First, Do No Harm

May 6 Rally Speech

My name is Camille Kiefel. I’m a detransitioned woman and I’ve come here today representing Detrans Help––An organization by detransitioners for detransitioners. 

So I ask all of you a question: What do we mean when we say, “first, do no harm?”

I spent 20 years in mental health therapy with conventional modalities. I didn’t respond well to medications, saw a gender therapist, and received two rounds of transcranial magnetic stimulation therapy—–an intervention reserved for treatment-resistant depression. 

I was diligent. I wanted to heal, but nothing my doctors offered helped me––they always saw my issue as strictly a mental one. I had a history of secondary sexual trauma, was disconnected with my body, severe mental illness, and comorbidities. To them, the only solution left was to remove my breasts.

My doctor, surgeon, and two mental health professionals all signed off a non-binary top surgery that had no biological equivalent in nature—to an identity that cannot be transitioned to.

Because of the negligence of my providers, I now live every with a mutilated body and health issues—many I still live with today. Even with multiple night trips to the ER, no one could provide answers. All of this could have been avoided had my physical health issues been addressed.

My doctors took me seriously at first, but it wasn’t too long before they became dismissive; they told me to see a talk therapist. I had already done 20 years of talk therapy––It wasn’t going to work; I needed to either seek out a solution for myself, or end my life. 

I knew then that, to find relief, I needed to take my health into my own hands. I started to address my physical health—–I improved my diet, sought out bodywork, and received hyperbaric oxygen therapy. Then something miraculous happened: My mental health improved. Most of my mental health comorbitities soon went away. My CRP Levels, an inflammation protein marker associated with depression and anxiety, dropped 60%. Studies have shown 45% of people who did not respond to antidepressants had blood CRP levels higher than 3 milligrams per litre––my CRP levels had never previously been checked. 

This was what I needed all along. It proved that my physical health issues had been overlooked. 

I wish I could say that my story is out of the ordinary, but I know countless other detransitioners with similar stories. Health issues after their surgeries, dismissed by doctors, and all harmed by our health care system.

Gender affirming care is a shocking abuse of trust by a medical system captive to ideology, not biology. The treatments are experimental, risky, and inconsistent in how they are distributed. Not only did my providers affirm an identity that doesn’t exist, they removed healthy body parts as a solution when I was struggling with inflammation. We must look at all low-risk alternative treatments that address the physical health of the individual. 

Remember: First do no harm.