Elle Palmer

I don’t think I’ve ever really talked about this because I honestly never really think about this anymore, but... I had to get 2 gum grafts—surgeries with tissue cut from the roof of my mouth and sewed onto my gums—due to 3 years of testosterone as a teenager. My gums had

When I was 15 I was in a Kik group chat for trans teens 13-19 years old. One of the older boys messaged me privately. He called himself “Julia”. He said, “I wish I had boobs. Wanna switch?” To me, that was pretty normal. I knew what gender dysphoria felt like so I assumed it was just as painful for boys who wanted to be girls to have the wrong anatomy. And it was a pretty common joke among trans people. So I said “yeah lol” But then he said “how big are they? just so I know what I’m getting” That made me uncomfortable. But I felt bad about feeling uncomfortable, because you’re supposed to be empathetic to every trans person. I said, “um… I don’t know” He said “I’m just really sad that I’m in the wrong body and trying to imagine what it’s like to be a girl.” I felt guilty again about the discomfort in the pit of my stomach. I responded, “that sucks, I’m sorry. I know what that’s like.” He took that as permission to continue. “So what’s your bra size?” I froze. I was told to be kind. I was told that trans women are going through an unbelievable amount of pain when they think about their bodies. They wish so desperately to be normal women that they need to fantasize about having boobs and a vagina. Meanwhile, I’m a suicidal teen girl in a binder trying to forget that the lumps on my chest and the genitals I was born with are the reasons I was targeted by older men to be sexually abused. I wanted to be a boy so no adult man would ever call me a “pretty young girl” again. We. Are. Not. The. Same. 👇🏻 This was me at 15.

Five years ago I made my first video: “Why I Transitioned and Detransitioned.” I was sitting on the floor of my childhood home in Great Falls, Montana, trying to figure out why I ended up in a Planned Parenthood getting testosterone shots at age 16. Now, almost a decade later, Montana is course correcting with Senate Bill 218: to extend the statute of limitations for realized medical harm from gender transition from two years to TWENTY-FIVE years. It feels poetic that as the first viral detransitioner of the new generation, my home is the first state in the country to propose a bill to protect detransitioners. I’m so proud to be a Montanan, and I’m so proud that I got to be part of history being made today!

When I was 20, I was going viral for the transition and detransition that my lifelong leftist parents had facilitated when I was only 16… Because of my family, I had been raised as an unquestioning, passionate, “open-minded” leftist. When my videos got popular, I was getting email after email asking me to share my detransition story for this article, this podcast, this video, this livestream. And almost every legitimate offer I got from high-profile, recognizable people were right-leaning organizations or conservative content creators. No matter what it was, if it was from a conservative, my parents convinced me not to do it. Except when I rejected those offers, my inbox was left empty. I didn’t get any offers from leftist content creators or liberal organizations who wanted to share my story. Wonder why that is? My mom said “they’re weaponizing your detransition for their agenda.” And at the time I took her word for it. 5 years later I have realized that my leftist belief system was not universal, it was not “my way or you’re bigoted”, and it was not uneducated or ignorant to be conservative. Conservatives have not “weaponized” my story. They just want other people to hear it, and they just want me to say what happened to me. They have put me on their show and simply said “tell us what happened.” There was no twisting of words, no lies, no propaganda. They simply wanted me to tell them the honest truth: why did I transition and detransition? Now, I’m 25, and have realized the only reason my parents would feel threatened by conservatives is because the overwhelming majority of them will rightfully criticize my parents for letting me transition at 16 years old… Next week I’m going to Washington, DC to rally and speak at the Supreme Court for the Skrmetti case that will set the precedent on whether or not minors will be allowed to transition for the entire country. A conservative organization invited me. I answered with a resounding “YES!” My parents decided to block me when I told them I was going. Not joking. I can’t wait!