Claire Abernathy says she started identifying as trans at 12 years old. By 14, doctors were already telling her to have surgery. Just a few months later, she did. And shortly after that, she realized they had lied to her. Claire joins Glenn Beck to tell her story and share the truth about “trans kids.”
Transcript
Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors
GLENN: Welcome to the -- welcome to the program, Claire. How are you?
CLAIRE: Hello, I'm doing well. How are you?
GLENN: I'm really good. I watched the video. And the story of you and your mom is so unbelievably compelling.
And especially since, I'm a father of four.
And, you know, I -- I have children, my children have told me ail kinds of things.
And it is so hard, as a parent in -- especially at this time, when everything is so confused. And all of the experts are saying, no. Your kid will kill himself.
What your mom went through, let alone what you went through. But what your mom went through is just, I think so universal. To some degree or another. And I want to thank you for coming on and telling your -- your story.
Can -- can you start at 14? What happened?
CLAIRE: I can. Yeah.
Well, we will have to start a little earlier.
GLENN: Okay.
CLAIRE: I started identifying as trans when I was 12 years old, following a sexual assault and some pretty severe bullying that I was experiencing at school. And adopting this identity, gave me -- well, one, it gave me the ability to pretend to be a new person.
GLENN: Yeah.
CLAIRE: Someone they could sit and talk to. And it also gave me an entire social network. The whole friend group of other kids, who felt similarly to the way I did.
And I fell into this social group, and started seeing therapists recommended by the people in the support groups that we were going to.
And they made my parents feel like abusers for being -- for wanting to take pause before, like, making irreparable changes to their child's body.
GLENN: Did anyone say, any doctor say, hang on. We should look at the abuse? I mean, this might be something that is tied to the abuse and to those experiences?
Did anybody say that, take that seriously?
CLAIRE: No. No one.
My mom asked about the -- the abuse and the bullying. All these things that I had gone through. Distorted eating.
And she was told, in no uncertain terms. No. That does not make your child think they're trans.
GLENN: And these are doctors like at Cook Children's Hospital in Dallas. A fantastic children's hospital. So they have credibility with parents. Right?
CLAIRE: Yeah, one of the most well-funded children's hospitals in the nation, yes.
GLENN: Interesting way of verifying what I said. The most well-funded. Okay. So at 14, you were put on testosterone. And then like six months later, they're talking about surgery?
CLAIRE: Yeah. No.
I started testosterone in November of 2018.
And by January, I was approved for surgery. It didn't happen until June. But that was just because we wanted to wait until the summer between the eighth and ninth grade years.
GLENN: Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh.
That's pretty young. You're not legal to do anything at that point.
CLAIRE: Right. I couldn't get a learner's permit.
GLENN: So what did they tell you about the surgery, and what didn't they tell you about the surgery?
CLAIRE: Well, they told me that I was transgender. That I had gender dysphoria. And that the only effective treatment for gender dysphoria was surgical intervention.
That if I didn't go through with this. The most likely outcome was suicide.
That's what they told my parents, right in front of me.
GLENN: Yeah.
CLAIRE: And they didn't tell me, that they would be performing a vasectomy on me. Meaning, there was a significantly higher risk of fluid buildup and (inaudible) of the result, which did end up happening.
GLENN: Jeez.
CLAIRE: They didn't tell me that it would permanently take away my ability to breast-feed. They didn't tell me that the majority of kids who looked to pursue this, end up growing out of it.
There was a lot of things I wasn't told.
GLENN: So, I mean, but you weren't told serious, like, you know, pelvic floor dysfunction and urinary incontinence. Anything. I mean, I see commercials on TV for, you know, drugs. And they go, they go into 45 seconds of, all of the things that could possibly happen to you. They weren't required to tell you these things?
CLAIRE: No. They were required.
They just must.
GLENN: They just didn't do it.
CLAIRE: That's why they are investigating now.
GLENN: They're still doing it, aren't they?
CLAIRE: The doctor who did it to me, is currently being sued by the attorney general of Texas for continuing to do it.
He was banned.
GLENN: So when did you know -- I heard you talk about how when the double mastectomy. The bandages came off.
You cried. And everybody thought, there were tears of joy.
But you weren't so sure.
What was it like?
When did you start going, uh-oh. Uh-oh. What have I done?
CLAIRE: There was always a feeling of sadness, surrounding my chest.
But the -- the narrative that they tell you in the trans community, is that everyone kind of feels that after surgery. It's post-op depression.
Is what they call it. And I believe it was just post-op depression for around a year, until -- what -- what actually happened was a girl on my high school softball team got a breast reduction. And I learned what a breast reduction was from that.
And realized that -- that mastectomy was not the only option available for me. That things were hid from me. That's when things started -- tides started changing for me.
GLENN: So when did you start trying to speak out? Because they silenced you immediately? Right?
CLAIRE: They deleted my reviews off of my surgeon's websites. But I started posting on the internet in, like, 2021 about what happened to me.
That I wasn't fully woken up to the reality of the situation, until last December.
That's when I had my first public event.
GLENN: What did you wake up to?
CLAIRE: That we're harming children.
That there's no such thing as a trans child. And no one is born in the wrong body.
That you don't become your true self by cutting off pieces of yourself.
GLENN: You in your story said that, at one point, you started wearing like a padded bra. And you didn't want your mom to know about it.
And I thought it was heartbreaking how you were protecting your mom, and maybe you didn't know it, at the time.
But can you go through that part of the story?
CLAIRE: Yes.
So shortly after I had the realization, after I learned what a breast reduction was, I started -- I got curious about women's fashion again. I started wanting to be seen as a girl again. And so I started wearing patted bras in secret. And I would hide them under my mattress, whenever I got home from school. And one day, my mom found one of these padded bras. And she asked me if she had made a mistake, basically. If all of this had been for nothing?
GLENN: So wait. Wait. Not if you made a mistake, but if she had made the mistake?
CLAIRE: Yes.
Well, I mean, I was a child, and we all knew that I was a child.
GLENN: I know. I know.
CLAIRE: And this was ultimately not my decision. It was the medical professionals and guardians who had to sign off on this.
GLENN: What did you -- go ahead.
CLAIRE: She asked if all of this had been a mistake.
And I got really defensive, and said, and I told her, that -- I lashed out at her, and told her, that this is why I didn't tell her. That I thought she was going to overreact and make it a big deal. But it was a big deal. And that's why she made it one.
And, you know, I didn't -- I didn't tell her that I regretted my transition. I didn't tell her that I was detransitioning, until I decided to get breast implants.
And I --
GLENN: When you were how old?
CLAIRE: Eighteen.
GLENN: Eighteen.
And they say when you told your mom when you were sitting in the meeting for reconstruction surgery, right?
CLAIRE: Yes.
GLENN: Or going to the meeting?
How is your mom doing?
CLAIRE: She's been doing okay. We both live with a lot of pain and a lot of regret. And we talk about it a lot.
There's a lot to unpack. And there's a lot of wounds that will never really fully be healed.
But she loves me. I have never questioned that. She did this because she loves me, and she thought she was saving my life.
GLENN: So you can understand now. You can understand how parents are just as duped as the 14-year-old?
CLAIRE: Yeah. I mean, when you're sitting in front of a mandated reporter, who you've entrusted with your child's life, and they're telling you they can't be you're killing them. That your child is cutting themselves. And starving themself, because you won't go along with this thing they claimed. It would take a lot of prior knowledge of this issue, and a lot of like very strong will, to be able to -- to overlook that.
To be able to say, no. I know what's best.
GLENN: So now the FTC is looking into whether the pediatric gender medicine industry is deceiving families. Hiding risk. Making false claims. And this could really be a big compact on stopping this nightmare.
What do people do to help?
CLAIRE: Well, if you are someone who has been affected by pediatric medical transition. Or you know somebody who has. The FTC is taking comments from the public.
Submissions for people to investigate, essentially. And if you need any assistance, filling out that, the LGBT courage coalition, helping people to submit those forms. And if you don't, if you're not someone -- and you don't know anyone who is spreading the word, is a great way to help sharing things like the IWF documentary, that me and my mom participated. Because people really believe that this isn't happening. People -- people need to know.
GLENN: I want you to -- I need you to go to IWF.org. IWF.org. And read and learn and watch.
And you can go there you will it, and you can actually submit a comment directly to the FTC as well.
And urge them to crack down on the mutilation of our children.
Claire, thank you. Thank you for being brave enough to share all this.
And tell your mom, we pray for not only you, but also her.
God bless.
CLAIRE: Thank you, Glenn. Bless you.
