Hordes of demonstrators crowded outside the Supreme Court on Wednesday, clutching banners and chanting slogans as its justices debated arguments for and against legalising access to transgender healthcare for minors.
Among them was Prisha Mosley, who transitioned from female to male only to regret the decision and revert to her birth gender.
“I will suffer for the rest of my life for believing in my confusion those who perpetuate these cruel lies,” she told the crowd.
“When I was too young, people tried to warn me, and those people were painted as transphobes by the very medical professionals who were poisoning me.”
Speaking to The Telegraph outside the court, the 26-year-old from Michigan revealed the impact of her transition.
Having been prescribed hormone therapy and puberty blockers and then undergoing a double mastectomy as a teenager, Ms Mosley has been left with lasting health problems.
She is reliant on hormone treatment, experiences chronic pain and, after giving birth to a son six months ago, has milk “trapped” in her chest and is unable to feel her baby when she hugs him close.
“My chest is numb, and I don’t feel my baby when I hold him there,” she said.
Ms Mosley said she first began questioning her gender identity as a teenager after speaking to gender dysphoria activists online.
At the time, she was experiencing anxiety and depression and suffering from anorexia.
When she raised with her doctors that she felt she was born in the wrong body she said they immediately “medicalised” her as transgender.
She said the reaction from doctors was: “Okay, your body is wrong. Let’s give you medicine for it.”
Her parents were supportive of the treatment at the time but now feel they were “lied to by the activist doctors who were treating me”.
Two camps emerged outside the court in Washington, DC on Wednesday.
On one side, a sea of rainbow flags flapped in the icy wind, while protestors held signs aloft which read “protect LGBT Conversion” and “Fight like a Mother for Trans Rights”.
On the other, neatly partitioned by metal railings and dozens of wary police officers, rival demonstrators bore signs saying “stop the harm” and chanted “leave kids alone” through a professional sound system.
The case, US v. Skrmetti, concerns a Tennessee law that prohibits minors from accessing gender-reassigning treatments.
It has been widely viewed as the most significant case on transgender rights to come before the country’s highest court and could have profound consequences for federal policy on gender rights.
Although the justices’ decision is not expected for several months, early indications suggest it will rule in favour of Tennessee.
“I really thought that my doctors were my saviours and my heroes, and I trusted them. But through growing up and facing the effects of gender-destroying harm, I lost my health and found myself completely alone,” Ms Mosley said.
Aged 16, she was prescribed Depo-Provera by her nutritionist to stop her periods.
The following year, she was prescribed testosterone, which she said had an “almost immediate” and “permanent” impact, leaving her now reliant on progesterone and oestrogen supplements to regulate her hormones after detransitioning.
Operation was ‘butchery’
At 18, she was given an irreversible and medically unnecessary double mastectomy — known colloquially as “top surgery”.
The operation, which she described as “butchery”, has left her with enduring health problems,which worsened after she gave birth six months ago.
“I wasn’t warned what could happen,” she said. “I had milk trapped in my chest that couldn’t get to my nipples because my nipples were grafted. They were removed and reshaped and sewn into the wrong spot so that my chest could look like a boy’s chest.”
It was only after meeting her boyfriend two and a half years ago that Ms Mosley decided to de-transition, aged 24.
At the time, she still dressed like a man and had a beard, but spending time with her partner’s young daughter encouraged her to revert to her biological sex.
“She called me mommy,” she said. “Her mother isn’t in her life, but that was the way I cared for her.
“She told me the truth, and that’s how I came out of it.”
Ms Mosley now works as a full-time campaigner against hormone treatment and puberty blockers and said the reason she continues to speak out is so that “other kids don’t have to go through what I went through”.
“My son never got to have milk. There are a lot of things this impacts that last forever,” she said.
“No one has the right to harm a child, and I will continue to advocate for truth, love and for science to protect our children, our nation’s children. I’ve been part of the experiment. The experiment is a catastrophic failure.”
