That whole morning felt like a scene from “Grey’s Anatomy.”

“We won’t get the biopsy results back for a few days, but you need to call a breast surgeon immediately,” the doctor said. As I walked out of the office alone, my face covered by a mask during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, I could tell they weren’t used to seeing a woman in her twenties there. 

Sure enough, a few days later my heart sank, my stomach dropped, and I fell to the ground in front of our family Christmas tree when I heard the words, “It’s breast cancer.”

For the next few months, my life in Washington took a pause and my full-time job became biopsies, tests, appointments, medical journals, and treatment decisions. As doctors consulted and put together my treatment plan, I learned that my cancer grew from hormones — estrogen, in particular.

My best bet to prevent future recurrence and metastasis? Five to 10 years of hormone treatment.

Just weeks after undergoing a double mastectomy, I walked into the infusion center for my first Lupron injection to rid my body of estrogen. After I nearly passed out from that first shot, I shrank back into the big chemo chair and cried over the pieces of womanhood that had been stolen from me. I knew that in just a few weeks the side effects would start to kick in. They told me it would be tough, but I had no idea what was coming. 

What I also didn’t know then is that the drug keeping my cancer at bay is the same drug used to chemically castrate child predators — and now, it’s the same drug that transgender activists praise as a supposedly “safe” and “temporary” way to delay puberty for minors experiencing what has been labeled as gender dysphoria.  

That’s a lie.

Here’s what it’s been like for me: 

The first hot flash came last spring while walking through a bookstore in D.C. with friends. They caringly took me to the closest snow-cone stand. It went downhill from there. I wouldn’t want anyone to experience a day where dozens and dozens and dozens of hot flashes interrupt a presentation, a meeting with your boss, or a first date. 

The episodes of depression came next. As time went on, I thought maybe it would calm down, and I’d dodge some of the listed side effects, but they kept coming. I never knew it was possible to have fatigue so debilitating and at the same time only be able to fall asleep with a tranquilizer. Random pains shot through my joints, and I had to take preventive measures to protect my bone health. I tried to not even think about what this would mean for intimacy and fertility down the road.

Every day now is a fight to grasp some semblance of normal, so I can’t even imagine a child trying to make sense of their world as drugs stop the hormones in their body from doing what they’re supposed to do.

Activists, dressed in a doctor’s robe, classify a child as struggling and then describe this as the best option, even without scientific research on how it affects children’s mental health or long-term studies on the side effects. If parents don’t comply, they are called a bad parent, a transphobe, and a bigot. 

Bright, rainbow posts have been littering my social-media feed this month, many lecturing that without so-called “gender-affirming” care – puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and eventually experimental surgeries that forever alter a child’s body – kids will supposedly be driven to suicide. The Biden administration, the legacy media, and activist doctors spread this lie to emotionally extort parents toward acceptance of such ideas.

Never mind that the data actually shows the opposite to be true. Yet, some states are even actively trying to cut parents out of these decisions by expanding access to these drugs and cross-sex hormones for minors without parental consent. 

It’s maddening to watch the culture normalize gender dysphoria and then demand that we celebrate adults amputating perfectly healthy body parts, while I had mine stolen by cancer. It’s another level of evil entirely, though, when this ideology comes for children.

I hope we can look back on this as a rare moment in history — one where Americans wake up and fight back against the cancer of the left’s dangerous and divisive gender ideology.

Gloria Taylor is a senior communications manager for National Security and Foreign Policy at The Heritage Foundation.

The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

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I’m Taking The Drug That Activists Want To Give To Children With Gender Dysphoria