4thWaveNow was founded in 2015 by Denise, the mother of a teenage girl who suddenly announced she was a trans man after a few weeks of total immersion in YouTube transition vlogs and other trans-oriented social media. Denise’s daughter Chiara has since desisted from identifying as transgender and in 2019 cofounded an organization for desisted/detransitioned women, the Pique Resilience Project.
4thWaveNow founder Denise and friends.
In early 2015, after much research and fruitless searching for an alternative online viewpoint, Denise began writing about her deepening skepticism of the ever-accelerating medical and media fascination with the phenomenon of “transgender children.”
4thWaveNow has now expanded to feature not only Denise’s writing, but that of other parents, formerly trans-identified people, and others with professional expertise and experience with young people questioning their gender identity.
Readers, please introduce yourselves and feel welcome here.
From the founder:
I created this site because mine is a viewpoint that is seldom publicly heard: that of a left-leaning parent who is critical of the dominant paradigm regarding transgender politics and treatment. My primary concern is children, teens, and people in their early 20s, particularly girls who are contemplating medical transition. While I may disagree with their views, I do understand that consenting adults have the right to do what they choose with their own bodies and minds.
Online, I have been accused of being “unsupportive,” even abusive, simply for daring to question whether lifelong medical treatment–injections and plastic surgeries–is the answer for every young person who has gender dysphoria. In my world, caring about, listening to, and lovingly parenting a child or young adult is not necessarily a synonym for unexamined “support” for everything the child says or wants. In fact, one of the main jobs in parenting a teen is, not coercion, but the offering of alternatives; discussing, and sometimes disagreeing.
It is my contention that the medical and psychological establishments are letting us all down in their rush to diagnose young people as “transgender,” then to give the message that medical treatment is the answer. Much of my writing now and in the future will focus on the adults who are encouraging so many young people to pursue extreme treatments. And I do consider hormones and surgery extreme treatment, if there is any possibility that something less drastic might be a solution.
At4thWaveNow, we are interested in hearing from parents, family members, concerned professionals, and allies from across the political spectrum. However, we are not in accord with conservative, religious-fundamentalist views about sexuality. We are strong supporters of gay, lesbian, and bisexual people.
Please read blog posts and articles carefully before asking questions or commenting, and check our our FAQs for answers to commonly asked questions.
Thank you for educating me petuniacat00. I was unaware of there is more than one APA.
After a bit of research, it seems there are multiple organizations with their hands in the SoC guidelines when it comes to trans people: wpath, american psychological assoc and one other org, but I can’t seem to locate the article which references the other organization.
Take a look at this: http://www.acog.org/About-ACOG/ACOG-Departments/Health-Care-for-Underserved-Women/Transgender-Health-Resource-Guide The very same groups writing the SoC guidelines – therapists, endos, surgeons, general doctors referring patients to the aforementioned practitioners, etc – are the very groups benefiting financially in this. Can you say HUGE conflict of interest? They are writing their own paychecks.
Dear God, we must rally the sane people to stand with us. We need a petition and more.
Who can write a compete and accurate description o the situation?
Also, I read there was some talk about trying to get this on a nationally syndicated radio or TV talk show. Any luck?
Thanks!
4th Wave, I’ve been reading you for sometime now; and have used your articles–especially the brilliant piece by the anonymous “Lynn Anderson”–I think?–the psychotherapist for teens, who had to step away from her practice, because the “emergent trans narrative” was being forced down her throat professionally, and she felt she could no longer do her work with integrity. And several other pieces as well: you had another piece recently that articulated some of the questions I have been having–regarding the crazed technologizing of “transitioning”–with special reference to children/adolescents. I have been thinking, we don’t remotely have the whole picture here: you can’t cut into developing bodies–you can’t administer “hormone blockers” that nullify a healthy body’s natural development, without enormous, and likely unknown, consequences. And not good consequences. How could they be good?
As you know, we are in a very interesting place in terms of the presence of “ideology” in all this mess. And gender ideology seems to be “trumping” actual science, and all discretion; and rolling over public opinion; as well as rolling over children and their most committed human companions: their parents and families.
I have lived in both the USA and Canada (and years ago, a military stint in Germany). I’m married to a natal female; we are parents to four–two males two females, aka (once upon a time) “boys” and “girls”. They are young adults now; and we also have 3 grandbabies–a girl and two boys. Unless the gender ideologues seize them.
The province of Alberta is now implementing one of the most all-encompassing gender regimes in North America, into the school system, K – 12. Not into the universities and colleges, oh no. This is a straight hit upon the “least of these”. The non-elected intellect behind Bill 10 is Dr. Kristopher Wells, Queer Theorist at The University of Alberta, who runs the Institute for Sexual Minorities. He also founded Camp Fyrefly, which runs several days each summer to help children and young people to embrace their varied gender identities,whatever they may be.
A few days ago, in a public interview, Dr. Wells made clear his intention (again, interesting, as he is an academic, not a politician–but speaking as though he has public authority) that any school boards that don’t implement transgender bathroom access (children with penises using the same space as children with vaginas, etc. etc.) and the other “guidelines”, will be facing “tribunals.’ Love that word.
But what really caught my attention also was Well’s assertion that this “cultural change” is occurring, not because of an authoritarian ideology led by person like himself and imposed by legal power on an entire population, with little kids at the bullseye–no no no. Wells said this cultural change is happening because it is a result of the best science! Yes; gender identity confusion; the uncoupling of one’s gender from one’s biological/cellular/genetic embodiment; the removal of one’s healthy and functioning and critically necessary reproductive organs; the construction of unnecessary and non-functional sexual facsimile organs (whether faux penis, or faux mammaries, or faux vagina); the utilization of hormone blocking medication which can produce sterility–along with all the other unforeseen side effects—all of this is “best science” and “best practices.” And he simply asserts this. Bald Assertion. And the government of the province is enforcing this upon the population. The citizenry has not been consulted.
And the schools are threatened with facing human rights tribunals if they resist.
As you can see, no “due diligence” is being done whatsoever.
The public is oblivious to this. Those that encounter it in their own families have to dig deeply to find the information 4thwave has graciously provided here. I flail uselessly. Cry, scream and cry some more. This information must get to those that have the power and will to use it.
What do you all think of this, in today’s NY Times? A couple of the kids pictured are children of a college classmate of mine, though I don’t know her well and haven’t been in touch with her in a while. She’s the parent who talks about believing that there are lots of different ways to be a girl. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/15/fashion/where-have-all-the-tomboys-gone.html
I haven’t slogged my way through the comments, and I’m almost afraid to do so. I think this piece dances around gender “identity” questions.
I’ve been looking for a website like this, I’ve had a trans child for 4 years, and it’s crazy madness–I wouldn’t know where to even start with our story–much is the same as the others have posted already. I’ve immersed myself in trying to understand this, and I’m horrified at the rush to hormones and surgery. I’ve tried to be open-minded and level-headed to the trans advocates, but I don’t feel like I’ve been listened to. They know it all, they think. I’d love for the author to contact me, and maybe I can say some of what I’ve found. I’ve read all the blogs here, and we’ve been reading and hearing many of the same things. While I’ve read the blog postings here, I’m still going through the comments–I hope I can contribute in a helpful way
Mom-with-eyes-opened, thank you for coming here. Please feel free to write more anywhere you like in comment threads. Many of us have been on this journey a short time. You have been enduring this for 4 years and I know I speak for many that we would like to hear about your experiences and what you’ve learned. I would welcome a guest post from you. Please check your email. And thanks again.
4thwavenow, like Mom-with-eyes-opened, I am tremendously relieved to have found this website. My child “transitioned” FTM at the beginning of high school, a year and a half ago. I fully embraced his need and decision to live his life as a boy, and my husband and I make it clear every day, in every way we can, how much we love and want to support him. The problem, of course, is that he wants to move forward with hormones and, for so many reasons, I cannot get behind it. We live in San Francisco and I’ve been enormously frustrated and distressed by the narrow and misguided information, support, and recommendations the trans “experts” have to offer here. It’s hard to help a teen mitigate these complex issues when there isn’t a lot of sound help, or even pause and patience among the growing number of trans doctors, therapists, educators, etc.
I would love to be contacted by you, MWEO, or others who would like to swap information or thoughts with me.
Thank you!
Welcome to the community, mejohi. You’re in a tough spot, since it sounds like your kid has “socially transitioned,” which quite often leads to medical treatment (as you are no doubt aware). You’ll find much support here from other parents who are in your predicament. I’m curious–did your child give you the impression that s/he would not want to move onto hormones initially? Have you talked with any gender specialists who are in favor of putting the brakes on, or does everyone endorse the move to testosterone?
4NW and all, thank you for your welcome and questions.
I realize now that when my kid told me he wanted to begin high school as a boy I perhaps should have been the one to apply the brakes. He did take my initial sincere acceptance and support to include hormone treatment until we had follow up conversations, and the reality of his expectations had sunk in for me. I told him that while I had a lot of catching up to do, I could not allow him to start messing with his body, at least not while he was underage. It was naive of me to think he could just be a boy without the desire for medical intervention to make him (in his mind, at least) more like a boy.
I reached out to UCSF in the fall of 2013 and was given the names of several therapists who specialized in GID. With no exception, they all talked about hormone treatment within the first few minutes of the consultation. The following summer my kid and I attended the 3 day Gender Spectrum conference and it truly felt like not only had I missed the Kool-Aid, but I would eventually be asked to leave for asking if there was anything else to drink. I was devastated and infuriated. It’s been extremely difficult to find any help that hasn’t lead us back to, “Well, this is what he wants.” I’ve followed the one sound piece of advice that was given to me by my smart and progressive OB/GYN, which is to take it very very slowly.
Just this week I came across thirdwaytrans.com and found your blog by way of it yesterday. I now know I’m not alone and that is a HUGE comfort.
mejohi, so glad you found this site. I don’t live in California but my daughter is now a college freshman in southern California. Her trans interests started in high school, but now at college in CA, where she has easily found others living trans, she has been empowered. Are you aware of California bill 1172 passed in 2012….licensed therapists are prevented from questioning minors who self-identify as transgender, at risk of losing their license…legislation that is the result of a fight against religious-based efforts of “reparative” therapy of homosexual-identifying kids….but it affects adults too, essentially anyone who says they are transgender shall not be questioned. So I am not optimistic that my daughter will find anyone in CA who can really help her unless she herself questions the whole thing and seeks therapy under some other name. It all very scary and maddening.
mejohi,
Chiming in a little late, but I wish you the best. I hope someday that social transition isn’t THE recommendation touted by therapists and gender doctors. There are a lot of parents that follow their advice for fear of their child committing suicide. It is a very powerful motivator. I will never blame parents for believing their child is transgender and in need of treatments. I know their hearts are in the right place. But I do blame the therapists and medical professionals. I feel they should know better.
Glad that you have found us. I have benefited greatly from the support offered here and I hope you do as well. Hang in there.
As a mum in the UK, finding this blog today has been a real boost. My precious 17 year old daughter has been sinking into the FTM cult for the past 18 months. I know of 7 other girls locally too, all of similar age. Many of them are on Tumblr, enjoying Facebook notoriety, anime loving, asexual, and claiming BPD or aspergers traits. The journey to this point is, again, very similar to those I have read here in your comments – emo, bisexual, pansexual,lesbian, transgender. My daughter said, ” I’ m a rubbish girl, so I must be meant to be a boy” and ” I want to be the one in a relationship that has all the lines and makes the moves” Depressing patriarchy. Again, once ” out” , college was quick to accommodate name changes without our knowledge or consent- and the aggression and accusations and gas lighting began. So painful, but we will not give in to this. Binders are banned and nobody will use the name or pronouns. It’s a lonely, heartbreaking road but we must stand up!
Welcome neverfallingforit. One of the saddest things about all of this is how the activists and enabler’s drive a wedge between young people and their families. I know several people in the UK, some of whom comment here. Please visit often and share as much as you feel comfortable doing. You are definitely not alone in this.
Wow. I’m fascinated by what appears to be a particular subgroup of this disturbing cultural trend (and I’m quite comfortable calling the trans bandwagon a “trend”). We hear lots of stories about pre-teen kids identifying as trans, and I believe that’s heavily influenced by damaging social stereotypes. Then there are these older teen girls, most of whom seem to share the same cultural interests – emo and pop punk bands, anime – and personality or psychological traits – autism spectrum, BPD, volatile moods – and who have decided that they’re boys. My daughter, while occasionally claiming to be pansexual or bisexual, is pretty clearly just interested in boys (I think that, along with thinking it’s more interesting to be trans, she thinks it’s more interesting to be gay, and that’s part of wanting to be a boy – a gay man is cooler than an ordinary straight girl). I think it’s worth exploring what really lies underneath all of this. What is it that unites these girls in their sense that they are not really female?
I too think it is worth exploring what’s going on underneath. In my particular experience in the UK, there is a big trend in young teenage girls wearing false tan, eyelashes, huge heels and pouting on Facebook. If you had sensory issues, this would be a really uncomfortable look, the alternative emo scene allows hoodies, t-shirts, and an androgynous appearance – however in my view it also brings with it darker ideas – like estrangement from parents, a focus on angst and disassociation, and also bisexuality, which then lay a fertile soil for the transgender trend. Just an individual observation but maybe others have seen parallels in their own experience? I believe my daughter wanted to start College as a more ‘cool’ personality in order to gain popularity, and currently all things trans are ‘de rigeur’ but the enablers have now helped to increase her anxiety about herself and her body as she now has a ‘ character’ to play everyday, and interestingly the glasses and binder get ditched the minute she gets in from College. The anime scene again promotes androgyny and gentle Peter Pan like boys in my opinion, which I think some girls idolise- they then want to see themselves as pretty little anime boys in the mirror. To me it seems that many anxious naive and socially struggling girls are falling into the transgender trap.
I agree that there seems to be an epidemic of teen girls wanting to be boys, and that many of them share the same personality quirks and interests. As you can read in my earlier comment on this About page, and also in a long comment I made a day or two ago on the “Zero, zilch, nada” post, my daughter’s situation is very similar. Although transgender people are supposedly very rare, these girls are popping up in large numbers — as you said, seven at your child’s school alone.
I believe there are many, many possible reasons so many girls don’t want to become women and instead be Peter Pan, a boy forever. Rather than pushing these girls to transition, they need psychotherapy and empowering lesbian or GNC female role models. Also, they need some sort of means to feel safe in a world that can be very dangerous and unpleasant for women.
Over the past few months my kid has been exploring some ideas I offered nonchalantly – she followed the trail from a MaryLou Singleton interview down the rabbit hole, spent some time processing and then the other day as we were driving through a local university campus, pointed to one of the blue light emergent phones and said:
“See those mom? Trans women who say they’ve always “been a woman” are full of shit. They have no idea what it’s like to walk in fear constantly. They have no idea what it’s like to be my age and have people looking at you and thinking gross things – you can feel it and see it in their eyes. I don’t want to be a boy. I just don’t want to be a woman in this world”
I had to pull over and hold her, I was crying so hard.
I’m furious that our kids’ recognition of a culture rotting at its core is being co opted by the medical community. Instead of bravely facing what’s really falling apart, the “center” that cannot, should not “hold,” the vast majority of parents/systems turn towards “fixing” the kids. Our kids are t in the wrong bodies, they’re in a fucked up culture. We’re seeing their recognition of that but turning them towards a road that only reinforces a detrimental binary.
Here’s the video I sent my kid
http://dgrnewsservice.org/2015/07/24/on-sacred-biology-interview-with-michelle-peixinho-and-mary-lou-singleton/
Wow. This is excellent. THANK YOU. Ok to maybe excerpt your comment in a post for more prominence?
I have been fearful and alert to my daughters’ trending towards FTM. she suffers from severe anxiety and is self harming which really brought everything to a head. Thank you thank you for having the courage to stand up for our children. Is it possible that there could be a way to create support groups (physically meeting) for families. I am a hetero mom who has balked at stereotypes, most often alone, and fear that my inability to cope with my own marital constraints has affected my daughter’s understanding of how to be a female. my daughter’s information has predominantly been from her friends and the internet – i hope to remain open and love unconditionally while putting forward an alternative viewpoint to the prevailing societal desire to pathologize discomfort and awkwardness with a quick fix. I fear my daughter doesn’t have good role models and turns to friends for answers. at least now we’re talking.
Marie Grace, first, welcome. I hope you find some strength and strategies for parenting your daughter here. You bring up the question of real-life support groups for parents. This is something I have also thought about. However, the need for privacy and discretion makes that difficult to talk about online. I’d be interested in hearing others’ thoughts on this. There are all kinds of support groups for parents who are going along with the transgender trend, but clearly, parents like us are in need of that in-person community as well. Thoughts?
Marie Grace, your situation is like so many mothers here on this blog. I also feel as you do that I haven’t been able to give my daughter an understanding of how to be a female in this world. But, as I read these stories from so many mothers I’m beginning to realize that it’s just the time we are in and there was nothing that we could have done differently, unless we had known about it. We were all blindsided by this phenomenon, totally unprepared for such a thing. Had I known earlier that girls were succumbing to this trend, maybe I could have acted differently and discussed different subjects with her to cut it off from the beginning or before. Now I feel like I was too accepting in the beginning. I’m not sure if I would have brought her to a therapist so easily. I’m glad I stopped short of bringing her to the gender clinic in my area and began to really dig into the whole issue.
I totally agree with Marie Grace, that there should be some kind of physical meetings of parents who are going through this and don’t follow the mainstream direction, but I’m not sure how. I went to a meeting this week for parents of “transgender” children. I will never go there again. I’ve been going occasionally, just to see what these parents (who are totally on board with the medical intervention) were up to in the community. Being emboldened by reading this blog, I went into that meeting and challenged everyone who spoke. It felt good and I wasn’t intimidated this time as I had been other times. I questioned the status quo with the hope that there was some new parent in there who was also questioning, but didn’t dare speak up. Unfortunately, no one supported what I said and one woman (who was being congratulated for just officially changing her 6-year-old daughter’s name to a boys name because “he is a boy and all children know what their gender truly is”) even questioned the facilitator if there were not limits on what could be said in the meeting – she was referring to me of course. There was another woman there who was divorced with shared custody and her ex-husband was not letting their prepubescent child socially transition. One of the mother’s was very upset with this and suggested to her that this was child abuse and that he was going against Canadian’s human rights code. These ways of thinking are very frightening.
If there is anyone in the Ottawa area I would be more than happy to meet with her/him personally. I guess that you would have to contact 4thwave for her to give you my e-mail. I’m sorry to give 4thwave this trouble, you already work tirelessly to get information out to us and I thank you profoundly.
I’m desperate to connect with other parents for discussion and support. We need to find ways to take this conversation public, in a rational way, without fear of being silenced by the trans cult. The more I learn, the more strongly I feel that the emperor has no clothes. I’m near Boston. I’d be happy to work towards coordinating both a virtual forum and an in-person group.
is there a way to upload a photo? i would like to get some feedback to some fashion advertisement i have seen lately regarding young women. it would appear that in order to tap into the gender neutral trend, girls and young women are being masculinized…in other words, the boys remain boys and the girls just become boys! two photo spreads in particular caught my eye. one i sfor Gap with ellen degeneres, celebrating strong girls, and the other is from diesel, promoting gender neutral clothing…when i was a hippie, it was named unisex…or androgyny, allowing for boys to be feminised also….
Send me an email. Will explain how to do photos, though would be easiest if you could link to the ads?
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Hi – I can’t find an email address to contact you. I’d really like to share some thoughts about recent UK developments. LUCY
Could you please share some thoughts here first? Thank you!
It is important to take into account that we live in a sexist patriarchy, and right-wing conservative gender norms do not allow for tomboy girls or soft boys. I am a 68-year-old lesbian who came of age during the hippie years that did allow for wide gender expression without transition. It’s not like that now. We’ve had a huge backlash against feminism. I believe there is a huge amount of homophobia and misogyny and sexism in the trans cult.
Most butch/tomboy lesbians that I know went through a period in their lives when they wanted to be boys, but are now very happy that they are female. After all, boys get to do a lot of things that girls aren’t allowed to do. Any kid can see that.
There are now some female-born ones who did transition and are now de-transitioning. There is an anthology of their writing, “Blood and Visions: Womyn Reconciling With Being Female,” which is available from GreenWomanStore.com. One thing that really struck me is that there is more support among the young ones for transitioning, than for being a butch lesbian. They desperately need to connect with us older lesbians as role models.
You have some very interesting and valid points. My daughter wants to transition but simply does not believe she is a lesbian or bi. My husband and I do believe that is her situation. I’ve been thinking of taking her to talk to some of my lesbian friends. After reading your post, I’m more convinced I should do that.
On a different topic: this is not my blog and you may think I have no right to say what you’re about to read, but I will make my case with gentle words. We need to work together this, not separate. Please, no name calling and bitching because you hate conservatives. That does NOT accomplish anything.
There is a conspiracy impacting the trans indoctrination of our kids. These kids come from all backgrounds – conservative, liberal, middle of road – every political and anti-political spectrum. Conservatives may have a role in this indoctrination. Democrats may have a role in this. We’re not sure who is really too blame. Could be both parties. Blame does not solve problems.
Guess what? I’m conservative. I live in the deep south. No one – I repeat NO ONE – I know who is conservative or middle of road is discouraging tomboyism or soft boy – as you put it. Actually, no one, at all is discouraging that except the activists pushing their trans agenda. I can guarantee you they are not conservative. You think Dr Norman Spack is conservative? I seriously doubt it. Conservatives are against this push. Many have offered to sign my petition, should I ever get it written.
We live in a mostly patriarchal society. If you remove political parties from our society, patriarchy is still going exist. It’s just want it is. If you’re seeking a matriarchal society, I don’t think you’re going to find it in the USA or Canada.
We need to get off the political BS bandwagon of conservatives are evil and hateful and control woman. It simply is NOT true. People with problems – regardless of political affiliation or no affiliation – are hateful, evil and controlling. Good thing is, those people are few and far between. I’m sorry if you cannot see that. I hope you will cast aside your political beliefs and take another look.
We’re – parents of kids who claim to be trans – all struggling here to keep our kids from the evil trans activists encompassing every fiber of their lives – of our lives. This requires heads-together solutions, not political bashing.
I hope you will continue to post here withOUT the political diatribes.
Thank you!
I strongly agree that this issue is one where we can–and MUST–work together across political “lines.” We have much in common. We are parents who love our kids and feel this pediatric trend is terribly harmful. Speaking personally, while on most other issues I am a strong liberal/progressive, I have seen many articles in the more conservative press that do a far better job of identifying the problems with transgenderism than the liberal or even “mainstream” media. Unfortunately, many of these right wing treatments are extremely homophobic, condemning the transgender trend as part of the “gay agenda.” Ironically, while many in the LGB camp have jumped fully on board with the “T,” in fact the trans trend is harmful to gay and lesbian people (as has been written about many times on this blog), both because kids who would otherwise grow up gay/lesbian are being “transitioned,” and because of the invasion of women-only spaces by males/MTFs who believe they are lesbians. But fedupmom, I so agree that we need to find ways to work together–conservative, liberal, or somewhere in between–as parents, to counteract this cultural-medical fad that is harming our kids. We need all hands on deck.
” Unfortunately, many of these right wing treatments are extremely homophobic, condemning the transgender trend as part of the “gay agenda.” ”
4thwavenow, I think this is because they do not understand what is truly happening. And as you said, the “T” is lumped in to the LGB. I truly feel B should not be included as well, but that opens another can of worms and is not our focus.
It is ignorance. But without experiences and knowledge, ignorance will prevail. Fortunately, it’s not only conservatives that feel it’s a apart of the “gay agenda”. Conservatives are just seen as more anti anything LGBT.
I’ve explained our experience to my non-liberal friends and they understand and are very supportive. If people could understand what’s truly happening, I feel they WOULD be supportive, regardless of politics. It’s the activists and ignorant people who prevent understanding.
Thank you so much for educating me! I apologize for offending you and probably others too. Always more to learn.
Apology accepted but not needed. 🙂 Let’s band together and let nothing keep us from our goals.
This article appeared in yesterday’s NYT; thought you might want to write a post about it and sundry other similar incidents.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/03/us/illinois-district-violated-transgender-students-rights-us-says.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0
Winning comment from that page:
“Most journalists are ignoring in their coverage of this issue that the federal goverment just ruled that denying a biological male access to legally protected female spaces constitutes sex-based discrimination. Title IX was designed to prevent sex-based discrimination in eduation. Now the Department of Education has ruled that school districts discriminate against males when they prevent them from accessing female locker rooms. Humans are a sexually dimophic species and male and female are biological designations. Gender is a synonym for societal sex-role stereotypes. Gender identity lacks any measurable definition, but our laws are being rewritten to protect people’s amorphous internal self-reported sense of gender identity while simultaneously erasing decades of hard-won sex-based protections for women and girls. Any male can now say he feels female and have legal access to female locker rooms, sports teams, scholarships, etc. Oh brave new world where female ain’t nothing but a feeling.”
Another article expanding on the same topic:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/04/us/as-transgender-students-make-gains-schools-hesitate-at-bathrooms.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=second-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news
Just a quick comment on that news story, since it’s not really the focus of 4th Wave Now’s blog. But there’s a part of that story that everyone is ignoring, and it makes me wonder if I’m the only one on the planet who has noticed. Title IX has now done a complete 180. Back in my day, it was used to improve girls’ access to sports teams. Now it’s being used to kick girls off of sports teams, as their spots are being taken by young men who “feel” they are female.
@concerned, I was just thinking the same thing last night. Apparently, what Title IX giveth, Title IX taketh away.
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40 years no on T! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWarZuRoouk
I just discovered this blog — thank you so much for your courage in pushing back against what seems like an unstoppable juggernaut. As a new parent, I’m desperately hoping that things will have returned to some balance of sanity by the time my children reach school age.
I’m Gen X and an introverted, artistic hetero male from a long line of introverted, artistic hetero males, all of whom turned out all right in the end after the usual adolescent turmoil. In my case, these tendencies were exacerbated by an acute but correctable birth defect that required long hospital stays and left me clumsy and physically fragile compared to other boys my age.
So I’m deeply concerned by the way in which the trans industry encourages girls and boys on the ordinary spectrum of human gender variation — “tomboys and soft boys,” as someone said earlier in the thread — to identify as transgender and seek drastic, irreversible medical intervention. Looking back on my own childhood, it’s terrifyingly easy to imagine a scenario in which a clueless but well-meaning teacher, or an adult predator, might have used leading questions (“Do you feel different from the other boys? Do you ever wonder what it would be like to be a girl?”) to elicit the conclusion that I was “really a girl inside.”
I work in STEM academia, a world largely populated by geeky men who don’t fit the macho footballer mold, and in the past few years I’ve watched several younger male acquaintances “discover,” suddenly and unexpectedly (and always by way of a heavy dose of social media), that they “have always been a woman.” Similar to how you and many of the regular commenters here draw on your own memories of being a tomboy in your struggles with “FTM” daughters, my own memories of a “different” male adolescence are what fuel my gut sense that peak trans is leading these vulnerable young people down a terribly dangerous path. Ftmskeptic’s account here describes the exact thought process I’ve heard verbalized by late-adolescent males who get caught up in the trans subculture — just swap out “bad-boy athlete” for “pink sparkly princess” and “lesbian” for “gay boy” while leaving “science, pokemon and video games” the same:
[A] quirky, socially awkward girl who had always identified as a girl (although never a pink sparkly princess) suddenly decides that because she loves science, pokemon and video games rather than makeup, hairstyles and clothes she MUST actually be a boy. She says she is a gay boy, as she is attracted to boys.
It seems crystal clear to me that online and campus trans communities recruit insecure (often mentally ill) young people, both male and female, by offering them an easy “solution” to their difficulties living up to mass culture’s stereotypical gender roles — and that academia, big medicine and the media are irresponsibly enabling them. I’m particularly worried by the fact that “alternative” pop culture interests like fantasy gaming and punk music, which have traditionally been a refuge for gender-nonconforming kids both male and female, are the ones whose online communities are the most saturated by the militant trans narrative. I’m afraid that my kids will be at risk from this in a few years — please, please keep up your courageous work.
Welcome, heteronerd. I so appreciate all you’ve said here, and would like to elevate your comment as a post. Your own life story, and what you point out about the pressure on “geeky” boys (so many MTF males come from the IT and science fields) to dis-identify as male are such important things for people to think about.
the pressure on “geeky” boys (so many MTF males come from the IT and science fields) to dis-identify as male
Yes, exactly. I can’t find the exact link, but you suggest somewhere here on the blog that a lot of the “trans” phenomenon comes from the collision of autism-spectrum literal thinking with a gender-obsessed culture, and that rings true to my own experience. As an adult with some life experience writing a common-sense armchair prescription, I think that what would really help a lot of self-professed MTFs is cultural validation that their “geekiness” is a different but equally valid way of being biologically male, and from what you and others have written here, it seems like the same is true for FTMs.
As I’m sure you’ve noticed, there’s also a disturbing overlap between trans ideology and utopian sci-fi fantasies about re-engineering and discarding the human body — especially clear when you look at who’s funding the trans activist movement. And I suspect this appeals to a lot of kids (both male and female) who are uncomfortable with their physical bodies for one reason or another.
You’re welcome to share my comment as a post.
Yes, welcome.
I wish we could all get to the place where biological sex is a fact and however a male *IS* is what a man is and however a female *IS* is what a woman is. Which means there are as many ways to be a man or to be a woman as there are people in those separate classes. And that what so many people are confusing as gender markers are really just personality traits and preferences.
No one should have to surgically change their sex to match their personality or preferences.
My daughter refers to herself and friends as nerds. She loves geology, biology and history. She is very artistic and loves nature. She is very sensitive but that same sensitivity seems to have morphed into anxiety over everything that she has to deal with or respond to outside her little world.
Thank you for your view and perspective. I wish for the days when people are just themselves and not trying to change their image by changing who they actually are.
Speaking of campuses, did anyone see this story:
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/12/19/dozens-colleges-seek-waivers-on-transgender-students.html?intcmp=hplnws
I haven’t seen it anywhere else yet. Interesting.
My 12 year old daughter recently told me that she is transgender. I don’t believe that she is. I think she is a confused girl who is going through middle school years being navigated by a misfit group of friends and the Internet telling her she is something she’s not. She’s also being treated for depression and we are in the process of finding a long term therapist. She’s very selective in what she shared with us as her parents, her therapist, her guidance counselor and her pediatrician. Can anyone tell me what to do? I feel so lost with all of this. Part of me wants to take away all devices and Internet and forbid her from talking to this group of friends, but I know that is not realistic and will likely have the opposite effect. I’m grateful to have found this blog. Knowing that others have been through this is comforting.
Wow, she’s really young. I think you can definitely limit her internet and have her computer out of her bedroom. Also, be very careful of the therapist. You need to vet them out to see what their ideas about this. You many not be able to find any that won’t pander to her transgender ideas. I wouldn’t call her by her chosen pronouns. I’m sorry, I don’t have time to give you a thorough reply because I’m on my way out. I hope someone who has the time can give you some more tips. The internet is definitely a huge brainwashing devise in this case. Read all of the posts on this blog and you will get some ideas! Good luck and don’t give in! Most of society won’t support you.
She has an iPad that she uses (personal as well as school issued). She is in 7th grade, started her period a few months ago, and also came out as gay to me over the summer (which is totally fine!). According to her guidance counselor this is extremely common at her middle school. Her short term interventional therapist also said this is happening more and more, particularly with girls. I haven’t changed pronouns or stopped calling her my daughter or telling her when she is beautiful. Her close friends use male pronouns and call her by a male name. I have an appointment to talk to a sexuality and gender therapist this week by phone. He isn’t taking new clients but if I feel that he understands where I am coming from then he will provide recommendations. Thanks for your response.
I would be very careful when you are vetting gender therapists. Very few are willing to question the child’s assertion that she is transgender. She is very young and very impressionable. Check out these two posts by a former therapist.
http://4thwavenow.com/2015/08/22/exiles-in-their-own-flesh-a-psychotherapist-speaks/
She gives advice here for parents looking for a therapist:
http://4thwavenow.com/2015/09/29/guest-post-tips-for-parents-on-finding-a-therapist/
Welcome, Eve. The parents here have given you good advice. I just want to reiterate the advice about therapists. In my area, there are only a handful of therapists who specifically call themselves “gender therapists,” and all of them are transgendered themselves. Apparently, this is a common career for transgender people — which makes sense. However, I worry that a transgendered therapist would, as a default, point their clients toward transition. So, just a heads-up to find out as much as possible about any therapists you are considering.
My daughter currently sees a female therapist whose client base includes a good number of girls and young women with eating disorders. While this is no magic bullet, at least this therapist is experienced with helping females whose bodies cause them stress, anxiety and unhappiness.
At only 12, your daughter is very young. I advise you to stick with psychological help for now, and to do your best to stall any sort of physical treatments for as long as possible. In time, your daughter might move on to some other teen identity fad, and/or as she matures into her late teens/early twenties, she may come to realize that gender is a social construct and transitioning is not actually a helpful answer for most people who seek it.
Best wishes to you and your daughter. Ours is a situation I would not wish on my worst enemy.
Eve, it sounds like you and I have the same person as a daughter! This description you have made of your daughter makes me hopeful that I am not alone, and that this is, indeed, a trend among sensitive, artistic, “different” girls who are going through a period of social anxiety, body dysphoria, need to fit in somewhere, somehow, and who also have found a social group who feel the same way — all bolstered by social media such as IG (I found my daughter’s secret account that claims she is FTM), Snapchat, Tumblr, etc. and by rah-rah trans you tubers (who are 12 -15 years old and are superstars in the trans world!). I can’t help but grasp at anything I can to convince myself that this is her latest incarnation or
Transformation…. She thought she was a mermaid at 8-10 years old, even making her own tail and swimming with it on in public! She’s always been a little girl who spent hours alone, making videos of her Littlest Pet Shop toys (she even won an award for one of her vids that featured a female ballerina cat who never gives up dancing,even after breaking a leg badly). That video went to national judging and won an honorable mention in the fifth grade! Then, all of a sudden, she got her period on her 12th birthday, and things began to slowly change…..skirts, shorts, dresses were given away. Sandals, jewelry, “feminine” tops came next. This was all in 6th grade and into 7th grade. Now we are beginning 8th in a month. I have found evidence
That her friends are calling her by her preferred make name. Her friends are lesbians, or think they are. They haven’t, as far as I can tell, begun to present as male or anything like that. What make all of this worse is that there is a FTM child in her class who has begun puberty blockers. There are only 55 kids in her class! But my daughter seems to have distanced herself from this trans individual and “his” friends. In fact, my daughter doesn’t really have any good male friends and feels more comfortable with girls, albeit ones who identify as lesbian. I’m keeping her interested in her piano, ukelele, guitar, and painting/drawing all summer. Anything to keep her off the phone and social media. She has seen her friends 3 times this summer. Trips to the beach without them and a long-awaited family trip out of the country have kept her busy. But I know that her dress and mannerisms as of late are still headed deeply down that path…..I am desperate to speak with other moms about this, and what I think is a true phenomenon! An epidemic! All of my friends’ kids are “normal.” I envy them so! I envy strangers in the grocery store who have tanned-legged girls with long hair and a devil-may-care, unself-conscious attitude, who seem so happy with themselves. I cringe every time someone calls her a boy. I play it off well, like it is no big deal, but inside, I’m crushed, worried, aching for my daughter. I’ve made bargains with God, I’ve started praying again.
You’ve come to the right place, lookingforhope. Your story sounds like my daughter, except mine is now 18 and has attached herself to a trans “boyfriend”. They’re really just 2 lesbians together. However, the “boyfriend” is now starting testosterone at age 17 and I can only hope that my daughter won’t follow suit. Now that she’s 18 she wants her complete freedom. I’m learning to have patience which does not come easily for me. I hope her rational side kicks in soon. Keep reading here and you will have more strength.
I can so relate to many of your comments, especially wishing for the tan-legged girl–I recently had an utter meltdown and told my husband I wanted a smiling, bouncy haired athletic girl for a daughter instead of ours. Ugh. I haven’t posted for a while, things have been going somewhat better–my daughter wore a dress to a chorus concert and picked out a sundress for summer that she’s worn quite a bit. She changed her bio on her sketchclub account a little bit as well, all of which are encouraging. She still puts some weird dark shit out on the interwebz, which I have yet to bring up because it’s the only way I can spy on her and get any insight as to what’s going on in her head. Everything at home is copacetic. I don’t post much but I read everything and I can’t tell you all how immensely grateful I am to know there are so many of us here.
Lookingforhope, is there a way that I can get your email address? I would love to talk further as our daughters are the same age and their story sounds so similar. I have an anonymous email–jsmith8875@outlook.com. If you would like to correspond just send a brief email to that address and I will respond with my real info.
Hi Eve. I’m so sorry you are going through this too. It is harder still because of the lack of support or understanding.
I can only reiterate what Dorothy said. We don’t even see a therapist because they generally have not supported us, as parents. At 12, you do need to get her off the internet. There are so many ways for these ideas to be shoved at her.
I find it hard to restrict her friends. I agree with you that it would probably backfire.
Find some activities she likes. Interests, art, sports. Anything that will keep her mind busy and occupied.
Good luck!!
Thanks for your response. I am nervous about finding a supportive therapist. I am unsure of how to restrict internet because she had a school issued iPad. She loves art, drawing, playing the piano, guitar and ukelele. She’s not into sports but we ski a lot in the winter so that she be a good distraction. We have a hard time during the week because of work hours, but we are trying to figure it out. My husband is far less worried about this than I am–he is a high school teacher and sees kids struggle and then figure things out. I just don’t have faith in things working out yet, but I’m trying to let go of trying to control things that are out of my control.
Eve, I wish you luck getting through to your daughter. The fact that her guidance counselor and short term interventional therapist are aware that it is trendy to trans identify is a big plus. It really helps to have adults (not just parents) around her that aren’t blindly accepting this.
If you end up going the route of therapy, I definitely echo others who suggest carefully vetting mental health professionals. It is best to keep adults who will automatically accept and encourage your daughter’s trans identity as far away as possible. You need someone who can sympathize that she is in distress and get down to why she feels this way.
I’m sorry, Eve. So many stories of girls wanting to opt out of girlhood at some point not long after menarche. Jeez, NOBODY likes menarche. It’s gross, you know? it takes a lot of gentle talk from other women to help you see it as something that is not uniformly gross, as something that serves a positive purpose. (Nevertheless, there are aspects of it that are never going to be anything but gross/annoying/painful etc.)
It KILLS ME that all these young women now believe that it is actually possible to check out of all that, just erase it all by becoming a man. I am so pissed by culture and a med/psych/pharm industry and a media that all think this is a trend in supporting oppressed people, you know? That wiping out female biology is a positive trend in human evolution. They’re all so glowing in their support of oppressed minorities because that is what good people are supposed to do.
But somehow they cannot connect the dots between these girls’ desire to not be repulsed by their own bodies, and to be taken seriously like boys are, and the whole trans trend. They cannot (or will not) connect those dots. It just looks so much easier to opt out, to attempt to become the Other.
I’m pretty convinced, now, that none of this is going to change until some of these girls start telling their post-transition stories a decade or two from now, when they are grappling with the long-term health effects of T. (Or even sooner, when they figure out it’s not actually the emotional panacea it’s cracked up to be, and that the ‘real guys’ aren’t really treating them like real guys. Or, worse, are expecting them to join in the casual misogyny shared by real guys.)
How can a 12 year old understand this stuff? They just want the bleeding to stop. Ai yai yai.
===”But somehow they cannot connect the dots between these girls’ desire to not be repulsed by their own bodies, and to be taken seriously like boys are, and the whole trans trend. They cannot (or will not) connect those dots. It just looks so much easier to opt out, to attempt to become the Other.”====
THIS. My own 12-yr old has admitted this very point – “who’d want to be a girl, mom?”
But the most progressive of progressive parents are in the greatest danger, I think, of not seeing what’s under the surface
I just wanted to say thank you for this blog. I am yet another parent of a teenage girl who dropped trans bomb and wanted to start testosterone immediately. Her dad and I refused and got her into therapy. Her therapist has worked with some transgender people, but that is not her specialty. I am very grateful that the therapist is trying to work with my daughter on why she feels the way she does, and to see that there are many other options that she should consider before making a final decision as an adult. I am hopeful that my daughter will be open minded.
One thing I have noticed is that my daughter is unwilling to look at the long-term health effects of testosterone. I’m not surprised, as it’s hard for teens to look that far down the road. My daughter also sees things as black/white, right/wrong. She has a problem, and she thinks she found the solution. Does anyone know about any studies that examine the long-term effects of T on females? I have a feeling that this hasn’t been studied.
Welcome. The attitude your daughter has about going on testosterone describes the typical teenage mind: focused on instant gratification, obsessive, incapable of planning far into the future. Which, of course, is exactly why this modern trend to “transition” teenagers makes no sense at all. Glad you found a therapist who isn’t a “gender specialist.” That does seem to be key. Hope to hear more from you. Let us know how things are going. There are some studies on testosterone in women, but no one has done controlled studies on teenagers who have been taken “T” for decades.
From what I have read, testosterone is not even FDA approved to treat females with gender dysphoria or who desire to be male. Here is some information on women and the dangers of testosterone supplements, from Dirt over at “The Dirt from Dirt:”
http://dirtywhiteboi67.blogspot.com/2015/09/a-web-of-lies-truth-about-testosterone.html
http://dirtywhiteboi67.blogspot.com/2015/09/the-truth-about-testosterone-transmen.html
http://dirtywhiteboi67.blogspot.com/2010/06/the-truth-about-testosterone-effects.html
http://dirtywhiteboi67.blogspot.com/2014/04/new-testosterone-studies-new-dangers.html
http://dirtywhiteboi67.blogspot.com/search/label/Transmen%20and%20Cancer
I’m wondering if anyone reading this has any guidance for me. My teen daughter has issues with gender identity. Before therapy, she was convinced that she was transgender and needed to transition immediately. She was very angry when we as parents said no to hormones and got her into therapy. She is now opening the door a crack to the possibility that there are other options out there besides hormones and surgeries. One thing that I have noticed in my research is that the majority of online FtM people are attracted to women. My daughter is straight. She is not bi, and has zero interest in experimenting with women. She likes boys, period. Somehow she has gotten it into her head that people who transition “switch teams.” So if she transitions, she will be attracted to women. When I brought up that this simply isn’t true, she told me that I didn’t know what I was talking about and that she did her research. I was clearly not going to get anywhere trying to reason with her, so I dropped it.
I am wondering how kids are getting this kind of misinformation. Has anyone else had their kid say something like this? It could be that this is a part of just my child’s confusion about her identity. Maybe it is important to her to be viewed as straight by society. Or maybe she just doesn’t understand the effects of the hormones.
On a totally different note, does anyone else find it horrifying that children are being given Lupron to delay puberty? I’ve been on Lupron twice–both times for 3 months to shrink fibroids prior to surgery. Maybe it’s different for children who have not started puberty, but that stuff made me crazy. I was borderline emotionally unstable. I had eye issues both times and other side effects. I was also told that it was not good to be on Lupron for more than 3 months. It seems crazy to me to give that medication to a child when there is no physical need for it.
On the issue of women “switching teams” to a different orientation after injecting “T” for awhile, your daughter is actually correct, although it is rarer for male-attracted FTMs to switch than female-attracted (see the study in the link below). It is well known that many former lesbians develop an interest in men after transition. The data in this particular study (see Table 6) show that, for pre-transition male-attracted females, 72% remain attracted to men only, 21% become bisexual, and only 7% switch to female-attracted. But there are a lot of problems for women who become “gay men” after transition, including difficulty finding partners (given that most gay men are attracted to…men), higher risk of AIDS, and more. It’s truly tragic that so many girls who are lesbians initially start injecting testosterone and become either straight or bisexual “men” (by their own definitions). What does this say about transgenderism amounting to proactive anti-lesbian conversion therapy?
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/234105493_Measures_of_Clinical_Health_among_Female-to-Male_Transgender_Persons_as_a_Function_of_Sexual_Orientation
As to Lupron, you are the first commenter I’ve had with a personal experience of the drug. I know there are many people who report terrible side effects. There is some data from treatment of precocious puberty which say Lupron is relatively safe for kids, but “relatively” is the key word. And delaying puberty isn’t just about sex characteristics; it’s about the brain. It’s totally irrational to delay puberty but assume that the 15- or 16-year-old who is in suspended animation physically is not also in suspended animation in terms of cognitive development, including reasoning and judgment!
Thanks so much for this information. I certainly understand that people who transition may be open to bisexuality or experimentation. I don’t think it’s smart for a trans person to assume their sexual orientation will change. I think this just supports the idea that teens who are already vulnerable and desperate for a solution will believe whatever supports their solution.
Right. So if your daughter thinks transitioning will turn her into a “straight man,” the data doesn’t support that. If anything, she will be a “gay man,” with all the attendant problems associated with that for an actual female trying to be accepted by men who by definition want to be with other MEN.
Thank you so much for creating this blog!
I hardly blinked when the former Olympian came out on TV. I’ve always felt that if you want to do something, almost anything you should. As long as it does no harm.
I am the 44 year old father of a son of 27 who told me he is transgender. I immediately started scouring the net for understanding. I very suddenly felt very helpless and very harmed. I HAD NO IDEA! I found the local LGBTQ support groups website. They say we’re simply supposed to accept and support our new daughter and help her to transition in any way possible. I’ve browsed WPath (Suggested by his gender therapist whom he refuses to tell me who she is) I’ve read Gallileo’s Middle Finger and The Man Who Would be Queen. These both address MtF transgender the former dealing with actavism as well. And while informative and interesting, aren’t particularly hopeful.
My appologies if this is a bit disjointed. I don’t use any social media and have never posted any comments on the internet. I am however interested in getting involved in our return to sanity on this issue.
Again, thank you for the glimmer of hope.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. Voltaire
Absurdysphoric, glad that you have found 4thwavenow. It is a sanity-saver to find other parents that aren’t blindly accepting of the sudden, unexpected self-diagnosis of their children.
Unfortunately more and more people are being affected by this transgender trend. Eventually the public will wake up and see the devastation it is causing, but I predict it will take a while.
I wish you luck in trying to reach your son.
Hi there, someone pointed this site out to me. I understand the focus here is more on the parents of transgender children? Does a site like this excist for the children of transgenders/transsexuals? My father transitioned when I was 6 years old.
I always feel that anybody who is transgender should follow their road to happiness and I totally get that, in order to do that, they need to put the focus on themselves, so it is a lot of me me me. That’s ok. But…if there is family and especially (young) children there should be 50% me me me and 50% you-my children you-my partner you-my parents/siblings. And that is where it mostly goes wrong. Someone who is so happy with their newfound joy is understandably in a positive rush where the focus and feelings are mostly on me me me. Growing up I had a lot of trouble because of my father saying me me me only and there was emotional abuse and brainwashing coupled with it.
I think everyone is allowed to be who they want to be. But it seems like no one is thinking of the (young) children of the grown transgenders and how the sex-change can affect someones development. Also the side that I’ve never been able to mourn the father-figure (I don’t even remember my father being a man) no-one ever helped me with the loss or said anything about it – when I was a child! Nobody then asked me how I was doing or asked how it was for me. The focus remained solely on the transgender – everybody around them enforces the Me Me Me, look at me and forget about the people around me… That is very surreal to me.
I’m a parent and that is why I have found 4thwave’s blog beneficial, but I do feel solidarity with you. We have both been impacted by someone close to us claiming to be transgender. Not many people realize how destructive it is to families.
Hugs to you!
Hello Elly, and welcome! I’m glad you’ve found this site, and I’m sure you will find it a helpful lifeline. I’m not aware of a site exactly like this one that is more for the children of people who have transitioned. However, the woman who runs Help 4 Families is also the daughter of a man who transitioned when she was 9 years old, and from what I know of her story, it sounds incredibly similar to yours. Full disclosure: Help 4 Families is a Christian outreach ministry to people who identify as transgender and to their family members. I realize that her Christian viewpoint is anathema to many of the posters here. However, when I reached out to her, I found her to be incredibly kind and compassionate, and extremely knowledgeable about all issues trans. (After all, she’s been down this road way longer than most of us.) I know they have several support groups: for detransitioners, for moms, for (ex)spouses. I just don’t know if there is one for the now-grown children; you would have to contact her to find out. If nothing else, just a chat with someone who can truly sympathize with what you’ve been through might be incredibly helpful. The website is: http://help4families.com/.
I wish you all the best; you sound like in spite of your childhood, you’ve matured into a wonderful, considerate young woman.
hello! i have not commented for a while, even though i am still reading posts. the group is for people grappling with their teens, and my situation is quite different. however, i am very concerned by some recent news about dr kenneth zucker and his firing from the children’s gender clinic in toronto, canada. i had been in touch with him about my aging transseuxal sister and he was most helpful. we had agreed that he was going to meet my sister, but i have now lost contact with him as he is no longer at the clinic.
the amazing part of this story is that he has been fired/let go/quit, because of the transgender lobby and some very dodgy quasi-scientific claims. here is the article that explains part of it.
http://www.thecanadianpress.com/english/online/OnlineFullStory.aspx?filename=DOR-MNN-CP.e403e3cacfd64c84a5b247cb5cac4dd4.CPKEY2008111303&newsitemid=36122620&languageid=1
Hi Sisgendered, long time no see. I guess you’ve read this more recent article. Long but worth the whole read. http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2016/02/fight-over-trans-kids-got-a-researcher-fired.html#
it is so wrong!! i cannot believe that i was speaking with him just before he went on vacation in december. he referred my sister to an endocrinologist who specialises in andrology. it was difficult to hear what this guy said, but more on that later. i will submit some comments soon. i am frustrated in finding dr zucker’s contact information.
I just found your website. I have a 12. 5 year old daughter. She has been hinting around at being transgender for a few months, but only recently has started to say she doesn’t feel like a girl and it feels wrong to be referred to as a “she”.
She has a stepsister who she looks up to greatly who became a step brother 3 or 4 years ago. “He” is 16 years old and has started taking testosterone. When he came out as transgender that is pretty much exactly how it happened. He said he didn’t want to be referred to as a “she”. My daughters father and his wife are uber liberal pansexual bisexual LGTBQ support their transgender child wanting to be a boy.
I really worry she is being influenced by them and by her step brother. She told me she talked to her dad and they told her they would support her and to talk to her step brother. Apparently she did and they talked a lot. He told her she had to figure out her gender identity.
This is so hard for me to handle because she is 12! I feel like she is too young to know or understand and that she is being influenced by her other family. Unlike some of the other commenters on here I can’t take away her influences like the internet. She has a living breathing influence to watch and learn from.
She gets so mad when I suggest that she is young and that its really normal to feel not like a stereotypical girl. Although, she loves to play with her dolls still. She is very artistic and likes to dress to express herself . A lot of cool nail polish and dresses. I talk about tomboys and she gets mad and accuses me of thinking “its” not real.
We have told her we love her and support her no matter what but it honestly is killing me that she (in my opinion) is feeling the same teenage angst/ not fitting in, feeling different but now because of the transgender thing, instead of just realizing she is unique, now she thinks maybe she is not a girl. AGGGGHHHHH!
Anyway, I have been googling because Im lost and confused and I found your website. My husband and I also consider ourselves liberal and we support the gay community and all that good stuff. We are just not like ULTRA intense about it like her dad’s family is.
Cassandra, welcome. You are definitely in a singularly tough situation. I wish I had any advice of substance. Read through the archives and comments. There are many of us who are in similar situations and trying to save our kids.
Hi Cassandra, welcome.
I feel for you. Twelve is so young, and having an older step-sibling who is transitioning makes the situation even more difficult.
Is there any way your ex, his wife and the 16yo would agree to lay off for awhile, just not actively encourage the 12yo to transition, or glowingly talk about it around her, for a few years? Maybe they could be persuaded to slow things down with the 12yo if you pointed out the fact that the 12yo idolizes the 16yo, the 12yo still has some very stereotypically girly behaviors, she doesn’t necessarily fit in socially (in other words she is searching for a group to belong to and/or a “reason” why she doesn’t easily fit in), and that 77-94% of gender dysphoric children eventually outgrow their feelings of wanting to be the opposite sex when given time to grow out of them.
I’m sure persuading them is easier said than actually done — especially without seeming as though you are being judgmental about them allowing the 16yo to transition — but perhaps if you pointed out your doubts which are particular only to the 12yo, they would cool it to some degree and give her a chance to mature a bit and find herself for a few (or a lot of!) years.
In my own experience with my own daughter (FWIW), the less we bring it up, the less she seems to care about being trans. I think my d likes to push our buttons and do the opposite of what we want her to do, simply for shock value and out of typical teen desire to rebel.
Keep us posted, and keep reading — 4thwave and this website are awesome. Best wishes to you and your daughter.
Welcome, Cassandra. I feel for you. I know from experience how worrying this is. I hope for your daughter that she decides to take things slowly and understands that she doesn’t have to define herself at 12. It’s ok for her to take time to discover who she is and where she belongs in this world.
Cassandra, I’m glad you found us but I am so sorry it was under these circumstances. There are many more of us worried parents out there. Thanks to moms like 4thwavenow and others, we have formed a supportive network even though we live in multiple countries. We are all trying to find actual help for our daughters/children who are being confused by this current “transgender” trendiness.
Your daughter is so very young. And to be in a situation with a “transgender” half-sibling is truly a challenge. Is there any way to for you to discuss your concerns with your ex and his family? Explain for the need for caution and watchful waiting? She is so young and she needs time to grow and sort out who she is. And she needs to know that she has a mom who cares about her, which I’m sure she realizes.
Hugs to you 🙂
Thank you for the responses.
Katiesan, Im sad to know there are others in my boat, but I am glad to find others struggling with similar issues because my husband and I have felt very alone in this. We are pretty left leaning and its like anathema to say you are not down with the kids transgender movement or to hint that its trendy.
Skepticalmom, Unfortunately, I don’t think the idea of mentioning that she is only 12 will work for them, because their own daughter announced her transgenderness at age 12 and she transitioned socially right then. They definitely don’t think its too early. But, I will definitely point out to them that she idolizes the 16 year old. It’s so tough to have these talks with them, they are very defensive about their parenting choices, ESPECIALLY the transition their daughter made. We have done a good job working with them over the years but this is a big one. My daughter definitely wants to do it more if I object so my husband and I have tried VERY VERY hard to remain neutral. We didn’t do such a good job of that when she first made her “I don’t feel like a girl “announcement but I think we have been doing better since then.
Themom, yes we have definitely been trying to give her the message that she doesn’t need to define herself or label herself at such a young age. ( She hasn’t even hit full puberty yet. No period or anything) I think when we tell her that she is still young or still a kid that it makes her mad like we discount her feelings. But its TRUE! So frustrating. Thank you all so much for your supportive words and welcome. 🙂
Welcome. I am sorry you are going through this. My daughter is 17 today. She hit me with the news of being trans almost 2 years ago. There is lots of support here for you on this journey.
Cassandra, sad to hear that you are in this situation. It must be especially difficult trying to counteract the influence of the older step sibling.
The only other thing that I can think of to suggest is getting your daughter involved in some kind of activity. Keep her busy. Distract her from thinking she is trans (at least slow down the process). Hopefully help her meet new friends that help her realize that there are actually pros, not just cons, of being female.
There are a lot of parents that are going through (or have gone through) similar situations. I hope just knowing that at least brings you a little relief. Hang in there.
i am looking forward to meeting dr. zucker in march, but very sad that he has been hounded out of his profession by the transgender lobby and zealots…..how can we support him? maybe we can all send him a letter of support??
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/toronto/gender-identity-debate-swirls-over-camh-psychologist-transgender-program/article28758828/
Thank you for this link–I hadn’t seen this story, which just came out today. Dr. Zucker, from all I’ve read, grew and changed in his understanding of trans-identified kids over the years, and he had a flexible approach. But he committed the unpardonable sin, as far as trans activists were concerned: He tried to support kids to feel comfortable in their own skin (rather than “affirming” them as definitely trans as kindergartners and setting them firmly on the path to medical transition). What an upside-down world we live in–especially since the vast majority of those kids would likely grow up to be gay or lesbian, as decades of peer-reviewed research indicates. It’s good to see that article you linked to discusses one such case.
this and thought i would share with this group of concerned parents.http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/boardoftrustees-CAMH
There is this episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation where the crew is introduced to a mysterious alien video game. It slowly infiltrates the crew and Wesley Crusher and another young ensign watch as the adults around them slip into addiction. Wesley begins to sense that something is amiss, and goes to find Captain Picard. He is so relieved to find the Captain and to be able to confide in him. As Wesley leaves, we see the Captain reach into his desk with sinister sangfroid and take out a gaming device. He too has been infected. As we suspected, the game is really an insidious mind controlling apparatus that will allow an alien race to gain control of the ship.
That is what this trans madness feels like to me. When I first began to hear this emerging in the young people around me, I felt confused. As a dyed in the wool liberal, I felt I should be accepting and affirming. As a therapist and long-time student of human nature, it just doesn’t make sense to me that people are “born in wrong body” except for perhaps in extremely rare cases. I believe there are “true” cases of transsexualism, but the number of those affected must be vanishingly small. Why all of a sudden did it seem to be everywhere?
When thoughtful colleagues and friends started talking matter of factly about five and six year olds who were being supported and affirmed in choosing another gender, I was stunned. How could that possibly be anything other than very confusing for a young child? What was I missing? I must, I at last concluded, be getting truly old.
The alien mind control device made its way into my home about two years ago when my then eleven year old daughter begged me for a tumblr account since her friends all had one. Foolishly, I consented without looking into it further. I wish I hadn’t. This trend toward all things pan/bi/non binary/genderfluid/trans etc. has had a huge amount of energy among kids my daughter’s age. I have watched it with some degree of suspicion and concern. But last month the degree of my alarm grew. She started dropping provocative hints, such as asking us if she could get a buzz cut. I found some writing she had left around the house where she wondered to herself whether she were “really a girl.” She was very excited a few weeks ago when a new friend came out as trans.
It isn’t that I am a hating ogre. I think if I really believed that my kid were profoundly unhappy in her body, that this narrative was coming from her and not from social media and the kids around her, I would be reacting very differently. I would also be having a different reaction if I could convince myself that gender identity experimentation were essentially harmless. Girls want to pretend to be boys? Sure! Why not? But it is absolutely chilling to think that these kids who are just doing what teens do get support from the adults around them that let them get stuck in the experiment so that many of them wind up permanently changing their bodies.
For the record, this is a kid who has never had any gender nonconforming behavior at all. She has always been a girly girl. As a toddler and young child, she had several “crushes” on boys. She was always been very consistent in having fairly typical girl interests, with few to no boy interests. She has always been interested in art and dance at school. She is a little socially anxious, and that is about the only thing that makes her susceptible to this, I think. Probing further, she admitted that she has been binding, and has asked her friends at school to call her by a gender neutral name. She also told us that she had begun researching testosterone. Luckily, her interest in this started just a few weeks ago as best as I can tell.
After that conversation, I was a wreck. In spite of having taken a sleep aid, I woke up at four am that night, my heart pounding out of my chest. I started googling again, as I had done before, trying to find some place on the internet not infected by either the “trans is terrific” narrative, or hateful speech from the other side. Search term after search term returned similar results. “Trans peer pressure,” for example, returns article after article about how trans kids need support against bullying and peer pressure. Finally, “social contagion trans” brought me to this site.
Such a huge, huge relief. I feel like Wesley Crusher finding one other person on board the Enterprise whose mind hasn’t been taken over.
Her current school is a wonderfully progressive and nurturing. But the school administrators all seem keen to jump on the “trans is terrific” train. They proudly proclaim to prospective parents that there are several kids transitioning in the upper school. It seems like this fact is sort of exciting to everyone, and establishes without question their all-accepting super liberal cred.
I have decided that the cult indoctrinators have had free access to her beautiful thirteen year old brain for two years now, and that it is time that I intervene and fight for my daughter. I am so grateful for the clarity I have found on this site. Because of this blog and the stories shared here, I am feeling cautiously optimistic that we may have been able to pull her back from this brink. We have closed her tumblr account. My husband and I have been confronting her about thinking she is trans. We haven’t been yelling or ugly or angry. We have just been telling her what we think, how we are seeing things. Partly because of this blog, we have been able to avoid going through the, “Really? Well if you say so. That is great, I guess!” stage. Right when we got wind of this, we have just been very up front that there is something dangerous going on in society and that we will not tolerate her playing around with this. We are going to continue talking to her.
As a mother and a therapist, I have been stunned and saddened to the extent by which I feel silenced, both personally and professionally. I am afraid to discuss my concerns about my daughter with friends for fear of feeling judged and being accused of being a horrible mom who will damage my child. (Certain friends of mine have circulated petitions decrying thoughtful op-ed pieces in major newspapers that were approaching Kaitlyn Jenner’s transition with some well-considered feminist questioning.) I am afraid of speaking up in professional circles about the phenomenon more generally for fear of drawing ire and misapprehension. It is so frightening to think that therapy for my daughter doesn’t feel like a safe option since the process might be so easily hijacked just by the mention of the word “trans.”
As a therapist, I mostly work with adults. A common reason for seeking therapy is being at a place where you are wondering about leaving your marriage. When a woman (or man) comes in, they usually say something like I haven’t been happy in my marriage for a long time. My husband isn’t a terrible person, but I just don’t know if I can stay. What I don’t say at that point is, “Well, if you are wondering that, it must mean that you need to leave the marriage. To stay any longer would be a terrible mistake. Here is the name of a divorce attorney.”
Ending a marriage is a huge deal. There are enormous consequences for several people, even when children aren’t involved. It isn’t a decision to be taken lightly. When a client says to me that they are thinking of leaving, I believe my job is to help create the space for them to explore this as a possibility without judgment in either direction. I want to provide complete acceptance of all of their explorations. It isn’t my job to interpret their feelings or tell them what to do. I listen. I ask questions. I reflect back what I hear. I neither rush them forward nor try to hold them back. It is a slow careful process of discernment, as it should be. There is a marriage in the balance.
I believe that open-ended non-judgmental exploration is the very essence of the therapeutic process. The current prohibition on exploring a patient’s feelings of gender dysphoria seems a perversion of this process. I would feel that I had done someone a terrible disservice by imposing an external yardstick on someone’s private decision as to whether to divorce. The potential for harm is so great! How much greater is the potential for harm when we are talking about impressionable young people electing to undergo permanent sterilization?
This is very lonely, and very frightening.
Dear skepticaltherapist, welcome aboard. As I often say, this is an unfortunate voyage–no vacation cruise–but you have plenty of other passengers to share this trip with.
The “social contagion” that so many of us parents have seen with our own eyes and heard with our own ears is denied by gender specialists and trans activists. It’s very odd, since such contagion is well known amongst teens–and acknowledged by adults–in other areas of adolescent experience, but for some reason (what is it??), the media refuse to explore it. All that is said is these kids have found “support” and “validation” online to realize they are transgender. End of story.
I invite the other parents who are regulars here to respond. Your expertise as a therapist informs you in a deep way about what we are all dealing with, so I hope you’ll continue to participate. With your permission, I’d like to elevate this comment of yours to a post for greater visibility and discussion. I’m glad you found us, and I know you’ll find support here–and be able to teach us all a lot, too.
Please take a look at this post from a therapist who raises many of the questions that you do.
http://4thwavenow.com/2015/08/22/exiles-in-their-own-flesh-a-psychotherapist-speaks/
And this, which features another therapist who takes a critical look at the transgender child paradigm in light of child psychology:
http://4thwavenow.com/2015/07/30/one-psychologist-who-gets-it-trans-kids-and-their-parents-deserve-something-different/
I’ll also be dropping you a note.
Skepticaltherapist, I’m so glad that you found us. I was floundering for about a year until I found 4thwave. You are lucky to have already been aware of this phenomenon before it infected your home, most of us were blindsided by it. I assume you’re reading all the posts on this site, they are excellent.
I wonder if there is anything that you think you could do as a therapist to kind of question this whole trend? I realize that you are probably afraid of losing your job, but maybe there is someone you feel safe with to talk about this. Where do you think the therapists are getting their directives from? Does no one have common sense anymore or do you have to follow a certain formula? I’m very interested to understand how therapists have been so easily let into such blind acceptance of the trans cult.
My daughter is turning 18 next month and she came out socially 2 years ago. I’m am trying with any type of leverage to keep her away from the hormones and surgery. Even the binding is terrible, but, unfortunately, I let that slip by. All I can say is I wish I had been tougher from the beginning, or at least not have made it an issue at all, just kind of dismissed it and ignored it. To be honest none of us parents really know what to do to recover our daughters. I wish she would just come out as a lesbian, but it just may take time for that.
Good luck and I hope to see more comments from you!
Hi Dorothy. I am so sorry you are going through this. Yes, I was extremely lucky to have got wind of this before it infected my house, so that we could respond “NO!” right from the start.
It has been a long time since I was in graduate school. I have no idea how these ideas have permeated the therapeutic community. I am completely baffled. I really don’t understand how anyone could treat major medical treatments so casually. This would all be a lot threatening if surgery/hormones were difficult to get if you were under the age of, say, 25. I think I remember someone saying that if you are in your 20’s and you ask to have your tubes tied, doctors try to encourage you to wait, even if you already have kids, because people so often change their mind about that kind of procedure. I just don’t get it.
I am thinking about ways that I could speak out, or at least encourage others to engage in dialogue about this.
It is, indeed, lonely and frightening. I wish you and your family the best as you navigate this.
I was thinking yesterday that part of the reason cautious waiting is a hard parental approach is that there is zero validation for this course of action. (Outside of 4thwavenow and its sister site, transgendertrend.com, at any rate.)
My kid’s been nonconforming off and on for a long time, but the “maybe I’m trans” idea (which she came up with a couple years back, at a young 15) is of much more recent duration and heavily influenced by “my year on T” youtubes. She was very unhappy at the time, feeling isolated at school, and there were about 6 months of her believing this fairly strongly, and some counseling (not with a ‘gender therapist’) working on other issues but also peripherally on gender stuff. Until the counselor decided we should really concentrate on the transition idea (after she consulted with some trans colleagues, sigh) and then … that was the end of our relationship. My research on gender clinics, which I spent a good bit of time on, affirmed my gut reaction — here there be dragons.
Meanwhile, kid has had an improving school experience, made some new friends who accept her as she is, gotten involved in a lot of non-gender-related activities that keep her busy. She still doesn’t present like a girl but she doesn’t insist, here or at school or anywhere, that she is not. And that is where we stand, for now.
Limbo is a hard place to be and … honestly, I can see how families opt for the “certainty” that is being ladled out at the gender clinics. They’re advised that their kid has a fixed and incurable condition, that it is life threatening, that the only useful treatment is blocking followed by transition, and that, yeah, it may be difficult, but no progress in society is made without difficulty. They are assured that not only will this course of action offer the best chance of saving their kids from death and making them happy and “authentic,” but also that it will affirm the parents as extra-loving, extra-supportive, extra-brave, and extra-progressive. Plus they’ll get a built-in tribe of support groups and advocates to share the path. They’ll become part of a worthy social justice movement, and place themselves on the right side of history.
I can see why families do it. Because frankly, the “first do no harm” and “let it ride” paths don’t get any support.
I know my liberal friends, my old tribe, a place where I once was comfortable, can’t figure out why this kid isn’t on hormones already, and that a few of them probably think spouse and I are abusive for not having made that happen, for repressing this kid so she can’t act out what they think is her innate “transness.”
And I know my conservative friends (yeah, I have some) are likely just thinking spouse and I are shitty parents for letting this kid get a short haircut and shop in the boy’s department, and for grudgingly acquiescing with her insistence that she get a tux for prom instead of a dress.
No matter what I do, I feel like a bad parent, actually. And I don’t feel like I can talk honestly about this to EITHER set of friends, or to a psych (because in my state you now can’t legally question a kid’s self-diagnosis of being trans, due to ‘reparative therapy’ law), or to the liberal ministers at our liberal church. They will all tell me what I’m supposed to feel and supposed to do and on and on and on. Yeah, that is lonely, in fact.
What I really feel, rather than pity for my kid’s struggles (I DO feel that, but it’s a long story of wearisome psych issues that predate this current situation) … is anger. Anger at the med/psych/pharma community for ignoring its duty to practice evidence-based medicine, and anger at the media for their one-sided reporting and their tendency to be so entranced by these “exotic” transkids that they don’t bother to bring up health risks and the human rights abuse of sterilization of minors. Anger about being pushed to believe that elective double mastectomies for 15-year-olds are in any way a benign “treatment” and that of course such kids can provide informed consent.
There’s nowhere to go with all the anger, except for internet screeds that don’t feel all that great. But at least 4thwave’s made a place for them. For which, I am grateful.
At any rate. Eleven is very young and I hope you and your spouse can get your kid distracted with other things. It’s likely that you’ll be able to do that if you hang in there. Every month that her brain and body are allowed to develop normally is a victory. If she is not super-depressed, showing signs of self-harming behaviors … yeah, I would definitely endorse the “don’t overreact but do distract” approach. Brava for cutting off the tumblr.
Meanwhile — I highly recommend this post at thirdwaytrans, regarding how your own profession got to this place. It’s not cheerful reading but it is, I think, quite insightful. http://thirdwaytrans.com/2015/12/18/social-justice-and-gender-therapy/
Wishing you the best.
sorry, I see your child was 11 a couple years ago. she is STILL very young. hang in there.
“They are assured that not only will this course of action offer the best chance of saving their kids from death and making them happy and “authentic,” but also that it will affirm the parents as extra-loving, extra-supportive, extra-brave, and extra-progressive. Plus they’ll get a built-in tribe of support groups and advocates to share the path. They’ll become part of a worthy social justice movement, and place themselves on the right side of history.”
Oh my gosh, yes.
Such a thoughtful response. Thanks for the link to thirdwaytrans. That is a great post and a wonderful, thoughtful site.
Skepticaltherapist, I wish you luck with your daughter. I think it is in your favor that your daughter is still relatively young, that you have caught her identity problem early and that you are armed with the information available on 4thwavenow’s blog (an oasis of sanity in an overwhelmingly pro-trans internet).
I’m familiar with that Star Trek episode. Very appropriate comparison. It does seem that the trans craze is spreading like a contagion. And it feels like there are only relatively rare people, like ourselves, that see it for what it is. I have a hard time wrapping my head around why there are seemingly so few of us skeptics. Do we just have well-developed BS detectors? I’m at a loss. I hope more people wake up to the harm that this trend is causing, though, ASAP.
Yes! Why are so few people willing to question this!?
Sometimes I think about this relates to the culture wars, the tendency for both sides of the spectrum to get shrill and entrenched. I think a lot of people are scared of being shouted down.
I think there’s a lot of internalized guilt among liberal and semi-liberal types, regarding the likelihood that they’re carrying internalized racisim and homophobia. They figure this is just more of the same and if they get out in front of it by being “accepting” regarding all things trans, they can alleviate their guilt and get themselves on the “progressive” side. The more strident their liberal allyship is, the more gold stars they can award themselves. Guilt feels quite bad — like, if your life is not too rotten, if you are not in a category of being highly oppressed, then you must cut every more-oppressed person a TON of slack, and you must deliver constant validation. Because otherwise you are guilty of exercising your privilege. Which, of course, you likely don’t even understand because you … don’t understand. Since you cannot.
So to stave off the bad feels, the default is to cheerlead and support and validate and try to accommodate, try to understand, try to push down any red flags because red flags make you a privileged person who’s most likely just phobic. (Not to mention, expression of opposing views constitutes ‘actual violence’ that ’causes people to kill themselves.’ Right?)
People whose kids are not involved in this situation can get some shallow glow-by-proxy for being “supportive” of the kids’ self-diagnosis.
When it’s your own family the glib progressiveness just rings hollow, and then you have to decide — do you really BELIEVE the “innate trans” and the “brain sex” narrative enough to roll the dice with your kid’s long-term physical and emotional health? Or do you disbelieve it enough to go against all the “experts” out there, and all the school officials letting transactivists rewrite their policy manuals? Do you disbelieve it enough to stand your ground against your own kid’s deeply held notion that the kid knows what they will want (and will be willing to sacrifice and bear) five or 10 or 20 years hence? (Given that the entire social structure out there, peers and adults and media, seems hellbent on reinforcing the kid’s desires?) Do you believe it enough to tough it out even when ppl are calling “nonsupportive” parents child abusers and TERFs, and opining digitally that people like you deserve to die in a fire, and that they are “worried” about your kids? who are probably going to kill themselves?
Yeah. It’s bad out here.
I wonder how do we change this dynamic where those of us in professional circles who feel skeptical about some of what is going on right now with respect to therapy around trans issues can speak out? I feel very uncomfortable speaking out about it too, and so does nearly everyone I talk to that is concerned. Just being able to have free and open discussion about these things would help a lot.
Could you and other concerned therapists network with each other? Form discussion groups/forums? I don’t see how a clinician could do it in isolation., but could you set up a blog or other site that invited nuanced examination of these issues? Your own site is a great resource, TWT, but I can envision a place where therapists gathered (anonymously if need be) to talk? And if there were a public face to it, it could be an amazing resource for families grappling with issues around trans-identified loved ones.
skepticaltherapist, I’m so glad you found this site. I’m so sorry you’re going through this with your own daughter. I wept reading your comment…thank you for your voice of reason, us parents of “trans” kids are so hungry for voices of reason. I may ship my daughter off to therapy with you.
i am feeling emotionally drained. dealing with the gender wars since 1968!! it does not get better or easier. tomorrow i will travel to visit my transsexual “sister”, aged 66 and paralysed from the overuse of female hormones, from strokes and embolisms. we have arranged to meet the ex-head of the gender clinic in this large city to talk about how to proceed through the aging process with my sister. i was reading over her files from various hospital and long term care facilities and it was very depressing.
it is obvious that my sister suffers some sort of mental illness, since her teen years. this frightens me in terms of the number of children being diagnosed. maybe they will exhibit some sort of mental illness as they get older also. having worked with teens in care for many years, i understand that it is very difficult to diagnose mental illness in youth. however, i wonder if there is evidence that as these gender dysphoric children age, they are diagnosed with some personality or psychotic disorders.
i will ask this question of this psychologist tomorrow.
i need support to deal with this in my life. dealing with my sister is like dealing with another child (i have two already). it gives me a deep physical feeling of discomfort and my mind goes into a strange fog. it sends me into a state of confusion. it is like living in an alternate universe, where the world has been turned inside out and upside down.
thank you to all who support this blog, as you are indirectly supporting my emotional health. i need to hear that other people are struggling with it also. it gives me strength!
Hi sisgendered, how did your appointment go with the psychologist? Did you meet with Zucker? Did you get any responses about how to proceed with your sister? I hope that this psychologist can do something to help relieve the suffering that you are both going through. It must be very tough dealing with this in your sibling that has been suffering so long. We can’t let this happen to the children of today.
I’m so sorry, Sis. No advice here, just wanted to say “I hear you” and “I feel for what your family is going through.” I hope you can find some caregiver support very soon. You really need some respite from this constant pressure, even if it is brief and temporary. Sending warm thoughts your way.
thanks to both of you. i found the psychologist to be incredibly helpful to me even though he was there to see my sister. it is amazing to talk to another person who understands the issues and i do not have to explain the issues before i express my feelings. i left on the train feeling drained, and with my head swirling with over 45 years of memories and sadness. it will take a while to overcome these feelings and i must try to focus on myself and daily life with my family. i have struggled to develop the best life with my family as i can, and i know i have a good place to land when i need it.
one of the features of earlier research on transgender children is certainly the family dynamic of stress and difficulty. it abounds in my family’s past. it seems that recently established child gender clinics want to refute this research and move directly into medical intervention, bypassing any psychodynamic or psychosocial therapy. i think that is a very sad trajectory.
it seems to me also that today with the internet,that youngsters are finding ways to express psychological pain through this socially accepted gender discussion. whatever happened to eating disorders as the dominant diagnosis and parental hysteria?? both transgenderism and anorexia are rooted in the painful discomfort of the child’s growing mind….sadness today.
thanks for the supporting words.
I am glad to have found this blog last week. We hit the trans thing in November and I feel like I have fallen into some sort of paralell universe.
It began with a relationship with a group of girls who were all in some sort of gender and sexual identity turmoil. My daughter began to talk about trans in earnest at the end of a relationship with one of these girls. The relationship itself was incredibly manipulative and toxic, including (finding out after the fact) delving into gay and trans porn, contemplating threesomes etc. The end of the relationship pulled the rug out from underneath her and left her with suicidal ideation and therapy began. We have had to “announcement” meetings where I have been told that she is gay and another that she might be trans. At each of these meetings, I have stressed that we have time to figure this out, that she has not had enough relationships and life experience to truly understand what either of those mean. and that we need to deal with coping and anxiety first. My daughter was reporting to the therapist that wearing the binder had resolved her anxiety, so there has been no work on her anxiety.
It had not, school is in the tank and I have witnessed two pretty intense panic attacks. We just started meds for her anxiety. In the latest panic attack she stated that she had the binder now, she should be happy.
Here are the things that puzzle and scare me:
1. The belief that the trans issues are the root of the anxiety, and that instead maybe the anxiety is the root of the trans identifying feeling.
2. That the continuation of the anxiety is used as evidence to continue to push for further intervention. We have the binder now and now that that is not “working enough” to sooth her, we need to contemplate social transition.
3. That if she is truly trans, that noone is helping her learn to cope with the fact that I think none of it will never be enough. She will never truly be a boy and that will always leave her anxious.
I have begun to push back. She has a friend who has been going through transition for the last two years and I keep pointing out that I see no better mental functioning. She is just as unhappy, just as depressed, just as anxious the further she goes down this path (at 16yo). I keep talking about how she wants me to accept that gender is not a binary, yet she wants me to accept that becoming a boy is the answer…which seems like just continuing the binary. I keep talking about the need to cope and manage her anxiety for long term happiness regardless the outcome. I am pushing her to do things that will not include or will take her out of the group she is in. I have the entire extended family on board with a message of whoever you end up being, we love you, but that the focus of life needs to be dealing with your anxiety and depression, finding activities and goals that give life meaning, and surrounding ourselves with people who help us to be the best person we can be. I have begun to write her letters, as she does better with me presenting my issues that way.
She has agreed to go slow. I need to follow up with the therapist to see what is really going on in their sessions.
I feel so lost in this. So confused by the lack of logical thinking and assumptions. So confused by what is real and what is a social construct. So confused by how to be supportive but questioning at the same time.
confused, I’m very glad you found us. You are not alone in your experience. Our teens are so vulnerable to falling into the trans trend as an answer to their pain when things go wrong. Losing friendships, unrequited love, hands-off therapists, and social media showing ecstatic kids in the honeymoon phase of transition. It seems like the answer to all their problems–even when all the evidence shows it isn’t. Please feel very welcome here, and comment as often as you like.
Confused, sorry you are going through this with your daughter.
I think our children embrace a transgender identity as a solution to their problems, but it ends up causing additional problems/stress. I wish more people would wake up to this so that they would provide actual help, not just affirmation.
It is a good thing that your daughter has agreed to go slow. Buying time will always be a benefit, allowing more time for her brain to mature.
when my daughters, who are now 26 and 30, were in high school, an all girls school, the parents were rushing to deal with anorexia hysteria. they even went so far as to have lunch monitors with the girls who would rush in the toilets after a vulnerable girl if she went in…to make sure she did not vomit….it was madness and i see the same thing happening now with the trans-identification contagion. becoming an adult is a frightening time, with wanting and not wanting parental help and control. finding self-control is difficult.
stay the course and be firm with yourself. you have dropped into an alice in wonderland world. it never gets any clearer when it is one of your own involved. to say that i want to be “authentic” and then to change some fundamental parts of myself is an oxymoron. to be true to myself is to be true to how i am today and always have been. to change that basic is to be a traitor to myself. remember to keep telling yourself that you are grounded in reality.
i have a big question, though, generally. how many of these kids are hiding a sex abuse incident? or are picking up on the anxiety of other kids who have been abused? it is an acting out behaviour that seems so related to sexuality, or hiding one’s sex. i am no psychologist, but i did work with emotionally disturbed youth, and it seems to fit a pattern about anxiety about body image and sexuality.
i hope you can find your way out of this. and repair your relationship…you are amongst friends here.
The difference, sis, is that back then …. people recognized a mental illness when they saw one. No one was encouraging parents to believe that it would be ‘progressive’ to support/facilitate anorexic behavior. No one was hailing this behavior as a great triumph of social justice. No one was passing laws outlawing therapies that encouraged these kids to see their bodies in a realistic way. I think severe gender dysphoria could be as intractable for many ppl as anorexia, but the social view of the whole business is SO much more toxic. With anorexia, most responsible adults recognize the extreme physical hazard. With FTM transition, not so much. Yet.
I think some of the kids have been abused, yes. Once stuff reaches a critical mass in society, though, I don’t think that abuse is in any way a required ingredient. Just feeling like you don’t ‘fit in the box’ regarding your gender and thinking there is some kind of opt-out for whatever you think your bio-body has saddled you with, in terms of gender performance and related status in society, is enough. If you’re a female who finds ‘girl stuff’ really tedious and very much wants to do the ‘boy stuff,’ instead, and if you are also uncomfortable about your developing body and unsure about your sexuality, then the opt-out has to be very seductive. You get points for being edgy, you become the center of your family’s attention/worries, you become some kind of pathfinder and brave leader. The people making the laudatory ‘my first year on T’ videos are not, in general, presenting the less pleasant side effects and certainly not a long-term perspective. It all looks good, and your school and your psych and … lots of people … are giving you strokes for chasing this desire.
oh, i know the downside of treatment. my brother to sister has suffered massive strokes, embolisms, life-threatening UTI’s over the past thirty years, after more than 35 years of hormone treatment. there is a cavalier attitude towards the side-effects that are really very devastating, and known….so for me, it is just like anorexia. it is irrational through and through.
There’s absolutely no abuse for my kid. I think you might be onto something about hiding one’s sex and sexuality, though. I think a lot of these girls are just not ready to be seen as sex objects or to have unwanted attention from boys. This is an unhealthy way to thwart that. For my kid I think it’s all about her underlying anxiety, which she has had since birth (very much like her paternal grandmother). She’s always been socially anxious and needy (had tons of separation anxiety as a kid). I’m sure she’s anxious about growing up, her changing body, and friendships and relationships. She is getting positive feedback and support about id-ing as Trans from online friends (Tumblr) and maybe IRL friends, too, and she does get to be a little edgy and on the side of social justice. She’s just a mixed up kid, though. She’s one of the ones that “suddenly discovered” her boy self at puberty. She was all girl before that and has never really liked any boyish things. It’s not really about her being uncomfortable being a girl so much as maybe uncomfortable becoming a woman.
I have felt that my daughter has had trouble dealing with the perception of her changing female body through puberty. She seemed to adapt and had a couple of boyfriends (in junior high school). Then she seemed to find the online crowd, just about the time she got to high school. She changed drastically, wearing binders, changing her name to school friends and dressing more ambiguously, no more skirts, mostly skinny jeans and leggings with sweatshirts and tshirts with jackets. Recently, she has been acting more like herself. Now I find out the new guy she has been hanging around with every day (and texting constantly) asked her out. So now she has a boyfriend. But she hasn’t changed her appearance or anything else. Yet? I am just taking it day by day.
Anyway, I can see the need for reinforcement of the return to biological sex. It would probably make a huge difference to some of these girls.
I dont know if this type of story has been discussed before –
http://lindsayleighbentley.com/2014/06/30/i-am-ryland-the-story-of-a-male-identifying-little-girl-who-didnt-transition/
A lot of the girls historically grew out of this entirely and had heterosexual orientation. Its the males that most always grew up to be homosexual. (Im not in any way saying there is anything wrong with being a lesbian. Im just noting that a straight woman night not feel welcome to share their story here if they see this as a lesbian site. ) IDK if it would help to try to get more stories of girls ending up heterosexual because there are a lot of adults alive now who had this similar experience.
Thanks for this. 4thWaveNow is not a “lesbian site,” although we are strongly supportive of LGB people. The research we have (including the first papers by the Dutch, who are the “pioneers” in child medical transition) shows that most (upwards of 90%) girls who strongly “persist” in their trans identification are same-sex attracted. However, there are now a lot of heterosexual teen girls who want to trans, fueled at least in part by the trending social contagion on Tumblr, Reddit, and YouTube. We very much welcome and are looking for more accounts by straight women who were “tomboys” who thought they were or wanted to be boys. Several have commented here, but the more the merrier.
Persisters, yes homosexual orientation. I didn’t mean to label your site inappropriately. I just want more people to speak out about this.
Dear 4th Wave, et. al,
I am writing a book about parenting culture (and the problems with it). One of my chapters is about how Gender Neural parenting is evolving from a rejection gender stereotypes to a rejection of gender norms. if you’re up for it, I’d really find it useful to talk to you at some point.
Best wishes,
PWP
Thank you for a fascinating and very useful blog! My own story of gender dysphoria is published here http://animalfemme.blogspot.co.za/2016_04_01_archive.html
I hope that reading such stories encourages those who are struggling with gender dysphoria to think more carefully about their options before undergoing treatments with irreversible effects.
thank you for a fascinating and informative blog! Here is one story of coming to terms with gender dysphoria:
http://animalfemme.blogspot.co.za/2016_04_01_archive.html
I have a 14 year old daughter who has never expressed any transgender leanings. She wears a lot of shirts, etc that are menswear mainly because she has difficulty getting clothes to fit her larger chest. That’s about it. Last week, however, it came to my attention that she has a completely different identity online, specifically Tumblr, where she claims to be transgender and goes by a boys name. I believe she may have told one or two of her real life friends but that is it. Every fiber of my being screams that this is not my child. She has social anxiety issues and has recently asked to see a counselor for depression issues. She also has several friends on there, also transgender girls, one of who she calls her boyfriend. I knew about this kid and my daughter told me that he was transgendered but never anything about him being her boyfriend or her own “status”. I don’t recognize her online. She displays a lot of anger towards me and has said some hurtful things that just don’t fit the kid I interact with on a daily basis. I don’t know what to do. I firmly believe that she is caught up in something that has preyed on her social anxiety. At this point, we are trying to limit contact. My instinct is to cut off all contact with these online friends and get her off of Tumblr but I am so afraid that she will hurt herself or dive even further in this world to spite me. She does have great in real life friends and her Dad and I would do anything for her. Guidance?
I wonder if anyone who follows 4thWaveNow has seen the youtube.com video, The Transgender: Normalizing Mental Illness. You can find a link to the video at the URL below:
https://transgressionsite.wordpress.com/2016/04/06/the-transgender-normalizing-mental-illness/
Eugene
HEADS UP: there is an issue with the video in that it references the American College of Pediatricians, which is not the American Academy of Pediatrics. they are two separate groups, the former representing the socially conservative lobby group. it does not have anything to do with the latter.
there is some danger in a liberal website like this to associate with the American College of Pediatricians.
other thoughts?
Hi Sisgendered. A little context might help. Some of us in this confrontation with gender ideology are “co-belligerents”. That is, while agreeing that the gender ideology is very problematic and can be dangerous, not everybody aligns perfectly in terms of the arbitrary right/left wing division of social and political thought. If I can give you an example from my own life, because stereotyping can cause us to lose some valid alliances, even if we agree to disagree on certain other issues. My father was born in Canada, and for a time his dad was alcoholic. My father was enraged as a teen boy; also large, and powerful. That rage, along with inherited alcoholism, could have rendered him an extremely dangerous man. Well, in a tent meeting he “mete Christ”–this was in the 1940’s. And the ministers were black Americans, from New York. Two brothers and a sister. That experience effectively cut the root of his anger, and he became one of the kindest men I have ever known.; and a wonderful husband to my mother. Along with that, check this: he briefly, as a “boy” in his twenties, left Canada briefly in the early 1950’s to teach church history to black preachers in training at Carver Bible Institute in Atlanta. He lived in the ghetto and rode the bus to work. Several years before Rosa Parks started her revolution, refusing to give up her seat to white passengers, my father–1951-52–a tall, blonde, white farm-boy Canadian, used to get up and give his seat to black ladies–who as you know were to go to the back of the bus instead. For my Dad, y’all, God made and loves every race. Well!! And he was a supposed “fundamentalist” stereotypically. But he was an anti-racist way, way before the time that it was cool. That being said! And sorry for running on. Dr. McHugh had to pick up the pieces of the early gender-fluidity/gender ideological work done by John Money at Johns Hopkins U. Money absolutely destroyed the life of Brian (later David) Reimer, whose penis had been burned off in a circumcision accident. McHugh is one of the signatories of the new group. He has decades of experience confronting transsexual/transgender ideology, so has some insights that may be valid, even if one doesn’t agree across the board. Does that make sense? 🙂
this is the official site of the actual academy of american pediatrics, and here is their dogma on the transgender identified child: https://www.healthychildren.org/English/ages-stages/gradeschool/Pages/Gender-Non-Conforming-Transgender-Children.aspx
i understand the issue you are alluding to. i have been called a right wing nut job or a real woman crusader, etc. on all kinds of message boards and the irony is that i am far from those monikers. however, sometimes history places us on the side of our “enemies” when truth prevails. my brother said it clearly for me the other day: “in 20 years you will be on the right side of history.” he means that the myth busters of the transgender mania will be proved correct when people see that transgender is a figment of some people’s minds and is dangerous to the people seeking treatment. while mc hugh is academically aligned with reason, he is also a social conservative. this blog is followed by mostly liberal minded people. i just thought it would be useful to indicate that these sources in the video are aligned with social conservatism.
it just goes to show how ideology is a very poor method of grouping people….sometimes labeling is completely wrong and in this case, very very wrong….the american college of pediatricians use the name to obscure the fact that they are NOT the medical community of doctors we associate the name with.
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BBC Radio 4 Woman’s Hour today had a section on the high proportion of referrals to the Tavistock Gender Identity clinic from girls. It seemed fairly moderate and included am interview with one person who transitioned from female but now identifies as “nonbinary” and says more options would have been good.Woman’s Hour – @bbcradio4 http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0766h2s
A mother speaks out for commonsense!
http://www.brightonandhovenews.org/2016/04/19/brighton-and-hove-schools-ask-three-year-olds-what-gender-if-any-they-identify-with/#comment-136088
Ah ha! 4th Wave, I’m one of your semi-conservative readers that is thankful for the serious work you are undertaking; and especially the refusal to get in line with child and adolescent trans “social contagion” which is horrifying. I live in Alberta; there is a massive effort, top down from government, with the advice of 2 academic “Queer Theorists” at the Univesity of Alberta, to implement gender fluidity from the very earliest grades, by legal force, thousands of parents objecting, govt. basically saying “buzz off.” You may wish to obtain a very important document that has just been released by two maximum medical professionals on the utter irresponsibility of the government in this matter. It is entitled “A Medical Response to Alberta Education’s ‘Gender Diversity: Guidelines for Best Practices'”. The authors are Blaine Achen, M.D. (and several other degrees), Associate Clinical Professor of Medicine, University of Alberta; and Theodore K. Fenske, Clinical Professor of Medicine, University of Alberta. This statement is very important and timely. Bryan Zacharias
________________________________
I cannot find the statement by Dr Achen and Dr Fenske online. I believe that the Alberta guidelines to which Mr Zacharias refers must be this document: Guidelines for Best Practices: Creating Learning. Environments that Respect Diverse Sexual Orientations, Gender Identities and Gender Expressions .
Parts of it are fairly sensible; I think we would all agree, for instance, that schools should have policies in place to deal with bullying.
Probably most of the parents who comment here will be disturbed by the requirement that schools should ‘where possible, [have] a student’s explicit permission before disclosing information related to the student’s sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression to … parents’. However, I broadly support this. One of the first people I came out to as a lesbian teenager, more than forty years ago, was my English teacher. She tried to persuade me that I would grow out of it, which wasn’t helpful. But she kept my confidence, and that was very important. If my Christian fundamentalist parents had found out at that time, the consequences for me would have been devastating.
A brief search online indicates that Dr Achen and Dr Fenske attend the same Baptist church in Edmonton, where they lead a Bible class together. The church website carries an affirmation of faith that begins with the claim that the Bible was ‘verbally inspired, written under the direction of the Holy Spirit’, and is ‘without error’. I can well imagine that Achen and Fenske are critical of the transgender movement. It is likely that they also believe that lesbians are ‘against nature’, and that God has ordained that women should be subordinate to men.
I am not on the ‘same side’ as people who believe in Biblical inerrancy. For one thing, it is completely barmy; for another, there are some very oppressive messages bound up with it.
wonderful detective work. i also had tried to access the work of these people, unsuccessfully on the first quick perusal. fact checking is soooo important on these issues. i often read articles or blogs and try to fact check through google or scholar….thanks for this. sometimes we do align partially or even wholly with the strangest of bedfellows. ideology needs to take a back seat to material evidence, i say, in rational debate. bravo
Zacarthan,
Absolutely yes to your plea to ‘attempt to transcend the cursed left/right abyss’. We humans engage in so much foolishness – and worse – through knee-jerk acceptance of the views we imagine ‘correct’ for ‘our side’, rather than thoughtfully considering each separate issue on its own terms.
I appreciate your description of yourself, ‘I am semi-conservative in various issues; liberal left in others. And probably “other” in others’. I find that people who tick only all the supposedly ‘progressive’ boxes or only all the ‘conservative’ ones tend not to be using their noggins.
No surprise that your nephew’s truth-telling daughter was bullied on this issue. Sorry to hear it.
Thank you for ‘co-belligerents’ against the social contagion. Indeed.
Friends at 4th Wave Now. Here is the link to the actual statement, in part. I know nothing of Drs. Achen and Fenske, other than what is posted here; and they both appear to be heavily qualified doctors/medical practitioners. What they appear to be objecting to seems to be the lack of medical
“due diligence” upon the part of the Alberta govt. in terms of its new gender policy. I actually live in Alberta. What is happening is exactly the same thing that Lane Anderson (pseudonym) detailed in her essay “Exiles in Their Own Flesh”. This govt. is attempting to force gender indeterminacy upon the entire educational apparatus of the province, starting with the babes in kindergarten. This is exactly the same phenomena 4th Wave announced re: the town in East Sussex, England–Brighton and Hove, yes? Asking little ones how they “gender identify?”
My nephew’s little daughter, some months back, found that a boy was now using her girls’ washroom. The admin did not announce this to the parents or give any sort of notice. My grand niece from that point simply refused to use her own washroom. Was she responding to “gender variance” as a “fundamentalist”? No. She was a girl. He was a boy. She knew the difference, and stood to it, that BRAVE little female child. She began using the teacher’s washroom. Friends, guess who got bullied? That’s right. I know you know who got bullied.
May we please, please, attempt to “transcend” the cursed left/right abyss? I am semi-conservative in various issues; liberal left in others. And probably “other” in others. Let me give you an example of how this discourse can be subversive. My father grew up in Canada; He is now in the eternal. Well, in his youth he was large, strong, and enraged because his father’s alcoholism was devastating the family. At the age of 16, BLACK American evangelists, from New York, held meetings in his little Saskatchewan town. He “went forward” and met Christ.
That experience changed his life utterly. His rage was gone. He eventually became a husband, and a faithful one (how’s that going on both left and right? Men who have fidelity sexually?). He was not violent to our mother or us.
But before he married, at about 25, he went to Atlanta Georgia to teach briefly, young black American ministers in training. At a school named Carver Bible Institute. They were “gospel” evangelicals, and utterly anti-racist. My dad lived in ghetto Atlanta. If you know American southern history in 1952, in those days black folks were compelled to go to the back of the bus and give their seats to white folks. What did my father know? He was a handsome, young, 6’4″ blonde Canadian. He didn’t know any better: he knew God was a multi-culturalist, and he knew that all humans are equal for biblical reasons. How is that the enemy? So what did my father do? He regularly arose from his seat, in ATLANTA 1952. Long before Rosa Parks started her revolution by keeping her seat. Dad got up, and being a good “sexist patriarchalist”, gave up his seat to black women.
I can oppose gender indeterminate insanity, for the same reasons my father opposed racist insanity. It’s bad gospel, and it’s bad science.
So I daresay, the eminently scientifically trained doctors in Alberta, from the same university as the Queer Theorists who are advising Alberta’s government that little boys and girls need to be confused about their sex/gender–those doctors, Christian, or Muslim, or Jewish, or agnostic–they have the right to call down a government that tinkers with little kids, without due diligence, while telling the parents who bore and raised them to get lost. Those same parents also pay the salaries of the government and the Queer Theorists etc–
Amen! I’m done for now. Hope that gives some context…..
And I want you to know I have repeatedly shared all kinds of 4th Wave Now with other folks. On this stuff some of both left and right tend to converge. Similar to the German underground resistance during the Holocaust: they conspired with both Pius X!! (read Church of Spies), and evangelical pastors like the martyred Dietrich Bonhoeffer, to bring Adolf Hitler down.
Many many thanks for going against the flow of social contagion. On this, we are co-belligerents, as they used to say.
A Medical Response to Alberta Education’s Gender Diversity: Guidelines for Best Practices
Shared on http://www.parentchoice.ca with permission from the authors:
Blaine Achen, MD, FRCPS, FASE, Associate Clinical Professor Department of Anaesthesia and Pain Medicine, University of Alberta
Theodore K. Fenske, MD, FRCPC, FCCP, FACC, Clinical Professor of Medicine University of Alberta, Staff cardiologist CK Hui Heart Centre
The opinions offered in this publication by Dr Achen and Dr Fenske are theirs and theirs alone and should not be construed to represent those of the Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine at the University of Alberta or the Department of Medicine at the University of Alberta.
The Honourable Education Minister, David Eggen, has released a document entitled, “Guidelines for Best Practices: Creating Learning Environments that respect Diverse Sexual Orientations, Gender Identities and Gender Expressions.” While steps to ensure a safe and respectful environment for children, teens, and adults in our school system is both welcome and admirable, it is our position that this document is flawed both in the most basic assumptions it rests upon, and the conclusions thereby reached. From the social media flurry that has arisen in response to Mr. Eggen’s document, we understand that we’re not alone and that thousands of Albertans share these concerns, as well, and therefore we strongly urge that this document not be used to set policy for schools in Alberta….
For more download the PDF: Medical Response to Gender Diversity
This entry was posted in News on April 19, 2016.
I am all in favor of finding common ground across political lines. In my view, single-issue coalitions can be effective, as long as we are careful to be transparent and clear about what we disagree on. For instance, I think Artemisia is well aware of the homophobia and conflation of gay-bashing with gender-skeptical viewpoints on the conservative right. As long as we acknowledge our disagreements, finding areas where we do agree is a positive thing (and it seems to me, actually necessary nowadays).
Oops, I replied in the wrong place. See above, Zacarthan.
The PDF file may be downloaded here:
http://parentchoice.ca/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Medical-Response-to-Gender-Diversity.pdf
Thanks for your site, partly as a result of reading your stuff and reddit/r/gendercritical I have started by own blog
How wonderful. I’ve been hoping to connect with more dads. I’ll do what I can to promote your site!