Explosive New Book Sheds Light on Barbaric Nature of “Gender-Affirming Care”

A new book is shedding light on the gut-wrenching horrors of so-called “gender-affirming care” and how the appalling practice of prescribing cross-sex hormones and surgeries to minors is destroying lives and ripping apart families.

In Detrans: True Stories of Escaping the Gender Ideology Cult, author Mary Margaret Olohan interviews a series of “detransitioners,” or individuals who previously “transitioned” to another sex but have since stopped undergoing “gender-affirming” treatments and embraced the reality of their biological sex. These individuals share their agonizing stories of the physical pain, emotional trauma, and medical deceit—and the sinister motivations lying underneath the left’s gender ideology crusade.

“Every destransitioner has a unique story,” Olohan writes. “But many of the same fact patterns are present in their stories. These fact patterns often, though not always, include an unhappy childhood or an adolescence fraught with abuse or loneliness. Gender dysphoria at a young age. Discomfort in their own body. Struggles to make friends. Signs that they were on the autism spectrum (often without the confirmation of a medical diagnosis). Adults in their lives, often on the internet, in LGBTQ circles and chat rooms, who pushed them towards transition, hormones, and eventually surgeries.”

“And almost always,” Olohan continues, “the same driving force: the desperate desire to know who you are and to be happy.”

Detrans follows the stories of four detransitioners: Prisha Mosley, Chloe Cole, Luka Hein, and Helena Kirschner.

The book begins with Mosley’s story of facing various challenges as a child, teen, and young adult. At 12 years old, Mosley struggled with an eating disorder that led to inpatient treatment, where she was diagnosed with anorexia, bulimia, OCD, depression, and possible schizophrenia. Two years later, she was tragically raped by an adult, which led to a pregnancy and subsequent miscarriage.

As Mosley disclosed to Olohan, she believed transitioning would allow her to become a male—thereby making her statistically less prone to sexual assault. In the following years, she started testosterone injections and received a double mastectomy.

Luka Hein, the next detransitioner profiled by Olohan, similarly struggled with loneliness and turned to social media to find connection with others. On the app “Kik,” Hein encountered predators—often identifying as transgender women—who solicited explicit photos from her and pressured her into making what she called “child sexual exploitation material” of herself. Hein was eventually hospitalized, her transgender identity was “affirmed,” and her body was forever changed.

Following her detransition and subsequent questioning of the efficacy of puberty blockers, Hein has faced character attacks from figures who had been supportive of her transition. “Her lived experience only counted if she agreed with ‘them,’— the pro-trans voices that were drowning everyone else out,” Olohan wrote of Hein’s experience.

Chloe Cole, perhaps the most well-known figure interviewed by Olohan in Detrans, suffered from anxiety and autistic tendencies from the time she was eight years old, and later told her parents that she wanted to be addressed as a boy. Her parents then took her to a pediatrician, who advised that medical gender transition was the best way to ensure Cole could live a healthy and fulfilling life. Cole went on to take testosterone and puberty blockers, and ultimately received a double mastectomy at 15 years old.

Cole’s story highlights a common and insidious lie often told to parents of confused children – that if they don’t do everything the transgender medical complex tells them to, their son or daughter will surely suffer and perhaps even try to take his or her own life.

Helena Kirschner, like many others who transition as children, was exposed to graphic pornography at a young age. Unlike many of her peers, however, Kirschner’s transition was driven in part by a desire to break free from what she saw as the “oppressor caste.”

“Instantly, you are transformed from an oppressing, entitled, evil, bigoted, selfish, disgusting cishet white scum into a valid trans person who deserves celebration and special coddling to make up for the marginalization and oppression you supposedly now face,” she wrote of her transition experience.

Kirschner was affirmed as transgender by her school guidance counselor—without her mother’s awareness—and shortly thereafter began testosterone treatments. She did not, however, undergo any kind of surgery.

Following their detransitions, each of these four women has been outspoken against the transgender medical establishment. Mosley offered a written account of her experience in a Fox News op-ed and serves as an ambassador for the Independent Women’s Forum. Hein has sued the doctors who performed her double mastectomy and appeared on various podcasts and news channels, including “The Megyn Kelly Show.”

Cole, meanwhile, has emerged as a national leader in the movement to stop gender transition procedures for minors, regularly speaks at political events, and appears on podcasts and cable news programs. She also testified before Congress in 2023. Kirschner has authored a Substack and appeared on various programs, including Tucker Carlson Originals, “The Ben Shapiro Show,” and other content produced by The Daily Wire.

But even despite the testimony from these four women, the damage is still largely done, and the “gender-affirming care” system continues to imperil countless young lives and traumatize families.

“So-called ‘gender-affirming care’ is experimental and dangerous and the transgender-promoting ‘experts’ know it,” Olohan recently said to the National Catholic Register. “They knew that testosterone was causing tumors in some female patients. They knew that girls were losing their ability to have kids from these drugs. They knew that some patients were unable to actually give informed consent due to their serious mental-health problems. And yet they publicly continue to praise and laud ‘gender-affirming care’ and claim it is pivotal for youth who identify as transgender. These are incredibly harmful lies to vulnerable minds, and the detransitioners in my book believe they were betrayed and deeply harmed by these lies.”

To this day, a powerful array of institutions continues to prop up these lies, convincing young people and their families all across the nation to buy into the propaganda of the gender “transition” movement and take serious—often irreversible—steps that take a devastating toll on their physical, emotional, and spiritual health.

Detrans serves as a sobering reality check for American parents, teachers, and lawmakers who do not yet fully understand the horrific consequences of “gender-affirming care” and the pervasiveness of gender ideology in American culture.

Detrans: True Stories of Escaping the Gender Ideology Cult is available now and can be purchased here.

Aaron Flanigan is the pen name of a writer in Washington, D.C.