Authors of the book “The Detransition Diaries” say the state has become a flashpoint in the ongoing debate about “transgender medicine”—and they’re bringing their message this week to Minnesota lawmakers.
Kallie Fell is the co-author. She is also a perinatal nurse and the executive director of the Center for Bioethics and Culture. She joined Liz Collin on a recent episode of her podcast.
Fell told Collin that she never thought in her lifetime she’d be “defending the idea that humans are created either male or female and one cannot transform or transition through medicine to another. I never thought that that would be a stance that I would have to take, but here I am,” she said.
“I’m joining the Minnesota Catholic Conference and the Minnesota Family Council to meet with legislators to discuss a lot of different issues in the bioethical sphere, bioethical issues including third-party reproduction, IVF, surrogacy, and … transgender medicine which I like to put in quotes because I don’t think there’s any such thing, you can’t change sex,” Fell said.
She believes the “tides are going to turn,” and President Donald Trump’s inaugural address on Monday was an early sign of that change.
“As of today, it will henceforth be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders—male and female,” Trump said.
Trump: "As of today, it will henceforth be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders — male and female." pic.twitter.com/tOOxZIFVN7
— Alpha News (@AlphaNewsMN) January 20, 2025
Children and transgenderism
Fell points out how Minnesota is among 13 states considered “trans refuge states” for children.
Fell explained, “We’re just in a weird time in our life. For the last 25 years, the Center for Bioethics and Culture has been speaking out and educating the public through lawmakers, through policymakers, through just general public moms, dads … when we learned several years ago that kids were being, or children were being rendered infertile because they’ve been offering puberty blockers and hormones to try to change their sex, we decided to step in on this issue as well.”
Prison policies
Alpha News has been documenting the ongoing controversy surrounding the Minnesota Department of Corrections’ trans policy allowing biological men to be housed in the state’s only women’s prison in Shakopee.
“It breaks my heart when I see the unfairness that’s happening in schools and the, not just unfairness, but the safety issues of having men inside of girls’ locker rooms, men inside of female spaces, men inside of shelters, domestic violence shelters, and in women’s prisons. It’s our duty to protect women … get a hold of your legislators, get a hold of the people in Congress and let them know how you feel. It’s absolutely heartbreaking and completely unethical,” Fell said.
Striving to close a dark chapter—with a documentary and a book
Fell believes it’s time to close this dark chapter and that will happen with the help of the courts.
“I think it’s lawsuits. I think it’s hard, and I understand after talking with men and women who have bought this lie and then have dug themselves out of this and now have an issue with trusting medicine and those around them, it’s going to take them to be vulnerable and to go after the doctors and the people that allowed this to happen … There are many organizations that are doing a great job exposing the lie of gender medicine and I think moms and dads are getting angry. And I think that’s what it’s going to take to keep our children safe in this space,” Fell said.
In providing insight about the “The Detransition Diaries,” Fell explained, “The book is one of the only books that really takes readers first on a history lesson on both the gender-affirmation movement, including individuals and organizations that have kind of peddled this idea and paved the way that sexual binary is arbitrary. We also look at the past on where medicine has gone astray. For example, lobotomies—that used to be a common practice and it’s not anymore. We take the reader on this journey, but then it’s personal … once we get through that history lesson.”
The book then tells the stories of men and women who “believed that they could medically transition into the opposite sex” and were “wronged,” Fell explained. It is based on the documentary, “The Detransition Diaries: Saving Our Sisters.”
Liz Collin
Liz Collin has been a truth-teller for 20 years as a multi-Emmy-Award-winning reporter and anchor. Liz is a Worthington, Minnesota native who lives in the suburbs with her husband, son and loyal lab.
