{"id":31649,"date":"2026-04-24T13:04:02","date_gmt":"2026-04-24T17:04:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?p=31649"},"modified":"2026-04-24T13:04:02","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T17:04:02","slug":"detransitioner-goes-viral-after-opposing-california-pro-trans-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2026\/04\/detransitioner-goes-viral-after-opposing-california-pro-trans-law","title":{"rendered":"Detransitioner Goes Viral After Opposing California Pro-Trans Law"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Left: Public Domain | Right: California Family Council \/ YouTube<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A young detransitioner has gone viral after confronting California lawmakers over their support for a pro-trans law. California SB 934, which is being sponsored by democratic State Senator Scott Weiner, is a broadly worded bill meant to allow \u201cvictims\u201d of so-called \u201cconversion therapy\u201d to seek financial damages for malpractice, even years after receiving the therapy. Critics have voiced concern that the bill would allow various therapists of talk therapies to be targeted.<\/p>\n

Detransitioner and Genspect ambassador Jonni Skinner, who transitioned to a girl at 13, attended a Senate hearing to speak out against the legislation. Skinner had been diagnosed with autism and experienced bullying for feminine interests at a young age. \u201cThe medical and mental health providers didn’t bother to ask why I felt the way I did. They poisoned my body with blockers and hormones, arresting my puberty and messing with my development. The result is I’m a 23-year-old gay man who’s never had an orgasm and may never experience one. Let that sink in,\u201d he said during the hearing. Skinner claimed his parents were warned that he would commit suicide without the treatment.<\/p>\n

Skinner painted a bleak picture of his medical transition. \u201cNipple leakage, brain fog, chest pain, depression. I was urinating blood and had ulcers in my bladder and was too weak to attend school. When I told my doctor how sick I was, he looked at me and said, \u2018Welcome to womanhood.\u2019\u201d Skinner claimed that proper mental health treatment could have spared him much of the pain he experienced. \u201cIn all those years, if one therapist would have just talked with me about the origins of my distress, instead of just affirming me and suggesting, you know, further medical intervention is the only solution to me, perhaps I could have been spared much of what I’m suffering with today,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd this bill, SB 934, would criminalize therapists for questioning that. They’re not able to, under this bill, question gender identity or really delve with these patients into the underlying causes of their dysphoria. That would be considered conversion therapy under SB 934,\u201d he warned.<\/p>\n

Skinner stopped medical interventions in 2023. He told Fox News<\/em><\/a> he began questioning the interventions that had been taken. \u201cAnd I had found that there was, you know, no \u2014 low quality to no evidence to doing this to me,”\u00a0he said. Weiner, however, has defended the bill. \u201cConversion therapy is psychological torture and quack science that does nothing but harm vulnerable young people. SB 934 cracks down on that horrifying practice, but makes clear that therapists will not be penalized for good faith explorations of a patient\u2019s gender identity or sexuality,\u201d he said. \u201cThey will be penalized if they attempt to intentionally change a patient from any one gender or sexual orientation to another, such as from gay to straight, straight to gay, trans to cis, or cis to trans.” Skinner insisted during the hearing that the bill would create more people like him. \u201cSB 934 guarantees that more people will end up like me, the walking but wounded,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A young detransitioner has gone viral after confronting California lawmakers over their support for a pro-trans law. California SB 934, which is being sponsored by democratic State Senator Scott Weiner, is a broadly worded bill meant to allow \u201cvictims\u201d of so-called \u201cconversion therapy\u201d to seek financial damages for malpractice, even years after receiving the therapy.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":516,"featured_media":31652,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nDetransitioner Goes Viral After Opposing California Pro-Trans Law<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Detransitioner Jonni Skinner warns California lawmakers SB 934 could silence therapists and fuel more harmful gender care.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2026\/04\/detransitioner-goes-viral-after-opposing-california-pro-trans-law\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Detransitioner Goes Viral After Opposing California Pro-Trans Law\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Detransitioner Jonni Skinner warns California lawmakers SB 934 could silence therapists and fuel more harmful gender care.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2026\/04\/detransitioner-goes-viral-after-opposing-california-pro-trans-law\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beliefnet News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-04-24T17:04:02+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" 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