'Incredibly brutal': FTC hosts day-long workshop on harms of 'gender-affirming care'

Showalter went on to recount in graphic detail some of the worst physical injuries he has learned about while covering transgender surgical procedures, which he described as "incredibly brutal."

"You don't want to see the kinds of things that I see in my inbox and hear from parents about what has happened to their children," he said.

One young male detransitioner Showalter covered was convinced by doctors to remove his testicles for $1,000, which ultimately led to regret, suicidal ideation and ejaculating blood.

He also noted that one woman had to have more than 24 corrective surgeries after her genitalia had been so badly mangled that she was rendered incontinent.

"She had to urinate out of her anus into an ileostomy bag, and she was posting about this carnage that was done to her body on Instagram," Showalter said. "It was gruesome."

What Showalter described as the worst case he learned of was that of the daughter of Amy Atterberry, now a parent activist who sat helplessly in a nearby room while doctors carved up her 19-year-old daughter's forearm to craft a fake penis for a so-called phalloplasty. Medicaid also paid for her daughter to undergo a double mastectomy.

Atterberry participated in a similar event in 2023 with Showalter and the Family Research Council, during which he and FRC President Tony Perkins prayed over her and invoked God's protection "for those that are exposing this demonic agenda that is destroying our children, leading them down a destructive and dangerous path."

Showalter suggested Wednesday that the suffering the trans-affirming medical industry is inflicting on vulnerable young people is an atrocity of historical proportions.

"I totally try to avoid making any comparisons to the Holocaust, because that's a uniquely horrible episode in history, but I will sometimes be emailed by Jewish readers who say we're living in a culture of Mengeles," he said, referring to the notorious Nazi physician who performed deadly medical experiments on prisoners at Auschwitz.

"This industry needs to be dismantled from the top to the bottom," he added.