Detransitioners have been trying to warn the public that so-called gender-affirming care—transgender surgeries, hormones, and puberty blockers—is both experimental and dangerous, especially for minors.
Now, thanks to the efforts of journalist Michael Shellenberger, we know that World Professional Association for Transgender Health doctors and medical experts pushing these practices were well aware of the experimental and lasting nature of the procedures they were recommending. Yet these so-called health professionals pushed forward, despite alarming awareness of tumors developing from hormones, reduced sexual function, lack of proper informed consent for minors, and more, according to Shellenberger’s reporting.
“Let the reckoning begin,” says Luka Hein, a young woman who underwent a double mastectomy when she was only 16 years old, believing that she would be happier if she could become a boy. “Because of organizations like WPATH I’m missing body parts and struggle with pain.”
The WPATH medical professionals acknowledge in the messages that some of the minors who are being given puberty blockers have no idea that they will be sterilized. Other messages reveal WPATH doctors saying they went ahead with performing surgery on patients with severe mental health problems, even though they were worried the patients couldn’t give full informed consent.
“I’m relieved the files are out in the world for everyone to read,” Shellenberger told my colleague Tyler O’Neil, sharing that the files reveal WPATH’s “whole paradigm falling apart over the last three years.”
“Nobody can claim to understand the gender issue without reading ‘The WPATH Files,’” he added.
The news prompted a number of detransitioners to speak up, sharing the mental and physical anguish that they have gone through as a result of this ideology.
“I was a scared kid who thought doctors were going to help me … and look at how these butchers talk about what happened to those like me behind closed doors,” Hein added in another X post.
A detransitioner is someone who attempted to transition to another gender, then realized that such an attempt is impossible, and “de-transitioned.” Many of these individuals, like Hein, say they were betrayed into irreversible hormonal and surgical procedures by doctors and therapists who ignored biological realities in favor of ideology.
I document numerous stories of these transitioners in my upcoming book, “Detrans: True Stories of Escaping the Gender Ideology Cult,” an intimate look at the lived experiences of detransitioners, including the manipulative therapy sessions, botched surgeries, and attempts to construct phantom body parts.
“WPATH gave my therapist the green light to destroy my body,” said Abel Garcia, a young man who attempted to transition to become a girl by taking hormone and undergoing breast augmentation surgery. “The people who hurt me sleep with no problem, while I live in emotional, physical & mental pain.”
“These files prove what detransitioners have always said but now it’s coming from their own mouth,” he added. “Let the truth prevail.”
Chloe Cole, a young woman who underwent a double mastectomy as part of her teenaged gender transition, specifically addressed WPATH conversations reported by Shellenberger about developmentally delayed 13 year olds attempting transition.
“There is no ethical approach to taking an already developmentally delayed child and preventing them from going on the only path they have towards growing into an adult,” she said. “We are leaving vulnerable children stunted for life.”
“This is unimaginable levels of cruelty,” added Cole.
Laura Becker, another female detransitioner who has become an outspoken advocate against gender ideology, commented on Shellenberger’s revelation that doctors asked permission of all the “alters,” or alternative identities, of one client who had dissociative identity disorder (DID).
“I can’t believe this,” she wrote. “WPATH doctors got ‘consent’ from all a patient’s ‘alter’ personalities before doing surgery … instead of you know, treating the DID symptoms. Absolutely unethical.”
Some detransitioners called for punishments for the medical professionals who led them down this path.
“Justice for all victims,” wrote Richie, a man who attempted to transition to become a woman. “Jail time for the surgeons that held the scalpel, and the therapists that signed off the surgery. If I took everything from them, we still wouldn’t be even.”
“I didn’t think anyone should be jailed when I first ‘came to’ post-transition,” chimed in Michelle, another detransitioned woman, on X. “Changed my mind now. Probably would’ve still had some mercy in me if we hadn’t been gaslit so badly.”
Prisha Mosley, a young woman who has detransitioned and travels the country testifying in defense of biological sex, emotionally shared on Monday evening that she could not yet bring herself to read “The WPATH Files”: “No one deserves this monstrous form of irreversible medical harm … “
In a statement to The Daily Signal following publication, WPATH President Marci Bowers insisted that “WPATH is and has always been a science- and evidence-based organization whose recommendations are widely endorsed by major medical organizations around the world.”
“We are the professionals who best know the medical needs of trans and gender diverse individuals—and stand opposed to individuals who misrepresent and de-legitimize the diverse identities and complex needs of this population through scare tactics,” Bowers said. “The world is not flat. Gender, like genitalia, is represented by diversity. The small percentage of the population that is trans or gender diverse deserves healthcare and will never be a threat to the global gender binary.”
Have an opinion about this article? To sound off, please email [email protected], and we’ll consider publishing your edited remarks in our regular “We Hear You” feature. Remember to include the URL or headline of the article plus your name and town and/or state.