Anderson Cooper is being criticized for
interviewing a transgender woman who claims an anti-baldness drug
caused her to question her gender.
Mandi appeared Thursday on Anderson
Live, and told Cooper that Finasteride caused her to become
transgender.
Mandi said she had never questioned her
gender before taking the drug.
“No. I had never worn a piece of
women's clothing. … I had questioned my sexuality a little bit
when I was younger. I did have an uncle who was gay. And when I was
younger I thought maybe … I questioned if I was bisexual,” she
said.
She later called the experience “a
life and death struggle.”
“I went into severe depression. By
the time I got to 2011, you know, my marriage had ended, I was living
alone. I was having physical feminization symptoms in my body –
breast growth, you know, other symptoms like that. And emotionally I
was having female type feelings as well. It stressed me out to no
end.” (The video is embedded on this page. Visit
our video library for more videos.)
The National Center for Transgender
Equality criticized the show for airing the segment, calling it
“sensationalist.”
“In the past, Anderson Cooper and his
team have earned a great deal of respect from trans people for their
coverage of our issues,” Mara Keisling, executive director of the
group, said in a statement. “Tomorrow, they'll throw all of that
away. Worst of all, they seem set on misinforming the public about
the causality of trans identity.”