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Ex-Trans Teen Supports Florida Trans Ban

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Once upon a time, a girl thought she wanted to be a boy, only to realize that she didn’t. 

California teen Chloe Cole, who once identified as transgender, is now speaking out in support of Florida’s rule blocking Medicaid funds from being used for gender interventions, including surgeries and medications. Chloe Cole had gone through the process, which included gender reassignment surgery.

“I really didn’t understand all of the ramifications of any of the medical decisions that I was making,” said Chloe Cole at a public hearing on Friday. she is just seventeen years old. She admitted that she was medically transitioned from ages 13 to 16, taking so-called puberty-blocking drugs and testosterone and undergoing surgery to remove her breasts at age 15. “I was unknowingly physically cutting off my true self from my body, irreversibly and painfully.

“I don’t know if I’ll be able to fully carry a child, and I might be at increased risk for certain cancers, mainly cervical cancer,” Cole said in a meeting with Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo on Friday. “And because I do not have my breasts, … I am not able to breastfeed whatever future children I have.

“That realization, actually, was one of the biggest things that led to me realizing that this was not the path that I should have taken.”

When Miss Cole was asked what advice she would give others, she said, “Do not transition your kids. If you are considering transitioning, please wait until you are a fully developed adult.”

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Chloe Cole has spoken in support of Florida’s o Rule 59G-1.050. This ruling allows the Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA) to restrict Medicaid funding from paying for transgender drugs, therapies, and medical transition procedures. The ruling forbids Florida Medicaid from covering the cost of puberty blockers, hormones, hormone antagonists, sex reassignment surgeries, or “any other procedures that alter primary or secondary sexual characteristics” to treat gender dysphoria. 

Brock Juarez, the Communications Director at AHCA, applauded Cole’s testimony as being “very thought-provoking.” Juarez also noted AHCA’s recent report, which discovered that several services for treating gender dysphoria “are not consistent with widely accepted professional medical standards and are experimental and investigational with the potential for harmful long-term effects,” which aided in the decision to block Florida Medicaid funds from footing the bill for gender reassignment therapies and procedures.

“Medicalization of minors with gender dysphoria might advance the political views of physicians involved in their care, but the data showing any benefits for the actual children is extraordinarily thin,” said Florida’s Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo. “The affirmation model runs an unacceptably high risk of harm.”

Last month, Biden signed an executive order focusing on “advancing LGBTQI+ equality,” where he blasted Republicans for their alleged “bullying” of LGBT minors. The order requests that the Department of Health and Human Services ensure that children can receive gender transition surgeries and other therapies.

Dr. Matthew Benson, a board-certified pediatric endocrinologist in Jacksonville, testified that he agrees with the AHCA’s ruling. “I think the data on which the gender-affirmative model is based is not scientific,” he said, citing several studies from Sweden and Denmark that show extremely high rates of suicide among people who took transgender interventions. “We need better data, and we need long-term prospective trials where we can look at adverse effects. We need much more robust data to justify these kinds of very robust therapies.”