Confessions of a De-transitioner

Beginning in the 2010s, medical transition for minors—puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, surgeries—went from rare to something closer to routine in a matter of years.

Between 2017 and 2021, the number of American children diagnosed with gender dysphoria who began puberty blockers doubled. Between 2013 and 2020, the rate at which teenage girls underwent double mastectomies increased thirteenfold. And pediatric gender clinics grew from a small handful nationwide to over a hundred.

In many cases, parents weren’t looking to transition their children. Their child was in distress, they were scared, and they went to doctors for help. They were told the drugs were safe, the effects were reversible—and, in many cases, that these treatments were the only thing standing between their child and suicide.

Now, many of those children are adults. Some say they were never fully informed about the long-term consequences of these interventions. They’re living with permanent changes to their bodies, grappling with regret, and asking how our medical system allowed this to happen.

My guest today on Confessions is one of these people.

Jonni Skinner is 23 years old. He’s a gay man who spent nearly a decade on puberty blockers and hormones because at 13, he and his mother were told by doctors that he had a girl’s brain in a boy’s body.

He’s since detransitioned, but as he’ll tell you, his life—and his body—have been forever changed. He came forward because he wants to make sure the next vulnerable child who walks into a gender clinic looking for answers doesn’t have to live through what he did.