The Planned Parenthood organization has been built, from its founding, on destruction of lives, especially preborn ones. Now, even as legalities and access shift in the wake of the Dobbs decision, America’s largest provider and promoter of abortion has added another revenue stream. This one also promises to destroy lives, albeit in a new and subtler way. This one also promises to help women but is, in actuality, built on ideas that deny the existence of women.
A new documentary from the Center for Bioethics and Culture tells the stories of three young women who believed they were not women and that they could become young men, only to regret it. The Detransition Diaries: Saving Our Sisters chronicles the experiences of Cat Cattinson, Helena Kerschner, and Grace Lidinsky-Smith, two of whom received hormone therapy at Planned Parenthood clinics. Though activists and media outlets pretend they do not exist, these are just three stories of a growing number of people once sure they were born in the wrong bodies but now know differently.
To believe patients who say they were born in the wrong bodies is a sort of dogma, especially among healthcare professionals who would never handle any other medical condition this same way. Only in the case of gender dysphoria are no questions to be asked. Trans activists call questioning someone’s self-identification and assessing their mental health “gatekeeping.” This dogma has turned transgender “medicine” into the only kind of medicine in which patients approach a doctor with their diagnosis and preferred treatment.
Planned Parenthood has now jumped into this business with both feet. On its website, the organization claims that if a child or young adult is “insistent, consistent, and persistent” about their trans identity, then they should be medically “affirmed.” That word “affirm” is code for pumping those patients, even if minors, full of mind-altering ideas and body-altering hormones and puberty blockers. The treatment aims toward surgeries to amputate healthy body parts and perpetuate wounds, surgeries that are lucrative for providers.
Recently, The National Catholic Register revealed how rapidly Planned Parenthood has ramped up its gender transition services. In 2015, the abortion giant offered hormone therapy in 16 states and 65 locations. Today, it offers hormones in 41 states and 200 locations. To date, Planned Parenthood has “treated” an estimated 35,000 people.
The young women featured in The Detransition Diaries found it shockingly easy to get life-altering hormones and surgery referrals at Planned Parenthood. Cat and Helena describe how the so-called “informed consent” process they went through involved no psychological evaluations, no waiting period, and no tests. Cattinson claims to have received testosterone injections after just a 30-minute phone call with Planned Parenthood, and a letter to have her breasts removed without ever talking with a doctor in person. Thankfully, she had second thoughts about surgery after the hormones made her sick.
According to Kerschner, who told her story earlier this year in a harrowing Substack post, the initial appointment with Planned Parenthood took only an hour. After waiving any blood tests or labs, they gave her quadruple the recommended dose of testosterone, just because she asked. At the time, she was 18.
As another de-transitioner on YouTube chillingly put it, Planned Parenthood is “handing out hormones like candy to anyone who walks in the door…” Hormones, we should add, whose side effects include permanent infertility. Yet as the Register notes, Planned Parenthood openly advertises its new life-destroying business, touting quick appointments, same-day prescriptions, and even promising not to require a letter from a mental health provider.
It’s essential that these stories and others like them are told. They represent a growing group of people who aren’t supposed to exist—people who were “insistent, consistent, and persistent” about their trans identity, only to reverse course and deeply regret what was done to their bodies. Planned Parenthood long escaped real media coverage and scrutiny in its abortion business, despite credible accusations of illegal activity. Thanks to years of undercover sting operations, Planned Parenthood was finally exposed for past abuses like its willingness to abet human trafficking and illegally market fetal body parts. Even then, they received a pass from serious media coverage. Instead, many outlets chose to attack anyone who criticized them.
Today, the organization is hawking gender transitions to vulnerable women and men, even children, and misinforming them of the consequences. These patients deserve to hear stories of de-transitioners, stories of heart-wrenching regret from people who aren’t supposed to exist. And Planned Parenthood deserves to answer for its dangerous practices and yet a new assault on human lives and bodies. Come to breakpoint.org, click on this commentary, and we’ll tell you how you can watch The Detransition Diaries: Saving Our Sisters.
Publication date: September 27, 2022
Photo courtesy: ©Getty Images/Vladimir Vladimirov
John Stonestreet is President of the Colson Center for Christian Worldview, and radio host of BreakPoint, a daily national radio program providing thought-provoking commentaries on current events and life issues from a biblical worldview. John holds degrees from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (IL) and Bryan College (TN), and is the co-author of Making Sense of Your World: A Biblical Worldview.
The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of CrosswalkHeadlines.
BreakPoint is a program of the Colson Center for Christian Worldview. BreakPoint commentaries offer incisive content people can't find anywhere else; content that cuts through the fog of relativism and the news cycle with truth and compassion. Founded by Chuck Colson (1931 – 2012) in 1991 as a daily radio broadcast, BreakPoint provides a Christian perspective on today's news and trends. Today, you can get it in written and a variety of audio formats: on the web, the radio, or your favorite podcast app on the go.
