Detransitioner Chloe Cole warns of ‘medical abuse’ at rally in support of Missouri Amendment 3 banning child sex changes, restricting abortion 

A national advocate and a local whistleblower rallied south of St. Louis Tuesday, urging Missouri voters to pass a landmark constitutional amendment restricting abortion and permanently banning sex-change procedures for minors.

Current Missouri law already bans sex-change surgeries for minors, but the restriction on castration drugs and hormones is scheduled to expire August 2027.

State lawmakers could pass new legislation extending the expiring provisions, but passing Amendment 3 would permanently enshrine the complete ban into the state’s constitution and reinstate abortion restrictions. Once enacted as a constitutional amendment, the restrictions could only be overturned by another statewide vote of the people.

A detransitioner’s warning

Chloe Cole, a nationally recognized detransitioner, shared her harrowing personal journey at the rally.

Cole said she was a tomboy uncomfortable with puberty. At just 13 years old she was prescribed puberty blockers and increasing doses of testosterone. At 15, a surgeon removed her breasts.

“Parents were begging my doctors to let me wait until I was an adult,” Cole said. “They wanted to help me, but they didn’t expect the doctors would only present one solution and cram the threat of my suicide down their throat at every corner of the way.”

A year after her surgery, Cole realized she didn’t want to transition. She is now suing her endocrinologist, her surgeon and the hospital where the procedure took place.

“Transgenderism in medicine violates the standard of medicine on every level because it is not care…it is medical abuse,” Cole said. “I know removing healthy sex organs from a child is an atrocity because I lived through it.”

Cole is urging Missourians to vote yes on Amendment 3 to give children in the state the chance to grow up before making decisions that could cause irreversible changes to their bodies – a chance she says she never had in California.

“If I had a protection like Amendment 3, those doctors would not have been allowed, by law, to prescribe me experimental drugs at 13 or to amputate healthy body parts at 15. That would have given me the time that I needed to grow up, to learn that being uncomfortable is just part of going through puberty, and to love myself,” she said. “That was all my mom and dad had asked for in the first place, and they deserve better. And so does every child in every family, not just in California, but in your state and throughout the U.S.”

Blowing the whistle on medical malpractice

Jamie Reed spent almost five years working as a case manager inside the pediatric gender care center at Washington University in St. Louis. She described herself as a lifelong political leftist who eventually realized the clinic’s practices were permanently harming teenage girls.

Reed blew the whistle on the clinic’s practices, taking her concerns directly to then-Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey and calling for the clinic to be shut down.

“I watched kids, most of them teen girls…being put on puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones, interventions [which] permanently harmed their bodies, and I stayed part of that system for almost five years,” Reed told the crowd. “I have spent every day since trying to make amends for it. Making amends starts with telling the truth, so I walked into our previous attorney general’s office, and I said, ‘I participated in hurting kids, and we need to shut this down.'”

Reed is telling voters to vote yes on Amendment 3 because she wants to prevent the state from restarting medical practices lacking evidence-based support. After witnessing the harm firsthand, she believes these procedures should be illegal and hopes the amendment will permanently shut down the industry in Missouri to protect vulnerable youth.

The ‘reproductive health’ loophole

Voters passed a pro-abortion amendment in 2024 enshrining so-called “reproductive freedom” in the constitution. Amendment 3 aims to reverse it.

Kate Sickles of Freedom Principle MO warned the crowd the 2024 language created a dangerous loophole for minors seeking sex-change procedures. Organizations such as Planned Parenthood classify transgender care as reproductive healthcare, the current constitution theoretically grants minors the autonomous right to make those medical decisions without parental consent.

“Children do not have the cognitive or maturity to make these kinds of decisions, especially without their parents’ knowledge or consent,” Sickles said. “If a child receives puberty blockers, they are harming their brain development and their bone development, they’re harming and stunting their neurological and endocrine systems.

“It will mean children will have to be on medications…the rest of their lives. Imagine a 10-year-old who starts taking puberty blockers. This is a pharmaceutical industry’s dream patient, and this must be stopped.”

After the rally, Jamie Reed spoke with reporters about why abortion and a ban on sex-change procedures for minors were included in a single amendment.

“The reason why we’re at this point now is because trans rights activists did not want to see gender considered a mental illness. They pushed on an international level for this to be considered reproductive health,” Reed explained. “The fact Missouri is simply doing something the trans rights activists pushed on us is something we’re just going to have to deal with now, but it is now considered a single legal issue as a reproductive health issue.”

Her Health, Her Future hosted the “Yes on 3” rally at Encounter Church in Arnold.

Amendment 3 official ballot language

Shall the Missouri Constitution be amended to:

•Repeal the 2024 voter-approved amendment providing reproductive health care rights, including abortion through fetal viability;

•Allow abortions for rape and incest (under 12 weeks’ gestation), emergencies and fetal anomalies;

•Allow legislation regulating abortion;

•Ensure parental consent for minors’ abortions;

•Prohibit gender transition procedures for minors?

State governmental entities estimate no costs or savings. Greene County estimates it may experience an unknown increase in tax revenue. Other local governmental entities estimate no costs or savings.

(Featured image: Chloe Cole rallies in support of Missouri’s Amendment 3 at Encounter Church in Arnold, MO; all images taken by Stuart McMillian/Heartlander News)