Knowles: The predators at Planned Parenthood
gave her a 20-minute questionnaire.
They then immediately gave her the highest allowable dosage
of testosterone.
They downplayed all the side effects,
and they sent her on her not-so-merry way, syringe in hand.
In recent years, the number of people
who identify as transgender has exploded,
as LGBT generally has exploded.
Historically, about one to two percent of people
have identified as LGBT.
Ten years ago, that number jumped.
3.5% of Americans, at that time, identified as LGBT
according to Gallup polling.
Last year, that number rose to 5.6%.
That's a 60% increase in just nine years.
That increase has been driven almost entirely
by Gen Z, the Zoomers,
20.8% of whom,
more than one in five of whom now identify as LGBT.
That is a statistical impossibility.
Either Alex Jones is right
and they are putting something in the water
[audience laughter]
that is turning the freaking Zoomers gay
or, I think more likely, [audience laughter]
we're looking at a phenomenon
that is rooted not in biology,
but in a kind of social mania.
Whatever is in the water,
I think the surge has to do more with society.
I spoke a few weeks ago
with a woman by the name of Helena Kerschner.
Helena is a 23-year-old woman
who began to identify as a man
and "transitioned"
to be a man just a few days after her 18th birthday.
Transitioning, for those who don't know,
is the word that transgender ideologues
have given to a medical malpractice
in which people who are suffering from sexual confusion
take cross-sex hormones
and sometimes even mutilate their healthy organs
to appear cosmetically more like the opposite sex.
Helena had suffered from body image issues
since she was a teenager, like every teenager,
especially like most teenage girls.
Usually, people grow out of this
and become more comfortable in their skin.
But now, radicals are affirming their delusions
and luring people into a very pernicious ideology.
Helena began to isolate herself online.
She didn't have a lot of friends.
She would isolate herself on social media,
on Tumblr in particular.
And there, her new virtual friends
encouraged her to be a man.
Helena was vulnerable.
She was confused.
She was a teenage girl.
And she thought that by injecting herself with testosterone,
she might be able to solve her problems.
A few days after her 18th birthday,
Helena walked into a Planned Parenthood clinic, of course.
Planned Parenthood had hard earned the reputation
as the least regulated place
for teenagers to get cross-sex hormones.
So she walked in. The predators at Planned Parenthood
gave her a 20-minute questionnaire.
They then immediately gave her
the highest allowable dosage of testosterone.
They downplayed all the side effects,
and they sent her on her not-so-merry way, syringe in hand.
Quickly, Helena began to suffer terrible mood swings.
She had a massive increase in her sex drive.
She had rage attacks that were so intense
that she began to harm herself.
She was institutionalized twice.
She saw a slew of psychiatrists and none, not one
of these mental health professionals ever suggested
that perhaps this major change that she had undergone
might have something to do with the fact
that she, a young girl, was injecting herself
with male hormones.
They never brought it up.
They just prescribed her new psych drugs to take
on top of the testosterone.
By luck or by providence,
Helena's fits of rage became so intense
that she would sometimes neglect
to take the testosterone.
Then, and only then, wouldn't you know it,
her symptoms began to abate.
She realized that the reality of a woman injecting herself
with male hormones was not matching up
to the fantasy that she had had of being a man.
The fantasy could never match up to that reality
because no matter how many drugs Helena took,
no matter how many surgeries she could have undergone,
she could never be a man.
Because she is a woman, and women cannot be men.
Helena learned the hard way
that fantasy is not the same as reality.
Fortunately, she chose reality.
Fortunately also for her,
she does not appear to have all that many permanent effects
from this process of transitioning.
The same cannot be said
of everyone who falls down the transgender rabbit hole,
many of whom are left permanently injured
and filled with regret
when their delusions fail to alter reality.