Scrolling X this past week, I came across a thread of quotes from a New York Times column about detransitioners. I was, to put it mildly, surprised that such seemingly honest and levelheaded content on the subject could ever have made it to the pages of the Gray Lady, who seems instead to have become utterly unquestioning of all things rainbow over the last few decades.
Doing a bit of searching, I found a Fox News story on the Times opinion piece. The Times columnist, Pamela Paul, interviewed Grace Powell, 23. At 12 or 13 years old, Powell was told that she could be a boy and that if she did not transition, she would kill herself. She began hormone therapy during her senior year of high school, then had a double mastectomy the summer before college. She said, “I wish there had been more open conversation. But I was told there was one cure and one thing to do.” She is now detransitioning. But that word is such a misnomer because it glosses over the fact that what is done can never be completely undone. Body parts long since amputated and destroyed are no longer there to simply be plugged back in.
Another detransitioner who had a double mastectomy, Kasey Emerick, 23, realized that after five years of trying to live the life of a man, her mental health problems were only getting worse. Emerick said, “I realized I had lived a lie for over five years.” But despite going off testosterone, her voice has been permanently changed to the deeper voice of a man.
Another detransitioner, Paul Garcia-Ryan, had surgery on his genitals. He also had severe medical complications from both the surgery and hormone medication. The columnist then noted that “doctors and medical professionals who insist on caution are often afraid to speak out and even don’t feel safe.” She concluded that “returning to reason would be the most humane path forward.”
I stopped and said a prayer for the future of everyone in that story; God is a really big God and has the most lovely ways of bringing joy out of jumbled and hope out of hopelessness.