay. And do you remember, you know, as we're jumping in, talking about your story, your life, this whole process in the transgender movement. Do you remember the first time that you heard that word, transgender, or started to think, maybe that's me. Maybe I identify as someone who's male. I mean, the first time I heard the word, I must have been like eight or nine. I just, like, overheard it from the adults, but I never really, I never really thought about it because, like, I was just a kid and I wasn't really.

Yeah. I didn't know anything about it. It wasn't until I was about 11, and I started using through. social media that I started to learn more about it and start to like kind of apply that information to myself and wonder about like my identity and things like that. Okay. So through social media, you kind of start questioning your own identity. What were you feeling at that point when you were, you know, 11, 12, 13, you're scrolling through social media and you're starting to kind of think about gender identity? Yeah, I mean, I would say before that,

I was already kind of vulnerable because, you know, growing up, I'm, it actually turns out that I'm on the spectrum, but I didn't get proper diagnosis until I basically wasn't a kid anymore. But my parents struggled a lot with, with, they're basically they constantly at odds with, like, my school, my physicians. You know, at school, I was getting bullied a lot from young age. and I tended to struggle in my classes and with socialization. I mean, in fourth grade, I finally managed to make a group of friends, and that was kind of the first time that I ever really felt, I guess you would say, included with my peers, but then I had to move schools pretty quickly after that,

and I was basically back at square one. And the second elementary middle school that I went to, there was a lot of favoritism among students, and I was not one of the favorite students. I was actually getting mistreated by both students and staff. And so I was pretty lonely, and I turned to the Internet, and I got my first phone when I was 11. And because I didn't, I don't know, it was quite difficult for me to make friends.

And, you know, my parents tried to get me diagnosed for autism because a lot of my teachers would tell them that, They noticed that I had some pretty distinct signs of being on the spectrum. But when they tried to get me diagnosed, the physician just told them like, oh, no, she's too smart to be autistic. There's no way she's autistic. And when they tried to get a second opinion, my health care provider just said no, and then they got me a diagnosis for ADHD instead,

and then they started medicating me at 10. So when I started using social media at 10, you know, by that, no, 11, by that point in time, I was, I started, I had some body image issues. You know, I was kind of a tomboy from a young age. And I wasn't very developed, especially not in my chest area, but I did have slightly larger shoulders. I did have a bit more muscle in my body from being a little bit more on the athletic side. Yeah. And I liked having my hair short, but I often felt like I couldn't match up to other girls in terms of appearance.

And I started to, you know, I had difficulty socializing with them. and maintaining friendships with them. And so I started to wonder if, like, something was wrong with me. And I often felt like I would be better off as a boy. Okay. And social media introduced this idea that I could be a boy. You know, a lot of the feminist content I was seeing alongside the LGBT content that I was exposed to. Painted a very negative picture of being a woman, being feminine.

I was actually, despite being tomboy, I was actually, I had a feminine side, but I was ashamed of it because a lot of cartoons and other children's content I would consume growing up kind of was focused on boys and it kind of portrayed like girls and especially like feminine girls as stupid and not really contributing anything to the story. Yeah. Just being a nuisance and I wanted I wanted to be something more than that, you know? Absolutely. But I also, from other women and girls growing up, I would often hear about the negative parts of the female experience, like how painful periods in childbirth and pregnancy and menopause are nobody ever really talked about all the good things that come with those things. Yeah. And, I mean, naturally hearing all that, hearing all those things about growing from a girl and so a woman made me not want to do that. Yeah.

I also hit puberty from a young age, so I was dealing with, it kind of just like hit me full force. It's a lot. Yeah, I would, a lot of my peers and sometimes even adults would make some really uncomfortable comments about my body. I really wanted, it was something that I really just wanted to escape. And like I said, the LGBT and especially the trans and queer content that I, I was, that I was seeing taught me that I didn't have to be a girl. I didn't have to deal with any of this. I could just, I could have a way out.

And, I mean, learning about this and learning about this kind of gave me like a sense of because it was like there was all these things that I thought was wrong with me. And it all finally made sense after I learned about this. And it was, I thought it was the answer. So, you know, I said, you know, I said, you know, I started, before I decided that I was actually a boy. I, you know, I kind of experimented with certain labels. I was like, maybe I'm bisexual or bi-gender or genderless.

And then eventually it just became, I'm not a girl at all. I'm just, I'm just a boy. And I started. How old were you when you started saying I'm a boy? I was 12. You were 12. I started cutting my hair shorter and wearing more boys clothes. and I told some friends at school about this and some friends online,

some of my siblings, and eventually I decided to come out to my parents because I decided that I wanted to medically transition and I knew that I would have to get them on board with that in order for that to happen. You know, they were pretty surprised. They do, like I was a tomboy, but they couldn't, I don't think any parent could really foresee that kind of thing. Their kid saying that kind of thing. But they wanted to support me, but they're also pretty cautious.

They didn't understand why I was pushing so much for medically transitioning until after I got the degener dysphoria diagnosis, when somebody on my medical team had told them that they never presented any options other than transitioning. Okay. And the doctor didn't. Yeah. They, when my dad asked, he asked what the regret rate looked like, and they gave him a figure of wrong. 1 to 2%, if not less.

And they never talked about what would happen if I were to regret my transition and go back on that decision. And they told them that if I wasn't affirmed in my identity and allowed to transition as I wanted, then I would be at risk of suicide. So they were pretty much coerced into allowing this to happen. Okay. So you start taking a lot of different medicines, puberty blockers, then it was at 15 that you had a double mastectomy, correct? Yeah. Okay. Do you remember what was kind of going through your head when you're coming out of surgery?

You realize, okay, I've just had a double mastectomy. What were you feeling? I felt great, actually. At the time, I was actually quite happy. You know, I thought of myself to generally be a boy. And despite being in a female body, the justification was that I had a male gender identity that didn't match with my body. And I thought that this meant that I had the brain of the opposite sex. This is part of a theory called the brain sex theory, which has been disproven.

but, you know, not only that, not only did I want to look like the boys my age because I thought I was one, but I also had been using a compression device called a binder to flatten the appearance of my breasts for about two years before my mastectomy. And it was tiring. I got really sick of it quick.

You know, I would wear this thing for about 8 to 12 hours a day sometimes and I would I would wear it basically whenever I was out of the house or whenever we had guest over and I would be I'd wear it while I was like on the run or working out or swimming or um yeah you know sometimes I'd be walking home from school and and like 110 degrees in this thing yeah sounds so uncomfortable yeah it was I wanted to be free of it yeah but I also had um this never really went and dressed partly because I had a lot of shame around it, but I also had been, I was sexually assaulted in eighth grade.

I had been groped by a male classmate who had been bullying me over the course of that school year. And I kind of just brushed off in my head because this was when I was early in my transition. So I was like, well, I'm supposed to be a guy and it's just boys being boys, so I should just be a man about it and not not, not, not complain about it, not really bother with it. And I knew that even if it did really bother me, I wouldn't be able to speak out anyways because school would have definitely given the kid a slap on the wrist.

And I knew that if he came back from school after that, he could have done something worse. And so I couldn't really speak out on it. And I didn't really realize just how much it affected me. Yeah. Were you talking to any counselors or anything? Like when you were saying, I think I'm a man, I mean, were people asking you questions? Like, have you ever experienced sexual assault or anything like that? Um, I can't really remember that far back, but that happened actually after I started.

Yeah, medically transitioning. Okay, okay. So what happened? And I also, it's also important to note that I didn't recognize it as sexual assault because I, you know, I was thinking of myself as a boy. Okay. As it just being like a, like boys being boys type thing. Yeah. So in a lot of ways, I mean, this is just when.

one of many ways that I wasn't really mentally confident enough to go through this kind of thing. You were a child. Exactly. Yeah. What made you then at 16 say, I made a mistake, I don't want to be a boy, I'm a girl? There were a few factors. After my mastectomy, I started to, I wouldn't say. I realized that the rut set in very quickly.

It took nearly a year. Okay. But I started to miss being feminine, being able to look pretty and wear makeup and present myself in such a way. And in secret, I would actually buy women's clothes and wear some of my old girl's clothes, just whenever nobody was home and I was alone. I was pretty ashamed about this because by this point in time, I was. was already medically transitioning for so long and I didn't have breast anymore.

I didn't really look like a woman. So it was something that I just kept myself for a while. But these feelings just kept building up and it got worse. And I just assumed that it was part of the post-stop period. Like you're going to experience some depression, but it didn't get any better. Yeah. About a year after my surgery, I started taking class on psychology. in my junior year.

And one of the chapters was focused on child development and parenting. And I learned that breastfeeding is not only that, but it also plays a role in the bond between mother and child. And that bond goes on to affect that child's later cognitive and emotional and social functioning. And upon reading this, I felt like a monster. I felt like I realized that I took something not only for myself, but also potentially from my future children. And I think that's when the realization really hit that I shouldn't have been allowed to go through this. I mean, not only that, but also the lessons about like cognitive and emotional development in kids and teenagers made me realize that.

I, at an age where I was naturally, where everybody really naturally is prone to making some pretty rash decisions, I was allowed to make one that was permanent under the guidance of adults, medical professionals. And a few weeks later, I decided to stop transitioning entirely. It was just, it was too much for me. and I knew that I couldn't keep lying to myself, and I went cold turkey off of testosterone. And the school year that followed was really tough. Yeah. Because what happened among your friends and the community that had been supporting you

and really championing you in the transition, were they supportive of you saying, hey, I'm no longer transgender? No, I was getting attacked online, actually. By this point in time, COVID hit, and so all the quarantine laws in my state were pretty strict. My relationships at school suffered because of it, and I was mostly online by that point in time. And a lot of my support system was people online, and as soon as I started talking about my transition regret, I started getting harassed a lot. and even just bringing up that I stopped transitioning and like trying there are instances when I would try to like connect with with trans women because they were you know they had a lot of them had they were they already went through puberty they had like masculine features but they were trying to represent themselves as women and trying to adjust socially into the role of a woman and so I felt like I could relate to of them that way and I often tried to make friends with them but I would get shut down. They would

basically tell me to just shut up and stop interacting with them and that I was making them uncomfortable. I got that a lot actually. A lot of people told me that by talking about my experiences and how transitioning harmed me, I was harming a larger community of people who would benefit from transition and that I would scare them off from getting their, they call it life-saving care and I did I did give in to the mob for a little bit, but I also started doing some research on detransitioning, and I was in some communities online of other people who were in my situation. And I realized that what the information that I was given, not only by the medical professionals, and like all the

stuff I was seeing online, but also from other transgender people was all just prop, basically. Wow. Just made up. And that I was basically, that I was being lied to. And I realized that I couldn't stop speaking about it. Like somebody,

I was talking to a lot of adults who had stopped transitioning, but I knew that there has to be a lot more kids who were in my situation. situation. And I think that's really the biggest thing that prompted me to start speaking up again. And so I did, I started becoming more vocal about my experiences and how my views have been challenged and trying to challenge other people's views online. And I lost a lot of friends both online and from school. By this point in time, I also wasn't the most emotionally

stable and it did impact a lot of my um my um my interpersonal relationships um but i basically spent my senior year alone because i didn't really have any friends at school i was kind of a freak i i i looked i looked like a boy by that point in time i i still had some pretty rough features but i was you know i was growing my hair out wearing presenting myself feminine and there was i guess you could stay kind of an incongruence in my appearance, and it was very obvious, and I got picked on for it sometimes, and it really did suck, but I managed to find new friends outside of school, and reconnect a little bit with my family members, and the support that I've been getting from them has really been what's keeping me going. That's awesome. That's huge to have that support.

Chloe, looking back, is there something that you think, whether it was a counselor or doctor, a parent, some role model in your life could have said to you or something they could have done that would have kept you from making that decision to start on hormones, to get a double mastectomy, to go on that full path of walking, walking towards, quote unquote, becoming a man? It's hard to say because I was so stubborn, especially towards the beginning and middle of my transition. But, you know, recently I had an interview with Jordan B. Peterson, and it didn't really feel like an interview. It felt like I was, it felt like a therapy session. I feel like if I had a psychologist like him back then, none of this would have happened. Wow. None of it. Wow.

That's pretty incredible. He's pretty amazing. We need more people like him out there. Yeah. What was it about the way that he talked with you and the questions that he asked that can have you say today, if I had someone like him in my life, I wouldn't have transitioned. Yeah, he probed pretty deep, and he was also, he was very informative. That was one of the first interviews where I really, I really feel like I learned something even. Wow.

That's cool. Yeah, it was really cool. Well, now you're on this wild road of advocates. and you're speaking out and you're sharing your story and you're even sharing your story with leaders in Congress. What ultimately is the end goal of all of this advocacy of sharing your story of being willing to be so vulnerable? Well, I really want to stop transitioning from happening in children, in minors.

And I want to reform in the affirmative care system in how we treat people with people who present with gender dysphoria, or express a desire to transition to the opposite sex. Because really the model right now is very one-size-fits-all, and it doesn't take cases like mine into account. I mean, a lot of people who are transgender or dysphoric have some sort of comorbid condition, either alongside their dysphoria or possibly even having led to the development of their dysphoria.

I mean, every young transgender person, that I know personally has either been sexually assaulted or they have some sort of family trauma or they're on the spectrum. They have ADHD or depression. And it's never, none of that has ever really taken into account. And I feel like that's something you have to address before you allow somebody to make a life-changing decision. Yeah. And with that, one of the actions that you've decided to take is to file a lawsuit against some of those people, some of those doctors who you feel like should have been giving you a bigger picture of what was happening. Talk just a little bit about that.

What's happening there? Yeah, so in November, my team sent out a letter of intent to sue addressed to my surgeon, my gender specialist who referred me to that surgeon, my undercanologist who got me on hormones, and then the hospital that did it, and Kaiser as a whole. Okay. We're still in the 90-day period, so not really only updates there, but we're starting to near the end of it.

Wait and see what happens there. We'll definitely be following that. Chloe, for those that want to follow your story, that want to keep up with your work, that want to support your work, how can they do that? So I'm most active on Twitter. My username is C-H-T-O-O-C-O-C-O-C-O-E.

Awesome. Thanks so much for joining us this week for the Daily Signal's best of 2020 series. We do not have any top news shows this week. We'll be back with our top news evening podcast next week. In the meantime, it's not too late to give the Daily Signal a Christmas gift this year. Take a moment and leave us a five-star rating and review. on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you like to listen. And also, don't forget to hit the subscribe button so you never miss out on brand new shows

headed into the new year. Have a wonderful day. Enjoy some time off. Hopefully, hopefully you're off today and having a great time resting, spending time with friends, spending time with family. We will be back with you tomorrow morning for the second edition of the Daily Signal's Best of 2023 podcast series. The Daily Signal podcast is brought to by more than the.

half a million members of the Heritage Foundation. Executive producers are Rob Luey and Kate Trinko. Producers are Virginia Allen and Samantha Asheris. Sound designed by Lauren Evans, Mark Geinney, and John Pop. To learn more, please visit DailySignal.com.