Detransitioner was only 16 when Planned Parenthood gave her testosterone

During a public hearing of the Connecticut Judiciary Committee on March 24, Elle Palmer, a female who at one point was prescribed testosterone in an attempt to present as male, testified against House Bill 7135, a bill that would protect medical professionals from liability when they give cross-sex hormones to patients.

Palmer testified that Planned Parenthood prescribed the male hormone to her when she was still a minor (emphases added) — something Planned Parenthood has said it wants to expand for more minors:

Ten years ago when I was 15, I came out to my parents as a transgender boy.

One year later, I was prescribed testosterone at Planned Parenthood. I was 16. I told the doctor about my traumatic female puberty with debilitating painful periods, severe suicidal thoughts, and self-harm, and anxiety so bad that I dropped out of school. I told him that I went to a children’s mental hospital three times before I was 14.

You might be surprised to hear that the doctors, nurses, and therapists not only knew these things, but they believed the root cause was due to my internal sense of gender identity. Transition was supposed to be the cure. Not even a history of sexual abuse will stop these medical professionals from putting a young girl on testosterone.

Palmer explained that she was not told that testosterone would give her pre-diabetes, high blood pressure, and early onset osteoporosis along with an increased risk of sterility. But, even if she had known, she likely would have taken the testosterone anyway, believing that it was “transition or die.”

CT State Rep. Craig Fishbein

@CraigFishbein

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Why is "PLANNED PARENTHOOD" prescribing TESTOSTERONE to MINOR females? So sad for this young lady, that she could not get the proper treatment she needed (during the Obama Administration) and is forced to live with these conditions and worries the rest of her life.

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1:40 PM · Apr 2, 2025

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“This myth persists in the LGBT community,” she said. “Ten years later, you’ll hear supporters of this bill call this ‘life-saving care.’ When I was 19, I went back to Planned Parenthood. I told them I was female to male but I wanted to go back to female. They didn’t know what to do. As weeks turned to months eventually every single doctor had called me back saying, ‘I don’t know. Maybe another doctor can help you.’ Planned Parenthood could easily put a teenage girl on testosterone, but no one in the entire state knew how to treat a woman who just wanted her female body back.”

Palmer said that though she was only on testosterone for three years, she couldn’t “live a normal life” for a while after beginning to detransition. Sometimes, she is still referred to as “sir.”

“For the first year of my transition, I looked like a man wearing a bra. Can you imagine being a 20-year-old woman that people mistake for a man?” she said. “The amount of times I was called sir left me thinking I would never be seen as a female again. Almost six years later, I still have a deep voice …  This effect is permanent.”

Palmer was clear, gender dysphoria “is not life or death. A teenage girl does not need testosterone to survive.”

She urged lawmakers to vote against the bill “so other detransitioners like me, who didn’t understand the life sentence that they signed up for will still be able to seek the justice we deserve.”