First man recognized as 'nonbinary' in US regrets taking hormones, warns against trans 'sham'
The first man in the United States to be legally recognized as "nonbinary" now says it was a "sham," and notes that mainstream media and LGBT organizations treat him as though he does not exist.
In a Monday article in the Daily Signal, Jamie Shupe, a man who recently desisted back to his biological sex, explained that four years ago he wrote about his decision to live "authentically" as the woman he said he always had been in The New York Times. Three years ago, he asserted he was nonbinary — neither male nor female — and was allowed to identify as such by the state of Oregon. He was the first person in the United States where a "third" sex was formally designated on his legal documents.
"Now, I want to live again as the man that I am," Shupe wrote Monday, elaborating that while he took hormones and participated in "medical transgenderism" for several years, he never had surgery to remove his genitals and today considers himself lucky.
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"But that’s not to say I got off scot-free. My psyche is eternally scarred, and I’ve got a host of health issues from the grand medical experiment," he said.
Shupe went on to detail how the transgender community billed life as the opposite sex as wonderful and fulfilling when in fact it only made him more miserable. His confusion was compounded by medical professionals who now write letters saying their gender-confused patients were essentially born in the wrong body, a notion government agencies and courts of law have validated.
In a Wednesday interview with The Christian Post, when asked what he would tell young people who have begun believing they are transgender or nonbinary, Shupe said he knows they have been led to think that gender identities are real but they are not.
"To the children, I say: I understand that you are reluctant to take the advice of older people and would prefer to test things out yourself, but you can't walk this harm back. You only have one body. You only have one reproductive system. Please don't ruin it chasing the fantasy that you are something other than your biological sex," Shupe said.
"While your suffering is real, a gender transition is not the answer to your problems. Right now there is no reward for being the person who resists succumbing to gender dysphoria. That's going to change and you should be proud to be a part of that change."
He added that he would tell parents that he knows how much gender clinicians have scared them by claiming their options are their child's suicide or a gender transition.
"I understand how your child has learned to weaponize suicide because I've been taught that too. I understand how precious your children are, because I have one of my own. Never in a million years would she get my help or support to transition. When therapists or doctors warn that your child should not go through the wrong puberty, you must ask how the child could possibly know that their puberty was wrong without experiencing the one their body is supposed to naturally have," he said.
"If you want to help your child learn their way out of gender ideology, they must be taught to understand sex stereotypes and not be raised with rigid boundaries."
Parents must understand that gender dysphoria is always part of a co-morbid mental illness, he stressed, adding that "countless" children have been lost despite giving them access to hormones and surgeries.
"That's because they do not fix the underlying problem."
The medical and societal horrors of being transgender are far worse than being gay, he continued, particularly since being gay does not involve hormones and surgery. He believes children should not be made to feel that sexual orientation must be "made straight by a gender change" because of their parents' beliefs.
The real root of Shupe's distress was sexual abuse from a male relative when he was a child and severe beatings from his parents, he explained Monday. "I now have irreversible breast growth. I have a number of health complications from this. I now have bone density problems. I've had kidney problems. And at one point my mental health was so destabilized by the hormones that I had two stays in a psychiatric ward because of it," he said in a Monday interview with Fox News' Laura Ingraham.
"Ranking the harms is hard, but the worst is probably a split between the breast growth and the bone density issues. I've been diagnosed with osteopenia," he said to CP Wednesday, when asked which health problems have been the most difficult to endure.
"I'm way too young for that and being so active it now scares me about breaking a bone while exercising. Likewise, going out in public I'm now overly self-conscious about my chest. My situation is pretty severe gynecomastia on an obviously male body. Fear of the unknown isn't good either. I remain concerned about what damage I've done internally that hasn't yet surfaced."
Shupe told Ingraham Monday that he was previously a transgender "media darling" but the political left has completely silenced voices like his and now do not want to even acknowledge that he exists because he no longer supports transgenderism. He praised conservatives as the only group who will give people like him and others who object to trans-activism a platform, mentioning a January panel at the Heritage Foundation which featured exclusively leftist, radical feminist, and lesbian perspectives against transgender medicalization and pending legislation, the Equality Act, that would enshrine "gender identity" into federal civil rights law. The bill is now being considered in Congress and is expected to pass the Democratic-controlled House.
Having had the experience of going from being a virtual nobody to somebody on the world stage, Shupe told CP that one of the most profound things he has learned in his journey through gender ideology and now desisting is how many purportedly mainstream media outlets used him to advance their preferred political agenda.
"As long as you are speaking the language they want to hear, you have a place on their pages. The moment you disagree or stop speaking that language, they replace you with a new voice. We are creeping ever toward a world where vast wealth controls not only the media, but its message and who sees that message. This isn't going to end well," he said.
"Suppose I was a billionaire and I bought up all the dictionary companies. And I then had the staff change the definition of the things I didn't like, such as making the word gender mean sex," he said of what his experience has taught him about how much of journalism functions.
Shupe is not religious but notes that he thinks about faith daily and respects people of faith because he considers it the "least harmful coping mechanism known to mankind."
"People suffering from gender dysphoria are taught that they must succumb to its ravages. 'It's transition or die,' they are told. It's shocking that few doctors don't instead advise them to meditate, pray, or seek solace in a faith or religious community," he said.
"The military taught me that I must be strong and persevere through even the worst challenges or obstacles to win wars. The transgender community teaches failure and the doctors reward it."
Shupe has become friends with Sex Change Regret founder Walt Heyer, a man who once identified as a woman and has since desisted and is now a believing Christian.
"The LGBT community uses Heyer's faith to attack him and discredit him as a religious nut. These same critics can't say that about me, can they? People of faith are my allies in this fight," Shupe asserted.
