PLEASE HELP CHLOE TO SURVIVE

My name is Katie and my friend’s young daughter, Chloe, desperately needs your help. Chloe is not her real name, as I changed it to protect her privacy, but this is why she urgently needs your help now…

Chloe is a 12 year old transgender girl. She has always, for as long as she can remember, considered herself to be a girl. She socially transitioned after telling her parents at age 3, at a wishing well while on holiday, that her wish was to die and go to heaven so she could be a girl.

Chloe’s mum, Anna (name changed) told me: “She began school in a girls uniform and really struggled with trying to grow her once-short hair. Chloe has always been consistent with wanting to be a girl and has never changed her mind for one second. She has been bullied on and off throughout her years at primary school resulting in having a lot of time off. At age 8, she locked herself in the bathroom and tried to mutilate her body, resulting in us now having no locks on any doors in the house. Recently she was badly verbally abused in the local shop by 3 teenage girls who knew she was trans. Now she doesn’t like going out alone.

“She has been seeing the NHS gender identity development service since she was 7 years old. They have helped her with counselling and preparing Chloe for beginning medical treatment of puberty blockers as Chloe has now reached the time of puberty. She now needs this medication to halt her male puberty. Without them, she will be forced to endure her body broadening, hair growth on her face, her face shape masculising and her voice breaking, leaving her with a permanently deep voice. However the NHS service for children has recently closed and is currently being re-sourced. Since then we have been told that the NHS will no longer provide puberty blockers for children under 16. This is far too late for most children. So our only option is to seek private care for Chloe. Not seeking this private treatment is not an option as I believe Chloe will find a way to not be here if she has to go through male puberty, which obviously I’m not going to let happen. Unfortunately, private care is very expensive and we are unable to afford it.

“Chloe has legally changed her name and has a new female passport (which was difficult to get) and her clinicians all agreed that her gender expression is likely to be permanent, so her legal identification finally matches who she is.

“Everyone who knows her sees her for the girl that she is. We just cannot believe we have been this let down by the NHS. We just want to make sure we get her the proper, supported care that she needs with no shortcuts and her health being the most important factor. We just want to halt puberty to give her more time to make important decisions for the future which is why we are asking desperately for your help.”

Anna needs to raise around £20,000 to pay for Chloe’s private gender treatment through to adulthood. I have known the family for around 6 years and I have watched Chloe blossom as she has been allowed to live her truth. Many people have strong opinions about trans kids, but they have never met one. When you see Chloe happily playing with her friends or practicing her gymnastics, you realise that she is just an ordinary 12 year old girl who has been on an extraordinary journey to be happy.

There has been much talk in the media recently about healthcare provision for transgender children and adolescents, which has lead to many hours of heated debates in the media. Strong opinions and statistics are thrown backwards and forwards, but often the people at the centre of the debates (the trans kids themselves) are forgotten. Following the publication of the deeply-flawed, internationally discredited Cass Report this week (which ignored 98% of the evidence presented to it and which is out of step with evidence and best practice in the rest of the World), many trans children have been left devastated as their hopes were shattered, leaving them in a state of shock, disbelief and anxiety, knowing that the NHS will turn its back on them, forcing their bodies to change permanently in a direction that is opposite to how they feel inside, as puberty hurtles towards them at an alarming rate of knots.

I urge you to please help Chloe to get the treatment that she so desperately needs - before it’s too late.

Thank you.

Katie xx