A trans man who has become a woman again has condemned gender ideology and warned against teaching children that they can change gender.
Hazel Appleyard, 31, from Leamington, was referred to a gender clinic at the age of 17 after saying she wanted to become a man.
She even planned to make herself infertile by having an operation to remove her uterus.
The detransitioner is now a mother of one and said she was “lucky” to escape the trans community before too much damage was done.
She told MailOnline: ‘I don’t think anyone believes trans women are women.
Hazel Appleyard, 31, from Leamington, was referred to a gender clinic at the age of 17 after saying she wanted to become a man. Pictured: Hazel when she identified as a trans man named Aaron
“People raised on political correctness, we were raised on accepting people, but this time it may have gone too far.
‘As a child I was always a bit of a tomboy. I am autistic. My mother tried to dress me as a girl. I didn’t feel like dressing like that. I started rejecting anything girly.”
According to research from the Pew Research Center, about 5.1 percent of adults under the age of 30 are trans or non-binary.
According to various estimates, between eight and thirteen percent of them revert to their gender at birth.
And according to the most recent census, only 0.1 percent of people in Britain are transgender.
That amounts to just 96,000 people, of which 48,000 say they are trans men and another 48,000 call themselves trans women.
Although being transgender is not a widespread problem, the trans community is very vocal and issues surrounding gender and sex have become the source of fierce public debate.
Hazel explained how she was influenced by the internet.
When she was younger, Hazel used the website Live Journal to meet other gender-questioning people and transgender people.
She said the “exposure to more people identifying as transgender made me think.”
She added: ‘In those echo chambers I would see people saying, ‘I’m not sure if I’m transgender,’ but then the trans people would say, ‘If that’s how you feel, then that’s how you are.’
“(The website) doubles down on the delusion.”
When she was 17, Hazel came out to her mother as transgender and told her she wanted to become a man.
She cut her hair short and went by the name Aaron to look more like a boy.
Hazel used the website Live Journal (pictured) to meet other gender-questioning people and transgender people
There are several transgender ‘communities’ on the site. Hazel said: ‘In those echo chambers I would see people saying, “I’m not sure if I’m trans,” but then the trans people would say, “If that’s how you feel, then that’s how you are.” (The website) doubles down on the delusion’
She even planned to undergo gender reassignment surgery.
However, she said the feelings disappeared over time.
She said: ‘It just faded away. One day it was strong and I thought about ending my life. One day I woke up and didn’t feel so bad anymore.
“I just dropped out of the trans community.
I slowly slipped back in (to being a girl). I got some c**p from kids at school, but I managed to assimilate back.
‘Since then you have received a lot of backlash when you speak out against that, against the trans community.
‘They don’t want (to know) that there is a chance that people will make mistakes.
‘They are really, really keen to deny people who refuse to detransition.’
Although she was referred to a gender clinic, she did not go to her first appointment and she feels she was lucky to escape any treatment, even though at the time she thought, ‘Maybe I shouldn’t be a woman.’
She said: ‘Autistic children need to be protected from this ideology. I was so vulnerable.
‘We have to be very careful with these children, who are vulnerable and impressionable and already feel lost.
“What I needed as a kid was to know that it was okay to be a girl who didn’t act like the other girls.
‘I was just a child. Yes, I’m a girl and I’m different, but that’s okay.
“I came out the other side. If they let me do that, where would I be?
‘I have a child now. I was so close to losing all these things.
“I see those kids who want what I wanted. What if they change their minds too, but it’s too late? I feel really happy.
‘What bothers me is that I don’t think people are born trans.
‘If you raise children who don’t know anything about trans, it gives them a better chance to grow up and be themselves.
“Children who identify as a different gender, it doesn’t help to transition them.”
Hazel also revealed she was concerned about safe spaces for women.
She said allowing men the ability to identify themselves as women opened up the possibility of men aiming to make women feel “uncomfortable” by invading women’s space.
The detranitioner said, “Born women need their safe places.
“There may be a core group of transgender people who are actually transgender, but this new wave of transgender people where we have men in dresses with beards? If you are transgender, you want to live as the opposite sex.
‘I don’t think a man who feels like a woman today should be able to identify (as a woman).
“Women deserve to be safe in these spaces.”
The debate over clinics that provide treatment to young people who believe they are transgender, and the medications they are offered, has become increasingly heated.
Hazel’s story is the latest example of children being advised to transition at an age when they cannot fully quantify the decision.
In 2020, Keira Bell took the Gender Identity Clinic (GIDS) to the Supreme Court to prevent children with gender dysphoria from being prescribed drugs that would block puberty.
At the age of 16 and, by her own admission, ‘very mentally ill’, Keira had been prescribed the drugs by doctors at the controversial clinic to pause her own development before – six years later and after undergoing a double mastectomy – she realized that it was a monumental operation. wrong.
Keira Bell is campaigning to stop doctors prescribing medication for children with gender dysphoria
Keira, pictured at age 5, was born female but later began to wonder if she was a boy
According to reports, NHS England has drawn up plans to allow children as young as seven to receive transgender treatment (file image)
The scandal-hit gender clinic in Tavistock was told to close after a review by Dr Hilary Cass labeled it ‘not safe’.
Plans from NHS England for future gender clinics set a minimum age for a first referral – seven years old – and will also aim to limit the use of puberty blockers.
The closure followed a review led by senior pediatrician Dr Hilary Cass, who warned the gender clinic was ‘not a safe or viable long-term option’.
She found that other mental health issues were ‘overshadowed’ in favor of gender identity issues when children were referred to Tavistock’s Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS).
The clinic was accused of rushing children into puberty-blocking drugs by former patients who felt they were not challenged enough. Since opening in 1989, it has treated at least 9,000 children for gender dysphoria.
But even though the clinic was set to close this year, the closure was postponed until March 2024.
In 2022,
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