The stories of a dozen detransitioners, medical professionals, and mothers whose children were caught up in gender ideology are highlighted in a powerful docuseries by IW Features, a project of the Independent Women’s Forum (IWF).
“Identity Crisis” explores the personal stories of women who have been harmed by gender ideology.
There’s Prisha Mosley, 26, a detransitioner who was pushed into taking testosterone and removing her breasts but recently became a new mom; Jeanette, a mother who lost custody of her daughter for insisting she was a girl; and Dr. Miriam Grossman, MD, a child psychiatrist who denounced her profession for pushing gender ideology.
Transgender medicalization for children and youth can involve puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, double mastectomies for girls, and genital surgery for both sexes to try to achieve the appearance of the opposite sex. In recent years, medical professionals have begun sounding the alarm on these drastic interventions while detransitioners have spoken out about how they were harmed. A number of European countries and American states have pumped the brakes on allowing children to access transgender drugs and surgeries.
On Tuesday, President Donald Trump signed an executive order stating that the United States will not fund or support the “so-called ‘transition’ of a child from one sex to another” and will “rigorously enforce all laws that prohibit or limit these destructive and life-altering procedures.”
IWF, a conservative nonprofit with a mission to expand women’s opportunities and advance policies that will enhance freedom, began highlighting women’s stories from across the country six years ago. The goal of its storytelling is to foster a deep understanding of complex policy issues and inspire change through the lens of women’s personal experiences.
“Women like to tell stories. We sit down, we tell stories a lot,” Victoria Coley, IWF’s vice president of communications said in an interview with The Daily Wire.
“We started realizing that women really wanted to open up to us,” Coley said. “Then we started seeing how powerful storytelling was to change hearts and minds. The Left really does a great job with telling stories.”
IWF first started telling detransitioners’ stories in 2022. Initially, they were contacted by parents of children caught up in gender ideology who wanted to vent, then health care professionals began reaching out to share how gender ideology had taken over their workplaces. Eventually, detransitioners began sharing their stories.
The storytelling project was so successful that last year IWF launched a dedicated website, IW Features, founded by Kelsey Bolar, who executive produced the “Identity Crisis” series.
Andrea Mew, IW Features’ managing editor, said that working on the “Identity Crisis” series is personal to her.
“In high school, my closest friends were people who experimented with their gender identity,” Mew told The Daily Wire.
Mew said she grew up a Democrat “by default,” but underwent a “vast political transformation, poking holes in my own political philosophy and realizing I had been wrong the whole time.”
“However, most of my friends never came to that conclusion,” she said. “These are people who, unfortunately, now I don’t think I would recognize them in public. All of my close high school friends identify as transgender.”
“My heart hurts to this day still thinking about my old friends and how they’re all damaged in one way or another by medications and surgeries,” she said, noting that these are the “people I use to love and spend all my time with.”
“There’s just so much irreversible damage, and thankfully there’s some reversible damage as well,” Mew said.
The “Identity Crisis” series has several more detransitioner stories coming down the pike that will be released soon.
“I think unfortunately we’re going to start to see a lot more stories of young women and young men who underwent these changes, regret them, and now need the support from warm communities with open arms that they are okay, that they can heal, and that we’re here to support them through the process,” Mew said.
Mew praised the detransitioners who have already shared their stories for taking “such a bold stance.”
“It takes a lot of courage to say ‘hey, I permanently altered my body and I really regret doing it.’ They’re willing to step up, be extremely vulnerable with us, and contribute their voice to change,” she said.
Already, the pushback against gender ideology, including the stories of the detransitioners IWF has highlighted has reached policymakers.
Mosley, the detransitioner who recently became a mom, has testified about her experience before several state legislatures. Meanwhile, eight states have adopted IWF’s model legislation to define sex-based terms.
Lawsuits against medical professionals who provided transgender drugs and surgery to youth are ongoing as well.
Mosley is suing her doctors over her transgender medicalization, and IWF said it helped connect her with her legal team.
Detransitioner Cristina Hineman, 20, is taking on Planned Parenthood with another lawsuit, and Isabelle Ayala, 20, is suing the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Female athletes who were forced to compete against males have also had their stories highlighted in IW Features, including Sia Liilii, captain of the women’s volleyball team at the University of Nevada, Reno, which forfeited a game against a team with a male player, and Payton McNabb, a high school volleyball player who suffered a traumatic brain injury when a male player’s powerful spike hit her head, ending her athletic career.
Another IW Features series, “Cruel & Unusual Punishment,” highlights the stories of incarcerated women who were forced to share a cell with a trans-identifying man. The series shares the experience of an incarcerated woman who was raped by her 6’2″ male cellmate, as well as the story of another woman who had to share a cell with a man who was connected to a group of men who sexually abused her when she was 10.
Over the summer, IWF opposed a federal court nomination, which ultimately failed, of a judge who had recommended that a man convicted of rape and child molestation be transferred to a women’s prison. Bolar, IW Features’ founder, later testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on the issue, sharing several of the women’s stories.
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The stories of a dozen detransitioners, medical professionals, and mothers whose children were caught up in gender ideology are highlighted in a powerful docuseries by IW Features, a project of the Independent Women’s Forum (IWF).
“Identity Crisis” explores the personal stories of women who have been harmed by gender ideology.
There’s Prisha Mosley, 26, a detransitioner who was pushed into taking testosterone and removing her breasts but recently became a new mom; Jeanette, a mother who lost custody of her daughter for insisting she was a girl; and Dr. Miriam Grossman, MD, a child psychiatrist who denounced her profession for pushing gender ideology.
Transgender medicalization for children and youth can involve puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, double mastectomies for girls, and genital surgery for both sexes to try to achieve the appearance of the opposite sex. In recent years, medical professionals have begun sounding the alarm on these drastic interventions while detransitioners have spoken out about how they were harmed. A number of European countries and American states have pumped the brakes on allowing children to access transgender drugs and surgeries.
On Tuesday, President Donald Trump signed an executive order stating that the United States will not fund or support the “so-called ‘transition’ of a child from one sex to another” and will “rigorously enforce all laws that prohibit or limit these destructive and life-altering procedures.”
IWF, a conservative nonprofit with a mission to expand women’s opportunities and advance policies that will enhance freedom, began highlighting women’s stories from across the country six years ago. The goal of its storytelling is to foster a deep understanding of complex policy issues and inspire change through the lens of women’s personal experiences.
“Women like to tell stories. We sit down, we tell stories a lot,” Victoria Coley, IWF’s vice president of communications said in an interview with The Daily Wire.
“We started realizing that women really wanted to open up to us,” Coley said. “Then we started seeing how powerful storytelling was to change hearts and minds. The Left really does a great job with telling stories.”
IWF first started telling detransitioners’ stories in 2022. Initially, they were contacted by parents of children caught up in gender ideology who wanted to vent, then health care professionals began reaching out to share how gender ideology had taken over their workplaces. Eventually, detransitioners began sharing their stories.
The storytelling project was so successful that last year IWF launched a dedicated website, IW Features, founded by Kelsey Bolar, who executive produced the “Identity Crisis” series.
Andrea Mew, IW Features’ managing editor, said that working on the “Identity Crisis” series is personal to her.
“In high school, my closest friends were people who experimented with their gender identity,” Mew told The Daily Wire.
Mew said she grew up a Democrat “by default,” but underwent a “vast political transformation, poking holes in my own political philosophy and realizing I had been wrong the whole time.”
“However, most of my friends never came to that conclusion,” she said. “These are people who, unfortunately, now I don’t think I would recognize them in public. All of my close high school friends identify as transgender.”
“My heart hurts to this day still thinking about my old friends and how they’re all damaged in one way or another by medications and surgeries,” she said, noting that these are the “people I use to love and spend all my time with.”
“There’s just so much irreversible damage, and thankfully there’s some reversible damage as well,” Mew said.
The “Identity Crisis” series has several more detransitioner stories coming down the pike that will be released soon.
“I think unfortunately we’re going to start to see a lot more stories of young women and young men who underwent these changes, regret them, and now need the support from warm communities with open arms that they are okay, that they can heal, and that we’re here to support them through the process,” Mew said.
Mew praised the detransitioners who have already shared their stories for taking “such a bold stance.”
“It takes a lot of courage to say ‘hey, I permanently altered my body and I really regret doing it.’ They’re willing to step up, be extremely vulnerable with us, and contribute their voice to change,” she said.
Already, the pushback against gender ideology, including the stories of the detransitioners IWF has highlighted has reached policymakers.
Mosley, the detransitioner who recently became a mom, has testified about her experience before several state legislatures. Meanwhile, eight states have adopted IWF’s model legislation to define sex-based terms.
Lawsuits against medical professionals who provided transgender drugs and surgery to youth are ongoing as well.
Mosley is suing her doctors over her transgender medicalization, and IWF said it helped connect her with her legal team.
Detransitioner Cristina Hineman, 20, is taking on Planned Parenthood with another lawsuit, and Isabelle Ayala, 20, is suing the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Female athletes who were forced to compete against males have also had their stories highlighted in IW Features, including Sia Liilii, captain of the women’s volleyball team at the University of Nevada, Reno, which forfeited a game against a team with a male player, and Payton McNabb, a high school volleyball player who suffered a traumatic brain injury when a male player’s powerful spike hit her head, ending her athletic career.
Another IW Features series, “Cruel & Unusual Punishment,” highlights the stories of incarcerated women who were forced to share a cell with a trans-identifying man. The series shares the experience of an incarcerated woman who was raped by her 6’2″ male cellmate, as well as the story of another woman who had to share a cell with a man who was connected to a group of men who sexually abused her when she was 10.
Over the summer, IWF opposed a federal court nomination, which ultimately failed, of a judge who had recommended that a man convicted of rape and child molestation be transferred to a women’s prison. Bolar, IW Features’ founder, later testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on the issue, sharing several of the women’s stories.
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