I have noticed a number of stories appearing in the social media about young people who felt that they were in the wrong bodies, gender dysphoria, and were convinced by medical professionals that gender realignment surgery would deal with this problem. The story below of Jasmine, who began taking male hormones at age 15, and at age 17 had breast removal, is one example. She later came to regret the decision, saying tht she was too immature to have made such a decision. And the case of Milo, who was in a TV documentary follows the same pattern.
I must agree with Elon Musk here that the decision for gender realignment is a life-changing one, and not to be made in haste. As another legal case that I covered previously noted, there is big money tied up in this now, and there may be undue influence upon young people, below the age of voting, to make decisions that they later regret.
“Jasmine, who previously underwent life-altering gender transition measures, still suffers lingering consequences.
According to the Telegraph, she considers the pursuit of gender transition to be a “mistake” but adds that “because I was a child, I also think that part of the onus is on the various professionals that treated me.”
At the age of only 15, she was referred by a transgender charity to the Gender identity Development Service clinic for kids and young people at London’s Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust, according to the outlet. At age 17, GIDS patients were shifted to adult services where they could get gender-reassignment surgery, the outlet noted. Jasmine said during an appointment at the adult clinic she was referred to be prescribed cross-sex hormones and added to a waiting list for breast removal.
Jasmine, who has shared her story as part of a documentary, according to the outlet, said that she took testosterone for more than one year, causing “irreversible” bodily changes — she needs to shave her face daily and her voice is “significantly lower than it was before.”
“I don’t really know what it’s like to have the body of an adult,” she said, according to the Telegraph. “I don’t really know how it’s affected my fertility or my internal health.”
Jasmine noted that sometimes she is envious of other women.
“I kind of feel a little bit mutilated and like an experiment gone wrong walking through society sometimes. I feel, like, sometimes jealous of other people, women, who are biologically female. That they still have their natural voice, their natural characteristics. And I don’t anymore,” she said.
She noted that she had learned about the concept of transitioning via social media. “I watched videos of people transitioning online documenting the voice changing as they go on hormones or vlogging their surgeries, for example. And they look so happy. And I wanted it so badly,” she said, according to the outlet.
“Back in 2016, Milo was celebrated in the MTV documentary Transformation, at the start of her female-to-male gender change, trying out Hawaiian shirts and saying she felt ‘invincible.’
Seven years later, and Milo has returned to the screen, as a female again, with a YouTube post about bitterly regretting a transition that’s left her scarred, hairy and most likely infertile.
‘It turned out to be a big mistake,’ Milo says in the clip, which went online on Wednesday.
‘I keep thinking about how, if I ever want to be perceived by society as a woman, I now have to do vocal training, and I need laser to get rid of my facial hair. But I’m just so tired.’
DailyMail.com cannot verify Milo’s account, but her story echoes those from the growing number of teens who speedily make ill-conceived decisions to change gender, and later experience regret and medical problems.
When Milo appeared in the MTV documentary, she became a poster child for a transgender movement that was, back then, new to most Americans and not the hot-button political issue it is now.
Aged 16, she was one of six trans and non-binary young people from Los Angeles who posed for the camera and got a wardrobe and style makeover.
Milo had started receiving weekly testosterone shots and had changed her sex on official papers.
‘I cannot imagine living my life as female,’ Milo said in the show, wearing a plaid shirt.
Milo described the ‘amazing feeling of relief that I get from thinking that never have to do anything feminine again for the rest of my life.’
Sitting beside him, Milo’s supportive mom, Kristin, described the ‘horror stories’ she had heard about trans kids committing suicide.
In hindsight, those comments from Milo and Kristin were red flags.
Today, many parents complain that doctors and therapists bully them into affirming their child’s decision to transition by suggesting that, without support, they would likely take their own lives.
Now Milo says she’s ‘ashamed’ of the documentary and ‘can’t bear to watch’ it.
Months after it was filmed, Milo had ‘top surgery,’ the surgical removal of her C-cup breasts.
Doctors gradually upped her testosterone dose. Over the years, it caused her vagina to atrophy — a common symptom of female-to-male transitioners, who experience dryness, irritation, and bleeding.
Due to the discomfort, last year, aged 21, she underwent a hysterectomy.
‘I kind of just didn’t care about my reproductive organs,’ she said in the video post.”