The Cost of Early Medicalization: Detransition in Adulthood | Jonni Skinner

So Johnny, you're very, very welcome. If you could just tell people from the beginning where you came from and how your story evolved. Testing, testing, one, two, three. So yeah, hi, I'm Johnny. I was born in rural Southwest Michigan to a very religious family, mix of Lutheran and Baptist. And naturally, as a young child, I always gravitated towards more, I guess what society would call more effeminate things. I always wore my mom's shoes around the house and I would get into her makeup. This was like a huge thing when I was a kid. I played dress up with my friends. I loved, very classically effeminate little boy. However, due to my family's religion and the very small town I came from, it was a very, they weren't open to that. It was a very closed-minded area. Many of the men in my family were very negative and very hateful towards me growing up. I experienced a great degree of homophobia since my early, early life. I mean, I can remember in elementary school getting called the F-slur, walking to school with my little strut and my pink blanket. So naturally, growing up in that environment, I became a very, very devout Christian from a young age. I went to a Lutheran private school, so this was, all I really knew was this religion. As I started to grow older and was approaching puberty, I started to develop a draw towards males. And naturally, I felt that that was extremely, extremely sinful. That was, all I had ever learned was how wrong it was to be homosexual, and it was becoming, it was impossible for me to suppress. I mean, I remember praying every day since I was like 10, 10, 11 years old for God to take my attractions away, and it just, it never did. They only grew stronger with time. And around this same time period, this was back in 2014 to 2015. Trans was becoming a very large thing online. Some of the makeup gurus that I had followed over the years who were gay men ended up transitioning and talked about how much it bettered their lives, how much more accepted they were, how they could just pass into society, and nobody gave them a funny look, or they painted it as if it changed their whole world for the better. So that planted the seed in my mind that like, oh, this is an option. I can bypass growing up into, you know, what I saw as an extremely sinful thing, being a gay man, and I could just disappear into society and live a normal life as a straight woman. Around that time period as well, I was developing extreme body dysmorphia as I was hitting puberty. It was all very new to me. I, you know, coming from a Christian school, they don't talk to you about puberty or anything like that. We didn't have like a sex ed class or anything, you know, no biology class. So this was all extremely new and extremely, you know, uncomfortable. It was something that I didn't understand what was going on with my body. And if I'm right, your mother took you to the doctors because you were distressed. You'd already been diagnosed with autism at a young age, and so you're kind of in the system. Yes. And then they brought, they diagnosed genitors for you? I was diagnosed with autism at a very young age, so I was already in the medical system. And I forget who it was that had, it was a tutor of mine, actually, who was on hormones herself that gave a referral to the University of Michigan. And my mom took me there to see a therapist who happened to be a gender therapist. And, you know, she, they split the meetings up, so she saw me one-on-one and, you know, listened to, I told her my life story, all the things I was insecure about, my worries about growing up and being gay, and my feelings around it being sinful. And, you know, she listened, and she was very friendly, but she kind of was like, yeah, I could totally see how hard it would be for you to be a feminine gay man because gay men like men, you know? So it would be easier for you to be a straight woman, you know, if you could just live a normal life, have a husband, and no one would look at you any differently. And that, like, really fed into my desire to transition. So after that first appointment, of course, when she saw my mom, she told her that she had a daughter, and would you rather have a dead son or a living daughter? And after that first appointment, she had referred us to an endocrinologist, a professor of endocrinology at the University of Michigan. And before I was able to have my first appointment with him, she sent me to a store out in the area because they want you to socially transition first, go out in the world as female. I was dressing as a boy at this time when I saw her, but she wanted me to go get, like, breast forms and, like, synthetic hip device. I'm not sure what you would call it. And what age were you? I was 13 at this time. I had just turned 13. And the shop that they sent you to, I've seen the pictures. Yeah, they had described it as a store that supports trans people, but upon us going there, she sent us with her business card, and she had a little sticky note attached to the back of it, and we were to hand this card to the store owner when we got there. So my mom drives me there, and it's a very, you know, discreet kind of purple building. It didn't seem unusual at the time, and their website was not what it is today. And we get to the door, and the owner meets us there in this very tall cross-dresser and he, you know, took the card from my mom, he looked it over, he flipped it around, he took the sticky note off the back, read it, and kept the note and handed the card back to my mom, and he proceeded to escort us into the store. And at first, you just see, like, high heels and wigs and such, but as you go towards the back, it was all, like, silicone, cyberskin breast forms with realistic anatomy, sex toys, bondage gear. It was a sex shop. And the form, the breast forms and the hip simulators that we were sent to get, we were under the impression they would be cloth. They were not. They were, like, cyberskin, silicone. And if I remember correctly, you were still Johnny and he, him pronouns. You hadn't done anything with them. Yes, this all took place within the span of just a few months, from that first appointment to being sent there to going to the endocrinologist. And then you went to an endocrinologist who took an extraordinary decision, because as far as I could see, you weren't in puberty yet, you were a late bloomer, and so they put you on estrogen before puberty blockers even entered into the game. Yeah, so my first appointment with that endocrinologist, he echoed back to me some of the conversations I had with the gender therapist. He himself presents as a gay man, so he was like, yeah, it would be hard for you as a feminine gay man in this society, but it's okay, because we're here to help. And I remember he brought in a whiteboard and he explained that I wasn't actually gay. I had a female brain and a male body. And he explained that this occurs through a delay in the release of testosterone in the womb. So he said that my brain formed first and that would have been feminized because of the delayed release, and then I got testosterone that masculinized my body. And therefore, due to it being a neurological condition, this would be the only treatment for it. So not only would it improve my life and allow me to disappear into society, but according to him, this was the only treatment path that would relieve me of my distress. And just for everybody who might want to know, Johnny has sent us his medical records and we've seen everything that took place, because it gets back to what Eitan Haim was talking about earlier on in medical fraud, because they diagnosed you fraudulently. An unspecified endocrine disorder related to puberty when I was 13 on my first appointment. And you didn't actually have anything physically wrong with you? No, I didn't. I was a completely normal anatomical boy. I was a little bit of a late bloomer, but I was just starting to hit the cusp of puberty. I was starting to get a little peach fuzz and such. But yeah, I was just a normal boy. There was nothing wrong with me. He put the diagnosis in before they actually took blood from me to even be able to give me a diagnosis like that. And from that first appointment with him, he prescribed me estrogen and spirodolactone to help reduce the androgen amount. And then you had estrogen at 13, and then, am I right, a year later, then they gave you puberty, but I'm getting mixed up. It was a few months later, because I saw him in August of 2016, and then in January of 2017, I was officially diagnosed with gender dysphoria and got my puberty blocker at 14. And you lived, then did you change? You became, like, we're presenting a Scarlet girl, but you weren't really- I wasn't going by Scarlet yet. No, I was still going by Johnny. I wore sweatpants pretty well everywhere. I would wear frilly tops and such, but I never wore the breast forms that they sent us with. It was very uncomfortable, the sexualized image that they were putting on me. I mean, when you're a child and you go to a place like that and people are pushing you to wear these realistic breast forms and talking to you about how this is gonna make your life better, he told me that not only would it allow me to disappear into society and make it easier for me to find a husband, but he said that I would have the musculature of a female, so I would have female sexual function, and et cetera, et cetera. It was very sexualized. And as a kid, it was, I didn't really understand that. You know what I mean? I knew I liked boys, but I wasn't sexualized yet, if that makes sense. I wasn't desiring that. I more had puppy love and all of this whole new world of them talking to me about saving sperm and all of that. That was completely out of anything I could comprehend at the time. It was a very, it's a very troubling, troubling thing. It was very inappropriate, everything that happened there. Because you're not comfortable with the appointments in retrospect. Now you're an adult looking back. You think, whoa, from what I, am I right? As I've begun my detransition and sought help from other doctors, I have found out since that there were many things that had happened behind closed doors in regards to conversations and such that were very inappropriate, yeah. And as a kid, it gave me a little bit of a heebie-jeebie feeling. But he was so friendly, the doctor was, that I didn't pick up on it. He gave me his personal number to call him on. He was calling me on his personal number when my mom wasn't present as well to adjust my hormones or give me advice or refer me to out centers, et cetera, et cetera. An out center is like an LGBT club for anyone that doesn't know. And this doctor still works in the hospital? Yeah, he got promoted actually to the medical director of the hospital. And so you were some years on estrogen, on puberty blockers. Eight years on estrogen. I was only on puberty blockers for two and a half years as the side effects. I went from being a perfectly healthy kid to being so incredibly sickly. And in my freshman year of high school, I ended up missing most of the year due to extreme muscle spasms. I would just collapse when my legs would be spasming and nobody believed me. And towards the end of my freshman year, I started peeing blood and an ulcer spontaneously formed in my bladder of which they found no pathology. There was no bacteria or infection or anything. They had no idea why I formed this ulcer. But my mom was skeptical from the very beginning and pushed to have my blocker finally taken out. But she had to fight for it. He did not want to remove the blocker. They quite frankly were writing her off like she was just a ridiculous paranoid mom. But eventually he did end up removing it. And if I'm right, they fraudulently diagnosed you with an unspecified endocrine disorder and that's how they kind of prescribed estrogen. And then there was another, if I'm right, there was another fraudulent diagnosis. Yeah, he diagnosed me with tall stature as well because he predicted that I would have been six foot to six two if I was left alone which would have posed a problem passing and finding a husband because that was a big thing for me. I just wanted to be normal and be loved. And he diagnosed me with tall stature. I was 14, five foot seven and three quarters or something. And he upped my estrogen from four milligrams to six milligrams to fuse my growth plates so I wouldn't grow anymore. And what did you, yeah. Is illegal in Michigan. It's height discrimination. And in order to qualify for tall stature, I'm pretty sure you need to be taller than five foot seven. What height are you now? Five eight even. Wow, and you would have been six foot two according to your mother. Between six foot, six foot two. It's not like an exact precise, they can't say you will for sure be this height but they can have like a general range by looking at your growth plates. So you were eight years on these hormones. From what you've told me, really almost immediately, you didn't suit hormones, the hormones didn't suit you. It was just a physical attack on your body, really. Well, they made me very, very sick. I didn't know that at the time. You know, I was getting extreme, extreme hot flashes. I had horrible pain in my chest. I had fluid leakage from my gynecomastia. That was so much. I would have like circles on my shirt. I was, and I was just an emotional wreck throughout all of this. I was homeschooled at this time as he had also discouraged me going to school. He said that I would be bullied if I enrolled in school so it would be better for me to wait until after my transition before I start interacting with the public. What did they say about the fluid leakage from the kind of estrogen formed breast? He said it was lactation and welcome to womanhood. All women get hot flashes and have lactation and that's what he said it was. And all those years, my mom took me to several different doctors over this and not one of them said anything different. And then you, I think the physical complications led you to question the entire endeavor. Could you tell us about that? What age were you and how you came out of it? So I was against the blockers as when I, even when I was still identifying as a trans woman is after I'd gotten the blocker out, after just a few months, I was regaining muscle mass, I wasn't having muscle spasms, the ulcer in my bladder completely cleared up. So I was against the puberty blockers as that was a very, very intense drug. It had such an intense effect on my body. But I was still on the hormones as I believed I had a neurological condition and that this was the only way for me to pass and be quote normal in society to be accepted. So I remained on the hormones for quite a few years after I had the blocker taken out. I had the blocker taken out when I was 16 and I remained on hormones until I was 21. What led me to eventually go off of the hormones was a new endocrinologist I was seeing. And she had suggested I take a break in December of 2023 and I slowly weaned off into January 24. And I was struggling significantly in the fallout of that. So I spent a few months struggling, I was very depressed. And then in March of 24, the WPATH files dropped and I started reading those. I think I found out about them from a post that you did actually. And reading through that, I was horrified. It was like everything I had been told for eight years, my entire adolescence was a lie. It just became blatantly apparent to me that I was, for lack of a better term, brainwashed. And I was sold on something that completely destroyed my body and stole my future from me. It significantly limited so many possibilities in life. Yeah. What are the physical, because I know this is extensive physical, you're off hormones, let's say now, must be two years. Is it getting on you? I'm going on two years off hormones. And what is, where are you now, like if you were to? Well, I feel significantly healthier. I don't have nearly as much brain fog. I'm not sluggish all the time. I don't get hot flashes as bad. I still get them from time to time, but they're not nearly as intense. When I, a couple of months after I went off hormones, I started having issues with my bones. I started developing these little like bone masses. And like, I have some of my ankles, I have one on my chest right here that you can barely see, but they ache and they seem to be growing where my growth plates connect. The fluid leakage from my gynecomastia eventually stopped. And thankfully that seems to be going down a little bit. I have enlarged, I don't know what you call like the glands in them, but like I have enlarged glands, so I'll always have some level of gynecomastia, but the fat that like develops around it has gone down significantly. And, you know, that's where I'm at, you know. Many of the side effects sort of weaned away, but now I'm at the longer I'm off, but I'm developing entirely new ones from having, you know, my entire biology messed with. I still don't have normal male testosterone levels. They're much on the lower end, but it's starting to come back little by little because thankfully I never had surgery. That is one thing my mom managed to protect me from. Are we getting there? We'll extend it just a minute. We're gonna go for lunch after this and we will, but I just, there's a couple of things I just want to say towards the end. We will take a couple of questions. For those of you who want to rush out to lunch, you're welcome to, but there is, I suppose, two last questions I have and then we'll open it up to anybody who might want to ask questions. My two last questions is the first one is people will immediately talk about suing and legal cases and, you know, what's your response to that? I think it's great if people are able to sue. I do feel like lawsuits will have a massive impact on this whole field, however, in my own case, I am not able to pursue a lawsuit due to the statute of limitations on medical malpractice. It's only two years in Michigan. So I would have had to have filed when I was 15. So for me, that isn't so much of an option. Hopefully, I've heard talk from some of the speakers yesterday about changing the laws and possibly extending the statutes with a retroactive, I don't know what you call it, because I'm not legally literate, but, you know, if that occurs, then hopefully I would be able to pursue a suit, but as of right now, that is not an option for my case. And what would you, this is my last question and then we'll open it up, and what would you like to gain out of speaking up? What is the message you'd like people to hear? For me, you know, this ruined my life so much. It makes me sick to my stomach to envision this happening to another child. You know, my mom, she managed to protect me from a lot and all I can think of is, you know, what horrible things I would have had to go through if she wasn't there and didn't put her foot down in regards to surgery and such, as they were talking to me about surgery before I was 18 as well. You know, it's a very difficult thing with cases like this, especially when you're on these hormones for so many years and you're a minor, because you see these doctors every three months and, you know, mine at least was calling me on the phone, texting me and such. What was he saying when he was calling you and texting you? Sometimes he would make it like he was checking up on me or it was like adjusting hormones or he wanted to, you know, talk to me about being accepted as a trans woman in society and how much better it would make my life. Extraordinary. Would anybody, thank you very much to Johnny. Thank you. Could anybody put their hand up if you've got any questions? Benjamin has a question. And then Christine. Just a quick question, and I'd love to give you an interview on my show to really dig into the story. But what, just in case anybody's tuning in to the recording or anybody here, what have you done for yourself to make peace with your body after the hormone treatments? Exercises, dance, or self-expression art, stuff like that, that's really put you together and let you heal from the inside out? That is a phenomenal question. I do a lot of yoga and mindfulness techniques, pranayama breathing techniques have been very helpful for me. I still struggle with my body every day. You know, all I can see when I look in the mirror is how stunted I am. So, you know, I just try to practice deep breathing and mindfulness when these horrible emotions arise and that's helped me cope. However, I feel like it's a long road to make peace with all of this, you know? What age are you now? I'm 22 now. And Christina? Hi, Johnny. What I would like to ask is, you mentioned that your doctor had framed your condition for you as one in neurological terms. What I wanna know is how influential was that to you and your mother or both your parents? I mean, were you determined to transition otherwise or what I'd like to know is, you know, how important was that framing for you? So for me in the beginning, my main driver was to disappear into society, as it were, and not stand out as a very overtly homosexual. But my mom always had questions and she was a big proponent of trying to help me get comfortable in my body. That was like her whole reasoning in bringing me to the number one recommended children's hospital in my state. She was hoping that they would give me therapy to help me accept myself more. And I think he framed it that way to kind of shut out her dissent. And it closed, in our minds, it closed the doors to any other possibilities of treatment because if it's a neurological condition, if it's biologically based and this is the only treatment, then what else can you do for that? So it shut the door to any other possibility of treatment in our minds at the time. Well, thank you, Johnny. It's a harrowing story and I'm so appreciative of you sharing it. And it's very generous of you to share it because you're thinking of other kids, really. Yeah, well, it's partly healing for me as I'm processing all of this and coming to terms with it to share my story. But also, I just think of everything I went through and the discussions I had with him. And now I'm an adult and I look back and I'm like, that was, the whole thing was inappropriate, but it was just so profoundly wrong. It makes me physically ill to imagine this happening to another child. And I'm a lucky one because I didn't have surgery. I have many friends that also transitioned as minors who had surgery and it is infinitely worse. So knowing that such things are going on at this hospital, it makes me ill and I cannot rest in good conscience. I can't continue on with my life knowing that this is happening to another child. Do you want to name the hospital? We can all guess anyway, it's from Michigan. If you guys wanna look into it, it was University of Michigan Children's Motts Hospital. Thank you very much to Johnny for sharing his story. We will have lunch. If you want to contact him, maybe if he, you know, there's various reasons why somebody might want to contact Johnny. You can contact us through Genspec, I suppose, and we'll send it on to you, yeah. So, you know what I mean? Because I'm sure lots of people will want to make contact with him. Thank you very much. Thank you.