Transgender Surgery Equates to ‘Living a Lie,’ Judge Is Told

LITTLE ROCK, Ark.—Laura Smalts, a 40-year-old newlywed with long, wavy brunette hair, beams when she talks about her husband of seven months.
But Smalts’ brow furrows and she looks down when recounting the years she spent as “Jake,” her transgender alter ego. Jake sported a beard after testosterone injections and a masculine-looking chest after a double mastectomy.
“I wanted to be a man and really erase the existence of Laura,” Smalts told a federal judge who will decide the fate of an Arkansas law forbidding minors from undergoing “gender-transition” medical procedures.
Smalts now counts herself among the growing number of “detransitioners” who disavow their former transgender identities. She and another detransitioner testified on Nov. 30 in district court in Little Rock, Ark., to support the Save Adolescents From Experimentation (SAFE) Act….