Elle Palmer, who identified as a transgender man through most of her teen years before detransitioning to her biological, female gender, told The Tennessee Star that early experiences with mental health treatments are “absolutely” a “risk factor” for a desire to transition genders later in life.
In an interview conducted after Palmer traveled to Washington, D.C. to support Tennessee’s law banning transgender treatments for minors, she told The Star that she had a psychiatrist by the time she was 11, and said, “I absolutely think it’s a risk factor for transition.”
Relating her experiences to biographical information about Audrey Elizabeth Hale, the Covenant School attacker who identified as a transgender man named Aiden, and was a 22-year mental health patient, when she killed six at the Nashville elementary school on March 27, 2023, Palmer said her own history with mental health treatments conditioned her to look for medical solutions to her problems.
“A big thing that I felt when I was going through puberty… I ended up feeling like there was just something inherently wrong with me and I couldn’t fix it,” Palmer told The Star. “I had to take medication, or see a doctor, or go to therapy, and eventually that feeling led to me attributing it to being a boy, and that’s why I never felt quite right.”
She stated, “That is the reasoning that I told my parents when I came out as trans. I said, this is why I’ve never fit in. This is why I have never felt right. This is what’s been wrong with me the whole time. And as soon as I can transition, it’ll feel better.”
While Palmer began identifying as non-binary at 14, then started to present as a transgender man the next year, the 25-year-old told The Star that she detransitioned to her biological gender after just one week of college, when she was 19.
“I know a lot of detransitioners,” said Palmer. “There are definitely common threads among all of us, and in my opinion, the most common thread for females transitioning is sexual abuse; it’s the most significant risk factor, I think. But the second most common reason, I believe, is mental health because there could be so many reasons, but from what I’ve seen, it’s like getting placed in a category where ‘there’s all this stuff wrong with you.’”
Palmer told The Star that young people who are familiar with psychiatric treatments may view gender transition as a “one size fits all solution” to their problems.
“It’s almost like a placebo, like it feels like it’s the cure.” Palmer added, “For some people it is, and then it goes away eventually, when you realize that there was other stuff going on.”
There is no evidence Hale was sexually abused in the materials obtained by The Star in June, including both the killer’s 2023 journal and a portion of the investigative documents, but the killer’s writings and police reports indicate she was treated by multiple psychiatric professionals from the age of six until her death at 28.
More than 900 pages of Hale’s writings have yet to be released amid pending litigation against Metro Nashville and the FBI from Michael Patrick Leahy, the Editor-in-Chief of The Star, and Star News Digital Media Inc. (SNDM), which owns and operates The Star.
Leahy and SNDM recently invited the Department of Justice and FBI to drop their opposition to their release, citing the incoming Trump administration.
They additionally appealed the July 4 decision by Tennessee Chancery Court Judge I’Ashea L. Myles, who decided that not one page of the manifesto will be released, citing intellectual property claims from the parents of Covenant students, and that investigative documents related to the case will not be released until investigators finish their work. Metro Nashville Police Department recently told The Star it has no firm date to complete the investigation.
After publishing about 50 articles revealing the contents of Hale’s writings, The Star published the full manifesto in September.
– – –
Tom Pappert is the lead reporter for The Tennessee Star, and also reports for The Pennsylvania Daily Star and The Arizona Sun Times. Follow Tom on X/Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
Image “Elle Palmer” by Elle Palmer.
