Don’t let kids transition at 15, says trans woman, 23

Kelly Cadigan began her medical transition from male to female when she was just 15. Today, eight years later, she’s happy with her decision. But, even still, Cadigan thinks other trans kids should have to be 18 before they make irreversible medical decisions.

“Even though I did transition very young, I still stand by what I said about minors transitioning,” she told The Post. “I was very young to be making that decision, and I think I’m very lucky to not be one of the people who regrets their decision to transition.”

Cadigan shared that opinion with her close to 1 million TikTok followers, opening up for the first time about her heterodox views on transgender issues in March.

In the weeks since, she’s started a TikTok series in which she chronicles every day she’s an out conservative — a parody of trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney’s controversial series about her “days of girlhood.”

Cadigan has divided TikTok and become the subject of both praise and rage.

Cadigan, 23, grew up in a small, backwoods town in southern Maine. She came to terms with her transgender identity at age 14 and underwent a “tough” period of transition.

“It was definitely pretty isolating,” Cadigan recalled. “Coming out to my mom and dad and telling them I was trans was difficult. But I think at the end of the day, they really just wanted me to be happy.”

Cadigan’s family sent her to counseling, and, after a year of therapy, she started her medical transition with puberty blockers and hormone replacement therapy.

Nearly a decade later she’s living happily as a woman — and is even currently house-hunting with her boyfriend. But nonetheless she cautions against kids making such serious decisions.

“I really think to be making these life-altering decisions, you should be 18 years of age,” she said. “We get kids going on these drugs with permanent changes for their bodies that they’re never going to be able to fix.”

Cadigan’s outspokenness has attracted the vitriol of many activists. “People always say I’m a hypocrite when I say that the laws should be 18 years old to start hormones.”

But she says our cultural obsession with gender means “it’s a completely different ballgame” for kids struggling with their identity today compared to when she was younger.

“Back in the day when… a little boy said he felt like a girl, that stuff wasn’t being taught to them in schools like it is nowadays,” Cadigan said. “When a child would say that they felt like the other gender, it meant so much more.”

“We have so many kids that are going to school, learning these things, and thinking they’re trans or non-binary,” she continued. “I really think the visibility movement has just kind of backfired.”

Meanwhile, Cadigan says parents too are being pressured to affirm their children without questioning their gender identity at all: “Culture is telling parents nowadays, ‘Oh, if you don’t support your kid in their transition, you’re a bigot, you’re a bad parent.’”

That combination, she says, is “a recipe for disaster” — and a contributing cause to a rise in trans kids ultimately regretting their decision and detransitioning back to their biological sex.

So far seventeen states have moved to restrict gender affirming medical intervention for minors, though Cadigan’s home state of Maine is not one of them.

Her impetus for speaking out against the grain was rhetoric in the wake of the recent Nashville shooting perpetrated by a trans assailant. She says she finally decided to be outspoken online after trans activists were more concerned about the media misgendering the shooter than the lives lost in the tragedy.

When she pushed back against activists in a TikTok, she was pleasantly surprised by how well she was received. “I was like, wait a minute, I can express how I actually feel and people will accept me.”

While many have praised her takes on gender issues as common sense, Cadigan says she’s drawn the ire of many trans activists who she says see her heterodox views “as a betrayal because I’m a part of their community.”

But, if anything, Cadigan says she’s the one who has been betrayed: “I truly feel like I was betrayed by my own community. To me, if I can’t say my perspective based on my own experiences because they don’t align with your agenda, that’s a cult mentality.”

Since speaking out, however, she’s heartened by how much support she’s gotten from within the transgender community, too. It’s given her hope that what she sees as extreme gender rhetoric may be on the way out.

“I think there’s a lot more creators that agree with me and have my same beliefs, but they’re afraid to speak up just like I was,” she said. “I really do think something is coming in the trans community. I do think a clear cut in the sand is going to be drawn very soon.”