Normally, the Supreme Court hears cases that deal with matters of law.
But on Tuesday, Jan. 13, the justices will also be dealing with basic science. Not only that, they’ll be debating fundamental truth, as I can personally testify.
The stakes couldn’t be higher in the case, West Virginia v. B.P.J. The specific question facing the court is simple: Should transgender boys be allowed to compete on girls’ sports teams? But you can’t really answer this question without asking a more important one: Can a young boy or a girl actually change genders?
I asked this question myself, starting at age 12. I gave the wrong answer.
I was a classic tomboy — a girl who didn’t act and dress the way other girls did. I never felt like I fit in. But instead of realizing that I was in a normal phase of life, I got sucked into the world of social media and video games. That’s where I met people who told me that no, I wasn’t actually a girl. They told me I was a boy. That I should change my body to reflect who I ‘really was inside.’
I believed them. I went to doctors who gave me puberty blockers, blocking my normal development. Soon after, they started me on cross-sex hormones, so that I’d start to look more like a boy. Then, at age 15, the doctors gave me a double mastectomy. I figured that without a girl’s chest, I’d finally be happy. As a boy, why would I want to keep my breasts?
By age 16, I realized how wrong I was. But I couldn’t go back. The puberty blockers and hormones changed my body, to the point that I no longer recognized myself in the mirror. And the chest surgery — how do you undo that? I’m now in my early 20s, and to this day, I have bandages where my breasts used to be.
I know the truth now: I’m a girl. I always have been. I always will be. I can’t change that — because it’s scientifically and biologically impossible. No matter how many drugs or surgeries they get, kids who think they’re transgender really aren’t. They’re just confused. And in their confusion, doctors and activists are pushing them down a road of even more confusion. It’s also a road of unspeakable grief, worse than anything I ever experienced when I was 12 and felt like I didn’t fit in.
