When Luke Healy was 13, he handed his parents a sticky note declaring he was a transgender girl––pansexual, with a new name, and a list of demands.
“From what I’ve read, most kids that do this, do it in writing,” said his mother, Michelle Rodgers, in hindsight. “They are coached on what to tell their parents.”
Rodgers, a nurse of 33 years, didn’t know what “pansexual” meant. But she knew whatever was happening with her son was not good. “My gut reaction was [that] something’s terribly wrong. All I kept thinking is, ‘Somebody’s hurting my kid.’”
Her instinct was right.
Healy, now 24, told IW Features he was groomed as a 10-year-old by much older adults in online fantasy fandoms and chat forums, spaces like the social media platform Tumblr where kids and adults talked “completely unsupervised.” What began as innocent interests in anime and Harry Potter spiraled into exposure to explicit content, ideological manipulation, and the eventual rejection of biological truth.
By age 13, Healy told his parents he was trans-identified and that he thought he was a woman. Healy said his mental health then deteriorated rapidly, overnight.
“I started having problems with all kinds of self-harm,” he admitted. “My family dynamic changed in such a way that I started going to really perilous and dark places.”
Rodgers and her husband did what any concerned parents would do: They took their son to counseling. But from the moment they arrived, Rodgers said they were pushed out of the room—and out of the process.
“They quickly divide you from [your] child,” she told IW Features. “I felt that my son’s health was being placed in their hands. I was told that my 13-year-old child could make far better decisions for [himself] than the adult who cared about [him].”
According to Healy, every institutional figurehead––from his school counselors to low-cost Kaiser Permanente therapists––had already decided he was “transgender” and needed to be placed on the track to social and medical transition. “They had their cure laid out already,” he said. “The affirmation from other adults is so harmful because it’s affirming a worldview that cannot, by its definition, be true.”
Rodgers was one of the few adults in his life who insisted on asking why Healy was being thrust into the gender medicine pipeline. “I did my best to approach it from his physical health, providing articles,” she said. “My approach was purely scientific in a lot of ways because my child’s gender identity isn’t why I love [him].”
Against overwhelming pressure from peers, doctors, therapists, and even their own son, Rodgers and her husband said no.
“My parents, in the bravest act that I’ve seen in my life, and I think ever will, against every single pressure of society, of doctors, of therapists, of other people, other adults, their peers in life—despite all of that full attack on them from all sides—they said no,” Healy said.
At the time, Healy lashed out in “one of the deepest regrets” of his life, accusing his parents of hating him, of being “bad” because they wouldn’t let him go on puberty blockers and, later, hormones.
At 18, Healy bypassed his parents by getting hormones through Planned Parenthood, Kaiser Permanente’s low-cost gender clinics, and, later, telehealth services. His skin softened, and his body fat redistributed, but Healy admitted that each change triggered deeper emotional distress.
“You get this advertised euphoria of, ‘Well, I’m doing the thing that I’m supposed to be doing, and I’m going to look like the woman that I imagine myself to be,’” Healy said. But Healy admitted that simply wasn’t the case: “Your bone structure is still the same, so you’re not looking female. You’re just not looking right as a male because you’re starting to get kind of a pear shape on a male body, which is an odd picture.”
Around age 21, Healy began pursuing feminizing surgeries more seriously. One facial feminization surgery consult in Los Angeles quoted him $200,000. When he asked how he was supposed to fund that, Healy alleges he was told to enroll at a University of California school and let student health insurance cover the cost. “Think about that the next time you look at your paycheck [in California],” he said.
In another consultation for a tracheal shave, Healy said the doctor acted “like the sleaziest used car salesman” he had ever met, complimenting him on features, like his voice, that he knew weren’t feminine.
“These lies were building up,” Healy said.
Finally, came the turning point: Healy began listening to Catholic homilies, which sparked his interest in faith and self-reflection. He discovered Jordan Peterson’s videos and books, absorbing the Canadian psychologist’s teachings on self-improvement. And right before he had an important job interview, Healy cut all his long hair off, which he admitted was “kind of my idol of who I was.”
“I went to my interview and I said, ‘My name’s Luke,’ and that was it. And I’ve never, for one second, looked back since then,” Healy said.
Today, Healy and Rodgers’ bond is entirely different from that of the years they spent battling over his gender identity.
“My mom and I are best friends,” Healy said. “Any problems we have are now minuscule compared to the abyssal places that we would go before.”
Yet, Healy mourns what was lost during that decade: “There is this chasm of regret and suffering that is, at this point, a majority of my life so far, and that’s hard to think about all the things that I might’ve missed out on and the things that I might be doing today if I hadn’t gone through it.”
Rodgers wants justice for her son and the other countless youth tricked into a delusion. She told IW Features she wants medical professionals to reflect on their biology classes and on their oath that they took to “do no harm.”—because there’s no evidence to support giving kids drugs that will make them “impotent, infertile, and suffer for their lifetime,” she said.
“I think that these people should be held accountable, and I think that they should go to jail,” Rodgers said. “This is a crime. It is abuse.”
Healy, in hindsight, believes gender medicine and surgery are done in part for money, comparing so-called “gender-affirming” medical professionals to “the neighborhood drug dealer” and stating that their “care” ruined his life. But instead of allowing shame to silence him, Healy has begun speaking out publicly in the hope that more young boys and men who were influenced can escape the matrix.
After attending an event where fellow detransitioner Chloe Cole took the stage, Healy befriended her, and the two developed a connection built on shared, traumatic experiences and a desire to see positive change in the world. Chloe’s story of medicalization and a life-altering double mastectomy surgery was shared in IW Features’ Identity Crisis documentary series in February 2023, and since then, she’s relentlessly advocated for those similarly harmed by gender ideology.
Both Cole and Healy have since testified before state legislatures and spoken out at community events in states like California and Arizona. Together, they represent a growing tide of young people harmed by the transgender industry and emboldened to speak the truth––no matter the personal cost.
Rodgers similarly feels no shame or fear for speaking out because she wants others not to feel so alone, knowing firsthand how parents and healthcare workers can easily feel “like you’re being choked, and you’re helpless.”
“I can promise you that you become part of the problem if you stay silent or if you acquiesce because it is not the answer, and you’re really not alone,” she said. “Love is saying no when you’re talking about doing what’s healthy for those you love.”
Ultimately, Rodgers offered bold advice to other parents: “Stop acting like it’s someone else’s problem, take charge, or you will lose your children, and they will become a product of something you can’t imagine.”
