Turning Point USA Bay Area discussed concerns with youth receiving medical and psychological treatment regarding gender-affirming care on Wednesday in the Boccardo Business Complex at San José State.
Turning Point USA is a nonprofit organization that aims to educate and organize students to promote conservative values, according to its website.
The event, “The Trans Deception,” featured a question and answer forum, and a speech from Chloe Cole, a political activist who opposes transgender surgery for minors.
Cole is a de-transitioner or someone who previously identified as transgender and went through processes to transition, but later decided to stop treatment and no longer identifies the same way, according to a Clinical Advisory Network on Sex and Gender web page.
Her speech drew on experiences she faced as a person who underwent a physical gender transition process in her youth.
“There is a massive identity crisis that has largely been ignored that we've been gaslit into thinking is normal ... our generation deserves better than this,” Cole said. “There's no sense anymore of an objective reality. It's only about my truth or your truth. It doesn't matter whose truth it is because these are all flawed perceptions created out of narcissism and social media lives.”
In a study of 6,793 people, 0.6% of transwomen patients and 0.3% of transmen who received a gonadectomy, a surgery that involves removing sex organ, regretted transitioning, according to a 2022 student from the National Library of Medicine.
Cole said she does not agree with these statistics and said these studies have a number of problems that decrease their credibility.
“A lot of them have very subjective definitions of what regret and detransition mean. A lot of these researchers don't necessarily agree on the definition of either transition regrets or what it means to stop your transition,” Cole said.
Cole also said that some of the data does not take data from people who no longer identify as transgender, who would not respond because they don’t identify the same way anymore.
After Cole concluded her speech, audience members had the opportunity to participate in a question and answer session.
“Would you recommend people who have successfully or happily transitioned to de-transition?,” asked William Clementi, a first-year history student.
“Happiness is really subjective. It's a fleeting feeling. We can't measure feelings,” Cole said. “The fact that we are basing the success of these procedures on something that's completely not objective, it's completely crazy.”
One report found that 93% of those studies concluded that people who had transitioned had better overall well-being after treatment, according to a Cornell University study that observed 55 studies between 1991 and 2017.
“I believe that we should be taking measures to protect vulnerable adults from making a mistake,” Cole said. “We shouldn't just be immediately affirming ... their transgender identity and these feelings that they have, pushing them down the route of transition. That should be the absolute last resort.”
In an email sent to the Spartan Daily, Michelle Smith McDonald, the senior director of media relations for SJSU, shared a statement regarding the event.
“SJSU Registered Student Organizations have the ability to invite and host speakers of their choosing to campus for organization-sponsored events and can do so as long as they are following the policies that guide on-campus events,” said Smith McDonald.
SJSU has more than 350 student organizations which include academics, culture, religion and special interests, according to its web page.
“I think I would disagree with some of their perspectives, but I can’t disagree with her own personal story and beliefs,” Clementi said. “I disagree with some of the politics that tend to go behind her beliefs, it was interesting hearing a different side.”
Clementi said it would be dangerous if Cole was pushing for clear actions on whether individuals should de-transition, but not because she was telling her story.
The Spartan Daily reached out to an LGBTQIA+ group on campus, but they declined to comment.
Dawn Lee, the interim dean of Students, explained how registered student organizations follow policy and rhetoric in an email statement.
Lee said Turning Point USA Bay Area were the organizers for this event, decided to plan the event and hosted the guest speaker.
“The hosting of events by (registered student organizations) do not imply an endorsement of perspectives or rhetoric by the university. Campus staff work with these (registered student organizers) to make preparations to ensure that the campus remains safe and secure during such events.” Lee said.
