Shameless Hit Piece on Chloe Cole Highlights Gaslighting by Queer/Gender Activists
When delusional thinking is “affirmed” reality becomes fungible. Reality is now “your” reality or “my” reality.
For years, those of us who remember Hippocratic medicine and the rule of evidence-based medicine have watched our profession circle the drain as political activism and ideology have taken over what used to be one of the last bastions of reality- medical care. Until now, doctors have never had to discuss and debate, much less doubt, the reality of binary sex. There are two sexes- male and female. Period. Full stop. The discussion of “gender” has clouded this because gender has replaced biological sex and is now about how someone identifies or feels about themselves at any given moment.” Gender is now unmoored from biological sex with gender categories growing steadily. Many, if not most, are either incoherent and/or undefinable, even by those who claim them. When I mention gender below, I am talking about biological sex.
Enter transgender which consists of individuals who claim to be in the wrong body, e.g. a man in a woman’s body or a woman in a man’s body. Notice that transgenderism is binary. There is no trans category for something other than male or female. Almost without exception individuals who claim to be trans have normal male or female chromosomes and anatomy. The very rare intersex category, which consists of variable chromosomal and physical sex expression does not really enter the conversation and, again, the issue is a binary one.
The only way we know someone is transgender is because they tell us they are. They have a deeply held belief that they are in the wrong body. When a strongly held belief exists counter to material reality, we have a name for this: delusion. Delusional thinking exists in various forms. Girls with anorexia nervosa deeply believe they are fat and will starve themselves to death if this is not countered with psychotherapy. Patients with body dysmorphia or body integrity dysmorphia seek to have non-existent physical deformities surgically corrected or normal body parts surgically removed. We do not affirm these individuals and operate on them. To do so is considered medical malpractice. We treat them with psychotherapy along with any other underlying other mental disorders.
Individuals claiming to be trans are not a new phenomenon and have been around for countless generations. What is relatively new is the conviction that it is possible to turn a biological man into a woman or vice versa by pharmacologic and hormonal manipulation and, ultimately, surgery. For this, we have to thank Dr. John Money, who notoriously claimed that gender was a construct that could be manipulated and set out to prove this by experimentation, most notably on the Reimer twins whose tragic story was hidden from the medical establishment by Money for years. Money is the Josef Mengele of our time. That Money was the founder of the original gender clinic at Johns Hopkins in 1966 is a black mark on this institution that even time will not fully erase.
What is even newer is the idea that children who express some degree of ambivalence or confusion regarding their gender must be affirmed and provided with the means to transition to the other gender. The first step is puberty blockers to halt puberty, then cross-sex hormones to encourage the desired sexual development. Ultimately, the goal is surgery to fully transition to the opposite sex, a medical impossibility for too many reasons to list here.
The concept of gender-affirming care for minors has been challenged for a number of reasons. First is the highly questionable concept of accepting a child’s gender confusion at face value. We know that 80% or more of children who express gender confusion will settle comfortably into their natal sex if left alone. Of the remainder, a number will be homosexual, not trans. By uncritically accepting a child’s claim to be the opposite sex, we will be mistreating more than 80% of patients. Another issue is that of informed consent. Nowhere in society do we accept that underage minors have agency to make certain decisions. They cannot buy cigarettes or alcohol, cannot vote, cannot drive, and cannot enter into legal contracts independently. To allow that they are capable of making life-changing, irreversible decisions about their sex is beyond absurd. Another concern is the long term, largely unknown and underreported effects of gender-affirming care ranging from lifelong medicalization of patients to medical and surgical side effects of transitioning, such as cancer and dysfunction. Only trans activists claim that we can successfully turn a man into a woman or vice versa. This has led to refusal to accept known biological facts and such bizarre characterizations as “person who menstruates” and “pregnant people.”
Enter someone like Chloe Cole, an otherwise normal 12-year-old girl who questioned her sexual identity and was rapidly processed through the gender-affirming model with puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and, in 2020 at age 15, removal of her normal, healthy breasts. Fast forward a few years and Chloe came to realize that this was all a mistake and sought to reverse the process, which is impossible to fully do. Today she identifies as a girl and warns against the dangers of uncritical, rapid entry into the gender-affirmation pipeline for other vulnerable children.
The toll taken by this young lady by the gender-affirming care establishment is incalculable- she will always have a disfigured chest (I can tell you as a plastic surgeon that breast reconstruction only produces a scarred facsimile of breasts with no sensation to them in nearly all cases, even with good outcomes), has lost the ability to ever nurse a child and is likely infertile in any event. Her ability to experience normal sexual satisfaction as a woman is also likely gone forever. These were all taken from her when she was much too young to understand and provide true informed consent. This is worse than medical malpractice; it is criminal abuse of a child. That doctors did this to her is a stain on medicine.
If the toll taken on her is extreme, the courage she has had to stand up, tell her story, and fight for the children who are even now being processed through the gender-affirmation model, is truly incredible.
This disgusting hit piece by MacKenzie Mays on Ms. Cole deserves the opprobrium of all who have the misfortune to read it. It is coming from someine who has bought into queer theory lock, stock, and barrel. The odious ideology of deconstructing gender runs through this piece. It is full of lies and omissions and demonizes a young woman who deserves nothing but praise while completely ignoring the mountain of evidence against the unscientific and indefensible practice of medically and surgically transitioning children who demonstrate any gender confusion.
The author ignores the Cass Report, undeniably the most exhaustive, comprehensive examination of gender-affirming care, which yielded the verdict that the current model of gender-affirming care rests on weak evidence. That gender-affirmation care is the gold standard for dealing with gender confusion in minors is totally unacceptable. Further, the author makes no mention of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) files which were publicized and exposed WPATH for the ideologically driven and unscientific organization that it is. This isn’t journalism; it is libelous trash and gaslighting of the worst kind.
As hit pieces go, this one takes the cake. This article deserves nothing less than a full retraction and a public apology to Ms. Cole. Anything less than this is not acceptable.
Richard T. Bosshardt, MD, FACS
Dr. Bosshardt is a plastic surgeon in Tavares, FL, a Founding Fellow of FAIR in Medicine, and a Senior Fellow of Do No Harm.
There are no words appropriate to describe this evil.