Between 2017 and 2021, the number of American children with gender dysphoria who started taking puberty blockers doubled. In the vast majority of cases, their parents sought medical help because their kids were distressed about their gender—and they were told the drugs’ effects were safe, reversible, and necessary. But now those children are adults, and some are finding that the treatment has long-term consequences that they weren’t prepared for—in some cases permanent and devastating ones. A growing number are speaking out and pursuing legal action, determined to save another generation from their fate.
The legal system is still catching up. In February, we exclusively reported on the first malpractice suit brought by a de-transitioner to go before a jury—a case that ended with a $2 million verdict for Fox Varian, a 22-year-old who sued the providers who oversaw her gender transition as a minor. Legal experts say the verdict could open the floodgates. Then the Supreme Court ruled 8–1 that conversion therapy bans—which can penalize therapists who encourage kids to see gender dysphoria as a treatable disorder rather than an identity—violate the First Amendment. Now California has proposed a civil loophole through SB 934, a bill that would give patients whose therapists had questioned their gender identity more latitude to sue their providers for malpractice.
Jonni Skinner, 23, is a critic of the bill. He spent almost a decade on puberty blockers and hormones, because when he was 13, he says, a therapist told him he was in the wrong body. He’s now de-transitioned, but after this treatment, he says, his body will never be the same again. That’s why Jonni traveled to California to testify against the bill, and why he told The Free Press his story—so the next vulnerable child who walks into a gender clinic looking for answers doesn’t have to endure what he did.
—The Editors
I’m a gay man who testified last month against what has been called a lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender-rights bill. I was there because I believe the proposed law could silence the one kind of help that could have saved me from years of anguish and a future permanently marked by what was done to me as a child.
I grew up in a fundamentalist Christian town in rural Michigan with 2,500 people, one red light, and a pervasive drug problem. My parents split when I was a baby: My biological father was a deadbeat I’ve met only a handful of times; my mom worked constantly as the primary breadwinner for our family, building multiple small businesses in the car world.
From my earliest awareness, I knew I was not like other kids—and certainly not like other boys. I moved and spoke in ways others called “girly.” I loved dress‑up games, butterflies, and anything pink. I was obsessed with The Princess and the Frog and looked up to Disney princesses more than any male character. I also knew, from a very young age, that I liked boys. I didn’t have words for it then, and in the world I grew up in, it was considered sinful and shameful. But the feeling existed long before I had any name for it.
