Episodes

Trans 101: Trans Kids & the Reality of Youth Transition

The right says doctors are mutilating children. The left says nothing permanent is happening. They’re both oversimplifying, but they’re not equally wrong.

Meet Maya, who started transitioning at 13 with puberty blockers, then hormones, then surgery at 16. Now 25 and thriving, she walks us through what actually happened—and why she says it saved her life. We also talk to pediatrician Dr. Michelle Forcier, who breaks down the real medical process. We’re busting the “most trans kids change their minds” myth with actual research, covering what puberty blockers really do, why some trans kids hate being on them, and the question nobody wants to ask: what happens to kids who don’t get care? Turns out inaction is also a decision, and it comes with permanent consequences too. This episode won’t give you easy answers, but it will show you what the science actually says and why everyone who knows trans youth best says the same thing: listen to them.

Content note: This episode includes discussion of self-harm and suicidality.

Video version:

Trans Kids: What Youth Transition Actually Looks Like

The right says doctors are mutilating children. The left says nothing permanent is happening. They’re both oversimplifying, but they’re not equally wrong. Meet Maya, who started transitioning at 13 with puberty blockers, then hormones, then surgery at 16. Now 25 and thriving, she walks us through what actually happened-and why she says it saved her life.

More from Michelle Forcier:

Citations and further reading:

TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:03] Ashley: Quick content note: This episode includes discussion of self-harm and suicide in the context of trans youth experiences. If you or someone you know is struggling, the Trevor Project provides 24 7 crisis support for LGBTQ plus young people. Text, chat, or call at (866) 488-7386 or visit thetrevorproject.org.

[00:00:29] Ashley: if there’s one thing that raises people’s hackles more than any other these days, it’s trans kids.

[00:00:40] Ashley: The right is saying that doctors are maiming and sterilizing impressionable children,that children are going to school and coming home a few days later with an operation. That transition is irreversible and that most people regret their decision. The left counters, no children are getting hormones or surgery, only puberty blockers, which are harmless and completely reversible. transition regret is so vanishingly rare that it’s not even worth mentioning.

[00:01:26] Ashley: Here’s what’s actually true.

[00:01:33] Ashley: Some trans youth take only puberty blockers. Some do take hormones as teenagers. A very small number have surgery before age 18. The medical process is individualized and

[00:01:50] Ashley: carefully monitored. What these cases all have in common is that they’re private medical decisions between a kid, their parents, and their doctors, they’re being turned into public political battlegrounds. Both sides are oversimplifying, but let me be clear, they are not equally wrong. One side is fabricating a crisis that doesn’t exist. The other is defending real kids with an incomplete story.

[00:02:02] Ashley: In this episode, you’re gonna hear from Maya who started transitioning at 13 puberty blockers, then hormones, then surgery at 16. It wasn’t painless. The blockers meant watching her peers go through puberty while she stayed frozen in place.

[00:02:30] Ashley: But she’s now a happy, healthy 25-year-old woman who says it saved her life. In this fight over gender affirming care for youth, I think what we’re really afraid of isn’t bad medicine or confused kids. It’s young people having agency over their own bodies.

[00:03:00] Ashley: We are terrified they might make a decision they regret.

[00:03:04] Ashley: But here’s the thing. Inaction is also a decision. Going through the wrong puberty leaves permanent changes too.

[00:03:13] Ashley: Forcing a trans kid to wait until 18 means forcing them through years of dysphoria, watching their body become something they don’t recognize.

[00:03:22] Ashley: That’s not neutral. That’s not playing it safe.

[00:03:26] Ashley: This episode isn’t gonna give you easy answers because there aren’t any. But it will show you what the actual medical process looks like, what the research says about outcomes and why the people who know trans youth best — researchers, doctors, and trans adults who lived it — all say the same thing. Listen to them.

[00:03:52] Ashley: I’m Ashley Hamer Pritchard, and this is Taboo Science, the podcast that answers the questions you are not allowed to ask.

[00:03:58] Ashley: This is Maya.

[00:04:05] Maya: I enjoy cooking. I like to go out and take pictures of birds. I’ve been getting really into pool lately and I’m getting like actually pretty good at it, and beyond that, I just like to hang out. I like hanging out with my friends.

[00:04:20] Ashley: Like I mentioned, Maya’s transition started in her early teens, though the feelings started earlier.

[00:04:25] Maya: I think things started feeling off around like 11, 12 maybe. You know, very stereotypical like, oh, I had a dream where I was a girl in a skirt, and I felt very happy about it when I woke up. Or my friends being like, oh, would you press a button that would give you a million dollars? But it also had a chance to turn you into a girl?

[00:04:46] Maya: And they’d all be like, oh, no, no. I’d be like, would press that button 1 million times as much as it would take, for that to happen. Uh, which, uh, apparently is not a normal thing for a cisgender male child to say.

[00:05:00] Maya: And when I started using the internet more and like connecting outside of my rural town of maybe 3000 people. That was when I started getting words for the feelings I was having.

[00:05:22] Ashley: she talked to other queer youth online and over Skype, and she told one of her IRL friends. Eventually it came time to tell her parents.

[00:05:31] Maya: It was about when I was 13. I wrote a god awful letter, copy and pasted from different parts of the internet. Some of it written in my own voice because I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know how to — I didn’t have the perfect words to explain that I was trans. I wrote the letter, I printed it out, and I tucked it underneath their pillow. They woke up the next morning and found it. It really would’ve helped if I had looked at a calendar, um, because I put that note under their pillow on the last night of, March. So they got it on April Fool’s Day.

[00:06:07] Ashley: Oh no.

[00:06:16] Maya: So they thought it was a joke.

[00:06:25] Ashley: Eventually Maya was able to convince them that it wasn’t in fact a joke, and they started having some real discussions about it But when she said she wasn’t ready to tell her school, they started doubting her.

[00:06:35] Ashley: They sent her to a therapist who, despite her being 13, asked her really invasive questions about her sexuality.

[00:06:45] Maya: Things I remember being asked, which of my friends did I masturbate to? What kind of porn did I like? Obviously that’s a very traumatic thing for young teen to hear. and he told my parents, well, okay, this is just a phase. This is just like a, a weird childhood sexuality crisis. Your son is just like gay or whatever.

[00:07:09] Ashley: That made her parents doubt her feelings yet again.

[00:07:12] Maya: And then one night I was talked out of it. I was told that sometimes when you’re going through puberty, your hormones make you feel things and those things might not be accurate. So are you sure about this? And I said, well, okay, maybe not. So I went back into the closet.

[00:07:36] Maya: I came out for a second time around age 14, I think. on the way to a, an appointment with a pediatrician. I spat it out as fast as I could in the car and then buried my face in the headrest. And they took it seriously that time. So that was when things really, really started.

[00:08:00] Ashley: Her parents ended up contacting an organization in their state called the Trans Youth Equality Foundation, where they were able to ask questions and better understand what this all meant.

[00:08:12] Maya: I am so glad that happened because I think that was like the reason my parents came around and like really started to understand and like really got on board with the whole, your son is a daughter, actually, kind of system shock.

[00:08:29] Ashley: That was when Maya started on puberty blockers.

[00:08:39] Ashley: Michelle Forcier is a pediatrician and expert in gender medicine who you heard on the last episode, and she explained the process most patients go through to get these blockers.

[00:08:42] Michelle Forcier: People don’t walk into a clinic and then walk out with a sex change. Like that is just crazy talk. I’ll be really clear. Crazy talk.

[00:09:02] Michelle Forcier: Like any medical visit, like any healthcare visit, people take a history and they talk about the sort of whole big person picture and talk about what they need. And if people would benefit from blockers or if they would benefit from gender hormones, then they’re a super safe and easy to use medication. And that’s what primary care and pediatricians and people in gender hormones do is gender is a part of like, who we are as a human being. It’s a part of growing up for sure, as a pediatrician it’s a big developmental task. And so we treat it like the biologic entity that it is, not a sociopolitical issue.

[00:09:25] Michelle Forcier: So a patient talks to us, they tell us what they need, and if a patient is pre pubertal, or at the early stages of puberty, then that can be a time where puberty blockers or G-N-R-H analogs, gonadotropin releasing hormone analogs, can work to temporarily turn off the puberty system.

[00:10:08] Ashley: During puberty, the brain produces GnRH, or gonadotropin releasing hormones, which tell another part of the brain to release gonadotropins. Gonadotropins influence the production of estrogen and testosterone, among many other things.

[00:10:24] Ashley: Put simply, GnRH sets off a chain reaction that leads to puberty.

[00:10:28] Ashley: GnRH

[00:10:34] Ashley: analogs take the place of real GNRH so that doesn’t happen.

[00:10:35] Michelle Forcier: What I tell parents is they’re pretend hormones. And they pretend and fool glands in the brain that they do not need to send the pubertal message of these pulsatile hormones that say, Hey ovaries, hey testes, wake up, start producing, your adult reproductive hormones that you’re supposed to do to sort of move this person into puberty, through puberty, and then into possibly a reproductive adulthood.

[00:11:02] Michelle Forcier: So the GNRH agonists or analogs or blockers, puberty blockers, are a hormone or a pretend hormone that sort of fools that brain into like just, oh, I don’t need to do anything. I’m not gonna message the testes and ovaries and the ovaries and the testes stop making hormones.

[00:11:25] Ashley: GnRH analogs were first synthesized in 1971, and their first use for suppressing puberty was reported 10 years later. That was to treat precocious puberty, a condition where puberty starts much earlier than it should. That first treatment was for a 2-year-old girl. That means that we have nearly 45 years of data on the risks and benefits of puberty blockers.

[00:12:00] Ashley: But before we get too far into how kids stave off puberty, we need to talk about why. The elephant in the room here is that kids and teens declare lots of things that end up not being true later. I mean, for like six months in middle school, my sister told everyone to call her Leaf, like from the tree. She dressed as a leaf for Halloween. But then she grew out of it. What if these kids grow out of it? Aren’t they too young to be making medical decisions about their gender?

[00:12:18] Michelle Forcier: As a 6-year-old, you don’t have to decide anything. You might decide what you have for dinner, that’s great. But you don’t have to decide what your gender identity is. You just have to be yourself. And if you wanna wear pants and not a skirt, well, why the heck can’t you? So part of it goes into like, a whole bunch of arbitrary social expectations in really rigid, weird definitions in our cultures of what it means to be male and female, which are very arbitrary, completely arbitrary in, in a lot of ways, like ovaries aren’t arbitrary, but wearing a dress is arbitrary as being feminine.

[00:13:00] Michelle Forcier: So, when parents say, my 6-year-old doesn’t know, I’m like, great. They don’t have to know, but you have to listen to ’em. That’s your job. Like you signed up for this.

[00:13:18] Michelle Forcier: And let me help you do this in a way where you don’t harm your kid or your kid doesn’t feel scared or ashamed and unwilling to come to you for help. ‘Cause that’s what you really want to do as a parent, ideally.

[00:13:23] Ashley: If a kid is nowhere near puberty, social changes like their name, clothes, and hairstyle are all that can happen. six year olds aren’t getting puberty blockers because six year olds aren’t going through puberty.

[00:13:35] Michelle Forcier: If your kid asks you to call them Sam versus Samantha, if your kid asks you to give her a nickname of Bumblebee. Great. Call your kid Bumblebee. If it gives her joy, like, why would you not? Why would you not do something simple and harmless? To help your kid feel safe and joyful. So again, you know, people make a big deal out of, I think things that are uncomfortable for them, things they want to control, and things they want to shut down.

[00:14:06] Ashley: I think it’s easy for some people to say that because kids might want you to call them Bumblebee one week. That means that them saying something about their gender not matching their, their body, is equal to that bumblebee thing. That’s just a flight of fancy and it’s gonna change next week.

[00:14:24] Ashley: Um, what would you say to that?

[00:14:24] Michelle Forcier: I would say that, um, you know, your internal gender identity is not the same say as a hair color. And kids know that. I mean, when parents bring that argument up, kids like just snort it and be like, oh, come on. Like are you not sophisticated enough to like extrapolate? And the other piece is what is the role of childhood and adolescence? To figure things out, to grow, to develop, to change, to explore, to experiment. So if you tell a kid, this is the only thing you can be from age two, what a terribly critical and limiting like society we would live in.

[00:14:55] Michelle Forcier: A kid’s job is to figure out who they are. And that means things may change and change doesn’t mean the kid was wrong. And if a parent allows it, it doesn’t mean the parent is wrong. A kid is not gonna do poorly when a parent says, I love you, I’m listening to you. Let’s figure things out together. And again, in all this early childhood stuff, there is nothing permanent irreversible that kids are asking their parents to do. Again, how people frame this is not how both development works and how care works, but it’s framed in a way to be divisive and to make it sound scary and traumatic and horrifying, and it is not. Kids grow and change, that’s their job.

[00:16:07] Ashley: When we come back, the desistance myth, do most trans kids actually change their minds?

[00:16:13] Ashley: What are the real risks of puberty blockers and what happens to the kids who don’t get care when they need it?

BREAK

[00:16:25] Ashley: We have data on how many of these kids change their minds. For decades, that data told us that most gender dysphoric children would eventually stop identifying as transgender by the time they hit adolescence. We’re talking numbers as high as 94%. Those numbers got cited over and over in debates about youth transition, and they sound pretty damning, right?

[00:16:48] Ashley: But here’s the thing, That research was fundamentally broken. Those studies used diagnostic criteria from the 1990s that didn’t even require a kid to identify as another gender. Instead, they diagnosed gender identity disorder based on things like preferring friends of the other sex or playing with cross-gender toys, which means a tomboy who liked trucks and had mostly guy friends counted as transgender in these early studies. even if she never once said she was a boy. This old research gets weaponized in debates about gender affirming healthcare. Even though the methodology makes it pretty much useless for understanding kids who are actually transgender.

[00:17:22] Ashley: Turns out when you study kids who actually identify as transgender using modern criteria, you get very different results. A 2022 study in the journal. Pediatrics followed more than 300 kids for five years after they socially transitioned. Kids who’d actually told their parents, I’m a boy, or I’m a girl. Five years later, the vast majority still identified as trans, only 2.5% identified as cisgender. A small minority had retransitioned at least once during the study, but most of those shifts were between different trans identities, not back to cis. That kind of retransmission is actually a pretty common occurrence that often gets lost in these detransition debates, which we’re gonna get into later in the season. So, yeah, the most trans kids will change their minds narrative. That’s based on bad data, studying the wrong kids.

[00:18:11] Ashley: But what if things do change? What if a kid decides they’re trans when they’re six and changes their mind when they’re 11? well, if they started puberty blockers during that time, which again, only happen around the onset of puberty, they just stop taking them.

[00:18:38] Ashley: Once you stop taking puberty blockers, just puberty starts. Even you’re 25?

[00:18:56] Michelle Forcier: Un push the pause button and the, the, the radio or the, you know, The podcast continues. You un push pause. Podcast continues. No it’s totally reversible and really we’re not seeing people taking it to age 25 and delaying puberty where we’re seeing it in cases where kids are young.

[00:19:03] Michelle Forcier: You know, puberty starts and can be considered normal as early as age eight. So if you’re gonna develop breasts at age eight and since six years old, you say I’m a boy, I really want you to call me Sam and not Samantha. I am living in my sort of male identified, uh, gender identity and expression, and at eight I get breast buds.

[00:19:31] Michelle Forcier: That’s terrifying. And we have a safe, Completely non-committal medication that can keep that young person from waiting until they’re 18, 10 years to adulthood, going through all the aspects of puberty. We have that ability, and if for some reason, and it’s unlikely with someone who identifies so strongly as at six, that they’re going to quote unquote, change their mind.

[00:20:01] Michelle Forcier: But even if someone were to want to stop their blockers, they just go right back in to where they would’ve started and keep going.

[00:20:21] Ashley: There are a couple of risks to puberty blockers. one that’s often weaponized is bone

[00:20:24] Ashley: loss. Teens on puberty blockers tend to not have as much bone mineral

[00:20:28] Ashley: density as their peers, and that’s a concern

[00:20:30] Ashley: because

[00:20:31] Ashley: adolescence

[00:20:32] Ashley: is when you build a lot of bone

[00:20:35] Ashley: mass. There

[00:20:35] Michelle Forcier: Now, the great news is once you stop blocking estrogen secretion, bone mineral density returns. So that’s the first thing. Bone mineral density seems to return. So to not give someone a medication because they might not have a perfect return on their bone mineral density, and they might.

[00:20:46] Michelle Forcier: Again, think about it. When do you see the effects of low bone mineral density? Most of the time you see it maybe when you’re 60. And guess what? There’s a whole lot of living and impact on your bone health between age 12 and 60.

[00:21:22] Ashley: There also some risks to fertility. Research suggests that after taking puberty

[00:21:26] Ashley: blockers, people preserve fertility better than we once thought, though the data is still evolving, especially for people assigned male at birth. But here’s the thing. Every medicine has risks and benefits, and those are all part of the informed consent discussion that happens between a patient, their parents, and a doctor. And as much as we’ve stressed that puberty blockers give a trans kid time to decide, for some trans kids, it could feel like too much time.

[00:21:45] Ashley: Here’s Maya.

[00:21:57] Maya: I got a puberty blocker implant. I think the scar is still visible here. I had that for a little bit and then as I was starting high school, I wrote a letter to the endocrinologist I started seeing and basically begged like, please let me start estrogen. I need to start this before and going into high school. I would like to experience puberty with the rest of my peers, please, and thank you.

[00:22:24] Ashley: Yeah, something I’ve always wondered about puberty blockers is that, you know, there’s all this talk about like, it’s totally reversible. It just gives people time to time to make a decision, but, but also you’re not going through puberty with the rest of your peers like that.

[00:22:32] Ashley: That’s kind of a problem in itself. And it sounds like it was for you.

[00:22:45] Maya: Yeah. That sucks. It’s awful. Like of course, trans youth aren’t allowed to experience puberty like the rest of their peers. They have to wait because of course, that’s what the science says or whatever. It, it’s really frustrating. It’s, it’s very, very frustrating and I got lucky. That’s the thing, is I got very, very lucky with my circumstances. Which I also will say will not discount the absolute metric fuck ton of work that I had to put in to make all of this happen. But I am so glad that there was flexibility in my case because I don’t think trans kids today get that same flexibility.

[00:23:22] Ashley: One of the advantages of puberty blockers is that they prevent trans kids from developing the secondary sex characteristics of their sex assigned at birth. But Maya started on puberty blockers a little bit later than is considered ideal. She was already in the early stages of puberty when she got that implant.

[00:23:33] Maya: I was developing male secondary sex characteristics. And thank god I started intervening on that as soon as I did because that would’ve been a nightmare. I did not dodge everything and I did not get like the the full suite of you know developing as a young woman.

[00:23:50] Ashley: However, just because it isn’t ideal does not mean it’s unusual.

[00:23:55] Ashley: For a peer reviewed research letter published in 2025, researchers looked at 15,000 private insurance claims by US adolescents with a gender identity related diagnosis. Even though care guidelines recommend starting puberty blockers in early puberty, which can be anywhere from age eight to age 14, the average age for starting blockers in this study was age 14. That can be because some families delay treatment to see if dysphoria goes away on its own, because insurance authorization requires jumping through hoops for months or years, or just a lack of providers, which is getting even worse in this political climate.

[00:24:33] Ashley: That research also gives us a clue as to how many kids are going on puberty blockers. If you’ve been following along through the season, you shouldn’t be surprised to learn that it is so much less than the political debate suggests. Out of those 15,000 trans youth, just under 1000 received puberty blockers around 6%. In fact, more received cross-sex hormones: around 2000 teens or 13% of the sample. who started at an average age of 16.

[00:25:07] Ashley: That tracks. If parent approval, insurance authorization and finding the right provider eats up that much time, then by the time you’re ready for treatment, there’s a good chance you’re past the window when puberty blockers are helpful.

[00:25:33] Ashley: If this was a less politicized medical treatment, that would be considered a failure of the healthcare system. Kids need this treatment in a certain window of time for it to be most effective and they’re not getting it.

[00:25:52] Ashley: After maya pled her case to her doctor. She started on estrogen around age 14, but soon she was back to doing the research and writing the letters she needed to advocate for herself to get another medical procedure.

[00:26:11] Maya: I think based off of my own research that I may be like one of the youngest people in the United States to have received bottom surgery,

[00:26:23] Ashley: Wow.

[00:26:24] Maya: beat out for youngest by a couple months.

[00:26:28] Ashley: What age? What age did that happen?

[00:26:31] Maya: I was 16.

[00:26:33] Ashley: Wow.

[00:26:34] Maya: I was 16 years old. Uh, when that happened. Sometimes I don’t like to share that because the popular talking point is like angry right winger says, oh, they’re doing genital surgery on kids. And then some fucking liberal’s like, no, they’re not, that’s not actually happening. It actually does happen sometimes.

[00:27:03] Ashley: But it is extremely rare in that 2025 sample, none of the 15,000 youth had genital surgery. The fewer than 3% who did have surgery before adulthood were overwhelmingly transmasculine youth getting top surgery. The vast majority of those surgeries happened at 17 and none earlier than 15. A similar paper from 2019 found the same thing.

[00:27:35] Ashley: So does it happen? Yes, sometimes. Is it common? Absolutely not. Is it a decision best left between a patient, their family, and their doctor? I think so.

[00:27:59] Ashley: But here’s what gets lost in all the fear and debate. What happens to the kids who don’t get care? To the families who say absolutely not?

[00:28:09] Michelle Forcier: I have so many stories where the kid is sort of like five miles down the road yelling back to their parent, hurry up and catch up to me. Um, and I have so many stories where parents are trying so hard to catch up to their kid and learn more things and figure it out.

[00:28:29] Michelle Forcier: And parents who were so uncomfortable and so unwilling at first to like entertain this as a, as a real possibility. Sometimes parents come to clinic for me to say like, this isn’t real, you know, I had one kid whose parents were struggling so much with this, that, you know, at first they were just dysphoric and parents refused sort of care.

[00:28:55] Michelle Forcier: And then they became self-harming and cutting. And then they were admitted for suicidality and then they jumped out a window. And at that point the parents said, okay, we should start blockers.

[00:29:11] Michelle Forcier: Breaks my heart, but really glad that we hung in there with that kid and that family and that family hung in there with us to get to the place where we could start blockers for them.

[00:29:18] Michelle Forcier: I’ve had kids whose parents say, not until you’re 18. Because I’m not making that decision. And I tell parents, guess what? You are making a decision. You’re making a decision to not provide care and that has an impact. And we work with that kid and I tell that kid, if you want to do everything so that on like your 18 and zero day, we start your medications, make that appointment, we will work you in that day and we will get things going for you. And making clear that parents aren’t off the hook for that responsibility.

[00:29:41] Michelle Forcier: I have kids that we’ve had a three hour visit. We’ve had some really long, intense visits when I was, in the pediatric clinic and we had a family that went from like absolutely not to hugs and tears and puberty blockers that day.

[00:30:08] Michelle Forcier: And that’s why I don’t expect a kid to trust me right away. I don’t expect a parent to trust me right away. But that’s where like the relationship part of gender care comes in. Like I want my patients to know I have some knowledge, I have some patient and care experience. I am not here to advance an agenda. I don’t care what their kid’s gender identity is. I care that their kid is heard, accepted, respected and that there is proper care offered to them as a family and to the child as a patient. That’s my job.

[00:30:32] Michelle Forcier: I’m a physician of ethical responsibilities, but do I, do I care whether the patient is trans, non-binary or cis? I just want a healthy kid, and if gender hormones or puberty blockers help some get to be that healthy kid and that healthy person. It is a dereliction of duty for me to not be able to talk about that with a parent and a kid.

[00:31:11] Ashley: what advice would you have to adults dealing with trans kids today?

[00:31:17] Maya: Um, listen to your fucking child. Your child is a person. It will be more harmful to have not listened than to have listened and been wrong. Sometimes, you’re wrong and it’s not the end of the world. It’s not like an impenetrable barrier that you cross and then can’t come back. Don’t think about the regrets. Don’t think about the bad things if your kid comes out to you as trans. Think of the ways in which you can support your child. Think of the ways in which you can make your child happier. If your kid’s trans, listen to your kid, listen to what they are saying, listen to how they’re feeling. Like, watch your child exist in the world.

[00:32:05] Maya: Talk to other people. Reach out to trans youth foundations. There are so many more resources now than there were when I was a kid. And the least that you could do as a parent is to educate yourself with those resources and talk to other parents who have had trans kids because they are out there. There are like probably like 5 billion Facebook groups of parents of trans kids. Go in there, be honest, you can say the things that you don’t wanna say to your kid and other people will understand. Like. It is not like a, oh, your son is dead, whatever. It’s a, it’s an opportunity to have a happier child. It’s an opportunity to give your child a more fulfilling life.

[00:32:56] Maya: If I hadn’t transitioned as a child, if I, if my parents didn’t do the things that I’m saying, I’m gonna be straight up honest, I would’ve killed myself by now. It’s a shitty thing to hear someone say, but like, there is no reality in which I was not allowed to transition, and as happy as I am today.

[00:33:30] Maya: I’m not here without that. The me that would exist if I had not been allowed to transition as a child is not a me that I would ever want to imagine being.

[00:33:38] Ashley: Dr. Forcier said. Something that stuck with me. A kid’s job is to figure out who they are, and that means things may change and change doesn’t mean the kid was wrong. Maya’s journey shows us what happens when parents give kids that space when they listen.

[00:33:57] Ashley: And Maya is really happy.

[00:34:00] Maya: i’m like the happiest I’ve been in years. I’m so thankful for all of the opportunities I’ve been afforded through family and through friends and you know growing up where I did going to school where I did I I got lucky and I’m very thankful for all of that because all of that has come together to make me a very happy person. I don’t really feel like I have like traditional gender dysphoria anymore. I think I just have woman problems. I think I have the body image issues that can be reasonably expected of a 25-year-old woman.

[00:34:24] Ashley: Today, maya is thriving, and when I asked her about regrets…

[00:34:52] Maya: one thing that people will say to a trans person is like, oh, if you could press a button that would make you cis would you do that? And of course some trans people would say yes. For some people being trans has been a point of unbelievable suffering that they wouldn’t wish on anybody else or themselves.

[00:35:17] Maya: But for me, I would not press that button because wouldn’t be me and I fucking love being me. I wouldn’t have anything that I love in my life around me. I would never press that button. It’d be easier to be cis. Of course, it’d be fucking easier to be cis. But like, this is the life I have and I’m happy with it. And I wouldn’t change it for the world.

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[00:35:36] Ashley: Thanks for listening. If you’re a paid Patreon member, stick around until the end of the credits for some bonus content. If you’re not, head to patreon.com/tabooscience to join for as little as $5 a month. thanks to nigelGremlinSix, Govind Acharya, and tiffany lai for joining as Degenerate members and to Ken and jimmy for joining as Elite Degenerates. Yeah, these tier names are a work in progress. Got a better idea? Why not suggest it on Patreon?

[00:35:56] Ashley: Big thanks to Maya. It was a big ask to share such private details of her life with me, and I’m so grateful.

[00:36:19] Ashley: Thank you also to Michelle Forcier. Such a badass, and I think trans youth are in good hands with her as a provider.

[00:36:40] Ashley: Taboo Science is written and produced by me, Ashley Hamer Pritchard. Our sensitivity reader is Newton schottelkotte the theme was by danny lopatka of DLC music. Episode music is from Epidemic Sound.

[00:36:43] Ashley: The next episode is all about non-binary identities, a basic primer to help you understand this misunderstood community.

[00:36:48] Ashley: I hope you tune in. I won’t tell anyone.