Ex-trans teen supports Florida rule blocking funds for medical interventions

A California teen who formerly identified as transgender is backing a Florida rule blocking Medicaid funds from paying for medical interventions for gender dysphoria — emotionally telling a hearing that she “didn’t understand” the ramifications and may now be at increased risk for some cancers.

Chloe Cole, who decided she was transgender at 12 and underwent a double mastectomy three years later, spoke a public hearing Friday in favor of Rule 59G-1.050, which would restrict Medicaid funding from transgender drug and procedures.

“I really didn’t understand all of the ramifications of any of the medical decisions that I was making,” Cole, now 17, said at the hearing, according to Fox News.

“I was unknowingly physically cutting off my true self from my body, irreversibly and painfully.”

Cole also spelled out the impact of her decision made as a minor in a separate meeting with Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo, who posted video of her compelling account on Twitter.

“I don’t know if I’ll be able to fully carry a child, and I might be at increased risk for certain cancers, mainly cervical cancer,” Cole said. “And because I do not have my breasts – I no longer have breasts – I’m not able to breastfeed whatever future children I have.”

Cole then took a long pause, the footage shows.

“That realization actually was one of the biggest things that led to me realizing that this was the not the path that I should have taken,” Cole said, adding that no child should have to experience what she endured.

“Do not transition your kids,” Cole told Fox News when asked what she would tell the public after her experience.

“If you are considering transitioning, please wait until you are a fully developed adult. Transitioning can damage your body and mind in ways that we may not fully understand.”

Ladapo tweeted Sunday that Florida doesn’t support the medicalization of minors with gender dysphoria since the “benefits are unproven.” He thanked Cole for being “courageous enough” to share her account.

“Medicalization of minors with gender dysphoria might advance the political views of physicians involved in their care, but the data showing any benefits for the actual children is extraordinarily thin,” Ladapo told Fox News. “The affirmation model runs an unacceptably high risk of harm.”

Cole said she supports Rule 59G-1.050, which would restrict Medicaid funding from transgender drugs and procedures, including puberty blockers, hormones, hormone antagonists, sex reassignment surgeries or other procedures that alter “primary or secondary” sexual characteristics while treating gender dysphoria.

“We cannot allow this to happen to children,” she replied to Ladapo on Twitter. “People in power have allowed this to happen. I know you will help break this vicious cycle.”

Cole’s testimony was hailed as “very thought-provoking” by a spokesperson for Florida’s Agency for Health Care Administration, which recently found several services for treating gender dysphoria aren’t consistent with “widely accepted professional standards” and have the potential for long-term negative effects, Fox News reported.

The American Academy of Pediatrics and the National Center for Transgender Equality did not respond to requests for comment to Cole’s testimony, according to the report.

President Joe Biden signed an executive order last month urging the Department of Health and Human Services to ensure minors have access to gender transgender interventions, but doctors remain split on the issue.

“I think the data on which the gender-affirmative model is based is not scientific,” Dr. Matthew Benson, an endocrinologist in Jacksonville, told Fox News. “We need better data, we need long-term perspective trials where we can look at adverse effects. We need much more robust data to justify these kinds of very robust therapies.”

Cole, meanwhile, previously told The Post she believes she was “failed by the system” and now refuses to stay quiet.

She wants to have children one day, but isn’t sure that’s going to be a part of her future since the viability of her eggs were comprised by testosterone injections.

“I’m still in the dark about the overall picture of my health right now,” she told The Post last month.