Joel Koss is an American game developer who took medical gender transition steps as an adult for a few months. After deciding that path was not bringing fulfillment, Koss made additional changes back toward an earlier identity.
Koss appears in the 2023 anti-trans film No Way Back, about the ex-transgender movement. Koss has apologized, saying “I didn’t know what I was a part of. Informed consent saves lives.”
Background
Koss has stated “horrible things” happened as a child, adding: “Around the time I was 11 or 12 I developed anorexia nervosa. And then years later, it led me to develop a body dysmorphia, which I falsely, wrongly attributed to being gender dysphoria.” According to Koss:
Ever since I was young, since I could remember, I have had an issue with my identity, mostly the way that I looked, talked, dressed. I think I got into my head growing up I would be happier if I was a woman, I’d be more satisfied with myself if I was a woman, I would love myself more if I was a different person.
I just know like how truly easy it is for you to go and get treatment if you live in an area with informed consent treatment. I literally made an appointment with the doctors office in Chicago. I live in Indiana. So I drove up to Chicago. I went to the doctor’s appointment that I had set up for two weeks prior. It was very quick. And then that day I received estrogen. There was definitely a honeymoon phase. In the beginning of hormone therapy, everything felt great. My body felt great. My mind felt clear. I was also becoming an Internet influencer pretty quickly.
Koss documented the transition on social media.
I am five months on hormones… about 5 1/2 months. And since my last update, there have been a lot of changes. So as many of you know, I take estrogen shots. But this one is particularly important. As I put this into my body., I will be six months on estrogen. Sometimes you never think that the things that you in life that you want are going to happen fully.
Three months later, Koss felt differently:
It turned out to make me more dysphoric. It turned out to make me uncomfortable. The more it happened to my body, the scareder I got. And I came to the realization that I don’t feel like I’m actually transgender. It’s a hell of a realization to have.
Koss soon gave additional updates:
What’s up my beautiful people? How are we doing today? If you’ve been around my channel for a minute, than you know that I am male to female to male. So I went through transition, and then, after about nine months, I came to the realization that, I am not transgender.
In July 2020 I started realizing that hormone therapy was no longer having a satisfactory effect on my mental health and my physical health. But now at this point in time, I had a lot of social media followers, people that looked up to me and made me feel like I was important to them. And I felt like I couldn’t go back. And that the only option was to just keep pushing forward, which led me to spiral into a state of depression and being admitted to a psychiatric hospital.
Response to No Way Back
Koss appears in the 2023 anti-trans film No Way Back and is credited as “Joel Kass” in some promotional materials. In April 2023, Koss posted:
I was interviewed for this documentary. I was actually used quite a bit for the documentary. I was told that it would shine a positive light on informed consent. And it did not. […] The full interview and testimony of my experiences that I gave was chopped up into little bits and sprinkled throughout the documentary, not fully reflecting my actual views and thoughts on transgender healthcare. I apologize, and I hope that it did no damage. I would hate to think that something I was a part of could be viewed by a legislator and impractically influence thought-making, decision-making processes, or just scare the shit out of parents of trans kids that come out to them. As always, every single one of you has my love and my support.
Koss later added:
I am an advocate for trans rights, trans healthcare, everything to do with basic equality. I was approached by the director about April of last year. And when I asked about the scope of and the impact of the film, I was told it was going to be a positive film about informed consent. I was told that it was going to take an ethical and responsible perspective of getting proper mental healthcare before informed consent in terms of trans teens and not full-grown adults. I don’t know if I can take legal action because I signed a release. I gave very thoughtful, ethical, correct responses to interview questions, and every single thing I said was taken out of context, cut all apart, piecemealed into something that served the agenda of another party entirely. So I apologize. I didn’t know what I was a part of. I didn’t know what was being done. Informed consent saves lives. That’s it. […] I hope I did nothing damaging, and I that I can be forgiven.
References
Cormier, Alline (February 23, 2023). ‘Affirmation Generation’ tells truths about ‘trans youth’ the media won’t touch. Feminist Current https://www.feministcurrent.com/2023/02/23/affirmation-generation-tells-truths-about-trans-youth-the-media-wont-touch/
Factora, James (June 20, 2023) AMC Canceled Screenings of an Anti-Trans Documentary After Backlash. them. https://www.them.us/story/amc-theatres-no-way-back-documentary
Resources
Instagram (instagram.com)
TikTok (tiktok.com)