Detransitioner Chloe Cole: Lack of Faith Led to ‘Hole in My Identity'

Detransitioner Chloe Cole said she chased the “false idol” of transgenderism because a lack of faith in God led to a hole in her identity.

Cole, 21, previously identified as a male and was put on puberty blockers by the age of 13. By 15, doctors performed a double mastectomy on her, and by 16, she realized she had been misled about the truth of her identity. She has since detransitioned and become a follower of Jesus Christ, and she advocates around the country for youth who have been harmed by so-called “gender-affirming care.” 

“It’s the lack of faith that led to that hole in my identity where I felt like I had to seek something more,” Cole told Breitbart News in an interview in December at Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest in Phoenix, Arizona. 

“I didn’t feel like I was comfortable with myself because I didn’t understand why life was the way that it was. I didn’t know that I was created in God’s image, that I was perfect the way that I was, and that sure I was going to struggle in life, but that was a guarantee,” she said. “And in order to move through that in a healthy way, I would have to hold God close and keep the scripture and keep close prayer.”

Cole described how she was raised in a secular, agnostic home where faith was not a part of her daily life, although her mother was raised Catholic and her father was raised Mormon.

“I think that was the biggest part leading to the confusion that I had around being female, around my body, around puberty — and transgenderism took that hole,” she said.

“It made it so that I basically became my own God where I could influence the way that other people perceived and spoke of me, and even the way that my body looked and functioned through the usage of these drugs. But it was a false god,” she continued. 

Cole went on to call transgenderism a “false idol that I was chasing.”

“I was chasing myself rather than my real purpose in accepting myself as a daughter of God,” she said. “Even after I detransitioned, I still was searching for purpose, and I didn’t find it until I came to faith.”

“I think that God…spoke to me through the wonderful Christian men and women in my life who surrounded me during that vulnerable point in time. And it was then that I came to know that He doesn’t let anything go untouched. No matter how painful the things you’ve been through are, no matter what you’ve lost, no matter what you’re grieving, all of that is going to be part of God’s purpose,” she said.

“Even when you’re deep in it, even when you don’t know what life is going to look like, from that point on, you just have to trust in God’s plan, and in doing so, I found great purpose,” she added. “I have found meaning, healing in my life that would not have been possible before. Sometimes I just feel so helpless, like I’m such a fool, like I don’t deserve the things that God has put in my life — but it’s not up to me. All that matters is that I use my testimony to help other people, to help other children who are confused, to help other families who are lost.” 

Katherine Hamilton is a political reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on X @thekat_hamilton.