Łukasz Sakowski is a journalist and science writer, a biologist by training. His blog, "To Tylko Teoria", is followed on Facebook by more than 200,000 people. His recent public confession, in which he recounts having undergone sex reassignment surgery as a teenager and then reversing it after several years, sparked a debate about the harmfulness of such procedures.

TVP WEEKLY: Do scars remain after detransition?

ŁUKASZ SAKOWSKI: On the body? …

Yes, the ones after the mastectomy.

Formally, it was a gynecomastia, because after the legal detransition, that is, after returning to male personal data and male PESEL, I was already undergoing again as a man. The surgeon said that it would actually be a mastectomy, that is, the removal of the already developed breasts that had grown due to taking female hormones and puberty blockers. After the removal of the breasts, scars remained. They were visible for years in the form of large, relatively long and painful incisions under the nipples. Only after another plastic medicine operation could they be reduced in size. Now they are smaller and not so painful.

Had you planned a complete transition?

Was I going to remove the testicles? Yes. I already had an appointment for the scheduled surgery, but somehow my subconscious kept me from going through with it. I kept postponing the surgery and playing it over with various excuses. At the next rescheduled appointment, I finally gave up on the surgery. And that was a good thing, because it would have been an irreversible change that would have resulted in me having to take testosterone shots for the rest of my life. If testosterone use is short-lived, it is not yet dangerous, but current research shows that long-term use causes cancer of the internal organs, including liver cancer. Also, it is necessary to talk about another important issue: puberty blockers have many negative effects, even if only in the form of depression and osteoporosis, contrary to the opinion of proponents of sex change. I struggled with advanced osteoporosis at the age of 18 due to taking puberty blockers.

But you were very determined. Today I see before me a young, handsome man. Did the therapy you underwent have any effect on the development of the male body? In short, did it leave any traces?

Not only have my breasts grown, but my waistline has also been shaped, and my pelvis has also become wider. The fat distribution is more feminine. Even after the detransition procedures and restoring hormonal balance, people either thought I was such a "tomboy," as they say colloquially, or someone younger than I was. When I made a doctor's appointment, I went to the adult clinic window and was told that children would be admitted one floor down. At that point, I was 22 years old. My maturation as a man was inhibited. The hormones I was taking had also feminized my facial features. All in all, not surprisingly, I had been taking female hormones since I was 15, so for about 6, 7 years. Testosterone blockers about a year longer.

Please forgive me for the somewhat rude question, but where were your parents when you went further into this transsexual haze?

If we can respect that, I do not want to talk about my family's affairs. We had our own issues at the time, and I was a closeted teenager and hid a lot from them. Anyway, in my blog I write openly and honestly about all other aspects of my story. An important part of my story is that I was one of the first kids to have a computer at school and among my friends, and shortly thereafter the Internet. This left me socially isolated, and I encountered dangerous content on the Internet; unfortunately, few were aware of this danger at the time. This certainly contributed to my confusion. Today, the content disseminated by social media, as well as the structure, algorithms, and user interface of these media, are largely responsible for the epidemic of mental disorders among young people, as a growing number of scientific studies confirm. My peers and subsequent generations were the first to be affected by this problem. My situation was a harbinger of the problems that are becoming more common with the spread of Internet access for children. A dozen years ago, parents were not aware of the dangers on the Internet; there was some talk about pedophilia, but not to the same extent as today either. Meanwhile, in my house, everyone had their own computer. I could sit locked in my room, play games and enter the first discussion forums.

Then came someone who influenced all your later decisions. I know the world asks us to be tolerant, but a transvestite indoctrinating a teenager online still crosses a line.

This is a person that I met when I was a boy of about 14 on a so-called blue forum for people in the transgender community. And it wasn't a transvestite, but a transsexual.

And what is the difference?

A very essential one. A transvestite is someone who dresses in a way that is traditionally or stereotypically associated with another gender in order to arouse sexual arousal or interest. And according to WHO and scientific textbooks, this behaviour is defined as a paraphilia. This person was a transsexual, let us call him Eve, a man who transitioned when he was over 30 years old: he took testosterone blockers and female hormones and underwent surgery to remove his testicles. He tried to become a woman permanently, unlike a transvestite who only dresses up occasionally

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  There was nothing in our relationship that could indicate paedophilia, no disturbing behaviour related to our online contact. Eve believed in her mission: since she could not undergo gender reassignment surgery herself at her young age, she probably wanted to "help" a little boy and fulfil her dream through me. At that time, it was much more difficult to get hormones through official channels. There were few doctors willing to prescribe the drugs without a psychiatric diagnosis, as is the case today. Eve initiated meetings with other people who were transitioning, but at the time I did not attend because of my anxiety disorder. Also, they were people who put me off, they were quirky and infantile. Most of them were over 40 years old and talked like teenagers. I felt a strong inner fear at the thought of having to meet them.

Do you hold a grudge against Eve today?

I am a man who finds it difficult to hold a grudge against someone, to keep his anger inside. To some extent, I understand her twisted motivation, and despite the damage she has done, I cannot judge her unequivocally negatively...

What was your new female name?

I prefer not to reveal that name. It is a closed chapter. However, I would like to point out that my haters are already thinking about what my name might be, and I can only guess what various female forms they will give me. They believe that they can effectively hurt me in this way, because that is clearly their goal. They are using a strategy that hurts themselves, because to them, using an old name is slander. For me, it is simply a closed chapter, and I see no point in returning to that name.

It is perhaps worth noting that until recently I supported the trans community, even after detransition, but at some point, around 2020/2021, I was horrified to see the direction it was all taking, how it was becoming a social epidemic that challenged the very foundations of biology, genetics, evolution. At that time, I became skeptical of therapies that affirmed transsexuality, especially as the number of people identifying as trans or non-binary was growing very rapidly. Meanwhile, research shows that these people are usually either gay or lesbian who do not accept their orientation, as was the case with me, or they have mental disorders, such as borderline personality disorder or autism, or trauma from childhood abuse. Sometimes they are also heterosexual male transvestites who now often claim to be transwomen and are moving from classic transvestism to a transgender identity. In all these cases, gender reassignment will not help, but harm.

Moreover, the gender issue became highly politicized as one of the elements of the cultural dispute. When I wrote about gender and natural selection in my popular science blog, “To Tylko Teoria”, there was no controversy. Then when I wrote about genetics, suddenly there were accusations of transphobia. Someone started looking for private information about me and blackmailing me into disclosing my sex change and gender reassignment process. They wanted me to be afraid and assured me that my past was something shameful. The strangest thing was that one of the stalkers was a man associated with the Transfusion Foundation. He attacked me in private messages, demanded my karyotype, and then? shared my personal history, without my permission, fortunately on a niche social profile.

What is a karyotype?

This is the number of chromosomes, including sex chromosomes. A healthy human has 46 chromosomes, including two sex chromosomes, i.e. either XX or XY. In a disorder of sex development called intersexism or hermaphroditism, an X or Y chromosome may be missing or more than one of these chromosomes may be present, and several other variants are possible. Disorders of sex development is a very broad term, it is a collection of different genetic-hormonal-anatomical disorders that have nothing to do with transsexualism, but are something else entirely. Even though trans activists try to mix these things up so that people confuse them with intersex people.

So can we define gender unambiguously or not?

Yes, gender is binary, but when we look at disorders of sex development, it is no longer so simple. A woman with Turner syndrome, a genetic syndrome of birth defects caused by the partial or complete absence of one of the X chromosomes, may be fertile, but in most cases she suffers from congenital gonadal dysgenesis, which in most cases leads to infertility. For example, she may have excessive body hair. However, this condition is very rare. For example, there are extremely rare cases where an embryo has a karyotype of 46 XY, meaning that theoretically it should develop a male sex, but its Y chromosome is damaged as a result of a genetic mutation, and the person then develops as a female. This is referred to as Swyer syndrome. Again, this is extremely rare and has nothing to do with identity but with biology. It also does not undermine gender binary.

Meanwhile, transsexualism and gender dysphoria are disorders of gender identity - the problem is in the mind, not in the genes and sex organs. Nowadays, gender dysphoria is a common phenomenon among young people. It defies any rational biological explanation. It is a social phenomenon, as acknowledged by the French Academy of Medicine, which calls it a "fad." The British NHS, on the other hand, calls it a "phase"

Why do you have such a broad knowledge of medical topics? There are often accusations from critics that Sakowski is selective with the subject and has a crusade against the trans community.

I am a trained biologist and I studied at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine of the University of Life Sciences in Poznan. I have studied the topics I am talking about here, but I mainly use scientific publications, medical textbooks and professional literature, also in English. And they all contradict the concepts that prevail today, that there are not two genders or that gender is not binary. And as for transgender, research shows that potentially innate and immutable transsexualism is an extremely rare phenomenon and cannot be empirically confirmed. All that can be done is to rule out other disorders or situational problems that might cause such symptoms in a person suspected of transsexualism.

On the other hand, when I comment on topics like psychology, I do so not as an expert, but as a journalist, blogger, observer. I also often invite psychologists for interviews on my blog or on the "Teoretico" podcast. In addition, it is always important for me to review the content I publish and discuss it with experts.

What are the possibilities, costs and organization of gender reassignment in Polish reality? What did it look like in your case?

In the beginning, at the age of 14/15, I was sent hormones and testosterone blockers by the above-mentioned Eve, and they were not expensive preparations, at least not at that time. Then later she sent me prescriptions. When I was not yet 18, a psychologist recommended by the Transsexual Transfusion Foundation made the diagnosis of transsexualism required for the sex change process in a single visit. I asked her if she could give me some tests, examinations to determine if I really should undergo gender reassignment surgery. However, she was in a hurry to go abroad and said that was not necessary. She referred me to a psychiatrist and a sex doctor, who also diagnosed me with "transsexualism" in a single visit, without any diagnostic tests or clinical interviews"

It is worth mentioning that at the age of 15 I also went to another counseling center where it was determined that I was not transsexual but that I was gay and did not accept my orientation. I was advised to accept myself rather than change my gender, but I was very confused and emotionally disturbed at the time, and Eve reinforced my belief that this diagnosis was wrong and that I should change my gender. Today, trans activists say that such diagnoses and the doctors who make them are transphobic, and they advise people to reject them. I told the psychologist who had given me a transsexual diagnosis just before my 18th birthday about that first negative diagnosis at age 15. She waved it off with her hand. She probably referred many young people for gender reassignment because she had such a sense of mission. She was praised and recommended on the Trans-fuzja website.

Trans-fuzja accuses you of lying.

They claim that they have not recommended people, that they have no list, but nothing dies on the Internet. It was possible to quickly find a server entry on their website from that time, and I can say with full confidence that there was such a list.

When I was diagnosed with transsexuality, I was able to deal with the legal issue. Contrary to what is said, the formal process of gender reassignment itself is not particularly difficult either. I submitted the documents right after my 18th birthday, and I remember that as a 19-year-old I was already going to college with female personal details.

When transgender activists proclaim today that they are "persecuted" because gender reassignment in Poland is "difficult" and they have no basic rights, they should be countered that gender reassignment has been legal in our country since the communist era. Transsexuals have all the rights here, unlike, for example, gays and lesbians, and they present themselves as victims, which they are not.

Is there an underworld in Poland related to gender reassignment surgery, after all, what we're talking about is illegal?

Yes, in Poland, gender reassignment surgery is illegal for minors, but with parental consent it's done anyway, manipulating the law so that the start of a gender reassignment is actually a diagnostic "real life test" process. As far as I know, there is a private clinic in Wroclaw that performs mastectomies on teenagers who identify as transsexual and are under 18.

However, all the fuss about my blog article describing my story, and later about Prof. Lew-Starowicz's famous statement in the weekly "Wprost" that we are facing a wave of detransition, turned out to have a positive aspect. Some doctors and psychologists got scared and refused to make quick diagnoses, stopped prescribing puberty blockers on the first visit without psychiatric examination, and stopped cutting out healthy breasts from teenagers just because they have gender dysphoria - which, after all, in about 90% of cases will pass with age anyway. However, this is hardly due to their conscience, but to the fear of litigation.

In any case, the world is beginning to sober. Until recently, gender reassignment surgery was performed on minors in Sweden and Finland, but that is no longer the case. The Karolinska Institute, which awards the Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology, has also banned them. The issue is hotly debated in the U.S., and in the U.K., the Tavistock Gender Reassignment Clinic was closed last year. Thousands of families are bracing for mutilation lawsuits.

But Spain, for example, has recently legalized gender reassignment from the age of 12 with judicial approval, from 14 with parental consent and from 16 without restrictions, as well as the so-called self-identification ID, the self-identification of gender - transgender on demand, which means that you change your gender with a signature at the office, without diagnosis or judicial proceedings. This is based on the fact that if someone claims to be trans, neither the registry office nor a doctor or psychologist have the right to question it. Even if they determine that a person with gender dysphoria is in fact a gay or lesbian who does not accept their orientation, or suffers from a mental disorder or trauma. Various medical and scientific organizations, including the Medical School of Madrid or the Spanish Society of Pediatrics and the Spanish Society of Child Psychiatry, protested against this, but politicians did not listen to them. So the idea was introduced and legalized in Spain by the Podemos party, the equivalent of the Polish „Together Party”. Spain used to be a country of true tolerance, even legalizing same-sex marriage, but now it has become a battleground for transgender activists who want to change the sex of children.

Some of the media in Poland eagerly support this trend. You do not have the impression?

Uncritical promotion of gender reassignment, often ignoring the results of scientific research on the subject, appear, for example, in "Wysokie Obcasy" a supplement of "Gazeta Wyborcza". "Wysokie Obcasy" even published a text after my coming out, in which the Transfusion activist persecuting me appeared as an authority, while I was not asked to comment, even though the issue concerned me. I do not know if this violates the press law, but it was definitely humanly dishonest and unethical on the part of the journalist from "Wysokie Obcasy", who, by the way, as it turned out, is involved in transgender activism. However, I must say that "Gazeta Wyborcza" treated me fairly despite the uncritical attitude of "Wysokie Obcasy”. Journalist Octavia Kramer invited me for an interview in the "Duży Format" and treated the issue fairly and very professionally. I talked to her for five hours, showed her medical and legal documents and printouts of statements of the blackmailers and stalkers. "Duży Format" was so far the only liberal mainstream media that contacted me after my story became known, while the others either put the cloak of silence over me or denigrated me, such as “Krytyka Polityczna”, “AszDziennik” and “Donald.pl”, as well as “Oko.press”, for which I once worked.

“Krytyka Polityczna” is selling a booklet titled "My Name is Jazz" aimed at "trans kids around the world" and written by the protagonist of a famous "trans reality show" that featured a "Farewell to the Penis" event in its latest episode...

As much as I appreciate “Krytyka Polityczna” as a source of interesting publications, interviews or books on some economic or international issues, and as much as I hold leftist views myself, I always wonder why the issues of the trans people movement and other anti-social postmodern movements dominate their coverage. I believe that such media coverage harms the gay community itself by promoting a small group of violent activists who use violence, stalking, and blackmail.

I was also saddened by the reaction of "LGBT" organizations to my coming out, either attacking me personally or posting insightful content promoting gender reassignment. They are like a village defending a pedophile "because he is ours" Only Queer.co.uk has been critical of the trans movement and sided with me. The rest of the "LGBT" media community has attacked me or pretended the issue does not exist. That’s a shame because I am a gay man who has been wronged by trans activists.

And I say "LGBT" in quotes because in recent years these organizations have largely been taken over in the last few years by trans activists as well as fetishists, proponents of prostitution, and the normalization of drug use, including, for example, chemsex -having sex under the influence of drugs. Today, "LGBT" organizations have almost nothing to do with the average gay, lesbian or bi person. We didn't elect them, they act self-proclaimed in our name and impose a discourse on non-heterosexuals. Such a process has also taken place in the West, and new LGB organizations are now emerging in the U.S. and the U.K., without the sequential letters that exclude fetishists, transvestites, prostitutes, and drug addicts. They fight only for the rights of homosexuals. In Poland, it doesn't work that way yet.

As more letters appear, LGBT is no longer a monolith?

The demands of queer or trans and non-binary people have nothing to do with homosexuals. Lesbian feminists who don't want transgender people to use women's locker rooms are criticized as transphobic. Recently, a brawl broke out at an equality parade in Cardiff over a lesbian banner, "Lesbians don't like penises" The women were removed from the parade. In turn, at an equality parade in the state of Vermont, a 73-year-old gay man was trampled and lynched "for transphobia" A 70-year-old man!

In general, I think trans activists are very harmful to homosexuals and our demands. Let us take the issue of gender reassignment and the legality of such an operation. Trans people have all the rights, they have been able to change their gender for decades, while homosexuals cannot even enter into a partnership, let alone marry. So why do "LGBT" organizations emphasize trans issues above all else? This year's Equality Parade in Warsaw cited the facilitation of medical and legal gender reassignment as its second main demand. Same-sex marriage has taken a back seat.

Even the term "trans-shevism" already appears, i.e. Bolshevism in the cultural sphere, the imposition of the social philosophy of the majority on the minority...

The word itself may seem vague, but the connotation is apt, because the minority wants to impose on everyone something that goes against science and common sense - sex reassignment surgery for children, self-determination ID for adults, denial of the existence of sex in biology and medicine. My argument when dealing with the trans community is always that gays and lesbians are fighting for freedom in the personal realm, for personal rights, while trans people are fighting for the right to mutilate themselves to mutilate children in a legalized, publicly funded way. Some just want to legalize their relationships, others want to change the definition of gender and force their views on others. Gays and lesbians want to be able to raise families in peace, while trans activists seek to censor and force others to see them as a different gender. They want to challenge the foundations of biology and make changes that will violate human rights as well as the specific rights of women and children.

And what do you think of social campaigns like "We the Parents" or awards for a journalist who reported on how he supported his transgender child?

That does a lot of damage. I think it's the same thing to reinforce a child's belief that they're a different gender, when in fact that young person is still developing and shouldn't be reinforced in being transgender. I think most parents where a child develops this problem are just very concerned. They don't want to reject the child, but if they don't want the child to make a rash decision about gender reassignment, they go to specialists who often just confirm the child's belief. Since we know that gender dysphoria is a mental disorder caused in part by the social environment, it's probably somewhat irresponsible to indiscriminately support a child's confusion. And that's probably what most reasonable parents think. Moreover, numerous studies - the most recent from last year - have shown that most teens grow out of gender dysphoria.

On the other hand, there is another group of parents who are active in NGOs, supporting each other, using grants or media campaigns. These may also be parents suffering from an alternative Munchausen syndrome. They even outdo each other in promoting other new syndromes and the suffering of their children. And since the "trans child" suffers the most , parents who want to draw attention to themselves at their child's expense have the perfect opportunity: they fool their child into thinking he or she is trans.

As for the journalist you mentioned, I think he was just cleverly promoting himself with his child's story. He went from being an unknown media worker to a star just because his child changed gender. He talks about the fact that in Poland for a sex change operation you have to sue the parents because they misstated the sex at birth, and that the delays involved are a scandal. I reply: Well, maybe someone will have more time to think about it. Maybe suing the parents should be replaced by some other procedure, but the very fact that it takes a while anyway is good because it gives more time to think, to understand oneself. There should be a standard of psychotherapy that aims to identify one's motives, not psychotherapy that affirms any belief, and psychotherapists should not be ideologically motivated by activism.

Here one needs objectivity and composure. Because as soon as a person who wants to change his or her gender becomes more aware of his or her personality, it is possible that he or she will give up the idea of transitioning because he or she already knows that it is pointless. In mid-April, the scientific journal Current Sexual Health Report published the results of a recent medical analysis concluding that the evidence shows that there is no benefit to gender reassignment. People with gender dysphoria should learn about this. Gender reassignment does not save lives.

Is not an age of 18 too early to make such fundamental decisions about a person's future?

Of course not. The brain takes much longer, until about age 25, to mature - especially the brain centers responsible for rational thinking, regulating emotions, or weighing the long-term consequences of one's actions. In addition, the time to maturity and independence has lengthened considerably, so that people today often do not become independent until the age of 25to 27 and start a family much later. In my opinion, a modern person is not in a position to make a conscious decision to undergo gender reassignment mutilation until after the age of 25. I think that such a law would protect me from the suffering that transition brought, but I do not insist on that number of years. A longer discussion with professionals is probably needed here.

Another thing is that in today's very liberal society, no one would choose to move the legal age of majority. Maybe by a year or two, but not up to the age of 25; moreover, such a 7-year shift in the age of majority could actually have negative consequences in some contexts. However, in the context of gender reassignment, appropriate and lengthy therapies should be conducted, especially those aimed at finding the real motivation, the reasons for the young person's gender dysphoria. It may be helpful to understand that the young person's desire for gender reassignment is due to not accepting their sexual orientation, suffering from borderline disorder, having dysmorphophobia, or having been a victim of harassment and repressing their gender due to trauma. This is achieved through professional psychotherapy or life circumstances, not by administering puberty blockers and opposite-sex hormones with the attitude that gender reassignment will solve difficult problems.

–interview by Cezary Korycki

TVP WEEKLY. Editorial team and jornalists