A Destransitioner's Story
Sascha Bailey, son of a world-renowned photographer father and a fashion model mother, appeared to “have it all.” Instead, facing suicidal thoughts, recurring depression, and a difficult marriage, he became convinced that he was a woman. All would be better, internet chatrooms assured, if he would transition to a woman. “Sascha’s vision,” explained a recent article from The Daily Mail, “was to become ‘like a real-life Barbie’, with pneumatic curves and long blonde hair.”
Today, Bailey regrets this flirtation with disaster. Though he still (wrongly) thinks some people may be born in the wrong body, he is now calling out the transgender industry for its false promises and the wider society for pressuring people into confusion.
[I]t’s almost like society has a gun to its head because if they’re not supportive of it, the only choice is to be cancelled. You are either for it, or you’re transphobic; there is no middle ground.
He then continued,
I feel there’s a huge problem with over-diagnosis of gender dysphoria, …I think there are a lot of people who, like me, aren’t actually trans, they’re just incredibly unhappy and transitioning is a way of making themselves into a new person, which they believe will fix everything.
He also noted the hypocrisy of those who claim to stand against gender stereotypes while also celebrating the shallow transgender imitations of feminine traits.
Rather than saving his life, Bailey now believes that his attempts to adopt a new sex was, in reality, suicide with extra steps: “Transitioning was a way of killing myself without dying, because I was so unhappy with my life.”
Bailey’s story reads like a checklist of the many others who have undergone this same tragic journey. There is the background of an affluent yet disordered family. There are ongoing relationship struggles. And there is the time and place in which he lived, complete with the disembodied pressures from online communities, a too-brief medical consultation (Bailey’s was just ten minutes) before being given a prescription for hormones, and the ignoring of preexisting comorbidities like depression. Bailey, too, enjoyed feelings of euphoria upon beginning treatment. But they soon passed and were replaced with the realization that he had embraced a false hope that failed to live up to the hype.
Tragically, an alarmingly large number of people in North America and Europe would prefer that stories like his were never shared. So wedded to transgender ideology, these advocates cannot bear the stories, anecdotes, and medical facts that challenge their narrative. The growing number of “apostates” from their faith, people like Bailey and Chloe Cole, undercut their entire belief system. Some social media outlets are committed to burying these stories, and some government agencies are cracking down on dissenting voices, even criminalizing individuals and organizations who refuse to live by these transgender lies.
It’s out of the dire need for the truth to be told that the Colson Center has collaborated with like-minded organizations and experts to advance what is true. The Identity Project is the most comprehensive library of resources available, with hours of video teaching by counselors, theologians, medical professionals, those who have detransitioned, and many others, covering a wide set of issues. To learn more, go to identityproject.tv.
Sascha Bailey’s final thoughts in the article are prophetic:
I think we’re going to look back on this time and be shocked at how quickly we ran away with all this stuff. We need to allow people space and time to talk and explore their feelings before we rush them down the medical route.
The more stories that come out like Sascha Bailey’s, the easier it’ll be for the rest of us to speak up. The more the rest of us speak, the easier it’ll be for others to join us. The more who join us, the more we can prevent victims of these terrible ideas.
This Breakpoint was co-authored by Dr. Timothy Padgett. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.
Image credit: ©Zac Durant/Unsplash
John Stonestreet is President of the Colson Center for Christian Worldview, and radio host of BreakPoint, a daily national radio program providing thought-provoking commentaries on current events and life issues from a biblical worldview. John holds degrees from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (IL) and Bryan College (TN), and is the co-author of Making Sense of Your World: A Biblical Worldview.
The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of CrosswalkHeadlines.
BreakPoint is a program of the Colson Center for Christian Worldview. BreakPoint commentaries offer incisive content people can't find anywhere else; content that cuts through the fog of relativism and the news cycle with truth and compassion. Founded by Chuck Colson (1931 – 2012) in 1991 as a daily radio broadcast, BreakPoint provides a Christian perspective on today's news and trends. Today, you can get it in written and a variety of audio formats: on the web, the radio, or your favorite podcast app on the go.
