Chloe's Law Reminded Us: It's about Children, Not Gender Change
Jonathan Lange
March 14, 2024
Chloe’s Law,
Senate
File 99, has been passed by both Wyoming’s Senate (26-5) and
House (55-6). Along the way, Chloe’s name was removed from the official
title by committee amendment. It is now Senate Enrolled Act (SEA) 52
“Children gender change prohibition” and is awaiting
Governor Gordon’s signature.
Although Chloe’s name was erased from the title, her story and
inspiration should not be forgotten. Three weeks ago, while the governor
was hosting his annual prayer breakfast, Chloe Cole came under
Wyoming’s capitol dome. She had travelled from California
to give her testimony before the Senate’s Labor and Health Committee.
That is where our paths crossed.
The previous day, I had travelled from Evanston to attend the prayer
breakfast. When making those plans, I had no idea that I would meet this
remarkable person. But God has his own plans and moves in mysterious
ways.
Headlines about Chloe’s testimony
called
her an “activist.” That’s a curious way of labeling someone. It
tends to erase a person’s identity and replace it with a mere slogan.
Seeing Chloe in person, I could not help but think of her like any other
young woman. What are her hobbies? Does she
have a pet? What did she want to be before her life was so dramatically
altered? What are her hopes and dreams going forward?
As I listened to her ask the Wyoming legislature to enact the law that
bore her name, I didn’t hear a professional activist. Instead, I heard a
young adult describing the consequences of her abuse as a child. She
did not come to Wyoming as an “anti-transgender”
anything. She came to prevent the child-abuse that forever changed her
life from happening to Wyoming kids.
Had Chloe been born a decade or two earlier, the chances that a mental
health professional would advise her parents to give her carcinogenic
drugs intentionally in order to interfere with the normal development of
her body--bones, brain and all--would be practically
nil. If Chloe had been born in a place that gave children time to
mature before making choices about things they could not possibly
understand, she would likely still have her breasts.
As a consequence of being born in the wrong time and place, her autism was not treated, at all. Instead,
she
testified that her “mom and dad were told that their only
options were between having a dead daughter or a living, transgender
son.” Looking back, she sees bitterly that these “medical professionals”
were “taught to manipulate and coerce parents in
this matter.”
She
emphasized: “My doctors followed the World Professional
Association for Transgender Health (or the WPATH) Standards of Care.”
Based in suburban Chicago, WPATH has published these Standards of Care
since 1979. But their
6
th
edition (2001)
cracked the door open to minors, and their
7
th
edition (2012)
gave the green light for gender clinics to give life-altering drugs to children as young as nine.
Prior to this the
UK’s
Royal College of Psychiatrists recommended that children
experience “the post-pubertal state of their biological sex” before
starting puberty blockers. This is the central issue of Chloe’s Law.
Passionate and informed adults may debate whether or not
gender change drugs and procedures are good or bad. But children simply
lack the capacity to know.
Recently it was revealed that child psychologists at WPATH privately
admitted that it is “out of [children’s] developmental range to
understand the extent to which some of these medical interventions are
impacting them.” The
trove
of documents and videos released by investigative journalist
Michael Shellenberger raises questions about what else WPATH has been
hiding from the public.
Meanwhile, numerous European countries are rethinking their blind trust
in WPATH and the consequences for their children. On Tuesday, England’s
National Health Service announced that it will halt the prescription of
puberty blockers to children. Norway, Sweden,
and Finland have also reversed course.
Most notably
the
Dutch parliament voted last week to require its government to
research the outcomes of children who have been given puberty blockers
and cross-sex hormones. This is significant since Holland is the place
where it all began. WPATH endorses the so-called
“Dutch Protocol.”
Miss Cole doesn’t care about politics. She cares about children like
herself. She concluded her testimony to the Senate committee by saying,
“This is not a left or right issue. This is a matter of right or wrong.
Your constituents know that removing the healthy
breasts of children and sterilizing them is completely wrong. You know
that it is completely wrong. And you need to do something about it.”
Many seasoned observers of the legislature gave Chloe’s Law little
chance of making it to the governor’s desk. But as the WPATH credibility
crumbled in real-time, SF 99 became unstoppable. Now, by the stroke of a
pen, Governor Gordon can make it law.
Jonathan Lange is a Husband to one, father to nine, pastor of two churches, and co-leader of the Wyoming Pastors Network.
