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Blog post by Augustin Hamilton (Quebec Life Coalition) — Translated by QLC — Photo: zinkevych/Freepik

Rose, now 21, has had a difficult journey. During her childhood, she suffered several traumatic experiences and was bullied at school. She says that these struggles led her to want to dissociate herself from the person she was, to leave behind the Rose who was suffering so much. She even attempted suicide twice.

At one point, she discovered people online who identified as transgender and had undergone or were undergoing the transition process. After seeing numerous posts by these people and contacting them, she became convinced that transitioning was the solution to her problems. When she told her mother that she believed she was a boy, her mother didn’t think she was serious. Throughout her daughter’s transition, she feared that she was mistaken and would come to regret it.

Faced with her daughter’s determination to transition, Danielle, her mother, sought advice from the Meraki Clinic (which specialises in gender transition) to understand what her daughter was going through, fearing that her distress might lead her to attempt suicide again. After two visits, the clinic prescribed puberty blockers, convincing Danielle that this would give her daughter a ‘break’ to reflect — without mentioning any potential side effects.

While Rose wanted testosterone to make her body more masculine, her mother, who was resolutely opposed to her daughter’s transition, wanted her to see a psychologist to determine whether she was suffering from gender dysphoria. However, as the psychologist saw no evidence of such dysphoria, but observed several borderline personality traits (for which Rose would be diagnosed at the age of 16), she recommended extreme caution. Alas... at the Meraki clinic, despite her mother’s advice (who could no longer legally prevent anything as Rose was 14) and the psychologist’s advice, the clinic’s specialist told Rose that he trusted her feelings.

Rose booked a mastectomy appointment when she was 16. The form she was asked to sign stated, “I am of legal age and I consent”. When she pointed out this inconsistency, she was told, “It doesn’t matter, just sign it; it’s fine” — and she went ahead with the operation to have her breasts removed.

To those who told us, in response to our previous post on Rose Guérin’s detransition, that the transition system was rigorous, her case shows quite the opposite — at the very least, it seems that the system is applied very flexibly.

Rose also emphasised to Rémi Villemure that her suicidal tendencies predated her desire to transition. She emphasised that this desire stemmed from her conviction that transitioning was the solution. She believes that it would have been preferable for healthcare professionals to provide her with psychological support and investigate whether her suffering might stem from other psychological issues.

At the age of 17, she received a call from the hospital performing gender confirmation surgery to arrange the "bottom surgery" for when she turned 18. Rose says she was at her brother’s house when she received the call; she had been separated from him for years due to behavioural issues that made living with him difficult. In her brother’s presence, she felt like his little sister again. After the call, during which she hadn’t made any decisions, she burst into tears, and called her mother to tell her that she had been right all along and that she really was a girl.

Now, Rose has to pay for the reversal of her gender transition herself. The system that covered most of her transition costs has suddenly disappeared, leaving her to face the costs of recovery alone. The various treatments Rose has started cost over $30,000 in total. She has set up a GoFundMe page to raise money for the treatments.

Rose Guérin has appeared on several French speaking programmes to talk about her story, and her interviews can be viewed on the YouTube channels of Elo Veut Savoir, Ensemble pour Protéger nos Enfants and 995 Montreal.