On a hot and humid spring day in the nation’s capital, LGBT activists gathered in front of the U.S. Supreme Court, waving transgender pride flags as they awaited the release of a landmark decision. The skies were threatening rain—but that was nothing compared to the storm that broke when the ruling was released.
In United States v. Skrmetti, the Court sided 6-3 with Tennessee, saying the state was well within its constitutional rights to keep children safe from “gender-transition” procedures. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts noted that the full effects of administering puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to children are still unknown. But the Court deferred to Tennessee’s finding that they are already known to cause irreversible damage, including sterility, as well as increased risks of disease and illness, and psychological consequences. And many adults already regret irreversibly changing their bodies when they were younger.
Six months earlier, on a cold and windy winter day, a different group had gathered on the same storied steps to plead their case in the court of public opinion while attorneys argued the case before the justices inside the Court. Several young women shared their firsthand experiences of the pain, trauma, and suffering they’d experienced at the hands of reckless medical professionals and others who foisted this ideology upon them.
One was Laura Becker, with whom ADF had the opportunity to speak at the rally.
‘I was a ripe target for gender ideology.’
Throughout her adolescence, Laura struggled with a variety of medical issues and mental health challenges. She was diagnosed with autism, suffered from depression, and endured psychological and emotional abuse from her father.
In her teenage years, her depression worsened, and she self-medicated with drugs.
Speaking with ADF, Laura said her years in the medical system made her “a ripe target for gender ideology.”
At 19, while she was wrestling with her sex and identity, a college professor who identified as transgender recommended that Laura take testosterone. Clinicians prescribed her a high dose. Laura’s health challenges worsened, and she had a mental breakdown.
Still, her doctors’ response was to affirm her so-called “trans” identity and push her toward more extreme drugs and procedures, despite her deteriorating mental state. When Laura was 20, doctors removed both her breasts, even though she expressed suicidal thoughts on the day of the surgery.
Those thoughts persisted for years. Eventually, Laura sought help—real help based on science and not a political ideology. She ultimately detransitioned, but she still lives with the trauma of her experiences and a permanently altered body.
“I will never have breasts,” she told ADF. “I will never have a normal female body. I will never breastfeed. … So that’s a devastating grief that I live with every time I look in the mirror.
“My voice is permanently lowered. I grow facial hair. And I have PTSD from the transition, from the identity crisis and being disassociated from my body for, like, four years.”
She hopes other children and teenagers struggling with their identities will be encouraged to embrace the way their bodies have been designed.
“I wish young people knew that puberty isn’t a disease, that growing up is necessary for happiness…” she said. “Trying to be the opposite sex just isn’t going to work. You have to work within the limitations of reality, and accepting reality has been the best thing I’ve ever done.”
Gender ideology doesn’t help—it harms
Now, more than nine years after her surgery, Laura says she loves being a woman. And she fervently wishes that the adults around her would have recognized the deeper issues she was working through instead of taking an “affirming” approach to her identity struggles.
“That’s the whole tragedy of my story, is that there were so many things going wrong, and no one protected me,” she said. “No one saw the truth.”
Instead, doctors rushed to prescribe her hormones that did not belong in her body. They were quick to remove her healthy body parts—even when she was not in the mental state to consent to such a drastic, irreversible procedure.
Tennessee recognized that vulnerable children deserve to be protected from these experimental drugs and surgeries. At the time of the decision, 25 other states already had similar laws on the books—including Alabama and Idaho, both of which ADF defended against activists’ challenges.
Importantly, science is on the side of detransitioners. Research continues to show that children can suffer serious, lifelong physical, mental, and emotional damage as a result of these experimental practices. Much of the supposed “evidence” supporting them has been revealed to be based on dubious science—and, in many instances, politically motivated research.
Not only is science on their side, but a jury recently agreed as well. In January 2026, a jury awarded detransitioner Fox Varian $2 million after she filed a malpractice lawsuit against the doctors who pushed her towards a so-called “gender transition.”
The stories of young women like Laura must not be ignored, and their calls to shield children who may be targets of this ideology should be heeded. They know what they’re talking about.
Children deserve better than faulty science and an agenda-driven medical system. They deserve the truth. And they need adults to protect them when cultural lies and bad actors threaten their minds and bodies.
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