Weekend Plans is our exclusive lifestyle feature where we highlight the real off-duty routines of the most exciting people in culture. 

This weekend, prominent detransitioner Chloe Cole sits down with The Daily Wire with a fresh perspective on life. She gained notoriety as a teen after exiting her own "gender-affirming transition" where she received life-altering surgery and puberty blockers. Even amid ongoing backlash from the pro-trans movement, she's become the face of the "Chloe Cole Act" designed to protect healthy children from devastating medical and chemical intervention. Now, she's encouraging everyone to love themselves just as they are — because God doesn't make mistakes.

* * *

Chloe Cole laughs as she tousles her newly sun-kissed highlights to softly frame her face. She looks radiant, having just celebrated her 22nd birthday. You'd never guess there was a time when she didn't think she'd live to see 18.

"I've had a craving for cake for the last month. I had an ice cream cake made for me for my birthday, and a friend of mine just brought over a cheesecake," she explains. Other guests arrived with cupcakes in hand. We joke that party-related calories don't count. "It's just cake central here right now. I don't know how I'm going to keep the weight down, but it's worth it. It's my birthday week." 

I ask about the Instagram birthday post where she mentioned a spiritual transformation that saved her life. She dives in without blinking an eye.

"When I was a teenager, I was going through a really rough time with the transition, and the psychological and physical damage from that," she explains. "I felt like I didn't really have a purpose. I didn't feel like anybody around me really appreciated me for me. I didn't know that I was created beautifully in God's image." 

"I didn't know that he had a purpose for me through all the suffering. I just thought 'I'm here by chance,' and by the end of my life, there's not going to be any meaning. And if there's no meaning, why should I even be here? I thought, 'I don't want to be an adult. I don't want to grow up. I don't want to live.'"

Chloe was born a girl. She grew up in a home where her father had been raised Mormon and her mother grew up Catholic. Chloe attended church as a young child. But instead of guiding Chloe to explore a deeper faith, her parents backed away from the church, hoping Chloe would think freely for herself. "I think what that does, unintentionally, is set up your child to lack the single biggest foundation that they need in their life, which is faith," Chloe says.

She had been diagnosed with ADHD during childhood, but says, even today, most people in her life suspect she's "on the spectrum somewhere." Chloe ultimately chose her own path: one that, as a child, she couldn't possibly have known she could never walk back. She decided she wanted to be a boy.

She watched other kids her age speak openly about their own transitions on social media. She already identified more with boy stuff, and the trans community seemed ready to welcome her with open arms. After seeking professional therapy, she began puberty blockers and testosterone injections at age 13. She underwent a double mastectomy at 15, which she almost immediately regretted. She began to detransition just before she turned 17, but she only sank further into depression, describing feeling like "the best parts were already over."  

"I just thought there's no getting past high school. I've already peaked, and this is going to be it for me," she recalls. "All it took was for me to go through those painful parts, which I think ended up being God pruning all the bad connections … and then eventually bringing me purpose through using my testimony to help other families." 

View this post on Instagram

"It was a very slow realization of all these different things," Chloe explains. "What if I have kids one day? Am I even going to be able to have children? And if I do have kids somehow, what are they going to call me? Am I going to be Mom? Am I going to be Dad? If I get married, who am I going to be? A wife or a husband? None of it makes sense. All I had to do was get a little bit older, and I was going to become comfortable with these parts of myself."

Chloe manages extreme joint pain following years of unbalanced hormones and puberty blockers. And she admits to having a tough time trusting the same industry that mutilated her body in order now to get the medical help she needs. But her life remains a testament to the real transformative power of divine love.

"There's been a great deal of joy in discovering new beautiful things about my life … being able to re-embrace my femininity that I had forgotten about for years. Now, I feel like a completely new person. A lot of my friends who are close to me know me for my sense of humor. The best antidote to all the difficulty is humor and gratitude. When you practice those two things consistently every single day, that greatly improves your life."

No place like home

Having just moved out of her parents' home in Central Valley, California, on her birthday, Chloe is busy settling into her new digs. She assures me that hauling boxes was a breeze compared to more stressful events that have fallen on her big day. "On my 19th birthday, I was testifying before Congress for the first time," she says. 

"Whenever I'm traveling to D.C. or anywhere else, I get so much of the city that it's basically like living in it," she shares. "I love all the people, I love all the hustle and bustle, but at the end of the day, I like having a quiet place to come home to. I'm surrounded by nature, and that's how I like it."

Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Chloe notes how Left-leaning outlets often claim she's "raking in millions" as a "grifter." (She's not.) When I ask what most often occupies her downtime, she swivels in her gaming chair and tells me, "I'm a boring person. You know what I do every day when I'm not working? I play Minecraft with my brothers and friends. I lift. I work out. I run."

"I have a whole home gym set up," she notes. "I'm pretty sure I hit a new [personal record] on my deadlift right before I met [HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.] last December. I forgot to tell him about that," she laughs. But her new home offered her a little fitness inspiration of its own. "Funnily enough, the previous owners left a photo of Marilyn Monroe working out in a bikini top and jeans. Maybe I might have to start RFK-maxxing and working out wearing denim, myself."

Reinventing a lost childhood

As a tween, Chloe was forced to make adult decisions that were well beyond any child's ability to grasp. But now, she's relishing her glow-up era. I watch her eyes sparkle as she talks about bringing her childhood back to life.

"I'm rereading a lot of books I love from my childhood. My favorite book to read in high school English class was 'Ender's Game,'" she says, referencing the novel about a government-born child genius trained to battle invaders from other planets. "I love science fiction. I love stuff that has some form of psychological horror and great moral questions behind it."

Chloe's hoping to rebuild a treasure trove of memories to fill in the blanks. "I have a collection of hobbies," she notes. "I love fashion. I'm collecting a lot of my childhood dolls that I loved. The way that I decorate my room — it's very nostalgic. It's very feminine. It's very reminiscent of the way that I grew up before the transgender thing happened to me."

Photo by Bastien Ohier / Hans Lucas via AFP

"I've always been a tomboy. I'm closer to my brothers and boys in my classes than my sisters," she explains. But she's found the sweet spot between her unique personality traits and her true identity. "I have always had this very girly, pink — I don't even know what you call it. Almost like a very sugary, feminine side of me that I just love to tap into." 

An artist for this moment

There's no question Chloe has always been creative. "Pretty much as soon as I was old enough to pick up a Crayon and a notebook and scribble on a piece of paper, I've been an illustrator," she says.

"From the time that I was two or three years old up until my senior year of high school, I've always loved drawing cartoons, manga-style illustrations, and making my own characters and stories," she shares. "Throughout my mom and dad's house, I just have stacks upon stacks of notebooks, papers, anything I could possibly draw on."

Since she's recently had so much on her plate, she hasn't been feeling the creative spark like she once did. As she works through a lull in inspiration, luckily, she knows where to go for help. 

"I honestly would appreciate some prayers in breaking that artist block because that was one of things I have loved doing most in my life. But the story writing that I used to do as a kid is something that now I bring out when I'm telling my own story to new audiences through speeches."

Chloe sees a real need for art to come from people of all walks of life, including kindred creators on the conservative side of things.

"We used to have these big, beautiful cathedrals with beautiful drawings, and so much human love just poured into every little detail. There's such a hunger amongst young conservatives to see more art, more stories, more movies, more music that reflects our values, and there's such a shortage of that," Chloe says.

"I feel like I have a responsibility as an artistic person to tap into that part of myself, so that other artists can see that influence. We can, little by little, effect change in the lives of people around us."

A real life redemption

Considering how much heat Chloe has taken from the pro-trans movement, I ask her how she perceives trans-identifying celebrities flooding headlines with "live your truth"-style clickbait. Miraculously, she views people like Dylan Mulvaney, Kim Petras, and Elliot Page with surprising grace.

"There's this instinct to immediately label them as these evil, horrible people. But at the very core of it, it's very clear from the outside that these people are suffering. They're dealing with confusion around one of the most fundamental parts of the human experience."

Theo Wargo/Getty Images

"I have a heart for these people," Chloe says. "Especially knowing what it is like to go through that, to have this bubble around you of people who are encouraging you to continue destroying yourself. You're constantly being told this is a fundamental part of who you are. You can't change it. The only way you can help it is by undergoing a lifetime of medical experimentation — and also there's a 'genocide' being waged against people like you. It's no wonder that they continue fighting so hard to make sure other people stay indoctrinated."

She puts the onus on trans-identifying adults — not the kids getting caught in the current — to flip the script.

"With adults, there's a little bit more culpability. They should be held accountable for their actions if they are doing anything wrong. But we should also be praying for these people because they are suffering deeply."

Writing her next chapter 

Missouri Rep. Bob Onder's H.R. 5483 bill, known as the "Chloe Cole Act," is currently making its way through Congress. It seeks to ban "the chemical or surgical mutilation of a child" and lengthen the statute of limitations for victims of these practices. It's groundbreaking legislation, and Chloe is at the front of the movement.

"It's still so strange for me to think about the fact that I've become prominent enough for there to be federal legislation named after me," she says. "Just a few years ago I was the shy, nerdy kid in high school who could never even do group projects or present in front of class."

Chloe describes how most states currently allow only two or three years for victims of medical malpractice to take legal action. That's not nearly enough time. Chloe says trans-identifying children can develop regret "seven to 10 years after a major procedure such as surgery."

"I want this to honor every single young person who has been pushed down this path of confusion and been hurt for life. I'm very much looking forward to the day that it is signed into law and every child in America will be protected."

I get chills just listening to Chloe speak. She'll live the rest of her life with scars on her body and on her heart, but she won't be defined by old stories. Instead, pointing to "the grace of God," she's looking at a future without limits. 

"It's almost kind of paralyzing to think about the possibilities," she says. "I have had so many blessings over the years that I thought would never come to me."

She's hoping to harness her artistic talent for the masses. "I've always been sentimental about the idea of making entertainment for future generations. I would love to illustrate comics for people of all ages. I'm actually working on a book of my own right now about my story. But I also want to make a more digestible, more creative form of that as well." I tell her if she ever publishes a graphic novel, I've already mentally added myself to her preorder list. 

Chloe's just beginning to unlock her potential. But perhaps most importantly, she radiates with the kind of love she wants to share with someone else someday.

"I would love to have a family," Chloe muses. "Whether God calls me to give birth or adopt, I want my kids to grow up knowing that they are loved, and that they are beautiful the way they are."