Please Protect Young People from Medical Harm
Two years ago, I was a healthy, beautiful girl heading toward high school graduation. But after taking testosterone for a year, I turned into an overweight, pre-diabetic nightmare of a transgender man.
I'm here to speak today because I'm one of many young women that have been failed by the medical system. I was diagnosed with gender dysphoria, a mental-health condition. I was treated with mega-doses of powerful testosterone that ravaged my body, caused me to gain 50 pounds, and put me at risk for heart disease, diabetes, and teenage menopause.
I'm not putting all the blame on the mental health people or the doctors. These are regretful choices I made as a teenager. But I trusted the doctor's advice. They were the experts, who was I not to listen to them?
But telling an 18-year-old girl that mega-doses of testosterone would fix her mental health problems? They didn't even talk to me about other treatment options! No doctor or therapist suggested I give myself time to grow up, or wait and see what happens with counseling sessions – no doctor or therapist told most young people outgrow their feelings of wanting to be the opposite sex.
The only advice I got was to take mega-doses of testosterone.
I did this to myself for almost a year. Meanwhile, my mom was crying daily about why I was doing this to myself, all the while blaming herself.
Finally, one day, my grandfather sat me down to talk about it. With tears in his eyes, he asked me to stop.
That was a saving grace. I would have let this treatment kill me before admitting I’d screwed up. His intervention saved my life.
Today, I continue to deal with the permanent side effects of messing up my body.
I'm not a political person. I'm just a young person that needed help from doctors, and unfortunately got caught up in this medical scandal.
More and more young people are being deceived every day, being told that the solution to their insecurity and identity problems is to get a sex change. The problem is, a person's sex can't really be changed. You can take hormones and have cosmetic surgeries, but that doesn't really change your sex, or solve your problems. I wish I knew that when I was younger.
There are thousands of detransitioner stories like mine. International groups have started to support people like me that have hurt or deceived by doctors, and I'm convinced it's only a matter of time until lawsuits begin.
They have begun in the UK, but they need desperately to begin everywhere. The attempted suicide rate of transgenders is exponentially higher than the rest of society.
Thank you for the opportunity to share my story with you. As a former trans man that learned a very hard lesson, I ask you to please support this bill. You will save the lives of more young people than you can possibly fathom.
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Presented by Sydney Wright to the South Dakota House State Affairs Committee on January 22, 2020.
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