A few months ago, my teenage daughter stopped trying to “pass” as male. She dropped the self-defined-as-male uniform (emphasis on SELF), the stereotyped swagger and the fake-deepened voice and —moved on. Her fervent desire to be seen and treated as a boy (as opposed to a gender-atypical girl) faded away, just as other formerly unshakable ideas and urges had in the past. And our relationship has never been better.
Although I’ve allowed myself to exhale, just a little, she will remain at risk, because every sector of society—the media, the government, the schools, medicine and psychology–is now saturated with the message that if you’re a “gender nonconforming” girl–one who prefers the clothing, activities, and hairstyle more typical of the opposite sex– you just might actually be a boy.
What did I, and the other adults who love her, do? It hasn’t been easy. In fact, for a time it was a living hell, a purgatory of slammed doors, stony silence, yelling matches, and mostly—waiting.
There was no magic answer. We rode it out. I learned something about keeping my mouth shut. About saying my piece and then leaving it be. About living with uncertainty. We didn’t cater to demands for instant gratification. We paid for and encouraged activities that would get her out into nature and off the Internet. Mostly, we waited.
I drew a clear line in the sand: There would be no money to pay for a gender therapist, testosterone, or a binder. If she wanted to pursue those things at the age of medical majority, that would be her choice—and it would be on her dime. At the same time, I let her know that her clothing and hairstyle choices were hers to make. Further: I purchased the “men’s” clothing (including underwear), paid for the haircuts, supported all the other stuff she wanted to do or wear that is more “male typical.” Not always successfully, I tried to calmly and sparingly convey the message that however she dressed, whatever interests she pursued, she was a female—perhaps an unusual one, but a young woman nevertheless, who might someday become a role model to show other girls just how amazing and truly “gender-expansive” a woman can be.
Like many who read this blog, I phoned gender therapists during the weeks after her announcement that she was trans. Without even meeting my child in the flesh, all four of these therapists talked to me like this trans thing was a done deal. I wrote about one of those conversations here. One very friendly therapist, an FTM whose website stressed commitment to “informed consent,” assured me that there was no need for my daughter to first experience a sexual or romantic relationship before deciding whether she was trans. “Most of the young people just skip that step now,” the therapist said.
Skip that step? I thought back to my own adolescence. I didn’t even begin to have a clear idea of who I was, as a sexual being, until after I’d had more than one relationship. It took years for me to come to know my body’s nuances and intricacies, its capacity for pleasure, how I might feel in relation to another. [Update: for lesbian youth in particular, this process can be a long one, on average not complete until one’s early 20s]
This same therapist signed my kid up for a “trans teen” support group scheduled for the following week—again, without ever having met her. “There’s nothing you or I can do about your daughter being trans,” said another therapist… on the phone, without having met my kid. Yet another therapist refused to talk to me at all; insisted she’d have to have a private appointment with my kid first.
Contrary to the myth promulgated by the transition promoters, at least in the United States, there is no slow and careful assessment of these kids who profess to be trans. The trend is to kick out the gatekeepers, and move towards a simple model of “informed consent”: If you say you’re trans, you are–no matter how young and no matter when you “realized” you were trans.
All these therapists seemed well meaning enough. They believed they were doing the correct thing. But with each conversation, I felt more and more uneasy. My gut feeling that something wasn’t right led me to research, to question…to put the brakes on. And the more I read, and thought, and understood, the more determined I became to find an alternative. I started this blog out of sheer desperation. I needed to find someone, anyone, who understood what I was going through. I needed other parents to talk to—badly.
My kid never did go to a gender therapist. Never did sit in a room full of “trans teens.” If she had, I feel certain she’d be sporting a beard right now.
When I first started blogging, I got a lot of hate mail. In every anonymous drive-by comment, the hater referred to my “son” who would grow up to hate my guts. “He” would surely commit suicide, and more than one of them wished me a lifetime of misery when that inevitably happened. Even the mildest posts resulted in hostile reblogs from strangers who had not the slightest idea of my family’s situation.
At first, these anonymous barbs stung, but it didn’t take long for me to realize that I could rely on my inner parental compass. Because, see, I know my daughter. I knew, when she suddenly began spouting the gender-policed jargon planted in her head by Tumblr trans activists, that this wasn’t who she really was. This was a girl who, all through childhood, was never “gender conforming” but who was secure in herself because I’d made sure she knew, via my words and my example, that girls could be and do anything.
Most of all, I knew she needed me—not to blindly “support” and give in to her every demand, but to simply BE THERE, even as a limit; a steady place she could push and rail against. It was scary, and painful, being on the receiving end of teen outrage. Because a teenager does have the right to make some of their own decisions. Later adolescence is a time of individuation, dawning adulthood. Haranguing or lecturing not only gets you nowhere, it isn’t fair. Negotiation is probably the most important parenting skill when it comes to high-school-aged youth. And no parent gets it right all the time. (Paradoxically, part of being a halfway decent parent is knowing how imperfect you are at the job.) But one thing became more and more clear to me: my child did not need a parent who would collaborate in sending her down a road to being a permanent medical patient. In fact, she needed protection from the very same people who were sending me hate mail on Tumblr.
Not so long ago, child and adolescent psychologists—people who actually study the development of young human beings—were frequently cited and quoted. These experts, as well as every other rational adult, were well aware that kids shift identities: try this one on, shed it like a snake skin, try on another. Younger kids go through a long and wonderful period of make believe and magical thinking. They are actually convinced they ARE the identity they try on. And adolescents are renowned for trying on hairstyles, belief systems, clothing styles—only to discard them after a few weeks, months, or maybe even years.
In contrast to today’s social-media-fueled paradigm, when a kid’s announcement that they are the opposite sex is taken at face value by seemingly everyone around them, it was previously understood that adults were largely responsible for the inculcation of gender stereotypes into children’s minds. Children aren’t born hating their sexed bodies. They only grow to reject themselves when someone they look up to promotes the idea that their likes and dislikes in clothing, toys, activities, or other pursuits are seen as incongruent with their natal sex.
A child’s burgeoning sense of self, or self-concept, is a result of the multitude of ideas, attitudes, behaviors, and beliefs that he or she is exposed to. The information that surrounds the child and which the child internalizes comes to the child within the family arena through parent-child interactions, role modeling, reinforcement for desired behaviors, and parental approval or disapproval (Santrock, 1994). As children move into the larger world of friends and school, many of their ideas and beliefs are reinforced by those around them. A further reinforcement of acceptable and appropriate behavior is shown to children through the media, in particular, television. Through all these socialization agents, children learn gender stereotyped behavior. As children develop, these gender stereotypes become firmly entrenched beliefs and thus, are a part of the child’s self-concept.
… Often, parents give subtle messages regarding gender and what is acceptable for each gender – messages that are internalized by the developing child (Arliss, 1991). Sex role stereotypes are well established in early childhood. Messages about what is appropriate based on gender are so strong that even when children are exposed to different attitudes and experiences, they will revert to stereotyped choices (Haslett, Geis, & Carter, 1992).
We have people like this: the mother of a six-year-old girl who has “transitioned” to male, writing storybooks to indoctrinate kindergartners. To suggest to them that they, too, might really be the opposite sex:
“Can the doctor have made a mistake? Was I supposed to have been born a boy? Am I the only kid in the world like this?”
Deep down, Jo Hirst had been anticipating these questions. And she knew she had to get the answers right.
It was bedtime, and her six-year-old was curled up on her lap. Assigned female at birth, from 18 months of age Hirst’s son* had never wanted to wear female clothing and always played with boys.
I challenge anyone to find me a single account of a “transgender child” which does NOT resort to talking about toys, hairstyle, clothing, or play stereotypes to justify the diagnosis of “trans” in a young child.
Our kids are being cheated of the opportunity, the breathing space, to simply explore who they are without a gaggle of adults jumping in to interfere with the process by “validating” their frequently transient identities. Kids are being encouraged to freeze their sense of self in a moment in time, during the period of life when everything is in flux. And even though key researchers have said over and over again that most gender dysphoric kids “desist” and grow up to be gay or lesbian; even though the latest research denies any such thing as a “male” or “female” brain, parents are encouraged to socially transition their kids, put them on “puberty blockers,” and refer to them by “preferred pronouns.”
For very young children, this cementing of the child’s identity in a period when they most need the freedom to simply play and explore—to “make believe”—is essentially stunting the child’s development.
Young children go through a stage where it is difficult for them to distinguish reality from fantasy. Among many other things, it’s why we have ratings on films. A young child can’t understand that the monster onscreen is not real.
Research indicates that children begin to learn the difference between fantasy and reality between the ages of 3 and 5 (University of Texas, 2006). However, in various contexts, situations, or individual circumstances, children may still have difficulty discerning the difference between fantasy and reality as old as age 8 or 9, and even through age 11 or 12. For some children this tendency may be stronger than with others.
Just exactly what is motivating doctors and psychologists to jettison decades of research and clinical practice in favor of a completely unsubstantiated and unproven hypothesis of “transgender from birth”? The glib answer is: suicide. But if a gender nonconforming youth expresses the desire to self harm, encouraging that youth to further dissociate from their whole selves (because the body and mind, contrary to the bleating of trans activists, are not separate units, but a whole) is not a responsible way to support mental health. As this commenter said in a recent post on GenderTrender:
Wow. Conservatives aren’t the only ones who suck at science. Brain sex? Seriously? If you’re allegedly born in the wrong body, why doesn’t your brain count as part of the “wrong body”? Your brain is telling the truth but the rest of your body is a liar? Wtf? This shit is as sensible as scientology.
Teens often pick up on cues and assimilate ideas presented in movies/films viewed in the movie theater and other sources, (online sources for watching movies now eclipse movie theater viewings or film DVD rentals for teens), and while teens already understand the difference between fantasy and reality, they may still absorb or become attached to ideas that are powerfully presented in films but that have no basis in reality, the teen not having enough experience or knowledge to sort propaganda from fact, fiction from reality. Films, television programs, music and statements from celebrities can [and do] become a part of the thinking and emotional/psychological makeup of teens and children.
This used to be a “duh” thing. Are teens influenced by what they imbibe, what’s in fashion, what celebrities (like Jazz Jennings and Caitlyn Jenner and Laverne Cox) are doing, what their peers are saying and doing? Might socially isolated teens be even more swayed by what they see on social media, while they sit for hours, alone in their rooms?
“Facebook depression,” defined as emotional disturbance that develops when preteens and teens spend a great deal of time on social media sites, is now a very real malady. Recent studies have shown that comparisons are the main cause of Facebook depression; the study showed that down-comparison (comparing with inferiors) was just as likely to cause depression as up-comparison (comparing with people better than oneself).
…Other risks of extensive social networking among youth are loss of privacy, sharing too much information, and disconnect from reality.
My daughter, like so many others I’ve now heard about, emerged from months of self-imposed social isolation and YouTube/Reddit binges, to announce, out of the blue, that she was transgender. And simply for questioning this, for refusing to hop aboard the train, I’ve been labeled a “child abuser” of my “son”? Until the last few years, parents who recognized that teens go through phases weren’t considered abusive. They were considered well informed.
Not so long ago, parents and helping professionals neither interfered with nor bolstered a particular identity that a kid was trying on. Everyone understood this was an important part of growing up: to allow our young to experiment, to see what worked and what didn’t. It’s called the development of a self. It takes years. It’s not even complete at 21. The self doesn’t emerge, fully formed and immutable at birth. It develops in response to experience, to love, and to adversity.
Given my own daughter’s desistence from the idea that she is or was ever “transgender,” I feel even more strongly that parents are right to resist the push by every sector of society to identify “gender dysphoric” minors as “trans.” Yes, some of these young people may go on to identify as the opposite sex; some will seek medical transition. But what the current atmosphere has done is rob them of the crucial time they need to figure it all out. Medical transition was once a rare, adult-only decision. I’m in favor of a return to that more reasonable approach to the matter.
So you bet I’m going to keep doing what I can to support parents who want to at least delay an adolescent’s decision to permanently alter body and mind with hormones and surgeries. You bet I’m going to try to save my own kid from what amounts to a cult that won’t let you leave if you change your mind, without serious social consequences. You bet I’m going to continue to protect my daughter and others like her from a lifetime of difficulty, from the rapacious medical industry that is profiting from the regressive resurgence and marketing of gender stereotypes.
You can also bet that I’m going to continue shedding light on the frankly insane practice of labeling very young children as transgender, conditioning them as preschoolers to believe their own bodies are somehow wrong and alien, that they must undergo teasing and torment from other children, that they must wear prosthetics to amplify or hide their own genitalia to be accepted as they are. Or just as bad: That the entire world must be browbeaten into redefining biological reality such that “some girls have penises” and “some boys have vaginas.”
And this work is not just about protecting kids. It’s also about supporting family members and friends who are deeply affected by the transgender narrative. Extremist trans activists, the media, the doctors and psychiatrists–none of them talk about the terrible damage done to the family system, to the fabric of close relationships, when a child “transitions.” All the activists have to say is that the skeptical parents and loved ones are “transphobes.” No one talks about the fact that the majority of these dysphoric kids would grow up to be gay or lesbian adults if not interfered with; adults with healthy, intact bodies, not dependent on drugs and carved up by surgeons’ knives.
So we have to keep talking about it. We have to keep the lights on in our corner of the Internet, even if only to document this strange medical and cultural fad for future historians.
Thanks to everyone who is traveling this road with me. While I know we often feel swamped and hopeless, we have each other for strength and courage. And for now, that will have to be enough.
Oh my God. I cant tell you how thankful I am to have found your blog. My 13 year old daughter decided she was trans two days ago, completely out of the blue. I have spent the last two days crying and wondering what I can do. I was going to take her to a gender therapist but after reading this, I cancelled the appointment. Not that I want to dismiss it as a phase but I know my child and this is not her. Is therea way to gently tell her I will not use proper pronouns right now? What about limiting Web access? Should I stop that?
Thanks for giving me hope!
I’m sorry you are here with us. I suggest that if you want to take your daughter to a therapist, you choose one who works with teens but is NOT a gender specialist. You absolutely need to meet with the therapist first to make sure he or she will help your child with what is causing her to feel this way and not push her to transition.
I think that every child is different, but in my case I would not use preferred pronouns (and I was never asked to do so). I have been trying to buy time to give my daughter a chance to mature and have some life experiences before doing anything radical. It has worked so far.
I think a lot of parents have limited web access and that has helped. But once again, I think it depends on the kid. It would have backfired for my kid because she would have dug her heels in more. Instead we encouraged activities that she enjoyed that would get her away from that online environment. She has found a place where she fits in as a female and that has helped her feel better about herself. She also sees a therapist who is not anti-trans, but is encouraging her to explore all of the different ways to be a woman.
You let your SON be HIMSELF, that’s what you do. You support your child no matter what. You are not your child, so you have no right to tell them who they are. Otherwise, you don’t really love your child, you just hate that they’re something you don’t want.
Obviously you’re new here. Spend some time reading posts and comments if you want to have another of your comments approved for publication. This is your only warning. We won’t be cowed by your demands to abandon our common sense, critical thinking–and most of all, our love for our kids–something you have zero understanding about, Internet stranger.
The big problem is that a lot of people are seeing their child a certain way only. When their child tells them something else it seems to have a rather bad reaction. At least that’s what I could gather reading all these comments.
If that is what you got from the comments, that is really unfortunate. What you should have been able to get, is the fact that kids try on, and discard, a number of identities as they mature and figure out who they are. Parents know this, having been there, and done that. The adults here are trying to protect their kids from being lifelong medical patients and trying to help their kids find peace with something they can not change— their biological sex. It is amazing that this young generation thinks that pretending something makes it so. Not only that, but they think everyone else owes it to them to play along. Talk about entitlement! Do you know that most adults are either snickering at, or feeling sorry for, the dude in a dress who thinks he passes for a woman? Or the 5’3″ chick on T who thinks she is one of the guys? Everyone else can see how delusional they are! No one over 25 seriously thinks a man is female or vice versa. It is just silly.
I’m so grateful to find some sanity here. If not for these other parents I would be lost in despair . Let’s keep talking and make sure our voices are heard
So, becklionden, does that mean you accept that their children could also not be transgender? Is there some reason you will support that narrative, but not a child who changes their mind later, and realizes they were mistaken?
I want every person to not have to go through there lives barely tolerating themselves. If someone realizes that they are in fact happier using the pronouns, and name given at birth, or take pride in certain biological features they scorned before. I’m happy that they found peace. Not all can though and you can’t ignore that.
unfortunately lovetruthcorage just proved my point.
What point? The person’s daughter claimed to be trans just 2 days ago and you are already declaring her to be a boy?! So, you are steering her, and you know zero about her. I think you proved my point about the immaturity of your age group, and about why kids can’t handle making adult decisions. Heck, your brain won’t finish developing until your mid-20s. The last area to develop? The area dealing with higher decision making, being able to see the long-term consequences of your actions, and understanding nuance. Point made!
Cit the so called “sanity” you found in lovetruthcourage’s post is actually transphobia.
I know, I know…..when there’s nothing else to hold on to just grab the transphobia card.
No, I do not fear transpeople, which is the definition of transphobia. I simply do not subscribe to their cultish, faddish ideology. It doesn’t matter what your “gender identity” is. What matters is material reality. People treat you the way they do based on your biology, not your identity. The rest of the world is looking at your sex only. That’s the way it is. Remember the Pet Rock? Trans is the new Pet Rock!
They literally just said there’s no such thing as transgender people. That’s transphobic.
The reality of human biology is transphobic. Girls aren’t boys; boys aren’t girls, nor can either become the other. As transphobic as that may be, it is reality.
I’m confused about what makes someone biologically a girl or a boy. After all genitals, hormones, height, and fertility are rather poor indicators. Which is where self awareness comes in.
“I’m confused about what makes someone biologically a girl or a boy.”
No, you’re not. No one is, no matter how much they pretend otherwise for the sake of satisfying their ideology and the present fad. Most intersex people are not even confused about whether they’re biologically a boy or a girl.
“After all genitals, hormones, height, and fertility are rather poor indicators.”
Genitals are excellent indicators of sex. You know this. Everyone knows this. In the few instances genitals are not perfect indicators of sex, CHROMOSOMES are used to identify it, not any of the other things you mentioned. Sex is straightforward, and reality-based. “Identity” is based on nothing, certainly far less than the confirmation of genitals and chromosomes. It is magical thinking.
“Which is where self awareness comes in.”
I hope there will come a day when self-awareness is more popular among teenagers and some of the parents of teenagers. This fad, however, is not it.
Oh how silly of me. I forgot that everyone has the same exact vagina or penis and there are never any variations. Ever. Otherwise something like someone having a 7 inch penis rather than an 8 in would be impossible. Or would you say that it would make them intersex?
Becklionden, that is a ridiculously offensive way to characterize people with intersex conditions. They have legitimate health problems that can result in infertility, difficulty urinating, osteoporosis, tumors, etc, and experiences of medical abuse. Some of these conditions are life-threatening. Minor variations in genital appearance do not make someone with a penis “confused” about whether or not they’re a boy, and ditto with a girl. The only purpose I can see for your comment is an attempt to shame people for having atypical genital, and lead them to question their biological sex if they don’t meet some arbitrary(and imaginary) standard of the ‘perfect sexed body’.
If you bothered to look at what I was saying you would know intersex people weren’t who I was talking about. What I was trying to show is how silly it is to try and put 7 billion plus people into two undefined boxes. I would really like a list of what makes up one of those boxes becuase if your going to force people into it I want a list of rules and definitions. Truthfully I was raised to believe feminists were united to overthrow the mentality that someone’s worth was based solely on their dangly bits but I guess I’ve been hanging out with the wrong ones. You know, the feminists who have been called a “fad” or “trend” for years. Can’t wait to tell them people think the dream of equality for everyone regardless of genitals is on par with the pet rock.
If “dangly bits” aren’t important, no reason for all these young people to alter their perfectly healthy bodies, eh? The only ones assigning “worth” to a person based on their “dangly bits” are the activists and gender docs (most of whom have KEPT their dangly bits, thank you very much) who think young people ought to be encouraged to think there is something fundamentally wrong with theirs. While you may think your comments are somehow winning an argument based on logic and science, I expect most readers will think otherwise. But carry on.
Biological sex is not 2 “undefined boxes.” Perhaps if you sincerely want to know what makes men male and women female, you can do what I did— earn a PhD. I studied (among other things) higher mathematics, biology, biochemistry, anatomy and physiology with human cadaver lab, genetics, and all types of chemistry (general, organic, inorganic, analytical, instrumentation, computational, physical, and theoretical)! I did original, peer-reviewed research, worked for a major metro crime lab, helped earn patents, and worked as a scientist with a number of major international companies. Biological sex really isn’t that complicated. It serves a clear function in perpetuating the species. 99.9+-99.99% of humanity clearly falls into one category or the other, from the POV of biology. Chromosomes and genitalia are the most important determinants of biological sex. Yes, intersex people exist, just as people born without limbs exist, but they are far from the norm, and they do not prove anything about transgender— a completely different issue! I’ll bet you $1000 that if we test your DNA right now, you will be either XX or XY, and not some exotic variation. Intersex people do not like to be appropriated, used, and shamelessly abused for your SJW agenda. How utterly appalling to shamelessly abuse people with birth defects like you do!
Further, your analogy with, and understanding of, feminism is laughable. You really should seek to educate yourself more than comment. You have much to learn. The goal of feminism is women’s liberation from a system of oppression called patriarchy. Historically women have been oppressed based on their biology (not their “gender identity.”) Women are oppressed based on reality, not identity. They can not opt-out. It is true that feminists do not think that people’s worth is “based on their dangly bits.” However, that does not mean that they are science-deniers like you. It is possible to acknowledge differences, without oppressing one group, and favoring the other. Your error of thinking that the goal of feminism is “equality” is a common one. The goal of feminism is women’s liberation. It is self-determination for women. Here is an example, if you deny everyone access to birth control and abortion, regardless of biological sex, you are treating everyone equally (with “equality.”) However, denying these things will affect one sex (women) much more than the other. Having unwanted children directly impacts women’s agency and self-determination. Feminists want to abolish patriarchy, not add additional “boxes.”
PLEASE try studying these topics before commenting further. Feminism is nothing new. It is not comparable to a Pet Rock, unlike the new transgender fad. Why do you think that there has been a huge explosion of young people “identifying” as the opposite sex only since the internet age? Why do you think they have only discovered that they are supposedly “transgender” after bingeing on Reddit, YouTube, and other social media, or after falling into a crowd of people where others claim trans status? It is called “social contagion” and it is a well-documented phenomena. This is like the “Sorrows of Young Wuerther” for the new generation. Obviously, these confused kids (you?) are looking for a place to fit in. They are trying to find their “tribe.” Wanting to belong to a “tribe” is nothing new! However, the expression of that as “transgender” is. When these confused kids mature, they will move on from this fad. Feminism is not a fad. I was a feminist before you were born (guaranteed!) and I am one now.
4thwavenow. There is no winning an argument against a brick as my mom says. Doesn’t mean I’m going to stop trying to make at least one person understand. If i give up I’m telling every transgender person who has been assaulted, murdered, or forced to commit sucide by others who refused to listen that their life doesn’t matter.
You aren’t “arguing”—you are attempting to badger into submission this community of well-informed thinkers, using the same blunt weapon of post-modern, ideological nonsense that no longer intimidates us. No one here has come close to suggesting that any person, trans-identified or not, has a life that “doesn’t matter.” We don’t accept responsibility, as you want us to, for heinous crimes against anyone, trans or not. And it was only a matter of time before you tried to wield the weapon of suicidality.
Throughout history, gender defiant women and men have existed and thrived, without need of a modern medical industry intent on convincing them that lifelong chemical and surgical intervention is preferable to living boldly and fully in their un-meddled-with bodies. Those people, whom transgender activists wrongly claim as their own after death, literally embodied the promise of human diversity. There were not mass suicides among people who rejected sex stereotypes—because there weren’t trans activists screaming “Medical transition or suicide!!” from the ubiquitous pulpit of the Internet. If you want to continue participating here, come back after you’ve actually spent some time listening instead of preaching your Religion of Gender Identity to a group of gender atheists and agnostics.
Oh, sweetie, you are so confused. You can not help transpeople— dead or alive— with science denial. Also, no one “forces” anyone to commit suicide. That is the choice of the one choosing it. People are not obligated to listen to others. However, that is not the “cause” of suicide. Sick minds commit suicide. Suicidal people need serious psychiatric help, not “transition.” There have been plenty of times when people refused to listen to me (like you right now!) and I am not jumping into traffic! How can we help you? If it makes you feel better, everyone here believes that confused people deserve compassion and respect. We just don’t believe that confusion = being the opposite sex.
4thwavenow. I have a question for just you. Do you only read certain comments? You’ve said before that no one was mentioning the devil (believe it was in a comment to maddy) when one of the commenters said something similar to the old ‘devil has my child’ saying. And now this comment leads me to believe you aren’t.
I don’t read every comment word-for-word. It’s possible someone said that, but if I recall, you were trying to imply that the majority of commenters here were critical of pediatric transition because of some right-wing religious ideology. Anyone who has spent much time here at all knows that any such commenter is in the minority.
To becklionden, as far as I can tell with a search of this blog entry for the word “devil,” a commenter by the name of saintmagdelena mentioned the devil. Saintmagdelena also said she had just found this site and it was her first time posting.
Personally, I’m not sure how many people who comment on this site are religious, agnostic, atheist, or whatever. It really doesn’t matter, because as far as I can tell, commenters are not using religion as their reason for not jumping on the trans train. It appears to me that most commenters here, whether religious or not, simply accept biological reality as truth — they do not believe males can become females or females can become males. They believe chromosomes dictate our sex. They do not believe that anyone should be forced to perform gender stereotypes. They do not want to see young people, whose brains are still developing, permanently alter their bodies with chemicals and surgeries, as dictated by bad, unproven science or social pressure.
Religious, atheist, agnostic, casually involved in church, seriously pious — religion is not the focus here; religion is not what this site is about. We tend to not discuss our religious beliefs, because they simply don’t matter in the grand scheme of this topic, other than those who are religious finding comfort in their faith during this difficult time with their children.
No matter what we believe or don’t believe as far as religion goes, the focus of this site is always our commonly held belief that children should not be transitioned because it is dangerous to their health.
If you believe we are a bunch of closed-minded, far-right-wing haters, you are very much mistaken. Please do not attempt to paint us as such.
Yes, it was me. I used the phrase “the devil is alive and well.” This phrase and allusion comes from many works of literature. Grabbing onto it as a target for ridicule and disqualification in this ongoing argument strikes me as gas lighting.
It also shows a continued attack mode. Grabbing, grabbing, grabbing at anything to label and discard well meaning parents here. Shooting poisoned arrows does not help any of us. I do not see anywhere where religion has been brought seriously into this discussion as an argument against transitioning. It does not need to be. The moral medical violations are enough to generate this debate.
I come from a family of physicians. I have huge love and concern for my child. My sole intent posting on this site was to find support and advice among people who are alarmed and saddened by the doctors who prescribe testosterone and surgeries to young women without any counseling or verified background knowledge of the patient. It is wrong and many in the medical world do feel it is malpractice. I do feel their voices will begin to rise in volume and hopefully help balance this battle for our children’s health and right to make truly and completely informed choices. That’s not happening now.
Thank you, saintmagdalena, for returning and commenting further. I hope you didn’t take offense at my comment which mentioned you. I certainly didn’t mean any. I appreciate your comments here; you are a voice of reason.
4thwavenow. Appologies, that wasn’t my intention and I can see that many aren’t raising pitchforks. However the ones that are always seem to be the loudest and I have a hard time keeping myself calm when I see them. I agree that before the body is fully developed that things should be carefully considered. Pronouns are a new ballpark for a lot of parents. However I do take issue in the people that are saying that transgender people don’t exist in any form. Or that we’re too stupid to understand what we’re supposed to feel or that we are so mentally ill that we shouldn’t be listened to. I know I have a mental illness, my brain has a hard time producing the correct chemicals and needs some help from medication. I am transgender, but that doesn’t stem from my depression. The dysphoria will make it worse of course but that’s just what you learn to combat.
Understood. I honestly do not understand why anyone accuses gender-skeptical people of saying that trans people “don’t exist.” I’ll just speak for myself (though I think I speak for many). I fully understand that trans-identified people fervently believe they are the opposite sex; that they “exist” as such. I also get that you have the subjective experience that you interpret as “feeling like” or even “being” the opposite sex. I don’t see any reason to argue with someone’s internal experiences. But that doesn’t mean I don’t have a reasoned argument regarding the ideology that tells a person their feelings equate to the objective reality that sex can actually be changed. I also have no argument with the fact that people (you being one of them) experience something called dysphoria. I think the real argument and question is what to DO about dysphoria. There are now some detransitioned people speaking out publicly to suggest that perhaps transition is not necessarily the best solution for dysphoria. (See this video, for example.) While it’s now heretical to say it, I (and most people who contribute here) really believe that permanent body changes should be a last–not first–resort for people suffering from dysphoria, and that there are many causes and conditions that lead to the desire to transition. Thanks for returning here with a reasoned reply. I wish you no harm–and I don’t think anyone else here does, either. There’s a difference between stringently arguing against **ideas** and **beliefs** and wishing harm on other people. That difference–and the freedom to disagree with gusto–is a bedrock foundation of civilized, democratic societies–and it is something to be treasured, not squelched.
Extremely well said!
How do you know that your transgender identity is not a manifestation of your depression? I hope you find peace. You deserve happiness.
Suicidal people need serious psychiatric help –lovetruthcourage
I don’t think this is always true. Psychiatric treatments may help some suicidal people and in certain cases they may be the only thing that can help them. But not everyone who considers or even attempts suicide is mentally ill. It can be a response to societal, community and/or family pressures.
I speak this feelingly. More than forty years ago I was a teenage lesbian. I internalised the social message that suicide was what I was supposed to do with myself. I made an attempt but changed my mind in the middle.
I am very glad I found it in myself to go on living. I am also extremely glad that I never fell into the hands of the psychiatric profession, to be incarcerated and treated with drugs that numb the emotions, electro-shock treatment that destroys the brain, and aversion therapies that killed desire.
———
Of course, you are absolutely right that becklionden’s assiduous parroting of the SJW line on transgenderism will do nothing to help any depressed or suicidal person.
Suicidal people DO need serious psychiatric help! The flaw in your reply is that you are imaging that the only help available is being mercilessly drugged into submission and institutionalized. While suicidal patients should be confined while in active suicidal ideology for their own safety, there are other treatments for less active, non-acute suicidal ideology. The most important option is talk therapy with a counselor who “gets” the patient and truly cares. It may include support groups. Perhaps 40 yrs ago, a support group with other lesbians may have been useful to you, and even if not, it is useful to many. It helps to see that one is NOT alone! Another flaw in your reply is assuming that psychiatric issues = crazy. Psych problems are a broader category and can include things as simple as suffering from insomnia. Most people with psych problems aren’t “crazy” per se. Contemplating (and certainly attempting!) suicide is serious business and needs immediate treatment! Our society owes it to those suffering with suicidal ideology to offer help. Maybe you didn’t kill yourself, but many do. Therefore, all attempts should be taken seriously. I have lost people I know to suicide. It is not a game, and it should certainly not be used as an means to a political end!
becklionden, I withdraw my remark about ‘parroting the SJW line on transgenderism’. I had imagined you were an SJW making a display of ‘politically correct’ thinking but I see from one of your more recent posts that your involvement with these issues is personal and deeply felt.
Just because one is actively involved in transgenderism does not preclude them from parroting SJW punchlines. I swear there is a manual, or something, that they give to these people. They ALL say the exact same stuff! Yes, those of us who aren’t new to the topic have heard it all before!
lovetruthcourage, we can, at least, agree on this: ‘[Suicide] is not a game, and it should certainly not be used as an means to a political end!’ No, indeed.
I am sorry to hear that you have lost people to suicide.
For the rest of your comment, I shall invoke what 4thwave, elsewhere in this comment thread, has called ‘the freedom to disagree’, and leave it there.
I, too, am SO glad to have found this blog!!!! I’m 4 years into the trans gender issues with my daughter, in addition to high IQ & autism spectrum issues, 4 years ago we went thru cutting, then binding her breasts with DIY stuff, dressing “as a dude” , looking male, lowering the voice, announcing bi sexual, then pan sexual, and most recently asking me to support her getting testosterone shots. Took all of in stride the best I could until the hormone request when I said I couldn’t support that. It is heartbreaking to see her hate her body and self! Trying to give it time and wait, so reading your blog drove me to sobs. She’s in her second week of college now out of state. I pray she will come to love herself. Grateful is an understatement about how I feel to have found this place. Thank you for starting this. <3
The more I read the more I wonder if high IQ and autism spectrum issues somehow affects someone in relation to how they perceive themselves. My daughter is 19 and in her second year of college. I found out via her phone about a year ago that she was hiding something from me and it was that she is transgender. She also has a high IQ and was diagnosed with aspergers earlier this year. She has talked of getting a mastectomy and I am beside myself!! It’s great to know there are other parents out there who are going through the same things as me and have the same feelings. Why therapists refuse to help people like her accept and feel comfortable in their bodies is beyond me. That’s basically what it comes down to in my opinion…..they are uncomfortable with their bodies. It’s comparable to anorexia is a lot of respect but we don’t tell anorexics it’s ok to emaciate themselves so why do we tell people who identify as transgender it’s ok to get a mastectomy or get genital surgery? Makes no sense to me.
It’s really too much for me! My daughter said she’d have surgery once they change insurance laws or she saves the money.
Kills me.
I cannot even speak w her bc she seems to go deeper into this each time I do even without my saying anything.
I have not even seen her this year.
She lives in an alternate world from me. I cannot say she is a he when she is a she.
How is that right?
I totally understand how you feel. My daughter doesn’t want to hear anything I have to say on the subject. She knows I’m struggling with it and that I can’t understand her perspective based on how she was growing up and how she reacts in different situations (totally not male) and she refuses to even consider mine. Her insurance won’t cover a mastectomy either thank God! It scares me to death! Fortunately I still see her but I’m ashamed that it kills me to see her in a binder and wearing mens clothing. I asked her to wear a sports bra to make it easier on me but she refuses. Our relationship has definitely suffered. She’s my kid and I love her no matter what but it is difficult to watch. I refer to her as she and always will. She’s my baby girl and always will be. That CAN”T be changed. Why can’t the therapists see that?! I feel for you. I can at least still see my daughter. I hope that soon changes for you.
Hope it helps to know you aren’t alone.
Hello. I am a transgender male and have been for years. I need to you understand that your child being trans isn’t the end of the world. Your relationship won’t suffer if you change the pronouns and name you refer to them with. After I came out, my relationship with my mom became stronger, this was only because she supported me. I can promise you that if you don’t support your child, they will stop wanting to be around you. My mother and I bake and play cards, my friend (who is also trans but wasn’t accepted by his parents) spends every waking moment avoiding his parents, the two people who were supposed to love and respect him, but didn’t. This might not be a phase, and you need to accept it. The last thing you want is to loose the strong bond you have with your child.
There are many paths for parents and their kids to take. Some of those paths are a middle way–not full endorsement of a trans identity, but not rejection, either. The more families can dialogue about it and keep the lines of communication open, the better.
You may find this comment (which just came in at the same time as yours) of interest.
https://4thwavenow.com/about/comment-page-10/#comment-34635
I will always love my daughter. Whatever choice she makes as an adult, I will roll with. She’s only 15 and was always the quintessential princess and girly girl till we relocated and she found a new group of friends. That’s when the confusion began. First, she insisted she was gay. Then, she said she was bi, followed by pan. Now she is heterosexual again and adores the boys. But she says she’s a boy and has changed her name 3 times . My husband and will not call her by a male name. Nor will we call her a “he”. There are boundaries -just because a person is trans or thinks they are doesn’t give them carte blanche to push boundaries. My daughter is precious to me, but I’m not going along with this phase. If there were signs of her wanting to be male when she was a toddler, it would not be such a shock. My daughter goes back and forth with the makeup-but enforces the male thing around her friends.
Hayden,
Maybe you can help? My daughter just turned 18, for the last 1 1/2 years my daughter cut her hair short and is portraying herself as a male. Previous to this she was all glitter and bows. She never even wore a pair of pants her whole life until the age of 14, after peer pressure in high school. All cotton Lands end dresses, and Mary Jane shoes. It got so bad, I had to sew material onto dresses because she got too tall to wear them. She was The only girl playing soccer or horseback riding with a dress on. Also took dance for 10 years. She started changing after watching u tube video’s(Miles Chronicles) of u tubers who had anxiety, depression, and participated in self harm so they decided the answer was transition. She also has recently diagnosed Aspergars, and just had 3 psych admissions in last 6 weeks for self harm. Ever since she started portraying as a male she even more depressed. She also had some online bullying 2 years ago who made negative comments about chest. When she started this, she listed the reasons she was trans as I hate my body(tall and skinny) and hate my name. She now also hates her chest. In the last 3 years I take her for haircuts, bought her boys clothes, deodorant, bathing suits and even binders to try and be supportive. In hospital she goes by he, and a male name. We ve asked multiple times if she wants us to call her by boys name and she says no. Any thoughts?
Thank you for giving a clear view of what you have experienced with your daughter. My 15 year old son just shared with (just) me that he believes he is Trans and I am going through every thought and emotion possible as I try to find my way in supporting him the best I can. I was looking for therapists who specialize in this and your blog popped up. Now I know to be cautious in who we choose to help him to know himself better. I want to support him, but don’t want him to make choices that are irrevocable as as someone who is not an adult yet, without truly understanding himself.
We don’t live in an ideal world. If we did my life transitioning would have been so much easier. I am AMAB (asigned male at birth) and identify as NB trans fem (non-binary person who presents more fem but doesn’t identify with male or female) when i came our as trans (non-binary) when i was 13,at the time my parents had never even heard of non-binary , nobody had. But yet they assumed i was endoctrenated by the media i had consumed. they also dismissed it as a phase and i hate them for it, they didn’t support me and i had to wait till i was 18 to transition by which time my body had irriversable changes to it. when all could have been prevented by puberty blockers (which are completely reversible). It may seem out of the blue but i am sure it has been building for a very very long time .I think generally kids don’t see trans content and automatically identify with it, the majority of the time trans kids go looking for answers about how they feel, then they find people who feel the same. Those people are trans people, so the kid does research about what being trans actually is and then they realise its describing them. its not about them “turning trans” its about you child being able to express himself using the correct terms. I really hope that you allowed your child to transition and i wish you all the best.
My daughter is a beautiful, edgy, talented young woman. She went away to college and announced that she was “gender fluid”. I encouraged her to postpone labelling herself while she discovered and figured out the things she was dealing with. This girl never once claimed to be anything other than a girl, but, as others have mentioned, she was never a “girlie girl” and was interested in science and music and art. She has a beautiful singing voice and can play guitar and piano and is an amazing artist and loves to write. She likes her hair short but funky layers and colors. Until she went to college. Then she fell in with the “transgender movement”. Now she changed her name to a male name, her preferred pronouns are “they”. She wears male clothes and forces her voice to deepen. She threw away all the clothes and makeup she loved and now dresses in rumpled shapeless clothing. She stopped having her legs but not her armpits. She brush cuts her hair. She does not see she’s confused. I think she feels she will be irrelevant if she’s not transgender. I don’t know how to help her.
I have just found this site. Your story is rather similar to mine. My daughter went to college at a women’s college and began saying she is gender fluid, genderqueer, now one year out of school she says she is female to male and is taking testosterone. Never discussed it with me. Informed consent.
I have sadly discovered that she has been incredibly deceptive, which is troubling in itself. (she said last summer she may go on the pill bc her periods were really heavy..I said she really needs to be careful with that and talk seriously with a doctor bc of my history of ovarian cancer…She said the pill bc she’s heard it can help with cramps, etc.)
But the devil is alive and well bc she tells me in December(after strangely canceling on coming for Thanksgiving at the last minute) that she’s decided to go to a doctor and start taking testosterone. .I pleaded for her not to start that without intensive counseling.(I wS freaking out inside but trying to remain very calm) She said “too late, I started in July.”
That was just before Christmas time. She said she would not come down for Christmas unless I promise/swear that I will not mention it at all. I said, “so you are telling me You tell me this and I get this one conversation with you and that’s it?” Said she wanted to enjoy herself and have a good time w her girlfriend while here. She was so combatant, defensive, legalistic, accusatory, and I honestly feel like I do not know her. I just cannot reach her. She has all the answers. Even asked me where I was educated! (I went to an Ivy League, plus have my Masters, and I have thoroughly researched this topic; I just fall against hormones, surgery, and no serious and extensive counseling. Ummm…is that stupid? Apparently so.
And when I saw her at I died inside. I literally feel like I have died and gone to hell, or I am just dreaming. I’m in intensive counseling! I cannot handle this loss, this insanity of doctors handing hormones out to very young adults with no counseling, no knowledge if my daughter’s life story of moving around, leaving friends, changing cultures, schools…the instability and losses during her growing up and the identity crisis that brings each time…no, I’d bet my life they do not know her story.
But they have her now.
She lives in a house of like minded people, is always posting gender activist related quotes and articles on her Facebook, etc..total absorption into that world and really no other, and ANGRY!
I am completely heartbroken and I cannot really talk with her bc she is quite hostile to ANYTHING I say. Eggshells.
She desperately needs help and I am her mother and I can do nothing…
I pray.
And cry.
How do we actually deal with this bc I am failing??
Please, any advice on how to keep truly living as I watch her destroy my daughter’s body, which is her body.
Hi, oh my goodness, our stories are so similar! My daughter, too, went to a women’s college (just graduated) and although it was her dream school, I’m pretty sorry. I’m so disheartened that in an environment that should be so empowering and strengthening for young women, they are getting the over-riding message that the really courageous thing to do is to try and become a male!
I also feel your pain, acutely. I, too, know what it feels like to be watching your wonderful child turn into someone you feel like you don’t even know. I know what it’s like to just hear all this gender nonsense and instinctively say to yourself, NO this NOT YOU! You have known your daughter for her whole entire life and you just know, in your gut, that this is so wrong. My daughter, too, developed a very defensive and hostile attitude around the idea of a gender change… very different from her feelings and thoughts as expressed to me around the idea of being lesbian, BTW.
You asked what to do and I guess I have the following practical ideas. First… what is the source of your daughter’s medical insurance? If she is still on your plan (due to being under 27), I hate to say it but, you may want to consider switching her off. Now that people can get on state insurance, she can go onto another plan… at the very least, removing her from your coverage will cause a delay or a disruption in the “T train” and the march towards horrible surgery. I would never ever recommend that a parent do something like this, except in this case it truly is an emergency. Similarly, if you are still providing any degree of financial support to her, you know you are well within your rights to tell her, that’s over. Again, harsh, but these are desperate times.
Second, is there someone else in your family circle, whether that is a sibling or aunt or a close friend, who can try and get through to your daughter? We know that whatever you say, she’ll do the opposite and it will only strengthen her resolve. But, perhaps hearing it from someone else who loves her, where that “control” issue isn’t there, might begin to break through some of the wall.
Third, you probably don’t know whether or not this happened, but it might be worth discreetly asking your daughter’s friends whether something happened up at school. With my daughter, it did turn out that there had been some traumatic experiences that she didn’t share with us, and I think that in some ways these caused her to think that she needed to do something to “defend” herself.
All is not lost! As long as your daughter hasn’t progressed towards surgery, a year more or less on “T” isn’t the complete end of the world. I’ve known women who took it (not for trans reasons but for athletic reasons) and although some of the side effects hang around for a while, if you go off it, the female body does eventually re-assert itself.
Be confident and know that you are in the right. There is no need at all for 99.9% of these young ladies to be exactly who they are, without the horrible and lifelong consequences of attempted “gender change.” I will keep you and your daughter in my prayers.
Thank you for reaching out to me!
It is all overwhelming and I do know right now prayer seems to be our best hope.
Yes, I have thought of possible trauma. I even know of some of the high school trauma she had, but suspect it may go deeper. There has certainly been traumatic family instability and change the last few years and I feel this has contributed to her fast flight down this path.
I feel so sad when I think I let her fall through the cracks, or did not intervene when I should have, etc.. I can spend all of my time on that mentally and get really down. But I know what is now is now.
She’s on her father ‘s insurance.
I also need counseling for depression and anxiety. There is a huge cost for parents in what is going on now. It’s not just about the change in our kids, although groups like PFLAG try to say it is. It’s about seeing our kids get horrible medical care and not being able to do anything. It’s about knowing that they aren’t really being diagnosed and treated. It’s about all the craziness out there and the worry that your kid is headed for a train wreck.
I don’t know if you can do this, but we made time for extra visits and more contact than normal. This has helped us stay connected with our college student, although it has not prevented transition. I put a lot of time into contact that has nothing to do with gender issues. For our kid, they didn’t want to spend much time talking about gender and transition, but the more time total we spent, the more we could talk about other important issues.
However, like I said, I was not able to convince my kid of anything when it comes to transition.
I fully believe that when my kid is 30 or 40, they will realize what they put us through and how hard we worked at this. I’m just afraid that it will be too late for my kid then.
Sharon, if someone is a singer, they should be very careful about taking testosterone. I have seen one blog of a young person who has transitioned and is depressed about the loss of their singing voice. I have also seen videos of a young trans man who does not take hormones because he has a singing career. I don’t know if this helps, but maybe it would.
I just want to cry! It’s been a year and a half since my daughter came to me to tell me she is trans. I grew up with an incredibly controlling and judgmental mother so I have always tried to be supportive of my children and their feelings. We took her to a gender counselor who actually did a great job challenging her with questions that she often could not answer. My daughter would cry every morning and was very depressed. In January, she was diagnosed with high functioning aspergers, which seems to explain everything now looking back. When I look at the list of symptoms of aspergers in girls, it is her to a T and I can see how she has been convinced it’s trans from things she has seen on the internet. I let her cut her hair very short and wear boy clothes, but that is it, aside from letting her switch counselors to one which was more supportive of trans and I even took her to a local LGBT+ group to start participating. I have since realized what you have written and am worried it may be too little too late. I want to throw up right now. I wish I had seen your blog a year and a half ago. We are starting with a new counselor today who specializes in aspergers, NOT TRANSGENDER. I told her she can take her time to decide that, but the aspergers will affect her forever and needs addressed first. I have read research that statistically there is an unusually high number of aspergers in the trans community. We are a very open and accepting family and if my daughter truly was trans, I would support her, but even the trans counselor said that after 6 months she cannot diagnose her as such. I am putting the brakes on now. I anticipate it won’t be pretty, but I need to try to save my daughter. I can’t thank you enough for your blog. I feel the same way that everywhere I turn, people are supporting my daughter without even knowing her and her history. I am being being told that it is incredibly painful and difficult to choose the path of transgender and she wouldn’t do it unless it was true. But no one knows the pain she was in before she made that choice. The pain caused by her aspergers of social isolation and feeling different because she couldn’t connect and wasn’t like the other girls. Maybe the pain of choosing transgender is actually more painful than that of being 14 and going into high school having lost all your girl friends that you have had since you were born because they have moved on, developing socially, and you have no idea how so something must be wrong with you…transgender. I could go on and on. It has taken me forever to find this blog. We need to get more of this information out to parents to support them just as much as these teens who are struggling with self identity. I hope it’s not too late for my daughter.
You have described my son to T! I will now have him tested for asbergers. This has been a nightmare for us too. Hang in there and yes let’s keep trusting our gut. Thanx for sharing
I’m SO glad you are doing this. I have no personal experience with this cultural phenomenon, but I see it happening and I don’t know what to think of it. You put everything perfectly and backed it up with so much valid research and opinion. So thank you!! Our world needs to hear the things you’re so bravely sharing!
I am really worried about my 21 year old daughter she has always only been interested in boys,with major crushes. Been a little bit of a Tom boy. Never forced her to wear
girly clothes or colors.I always let her choose her own clothes and form of expresson.
After about 6 unsuccessful disappointing relationships with boys from High school on up,she now declares she is not really interested in boys,and prefers girls and feels both masculine snd feminine but calls herself trans and wants me to refer to her as “they” or “them” which I can’t bring myself to do and which makes her angry.I dont want to perpetuate something that I believe is not true. I think she is confused and convincing herself she is trans otherwise i would totally support het.It is causing a rift between us as when I try to question her new found identity she gets really angry at me,not sure how to proceed.
Cecile, I am so sorry this happening to you too. I honestly do not think I have had a bigger heartbreak and one where I feel so utterly disconnected, utterly non influential.
There seems to be a fast trajectory with these children…even faster than the even younger ones bc ours are now “of age” and go barreling down the lane on this with absolutely no intervention.
My daughter does not live anywhere near me so I really do not have any influence, not that that would make a difference. She lives in Boston where it is full steam ahead.
And like yours, my daughter is hostile to any alternative possibility. Angry, angry.
All I know is that this is happening to many, there is no regulation of what is true counseling and mostly there is no counseling involved due to the informed consent model, there are families being torn apart, and voices of reason are unjustly and dangerously dismissed.
Perhaps we should all try to form groups regionally for face to face support as well?
I think there is a way to contact each other off-board, why don’t you PM me and we can talk about getting together? From certain things you’ve said I have the feeling we are in the same area of the country…
Jane
We must keep speaking out
I keep reading and it’s amazing how a common thing is our children get hostile or angry when we try to talk to them about alternatives or that maybe they really need to try to see things from a different perspective. Also, how therapists really don’t take into account how the family is affected by this all. I too am in therapy and depressed. We seem to be the forgotten ones. It’s so disheartening when your child refuses to hear you out and gets mad that we don’t agree with their assessment of themselves. I am totally at a loss.
Rette, I am also struck by the resistance to talking about this. I think our kids are being encouraged to think that we are simply transphobic and bad if we question anything. Perhaps I am wrong, but I think in the past, it would have been seen as normal that we would want them to get therapy and be sure.
I made the mistake of taking her to PFLAG. I met with her therapist and she didn’t validate my feelings whatsoever. She made me feel like a bad parent because I couldn’t just say this is my child instead of this is my daughter. She is my daughter and no amount of dressing like a man or surgery will ever change that. Part of me feels very guilty in saying that and that maybe I am a bad parent. I have to wonder what these therapists say to these kids. Do they say well don’t worry about anyone else this is only about you and you have to do what’s best for you? How is mutilating your body good for anyone? I think these therapists just make things worse and tell them to not let anyone try to tell you this isn’t who you are. I don’t know. I only know that I am lost and my child angry when I try to get her to see my point of view and why I feel the way I do.
I feel the same way. This has been the saddest most gut wrenching time as I pray for a miracle to save my daughter from this tragedy.
I plan to go to my local media and ask for some investigative reporting on these gender health centers. Please everyone do the same. The one in my area is like a cult and these impressionable kids have been sucked in. The director is getting a hefty fee for overseeing this state funded program and ‘monitoring’ interns just out of college and trying to get their hours in. My sons counselor is a postal worker just graduated from the local state college and she’s doing her time to meet her requirement. Completely clueless. I was appalled after meeting with her and my son
Not sure right now I am trying to give my daughter space, and not question her, at least she has stopped wearing a binder, and hopefully in a year it will b phased out. She also does not hang out with the creepy friends that influenced her into this,I believe.
My son is surrounded by truly mentally ill damaged teens. I think it makes him feel like the big fish in a small pond since he has resources and a stable family
I am transgender myself, but I do honestly see where you are coming from. I have looked around online, and the trans community is going a bit crazy at the moment. My best advice for all these mothers on here is to try to talk to your daughter/son for a while. Try to understand it from his/her perspective. Don’t trust too much of what you see online, because you need to understand your child’s personal feelings, as everyone feels differently. Ask about school, or bring up the topic occasionally to initiate a discussion. It may be difficult if your so/daughter gets angry, but try to stay calm with them. It will be hard for both you and your child at first, but just have a go at opening up to each other about it. They will thank you in the end I promise
I took the time to read almost every comment as well as the original blog, and I would like to offer some insight from someone who’s been there already. I know that you think because your daughter has stopped wearing male clothes that she is “cured”, but be very cautious. I new from the time I was about 5 that I was born into the wrong body. Yes, we know as children. It’s a feeling you have, and it will never ever ever go away. You can bury it deep inside, and try as hard as you possibly can, I married, served in the army, fought in Iraq, and had two children. None of that helped. It will manifest again, and the results can be deadly if the dysphoria is bad enough. There is no psychiatric “cure” for being transgender. It’s not a mental illness, it’s a proven birth defect. We all start as female. In my case, my body took in enough testosterone to make my body male, my brain, not so much. In the case of women who become male, the brain is affected by an overproduction of estrogen, which creates testosterone, and results in a female body and a male patterned brain. That’s proven medical science.
So my warning, is this, do not try and tell her who she is. Whether you believe her or not she knows who she is. Your choice of telling her you wouldn’t support her transition and she’d have to do it alone, is likely the real reason why she is acting and dressing feminine again. Try and keep a more open mind. Maybe it was a phase, it happens, but do not shun her if she goes back to believing she was supposed to be born a male, you will run the risk of possibly hurting her badly enough emotionally that you could lose her to suicide. Right now more than 66% of all transgender people have attempted suicide.
I’m not trying to lecture anyone here, just educate. Being transgender is something no one asks for, and it’s not a choice one makes. It’s absolutely is something your born with, and you either take the steps to correct what’s wrong, or you will live a life full of depression and pain. Dysphoria hurts. Emotionally and eventually physically.
Given the choice. I do not know a single person that would choose this life. I didn’t choose to be trans. I was born this way.
And if it turns out your daughter manifests those feelings again, then she was too.
Being trans isn’t a result of environment. No one can plant that seed in your head. That’s just not how it works. So don’t blame the internet.
That’s like saying a person can become gay or lesbian by talking to gay or lesbian people on facebook. Again, that’s just how you were born.
And for all the people commenting about the devil and everything else, put the Bible down. It’s 2016, the Lord and the Devil have nothing to do with your child. That is a belief you have, it’s not medical fact. Satan doesn’t make people like myself or your children gay, bi, lesbian, trans or genderqueer. That’s just how life goes. It’s all a numbers game. What you get, is what you get.
Open your minds up, and accept your children for who they are, before they get to the point where they resent you for your dislike of their lifestyle, one they did not choose for themselves.
There are so many problems with your comment, it’s hard to know where to begin. I’ll touch on a few points; I’m sure others will have more to say.
1. Religion and “the devil” has nothing to do with it. All WHAT people commenting about “the devil?”
2. In the same breath, you conflate gay with trans. Obviously, you haven’t read much of this website, or you’d know all the main contributors are pro-LGB and very much pro “gender nonconformity” (aka “genderqueer” in today’s teen-speak).
3. Further: Most of us consider the early transition of kids and teens a form of proactive anti-gay conversion therapy. Now why would we think that? Maybe because decades of peer-reviewed research (as close to “proven science” as it gets) have shown that the vast majority of gender-dysphoric kids grow out of it if just left alone—and guess what? They mostly grow up to be LGB (sorry, but for most kids who feel they are the opposite sex, that feeling does “go away.”). Spend some time reading the blogs of lesbians who desperately wished they were boys as children, and are utterly relieved that they came of age in an era before surgeons, endocrinologists, and other “gender specialists” were making a killing defining likely LGB kids as “trans” and putting them on the road to permanent medical changes. Here’s but one account by an adult lesbian who outgrew her dysphoria.
4. If you were a parent in our situation, you’d actually know there is a trendy thing going on, especially online: kids upset by puberty, social issues, or just wanting to somehow belong are coming out as trans or genderqueer or any of the other identities being touted on YouTube and Reddit. Many teens (mine among them) had no gender dysphoria whatsoever as a younger child. This came on ONLY after social-media bingeing. In fact, there are so many families now whose kids experienced rapid-onset gender dysphoria that a researcher is actually doing a study on it. So yes indeed, teens are influenced by what goes on on the Internet.
5. You transitioned as an adult. Again, if you spend any time reading this blog, you’d know that the bottom line for us is we think transition—particularly medical transition, which results in irreversible changes, especially for girls—should be an adult decision, if made at all (most will change their minds). If surgery and hormones weren’t being touted as the answer, this blog wouldn’t even exist.
6. It never ceases to amaze me how many adult biological fathers—you have kids!—feel it’s AOK to advocate for hormones and surgeries that are sterilizing young people before they have the mental capacity to know what they’re doing. The hypocrisy is stunning. You had a chance to procreate before doing whatever you did to transition. But you think all these trans-identified kids now shouldn’t have the chance to decide if they want to have biological kids later themselves?
7. So now the actual suicide attempt rate of trans people is 66%? That’s a new, inflated figure. The one most people use is 41%–inaccurately. Read here if you want to see what that study actually showed, which was that transition was no cure, and that ALL gender nonconforming people (LGB included) have a higher rate of suicidality (which is not the same as actual attempts and includes self-harming thoughts and behaviors that aren’t intended to result in completed suicide). Why? Because of rigid sex stereotypes and bullying. What helps? Family support. Trans activists like to say the only kind of family support that matters is agreeing with a child that they can achieve the impossible goal of changing sex. There are many, many other ways to support a gender-defiant child. Read some more of this blog to see what many parents who haven’t drunk the Kool-Aid are doing.
8. Related, where are the historical records of all the children and young teens killing themselves because there was no hormone and surgical treatment available to fix them until only a few short years ago? There aren’t any, because nearly all of them came to terms with it (mostly to be LGB) and actually wound up having happy lives as adults in unaltered bodies, without the need for lifelong medical intervention.
9. You keep talking about “proven” science. No indeed, there is no such “proven” science to show a “male or female patterned brain.” Are there sex differences in the brain? Possibly, but as the latest studies show, most people’s brains don’t fit in either extreme, and the very idea that the idea of gender is inborn and sacrosanct, while the body is a “birth defect”—where is the evidence for that? There isn’t any. “Born that way” has zero “proven science” behind it.
10. No parent on this site is “shunning” their child for identifying as transgender. And for those of us with kids who desisted from that identity, it has nothing to do with clothing choices or adherence to stereotypes. That you think this is about “feminine” or “masculine” clothing shows just how much this whole kid transition thing is founded on regressive sex stereotypes and gender policing. What we parents did who didn’t (literally) buy our kids’ idea that testosterone and top surgery were the answer to their pubertal angst was this: We DID buy our kids time to actually figure out their identities and sexual orientations without interference from the medical establishment. We actually respected our kids enough to protect them—an aspect of parenting that seems to have fallen out of favor in the age of Even Your Transgender Toddler Knows More Than You.
So much pseudoscience and conjecture, where do I start?
1st there is ZERO proof that people identifying as trans are born that way.
2nd, you have no idea what the chemical make up of your mom’s amniotic fluid was across time. Samples were not taken or analyzed across time. You have no basis for saying that “In my case, my body took in enough testosterone to make my body male, my brain, not so much. In the case of women who become male, the brain is affected by an overproduction of estrogen, which creates testosterone, and results in a female body and a male patterned brain. That’s proven medical science.” Um, no! PhD chemist here, who also studied biology, biochemistry, genetics, A&P with human cadaver lab, etc! This is a hypothesis without sufficient supporting evidence. It is certainly NOT “proven medical science.” In reality, the effects of nature and nurture are very hard to separate out. We know humans are products of both. We also know that there are no “male patterned” and “female patterned” brains. There are human brains and they are mosaics. Differences are proven to be greater from one individual to another, than they are from males to females in general.
3rd, you claim to have read the blogpost and comments yet go into this rant against religion, but the comments here are rarely based on any type of religious argument. This is not a Christian conservative blog! Try again.
I agree with you Alyssa the problem I have is that my daughter was never forced to dress like a girl or with girl colors, or play with only girl stuff, she was alsways encouraged to play with whatever she wanted and dress however she wanted to, she liked both dols, teddy bears fairies, but also liked playing with trains and cars( loved playing with dolls and soldiers when I was a kid, and trains) she liked getting her nails and hair done but also liked climbing trees like I did. She also liked wearing lots of bows and lacey florally dresses, her own choice. She also has only ever been interested in boys, and had crushes on boys since preschool up. She has dumped most of her boyfriends over the years getting bored of them and finally came to the conclusion that she hates men and wants to date women or not straight men. She started to use a binder and buy mens clothes and still wants me to call her they or them. She also cut her hair. Presently she stopped wearing a binder, went back to bras, stopped wearing mens clothing, is growing her hair, but still wants me to refer to her as they or them. She has never ever shown any indication that she wanted to be another gender except when she was binding and wearing mens clothes and that was a year ago at the age of 20.
When she told me she was transgender at 20, it just feels unbelievable as she only seemed to come to this conclusion after hanging out with 2 trans friends and after she dumped her 6th boyfriend and after a guy she had a mad crush on did not seem interested in her, only then did she say she hated men. She still has male celebrity crushes, and still talks about not finding any handsome men. Also about being interested in women but not acting on it. I would totally embrace this if I felt it was not a phase, I am trying but things just don’t add up. I don’t think she has any desire to change to a male, if anything she stated that some days she feels male and other days female. I was a Tom boy growing up, I identify as a female only and I am afraid she is confused about things due to information from these “friends” of hers(who she no longer sees) Ive tried having discussions with her but it ends in her being super defensive.
It’s not a choice but it’s a hard road so those who MUST travel it…. They want more more company. Misery loves company and there are so many who see a financial opportunity hiding inside of this madness. They do NOT care about your vulnerable child one bit!
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Try…. not discussing it. I recommend letting her live her life and just acting like her/his/their gender doesn’t matter. Bringing up the whole transgender issue and arguing about it is a good way to A) make a child defensive, B) make them feel like you’re being mean and picky, and C) make them feel unloved. If you don’t make a big deal of things, time will tell whether it’s “just a phase” or not.
Also, keep in mind that gender doesn’t define who someone is attracted to. I have known people who were interested in men before and after they transitioned…
Alyssa, you are a late transitioning man. No one forced you to marry a woman and father children. How does someone who believes that he is a woman do that? Your autogynephilia has nothing to do with what is happening to young girls who feel that they have to ”become men” to survive in today’s over sexualised, misogynistic society. Hiding behind and colluding with the ”trans children” rhetoric is shameful.
Alyssa, I think one of the enormous problems we face now is that the younger generation of transgender people is different from the older one. People like you faced discrimination and didn’t transition. You faced many unfair barriers to transition, even when you were clearly old enough to know what you were doing.
I think it’s hard for your generation to really believe what is happening now. The number of kids who say they are transgender has grown exponentially. Kids in this generation mostly grew up being allowed to be gender non-conforming by their parents. Then, in high school or college or on-line, kids who are unhappy are told that they might actually be the other sex. The symptoms are different now, or rather, you don’t have to have any symptoms to be considered trans. And some teens in America can get hormones without counseling or even real informed consent.
Please, please believe us when we say we’re not crazy parents. Our kids didn’t think they were transgender as children. It started when they were teens and we don’t know why. Worse, they are not getting enough counseling before they make changes to their bodies.
I found this post by way of searching for resources on trans parenthood. This thread is an interesting read, for sure. If the admin is willing to post it, I’d be happy to share my own story and perspective. I can understand parents being cautious and wanting to protect their children from dangerous and misguided courses of action. The folks here are clearly commenting out of love and worry for their kids, and that’s commendable. My heart goes out to both the children and the parents involved, I do not take for granted the love and concern I’m seeing here.
I wanted to share my experiences as someone who was born female and now lives as male, but can’t claim the “born this way” back story that many I know do. This process was gradual and meticulously thought-out for me, and I’ll share some of it here.
I was extremely proud to be a girl growing up, and was encouraged in my distaste for traditional gender expectations. In fact, I think my parents would’ve both been quite pleased if I had stayed that way – happily female and just as happily bucking gender norms as ever. They were thrilled to see I wasn’t following the norm, and I was especially proud to be the one in my peer group expanding the room’s idea of what “female” could be. I held onto this for years and when the thought of transitioning occurred to me, I desperately hoped it wasn’t my truth. I challenged gender segregated activities or ones that barred participation from girls and was the “loud feminist kid” since I was told what “feminism” meant at age 7. I have few memories of questioning my gender, but that was eclipsed by a sense of “duty” to prove that girls could do anything. Other tomboys my age did not behave as I did, and have since grown into beautiful and wonderful women who are comfortable as they are.
When I got to high school, I came out as a lesbian, and was accepted with far greater ease by my peers than I anticipated. I left for university in a big city and seeking and finding other queer feminists who quenched my thirst for community.
There I was exposed to plenty of trans people of varying ages and backgrounds, and made several trans friends – some of whom had no stake in my gender, others who tried pressuring me to transition (which I loathed, and pushed back against strongly thus delaying the inevitable – these people are no longer my friends).
My decision to pursue top surgery (which predated choosing to live as male or take hormones) came after I met with an older friend who had transitioned from female to male, back before the conversation around trans issues had refined itself to include shades of grey off the binary, who had started testosterone for a year and had top surgery – but stopped taking hormones and identifying as male upon realising there were other options. This friend didn’t regret surgery, but wouldn’t have elected take hormones if other options had been available. They transitioned prior to informed consent and were encouraged to do so by the system that existed before it.
As it stands in my city now, the informed consent model is in place and requires a minimum of three months of assessment by a physician or psychologist before prescribing treatment (hormones, surgery recommendation letters, etc.). In my experience, you are screened for pre-existing mental health conditions and essentially any lived circumstances that could make transitioning seem like an attractive option over coping or treating another issue. I wasn’t pressured into it at all, and I’m sure my friend would’ve been happy never choosing to transition if given the option – which informed consent absolutely does. The model as implemented in my region exists to weed out other causes of dysphoria while providing information about the risks of transitioning.
This friends’ perspective was refreshing, and gave me the opportunity to see my own struggles in context – with no pressure to change myself in any way. To this day, they feel strongly about the term “female masculinity”, and have made connections with several people who feel similarly, regardless of their decision to pursue medical transition or not.
I spent years of my early adulthood doing my best at being a gender non-conforming female. All I ever wanted was to continue to buck gender norms as a woman, to live a good long life as a happy lesbian who didn’t struggle with my body or how I moved through space. Deciding to transition wasn’t easy or comfortable, largely because of how committed I had been to continuing to live as a woman and how invested I was in this future vision of myself. I desperately wished that being trans wasn’t real for me – coming out as gay was exhausting enough, I didn’t need more things to make me worry for my safety and my health. In my own experience, I told my mother once I’d already decided that surgery was something I wanted to pursue, and did not involve her in any of the decision making because she’d made negative comments about fearing me wanting to transition after she’d gone through the bumpy process of accepting my sexuality in high school. These comments are not forgotten – and she didn’t even remember making them. Deciding to transition was the best way to solve a problem – gender dysphoria – and it was made after carefully weighing my options. I know several people who experience their dysphoria the way I do who have chosen not to pursue surgery or hormones, because they’ve decided the outcome wouldn’t address their dysphoria adequately.
My transition has come at a cost, as all transitions do in some way, of my ability to breastfeed (which I don’t take lightly and do consider a loss), the ease at which I might get pregnant, and my sense of my body “belonging” somewhere solid and sound – as defined by the images of what it means to be male or female I grew up with. The trade off has been more than worth it (I have gained a profound sense of relief, so much confidence, a feeling of congruency & a improved relationship with my body, a sense of integrity I couldn’t have found otherwise), and I only regret not having had the opportunity to realise and act on my feelings sooner.
This is I think where some of your children might have a sense of urgency – so many of us older trans folks speak of wishing we’d known or had the opportunity to act sooner, and that the relief from confusion and discomfort and the very specific alienation from one’s own body that comes with the gender dysphoria that plagued us for so long. I would talk to your kid about their fears, about their urgency, about what’s driving their desire to move forward so soon after making this known to you. About why they felt they had to wait so long to tell you. None of this requires agreeing to help them transition – or agreeing that transition will solve the problems they think it will (but that it may very well help with). It just means being open, empathetic, and willing to engage in shared vulnerability with someone who’s most certainly heard of the worst things that can happen to a person who comes out as a trans youth (conversion therapy, homelessness, violence from parents) and fears an unpredictable reaction from YOU. Reassuring them of your love doesn’t have to come on the condition that they listen to you – which they will only resent you for – and as many of you have identified, would push back harder against. If your kid *is* doubting transitioning, they might not share those thoughts with you if you pressure them or refuse support.
By offering a non-judgemental ear, by quelling your own fear with the knowledge that you are best able to help your child if you’re willing to listen, you’ll get to hear all sorts of things they might not feel comfortable sharing with you otherwise. If this is a phase, ride it out with them, because either way you risk harming your relationship by making this a larger issue than it needs to be. No child should have to risk their parents’ support (and a sense of unconditional love) just because they’re trying to find themselves. You stand nothing to lose from choosing connection over rejection – and I guarantee you if your kid can be talked out of transitioning, it’ll only happen if they trust you and sense you don’t wish to rob them of their right to chose for themselves.
I think it would be wise of parents here to consider that in the cases where an individual truly is transgender, the sense of relief and feeling of “rightness” that comes with it (and is widely talked about), can be *very attractive* for a young person struggling with mental health issues, or other troubles. I would also fully encourage anyone questioning their gender to look inward – not for signs that they’ve secretly always felt this way, but to seek answers elsewhere for their pain before assuming transitioning will give them the relief and happiness it’s given others.
If I could ask one thing of the desperate and concerned parents of this thread, it would be to ask yourselves what your attachment to your child’s sex is. Look inward, as you are asking your child to do, ask yourself what would change for you in the event transitioning is unavoidable, ask yourself who and what you are mourning if this ends up being your child’s truth. It clearly isn’t your child – perhaps an idea you have of them, and who you want them to be or become. The risks associated with pursuing hormones and surgery exist, as do the risks of pursuing essentially any profession or hobby, and your child is far better suited to discovering what’s right for them than you are. I’m worried about all the talk of control and “knowing my child” I see here – you are robbing your children of the right to self-determine and the skill of self-advocacy when you decide for them what their truth is, instead of supporting them in their soul-searching. I’m happy to hear of all the cases where your daughters experimented with their gender and found that their birth sex suits them – not because you’ve been spared your duty as a parent to provide your child with a safe environment to become themselves – but because they’ve done so despite your best efforts. Ask questions, stay curious, and your kids will give you the chance to speak your fears if they sense you’re there for *them*, and not to control them.
On the note of control: limiting internet access can mean limiting your child’s access to others who are willing to listen – they may not have good ideas (I am familiar with how toxic tumblr can be), but they are listening to your child where no one else might be. Controlling your child because of your preconceived ideas of who they are strikes me as a very short-sighted solution to a complex problem (“I know my daughter”, for example, essentially limits them to being who they’ve always been, and not pursuing growth in areas you haven’t sanctioned. Gender talk aside, this is a surefire recipe for a resentful and rebellious teenager/young adult.).
If you feel uncomfortable with your child’s decision, examine your discomfort, and for pete’s sake talk to them. You don’t have to agree with or pay for their transition to just open yourself up to their thoughts and feelings on the matter. They have plenty of them, if you’ll listen. You don’t have to agree with those either, but you’ll gain insight you otherwise wouldn’t get if you approach them having already decided they’re belligerent and in the wrong. Consider that you have something to learn from your child, as you have been doing since they were born, just as they still have plenty to learn from you. I don’t know anyone who wouldn’t respond positively, in time, to a pressure-free two-way street with an openly empathetic and loving parent.
And if the revelation your kid has about wanting to pursue a transition seems sudden, perhaps consider they’ve been sitting on these feelings for some time, or that they’ve had plenty of opportunities to talk this through with others who they can trust with their vulnerable thoughts – and that you might not be one of those people for a reason. I appreciate the OP’s suggestion to provide access to and support other activities than the internet – I can’t think of a teenager or preteen who wouldn’t appreciate having their parents show genuine interest & support in their hobbies or after school activities. Often children recede into the internet seeking connection they lack elsewhere in their life, and I commend any parent who puts energy into allowing their child opportunities to find it with tangible humans in their surroundings.
Additionally, I’d like to add there’s some possibility of generational miscommunication here. Many parents here speak of their kid identifying as “non-binary” or “genderqueer”, and how this is “teenspeak” for gender non-conforming, etc. Consider that just as many of you believe traditional gender norms are too rigid, a younger generation is choosing to do away with the idea of gender they grew up with in a way you might not relate to, but that isn’t necessarily incorrect. Additionally, if someone wants to experiment with their gender, honouring their request to use neutral pronouns or opposite sex pronouns lets them move through the phase faster, rather than refusing to and giving them something to butt up against! I’m saying this as someone who experimented and came out the other side: if you don’t want your kid to rebel themselves into modifying their body on their dime and at the expense of your relationship with them, make your home a safe place for them to muck around for as long as they need to! I would hate to hear of someone having to detransition with regrets after lacking the support to find their truth with the safety and comfort of their family, because their anger and resentment masked their true internal feelings!
I realise this is a lot of text, and I’m grateful for anyone who’s read through till the bottom. I wish for the best for all the parents here and their children, and I hope you all manage to come out of whatever this journey looks like for you and your kids with stronger connections, closer than what you went in with. I can understand how destabilizing this is, and how scary it sounds to have your child declare they want to alter their bodies permanently (or are considering a path that can end up there). You’re all right to not take this lightly, and I respect your commitment to keeping your children safe. I hope my perspective has added nuance to the conversation, and that it helps understand where your children might be coming from.
My best wishes to all of you. <3
Thank you for your thoughtful and respectful comment–clearly written by an adult who has weighed many options, and who, as an adult, undertook medical treatment with a full understanding of the consequences. You wrote, “This process was gradual and meticulously thought-out for me.” Only adults make decisions which are “gradual” and “meticulously thought out.” You also mention that you found this post while searching for information on parenting as a trans person. Since you also say that you do have some sadness about not being able to breastfeed (since you had a mastectomy), I’m going to assume that you are contemplating giving birth to a child–meaning you were not sterilized as a teen, as too many “trans kids” are now, with the current standard of treatment (puberty blockers followed by cross-sex hormones).
I don’t think any of the parents who contribute here are under the illusion that they can stop their child, as an adult, from deciding to pursue medical transition–if, in fact, they haven’t changed their minds by then. Once at the age of majority, people decide for themselves what they’ll do with their lives–and that may include medical treatment. But your comment actually supports what so many of us are advocating for: Kids/teens should grow up, not undergo treatments which will permanently change them, before they fully understand what they are choosing. Nowadays, as you are no doubt aware, the early transition being promoted results in many cases in not only permanent body changes, but sterility (if puberty blockers are immediately followed by cross sex hormones). I get the impression from your comment that, in your case, that is an outcome you might have regretted. You obviously have thought a lot about your choices; your lucid words could only have been written by an adult, which again supports our conviction that something as life-changing as surgeries and hormone treatments should be options for adults with fully developed frontal lobes, not kids or teenagers who in at least some cases are experimenting with their identities–in other words, doing the work of adolescence. What’s changed in the last 5 years, and what we’re concerned about, is the full-on attempt to reify and concretize the fluidity of adolescent explorations by the medical and psychiatric professions.
We can understand our daughters’ feelings of wishing to change sex, while still protecting them from medical intervention, and while sharing our opinions that our daughters can choose to grow up to be gender-defiant women, as opposed to trans men. That’s not a choice you ultimately made–but you made that choice as an adult, and from the sounds of it, an adult who would have regretted having her fertility taken away as a pre-pubescent girl.
Very well said, 4thWaveNow. We just want to give our kids the opportunity to mature physically and emotionally before hormones and surgeries. I don’t think this is too much to ask.
Thank you so much for your thoughts, Deyan. As a mom of a 16 year old teen experiencing gender dysphoria, I appreciate open and respectful dialogue with people in the trans community. I am trying to learn as much as I can about what my 16 year old is going through. It’s hard for her, it’s hard for her dad and I. But we will always be there for her, no matter what she decides.
Your post was extremely long and thought-provoking and this reply (may be the first of many as I digest what you’ve said) is directed at your comment asking parents to look inward and examine why we are attached to our child’s sex. For me, I’m not attached to the label of female for my daughter. I am attached to the idea of a healthy child. And I want her to make decisions with a healthy mind.
Her therapist used the term ‘wise mind making wise decisions’ and I like that. There are lots of things we’ve discovered going on in with my daughter that we are currently treating to help her have a wise mind, so I am thankful I finally found a therapist willing to do that. In my part of the country (US) we went through a few doctors that wanted to start her on medical intervention right away, with no encouragement for counseling or alternatives. It was a very scary place to be and I’m so thankful I found 4thwavenow to bring to light what is going on in the medical community regarding transitioning at younger and younger ages. Like you and your older friend, there is no ‘one size fits all’ answer to dysphoria. It takes time and lots of work and it’s all very individualistic. (Is that a word? Well, it is now. 😉 )
I’m sure I’ll reread your post many times, absorbing all you’ve shared. Thank you for adding your perspective.
Yes, Deyan, thank you.
Why are parents attached to their child’s gender?
Meaning sex “assigned” at birth?
Well, I think attached is an odd way to phrase it. I feel it is really about a body born healthy being radically manipulated. Hormones that do not belong in the given body, operations to alter the healthy body.
The really inexcusable problem right now is not trying as hard as possible to provide neutral psychological intervention BEFORE messing with the human body. It is just not prudent, wise, professional,etc.. There are no regulations. There is no medical dialogue being had in the media. That in itself is unhealthy. The question is WHY NOT?
I have spoken to many health professionals who feel this rapid informed consent model is medical malpractice.
I agree. It is not something to be undertaken quickly and with no intensive counseling.
Counseling for families together too would be a great idea.
I am relieved and sad to know I’m not the only one going thru this. I have been met with hostility, anger and judgement when asking questions of trans support programs. Until this started with my child I thought if a child said they were trans they were and you should support them. That was before my child told me at age 21 she was transgender and was going to, “start T”. She was referred to a doctor, who said in front of me, she’d only need to see a therapist once to get a note to begin testosterone injections. I didn’t believe it would happen that quickly but it did. I thought I would be asked for some history, but wasn’t. When she began getting severely depressed, stopped going to the required therapy sessions after 3 and her anger intensified to the point of being irrational I called her doctor and left a message that he needed to know about the above, as well as her past mental health issues, my belief she had stopped taking the injections along with the fact there had never been any indication of her having a desire to be trans in her life until a month prior to seeing him. I made it clear I wasn’t asking for information from him. He didn’t return my calls and when I went to the office his nurse said he wasn’t going to get involved. I asked her to please have him impress upon my daughter the need for counseling. I called the board of medicine and they would only do something if I filed formal complaints. I asked them to put guideline standards in place. I even contacted the Dr Phil show to ask them to do a segment.
Are there any people who believed they were trans then came to the realization they weren’t? I would like to know where the anger comes from, what started to appeal to them about being trans, what made them realize they didn’t want to live as the opposite sex? Please, if you have been thru this, help us by giving some insight. I don’t want to have my daughter say to me in a few years,”why didn’t you question me, try to get me to stop or stand by your beliefs?” If any one is in central Iowa and dealing with this would you be willing to help me go to the medical board to get guidelines changed?
Keep telling anyone and everyone. I have contacted my congressman who is a physician
This is madness and it’s operating under the radar
Mainly due to PC
There are a ton of people who claimed trans and changed their minds. Google “transgender desistance” and “transgender regret” and similar phrases.
Sometimes this “ex-transgender” thing happens and sometimes this doesn’t…. It’s a good reason to take things slowly, especially with kids and hormones. But parents need to support their kids either way. Just because your trans kid “might not be a boy” isn’t a good reason to justify arguing with them, refusing to use their preferred name, and forcing them to be a girl.
Heck no, I’m not arguing with anyone. I am the adult. It isn’t a negotiation. It is my duty to protect any child in my care. (I have a son and he is normal, thank Goddess. No gender identity issues.) I will never call a man “she” nor a women “he.” Sorry, but language means something. Men are not women and women are not men. This isn’t rocket science. Jeff G, like many of your generation, you are confused. You will outgrow this phase as you get a little life experience. Right now, you just don’t have it. You are showing us how easily children like yourself can be misled. Thanks, I guess.
Jeff G., just because some parents are not giving in to their child’s misguided whims, does not mean we are not supporting them. I know my child better than anyone, and I know her sudden belief that she is a boy is a cry for help — she has anxiety issues, ADHD and low self esteem (all before the trans stuff came along), and is possibly looking for a way to transform herself into someone else, or perhaps she wants to escape adult womanhood, or maybe keep herself immune from pressure from boys to be sexually active.
Her “coming out” as trans is a cry for help — and so I am supporting her by getting her professional help from both a psychiatrist and a psychotherapist. If she wanted to eat candy for every meal, drop out of school, or get a plastic surgery in order to resemble a Barbie doll or a lizard, I would not “support” her on those issues by giving in to her demands. Instead, I would support her by helping her see that these are unhealthy life choices.
There is no doubt that my child is a girl. Her chromosomes dictate this. There is no “might be a boy.” She is not a boy. There is no need to “force” her to be a girl, because she is a girl. Surgery and hormones will not make her into a boy. Girls are not boys; boys are not girls. There is no way to change one’s sex. Anyone who believes otherwise is fooling themselves. Calling my daughter a boy’s name, or “he” would only serve to enforce her unhealthy, false beliefs and move her farther down the path toward dangerous testosterone injections and barbaric surgeries.
I would never force her to perform femininity, if that is what you mean by forcing her to be a girl. She can wear the clothes she prefers and wear her hair as she wishes. But — cutting her hair short, wearing men’s clothes and wishing she was exempt from the problems of being female does not make her a male.
While there perhaps are a very small number of kids for whom medical transition is eventually the best choice (at least at this time in history, before better, more effective and less invasive treatments are discovered), I can assure you that my daughter is not one of them, and I can assure you that she has the full support of her parents in her struggle to come to accept herself, love herself, and thrive in a world that treats women and girls so poorly.
JeffG. Thank you. You seem to be able to keep a level head in all this and I applaud you. I agree that hormones and surgery should be taken after a lot of talking and understanding on both sides. It also takes a lot of time and since a lot of parents understandably want their kids to wait then coming into agreement that hormones and/or surgery should maybe wait until the body has fully developed. There isn’t really an excuse not to call someone by their preferred pronouns or name however, after all using them will help the kid to decide if it works for them. After all history has shown us that language is always changing to fit with the times.
Fighting for my child, you are in good company here. It is well worth exploring past posts widely.
If you haven’t already discovered Transgender Trend and Youth Trans Critical Professionals, you will find support and valuable information there, too.
In answer to your question, there are of lots of people who identified as transgender and then re-embraced their biological sex. Among detransitioned women writing eloquently online: Maria Catt, RedressAlert, crashchaoscats, hotflanks, weary4u. Also thissoftspace, who identified as trans but stopped short of transitioning.
Many formerly trans people have described what you say, wishing they had been questioned by parents, friends, doctors, therapists before making irreversible changes to their bodies. Others write about the ‘taboo’ that unfortunately prevails around questioning someone’s self-declaration as trans, and use the word ‘cult’ to describe what they feel they were drawn to.
I would love to see Dr. Phil cover this issue. Did anyone from the show contact you?
On another note, how is your daughter currently? I hope she agrees to see a psychiatrist and a counselor. The doctor who prescribed the testosterone and then washed his hands of the situation should definitely be reported.
Keep us posted, and best wishes.
Also, don’t testosterone injections tend to cause anger issues? Similar to “roid rage,” I believe. Maybe the anger issue would give the doctor a good reason to at least temporarily discontinue her testosterone prescription.
Dear Fighting For My Child, I’m sorry to welcome you to our parents’ “club” we have here, but I’m glad you found us. I only have one additional comment. I would not trust Dr. Phil with this topic for a minute. The episodes that he has run so far on transgender issues have been ridiculously trans friendly. I’m still haunted by a recent episode (June 17, 2016) in which Dr. Phil tried to to use some trans pseudo-science to convince a clearly bereft and grieving father that he had to accept his son as a woman. All after 45 minutes of the son showing that he had been a selfish jerk and a disgusting husband ever since he started transition. I quite literally thought I would vomit.
If anyone cares and has the 45 minutes to spend, here is the episode:
Wrong video! Sorry, I have no idea how that happened. I guess just search for Dr. Phil, June 17, 2016. It will be obvious if you have the correct video.
Thanks for the warning; I have not seen Dr. Phil in years. I wish there was an investigative journalist brave enough to expose this huge problem. Yet another parallel to scientology — it used to be that journalists were afraid to write critically of scientology. Fortunately, scientology has lost much of its power and journalists for the most part have no reason to report truthfully.
Now the trans cult needs to be exposed so it will lose its power. What national journalist is brave enough to tackle this topic?
Thank God I came across this site. I’m going through the exact same thing. My daughter is 21 she started getting involved in a lot of on line role playing game on internet next thing I hear from her is that she’s trans. And will be starting T I had no clue as to what she was talking about. She was in therapy already because she suddenly became bipolar. Her therapist wrote a letter saying she believed my daughter was trans, I went to talk with her to find out how long this conversation had been taken place she told me maybe 2 weeks. My daughter has moved over 8 hour’s away to be with some woman she meet on that game. The woman says she doesn’ date females, I truly believe that is why my daughter wants this surgery. My child has very little communication with me. She’s been gone for 2 months now, I feel like apart of me is dead, I miss her so much. I don’t know what to do. Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated. I’m sorry for writing so much, it’s just that this is the first place I’ve come to with others that have similar situation. TY
Hi Mary, my daughter just turned 17 and wants to be a boy. It’s scary and sudden and I know how you feel. The big positive in my court is that she is still at home and has backtracked and said she doesn’t want surgeries. She still feels dysphoria though.
I’m sorry your daughter is so far away. And given her age, I’m honestly not sure what you can do. My only advice, for what it is worth, is to be there for her and love her. Let her know that, but also tell her you need the same patience and understanding from her. I’ve asked my daughter to do the same for me, because we’re moms who love them and to suddenly have the rug pulled out from under us is frightening. It takes time to come to terms with what they are saying, feeling, doing. For many, it’s new. I didn’t even know what the word ‘transgender’ really meant until 8 months ago. (I lived in a bubble, oh well. Not anymore!)
Another thing – you have found a very good support network here. But there will be comments from others who will try to tell you that your concerns are unfounded. Some will say your are abusing your daughter and you are toxic. Do not listen to harsh criticism. It will do nothing but anger you. BUT, some transgender people and supporters come and offer their stories, their opinions and views. Those are helpful, thoughtful. They will give you points to ponder and perhaps help open discussion with your daughter.
It’s a strange new world for us moms here right now and I’m sorry you are struggling. It’s not easy seeing your kid suffer with dysphoria and mental health issues. Its a hard road for them, transitioning or not. But know that this site is here for you always. And those links to the side? Go visit them…very helpful as well.
Hi Mary, I know how you feel,except my daughter is still at home.She too is 21 and a year ago after hanging out with trans friends she decided she was trans.The thing that all these kids seem to have in common before they decide to be trans is some kind of depression or low self esteem,or even a form of control that they need to estsblish.My daughter has never had any indication of being trsns,gay or anything other than her birth gender. It is impossible to discuss anything with her about this as she has made up her mind.I refuse to call her by her preferred pronouns as I feel this is perpetrating her dillusion,but use her name intend if pronouns out of respect to her and that seems to work. Unlike your daughter I don’t think my daughter wants to transition as she thinks she is gender fluid and gave up on binders and wearing men’s clothes after a year.
I thnk that some of these kids are legitamally trans and others have mental or physical medical problems that are causing them to believe they are trans. I believe my daughter may have hyperthyroidism as it runs in the family and csuses,anxiety, depression, low hormone production. Unfortunately because she is an adult I can not contact her doctor who suggested first that it may be a thyroid ptoblem but then ruled that out after my daughter said there was no family history of thyroid problems she knew of. Instead of the doctor insisting she get tested anyway, she then convluded that my daughter was depressed and may need meds.I have done everything to try convince her to get tested for this,but she is resisting.
As far as your daughter is concerned you may have to give her time and let her make some mistakes I know how hard it is but the more you confront her the worse it will become and the more defiant she will be,I know.I am just trying to be a friend to my daughter and listen and try not to judge.
When I was 21 I led a really irresponsible,dangerous lifestyle,and at some point I learnt from my mistakes and came out fine.Sometimes we need to let our kids make mistakes as hard as it may seem. Testosterone is reversible.I know how hard this is for you.
As a chemist, I am stating that the effects of prescribed testosterone are NOT always completely reversible. Reversibility depends on a number of factors, including the duration of use and dosage. From the world of sports doping, we can see that the long-term effects of testosterone can persist in women athletes long after they stop taking it. We do not yet know all of the possible long-term negative effects, as these hormones have only recently started to be prescribed to young women en masse. Further studies are needed. However, you should not assume complete reversibility, when the current evidence in long-term users does not support that conclusion.
I misspoke,I read other info about it but they were probably not referring to l9n term use.I was also hoping to make the mother involved feel less anxious.
Hi Mary, welcome. I’m sorry you, too, are going through this with your daughter. For something that is supposedly so rare, it seems there are more and more new parents arriving here every day, telling how their teen or adult children suddenly declared themselves trans, despite showing no notion of wanting to be the opposite sex up until that point.
You already know that because your daughter is an adult, she makes her own medical decisions. However, I believe it is possible for you to contact her doctor and let him know of her previous bipolar diagnosis. I can’t think of a “polite” way to threaten someone, but I would, as politely as possible, let him know you will be contacting his state’s medical board if he prescribes testosterone to a bipolar patient within just two weeks of her visit to him. You can speak your piece to this doctor via written communication (perhaps a certified letter?). He does not have to speak a word to you which would break any doctor-patient confidentiality law, but you can at least attempt to let him know all the psychological problems your daughter has been experiencing.
Best wishes and good luck. I really feel for you. There are so many of us in the same horrible boat.
That’s exactly how it started with my son. Role playing websites then Reddit and tumblr. We all have such similar experience. This cannot be a coincidence. The Trans community and the people making tons of money off of this are all too willing to grab them and bring them in. Please everyone make sure our voices are heard when Katie couric and nat geo come out with their gender nation series in January
Mary, glad you’ve found your way here. So many parents are struggling with similar situations. I keep hoping that due to the sheer number of our children going through this that the mainstream media will start covering it and alert the public.
If your daughter is willing to discuss this topic, you may want to suggest that she look into the side effects of testosterone and surgeries. Also, recently there have been a number of excellent videos and essays by detransitioned women that may hold some sway. Their words are very powerful and may reach her in a way that you cannot.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9L2jyEDwpEw&feature=youtu.be
https://thissoftspace.wordpress.com/2016/08/03/voices/
If she is willing to listen at all, I would try to make the point (as calmly and emotionless as you can muster), that you care deeply for her and want her to slow down, to research and carefully think things through. That is all that you can do, to plant seeds and hope that at some point they sprout.
In the meantime, I hope that you feel somewhat better being in the company of others that are in the same boat. Wishing you the strength to get through this. Hang in there.
I think one of the problems with this whole process is that the medical care and the therapists are separated. Therapists don’t see what the medicine (hormones and surgery) does to people. They don’t know the biology of it.
At the same time, doctors don’t know about things like the surge in kids who want to transition that some therapists think might not have gender dysphoria (I think there is an article about that on this site). They don’t know about people who change their minds. They don’t know about other possible diagnoses. They don’t feel responsible for figuring out whether or not someone should have the treatment either.
Thank you! It’s nice to hear from a level headed mom.
I’m honestly so surprised. There are so many comments on here that just blow me away. It surprises me that many of you call yourselves mothers. I barely know where to begin.
First of all, the transgender community is not a “Cult.”
Transgender people surround themselves with other transgender people because they understand each other. They feel welcome and accepted, which is important. From reading these comments, I can tell that many of you are not making your home a welcoming environment. If someone isn’t transgender, it is a very difficult thing to understand. It’s like this right here. Mothers flock to each other to talk about the issues they experience with their children. Do not even begin to say that trans people are an issue. The issue is close minded people. I’m not saying that you should be open to everything, but I am saying that this is something that you should learn to accept. I don’t know the whole situation with your family, but if one day your daughter just “dropped” all of the said “masculine traits,” then I’m going to assume that she was: 1.) Nervous and unsure 2.) Realizing that it wasn’t exactly what she wanted 3.) Feeling hopeless. From reading this, it sounds like you pretty much told her that you wanted no part in her life if she made any decision. News flash- this is the child’s body, not yours. This is the child’s happiness, not yours. From reading a lot of this, it sounds like many of you are purely selfish because you can’t even begin to understand something bigger than yourselves.
Secondly, there is actually proof. Don’t believe me?
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-there-something-unique-about-the-transgender-brain/
The fact that some of you said that no proof exists was out of ignorance, and I understand that. This was an easy source to find, please read it and educate yourselves a bit more.
Third, I’m not trying to attack you. I know that this is scary but you need to keep in mind that this isn’t your choice. No, I’m not saying that a child should transition at a very young age. Anyone going through this needs to take it slow. It’s a long and scary process. Then again, I wouldn’t have a say in every situation. I’m also not saying that every therapist is completely correct. The reason that therapists are so eager to label “Trans” is because they want people to understand that it shouldn’t be scary. They aren’t trying to sell you some “scary trans cult” or anything of the sort. It’s so upsetting to see mothers act like this.
You are treating the children- the young adults that you are raising- like objects. You need to listen to them. Being trans isn’t a trend. It’s becoming more known and more accepted. Please read this and think a little. If your kid just dropped their identity like that, I’m going to bet that there’s something going on that they’re not telling you. Please show them that you care. This is scary and a lot of these comments are scary. I can’t imagine being in a lot of these kid’s positions, especially with the way a lot of you bad mouth and degrade your children.
Sorry if I offended anyone, but this whole website is a bit ridiculous.
Response to your comment is in this post:
//4thwavenow.com/2016/07/28/internet-parenting-expert-berates-mom-of-teen-who-grew-out-of-trans-identity/
Maddy, the daughter of this post’s author desisted — she decided she wasn’t trans after all. Think of the consequences had this child been permanently sterilized or given the other permanent medical changes she said she wanted at the time. How can you criticize a parent who knows her child better than a “gender therapist,” “gender doctor,” transactivist or some unknown parent on the internet? Most of whom never even met the girl.
Can you not see the fact that her daughter changed her mind proves this mother was correct in her knowledge that her child was not really trans? And yet you question that the mother should even be called a mother.
Giving this girl what she wanted would have been tragic. Her mother knew it and saved the girl from irreparable harm. And she’s helping spread the word that desistence is much more common than the public is led to believe, while also supporting other parents who are not being heard when they insist they know in their gut that their child’s claim of transgender is misguided. You question her ability to be a mother, but she’s the Mother of the Year, in my opinion.
Hi, I am a PhD scientist and I do not agree with your faulty grasp of science. How can you say it isn’t a fad with the huge recent explosion in people claiming trans? It is not that they they are coming out of the woodwork; it is that they are being created. Trans is trendy and cool. It gets attention better than anything else, and sympathy galore. In my day, there was anorexia and drugs, then came cutting, now comes trans. It is all self-hate taken out on the body. Social contagion is a real sociological phenomenon that is well documented. You have said nothing disproving it. You have merely insulted the blogger and commenters here by presuming the ignorance is here; in fact, it is far closer to home. Look in the mirror!
After all of the research I have done along with observing and having lived with my son for 19 years…..this Trans bs is absolutely nothing short of a cult that we must wrestle our kids away from. Parents, mothers….DO NOT GIVE UP OR INTO THIS IINSANITY. It will be exposed as long as we keep shouting for our kids
My daughter is going through this right now. When I asked her if she disliked being a girl she said no. She told me she had read about trans people on the Internet and decided to try it. TRY IT. Sorry but I’m not going to jump on the bandwagon because my daughter wanted to try it. She also tried going dairy free for a while.
About 2 years ago my daughter declared out of the blue no indication ever that she was trans she started hating guys after her 6 th failed. relationship,even though she still has major male crushes.She thinks she is gender fluid, no evidence of this. She also has been Vegan for 4 years, sure she is lacking some major vitamins, and may have hyperthyroidism which could contribute to depression,anxiety and. Underdevelopement of hormones which could be a contributory factor.Still I cant get her to go get a lab test as she is vonvinced she needs meds for depression and that she is trans.Really.frustrating it is like watching helplessly while your child is destroying herself without ruling out a medical problem.
Cecille, I’m sorry you and your daughter are going through this. How old is your daughter? Is she still a minor living at home? If so, I encourage you to look into getting evaluated for depression, and possibly an antidepressant prescription. Do choose a psychiatrist carefully — interview them in advance to make sure they will concentrate only on her nutrition, depression and other possible factors. My daughter has been on antidepressants and ADHD medication for about a year and a half and is doing much better. She does still believe she is trans but has backed away from trans to some degree, and is overall feeling so much better. She has basically rejoined our family. I was never one to advocate for medication but it was very much needed in her case.
If your daughter is an adult, I hope she will consider getting a thorough evaluation. Is there someone in her life she would listen to? Perhaps that person could encourage her to seek help, although I’d hate for the help to end up with a double mastectomy or a prescription for testosterone. It is so tricky and scary to get medical help for these girls and women.
My thoughts are with the two of you. Keep fighting.
My daughter is 21 she wants to start meds for depression,but There is a history of hyperthyroidism invourcfamily, which has many symptoms she is going through like depression, anxiety, fatigue and it also lowers the hormone content which could be making her belive she is suddenly trans.The ptoblem is she won’t go for a lab test as she has convinced herself she is depressed and trans. Neither of which were ever evident 2 years ago.
She always gets depressed between relationships and she has not been in one foe 2 years as she suddenly hates men. I am fine if meds will help her but it needs to be a last resort after she has made sure she does not have hypertyroidism.
Being a vegan is not a bad thing, and usually they get far more vitamins than meat eaters. What is she eating? Hopefully she is not an Oreos and Coca-Cola vegan! If she is eating fresh fruits and vegetables, nuts, legumes, beans and whole grains, soy, etc she is probably doing a lot better than the McDonald’s crowd. I have been a vegetarian (not vegan, but don’t eat eggs) for 44 yrs, BTW, and I am an elite adult athlete.
Oh. My. God! She wanted to “try it.” Unbelievable! Trans is an extremely harmful ideology. Trans wants to make it acceptable to market transness to people so casually, and yet, becoming a lifelong medical patient is so serious! This is a violation of medical ethics! We need the gatekeepers. There are too many disaffected young people, looking for easy answers, that are falling prey to this harmful ideology. Our society is morally wrong to sit on the sidelines in silence.
Luckily she is only 14 and can’t get HRT on her own. I’m hoping that by the time she hits 18 she will change her mind. When I asked her if she had any trans friends at school she said she had several. This is supposed to be a rare thing, there should not be that many in one school. It’s a trend right now and the lack of gatekeepers makes it dangerous.
I am looking for a skeptical psychiatrist for my self-diagnosed teen daughter in the Boca Raton, Fl area. PLEASE…. I am desperate to help her!!!! I am also willing to drive out of the area….
Hi LorenzosOil, I’m sorry you’re feeling so desperate. I think we all can commiserate. I am not in your area; I wish I was and I wish I had a specific name to give you. What I suggest is to start setting up phone interviews with local psychiatrists. Offer to pay them if need be, or pay for an office visit and interview them in person. Hopefully most would give you a at least a few minutes of phone conversation for free.
Here in my state, I found that the psychiatrists who do not accept insurance seem to have the best reputations for giving the most thorough, thoughtful care. So that is something to look for, if you can afford it, and if that holds true in your area. Apparently, at least in my area, the psychiatrists on our insurance plan had bad online reviews. Apparently, they were seeing as many patients as possible in as short a time as possible. Also, my daughter was a minor at the time of our search, which reduced the number of psychiatrists to choose from, as many did not accept minors as patients.
We were lucky enough to find a good therapist who is on our insurance plan, so we save money there, but we’re glad we chose to put a bind on our budget for the psychiatrist, as he has been worth the financial sacrifice. Our daughter’s moods have been smoothed out quite well thanks to the medicine he prescribes, so now she does not need to see him as often, meaning we are paying him less often. Our daughter sees the therapist much more often, but we pay her only a co-pay. I suggest to look for both, and interview them before allowing your daughter to be seen by them. You might also arm yourself with some of the transcritical articles which are out, describing the disturbing social contagion, links to trauma or ASD, etc. to help state your case.
Another hint which worked for us was to find an old-school psychiatrist who is very academic. He has many, many years of experience. I think he is skeptical by nature. He doesn’t buy for a minutes that our daughter is a boy trapped in a girl’s body, but of course he does not tell her that. He is hoping she will figure that out for herself with the help of her therapist and the medication. He is a little bit of a crotchety old man, but in this case it is a good thing because he isn’t swallowing any new-age BS. He is kind, though, and our daughter likes him well enough.
This is just my own experience; I hope you might find some of it helpful. Best wishes to you and your daughter.
Thank you so much for your advise. My husband and I met with her therapist ALONE last week and he suggested going to a psychiatrist and having him run a battery of tests. As much as I don’t want there to be anything, I do hope he finds something that we can attribute to this. Then of course, work on that issue which will hopefully address this as well.
This sucks!!!!!
And thanks…lol
If the tests do not reveal any sort of psychiatric diagnosis, keep in mind that there could be some other explanation worth looking into. For example, the other day I was reading the article “The Cult of Transgender” by Rod Dreher, and a parent who was quoted in that article put his finger on what I think may be the case for many girls who suddenly come out as trans around age 15:
“The stories all sounded the same too. Freshman year of high school, immense pressure to conform to a highly sexualized environment, then if your self confidence is not where the crowd thinks it should be, the name-calling and rumor-mongering. It was so bad a friend of mine told me that her daughter would come home in tears every day because the girls thought she was lesbian and the boys would too, and worse, make lewd gestures. This girl, the victim, told me that a lot of the girls that were picked on were doing this and identifying as male, she thought, as a self defense mechanism so that the rest would leave them alone.”
Just wanted to throw that in for you to keep in mind in case testing reveals no mental illness — she may be claiming to be trans to opt out of social pressure to engage in sexual activity, or if she is sexually attracted to females, she might be trying to “fix” herself by claiming to be male, or, if she is being bullied, she may feel stronger and safer as a male. These are just a few examples of possible reasons, other than a psychiatric illness, that she may find being a male more desirable than being female. I’m hoping you and she are able to get to the root of it.
Best wishes.
Thanks for the input. I am going to read that article ASAP.
I literally just got off the phone w a friend of mine who’s friends daughter just came out to her as trans. This is MADNESS!!!!!
It IS madness and it’s also therapy/child abuse:malpractice and big pharmaceutical cashing in. Surgeons and therapists and the drug companies are booked months if not years out to perform procedures, diagnosis, and drugs to a whole new generation of vulnerable people being indoctrinated into this cult. The true transgender are in two camps . Those who know their truth and question this bullshit and those who are needy and want support to join their their fragile company. I have attended several pflagt meetings and gender health center counseling sessions. The mental illness factor is so obvious painful and disturbing in these meetings and yet the promoters sit there and dismiss it while families are there searching and trying so hard to understand and help their child who is lost and has been captured by this insanity
My daughter has been seeing a Psycholgist for 9 months. He doesn’t feel she is depressed or very anxious. I don’t believe she discloses all her feelings to him. And I do believe she obsesses a bit. Anxiety and depression run rampant on both sides of the family. I was wondering if I should have her formally tested, perhaps take the MMPI-A test. Any suggested tests?
I am having my daughter go through all of the testing. This way, I know that all of the i’s were dotted and T’s were crossed. The psychologist will also help us to come up w a plan of therapy based on the results. I am positive there is something underlying causing her to express herself as a boy.
Good luck everyone!!!
Of course I I believe this has been the right thing for me. I’ve never been happier or more comfortable in my life. As for how long it was I saw a gender therapist for many months before she suggested to me that I might want to transition. I was 20 before I started Testosterone. I dont necessarily think you should wait until your 25 to transition because twenty five is well into adulthood but teens really shouldn’t transition because yes they’re young and they have a lot going on in their mind.
OK…I think my daughter now thinks she is a gay boy. She asked last night if she could go on a date with a biological gay boy. I don’t know if I should laugh or cry.
The psychological tests and results can not come soon enough!! I am freaking out!!! Where do I even begin to have a sex talk with this kid? This is an whole new level of madness!!
Anyone else experiencing this? Your daughter thinking she is a gay male?
It is amazing how hard it is to find support for parents who do not agree that their child is transgender. I read a blog of a mother and all of the replies were so happy with their child’s decision and not a single person who felt as I do. No one with the sadness, rage, and utter despair that I feel. My son never told me, I guessed. And not because he is the least bit feminine. There is absolutely nothing feminine about him. He gets mad and slams his fist into the wall (another thing we’ve had to have talks about) or he towers over me yelling at the top of his voice (a male intimidation thing I have experienced many, many time. Also another talk we’ve had about his behavior toward his mother and his temper.) I only guessed after he mistook everything his family said as racist or bigoted (they were not, but he was deep in depression and spent all of his time online) and wanted to defend the LGBT community in situations that had nothing to do with it. I realized he kept bringing it up for a reason, even twisting our words so that he could be angry and bring up the subject. I have urged and urged him to see a therapist and he finally has, he found one who specializes in transgender, so of course she is encouraging him. When he told her of my suggestion that the years of bullying and the fact that he is a Highly Sensitive Person (who had a hard time identifying with the men around him who were not sensitive), and the fact that moving from grade school to middle school he lost all of his friends who were girls could be reasons why he would think he would be happy as a girl, he said she smiled and shook her head as if to say I was stupid to think this way. He turns 21 tomorrow and at this point I have no control over who he sees. I am going to take measures against this “family therapist” who was always rude to me when I brought him to the appointments. I have asked if she has discussed any other mental issues such as Aspergers and Bi-Polar. There is a history of Bi-Polar in my family as well as HSP (Highly Sensitive Person), and it’s a high possibility that I am Bi-Polar but Psychiatrists in my area are ALL full and not accepting new patients.
The pain in his eyes when he asks me to support him is tearing me apart. I love my son with all of my heart. He wants to change without seeing a psychiatrist, without taking any of the precautions that are advised. He wants to skip anything and everything that might make him question this decision. He doesn’t listen to reason and he is one of the smartest people I know. I know in his depression and his loneliness he found a community online who has convinced him he is something he is not and I am desperately trying to stop him from making a mistake he cannot undo. He can be suicidal and if he does this and realizes it’s not him, I am afraid he will take his own life.
Everything I say to him causes him pain and that causes me pain. How can I stand by and watch him do this? I feel so helpless, I feel rage, I feel despair. He only has a part time job, that he just started, he doesn’t have friends (except online), he is always online. He has been bullied his entire childhood by boys. He’s never experienced life as a man. Never lived on his own, paid his own bills, had a girlfriend who wasn’t online (he likes only girls) how can he possibly know what he wants? He still doesn’t have a driver’s license. I believe his maturity is stunted by all of the emotional trauma in his life. And the fact that he wants to skip every precaution in place that he can so that his determination is not challenged speaks volumes to me.
I pray and I pray for my son. His father and I have spent his life trying to protect him from bullies and have tried to teach him right from wrong, truth from lie and yes, we wonder what we could have done differently. I am seeing a therapist and for now she wants me to not think about him changing because I grieve as if he’s killing my son and had advised my husband at one point that I should go into in-patient care. How can I do that when he wants to pierce his ears and do as much as he can to start the change? There are no support groups in my area, I cannot find online support groups who wouldn’t crucify me for feeling as I do. I am desperate.
Aw, NH – my heart goes out to you. I can tell you love your child very much and only want what is best for him. My husband and I are in the same boat, although our daughter is 17, still a minor. This place, this website and the others listed in the links on the right, has been a blessing to me during the last 8 months. I’m glad you found us. I don’t have answers for you, but I did want to reach out and let you know you’re in a very safe place to vent and speak without the ridicule. (Although a few commenters come here defend the transcult movement but the moderator is great about controlling the tone of the debates.)
Wendi, thank you very much for the welcome. I am a little baffled by the site. I see no links to the right and if I want to “like” something I must sign up for my own website. I would like to see the other links, but maybe that also has to do with me not having a whole website created. I am very confused about this site.
NH, a very warm welcome to you. To see the links, you need to be on the main page (not an individual post). You should see the “blogroll” to the right, along with some other information.
I think you need a WordPress account to like something, but you do not need your own site / blog. I have a WordPress account, but no website or blog. I think the links may appear when you click on “home” or enter a search term. You can also just scroll by hitting “Previous” under the header / picture. Hope this helps!
NH, I just wanted you to know how deeply sorry I am. I know how you feel, I too have a very sensitive son. You will be in my prayers.
Peace & blessings to you and your family.
I’m leaving an update here because it’s important to hear other’s struggles and outcomes. I hope this will maybe inspire some conversations with your dysphoric kids. I’ve shared our story in a few other posts. Long story short, my daughter said she was trans 8 months ago, when she was 16. Everyone found it extremely odd because she has always and still does hate boys. She thinks they are annoying and stupid. So, I found it difficult to accept her being a boy herself. And it drove me to dig deeper.
My daughter absolutely hates having attention thrown at her. Whether it’s singing happy birthday to her in her own home or being called on stage to receive an award at school, she wants nothing to do with it. So I started thinking about that aspect of her personality and hitting puberty and boys. And then it clicked. Boys must have started paying attention to her because she is cute and a girl.
So today we were talking about her definition of a girl, a female, what it meant to be both. She said she was asexual and hated the very thought of someone touching her that way. And then she said, “I found out last year that some boys had crushes on me and that was it. I was done.” O-O My theory was validated. So, in order to avoid the attention of boys she was thinking of becoming one. Oh. My. God. I told her, “You know there are many ways to shut that down besides dressing and looking like a boy.” She shrugged her shoulders and said, “I guess.”
My teen, who 8 months ago said she was getting all the surgeries, who was ready to start on T, was considering major medical trauma to stop boys from hitting on her!
While I’m disappointed that this intelligent, super smart human being figured this was the only way to deal with a problem, I’m also jumping up and down that we are making progress to a healthy decision. I can only keep these open positive discussions going until it is time for her to make her own decisions at 18. My daughter knew she had to wait until she was a legal adult. We would pay for therapists and counseling but not medical procedures. In the mean time I encouraged her to find other ways to deal with her dysphoria. I asked her therapist to focus on those things and her anxiety instead of testosterone talk and surgery options.
I guess I’m writing all this to say go talk to your kids calmly. Make it sound like you need them to educate you on what they are thinking/feeling. Ask questions about what being a girl/guy means TO THEM. What they hope to change by transitioning. What they feel they are missing by being the sex they are. Tell them you just want them to help you understand what they are feeling. Because I totally believe dysphoria is a very real thing. It just isn’t fixed by what doctors are recommending these days.
So I’m asking all of you here reading. Do you believe transgender individuals exist? I’m asking becuase if you don’t believe that someone doesn’t feel lined up in their assigned gender or wants to do away with gender all together then I was mistaken about the comment section.
I’m not really talking about hormones, surgery, or even pronouns , though I’d be happy to discuss any of that with a questioning or concerned parent.
I’m sure transgender people do exist. Just not in the massive number we see today. If a child has had gender issues from a young age, then yes, they may be transgender. But these kids that have been girly or boyish all their lives and suddenly saying they are the opposite, that’s where I have my doubts.
Thank you for your reply. I understand where you’re coming from becuase a lot of people seem to think that. A common misconception is that a person isn’t trans unless they have already fully transitioned and can pass perfectly which makes it hard for those who don’t want to. This thinking is why a lot of people do a complete 180 when they come out, and I admit it’s hard for people to respect you if you don’t pass ‘enough.’ But that’s not a good way to think for anybody, and it forces a lot of people to do things or wear things they don’t really want to. Transgender isn’t an end all, it’s an umbrella term that can mean all sorts of things.
Sorry if something came out weird. If you have a question I would love to hear it.
Becklionden, I truly don’t mean this to be offensive, because your response was very polite, but this exchange reads like you’re reading from a script.
“Are you saying trans people don’t exist?” is such an oddly specific canard, and yet it’s guaranteed to show up in the comments of any blog post or news article which is even mildly critical of contemporary trans ideology. (Seriously, try searching the comments for “exist” next time you read one. It could be on a bingo card.)
And if we concede for the sake of argument that yes, some people experience consistent, lifelong clinical dysphoria for which medical transition may be the appropriate solution… then the response is inevitably “Well, then you can’t PROVE that someone wasn’t trans all along and just hiding it really well. Maybe even hiding it from themselves. After all, we live in a transphobic society.”
Many of us are here on this site because we’ve heard this exchange a million times already and no longer find it convincing. It’s an invitation to throw everything else we know out the window — about adolescent psychology, social media groupthink, and all the real-world complexities of gender and sexuality, not to mention our ordinary common sense and our deep real-life knowledge of flesh-and-blood people whom we care about deeply and whose personalities are much more rich and complicated than a handful of social media slogans about gender.
Fantastic rebuttal to the “Are you saying trans people don’t exist” canard. Yes, people with gender dysphoria exist, if that is the real question. No, it doesn’t make a man a woman, or vice versa. Becklionden is making the rounds on all of the trans-critical blogs and the arguments are always the same, and frankly, not convincing for all the reasons you so eloquently stated.
Hetronerd. Thank you for the well worded reply. It wasn’t offensive and I have to thank you for not insulting my.
My responses are a little robotic becuase I don’t want to get rolled up and say what I mean wrong.
Medical transition is a bit of a sticky issue so I’ll leave that to another time. Social transition is the less talked about but is incredibly important. It can mean any number of things and every single has gone through some sort of social transition multiple times in their life. It can be something as common as getting a new job or complex like going from a child with little worries to a young adult (complete with mixed up hormones.) Who is now viewed differently by society and has to look at who they are as a person and how they want others to view them.
Sorry. Looks like I got off focus there. Psychology is kind of awesome and human interactions based on how the society around them tells them to act is fascinating.
Tell me if something doesn’t make sense, it probably looks like a mess.
Social transition doesn’t work because everyone knows that the mannish woman is still a woman, and the feminine man is still male. People may be polite, but they don’t buy it.
Yes, I do. However, I believe that for the VAST majority of people with gender identity issues, transition is not the answer. It should be the last resort for adults who have exhausted all other non-medical options. I’m all in favor of people breaking out of the little gender boxes society tries to stuff us in. I will NEVER support letting a child or teen go on hormones and have surgeries. I believe that every medical professional should first do no harm, which to me means NEVER telling a healthy kid that they were born in the wrong body.
TheMom. Thank you for your reply. Medical transition can mean a lot of things to a lot of people. For me it means top surgery. I have no interest in hormones or bottom surgery. Though it was only after a lot of research, talking with different people and a few tears that I came to realize that I wouldn’t be happy with either of those things.
When I was first entertaining medical transition I had thought you couldn’t do just one and that it was like a package deal. There are people who go the whole 9 yards but other people either can’t afford it (becuase wow is it expensive), don’t have someone to help them (this is mostly in relation to surgery), or just don’t want to (a slowly growing number.)
I believe, in terms of teen transition, it depends on the teen. After that it depends on the dosage. The same goes for surgery, it depends on the teen and why.
After all I knew a girl in high school who had a boob reduction becuase of the pain it was cussing her upper back and neck. It all depends on who and why.
A breast reduction due to back pain is not analogous to cosmetic surgery to impersonate the other sex.
becklionden: Medical transition can mean a lot of things to a lot of people. For me it means top surgery. I have no interest in hormones or bottom surgery. Though it was only after a lot of research, talking with different people and a few tears that I came to realize that I wouldn’t be happy with either of those things.
I recommend these two blog posts (with embedded videos) by Max, who had a double mastectomy when she was 17:
Masectomy Feelings
‘It feels like I killed a part of me on purpose, because I blamed that part of me, for the mistreatment that was attracted by my chest. You know, I feel like I was blaming my chest for, the way I was treated- I put a LOT on that part of my body, and I felt that, by removing my breasts, I could remove those feelings. … I would so super love if that was true. For me it was not, it was not true at all. … I mean I got all the feelings that led me here in the first place, that led me to transition and surgery, those feelings are still there. They’re not gone, they’re not better at all. And now I’ve got all the extra shit that transitioning added.’
Nerve Damage
‘Nerve damage. That’s not fun. It really did not seem like that big of a deal to me, when I was, um, looking into surgery, I read all my side effects, signed all my papers, went to the doctor… I did everything right, everyone told me what was what gonna happen. … But … if you don’t have nerve damage, you don’t really know what that’s like, you don’t know what you’re signing up for. Um… it’s pretty distressing to have an area of your body where you used to feel something… feel dead. I mean, it feels the same as like… when your mouth is numb. Sometimes. Sometimes it hurts like hell.’
There are effective ways of dealing with dysphoria. But only the people who have been down that road before you can tell you what those are. On the whole, the therapists and doctors won’t tell you this.
Here is a recent post by the tumblr blogger 23XX: I’m not dysphoric anymore:
‘I want women, ftms, and other female people with dysphoria to know that healing is possible. I am not dysphoric anymore.’
Here is a post by another detransitioned woman, who blogs as e-cryptid:
‘I never wanted to grow breasts. When I did I was distressed. … I remember feeling, near constantly, trapped by my own body.
But last night I caught myself thinking to myself, “I love my boobs.” It wasn’t in the way people ever wanted me to love them. It wasn’t as some symbol of sexuality or femininity or potential maternity. It was more like, “what a cute, funny feature of the strange sort of animal that I am.”
Anyway, what I’m trying to say here is just that it’s possible. You can make it here. You can find peace with your body even if your distress feels intrinsic and even if everyone else is insisting you can’t. You don’t have to change.’
There is a growing community of women sharing their experiences of learning to heal from dysphoria. A good place to find them is the tumblr blog maintained by redressalert, who regularly reblogs posts like the two I have quoted here.
Artemissa. I think I know what you were trying to say but don’t want to assume.
I stand by my statement that surgery may not be for everyone, but it is for some people. Surgery wasn’t for Max and I’m sorry that was the case.
Any surgery is a big deal and a double mastectomy is an intense one. The most common one involves taking off the nipples and replacing them. Which is where a lot of the nerve damage comes in.
Any and all risks or side effects should be evaluated with any surgery a person goes through.
Why not just accept your body as it is, instead of undergoing risky surgeries that may disappoint? You can change your mindset. The body is not the only thing subject to alterations. Treatment of trans individuals should aim to improve mindset and self-acceptance. You can be any kind of woman you want to be. You don’t have to be a walking stereotype. Having more “masculine” energy than most women does not make you male.
becklionden: Any and all risks or side effects should be evaluated with any surgery a person goes through.
Of course. That goes without saying.
But before that it is necessary to evaluate a) how likely it is that the operation will actually cure the problem and b) whether there are less risky and invasive ways of curing or alleviating it.
Transitioning can severely increase dysphoria, not cure it: there is a growing body of testimony to this effect.
As for risk: most of us are optimists. We go into an operation having been ‘informed’ about the risks but persuaded that the odds are on our side. I know I did, when I had an operation several years ago. And then things went wrong during the op. Two more ops to stabilise a problem caused entirely by the first operation. No improvement in the original condition; instead, the reverse: very severely reduced function in that organ. Recurrent pain and soreness, which I never had before the op. Risk of deterioration and much worse pain. And this was a ‘minor’ op with a very good success rate. Do I wish I had never had it? You bet!
The medical evaluation of risk is far from being an exact science. At best it is informed guesswork. Before going into any op, find out what it will be like if things don’t go as expected. What it will really be like, not in the dry language of doctors but in the actual experience of past patients. Put that into the equation as you weigh things up.
Gotta say, I don’t really have an opinion about whether “transgendered” people exist or not. I’m certainly aware that many, many people sincerely believe they are “transgender,” although what this even means (on any sort of objective basis, anyway) is slippery at best. Frankly, I am truly UNinterested in interacting with another person who’s decided to come in and “set us straight” about “gender” and I find offers to “educate” us ignorant parents to be both patronizing and offensive.
So far as I can tell, from absolutely everything I’ve read and experienced, the entire concept of “gender” is a hypothesis (not a theory) about how people’s minds and bodies and society interact. There is no more proof for the existence of gender than there was for the existence of the id and superego, or for the triune God for that matter. If I choose to believe in the triune God that is fine, but I cannot convince anyone else that it is so or it isn’t so. Nobody else has to believe in the existence of the triune God for me to believe; the existence or non-existence of their belief is irrelevant to my belief.
Where somebody *else’s* belief in the existence of gender and the concurrent belief that people’s bodies can and should be changed to match their internal “gender sense” become relevant is when that person attempts to impose that belief set on me or on the people I love or on my community. Whether it is by choosing to ignore all other potential mental health issues in favor of the “trans diagnosis,” or by promoting dangerous, irreversible and untested medical procedures for minors, or by pathologizing young children’s play and preferences, or by evincing a cavalier attitude towards the sterilization of children, or by intruding on women’s traditionally private spaces and places, or by willfully disregarding and discarding sincere efforts to investigate the facts surrounding “trans” issues — these are all times when the “gender belief system” becomes relevant to my life.
So in a narrow sense I would have to say, yes, I do believe at the least that there are people who believe, themselves, that they are “transgender.” That is their subjective experience of reality and, by its nature, that is not something for anyone else to judge or evaluate (no more than anyone else can judge someone’s religious or political or other beliefs). What we can judge and evaluate, however, are the impacts that these “believers” have on those around them, which, from what I can see, are in the main pernicious.
Excellent.
Fantastic post! Yes, trans is a belief, akin to religious dogmatism. No one can objectively prove anything about its existence or nonexistence. It is a subjective account of one’s experience and feelings. We can only look at real world impacts. We can not judge subjective, internal experiences.
I wish I had come across your blog sooner. I have been experiencing this ‘trend’ in my own home and have not listened to my gut. I have played the understanding, ‘worried my kid will kill herself if I do not comply’ parent and gone along with what I feel is a charade for about a year now. I am now regretting some decisions and allowances I have made with my daughter and I’m not really sure how to correct these mistakes. I’ve allowed the name change and recently allowed the school to change it as well.I am totally unconvinced that my kid knows what the heck she wants or is and need help in reversing some of the things I have allowed. Advice?
I am sorry you are going through this. We seem to be in a similar situation. Totally sucks! Our daughter “came out” last Jan. at age 15. Terrified and uneducated, we allowed for the social transition. (Name change/pronouns (we don’t say “he”. My husband and I use her nick name as a pronoun/ and she has a binder) Wish we said no to all of it day one!!!
A few things we are doing right now seem to be helpful…by all means not the cure…I wish!!! She does NOT see a Sex Therapist. NEVER allow that!!!!!!!! We did in the beginning, and without any evaluation, validated her. Totally F-ed up!!!
She is finishing up full psychological testing to see if we missed something. (Seems to be a happy/healthy kid otherwise) We told her that she must wait to do anything related to meds until after she is off our pay-roll. That means, after college. By doing this, it is allowing her brain to fully form. From what I have read, the brain is not finished forming until about age 25. Many girls who get chest surgery, etc as teens, decide to detransition in their 20’s. (With NO breast tissue!!!)
A few months ago, we explained to her that we do not agree with her self diagnosis. We told her we believe that she has been completely brainwashed from social media…that it is virtually impossible for so many teens to be trans.
She knows we love her and that we are trying to be respectful.
Sorry for my rant, but this is absolute madness!!!
Please keep me posted as to what works/doesn’t work for you. I will do the same.
Good luck EVERYONE!!
Lorenzo’s Oil,
What psychological tests were performed on your daughter? My 16 yr old has been seeing a therapist for 1 year. He basically is “walking with her”. His stance is neutral, assures us he is not leading her, but essentially I feel that is affirming. He states he doesn’t think she has any depression, anxiety, etc but never formally tested her. I think it’s time to formally test her, address any psych issues and then wean off seeing him.
AP- I think its safe to say we were all blindsided by our kids’ trans announcements and wish we could have handled things differently from the beginning. The advice from this blog has been amazing. Best to you.
My daughter was seeing a therapist. (Wonderful person!!!!!) Like yours, he was remaining neutral. After much conversation with him, we realized that he felt his job was to help us as a family dealing w the situation…. not necessarily dealing w the trans or what might have caused it. He agreed that we should have psychological testing done and referred us to our current doctor. Some of the tests are: MMPI, Rorschach, WAIS to name a few… the purpose is the assessment of is to gage her emotional status, intellectual abilities, personality and psychopathology. It will hopefully give us a better understanding of what we are dealing with.
After a ton of reading, a common thread amongst theses “suddenly trans” teens was being on the Aspberger spectrum. I would always skip over those articles thinking that didn’t apply to my daughter. Sadly, the more I think about it, socially, she is a little off.
The therapist noticed it too. She often seems more like a 13 year old then a soon-to-be 16 year old.
Tomorrow she takes the last of the three – 2 hour testing sessions. We then wait about 2 weeks for the psychologists results.
These tests are costly and time consuming. I am very hopeful we come up with some useful answers/information. Like the rest of you, we are desperate to help our daughter. I will keep you all posted and let you know if this has been helpful.
I feel the same as you. I found out via my daughter’s phone that she was hiding something from me but wasn’t sure what it was. This was last year around Thanksgiving when she was 18. Turned out she feels she is transgender. She says she determined this by looking things up on the internet and looking at those around her and how they perceive themselves. What?! This completely blindsided our family. None of us had any clue. She stopped wearing dresses around 4th or 5th grade but I never thought anything of it. I absolutely hated dresses and refused to wear them myself at that age. I even fought with my parents about putting on a dress. That didn’t make me transgender though and I don’t see how it makes her so either. I fought against wearing a bra. I was a big tomboy and wanted nothing to do with it. She never fought against it like I did. Was she thrilled about it? No but she didn’t throw a fit like I did. Nothing she ever said or did prepared me for this. She accuses me of trying to talk her out of being who she is. Unfortunately, my own therapist recommended I contact a therapist at our local Children’s hospital who put me in touch with PERSAD. She has been going there for a few months now. We had one family session and I was NOT happy with my perception of what is going on there. While they do go over the pros, cons, choices of transition vs non-transition I feel they don’t care how the family feels about or is dealing with the situation. All they worry about is going through their step by step program to see if they should fill out the required paperwork for a recommendation for transitioning. I’m not happy at all!! I think more emphasis should be placed on having her accept and feel comfortable with the body she has not work toward having her breasts removed and take hormones. She now dresses as a boy, cut her hair very short, wears a binder and no longer shaves. I love her and always will but it is very difficult for me to see her this way.
Oh gosh, AP, so sorry you are in this position! But don’t be down on yourself, you did the best you could with what you knew at the time. It is never too late!
I am wondering how old your daughter is, and exactly what procedures or changes you have permitted. I also wonder what your home situation is, whether she is living with you, or away at school, and how much of her support you are providing. I am also wondering whether your daughter has received any other mental health diagnoses that might be relevant.
It would be very presumptuous of me (or anybody) to tell you what to do at this long-range. But, for my part, I guess I’d start by trying to figure out why your daughter started to go down the transgender road to begin with. Do you think she is lesbian? Before the transition, did she present in a more stereotypically masculine way? Did she get grief for that? Does she have a significant trans friend or social group? Was there any trauma or life change that you think may have precipitated this interest? Does she spend a great deal of time on social media?
Certainly a couple of things that you can do are, if she is seeing a therapist, find out whether she is actively being coached into this change. Especially if she has other mental health issues, of course you don’t want to stop therapy abruptly, but you may want to figure out whether she’s being reinforced and promoted into a trans identity (and consider finding a new therapist who isn’t a “one trick pony”). Similarly, if she’s attending any GLBT clubs or support groups, maybe think about whether the focus is on her being trans to the exclusion of all else.
I am a firm believer in the idea that our girl children can be brought back into a happier relationship with their bodies. Especially if someone spends a giant amount of time online, eventually they become somewhat divorced from their own physical reality and that can lead to wrong thoughts about one’s body. This is why I love sports for girls! Team sports are excellent for all kinds of reasons, but even if she isn’t involved, thinks she’s not good enough, or just hates them, there are many individual sports someone can do, too, that really help with that mind/body connection. Yoga, Pilates, CrossFit, jogging, swimming, weight-lifting, hiking, dance, boxing, martial arts… I think every kid should have some kind or kinds of physical activity that they do several times a week. Maybe you can do something together – just anything to take her out of her head, work up a good honest sweat, and enjoy using her body just the way it is.
As my closing thought, whatever changes you have permitted up until now, you are within your rights to refuse to agree to any more. Yes, we can only do what we do up until a certain point in our children’s lives, and once they are independent they can make their own choices, but certainly while she is still a minor, you do have the right to say “no more.” I really do believe that with time, your daughter will come to understand that you did what you did out of love, care and concern for her (no matter what awful things she says now!).
Stay strong! Keep coming back!
I strongly agree that physical activity and sports are a good way to appreciate what our bodies do for us, and to fight disassociation. It also isn’t dogmatic or an obvious attempt to change her thinking.
Thank god I find someone who is not pushing the child over with a brainless “I support you no matter what”. All I find online are “support group” who try to convince the “ignorant” parent to accept and support their child. My 19 year old college junior just told me he is trans woman now. He has never exhibited any sign – never liked girls stuff, toys, activities, characters. 3 years ago, he was talking about how disappointed he was without a girl friend. Now, after freshman year spending time with those theater kids, this happened. I think he started out sympathizing with those kids, and then he fell in. I want to know if there are resources in this country that actually can help these confused kids – yes, I truly believe they are confused.
What if you are right? Still doesn’t change the fact of many committing suicide because of people like you. Regardless of whether it’s biological or not, it could matter way less once they’re dead.
There is zero evidence that loving parents who support their gender-defiant children in expressing themselves as they wish, but who refuse to pay for sterilizing hormones and drastic surgeries on healthy bodies, are driving their children to self harm. Your highly predictable trans-activist attempt to weaponize suicide and shame caring parents is duly noted–and it has failed.
Emily, your comment is of the kind that parents see all of the time. We are constantly reminded that our children will commit suicide if we don’t provide them with cross-sex hormones and surgeries. Well, we are sick of this “advice.”
We are learning how to support our children in other ways, not caving in and allowing medical interventions. Many of us have children that don’t fit neatly into their gender boxes. We are encouraging our children to break out of these boxes, to embrace how they present (hair, clothing) and what their interests are.
We also support our children by finding therapists (if we can find them) to delve into the issues that might have sparked their depression and/or body rejection. We encourage them to join activities, keeping them busy, physically active, and making new friends. This is the kind of advice that parents need, not the kind that you are spewing.
We are NOT being hateful on this blog. We care deeply for our children and would just like for them to avoid unnecessary hormones and surgeries. My guess is that many of these children are like my daughter who went through a transgender PHASE.
The last thing anyone should want is for a child to mistakenly believe they are transgender, start them on hormones, perform surgeries on them, and only later realize that it was all based on confusion.
Actually, if you keep up the pressure like this on parents, if you keep telling us that it is “better to have a live son, than a dead daughter,” there will be a lot of kids for whom transgender would have been a phase, that will be transitioned. Later, when there are a significant number who regret what was done to them, all of this activism will backfire. The public will eventually become aware of this and opinion will swing back far in the opposite direction.
And…..hopefully with a lot of lawsuits against these ‘therapists’ doctors, gender clinics and activists claiming to be recognized ‘gender specialists’ who are sought out as promoters and speakers on the subject of other people’s children and their needs.
Could you be any more cliche? The hollow suicide threat as a manipulation tactic = boring and over-done. *Yawn.* So much for reasoned discourse. We should all just act on manipulated emotions, right? So cliche!
I’m getting tired of the suicide threat from people who don’t know me or my kid. If my child were so unstable that she threatened suicide because I wouldn’t go along with the fantasy that she can magically become a boy and that all of her problems would be solved with testosterone, then I would put her into an intense therapy program. I would not feed into the fantasy, because my daughter would take the testosterone and eventually find out that she still wasn’t a boy. It’s a very tough lesson to learn, but I will not let my kid destroy her endocrine system and have major surgeries to do it.
People of your ilk are a lot like the drug pushers in the high school hallways in my school days. “Just try testosterone. Everyone else is doing it.” “Your parents are lame. They don’t know how hard it is to be a kid today.” “You can try testosterone for a little while and see if you like it. It won’t hurt you.”
I have to ask if there are any other conditions where parents are expected to give in to their child’s whims because strangers on the Internet say they will commit suicide if we don’t. Do any of these sound reasonable?
Buy me a car or I’ll commit suicide.
Let me go to Cabo with my friends for spring break or I’ll commit suicide.
Let me get a nose job or I’ll commit suicide.
Let me get breast implants or I’ll commit suicide.
Let me get a tattoo or I’ll commit suicide.
Let me starve myself so I can be skinnier than everyone else or I’ll commit suicide.
Buy me new razor blades so cutting will be easier or I’ll commit suicide.
Let me live my life as a cartoon character or I’ll commit suicide.
Buy me alcohol so I can party with my friends or I’ll commit suicide.
One of the toughest things about being a parent is having to say NO to your kid because it is what is best for them, even when they don’t see it or understand it. I show my kid every day how much I adore her. She is loved, cared for, protected, and respected. I did not give in to the demands of a desperate, lonely, teen to allow her to try what she viewed as a magic pill that would solve all of her problems. I said NO. I then turned to finding other ways to help her to work towards peace and happiness. Today she is a happy, healthy teen with friends and dreams and goals for the future.
With your permission, I am going to use this comment in a future post. You nailed it.
Please feel free to use it. Thanks!
Great post! Nailed it.
I also think that the statement to the effect that trans adolescents will commit suicide “because of” “people like [us]” betrays a pretty superficial and typically dramatic view of suicide. I’m certainly no expert, but generally speaking I don’t think that people tend to commit suicide “because of” other people. Sure, you could imagine a situation (for instance in a prison camp) where someone else’s actions could drive someone to suicide, but at least in our Western world, the people who commit suicide are driven by reasons that originate from within, typically mental illness. I also have a sense that the poster is perhaps unaware that there are many, many people out there who are dealing with sad and traumatic life events who do not, in fact, resort to suicide as “the” answer. These events even include parental disapproval and lack of support for one’s teenage wishes.
Now, a person may threaten to commit suicide to get his or her way, or to make a giant splash and a statement, and certainly at this point it has become such a trope in the trans community that you can’t even tease out the motivations.
If you think about it, it’s another example of extreme irresponsibility and a cavalier attitude towards our children and young people, this constant discussion of suicide. Certainly, that suicide is “an option” does seem to be placed in front of these impressionable people, much more often than is healthy. It’s why people have concern about suicide clusters, for instance.
Absolutely! Your comments are spot on. How DARE these “professionals” who claim to care about kids constantly play the suicide card and make those kids feel like if they don’t get what they want, life isn’t worth living. What happens to those kids who DO transition with full support of everyone around them, only to find that they are not happy with their transition for some reason? They were told that they would be happy when they transitioned. Why is suicide the only option if they still aren’t totally happy?
Another difficult lesson that all kids have to learn is that life isn’t always fair. You will not always be happy. You won’t always get what you want. You cannot become the opposite sex. There is no medication or surgery that can make that happen. My goal is for my child to build a happy life in the healthy body that she has.
Okay so here’s my thoughts on this article from a trans person. I get that some kids/teens think they are trans and it turns out that they aren’t but this isn’t true for so many kids/teens. A lot of them say that they are trans and really are and being transgender isn’t a “trend” as you suggest it is an identity and it is an ingrained part of that person. If they think they are trans and it turns out that they aren’t they weren’t just “following a trend” they were questioning who they are and that’s cometpletely okay. Also being trans is not about liking things not stereotypical of their assigned gender it is them feeling like the opposite gender and often wishing their body had those characters such as flat chest, wide hips, facial hair etc. It is also not about the parents at all, parents don’t affect if a child is trans or not at all. That is something they are and it is not about their parents. If someone is really trans it can’t be changed, in this case your daughter wasn’t trans she was simply questioning her gender identity and eventually decided that she was happy with being a girl. That’s all have a good day.
Cade, I think the “trend” part of this is because there are SO MANY girls who are saying they are trans now. There is no way anyone can convince me that transition is the correct course of action for the vast majority of these girls. In my opinion, transition is always a last resort for an adult who has given it a lot of thought and really weighed the pros and cons of the decision.
If you are right and some of these girls are just trying to figure out who they are, then why don’t the trans activists leave them alone? Why don’t those people encourage these girls to experience their feelings WITHOUT taking hormones and having mastectomies while they grow up and work through things? Why do the trans activists make these girls feel like their life is worthless if they don’t transition immediately? Why don’t the gender clinics offer ANY help to the girls who are questioning but not sure if they are trans? Why does EVERYONE get put on the fast track to transition? And why do us parents have to fight so hard to get any real help for our children? Why do we get attacked for trying to protect our own kids from people who do not have their best interests at heart?
Omg where does one even begin with Cade. I won’t waste my time or energy. There is no critical thinking there. 4thwave parents and families: How do we start going about holding these ‘professionals’ legally liable or at least challenged for their malpractice? Would we care if a plastic surgeon told our flat chested under age teen daughter or her parents that she won’t be able to feel like a ‘real’ woman without at least size C breast cup RIGHT NOW!!
WTH happened to ‘do no harm’ first and foremost ESPECIALLY on a child for god’s sake!!
Are there any attorneys out there who are facing this and can offer direction? Am I pie in the sky thinking here?
I don’t have the option to reply to Cade’s latest comment, so I’m replying to my own. I find it interesting that Cade had no response to any of my questions. I would think that trans people only want people who really need to transition to do so. A whole boatload of detransitioners and desistors is not good for their cause. Detransitioned women suing therapists and endocrinologists is very bad. If the everyday trans person doesn’t think that everyone who questions their gender should transition, why don’t they speak out about it? Why don’t they want each individual to get the treatment that is right for their specific case? Why don’t they publicly speak out against the medicalization and sterilization of children?
Cade, my daughter, at one point, felt strongly that she was my son. She felt this gender identity to be “an ingrained part” of her. It was very real to her.
She now knows that she isn’t transgender. But it took a while for her to realize that what she had read/seen on Tumblr and Youtube had misled her. It confused her. It made her believe that since she didn’t fit the girl stereotype, that she was a boy.
I guess you would refer to this as “simply questioning her gender identity.” But this isn’t how *I* would describe it. There is no “simply” about it. All of the misinformation on the internet led to her confusion. If she wasn’t exposed to it, she would never have questioned her gender identity in the first place. And, no way would she have thought she was my son.
Sure, she would have gone through what typical teenagers go through–trying to figure themselves out, rebelling against authority, believing that parents don’t know anything, and feeling invincible. Sure, she would not have been the easiest child to parent during this time. But adding in this whole transgender “education” into the mix has made adolescence so much more complicated and challenging than it needed to be.
I don’t believe kids like my daughter even realize they were/are caught up in a trend. They may notice that others are joining in, but they’re not stopping to critically think, “Hey, statistically this doesn’t make sense that most of my friends are transgender too.”
Of course this is a trend, just based on the numbers alone. There has been a HUGE increase in kids being seen at gender clinics, especially in the US, UK and Canada.
And, it is ridiculous to assume that kids/teens/young adults aren’t influenced and confused about transgender misinformation. Even adults with much more life experience can fall for convincing propaganda. It happens. We are seeing it in the numbers. This massive rise in trans identifying people isn’t happening in a vacuum.
It makes me angry that trans activists are trying desperately to take away our rights to parent our children. Having rules is not abusive, even though some teens think it is. My parents had basic rules for me, and I didn’t think they were fair either. Some of my house rules are more strict than my daughter’s friends, some are more lenient. It’s life. When kids grow up and move out and support themselves, they can make their own rules. Right now, my rules are based on what I think is best for my daughter, period.
Guess what? My daughter is loved and supported. Her feelings are listened to and validated. She has family who all adore her. Her home is a safe place. Life isn’t perfect, but she is happy.
If I had listened to all of the unknown people on the Internet who think they can parent my kid better than I can, my daughter would either be dead after realizing that testosterone didn’t solve her problems, or she would be taking a drug that she doesn’t need and pretending to be a boy and demanding a mastectomy in order to be happy.
I’m not saying that the internet isn’t misleading people some, I agree with you on that. But being transgender isn’t about not fitting the stereotype of your assigned gender, it’s more about how your brain works, how you see yourself, and the fact that almost all transgender people are uncomfortable with the sex characteristics of their body. If she thought she was trans just bc she didn’t fit the stereotype then your right she was probably misled somehow. Maybe you weren’t trying to say that being trans is not firing the stereotype I could be wrong about what you meant there it just seemed like you were trying to say that that is all being trans is. I still don’t believe being transgender is a trend. It could be that there is a rise in numbers bc people are coming out earlier instead of late in life like many trans people have done. Simply my thoughts, thanks for the reply.
Of course I think transition isn’t right for everyone. That’s why people go to a gender therapist to see if transition is what they need or even what they want and if it’s decided transition is what’s best for them then they see an endocrinologist to further see if transition is what they need and what changes they’d like out of transition. Transition isn’t for everyone and some people only want to transition partly and change a few things. I’m sorry if I didn’t see any questions in your first reply to my comment I read it in a hurry because I had to get to work.
Cade, you said:
“If she thought she was trans just bc she didn’t fit the stereotype then your right she was probably misled somehow.”
Yes, that is exactly what I was trying to convey. I know to most adults it seems like a teen wouldn’t come to the conclusion they’re trans based on not fitting a stereotype, but that is what happened in my daughter’s case. I think sometimes adults (myself included) forget that teenage brains don’t operate like mature adult brains.
I do not believe she is, or ever was, transgender. And, I do not believe a transgender diagnosis should hinge on stereotypes. But I do think, based on the ever increasing number of parents reporting similar situations, that numerous kids have been misled. And that is why so many parents are speaking up.
We are trying to make it known what is happening to our kids. We are literally watching social contagion unfolding in our schools (my local high school is one of them). Sometimes entire friend groups come out as trans. And some of these teens find therapists and doctors willing to start them on cross-sex hormones and perform mastectomies. If this isn’t a trend, I don’t know what to call it.
Unfortunately some parents (myself included) have taken their children to gender therapists to find that they only affirm their children’s self-diagnoses. And often all of their children’s peers and school officials affirm their identities as well. It is politically incorrect to ask if there are any underlying reasons they want to alter their bodies. Once someone says they are transgender, it is assumed that they are.
And this understandably scares the crap out of parents like myself, who knew that their child was misled by inaccurate information. Most of us are appalled at how easy it is to get medical treatment for our children.
Cade, I wish that more transgender people were concerned about this and speak out too. No one should want anyone to go through unnecessary medical interventions. I think voicing this opinion would be helpful, not only to parents with kids like mine, but also to keep the option of medical transition open for those whose gender dysphoria isn’t helped by anything else.
I definitely agree with some of your points. If your child has been misled then definitely speak out about it, but if teens in high school are finding doctors to give them hormones then something is seriously wrong because in most places that isn’t even legal. Maybe it’s because I live in the south where if you are transgender it is in no way affirmed by anyone, if anyonthing it is belittled and mocked, that I haven’t seen mass groups coming out as trans or anything. Back at my high school two kids where trans or out as trans and one of them was me. The other one was two years older than me when I came out and I didn’t even know him at the time.
How old are you? You seem to be a bit behind the times. The experiences described by Overwhelmed are shared by many who contribute to this website.
Cade, all I can say is that this is happening now. Maybe it wasn’t when you were in high school, but things have radically changed in the last 5-10 years.
Cade, my experience talking with gender therapists is that they are only interested in transitioning people. They are not interested in looking at WHY somebody feels they are born in the wrong body, or exploring any other treatment options besides transition. They are also not interested in exploring other psychological issues that could exist that should be dealt with before any talk of transition happens. A gender therapist is absolutely the wrong person to see if a person wants to find a solution to their problem without transition. Parents need to know that. I hope any parent reading this understands that the vast majority of gender therapists will guide your child to transition. It is extremely difficult for parents to find a therapist who will explore other options with a child.
So my questions still stand. Why don’t the trans activists leave these questioning, non-conforming, non-suicidal kids alone so they can work out what is best for them? Why is transition (of any kind) the only option? Why do trans activists crucify desistors and detransitioners? Why aren’t trans activists honest with kids about the health risks of medical transition? Why aren’t they honest in telling kids that transition is not a magic pill that will solve all of their problems?
I agree that transition is not for everyone. In fact, it is not for 99% of the people who suffer from gender identity issues. My daughter’s healthy endocrine system is not a machine for a doctor to fiddle with. Testosterone should not be treated like a drug that teenagers experiment with to feel better.
Well I don’t know what gender therapist you talked to bc mine wasn’t intrested in only transition and it took many sessions before we even talked about transition. Also if you do research on transitioning all the medical risks and side effects are made very clear and all the other trans people I know are well aware that transition doesn’t magically make your problems go away, nothing does. I make it pretty clear to the trans people I know thy everyday is still a struggle and that will probably never change. Furthermore testosterone is not a drug for teenagers to fiddle with. Heck it isn’t even available in most states until your 18 which is a legal adult and even then you have to see a gender therapist first. Transition isn’t something that is made possible for you to rush into or expirement with. Maybe it’s just where you live or something but I have never seen or heard of anything of these bad things you are talking about. I’ve never heard of a gender therapist saying transition is the only option or letting someone rush into it. If this is happening then who ever you’ve talked to isn’t a good gender therapist because I’ve never heard of that and it’s not how transition is done.
Many people who contribute to this website have experience with their children receiving prescriptions for hormones in 1 to 3 visits. This has also been confirmed by several detransitioners who have contributed here.
Cade, I speak from experience. When I took my 16 year old daughter to a gender therapist this past summer, they diagnosed her as trans and wanted to start her on testosterone after a 45 minute session. Less than an hour and my daughter was able to get T if I allowed it, no questions asked. The endocrinologist, a reputable one in our area, briefly went over the side effects with my 16 year old and was ready to schedule the testosterone injections if I allowed it. Which I didn’t. There are no safe guards in place any longer, except us parents.
Well, Cade, you might have to accept that other people have had different experiences. Also, every top gender specialist (since Zucker’s been fired) wants to transition kids earlier and doesn’t want to make anyone wait or try to learn how to cope in other ways with dysphoria. That’s just a plain fact.
When I was interviewing therapists for my own daughter, I described our situation and spoke about my concerns for my child’s mental health issues which were of much longer standing and seemed more important to me than her trans identification. Also, that she was destructive and violent. And a professional therapist said, “I would immediately refer you and your daughter to the [local new gender therapy program] and encourage a path to full transition.” When I said, “Doesn’t it seem as if, with her history of emotional and behavioral issues some exploration of WHY she feels the way she does and if there’s any way to look at less irreversible interventions?” And this woman said, “Well, aren’t you a transphobe!”
I can believe that you feel as if you’ve been treated exactly as you need and desire. But you are, in fact, way off base in thinking that your treatment is the norm or that the entire goal of “gender therapy” isn’t simply to transition people who demand it.
To TheMom….That was so well stated!!!
Cade–It was EVERY single gender therapist that her dad or I spoke to. That was about 10 who were included in our insurance. I contacted a psychologist friend who specializes in youth therapy, and he recommended that we NOT use a gender therapist. He suggested using a more general psychologist who worked with teens. We live in a major metropolitan area. We found ONE therapist who was willing to work with our daughter and not jump on the trans train. This therapist was a breath of fresh air, because she said that any talk of transition would be years down the road. So my experience is that 1) gender therapists want to transition kids; 2) most other therapists won’t work with a kid with gender dysphoria.
It is extremely difficult to find therapists who are willing to take a conservative approach and view transition as a last resort.
I know that you believe you have done the right thing for yourself. That’s your choice. However, I have to wonder how long were you in therapy before you were given approval for testosterone. Was it years? Was it months? Was it a few appointments? (You said “many sessions” in your reply.) Are gender therapists really digging in with their clients to figure out why they feel they were born in the wrong body? Do they have their patients do the really hard work of examining their minds, their feelings, and their experiences? Do they encourage anyone to wait until they are at least 25 to medically transition? My fear is that none of this is happening, and people who go to gender therapists are really just looking for someone to start them in the transition process.
As a child, my parents never took me to dancing school, any girlie activities schoolmates were participating in….I grew up in the era of “go outside and play”. I had an older brother and a couple of his friends in the area. Watching the westerns back then was our model. We played cowboys, etc…and my father called me “Joe” all during my childhood.(in reference to our play time: “I’ll be Bob,and you can be Joe.”) To be honest, all of this caused me to think that I must be “different” from the other girls in elementary school, and I actually began to think that I must have really been meant to be a boy. I am just saying this to say that a child’s parental support and concern, or lack of it, can add to a child’s wondering about just who they are…or are supposed to be. As I got older, I chose girl things, happily, but I resented that time of my early childhood when I had to “tag along” with my brother and his friends, and had no other outlets for myself. It wasn’t fair to me. Because of this, I often think that kids do go through “phases”, as I did, and that doesn’t necessarily mean that their imaginations about who they really are should be embraced and acted upon immediately, without question.
Your comment really elucidates why “gender therapists” and all the organizations for “trans kids” are tampering with what is in most cases a natural process of discovery in childhood and adolescence. Leaving children alone, without endorsing their “identity” at a given time; allowing them to play and wear whatever they want–this was normal parenting only a few years ago. Now the media is planting the idea in everyone’s heads to be on the lookout for whether a child is “really” the opposite sex. It’s so unfair to kids and their families. It’s interference. It’s disempowering. And given the high stakes of drastic medical intervention down the road, there ought to be a groundswell of protest to make it stop. Leave kids alone.
Cade. Let me be perfectly clear. What you are saying is very logical but not true or what is happening. Our children are being ushered into life altering decisions with no gate keeping or therapy We have an enormous amount of proof, literally all over our nation if not our world. Parents are here in complete panic over their children’s health, life and futures. We LOVE our children no matter what form they come in. What is going on with the transgender movement is criminal and SUCH a disservice to those who truly need our help and compassion with their gender identity. As you mature I’m sorry to say that you will discover what humans can do when $$ is involved. This is an enormous money pit for all the new ‘gender therapists’, the plastic surgeons, and the drug companies. It’s so hard to believe but it’s true. Yes people WILL justify just about anything when BIG $$ is involved.
I find your ignorance and stupidity amusing.
The feeling is mutual.
I’m so glad, Mason, that you know our children so much better than we do. It’s great that you know what is best for everyone else, and that us parents are ignorant and stupid. I guess every single person who ever questions their gender identity or struggles to feel comfortable in their own skin when they are teenagers should immediately transition. Just like anyone who gets skin cancer on their hand should immediately have their whole arm amputated. Because, you know, the most extreme, dangerous treatment is always the best and everyone must receive the exact same treatment all the time or they’ll commit suicide.
I find your belittling of the pain of fellow human beings pretty callous and nasty. I guess your own pain didn’t grow you any compassion.
Hello, I’m not here to hate or regard you as wrong, I’m simply here to state my opinion on this subject.
First of all, I am an older teen, and have since I was around 9 years old believed something was wrong.
I discovered how awful I felt about myself, and how depressed I started getting when I got older and had to wear bras, which even now send my mood on a shitstorm circuit.
However, I haven’t ‘announced’ to my parents my feelings. Why? Because I live my parents, and I don’t want to upset them like the ‘rebellious teens’ I hear about.
However I’m also not overly supportive of other trans people, for the reasons you’ve stated above, I don’t believe in kindergarten age children being trans, and I’m sickened by the young trans awareness things going around currently.
As I grew up, I didn’t have access to internet or the ‘special snowflakes’ of Tumblr, I simply developed and unfortunately ended up as the defect I am.
I’ve been to psychologists, and I will call them on their bullshit, I was sick to death of the “oh its ok that you feel like this” and the “its perfectly normal” talks they shove down your throat, because I knew that no, its not ok and its not normal.
The fact its considered a trend disgusts me, honestly, and the fact you’re getting such hatemail is also simply gross.
I understand if you do not believe me, and that is up to you, but as you said above, I don’t know your situation, and you don’t know mine.
I merely wanted to share my opinion on the subject.
Thank you for your wonderful website. I am so glad I found you!
I finally found a place that feels the way I do about the whole trans brainwashing movement.
Unfortunately, my 17-year-old daughter is caught up in this insanity, too. She has left home and is living with a relative who fully supports her and intentionally keeps her away from her family to “protect” her from us because we strongly disagree with her self-diagnosis. This relative is sending her to a “gender identity clinic” that will be happy to put her on hormones, while intentionally keeping us in the dark.
We need to stand up and be heard to stop this trans brainwashing. They remind me of the al-qaeda recruiters who troll social media sites, preying upon the young, naive and emotionally vulnerable population.
Only recruiting for al-qaeda is illegal, while recruiting for the trans community is supported and encouraged in the schools, in the media, on the internet, in the therapist’s office…everywhere.
Hi WorriedMom! How much longer is your daughter 17? Are you able to legally get her away from your relatives?
Keep on keeping on with the struggle, if she REALLY wants to transition she can do it at 18 or 21, even. that is too young.
But giving ALL the facts and statistics and hard truths of this form.of mutilating young bodies for purely COSMETIC alterations damages these young folks sexually in ways that are or could be irreversible.
Going after kids who are less than 12 and even 5 years old smacks of a greed so disgusting I can hardly concieve how they can live with themselves to pathologize and medicalize a child so young just because they reject girl or boy clothes, toys and stereotyped behaviors.
LEAVE THE KIDS ALONE!!! How low can the medical/pharma/psyche industries go??
I am so happy to have found this site!! My ‘daughter’ came out (completely out of the blue) a few months ago and left home two months ago. She gave us zero time to try to understand and cope, but just picked up and left because she realized at 17 she has full control over where she lives, what she does, etc..and because we didn’t just immediately understand, accept and jump on this bandwagon with her, she told us all to go to hell and left….She has cut us all out of her life, wont allow the school to keep in touch with us, cut us off access to her therapist, her doctors, the shelter she is living in…no one….She only calls when she needs money for her new man clothes….NEVER calls to say hello or tell us how she’s doing or if she is still going to school, or work, or to her therapy appts…but yet she called me yesterday to say she started testosterone treatment!!!! How is this possible? I was told kids have to go through rigorous mental health evaluation before a doc can prescribe hormone treatment????? So now society has gone so far down this trans agenda that the clinics are now saying psychological eval is unnecessary because being trans isn’t a mental illness!!!!! These people have completely misinterpreted the reason for NEEDING psych eval before altering bodies of young kids!!!!! This is to protect the kids who may have possibly GOT IT WRONG!!! Can’t anyone believe that it just might very well be possible that some teens are just confused about who they are and with the social media focusing so much attention to transgender, these teens are just testing out the waters to see if that may be what they are??? I do believe there are trans kids….I have educated myself a lot over the past few months and can truly empathize with young kids who truly feel dysphoric towards their biologically-assigned gender. But my daughter is NOT ONE OF THEM!!!! Just a week before she came out she was bragging about how close a shave she got on her legs!! To me, that doesn’t sound like someone who has suffered for years feeling disgust for their physical body!!! These clinics need to keep psych eval testing in place to protect the kids that may not be making the right decision. My daughter has had mental health issues for the past ten years. She regularly sees a psychiatrist and therapist to help deal with her ongoing issues. How the hell is it possible that a clinic has no idea they are allowing my child to make medical decisions that she is not capable of making, because they don’t even look at psychological history anymore? She has struggled with poor judgement and inability to make proper decisions all her life and takes a ton of medication to deal with her multiple incapacities. Yet the minute she screams ‘trans’, everyone just turns a blind eye to her psychological problems that perhaps may be the reason she is confused about her gender??? because they don’t want to offend anyone???? are you kidding me????? The fact that she just woke up one day and announced she was trans only a few months ago and now already chopped off all her hair, dresses like a MAN, doesn’t shave her pits or legs and has changed all her highschool ID and records, has her new job already calling her by her new name etc…..this insane speed at which she is taking this journey makes it crystal clear to me that its just another one of her obsessive ideas that she is clinging to, like everything else she has done over the past ten years. This is her main psychological issue!! obsessive, inappropriate behavior….but NO – lets not bother taking that into consideration at all. This kid has been confused her entire life about the world, but yet the minute she says she’s trans, now we are all supposed to suddenly believe she’s got it all figured out????? after ten years of therapy and doctors and hospitals and medication, not ONE person suggested gender identity was at the root of all this and she has never mentioned anything that would have us think she was unhappy with her body. But yet now we are supposed to just accept and believe she is trans???? Her social worker, therapist and psychiatrist wont return any of my calls….she has told them all not to contact her father and I and apparently they have to comply because she is over 16 and has the right to privacy…how is that OK??? this kid is not capable of making decisions about her life…and certainly not about altering her body!!! how did ALL OF THOSE PEOPLE FAIL MY CHILD???? How did the system allow a mentally ill child to slip through the cracks of this messed up society so hyper-sensitive to privacy rights and being open and accepting to alternative lifestyles that we have completely forgotten the importance of protecting children from making dangerous, irreversible, body-altering decisions at a time in their maturity when they are most psychologically vulnerable???
Tamara, I’m glad you are here but sorry you had to be. You are in a community of caring and really supportive parents who feel just like you do. You are NOT the crazy one here.
You sound like you’re going through a 24/7 horror story with your daughter. Yes, you are right and not wrong, you are seeing things correctly that the entire mental health and medical systems seem to be under the bizarre sway of the trans-agenda. You know your daughter and they don’t… but they don’t even pause in taking her 100% at her word and enabling all kinds of horrible decisions. And, who will be there for her when all this comes crashing down? Hint: not the therapists…
Try and take care of yourself as best you can. If you pray, pray. If you meditate, or do yoga, or share with a special friend or a spiritual leader, those are all good things. This is an extremely hard road you are walking, but also know you have sisters and brothers to walk it with you.
Stay strong, and again, welcome.
We are here for you and we are growing. Let go of the fear shame ego we all initially experience. Shout to anyone who will listen about this insanity. It’s the only thing we have to save our children from this social cult contagion!
Tamara, so many of us know what you are going through. I, too, have a daughter who has had many mental health issues and when she announced she was trans, professionals and teachers ignored us. It is a lonely and frightening place to be.
You aren’t alone in this. You’ve found 4thwavenow and it is a safe place where others kids and families are being caught up in this trend. Here, you are heard. It’s not a lot, but sometimes it seems like the only sane thing going.
Hang in there. It is troubling that your minor daughter picked up and left. But, don’t give up hope. Remember, she’s not operating with a fully mature, adult brain. Things can change — if you go through the archives and the sidebar, you’ll find some stories of women who went on hormones and socially transitioned and who detransitioned because it exacerbated some of the own issues, instead of fixing things.
Take good care and welcome.
Tamara, what a nightmare! The system is completely failing to protect your daughter.
I’m not sure what it will take for the mental health and medical communities to wake up and see that they are harming confused kids.
Sending hugs to you and hoping for the best.
I feel your pain so deeply. I know that feeling that the world is upside down. My daughter is younger so there is less that she can do right now, but I feel the pain of being asked to accept something that just makes no sense and knowing that there are alternate explanations that fit much better given underlying mental health issues. I find the most comforting thing for me right now is to read the blogs of detransitioned women who have learned to reconcile with their bodies. There are links to a few on this page, and my favorite is guideonragingstars@tumblr.com It gives me some hope that my child might not always feel that her body is wrong and needs to be erased or reformed.
My world has been turned upside down, I am happy I found this site. My 14 yr old son sent an email to his 20 yr old sister saying he is transgender. She showed it to me trusting i wouldn’t say anything to him about it to break his trust. The email was not in his own words, rather a letter he must have found on the internet that he changed a few names in! It said he feels he should have been a girl . He started his freshman year in high school and has had acid reflux, and anxiety . We went to his family dr. for the reflux, got that taken care of.He started with a therapist 2 weeks ago for the anxiety he told me this morning he emailed her a letter and she said she looks forward to talking with him. He is a shyer quieter boy, he calls himself a nerd and jokes and is fine with that.He loves video games, football,playing pool, riding his quad, music, normal”boy” activities. He has never ever showed any interest in anything female besides liking the color pink! I love him no matter what , I just don’t want him to feel confused and I don’t want to give any bad advice! My mom gut is saying he is confused and overwhelmed with the high school and friends having girlfriends. He loves his body also walks around shirtless and flexes his muscles (he boxes and lifts weights) I creeped on his computer and see he has visited a lot of internet chat rooms or sites like I saw mentioned in comments. Any advice on where to go with all this? Help !
I am in the same boat with my 17 year old who insists he is really my daughter while he is playing shooting video games and magic the card game. He too is very nerdy but he has always been ok with that. He decided he was really a transfemale after self diagnosing on the internet thanks to those fabulous chat rooms. Hubby and I are beside ourselves and have no idea what to tell his 11 year old brother? Sad and angry!
My now 19 year old daughter also self diagnosed herself using the internet!! It’s so frustrating that the therapist support her with that!! She also has Aspergers which I think may contribute to the confusion. I don’t understand why therapists don’t teach her to love her body the way it is instead of supporting her mutilating herself (she is talking about a mastectomy!!) I am beside myself. I have two other daughters 14 and 12. The older of the two won’t even discuss what is going on and the younger is like why does she want to be a boy when she doesn’t even act like one?! This is so frustrating!! She won’t even consider the possibility that she isn’t trans!!
Same story here. My 20 year old son in college, because of his social anxiety, spends most of his time on the internet, playing shooting games, watching anime, and spending too much time on tumblr, and has “for the past year” become convinced he is a girl. He also has real life friends who encouraged him to come out and have gone so far as to dress him up and help him with his makeup. My husband and I are just terrified that he will try to get HRT. We are struggling to find a therapist who will deal with the underlying emotional issues and not push him further into his delusions. Does anyone here have any practical resources?
Sue, I’m glad you found 4thWaveNow. There is a lot of good advice and information here. And many parents are in the same boat.
Lisa Marchiano just released “Guidance for Parents of Teens With Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria” on her website:
http://thejungsoul.com/guidance-for-parents-of-teens-with-rapid-onset-gender-dysphoria/
I hope this helps. It is difficult to know what to do in this situation (it’s not something you’ll find in any parenting books). You want to be accepting of your child no matter what, but feel he may be confused. And you want to protect him from making decisions he may later regret.
Wishing you the best.
May I suggest you read up on autogynophilia? It is very hard for us parents to think about, but one theory is that some boys develop gender dysphoria because they are cross-dressers. I’ve never quite understood how this works – is it that they create an identity and it becomes real? Is this a process that take time and can be stopped? do they just want to have a woman’s body?
For some people, though, there is a connection between enjoying cross-dressing and developing gender dysphoria. One of my fears is that teens who cross-dress might feel bad about their developing sexuality and think it is better if they just are girls (or boys, this might happen to girls, but not as often). What they read about the issue and the way people define gender now might confirm this idea for them. Then they get the idea that they must transition or be miserable and so they go forward with medical changes.
Don’t talk to your kid about cross-dressing yourself. Perhaps you can a therapist who knows something about this area, if you think it is a possibility.
Also, I would recommend putting on some software that allows you to block sites and/or track where he goes. Also putting his computer where you can see it.
I have never seen anyone explain what to do about this, but I would guess that anything you can do to reinforce his masculine interests would be smart. Not forcing him or anything, just spending time doing things he enjoys or encouraging him. And maybe work on helping him with his social life or his social standing among guys?
Again, I’m not sure this would help, but if I had to do it all over again I would make an effort to talk about masculinity in positive ways. Not very radical of me, but I think our society only talks about toxic masculinity. And if your son has been on the Internet, he has probably seen a lot of the worst of toxic masculinity and porn. I think any normal male might recoil and wonder if he wants to be a male. Maybe talking to him about that and how real men are different would help?
I hope this helps, but I am also wandering around in the dark, trying to figure out where I am without a map.
as someone who is actually in therapy for gender dysphoria (not just labeling myself as male, mind you, rather as the actual need for a male body), my therapist has done far more to try and convince me that i do not need transition right now. any therapist worth paying for would not push your child to do anything they did not want. a therapist is not supposed to push a patient to anything. if they are properly doing their job, then they are not pushing anyone. to simply write off every single case of a teenage or child believing they are trans as “trans-trending” is wrong at the least, and could be harmful or worse. a lot of children keep that they are dysphoric to themselves, after all, they are made fun of or worse. its not hard to hide. not every trans kid spends time wearing clothes of another gender or putting on makeup. some are simpler, in the fact that they just want the correct body, and they can hide it. its eating me alive and barely anyone notice im trans and dying
thanks.
I can’t say I understand your struggle because I definitely don’t but I have struggled with my own body issues and I know how hard that can be. I wish you all the best and it sounds like you have a good therapist. Keep seeing them.
I’m glad that you are in therapy and are willing to work on other options besides transition. I think that no matter what you decide to do in the future, at least you will know that you put yourself in the best possible position to handle whatever comes your way. I think the vast majority of these rapid-onset transitioners are rushing into medical care without having a good handle on the reality of what they’re signing up for, and without the tools they will need to handle it.
This is really sad to see.
You remind me largely of my parents, they too were very for the thinking of my being trans as something that was a phase, something that would pass. I insisted that I needed help, they denied me access to a therapist, or any sort of feminine presentation.
The very stern and “line-drawn” talkings I received from them made it very clear to me that I could not transition well dependent on them, so I did the only thing I could do – I faked the part like I already had for 19 years. I had been aware of my feelings for 7 years prior to letting them in on them and recieved the exact reaction I feared, one similar to your’s.
This put me deeper into depression and into a headspace where I was abusing alcohol just to cope. It was not a healthy way of living.
Eventually post-college I found myself working for a company that has trans inclusive policies and healthcare. Now that I was independent I was able to gain access to access to support networks, a proper therapist, and eventually came to the same conclusion I had in years previous. I needed to transition to have a happy, fruitful, and functional life.
Now I’m about two years into my transition and happier than I can ever recall. The biggest challenge in my life right now is my strained relationship with my parents as they struggle to understand my need to transition.
If your kid expresses interest in exploring their gender and says they need help, please keep an open mind and let them explore it, there’s a lot of things you can do to help them that aren’t permanent or are easy to recognize as not what you need when you start (HRT for example).
Reactions similar to the one above are toxic, suffocating, and counter-productive in my experience – it may seem like a solution, but for me it was just a delay that made my life harder in the long run by delaying my transition.
You have misread the post. First, the teen in question was not in any way “gender policed” as you apparently were (you mention your parents didn’t let you have a “feminine presentation”–you are, I assume, MtoF). That’s part of the problem–parents who refuse to allow their kids to be “gender nonconforming” actually increase the odds that the teen will believe they are “really” the opposite sex, since they prefer the appearance and activities more typical of the opposite sex and their parents tell them that is wrong.
The only line drawn with this teen was a refusal to pay for medical transition while she was a minor; it was made clear that if she continued to believe she was trans after age 18, she would have to pay those expenses herself. Her “gender presentation” was left up to her and was in fact supported. A parent refusing to foot the bill for drastic, sudden medical treatments would have been seen as totally uncontroversial only a few years ago. Medical transition was for adults over 18 only, and there is zero evidence that such waiting has ever resulted in harm to people who later proceed with transition. A lack of overall family support DOES matter, but there are plenty of ways to support and love a gender-defiant child or teen short of testosterone and top surgery.
Like most people who submit critical comments to this blog, you give ZERO credence to the modern and increasing phenomenon of social contagion and teen “trans trending” on social media. If you haven’t spent time on Tumblr, Reddit, or YouTube transition videos, you might be unaware, but it is heavily influencing lots of teens–particularly teen girls (and your experience as a male is and was not the same as that of a teenage girl). What’s “toxic” and “suffocating” is the demand that parents immediately validate what is in at least some cases indeed a phase. In the case of the original post, this young adult has continued to desist from a trans identity–**by her own choice**–and has thus avoided becoming a lifelong medical patient with a permanently altered body; a good outcome by any measure. Why wouldn’t you and others celebrate such an outcome, instead of wanting every teen who temporarily succumbs to trans trending to be “affirmed”–especially teens you have absolutely zero personal knowledge of? Desistance from a trans identity is a real thing, though you’d never know it from the media and comments like yours. And while you may think that seeing a “gender therapist” is the right way to go and that such therapists would never help send a teen down the road to medical transition unnecessarily, I invite you to read more of this blog and comments from parents.
I’m sorry if your parents were unkind and prevented you from expressing your personality in non-conforming ways. But the parents who are regular contributors on 4thWaveNow support their kids in expressing themselves how they wish. We just don’t believe that “support” involves bankrolling hormones, surgeries, and “gender therapy” for underage adolescents who are simply exploring who they are–as adolescents have always done, long before the Age of the Trans Child.
Christine, I’m glad you are happy with things and I hope you stay that way. Two years in, after spending at least (?) seven years building up to it, is not a long time, but hopefully you’ll continue to feel as you do indefinitely. And, hopefully also, the medical procedures that you’ve undertaken will not shorten your life-span, or damage your health – since nobody can know, now, whether they’re truly safe or not.
One thing to consider, though, is that not everyone travels the same road as you did and do. Many, many children and teens go through a stage of thinking that they are trans, but then ultimately go on to either be gay or lesbian, but in any event not trans. The child or teen may sincerely and utterly believe that s/he is trans… and then turn out not to be. Should every child or teen who believes that s/he is trans be socially transitioned? Put on the road to eventual medical transition? “Supported” in the belief that s/he is in the wrong body? Should every child or teen who believes that s/he might be trans be supported in case they do turn out to be… just to be on the safe side? Even though that would, most certainly, lead to children and teens being treated “as if” trans when the child or teen would not have turned out that way?
The downside for parents and children who wait to see how things develop is what it was for you. You are angry and presumably you wish you could have gotten the show on the road sooner. You allude to a past substance abuse problem and depression but now things are better.
However, the downside for parents and children who do NOT wait to see how things develop is considerably darker. First, what we see here is that frequently a child or teen presents with psychiatric issues that are overlooked and go untreated in favor of the trans diagnosis. It can take a long time and a lot of trauma before a child’s actual mental health needs are addressed. Second, being led down the path to what may ultimately prove to be needless blocker and hormone use, and irreversible surgeries, is a pretty high price to pay “just in case.”
When you compare the different downsides to waiting and not waiting, it seems pretty obvious to me that waiting is better parenting, regardless of whether the person ultimately proves to be trans.
Christine, I’m not sure why it makes you sad. A mother shared that her daughter no longer feels transgender. It makes no sense to conflate her daughter’s period of gender confusion with your own experience.
If someone decides he or she isn’t trans, just accept it and move on. This blog post isn’t about you. If you are happy with your transition, good for you. I’m not going to argue with you about your identity or belittle you in any way. Please go about and enjoy your life elsewhere.
Leave us alone. We are airing valid concerns. Young people like 4thwavenow’s daughter, my own daughter and many more have desisted and there should be no offense taken when it is discussed.
I’m relieved that my daughter no longer feels transgender. She is now comfortable in her body and doesn’t feel that hormones and surgery are necessary. Preferring her not to medically transition doesn’t make me a transphobic bigot, it just means I wanted to avoid unnecessary medical interventions for my child. That is it.
This shouldn’t make anyone sad.
Christine: I think 4thWaveNow fully expressed my thoughts in response to your post, but I would just add that many of us who come to this site on a daily basis are doing what we believe is best for our children with open hearts and minds, and it is frustrating to have our skepticism about the fact that our daughters (mostly) who never had gender identity issues before but who were suffering from other mental health issues were “born in the wrong body” conflated with parents who are simply intolerant of any non-conforming presentation or behavior. I don’t want my child to play a part — I want her to be whatever she wants and to express that in her clothing hair etc in the way that makes her feel good and to love whomever she chooses. What I don’t want is to accept as final that she will need to spend a lifetime believing that her healthy body is somehow wrong. Before she determined that she was trans, she was not eating in order to fix her perception that she was too big. I want my daughter to be free of all these notions that she needs to be any particular way and to be free to live in the body she has without surgery or lifelong hormone injections. I want that because the alternative seems unnecessarily hard and ultimately unsatisfying as she will never be able to fully banish her sex and make her body male. I recognize like the other parents here that I won’t control that when she is an adult, but as her parent it is my duty to try and guide and protect her so that she can express herself without fear or shame related to her body. And if she decides as an adult to transition I want her to live in a world where she is not discriminated against because of that choice which is why I support efforts to ensure that trans people are treated with compassion and respect and not subject to unfair discrimination. I am sorry that your parents did not have compassion for your situation and instead made you feel ashamed. This situation is hard on parents and children and we each need to try and understand one another. I for one strongly recall the feeling that my parent did not really understand me when I was a teenager, and thus I am not surprised at my daughter’s anger and disappointment that I am not simply willing to accept that her feelings about her gender are the only thing that matter. I know I would probably feel the same if I were in her shoes, but it’s hard for her, as a 13 year old, to see things from my perspective. I really love being a parent, and so for that reason I hope that you may have the opportunity to be a parent someday, and that might be the time that you have a bit more compassion for what the parents who post here are experiencing.
I’m so glad I found this post. My 12 year old daughter has told me that she is a boy – she gave me this letter that seemed to be a form letter (she denies this)…in this letter she asks that we start calling her “he”, allow her to cut her hair short, and call her a new “boy” name, along with chest binding, etc… I am devastated by this news and initially got angry with her – angry that she didn’t tell both me and her Dad and that it just came out of left field. I think she knows that her Dad will not accept this info at all and that’s why she only told me. After calming down, I talked to her and told her that I love her and even though I may not agree with her thinking that I would still love her no matter what. She got a cell phone last Christmas and has been on it non-stop which had been very worrying to me. I asked her where she got the idea of “transgender” from and she admitted it started on Instagram. I feel like all of this stemmed from when she started her period and started developing. She hates her body and having a period and large breasts, she is almost a D cup (she is not petite and looks much older than she is). She says she has no friends – she does have friend in school but she doesn’t socialize outside of school and is lonely. I have looked online because honestly I know nothing about transgender and have found some info and had discussions with her where she reveals she’s been feeling like this for a few years now and yes I had noticed that she was dressing less girly, quit dance, and in general seemed to be gravitating toward looking very tomboyish….but I figured this was a phase. I’ve asked her questions and it seems like she just thinks she’ll be happy if she’s a boy. My thought is that I need to get her to a therapist to address her issues with hating her body and self and then deal with the issue that she might be a boy later….she’s only 12 and I wonder if she really thinks she’s a boy or if it could be something else. I completely regret getting her a cell phone and feel like this is all my fault. I love her but if I’m honest – I do not think she is a boy and don’t want her to be a boy. I told her that we are having a discussion with her Dad this weekend because I can no longer bear this on my own. I am afraid of what his reaction will be – but I know that we both love her and ultimately I just want her to be happy. I worry that she thinks turning transgender will be a magic happy pill for her and I tried to explain that all the other issues she’s dealing with are not going to magically disappear if she starts dressing like a boy. Some of the detransition female to male videos i’ve watched sound like they initially had a strong hate of their body and it’s what I suspect in my daughter’s case. Any thoughts??
You hit the nail on the head!!! Freaking social media telling our “frindge” daughters they are boys. Please go and have her evaluated!! Obdviously I don’t know you or your daughter personally, but if I were a betting person, I would bet there is something else going on. Make sure to call and talk w the therapist and/or psychiatrist first. Make sure they do not have an agenda.
My daughter also told me when my husband was away… it was so hard carrying that around for the week. I knew he was going to flip. Meanwhile, I was terrified for my daughter and did not have knowledge of sites such as this one. Consider yourself lucky that you found 4thwave prior to committing to even a social transition with your daughter. We did allow for her to socially transition and it is really hard to reverse it.
Last, I bet your daughter is feeling a level of social acceptance online that she is not getting at school. That alone can be very alluring.
Stay strong and remember you have us to bounce thoughts off of.
We talked to my husband today and he didn’t freak out like I thought he would. It was actually a good conversation. I think all three of us agree that we are going to try for family counseling (not a transgender therapist) to help her deal with all of the issues going on. He’s on the same page as me as far as we both think she is a scared confused 12 year old and not really transgender…we want her to figure her self out and time will tell….feeling better right now but anxious for the future.
Make sure you don’t take her to PFLAG. Find a therapist who is willing to work on her acceptance of her body if you are able to find one. Your daughter is still young and you are lucky you have control. Mine is 19 and won’t listen to anything I have to say.
Unsure, I (we) feel your pain.
Here is a link to an article that I hope can give you some good ideas and coping strategies.
http://thejungsoul.com/guidance-for-parents-of-teens-with-rapid-onset-gender-dysphoria/
Stay strong and know that this, too, shall pass…
I would recommend letting her cut her hair and dress how she wants to. It’s important for children to be able to do what they want in those areas and it’s important for her to know she can be a girl and dress any way she wants to. Let her know she can be a girl and do tomboy things.
Binding is bad for your health. It can damage your breasts, interfere with breathing, and cause back problems. You can forbid it on those grounds.
There is a study that found some girls who were lonely and had been bullied at school developed gender dysphoria. https://capmh.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13034-015-0042-y
I would recommend focusing on helping her deal with social issues, any bullying, and her body image. Also, you might want to find out if she has been abused sexually.
That was one thing that we did discuss with her was if she’s ever been sexually abused or touched by anyone and she told us No. Going to take a look at the links and studies mentioned above, Thanks for the help
My son (wanting to turn female) has expressed himself at 21 years old, saying he’s transgender, also out of the blue to me but influenced by his also girlfriend who was telling him he must be female because he sat in his elementary school pictures with his hands across his lap (as they all did in the front row) and that he was holding his kitten lovingly in a maternal way, so that must make him woman. He is also autistic, he has aspergers, which we only found out 4 years ago. I have always wondered since he announced this about a year ago (with the help of his girlfriend who is also autistic planting this seed in his head to question himself) that it’s not the case. He’s always felt uncomfortable as a whole and like he doesn’t fit in so I’m wondering how much of it is searching in a community for acceptance…..something “different” like him and how he is feeling because of being autistic. He’s had concerns of his genitalia size before but I thought that would be pretty normal for a boy at 13, or any age to question their size (many adult neurotypical men do it too in their 20’s, 30’s and yes even 40’s, lol)…….
So consider that his transgender thought or perceived desire, combine that with aspergers and gender dysphoria that can be quite common with Aspergers…..who has never before shown any signs of being interested in anything girly, to all of a sudden shift out of what I feel is a desperate attempt to fit in somewhere…..
I struggle so hard because I am trying to get him to be himself and that he’s ok the way he is, but now he has this complexity. I’m still grieving the diagnosis of Aspergers, now I’m grieving the thought of losing my son because of a planted seed of “If you change your physical self, you’ll feel better, you’re not ok with you as you are” which is other messages around him. If I truly believed he would be happier as a female, I would be completely 150% in to help…..but I’m just not…..I’ve cried many tears trying to figure this out…..thank you for giving me hope that my gut can be trusted and that maybe I’m not wrong.
If anyone can give me any more information or links to this complex situation of autism, gender dysphoria and transgender, so that I can learn and try to be the best mother and support I can be, that would be great, any feedback in my learning and moving forward is appreciated.
Here is an article on aspergers and gender dysphoria:
http://theprisma.co.uk/2016/03/06/autism-aspergers-and-gender-identity/
My now 19 year old daughter with aspergers out of the blue said she is transgender about a year ago. She said she determined this using the internet and looking at how the people around her saw themselves. We were totally blindsided by it. She won’t listen to anything that goes against this identity and gets angry when I try to speak to her about it. The more I read the more I am certain that it is the aspergers and that she more than likely isn’t transgender but there isn’t anything I can do about it. Legally she’s an adult. When we found out she has aspergers this past February the first thing I asked was if she is capable of making the determination that she is transgender. No one has been able to answer that question. It’s very frustrating to say the least.
i am really going to write my thoughts here. I am a orthodox Jewish woman and i have a beautiful family. In may, my son who is aspergers decided he was going to become Trans. Before March, he didnt even know what this was and then he met people online who told him he would be happier if he would be a woman. He looked it up and spoke to people online..They encouraged him more. I have spoken to various therapists of his and they dont see it and really i dont either. But becuase he is Aspergers, he is obsessed with the idea and wont listen to a soul and puts it in peoples faces. He posts every thing online and I break down when i read it ..I am not coping with the whole thing and I admit it ..I am trying but it breaks me…..every time…i have spoken to therapists…I dont tell him anything now but he know im having a hard time.. I keep saying I love u so much….but i cant cope
I totally know how you feel. My daughter has aspergers and out of the blue about a year ago I found out she is transgender. None of us saw it coming. It seems there are many who have aspergers are coming out as transgender. Also like your son she used the internet to reach this conclusion. I’ve done some research on the subject and more research has to be done on the subject. One thing that I read that kind of makes sense is that they never felt that they fit in but the transgender community embraces them. It’s scary is all I know. Like your son my daughter will not listen to anyone who speaks against her being transgender. I’ve told her that the aspergers has something to do with it but she’s just like fine but it doesn’t change what I am. I’m still trying to come to terms with it after a year. All I can tell you is to take it one day at a time. That’s what I’m trying to do. She’s an adult (19) so I can’t stop her from doing what she wants.
Is your child’s religious faith also very important to them? If so, talk with your rabbi. Perhaps the rabbi can explain to your child, that transgender ideology and orthodox Judaism are NOT compatible.
There are a number of articles about teenagers with Aspergers and gender dypshoria on my site, TransResearch. https://transresearch.info/category/aspergersautism/teens-with-aspergersautism/
At this point, there are not many studies, mostly individual case studies. We know that there are more people you would expect with autism spectrum disorders among people applying to gender clinics for treatment.
We do not know if gender dysphoria works differently in people with Aspergers or autism or if they should receive different treatment. We do not know what causes this.
I really needed to read this blog. I’m so sad, confused and terrified for my 11 year old daughter who has suddenly announced she wants to be a boy .
Only 3 months ago she was wearing and asking me to buy dresses and was happy in her friendship group and was a loving , caring girl.
I should have seen the signs: she was watching transgender girl-boy videos on ‘musically ‘ and was telling me how ‘cool ‘they are , she then told me she is ‘bisexual . ‘In the last couple of weeks she has wanted to wear boy clothes and has put away anything ‘girly’ in her room.
She looks sad and gets angry and doesn’t want to talk about ‘it’.
I spoke to my mother in law who is a lesbian , about it thinking she might know what to say to my daughter without making her more upset .
My mother in law was no help at all!! ‘Take her to a psychologist ,get her a referral to a clinic and she should be put on hormones as soon as possible.’
BH! Talk about jumping the gun !
My husband is with my thought : wait it out . Don’t encourage her. Limit her time on her iPhone and get her to spend my time with the family ( not hibernating in her room on her iPhone ).
She is wearing boy clothes so I am letting her but making no comment . I don’t know what else I can do.
I should mention that when I was around 9 years old I wanted to be a boy, and I said to my parents please call me Terry I am a boy now. I only wanted to wear boy clothes.
I grew out of this about a year later , lost interest.
I remember my main reason for doing this is because having two brothers I felt left out – they used to leave me out of their games . It sucked being a girl.
My daughter also has two brothers and no sisters and gets left out which she gets upset about .
She also got her period early only at 10 years old and grew breasts.
I feel this these are the main reasons she wants to be a boy at the moment .
Reading your blog makes me feel hopeful this is a faze and just her exploring her sexuality.
I like your husband’s suggestion. He sounds like a good guy, you are lucky to have him.
Would it be different for her if she knew how marginalized some girls are world wide just for being female? Maybe if she could be the “champion” who makes being a unique type of girl so special, and continue to be a model for other young girls? I am guessing she is already pretty special.
Also, maybe put up some special pictures of her on the fridge where she looked feminine and let her know those are posted to remind you of how special she is – and let her catch you admiring them!
Hugs
Thanks for your suggestions 🙂
I have put photos up of her as a happy little girl. I have also told her that she can no longer ‘follow’ the trans teenagers on ‘musical ly’ and ‘snapchat ‘ otherwise her mobile account gets cancelled . I will be also checking her internet history everyday.
She was not happy last night after all that but today she seems a bit more ‘cheery’
I informed her that she is a female and always will be one and that I’m happy for her to wear boy clothes and cut her hair short but that’s as far as it goes.
Here’s hoping this ‘facination’ of hers will wear itself soon!
Hello, I am so glad to have found you!. My sixteen year old decided two years ago that she was a Trans boy, then after a stay at a hospital decided she wanted to be a girl again. She was happy for about 4 months and then decided to go back to being Trans. She has alternated from wearing girls clothes to boys clothes and back. Her relationship with her father has become almost non-existent (he lives out of state and is re-married), and I just want to help her in any way I can – but I can’t call her my “son”. Can you email me? Would be forever grateful! God Bless!
hi. i found this article post thing while trying to understand what my parents may be thinking. and i just want to share my story.
i’m 17. i identify as a male, and like your child, was born female. Much like the child in the post i was simply gender nonconforming, although though out my life the idea of being male was something that thrilled me. my cousins called me a tomboy and i was over the moon because 3 year old me thought that meant i was a boy. Up until i hit puberty i could pass as a male. even a bit after puberty i could. gender dysphoria didn’t hit until i was about 14 and it became clear i was a biological female.
now before this i was involved in sports like figure skating and such. but always always i wanted the boys costumes, the boys skates. up until puberty i thought one day someone would look at me and say “we made a mistake. you should be doing the male role in ice dance,” and such. But even the frilly dresses didn’t bother me much. Because the second i took them off and put on my baseball cap even my coaches would go “oh sorry young man,” and such. every little instance like this i clung to. every instance like this my parents forgot.
as i mentioned gender dysphoria hit at about 13-14 when i no longer could pass as male. How do i know it was gender dysphoria and not natural teen moodiness? If you’re not trans it’s hard to understand. But people would say she and my birth name and it would be to where i would physically feel sick. there was this deep sense of wrongness. People stopped seeing me as male and my world imploded. I missed a lot of school in grade7 and 8. I couldn’t tell people the truth but honestly being in a room with 30 people who were calling me she and her and my birth name was unbearable. And this was to the point that i was throwing up.
At the time i didn’t understand it and it made me sicker.
at 13 ish i started saying i was bi. i figured i was just a really butch girl. it was a mess of a time honestly. i was still missing school because my name would make me feel sick and so on.
fast forward until my first year of high school.
So here missing school when i felt sick for my name wasn’t an option. I was at least and hour away from home and being in an advanced program i couldn’t slack land get 90s.
instead i isolated myself. i didn’t tell people my name i skipped parts of classes when we had to introduce ourselves etc. i developed anxiety problems.
I joined a club though. gay straight alliance. mainly it was “loser” kids. artsy types. No actual trans or gay people. just supporters. Long story short: we ended up organizing a lgbt confence. I volunteered to head the organization of this and holy fuck what a bad time. But by october 10th i had learned one thing: transgender wasn’t a boy brain ina girls body or vice versa. i pushed this away for months. eventually i read more about it and it wasn’t an internet binge or anything. it was 10 minutes reading how they diagnose gender dysphoria and a panic attack because “oh fuck that’s me.”
over the course of a few years i slowly told people around me i thought i was trans. someone called me “he” thinking i preferred male pronouns and it clicked. 200 pounds off my shoulders. most of my anxiety was gone both due to therapy and the fact that i thought i had gender dysphoria.
i told my parents i was trans when i was 16. i ended up seeing my doctor and we had an hour long talk about how i felt and some explicit things regarding genatalia and my aversion to sex and such. in the end he determined i had gender dysphoria and booked me an appointment to follow up where we would talk about treatment options if this was still relevant.
my parents refused and still refuse to call me by my preferred name and pronouns. it’s uncomfortable and sickening but i won’t press it. i’m too soft spoken.
i had the appointment about treatment and we talked about hormones and i stressed that i needed the most effective method. I needed either to feel female and be comfortable with that (since the age of 13ish when i stopped passing it made me uhhh??? wanna die?) or be male. For simplicity sake i say i was born in the wrong body. The parts and eveything is wrong. the jaw structure, chest, muscle mass, hell even the fat distribution on my body makes me feel sick.
Because of this i was referred to a doctor with more experience who then perscribed me testosterone. Since my underlying anxiety and slight depression were addressed and treated and managed this was determined though an hour long talk, to be the best option. It won’t solve all my problems, but i don’t think i can ever ever be a female. Internally i guess i never was?
Feelings of gender dysphoria are hard to articulate in a way that people who don’t experience it will understand.
I mentioned my very closed relationship with my parents. they never knew any of this was happening until i told them st 16. to them it would be from out of nowhere. And i get that. But for me being a girl came from nowhere: i passed as male my entire life.
I did spend a lot of time online too but mainly playing video games and reading independent novels (no nkt about trans people) and writing novels (nothing published yet). Also playing card games with various writer friends as we threw around ideas for novels, and trying to learn to code around all that. I wanted to join a robotics team to impress a girl. ANYWAY that’s not really relevant.
i don’t know why i’m posting this. I don’t know if you’re going to tell me i’m not trans or i’m just confused or something. But i want to share. I want people to know and understand i guess.
Thank you for sharing your story! I wish you luck and acceptance! ( and I think we’ve all joined at least one club in order to impress a cute girl. For me it was drama.)
Im in a similar situation with my step son and could use some help.
Quite honestly, I hope you, blog writer, and anyone who agrees with you, dies a sloooooooooooooooooow, brutal, painful, awful death 🙂
Exhibit A: The mental health, reading comprehension, and level of compassion exhibited by the trans activist brigade. They even include a smiley face with their vicious, ISIS- like wish for the death of us. ALL of us who dare to disagree with them.
Yeah, that’s mature. But while this blog writer is here on this earth before whatever end may befall them, they will continue to educate and fight against this trans trend. And protect our children from attitudes like yours.
The smiley face makes that death seem like such fun. I’m glad you think that physical threats are cute. How is this kind of hatred and anger helpful to you? I thought that trans people just want to live their lives as the gender they choose and be left alone to do so. Why do you want everyone who has issues with gender identity to transition? Shouldn’t the most extreme treatment be reserved for the most extreme cases? I would think it would help your cause tremendously if each patient got the best treatment for their individual case. What is wrong with parents trying to HELP their children in a way that avoids unnecessary medications and surgeries and becoming a lifelong medical patient?
I guess if my kid wants to take heroin and drop out of high school I should allow it. Heck, I should probably pay for the heroin and support her unemployable self for the rest of her life, too. After all, I’m a horrible monster if I don’t give her exactly what she wants at the moment she wants it.
i assume you’re trans. as a fellow trans person i hope you realize your flaws in this comment. not only are you representing our community badly but you’re wishing someone transitioned who isn’t actually trans.
and you do realize that those people, the ones who didn’t get proper help and jumped straight into hormones and surgery, are the reason for a lot of hate against our community? they’re the ones who have really started the transtender and transtrender thing. maybe the idea that parents shouldn’t support their children because they don’t think they are trans isn’t the best idea. as a trans person from an unsupportive family i can agree its not the best. but i’d rather deal with crippling dysphoria and unrelenting nausea from being “deadnamed” by my family, and have people like the one in this article not transition when they didn’t need to. by wishing people would fast track people to hormones and shit you basically which dysphoria on them. i have no respect for you.
My God! After just having a “blow out” with my almost 15 year old daughter, I found this page and am so thankful. I cried as I read it because it was everything that I have been feeling for the past year…written so perfectly. My daughter had been grounded from the internet for 6 months awhile ago because she started “cutting” because she was a transgender and misunderstood. The entire time off of the internet, she was happier than I had ever seen her and was back to her old self. When she earned her phone back and limited internet…it went back downhill from there, culminating into tonight’s dramatic family pow wow. Your thoughts have given me hope a reaffirmed my gut feeling! Thank you!!!
Welcome, and I’m sorry you are here with us. I think many of the parents here will agree with me that getting away from the Internet and out into the world doing other things can be really helpful to these kids. If nothing else, it buys time before the kids embark on major medical interventions. It gives them a chance to explore other ways of treating their gender identity issues that may be better for them than transition. It gives them time to deal with other mental health issues that may be present. It gives them a chance to get out of their own heads for a little while and to just enjoy being teenagers. They don’t have to make these permanent major medical decisions right now.
Many of these kids are into art, music, sports, gaming, animals, etc. Getting the kids into clubs or groups that focus on their interests has been really helpful for my kid. It has helped her discover what she’s passionate about and what she wants to do professionally. It has given her goals that have nothing to do with gender identity or transition. It has given her a great group of friends. No matter what decisions she makes as an adult in that regard, she still needs to have a profession and activities and people that bring her joy.
*Note, I have changed some names to protect my identity. I really do not like labels and so I would prefer it people do not call me transphobe, homophobe etc. Because let me say this. I am bi-sexual in a straight relationship. Not that I should care what strangers are saying about me across the planet, but it hits a cord with me. So please refrain from labeling me as the wicked witch of the west, non-liberal, transphobic etc. I just need a safe place to tell some of my story.
Now that, that is out of the way I have to say, I am so glad I found this blog. I am not what you would call your prissy girl. In fact when growing up, I loved to hang with the boys, play football (soccer in america) climb trees etc. I would say the only clue that I was a girl, was my long hair and that I did not like creepy crawlies ewww.
I grew up in a world were being gay was wrong, were being bi-sexual was wrong. A very authoritarian religion that tell their members not to take blood in life threatening circumstance and knock on your door (you know the one I’m on about)
So forgive me if my ideas have been firmly entrenched and mapped by my upbringing.
I had my first daughter *Natalie nearly 16 years ago. When I found out I was pregnant I instantly wanted a boy. My ideas of the perfect family were two boys and then two girls. When I found out I was having a girl however, I could not have been more than happier. When she was almost 2, we had her little brother, *Martin. Natalie loved Martin, she would not let anyone touch him at all. He was absolutely beautiful in her eyes, her baby and maternally bonded with him. All of her cousins up to this point in her life are male. That’s her, 3 boy cousins and 1 little brother. Rough and tumble play expected. She adored her cousin *Daniel. They were born very close in age. Her other cousin *Tyler is much older than her, and another one *Alexander, much younger.
As she was growing up, her grandfather treasured her. His first grand-daughter, lavishly spent lots of time and money on her. For her 3rd birthday she wanted a party at the soft play with her cousins and a few friends who were girls around the same age. Everything had to be from Zapf Creation. Baby Annabelle, the clothes, the wardrobe, the play pen, the cot, the pram. Little dolls like polly in my pocket. Of course she also played with her brothers army men, playing soldiers like her Dad as he was in the army at the time. Her brother, played with her dolls also.
Then a sister, Deanne came along when she was 4. The attention lavished on Natalie, may have dwindled somewhat, but grandfather of course still treasured her. Attention was split between the 3 children. Natalie was happy to have a little sister, but the novelty wore off some weeks later. As Natalie, Martin and Deanne grew, we were delighted to have our final child. Another little girl named Peyton. This time Natalie’s maternal instincts kicked into overdrive. By this point she was 10. She wanted to help with Peyton for everything, would sit whilst I fed her, help change her nappy, make her giggle, helped her to walk, talk literally everything a little mama would be so proud of doing.
Natalie got on well with her brother and sisters. By the time she was 12 years old, she got her first period. Not to say that she hated the idea, I mean really, what woman out there can honestly say they love their period, but she did not take any major aversion to this body change. She had a boyfriend at the time, and started wearing make-up. She straightened her hair, she used to always cut fringes which would be wonky so I would have to take her to the local hairdresser to get it fixed. She was happy in her first week of high-school. Then everything changed.
She started to become down. She had recently split from her boyfriend and was being bullied at school. She was almost 13 when she came to me and told me that she was not straight but actually bi-sexual. I thought nothing of it. “As long as you are happy, then that is all that matters” I said. Around about this time, she had started hanging around with her cousin Daniel more often. He was in one year above her at high school. However, both go to different schools, just in the same town. In the UK we have faith based schools. I have put my kids to a catholic school, not because I am catholic, very far from it, it’s just they rated exceptionally well when it came to grades, the education standards were so much higher than the non-denominational schools in my area. So we decided it would be best to put her to a catholic school, as we have done with the other 3 children. Daniel however, goes to a non-denominational school which is literally a stones throw away from Natalie’s school.
By almost 14 years old, Natalie decided that she was a lesbian. Again, not that bothered about this “As long as you’re happy” mantra was being said. Of course, inside I was broken. My dreams of her finding a young man, settling down, having kids were gone. It took me a long time to be happy about it. I never showed my discontent in front of Natalie. “I got a girlfriend” she came in one day exclaiming. “Yay, I’m so happy for you, but remember your studies come first as your education is important” Something I said on many occasions.
Whilst all this was going on, Natalie’s cousin made it known that he was a girl, trapped within a boys body. He grew his hair long, although he still wore gender fluid clothing (what is gender fluid anyway) He wanted to be called Maya. I never seen him much, so the odd and very few occasions I did see him, I would say “Hi Daniel” I would not conform, figuring that he is going through an identity crisis. Daniel has been quite an influence on Natalie. He got her into watching some youtubers like tom and dan, jacksepticeye, pewdiepie and markiplier. He got her into, some weird animation from china, I think. And he got her into the self-harming fad. They have been researching things on the internet, on reddit, on wattpad, on pretty much everything you can think of. Probably blogs like these ones too. Natalie can be quite sneaky about it, as she is tech savvy.
I so should have seen this one coming. And little did I know that Natalie, was being bullied at school, for being lesbian. Literally a few weeks ago, she tried to commit suicide. Panicking I took her to A&E. The young mental health team were there and established that Natalie, no longer thinks she is a girl, but now thinks she is a boy.
She now wishes to be called Mark, after that youtuber Markiplier. This is where everything in my bones tell me, no. This is not right. This is not my Natalie. There have been no signs and I literally want to blow up. With all the media stuff going on about Caitlin Jennyr and possibly (no offense to actual trans people here) but some trans folk who think it is necessary to implant ideas into children’s heads, that there is something so wrong with them, they must be trapped within another body because of depression, because of trying to commit suicide etc tells me this whole thing is another fad. I am worried that my daughter has been over-encouraged or rushed to see herself as being transgendered when she ultimately may not be.
Sorry for this being so long, but I thought a bit of history would set up the before events to now where I am completely confused, worried, feeling dejected, feeling betrayed. I’m for now, still going with, I gave birth to a little girl and not a little boy the first time around. I may have wanted one, but I was blessed with one two years later. I was and still am, happy that I have 3 girls and a boy. And I just want society to stop attaching more and more labels to things, like we are groceries in a supermarket. My daughter, is a girl, she has the biological parts. And it was 2 X chromosomes that made her.
Natalie has an appointed child psychological nurse at present, who said we should just call her Mark. We can’t just sack her and look for someone else. As in the UK, all matters relating to health is through the National Health Service.
Any advice from any of the safe people in this safe community, of what I do next?
I understand where youre coming from and I think your doubt is not misplaced, but you should take your more personal response out of the equation.Your plans for the future of your child finding a husband, the genders of your children when they were born, and anything like that Is NOT part of what is or isnt true for your child. All the same, this is nearly four years later so responding is next to useless lol. I hope these four years have been kinder and less confusing for you all :^)