Chloe Cole Found the One Who is Truth

Author: John Stonestreet 

In his book Begotten or Made?, ethicist and theologian Oliver O’Donovan noted that the vast majority of those who struggle with transgender feelings were middle-aged males. That observation, from 1984, is no longer the case. Today, according to research released last month from UCLA’s Williams Institute, a far greater percentage of teenagers identify as transgender (1.4%) than adults (.5%). Even more, there’s been an explosion of teen and pre-teen females identifying as transgender. 

In her book Irreversible Damage, Abigail Shrier was the first to suggest that the growing rates of transgender confusion among girls was, in fact, a social contagion. Though at the time, she was widely attacked for making this claim, Shrier has been largely vindicated.  

Chloe Cole knows. She was in her early teens when she began to question her identity as female. Voiced from various places immediately chimed in, suggesting she would be happier as a boy. She quickly found a medical community that pushed her to change her body. They saw her, in her words, as “simply being another transition.” 

Chloe’s parents were told if they did not support their daughter’s transition, they would be complicit in her suicide. Backed into a corner, they believed the “live son, dead daughter” myth. Chloe was placed on puberty blockers and testosterone and approved for a double mastectomy, all by the age of 15.  

When she experienced complications from her transition surgeries and drug regimen, her doctors resisted, refusing simple tasks like scheduling regular blood tests or sharing information on her medical charts. A year after she underwent a double mastectomy, Chloe began to realize what had been taken from her.   

Chloe recently told her story on the Strong Women podcast, hosted by my wife Sarah. The episode releases tomorrow. Here’s Chloe:  

The major turning point of my transition was when I realized just how much of a toll all of this was taking on my body, especially with how sudden the changes were from the surgery and just how grueling the healing process was in every single way. It flipped a switch in my brain.  

And I had this epiphany that none of this was changing me in any meaningful way. But it was taking away parts of my health and potentially future parts of myself as an adult, as a woman, as somebody who was soon entering adulthood. And I was starting to figure out that one day I wanted to have kids. One day I wanted to get married and actually I was very naturally feminine. I wanted to experience all the great things, all the great trials and tribulations, that come with being a woman, being a girlfriend and then a wife, and all the beautiful things that come with that feminine role. I realized there were a lot of things that I missed about that, and it would break my heart if I never would be able to become a mother.  

I really started to reflect on how these changes in my body were actually affecting me. Not only was it a much harder life to live, I also may never be able to reach those milestones of adulthood, of having a traditional marriage, of ... having children of my own. And that ended up being the final nail in the coffin of my transition.  

All of those feelings, all of the grief that I was going through made me realize I can’t continue this, but I will be able to find a life and personal fulfillment and happiness outside of it. 

Because Chloe had the courage to admit she was wrong and to embrace the truth, she is now an incredible example of how to live in this civilizational moment. You can also see Chloe tell her story in the new Truth Rising documentary, which premiers this Friday. Visit truthrising.com/colson to see it for yourself.