More On: Chloe Cole
A former transgender teen backs a Florida law that stops funding for medical interventions
A California teen who used to be transgender supports a Florida rule that says Medicaid funds can't be used to pay for medical treatments for gender dysphoria. She told a hearing that she "didn't understand" the consequences and that she may now be at a higher risk for some cancers.
Chloe Cole, who decided she was transgender when she was 12 and had a double mastectomy three years later, spoke in favor of Rule 59G-1.050 at a public hearing on Friday. This rule would limit Medicaid funding for drugs and procedures for transgender people.
“I really didn’t understand all of the ramifications of any of the medical decisions that I was making,” Cole, now 17, said at the hearing, according to Fox News.
“I was unknowingly physically cutting off my true self from my body, irreversibly and painfully.”
Cole also talked to Florida's Surgeon General, Joseph Ladapo, about the effects of a choice she made when she was young. Ladapo posted a video of Cole's powerful story on Twitter.
“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. “And because I do not have my breasts — I no longer have breasts — I’m not able to breastfeed whatever future children I have.”
Cole then took a long pause, the footage shows.
“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,” Cole said, adding that no child should have to experience what she endured.
“Do not transition your kids,” Cole told Fox News when asked what she would tell the public after her experience.
“If you are considering transitioning, please wait until you are a fully developed adult. Transitioning can damage your body and mind in ways that we may not fully understand.”
Ladapo tweeted Sunday that Florida doesn’t support the medicalization of minors with gender dysphoria since the “benefits are unproven.” He thanked Cole for being “courageous enough” to share her account.
“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,” Ladapo told Fox News. “The affirmation model runs an unacceptably high risk of harm.”
However, some published studies have shown benefits of gender-affirming medical interventions, including lower odds of depression and suicide.
“These data add to existing evidence suggesting that gender-affirming care may be associated with improving well-being among [transgender and nonbinary] youths over a short period, which is important given mental health disparities experienced by this population, particularly the high levels of self-harm and suicide,” read the February study published in the National Library of Medicine.
Another study found that retransitions are rare. Just 7.3% of youth had retransitioned at least once 5 years after their initial social transition, according to the research published in May by the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Social transition is the process by which transgender kids and teens get a new name, pronouns, and ways to show their gender identity, like clothes and haircuts.
At the end of the 5-year period, most of the transgender people (94%) said they were binary transgender, while only 2.5% said they were cisgender.
“These results suggest that retransitions are infrequent,” the study concluded. “More commonly, transgender youth who socially transitioned at early ages continued to identify that way. Nonetheless, understanding retransitions is crucial for clinicians and families to help make them as smooth as possible for youth.”
Still, Cole said she supports Rule 59G-1.050, which would restrict Medicaid funding for transgender drugs and procedures, including puberty blockers, hormones, hormone antagonists, sex reassignment surgeries or other procedures that alter “primary or secondary” sexual characteristics.
“We cannot allow this to happen to children,” she replied to Ladapo on Twitter. “People in power have allowed this to happen. I know you will help break this vicious cycle.”
A spokesperson for Florida's Agency for Health Care Administration called Cole's testimony "very thought-provoking." The agency just found that several services for treating gender dysphoria don't meet "widely accepted professional standards" and could have long-term negative effects, Fox News said.
According to the report, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the National Center for Transgender Equality did not respond to requests for comment on Cole's testimony.
Last month, President Biden signed an executive order asking the Department of Health and Human Services to make sure that transgender minors can get help. However, doctors are still divided on the issue.
“I think the data on which the gender-affirmative model is based is not scientific,” Dr. Matthew Benson, an endocrinologist in Jacksonville, told Fox News. “We need better data, we need long-term perspective trials where we can look at adverse effects. We need much more robust data to justify these kinds of very robust therapies.”
Cole, on the other hand, told The Post in the past that she thinks "the system failed" her, but she won't keep quiet now.
She wants to have kids someday, but she isn't sure if that will happen because the testosterone injections she got hurt the way her eggs worked.
“I’m still in the dark about the overall picture of my health right now,” she told The Post last month.
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