Posted on Tuesday, February 18, 2025

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by Outside Contributor

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For years, healthcare providers have manipulated and mutilated vulnerable youth under the guise of compassion and medicine. I should know — I was one of their victims.

At 16, I was encouraged by doctors to undergo a complete hormonal and physical “gender transition” after suffering sexual trauma. They convinced me the anxiety and depression I was experiencing were a result of gender confusion and that transitioning was the only way to improve my mental health. Trauma responses were rewritten and no longer treated under the guise of “gender dysphoria.”

This was a lie — one that turned me into a lifelong medical patient.

By age 18, I was on testosterone and had my breasts removed. The long-term effects of these treatments have cost me my healthy body and caused even more mental anguish. Years later, I suffer from vaginal and pelvic atrophy and dryness. I lost the chance to breastfeed my child, whose very life I consider a miracle. My years of hormonal injections could have rendered me sterile. Pregnancy caused me to face surgical complications with my fraudulent and unnecessary “top surgery,” and new complications and issues continue to arise.

This should never have happened. I was not born into the wrong body. I was not assigned the wrong sex. I was a hurting girl who needed to be heard and protected. Instead, I got medical professionals who saw my distress as an opportunity to push an agenda and turn a profit.

Change is around the corner.

Last week, President Trump signed an executive order stating the United States will no longer “fund, sponsor, promote, assist, or support the so-called ‘transition’ of a child from one sex to another,” and that “it will rigorously enforce all laws that prohibit or limit these destructive and life-altering procedures.” The order cuts explicitly all federal funding for “gender-affirming care” via Medicare, Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act, and other taxpayer-funded programs.

The order also cuts research and education grants to healthcare organizations that continue to offer these interventions. It also instructs the federal government to abandon the junk pseudoscience used to justify the affirmation-only approach.

I only wish this order had been in place 10 years ago.

The decision to take on this fight is the right one. According to the latest data from the nonprofit Do No Harm, at least 13,395 minors in the United States, the youngest of whom were 7 years old, received some form of medical intervention for gender confusion between 2019 and 2023. More than 5,700 of those children underwent surgery.

Let’s be clear: Children cannot consent to these interventions. They are too young and impressionable to understand the ramifications of what they’re signing. Even at 18, I never thought — and I certainly was never told — I’d have to spend the rest of my life battling the effects of these procedures.

The government is responsible for protecting children from this harm — and those seeking to force it on them. It is hoped this executive order is just the start.

Prisha Mosley is an Independent Women’s Forum ambassador and detransitioner.

Reprinted with Permission from DC Journal – By Prisha Mosley

The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of AMAC or AMAC Action.