We have reached a very strange point in modern Western societies. Throughout human history, kids and teens have been seen as needing parental guidance as they wend their way through childhood and adolescence. As a society, we do still give lip service to this once uncontroversial concept. Modern neuroscience even tells us that judgment, impulse control, and foresight is not fully developed in young brains until well into the 20s. This brings into question the idea that even a 21-year-old has the wherewithal to make adult decisions. Graduated driver license programs, an increase in the legal drinking age to 21 (formerly 18 in some US states), and other societal changes have been enacted in recognition of the fact that childhood and adolescent brain development is a much slower process than we previously thought–particularly when it comes to awareness of future consequences and sound judgment.
But among activists, medical providers, and in the mainstream narrative around pediatric transgenderism, even toddlers are seen as wiser than their parents. Every day, the mainstream media posts another story of childhood or adolescent transition, with no critical voices, no questions raised. Parental concerns are condescendingly dismissed as “transphobic” at worst, at best out-of-touch.
So many doubting parents have been cowed into submission, called “child abusers,” even receiving death threats for daring to question the wisdom of our offspring. Complete strangers on the Internet are imbued with more authority than loving parents on this issue. Concerned parents who have legitimate reasons for questioning hormones and surgeries for their minor children are being lumped in the same category as blatant child abusers. The effect has been a public silencing of critical parental voices, except in small back corners of the Internet.
Enough.
It’s time for parents who have done their homework on this issue to speak up. Please join me here. Add your voice. Anyone reading this who knows of a parent who might have something to say, please let them know they have a platform here. Anonymity is respected, although anyone who wants to speak publicly and openly is welcome too. Please note: If you comment on a post, your comments will be published publicly with the user name you have chosen on WordPress.
As a start, I am highlighting (with her permission) a comment made recently on one of my posts. There are so many more like her.
I have finally found someone like-minded in you! I completely agree with what you write. My daughter, who is 17, told me last year that she was now my son. Since I suspected that she might be a lesbian, it wasn’t too much of a shock. However, when I began researching this subject I was extremely concerned with the medical intervention that takes place with these children. Then when I went to a meeting for parents with transgender children, I was shocked about how all of these parents were jumping on the bandwagon of drugs and surgery without questioning. They even complain about wait times for surgeries! I make it a point to question everything in these meetings and I know that they are just annoyed with me. The only reason I go now is to bring up questions, so that the new parents who attend can see that there is another side. Unfortunately, here in Canada, children as young as 16 can make medical decision for themselves and parents are not allowed to intervene (and surgeries are free). Hormones still have to be paid for, so that is a relief to know that my daughter won’t have the money for that.
Anyway, it’s been a difficult road for us. I drew the line on any medical intervention while she’s living in the house (except, of course, she can present as any way that she wants and I will call her by her chosen name). When I told the parents group that they were all shocked.
I wish I could meet people in my area who are in the same situation. It’s very difficult doing this alone.
Reblogged this on Stop Trans Chauvinism.
Reblogged this on Adventures and Musings of an Arch Druidess.
HELP, THE QUEER THEORISTS HAVE MY DAUGHTERS!
There are two children just in my little co-op who are transitioning and my friend has a neighbour who is transitioning their child. I am HORRIFIED by the term Pedeatric Transgenderism. Just the other day I found a woman who is transitioning her 18 month old baby, WITH DOCTORS HELP?! ENOUGH!
Women, especially poor women and aboriginal women, ROUTINELY HAVE THEIR CHILDREN TAKEN AWAY FOR MUCH LESS !!
My 14 year old daughter is showing all the signs that she may be a lesbian. And she sees me and and her other mom, as transphobic and hateful. My partner and I have been together for the last 23 years. We are both radical feminists who raised our daughters to think critically and for themselves, and we armed them with an analysis of oppression, but the queer theorists now have them, and anything we say, in their mind is tainted by the hatred they are told their mothers have. My daughter IS IN DANGER and no one wants to hear it. I have tried to connect with other parents but immediately get branded as a hater and I have even been called homophobic?! just for questioning the validity of this practice. I actually see this as child abuse and I will do anything to protect my daughter. One parent threatened to call social services on me. I’m scared. I’m really really scared !. I can see a time coming when the state will charge parents who refuse to transition their child, or take them and put in a home that will.
I have taken comfort from reading your blog. But really, what I need. What I and no doubt parents like us need is a dialogue and then a plan of action. We need to organize against this and quickly. We have to get louder because the other side of this already has control of the megaphone. THIS IS URGENT!
I live in Vancouver and would be willing to meet with likeminded parents. I am no longer willing to debate this. I am ready for action.
It seems to me that your call could be the chance I have been searching for. Where are you. Can we meet to discuss this. Or even talk on the phone.
We are so isolated, you, me and my partner, and no doubt many other SANE parents. Let’s get together.
I hope to hear back from you and thank you for you courage, for one voice of sanity in a sea of madness.
Solidarity to you, my sister warrior
P.S. Please feel free to post to anyone you think could benefit
Thank you for your response. Indeed, it’s time to wake up to what is happening. And yes: while you and I were sleeping through the first part of the 21st century, queer theory co-opted the great women’s and gay/lesbian liberation movements of the last century. And now, as you say, our kids are under their spell. It is very, very frustrating to be a liberal, open-minded parent and see this rush to cutting and drugging. I agree: An action plan is needed. I will write to you privately to discuss more, but please feel free to respond more here with your thoughts and ideas about organizing. You are absolutely right. Until we speak up in larger numbers, nothing will change. We do have power. We just have to wield it.
I hope your comment spurs others to share their thoughts and ideas. I feel the same way as you do. This is urgent. It is a cultural and medical emergency.
So sorry to read your story. You sound like really good parents who care for your daughter. You are brave and I wish you the best. Perhaps you might consider legal counsel? If nothing else you can find out your local boundaries and rights issues and have someone on your side who is familiar with the law. I’m in the US, so I have no idea what the Canadian system is like?
Also, I suggest documenting in email form any threats or suggestions pro-trans people have made of calling social services. Turning a parent in as an abuser simply because someone disagrees is blatant abuse of social services. That way if they try to escalate, you can show a third party that they used this to intimidate you, not out of genuine concern for your child.
I hear you loud and clear about how fast the trans-train is moving. I have noted recently that there seem to be a lot of downlow pharmaceutical shills posing as pro-trans (basically pharmaceutical astroturfing by having paid but unidentified commenters shout down dissenting voices as “bigots”) allover the internet in the past three years. Three years is the telling aspect.
I mean, I wrote for a gay paper between 2004 and 2010, and trans was rarely mentioned. In the past three or four years trans has gone from a very, very rare and small minority to a trendy new fad, complete with claiming 18 month old children know their gender better than their parents. I hate how trans erases all the hard work gays and lesbians have done to try to tear down restrictive gender norms, and instead claims liking pink and blue are innate gender identifiers that must be enforced through drugging and surgery. In fact, transmania hit our town this week with a mother threatening civil rights complaints to the feds over her two elementary school students (one is supposedly trans, the other she claims is GQ) because the poor teachers were uncomfortable with being expected to refer to a two year old little girl as “genderqueer”.
So Big Pharma colluding with the media colluding with politics along with progressive parents bandwagoning is definatly having an overall impact. I do recognize the undercover Pharma/Trans shills online because I have a chronic illness, and pharmaceutical companies often send fake commenters to health sites to harass people who use alternative medicines that don’t make them money. They sound VERY much like many of the so-called “trans-activists” I’ve come across online. One reason we are so far behind is that no one has bothered to regulate shill commenting by huge corporations online, so it is easy with a handmaiden media to make it seem that trans is totally accepted.
I don’t know exactly what to do to combat this trans*train wreak, but I really appreciate you speaking out about your situation because there are real people’s lives at stake here, and the people with firsthand experience can make a huge difference just by sharing their stories. Sorry for rambling, but I really feel for you.
Hang in there! You are not alone and there are people on your side that care.
Interesting angle about the Pharma shills. I do see the same pro-trans commenters all over the Internet, using the same user names or close variants. One heartening thing, to me, is the number of negative comments on major news stories. The trans narrative is being heavily pushed by the media, but the general public STILL isn’t buying it wholesale.
Great advice about documenting harassment and threats. We should all be doing that.
I made a mistake about the little girls age that is one of two kids – that should read 2nd grade, not two years old. Still waaay too young for all this pressure, and I suspect the parent is putting her kids in the media for attention rather than being genuine.
” Big Pharma colluding with the media colluding with politics along with progressive parents bandwagoning is definatly having an overall impact”
Just one little quibble with the description of them as “progressive parents”. They are not progressive – they are enforcing mid-20th Century gender conformity and are therefore backward and reactionary.
My heart is breaking for these parents and their daughter. How did the trans cult become so powerful that ordinary teenage lesbians think they should be men? I hope she learns to love herself as an awesome gender-non-conforming woman. Maybe this family would benefit from watching some videos by Mark Cummings, a FTM who is currently detransitioning and speaking out against hormone blockers for youth. He/she has a Youtube series.
I have a small relative who began insistently saying she was a boy and wanting to wear “boy’s clothes”. In reality she’s just going to grow up, fancy boys (which she does) and be a bit sporty and athletic. However the amount of people who started saying in hushed voices “It sounds like…that person…is transgender” was ridiculous. People started talking about therapy etc…for a female child of six years old who was just trying to work out her life.
We got recommendations of documentaries about transgender kids so we could “understand…them”. It was a bit like she was getting pushed towards trans. In fact she’s a normal wee girl who finds boys’ clothes more comfy and likes sports. I have never known this relentless push towards transition before – for me as a GNC child it never existed – and I declared myself as a boy many times!
Nowadays she says “I like to pretend I am a boy but I am a girl really, I know” laughing. I remember doing this too, it means she’s on the way to acceptance. Imagine if she’d been “transitioned”. Luckily the people around her are far too sensible and they did not go that route.
It is very likely I would have been “transitioned” as a child too, given my penchant for climbing trees and rough-and-tumble play. Normal child development is all about trying on different personas (and animals, and machines…). This is all very frightening. The trans activists insist that no one is pushing these kids into anything, but when you have the entire mainstream media in every Western country celebrating toddler “transition,” and doctors/therapists on the lookout for the diagnosis, how can anyone with a brain not think of this as pressure? Just today there was an article out of Australia bemoaning the fact that there is a wait for surgeries for under 18s, and how it is harming these kids. A pushback is long, long overdue, because the trans train already has a full head of steam. See here for yet the latest from our pathetic, passive journalists who have swallowed the propaganda whole:
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/surge-in-demand-sees-one-year-waits-for-childrens-transgender-clinic-20150521-gh61rj
As sad as it sounds but I’m sure we will see an decreasing of the lesbian and gay population over the years. The old people die and the young ones are get corrected through drugs hormones and surgery. The puberty blocking drugs are so toxic that it will have an hazardous effect on their health. Health guy and lesbians are being turned into ill heterosexuals and the trans crowd cheers.
Sorry I meant healthy gay and lesbian children.
Reblogged this on Bureaucromancy and commented:
Very important reading from a comrade here. Especially check her links. This is not looking good for kids, and I encourage you to share this.
My child just announced that she wants to take hormone blockers and begin the process to transitioning. I was holding out that she would stop going down this road. Have no idea how to deal with this. Have expressed my concerns, but have been even that this is the only option. The only reason why she is still here is because she knows that she can take this step. She’s in the middle of her GCSE’s – exams at 16 in the UK. I could see that my reaction was sending her to a dark place and had to backtrack, promise I’d support her etc. – well at the end of the day at some point she’ll be an adult and I’ll have no choice – but said I think it’s a dangerous thing to do and needs to be researched thoroughly and not just from the pro side. I’m not looking forward to the future.
So sorry to hear this. Don’t give up just yet. Sixteen is still so young, and there is time yet for her to change her mind. She may appear not to be listening to you, but I’ll guess she may still take your views into account, even while not perhaps admitting to it. Has she seen blogs or writings by detransitioned women who talk about things like having to deal with a deepened voice for the rest of their lives?
When you say a “dark place,” what do you mean? Is there any way you can buy more time?
She has depressive illness. The last two years have been spent dealing with this and getting her to a place where she can function, go out and, this summer, sit her exams. This has only been possible through therapy, anti-depressants and also helping her present herself as male despite our feelings about this. If we hadn’t done so, I think things would have been very bad. She’s in a much better place than she was a year ago.
With regards to buying time, that will depend on the process, assessments by specialists etc. Once exams are out of the way, it will be easier to talk frankly about all this. We’re not going to just roll over and give in – we’ll present our objections and fears and discuss them with the specialists as well. But at the same time I’m preparing to support her in her choices if that is the only way she can see a future for herself. But I’m really hoping it won’t come to that.
Do you know that these “hormone blockers” are chemotherapy for cancer patients that affect the health years after stopping them??
These things aren’t candies! It’s dangerous and fucking idiotic to give them to healthy people let alone children. Yes, even people who used gnrh antagonists because of precious puberty have to deal with the consequences.
Everytime someone anounces that he or she will use blockers or have family members who use blockers I just shake my head because these people are naive and uneducated. They are destroying their health for years to come.
Things like brain fog, bone pain or loss of libido aren’t fun to deal with.
Lupron is used on sex offenders, that is chemical castration. These people happily announce they are chemically castrating their children for being non-conforming and possibly gay. It is pedophile revenge on parents.
The public blah blah blah on this is all just “safe and reversible.” (Nevermind that the science to support that contention is nonexistent as far as I can tell.) The supporters of the treatment have near-complete control of the message about it at this point, so in the media coverage, it’s all just “why not support these kids in their intense desire and protect them from current/future pain and potential self-harm?” There is almost NO acknowledgement of the sterility factor, of the truth that very few children who go on blockers ever decline to continue to hormone administration, and of any potentially difficult long-term medical consequences. So of course most “good liberals” are going to support this medical treatment. The sane discourse that ought to be happening (“uh, is it really ok to sterilize kids who cannot give informed consent?”) has been nearly completely shut down. Because “medical emergency,” you know? Fear-driven. When you’re terrified, “research” seems very, very abstract. That’s why I think it’s going to take years, and actual stories of unfortunate long-term medical consequences, and lawsuits, to slow this train down.
I am sure that in the fine print of the consents parents must sign is language saying “hey, by signing this you acknowledge that it’s an experimental treatment, and you absolve us of all legal responsibility if/when it doesn’t turn out well.”
My heart goes out to all of you. I’m the mother of a 16 year old daughter that has been infected by the trans madness, too. I am very thankful to have found this oasis of sanity. Just adding my voice here and hoping that we will be heard.
This needs to be stopped its become an epidemic. We are looking to interview parents with there concerns, share your story and help others feel strong. So sorry you have to go through this.
Mark, I really hope you can find some parents willing to be interviewed, but I think many of us are in a difficult position. We want to speak out and work together, but we also must protect our children’s anonymity (even if we are not worried about our own). It’s a sticky situation. Thank you for speaking out on this issue. I do very much hope someone will be able to answer your call.
Welcome, and thanks for being here.
It is interesting that all the moms here are posting about their daughters. My husband and I are also going through this with our college age daughter. Is this a reflection of an increase in females transitioning? Young women who otherwise in the past identified as “butch” lesbians seem to now be identifying as transgender. No one seems to even want to be identified as lesbian. When I asked my daughter if she wasn’t just a butch lesbian, she looked disgusted. Her girlfriend identified as gender queer not lesbian. Young women would rather be called gender queer or trans or anything else but a lesbian.
Are there more teenage and young adult girls transitioning than young boys and young men? Certainly if you go by what we see on the media there are a lot more stories about boys. I agree that if we take this to the nth degree we will see fewer gay and lesbians as many will become transgender. Transgenderism seems regressive, not progressive – more gender conforming. Let’s make our feminine, likely gay boys into girls and our tomboys, likely lesbian girls into boys by transing them as young as possible.
This homophobia is a problem even before we get to all the significant health and emotional issues surrounding medical transition. How can even our 22 year be ready to make such a momentous decision about her body and her life? In counseling around all this my therapist told me that research is now showing that adolescence in children these days is longer lasting, generally until about age 25. Young adults do not have the maturity to make the best decisions even in their early twenties. So how in the world should we be listening to the wishes of toddlers and children in deciding to give them dangerous medical treatments such as hormone blockers, opposite sex hormones and ultimately surgeries.
Right now, however, we hear only one voice in the media with lots of sound bites and slogans. Our daughter advised us to seek out PFLAG for support but PFLAG only allows one message that transition is the only solution and that we should learn how to be an “ally” for our child. The stat about trans suicide is then thrown at you. Do you want your child to commit suicide because you did not support their identity? This is heartbreaking. And most families, not wanting to lose their children, just go along. I am sure most are highly conflicted.
We would like to do anything we can to get a different message out in the main stream media. We hope that by speaking out here more parents will join this discussion and perhaps we can work together to learn how to use the media as effectively as the trans movement has. Maybe we can come up with our own catch phrases. But most importantly perhaps we can prevent children from being irrevocably harmed.
Turtle54, so glad you’re here. There is a documented and large increase in the number of girls wanting to transition–a big change in the last 5 years or so. The study I posted from Finland yesterday points it out, and the trend is acknowledged by most clinicians. And all you have to do is look at YouTube to see the massive number of former lesbians abandoning that identity to become “straight men.” The internalized and societal homophobia at the base of this is simply not explored in triumphant transition stories in the media, nor in any of the research studies I’ve found so far. However, lesbian and feminist bloggers have been talking about the pressure to “transition” so many young lesbians feel. It’s so much more acceptable nowadays to be “genderqueer” or “panssexual” than vanilla lesbian. It’s tragic and, as you point out, regressive, and we must keep bringing it to light.
Oh, and I share your amazement and chagrin that PFLAG has jumped on the trans bandwagon, essentially abandoning their mission to support families of gay and lesbian youth? Wrote about that yesterday on Tumblr. I wonder how many other parents like you have turned to PFLAG for support, only to turn away in despair at the pro-transition propaganda?
http://4thwavenow.tumblr.com/post/119718765590/what-happened-to-pflag
I know what I have to say is not going to be popular, especially since I have had no children of my own. I have only parented teenagers of other people, both exchange students and foster children, all of whom came to my house with considerable baggage from their dysfunctional families.
I would never “support” a daughter who wanted to do this to herself. I would not care if she wanted to wear boy’s clothes — what are boy’s clothes, the same jeans and T-shirts I wear? — shave her head, etc, but I would never support her self-harming. If she was still under my roof, I would not pay for any chest binders, medications, etc, and I would most likely cut off the Internet connection. Yes, Virginia, there is life without computers. No one NEEDS a smart-phone. Once a child was out of my house, I would pretty much figure there was nothing I could do if she chose to be stupid except be there for her when she needed my help (help does not equal paying for surgeries).
Children need to suffer age-appropriate consequences and they also need to learn from their parents about the real world. The real world is not “you can be anything you want to be” and it’s not particularly interested in how you feel. These men online pushing “transition” (transition to being a freak) are predators, preying on foolish girls who apparently don’t know that predators come in lots of different styles. They don’t necessarily give you candy or ask if you want to see a puppy.
Brava, Dogtowner. 100% in agreement with this righteous rant. I hear from young people on Tumblr who are outraged that I am not “supporting” my “son.” My definition of parental support is precisely what you’ve written here.
It is easy for you to say that they must just suffer the consequences for their foolishness once they leave the house for listening to predators and harming themselves. But I do not think that is a totally fair assessment. These young adults also hear that medical transitioning is correct from the mainstream media, mainstream organizations, doctors, psychologists and counselors. Even supposedly reasonable young adults can come to believe that it is their parents who are out of touch and old fashioned or bigoted. I could fight this better if there was support from the greater community. That is why it is so vitally important for there needs to be more voices questioning this current standard of care that is based on poor science and anecdote. It hurts me to hear you being so down on my child who has always had such a level head before now. As a young masculine lesbian woman she feels that her identity must be a transman as that is what everyone tells her and she does not feel comfortable with the trappings of so called femininity. Your comment causes me great pain.
And the fact that you have never been a parent is important. You cannot know what it is like to be a parent having to make anguished decisions about how to communicate with a young adult child who has made the announcement that they are trans. Your rightous judgement hurts and makes me very angry. These children and young people are victims when they are surrounded by a society and culture that is cheering them on to self identify and medicate and surgically alter their body. We have to find a way to protect them and if we are not able to protect our own children in time, fight to protect future children.
One last point. I will not give up on my child just because she is over 18. And I do not appreciate you calling her stupid. Deluded by the milleu that she is immersed in at college, and the society she is surrounded by, yes! You don’t seem to remember what it is like to be a young adult. You have no sympathy or empathy. These young people are trying to find the truth and do the right thing. Will I help my daughter with surgeries and drugs. No way! Will I share my concerns. Of course! But I will not judge her. I am scared for her. I love her deeply and hope that we can eventually persuade her away from this path before she does irreparable harm. But your words and attitude will not help any young person who comes to these pages. Even if they tell you, we are not being supportive by not helping them transition, we do not have to answer in kind by calling them names.
Thank you for this balance, Turtle54. It’s so true that our daughters are victims of this craze; it’s not a matter of stupidity. It IS a matter of young women whose brains aren’t fully developed being easily swayed by adults who should be encouraging them to find a way to accept and express themselves, as they are. Instead, the therapists and activists egg them on to drug and cut their bodies.
And I really appreciate you saying you won’t give up on your over-18 child. We can still play a role, even if they are legally allowed to make their own medical decisions on their 18th birthday. They still need us and we can still do our best to advise and protect them in whatever way we can.
Our daughters are in a stage in their lives where their brains don’t function like an adult’s. I would have never believed that our very intelligent and rational daughter could think that she is actually a boy, but it happened. She seemed completely content with being female up until several months ago.
I talked to another psychologist earlier this week and he said that kids this age should not make life-altering decisions because their brains have not matured. They don’t have the capability to comprehend consequences of their actions. He said that sometimes they act as if their brains have been removed.
It IS hard for me to comprehend why she can’t be convinced by scientific facts that she isn’t transgender. It is hard for my adult brain to imagine what she is thinking. I don’t get it at all.
Will I let her continue with medical transitioning? No way will I ever spend money on mutilating her body! Do I think it is dangerous for her to think this way? Yes, I think it is terribly wrong that she hates her body this much. And, I worry incessantly about what will happen if she finds funding to change herself after she is no longer dependent on us financially. That is why I and other moms are so stressed out. It is the dangerous thinking of our daughters combined with all the “What if….” scenarios that this way of thinking may lead to.
Thanks the gods some of us are spitting out the koolaide. 😛
Yes, and I hope we continue to multiply in number so that we will be heard beyond the blogosphere.
And I don’t think any of us moms ever drank the koolaid.
I never liked koolaid, actually.
And dogtowner, I understand the impulse to just cut off the kid’s access to the Internet propaganda — Heath Atom Russell says the same. But a lot of it depends on how old the kid is, and who the kid is, and whether the kid is a kid who responds in a normal way to normal disciplinary action. If the kid has pre-existing mental health issues, navigating the whole consequence/discipline stuff can be a minefield. Not making excuses, but with one sort of ‘brain normal’ kid and one ‘early life trauma’ kid (both adopted), I know intimately how stuff that works fantastically well with ‘brain normal’ kid absolutely backfires with the other one. I have found that distraction works a lot better than these kinds of outright prohibitions for ‘early life trauma’ kid. (One of her main distractions is video gaming with friends, which I let her do provided her grades stay up and she’s not being difficult/defiant at home. I figure every hour she’s doing that is an hour she’s not looking at ‘my life on T’ videos. When she was younger we monitored her internet use rigorously, but you cannot look over their shoulders 24/7, as they age, without actually locking them into a closet and preventing growth. Trying to isolate them can have some very bad consequences. You do what you can.)
Turtle54, I feel ya. And because my daughter was about 15 when this whole thing emerged (now nearly 17) — you know, you have to be realistic about your level of control when your kid gets this old. Especially when they have access to medical resources outside your family, which a lot of college-aged kids are going to have via college health services. Like you, I am realistic about the fact that the time may come when my child decides to make steps that I think are dangerous and wrong-headed, regardless of my best efforts to counsel/encourage/discourage/block such steps. Some people have to learn things the hard way. Writing by a number of detransitioning FTMs certainly have reinforced this idea for me — that no one could have stopped them, and that they could not have come to their current conclusions without having done the trans thing for a while. I hope and pray my kid avoids that. But I don’t know what’s going to happen for sure.
What I do hope to avoid is getting so lost in my worry and fear for this kid that I completely lose my sense of who I am and my own value as a human being. This is so easy for parents — no, who am I kidding, it’s a ‘mother’ thing – to do. Society certainly reinforces the notion that if a kid makes bad choices, it’s always the result of bad parenting. Sometimes that’s true. But our children have free will; they’re not puppets. And I hope, as we attempt to support each other here and encourage healthier ways of dealing with gender nonconformity, we can avoid hurting each other in the process. I hope we can avoid seeing ourselves and our fellow mothers as failures if/when some of these kids do ultimately try transition, despite our best efforts to push/encourage other paths. Life’s long, if we’re lucky, and the road can be pretty twisty. So I just cling to the notion “where there’s life, there’s hope.”
The Orwellian doublespeak euphemisms are very strong in the passages you shared. One that particularly stood out for me was “gender affirming surgery”. This curious euphemism implies that one was the desired “gender” (sex) all along and that the surgery is merely fixing some inconsequential biological inconveniences. In the last 40 years, it’s gone from “sex change operation” to “sex reassignment surgery” to “gender reassignment surgery”, and, now, to the completely Orwellian “gender affirming surgery”.
Though the previous terms are also misnomers – you can’t change your sex and sex isn’t arbitrarily “assigned” at birth, but rather identified by clear biological evidence, these terms at least acknowledged the person’s true sex and that something was being changed, even if the changes were only cosmetic. Once the word “gender” entered the picture, the Orwellian obfuscation stepped up a notch. One cannot reassign, nor affirm “gender” through surgery, because surgery affects one’s biology and “gender” isn’t biological, but is a social construct. It is arbitrary and artificial and differs from culture to culture and has not been consistent throughout history..
Personally, I’d just be blunt and call it “body mutilation” or “unnecessary cosmetic surgery” and, in the case of children, “forced sterilization” and a “human rights violation”.
I’ve got to the point where I avoid using the word “gender” as much as is possible, especially avoiding the terms that trans activists use (at least not using them without putting quotation marks around them) or have co-opted and re-defined. An example is the phrase “gender non-conforming”. To use this phrase implies that “gender identity” is a legitimate concept and that stereotypical ideas of masculinity and femininity (what they’ve dubbed as gender, gender identity, and gender expression) are innately connected to one’s sex. To use these terms, even when criticizing the trans agenda, allows them to frame the focus of the debate.
Rather, I prefer to use the term “Non sex-stereotypical personality” or, simply, “non-stereotyped personality”.. Because that’s what gender, gender identity, gender expression, masculinity, and femininity really are; they are personality and personal style,which are not innately linked to the person’s sex.
This may seem like a nitpick, but I think referring to personality, rather than gender re-frames the debate and gets to the root of what we’re really talking about, with the obfuscation stripped away. And “gender” is one of the most obfuscating words I can think of – I’m old enough to remember when the word was mostly confined to talking about grammar and wish we could return to that! It’s not a criticism of you or your fantastic blog in any way, but just a point to ponder for your readers. Looking forward to your next post.
OOOOOPS – I posted this comment on the wrong post. It’s for the the post below this one. I read the post on my phone and came here to leave my comment, but chose the wrong post. Please ignore the post here and I will put it on the right spot now. Sorry, again.
Yes! I liked GallusMag substitution of the word “sex role” whenever the word gender was used in her last post on her GenderTrender blog. The word “gender” now is so confusing often mixed up with biological sex. Ideally “sex roles” would not even exist but at least using the term “sex role” instead of gender makes what we are talking about much clearer. The transgender movement has coopted and changed the definition of terms we once thought were clear and then keeps adding and modifying their own terms to better fit their agenda.
Until recently, I thought we were alone in this. Our 18yo has recently come out as ftm, and is hitting the ground running. They are now binding, packing and researching testosterone. This isn’t who they really are! I’m terrified at the long term implications of modifying one’s body in such a way, and broken hearted that clearly, they have issues that need to be dealt with, and instead, are jumping into a whole other pit of issues.
Welcome, Penelope. I hope you’ll find support here and that you’ll keep contributing your thoughts and experiences. I started this blog because I felt as you recently did: that I was totally alone in my skepticism and pain. I’m glad you found us.