Worriedmom is a mother of four (allegedly) adult children, who lives in the Northeastern part of the United States. She practiced law for many years and now works in the non-profit area. She is available to interact in the comments section of this post.
by Worriedmom
A piece of advice that parents of the newly-trans often hear, right after the admonition to “educate yourself,” is to attend meetings of PFLAG (which previously stood for Parents, Friends and Families of Lesbians and Gays and now does not stand for anything, the acronyms apparently having become unmanageable). According to its website, PFLAG currently has over 400 chapters, representing over 200,000 people in all 50 states, Washington D.C., and Puerto Rico. PFLAG has a national administrative and lobbying presence but operates primarily through local chapters.
PFLAG’s original mission called for parents to support one another in what was then the frightening, emotionally draining, and fraught experience of having a gay son or a lesbian daughter. When PFLAG was founded back in 1972, by a courageous New York City mom, having a gay son or a lesbian daughter meant being in a terribly lonely place, where parents were fearful of confiding even in other loved ones, and social ostracism was the rule, not the exception. Then, too, ignorance about gay and lesbian people reigned supreme. Even highly-educated people believed that being gay or lesbian was, at the very least, the symptom of serious mental illness, and that at any rate, the closet was by far the best place for “queers” and their unfortunate parents to live.
As the 70’s turned into the 80’s, parents needed PFLAG desperately, as AIDS swept through the gay population and families frequently dealt with two simultaneous revelations: their son was gay, and he had come home to die. Parents became even more isolated and traumatized, often the target of violence and community exclusion (read up on Ryan White for a tragic example, although there were many more). It’s hard to believe, looking back today, how crazy AIDS made people in the time before effective drugs. PFLAG served the vital function of connecting parents who were dealing, in many cases, with incurable illness and horribly premature death, and who, as an extra-cruel burden, had to do it in secret. The support and comfort offered by PFLAG chapter meetings was truly a lifeline for many.
Time and medical science marched on, giving birth to the culture wars. At the time that my story begins, the U.S. was smack in the middle of the anti-gay-marriage law-making binge that many people thought helped re-elect George W. Bush in 2004. What originally brought me to PFLAG was my then-14 year old son, who was experiencing the feelings that eventually led him in the direction of bisexuality. He had dealt with a lot of bullying and other negative behavior in school, and I felt that I needed support to cope with this strange and upsetting situation. In 2006, primarily due to my congenital inability to say “no” in any given volunteer setting, I became the head of my local PFLAG chapter. My PFLAG experience became further pertinent in 2012 when my older daughter came out as lesbian during her first semester of college.
To preface, I can’t say whether my experience is typical for PFLAG, although I have no reason to believe it isn’t. When I decided to help start a chapter, I received no vetting of any kind. I was not asked to undergo a criminal background check, provide references, or establish my bona fides in any way. Neither when I established the chapter, nor at any time afterward, was I asked to become knowledgeable in any formal sense about the GLB community. My good faith was assumed. Much to my initial chagrin, I was not offered training in group facilitation or dynamics to help me work with an often-emotional and always unpredictable group of people. I have never had any training or experience in the fields of psychology, human sexuality, addiction or mental health, even though all of these issues came up repeatedly at our chapter meetings. (I should add that much, much later, PFLAG did begin to offer voluntary training in group facilitation.) I was actually a bit shocked that I was expected to, and did, “wing it,” in situations that often became intense and even confrontational.
This brings me to my first point on PFLAG and its place in the “trans puzzle” — that neither PFLAG leaders, nor other group members, should be assumed to have any expertise about anything or anyone involved on the “trans spectrum.” One might argue that when PFLAG’s mission was limited to parents of lesbians and gays extending kindness and empathy to other parents, this lack of professionalism and education was not a major liability (although, as I note above, on occasion I found it daunting). As the “T” part of the equation has come to predominate, however, it would be natural for parents to expect some level of informed if not authoritative opinion from PFLAG leaders and group members as to the many medical, psychological and social issues involved with an individual’s becoming transgender. If I am any example, however, it is more a case of “the blind leading the blind.”
Moving on, and energized by the rampant opposition prevalent in the “W years,” our chapter attracted upwards of a dozen people to each meeting, even 20 or more when we featured an author, academic or other person of note. As a PFLAG representative, I spoke at symposiums, conferences, youth meetings, schools, churches and more. Every year we fielded a large contingent at the local gay pride march. The chapter hot-line was connected to my home phone, and I spent hours every month, counseling parents. And people always called at dinner-time!
And then… the bottom fell out. By the early 2010’s, the enthusiasm and interest were just – gone. Newbies became “one and done,” then “none and done.” We were victims of our own success. Parents no longer grieved, no longer felt condemned to live in secrecy and fear. Gay became normal, fine even. We went on hiatus for a while, then re-booted, in a different location and time. We tinkered with the format. We tried publicity, Facebook, networking with other groups. But the writing was on the wall: parents just didn’t need PFLAG like they used to, and it was pretty obvious they never would again.
We were not alone. At our monthly regional conference calls, everybody had the same sad story: attendance was down, commitment was non-existent. The yearly national conference went to bi-annual, staff was cut at National, the end was near.
And then, about four years ago, things changed again. The chapter hot-line, formerly covered with cobwebs, began ringing off the hook. This time, it was parents of “gender-non-conforming” children, desperate for help and advice. Again, I had no expertise, no real understanding of transgender issues, but simply assumed that the “strong affirmation” model that worked fine for lesbian and gay people, would go double for trans. Today I am ashamed to say that I unthinkingly referred over 50 individuals and families to our local “gender-affirmative” therapist, and at least as many more to trans-activist and other trans-supportive groups (such as “free binder” sites). I also steered people away from organizations such as Straight Spouse Network, on the basis that those groups were not sufficiently “trans-affirming.”
I don’t feel good about my blind acceptance of trans dogma, but in my defense, I was never encouraged to develop any sort of critical perspective. The word, from National on down, was that “it’s 95% the same” (in other words, if we were experienced in providing support to parents of gay and lesbian children, we were perfectly well equipped to do the same for parents of transgender children). I was also told that I shouldn’t worry that I was ignorant about the remaining “5%” (relating to the medical particulars of transition). As leaders, we were to affirm “innate gender identity” and transition, full stop. “Trans theory” was accepted scientific fact. No other opinions or viewpoints were entertained, much less explored, and there was no contemplation of the wisdom or safety of the medical procedures that transition entailed. Parents who questioned were crazy. End of discussion.
A quick review of PFLAG’s website shows that it is, today, all-in on trans. We have an online course on “our transgender loved ones,” training in Trans Ally 101, a publication available for sale on becoming a Trans Ally, a transgender reading list for adults, a transgender reading list for young adults, a transgender reading list for children, films on gender and many, many more. It’s all just so wonderful!
Notwithstanding all this joy, meeting attendance was up but the mood was down. Parents were gutted. We had “learned” that “trans is the new gay,” but something was off. So many of the parents had children who already had mental health problems, or were on the autism spectrum, and as they cried and expressed their fear of what life would hold for their vulnerable children, it became increasingly difficult to remain sanguine. It began to occur to me that it wasn’t terribly likely that transition was going to “cure” anything for these kids, but instead would leave the child, and the family, with two serious problems instead of one. Parents worried that their children would never find employment, or even someone to love. Again, it grew difficult to assume those concerns away. While I had always felt quite comfortable assuring a parent that a gay or lesbian child could go on to lead a normal, even boring, life, I felt like a faker saying the same thing to the parent of a trans child. But there was never any space to explore alternative ways to mitigate the effects of gender dysphoria, how or whether to slow down a child’s rush to transition, or even whether the proper goal for every potentially trans person might not be transition, ASAP.
Meetings grew increasingly baroque. A parent would walk in the door:
“My 12 year old daughter just came out as pangender.”
“My older daughter is transitioning to be my son, and my younger daughter is now aromantic. Is it possible these things are related?”
“I think my three year old son is possibly transgender. What should we do?”
“My 19 year old son just came back from his first broney convention!”
“Our lesbian daughter is the only non-trans person in her entire GLBT youth group. Now who is she going to date?”
Gay and lesbian were boring old vanilla, and I was seriously out of my league. Conferences and gay pride panels became an exercise in “can you top this?” The mantra was “the children are leading the way, and isn’t it exciting!” Having several children of my own, I was pretty skeptical, given that these children leading the way could not reliably load a dishwasher or return a library book.
I began to look for more balanced discussion of the facts regarding transgender issues, and was horrified to learn (for instance) that transitioned children, whom I had blithely assumed would go on to lead happy and fulfilled lives, would actually wind up permanently sterilized. To put it mildly, PFLAG does not advertise this detail; nor are most leaders, in my experience, even aware of it. I also could no longer deny that some of the folks I had encountered via PFLAG were, in the vernacular, “creepy.” There had been discussion of fetishes and other “alternative” behavior that would, in any other context, have sent me right out the door. In retrospect, in the name of tolerance, I permitted my own boundaries to become fuzzier than I should have.
The final straw, for me, was the parent-assisted mastectomy of a troubled young woman in my community. I was just done. I actually continued to run our chapter for another excruciating summer, loathe to simply shut it down after so many years involved with PFLAG, but finally did. I do not expect that my concerns (which I circulated in a lengthy letter) will have any impact on PFLAG at all.
Absent the trans issue, I believe that PFLAG probably would have died a natural death, and that wouldn’t have been a bad thing! (As an example, Love Makes a Family, the marriage equality group in Connecticut, showed great integrity in shutting down after it achieved its objective.) The transgender cause has been a life-saver for PFLAG, organizationally speaking, even though there is a strong suspicion that homophobic parents may embrace transgenderism as a “cure” for their gay and lesbian children – hardly the vision of family acceptance originally put forward for PFLAG. (Go here for another sad story of an unacceptable lesbian daughter who became a cherished straight son.) “Trans” has provided new purpose and energy, a new “mission field,” and from what I’ve seen, trans people and their supportive parents have become the majority of PFLAG’s leaders and members. Some chapters are, today, almost entirely trans and trans-related. It’s where the action is.
A parent attending a PFLAG meeting needs to know that the people he or she will encounter are most likely strongly and personally invested in the promotion of transgenderism. If a parent has already endorsed and facilitated transition for his or her own child, obviously that parent has to believe that this was a necessary, benign and positive step. PFLAG is the last place to hear a dispassionate discussion of the actual facts of transition, much less any mention of the feminist perspective. Remember: PFLAG leaders and group members don’t necessarily know any more than anybody else about transgenderism, and most often are motivated to affirm and confirm their own decisions.
In my view, PFLAG has entered the trans arena with an approach and philosophy that will not serve it well for the long-term. Transgenderism is not just “super-gay,” and the “empathetic parent” model that worked so well back in 1984 is increasingly irrelevant in a context involving permanent, serious and potentially disfiguring medical decisions. Especially where PFLAG is seen as endorsing childhood or teen transition, eventually there will be consequences. It will be sad to see an organization that did so much good for so many in the last century, come to grief in this one.
Then…. …and now
Thank you, Worried Mom. It’s terrible to see the way PFLAG has gone. It used to support lesbians and gays and now it supports transition—which is a form of gay conversion therapy for an alarming number of its practitioners. Hardly anyone sees the tragedy in this situation because they have swallowed the lie that people are born inherently transsexual and ignore the fact that most kids with gender dysphoria desist and many turn out to be same-sex attracted. There is no longer any help for young people who are GNC or their families who are trying to help them unless that “help” comes in the form of sterilization and a lifetime of hormones, the long-term effects of which are not known. The only help for these people is coming from blogs like this where people present the facts, backed up by studies, of what is really happening, and from the feminist movement, which is still working on challenging gender stereotypes despite the backlash. Thanks for you work!
What is also very worrying and upsetting is that there are now many, many support organizations for parents of “trans” youth. Yet the flagship organization that was all about acceptance of people in their own bodies? It is now also a support organization for parents of “trans” youth. Is it too much to ask to have just one organization that supports people in NOT transitioning? I hope PFLAG leaders read this post and really think about their mission, and the people they might actually be hurting instead of helping.
I am so so SO grateful to have discovered this website, and the timing of your critical eye and history of PFLAG could NOT have been better, given that I just had a conversation with our PFLAG rep. this week. Along with counter-balancing conversations with Lisa Marchiano, plus my kid’s therapist consulting an endocrinologist specializing in transcare who expressed skepticism herself of my kid’s out-of-the-blue announcement “I’m a boy! Call me (by this boy name.) Who then got ALL her teachers to follow suite.
I have so much to say, but bottom line, THANK YOU for helping me find a place of sanity in a world challenging my “open-mindedness,” although THAT has been proven over and over and over again.
Also, my favorite line? “Having several children of my own, I was pretty skeptical, given that these children leading the way could not reliably load a dishwasher or return a library book.”
The words TRANSITION and CONVERSION are synonymous
Therefore PFLAG support groups are aiding kids in conversion therapy. Doesn’t sound so benign when phrased that way.
It was such a terrible, helpless feeling, to be in a chapter meeting, as the leader, and listen to a parent of a child who was already troubled and facing many life challenges, lament how much worse that child’s life was probably going to be when the child began to transition and become even less employable and likely to succeed. The saddest part was that I could never (ever!) suggest that there was anything questionable about potentially transitioning, or whether the child might be better served by slowing things down or taking an alternative route towards psychic wellness. It was this weird constraint, where I felt I had to endorse a “transition right now for everyone” mind-set, no matter how impaired the child might otherwise be or whether “gender problems” even had anything to DO with the child’s difficulties.
Excellent post!
Please contact me. I want to help spread the word about this. Im appalled at my PFLAG too.
Believe me you are not alone in having had a less than optimal experience at PFLAG around trans! The more of us who can speak up the better!
Brave post. More people including experts need to admit they were wrong and spread the word that Trans damages young people, physically, emotionally, socially, and they can never get those years back. Media – pick up please
Yes- Media please pick up! The lack of common sense and critical thinking is astounding.
A little off topic: I was talking to a good friend today who has been great support listening to me gripe about my trans identified kid. She informed me a friend’s 12 yr old tomboy daughter is not looking forward to getting her period. This girl has NO gender issues or confusion just doesn’t want to bleed monthly (Who likes to bleed monthly?) The mom of this 12 yr old mentioned this to her PEDIATRICIAN and the reply “WE CAN PREVENT THEM (periods)” The mom’s internal reaction was WTF?
I don’t think it is off topic, actually. I think it is a pointer to one of the key factors that is helping to drive the child-transing craze: the hubristic outlook of certain medical professionals and the failure of the profession as a whole to affirm rational and humane principles.
There is a shocking lack of proportion shown in this readiness to interfere with the onset of a natural puberty. And if the mother had taken the bait — what then? Would she and her daughter have been properly warned about the side-effects of the medication?
My kid got her period at age 9. In no way was she ready for this, and it has been a stressor for her (she’s now 18) ever since. In fact, I date the beginning of her gender dysphoria from this event. Pretty clear influence on her subsequent behavior.
We actually had her evaluated for precocious puberty but their cutoff for defining menarche as “early” is apparently 8! I wouldn’t be offering period stopping routinely (like the pediatrician blindsided mentioned seemed to have done) but at this point — you can bet I’m talking with her about it. If it’s a constant triggerpoint for massive dysphoria, which is driving my kid to the gender clinic, it’s the lesser of evils. I’m not nuts about the extreme birth-control drugging but I’d way rather have that than the T alternative. (Not that I think she is buying it, because I think she has made transition a key life goal that will solve all her existing mental health problems. I think she’s headed to the damned clinic. But I did offer it. FWIW.)
You touched on a pervasive parenting attitude. Mothers in particular fear their children’s expression of unhappiness and mistake it for their failings. Trying to medicate or eradicate all disappointments or grievances in a child’s life will make them unhappy adults.
I agree, Artemesia, a failure of the profession as a whole to affirm rational and humane principles. And a failure specifically of the psychiatric community to base themselves in sound science and to be sure these youth are properly treated for underlying issues. My daughter has gone very far under her self-diagnosis of “transgender”, yet she has a preexisting anxiety diagnosis and a soup of family mental health issues. Therapists are just bobblehead dolls.
I found this a wonderful piece: fascinating as social history, terrifying as evidence that what is liberatory in one context can become repressive and destructive in another. Thank you for this first hand, responsible report that will help alert others. No, transgender does not raise the same issues as homosexuality.
Thank you as well.
One of the things that made it so difficult for me to separate myself from PFLAG was my profound respect for the work they did in an earlier, much more difficult and threatening time. It’s like when you see a hero, someone whom you really appreciated and admired, begin to act poorly or inappropriately, and it makes you sad. But it makes me angry, too, because I also feel that, as an organization, PFLAG has been deceived, or is deceiving itself, into believing that it can do no wrong. These are not neutral things they are advocating for children and teens, not in the least.
If it turns out that a child is not “truly” gay or lesbian – well – no harm, no foul. What’s the worst that could happen? He or she will look back on it and wince. Or probably laugh.
The stakes are so incredibly high with a child or teen’s being transgender, though, and it’s a place where people should be as careful and cautious as they possibly can be. This sort of, “assume they’re trans and go ahead with it until proven otherwise” approach, while perhaps valid in the GLB context, is incredibly dangerous and reckless. I actually wonder whether, in the future, when the “wrongful transition” lawsuits start to roll in – as I believe they ultimately will – PFLAG will wind up a co-defendant for enabling and encouraging this risky and ill-founded behavior.
Worriedmom,
I have no legal experience, but have wondered, who could be sued? Would the APA be the most responsible party? All of the trans councilors, psychologists, psychiatrists, endocrinologists, and surgeons can say they took direction from their licensing body. I’m guessing only the child will be able to sue, once they’ve realized the magnitude of their mistakes. Could the child sue their parent? Can the parent sue the clinic? I know in the U.S. anyone can sue anyone for anything, but what are the chances of success?
This is a good question. When people yell at me and tell me I am wrong on this issue because the APA endorses this diagnosis and treatment, I remind them that the APA also was on board with the recovered memory movement which resulted in so many false convictions and kids pressured into endorsing “memories” that were first planted in their heads by adults. Was the APA ever sued or were any psychologists ever sued over these cases? If so, that might be a start for figuring out how to hold them accountable for their trans advocacy which features a similar lack of evidence.
I started researching lawsuits brought against psychologists from people who were encouraged to “recover” nonexistent memories. Definitely, this has happened. Here are some links: This one from Psychiatric Times tells of a huge settlement against a psychiatrist, but also shows that other players (insurance companies and attorneys) are involved. http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/articles/recovered-memory-lawsuit-sparks-litigation
Here is a post that gives summaries of 53 lawsuits resulting from the recovered memory craze:
https://blogs.brown.edu/recoveredmemory/case-archive/legal-cases/
Whoops. The second link is to cases where people were charged and convicted based on recovered memories, not of people who retracted those memories.
Worriedmom,
I have no legal experience, but have wondered, who could be sued? Would the APA be the most responsible party? All of the trans councilors, psychologists, psychiatrists, endocrinologists, and surgeons can say they took direction from their licensing body. I’m guessing only the child will be able to sue, once they’ve realized the magnitude of their mistakes. Could the child sue their parent? Can the parent sue the clinic?
Medical malpractice law varies from state to state, and because these cases are so fact-specific, it’s hard to draw any general conclusions. Here is a pretty good analogy, though: http://www.fmsfonline.org/?ginterest=RecoveredMemoriesInTheCourts
Although it’s all very interesting reading (at least to me), if you scroll pretty far down in the article you get to the heading: “Malpractice Lawsuits.” This discusses lawsuits brought against therapists who are now believed to have acted negligently or recklessly in counseling their patients regarding “repressed memories” (a now-disproven psychiatric theory). The article notes that of the few third-party (i.e., brought by a parent or other accused person) suits against therapists that have gone to trial, about 3/4 have ended with jury verdicts in favor of the plaintiff. Similarly, in the vast majority of the cases that involved a patient suing his/her former therapist, the jury found for the plaintiff (i.e., the injured patient).
I thought these two paragraphs from the article were especially pertinent: ” … [S]ome defendants [therapists] have argued that their treatment simply responded to what their patients reported to them; they were doing the best they could with a patient who was already disturbed. Malpractice attorneys have pointed out that all mental health patients enter therapy for a reason, whether it is depression, marital problems, or something else. They argue that because individuals enter therapy in a vulnerable state, ready to rely on the advice and treatment given by their therapists, therapists must be held to a high standard of care.
Some defendants have testified that they did not know whether abuse of the type described by their patients existed; they say they are not detectives and have no responsibility to check the accuracy of the emerging images. This approach has been rightly criticized. At best, failing to model critical thinking or reality checking to a patient can delay a patient’s improvement. At worst, encouraging a patient to act on a false and injurious history leads directly and foreseeably to injury to the patient and the patient’s family.”
One further point is that the damages in the repressed memory cases mostly dealt with things like injury to reputation, alienation of parents from children, and in some cases the fact that people filed false charges against family members and others. Not that these weren’t terrible, but in the trans arena, the scope of potential damages is, in a word, immense. How much would it take to compensate the person who had 11 surgeries to try and construct a penis and wound up with a permanent colostomy and no functioning anything? Or the young woman with no breasts and a hysterectomy? Or the child whose teeth all fell out by age 20?
I don’t know whether these people figure they’ll be long-gone or judgment proof or what by the time these claims start to roll in, but I hope for their patients’ sake they had good malpractice coverage. They’re going to need it.
Here is another paper on recovered memory cases in which former patients sued their therapists (and sometimes the colleges that the therapists worked for). http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/articles/patients-versus-therapists-legal-actions-over-recovered-memory-therapy. The number of parallels with the trans craze should be sobering.
Thank you for your time and reply.
Thank you so much. It’s probably too late for our family, but hopefully the law suits begin soon and slow this down a bit.
These points about recovered memory set me off to do some reading and…it’s really frickin’ strange. As well as the ‘satanic panic’ angle there are a lot of people who think that widespread ritual abuse really does happen and the concept of false memory syndrone is itself a coverup. I think this is relevant to the transgender issue as it is the ones that claim children are being harmed who are being ignored (and they’re not all raving Christian fundamentalists either). I’ve haven’t spent much time studying this subject but I thought it was worth mentioning.
Great post, WorriedMom. Thank you for speaking out and sharing this very important perspective. These “support” groups and “affirming” therapists are destroying children’s lives as well as their families. How do we broadcast your message so others don’t have to learn this the hard way? (Like I did).
Thanks for a brilliant piece. It must be heartbreaking to see an organisation that you had given so much to, turn on you like that.
You point about LGB orgs losing their mission after gay marriage, falling back and then getting taken over by trans is so perceptive. Gay and lesbian kids are more in need of support than ever. Bullies will still pick on them, there are still homophobic parents and now the bullies can use the taunt of trans against them as well.
My daughter went from being gay to trans after being bullied. She envisions a world where her future home is a male and female mother and father and no one will know that one of them is trans. It makes me sad to think that she is not proud to be gay. Is the trans movement taking the pride out of LGB pride?
Anytime is fine w me. If the play date ends around 4 that would be good for us.
This was very informative to know my suspicions of what PFLAG is doing and affirming my decision not to contact them regarding my son who decided he was transgender 3 years ago.. I had not been able to find anyone over the past three years who will talk to a teen and not affirm his self-proclaimed identity without first trying to find out if there is any other reason he might have decided to go on this course, ie. bullying, getting beat up by others, not fitting in because of different interests due to very high intelligence, possibly falling on the autism spectrum. With all the schools and media telling these kids that if they decide they are transgender than they are, with no questions asked, makes it almost impossible for a parent to talk to their child about other possibilities. I don’t know where he stands on this issue right now. He refuses to talk about it. All I can do is hope, pray and have a lot of information on all the research I have done regarding this issue to give him if I get the chance. He goes to college this September, which has me so anxious on the messages he will receive there. All I want is for him to be happy in the body he has. I hope as he matures he figures this out and sees, what I tell him all the time, that he is a wonderful person just as he is.
As another mom of a trans-identifying highly gifted teen on the autism spectrum, I share your fears and frustration. This combination is especially difficult.
Same experience in my home. What’s even weirder is my daughter doesn’t even try to present as male but insists she is. Logic is lost on her when she has anime forums and friends validating her.
It’s always so bizarre to read about young women claiming to be trans yet doing nothing to present as stereotypically male! According to the Tumblr crowd, they’re “tucute,” people who insist it’s possible to be trans without any kind of bodily dysphoria. It reminds me of this letter to Scarleteen, which at least used to seem like a great resource for young people, and people like me, who became sexually active much later than their peers:
http://www.scarleteen.com/article/advice/as_a_trans_person_how_can_i_navigate_authentic_gender_expression_and_avoid_the_identi
That is an interesting link, Carrie-Anne. I can’t wrap my head around this whole gender identity/gender expression distinction. What is it that makes them identify one way, but express another? What makes them feel offended when people assume their gender identity is the same as they way they are publicly expressing gender? I wonder if this type of thinking is more common in the autism population where perspective-taking can be challenging. In general, my daughter presents as a male, but has many more stereotypical feminine traits and interests. She insists this has nothing to do with her identity, which simply baffles me.
OMG Carrie Anne
This is exactly how my trans relative appears to me. Yeah, never a girly girl, but did years of ballet, cried over a middle school bob haircut. Last time I visited, was hanging out with the toddlers all day (I remember being infatuated with little kids at that age)
Wow this hit so close to home. My femine daughter for 14 years came out at gay in 8th grade and became very isolated. We were accepting and supportive but our community was not. A year later she joined an lgbtq group ( that had more gnc kids than gay kids) and spent a month glued to her phone and then she announced she was trans. ( we also found out 9 months later that she had been sexually assaulted too)
My experience with PFLAG started when she was in 8th grade and I was looking for a group that might help me as a parent of a gay child and also have connections to youth groups for my daughter. My first meeting I thought I was in the wrong room, because I was the only parent of a gay child. Everyone had trans kids. The group leader’s daughter was 19 and had already medically transitioned. I listened to their stories as each cried as the group leader guided the parents to affirm. She offered advice on how to legally change their name. “It’s easy and not expensive”. I left with my head spinning and thought being gay is “so yesterday’s problem”.
A year later when my daughter told me she was trans I had no idea where to turn beside pflag. It was all about affirm, affirm, affirm. I felt like if I even questioned, I’d be scorned. I started to believe I was a bad person for questioning. I thought I was a very accepting parent, but this just seemed so wrong. We struggled to find any therapist with ANY trans experience. There was one name we kept hearing and thankfully he had no space for us because he was also fully affirming. I stopped going to pflag meetings because they offered no support for parents who questioned this. Every kid and story is different and when contemplating something that will so radically change a child’s body for their life time, it seems natural to question, question, question.
This site has been a savior for me as a place of support from other parents who love their kids and question the rush to affirm. I bet I’m not the only one in my community who would like a local chapter of 4thwavenow. Has anyone tried to create local support groups for parents of this mind set?
Thanks for sharing this, Purplemom. I agree that having a support group for those who question would have been so helpful. Indeed, it would likely have saved me from all the damage caused by the transgender-affirming therapists that should know better. But could you imagine the response of the transgender community if such a group existed in real life…?
With my experience leading support groups, I’d be willing to try and put something like this together – but I do agree, it would have to be extremely stealth. We never got two seconds of community push-back or unpleasantness with our PFLAG chapter, but I’m willing to bet that publicly starting up a group for parents who question Trans, Inc. would lead to unpleasant or frightening consequences. That should tell you something…
I would be willing to help put such group together, but have no experience. Let me know how I can help
Yes, exactly, Purplemom! As a leader, I felt completely constrained to offer any perspective other than the gender-affirmative approach, even when it was blindingly obvious that transition would do more harm than good. If our group is any example, parents were indeed shamed and blamed if they even dared to suggest that being trans wasn’t an unmitigated wonderful thing that should perhaps be encouraged in everyone! Any questions or concerns were chalked up to being phobic or a bigot (just like in trans-world in general). People who go to PFLAG looking for support for anything other than fast-track transition will be sorely disappointed.
If there is anyone in the Ottawa area, I would be willing to help set this up. I will go to the local “affirming parent’s group” to see if I find anyone who is new and gender critical and I’ll ask if their group gets municipal funding to use the facilities.
It’s so depressing how groups like PFLAG have been completely taken over by Trans, Inc., and in such a short span of time. The T never should’ve attached itself to LGB, since their concerns aren’t nearly the same. As for the affirming-only approach at meetings, no one sane would do that at a support group for, e.g., anorexics or suicidal people. This has happened at a lot of university’s gay-straight alliances, where they’re now relabelled things like “gender and sexuality resource center.”
Trans activists are going to great effort to worm their way into gay and intersex nonprofits. It’s obnoxious enough when it’s an organization for the interests of gay adults, but with intersex, the organizations are about protecting children with birth defects of sex organs from unnecessary surgery before the person is old enough to consent (weirdly enough, John Money, who is the inventor of “gender” as currently promoted on tumblr, was the pioneer of operating on deformed genitals of infants, and not waiting for the person to get old enough to make informed decisions)
Shouldn’t they change their name to PFT
or PTTTT. Parents transitioning to trans-think.
love it!
Although soon we will be the USTTT, and our friends across the pond will be UKTTT
Thank you for writing this. My daughter came out as gay in high school. We had no problems with this and welcomed her partners into our home while she was in college and after she graduated. I was always very close to her, even though she was far more into “feminine” stuff like dying hair, wearing earrings, and high heels than I ever was. She began to work for a youth services group with LGBT youth and suddenly came out as trans. I tried to talk with her about this to me unaccountable decision, but she only ever repeated talking points. I could ask questions and she would give me “the answer” and that was it. No follow-up questions. I did look to PFLAG, whic I had been a member of for many years. They wanted me to come sit in church basements and shut up and learn how to support my ex-daughter in her “brave decision”. One of the first people I told (aside from my partner) was a physician friend who sadly told me that he knew of no positive outcomes in families where children had come out as trans.. He recommended I just get some freedom for myself and move on. I said that would NEVER happen. After two years, I am heart-broken to say that I think he was right. There is no way in and my child has made clear that no relationship is even possible unless I sign in blood that I believe (against all evidence) that she has always been male and that I also sign onto her completely falsified accounts of her own childhood.
I am so sorry. I hope it’s some small consolation that you aren’t the only parent to go through this.
Thank you. It does help to find other parents and learn I am not alone. Actually, in the two years I have been researching this, there have been changes. An online group I was in for parents of non-conforming kids was just affirm, affirm, affirm. When I started asking questions in that forum, I got hostile responses and told I would be thrown out. I can understand that parents who had rushed to have their children transitioned would want the constant affirmation. They definitely did not want to hear that maybe they had made a big mistake. However, eventually other parents would tell the moderator that they did not want me thrown out and wanted to hear other views. Then the whole group was shut down by the moderator. I am glad to have found forums like this one.
That’s just heartbreaking, freenampeyo. I’m so sorry about your daughter. Hopefully she will come around eventually. It’s amazing and scary how much power this cult has to draw in lesbians with no history of dysphoria and make them suddenly believe they are men. It makes no sense to say that females can be inherently male and they can never explain it in any coherent way.
It is so hard to articulate the position that many of us are in without being completely misunderstood and it is a source of great frustration for me especially when talking to the many mental health professionals in my child’s life these days. When queried about our relationship my daughter and I will both report that we are close, but that we have had recent conflict over the issue of gender identity. But the reality is that I call her by her preferred male name and use male pronouns for her and the real crux of our disagreement is whether the feelings that she has now mean she is for certain intrinsically male or not. This tweet from Ray Blanchard really summed up where I feel I am at: “Me: Trans feel like opposite sex and can humanely be treated as such. Activists: Trans ARE opposite sex and must be perceived as such.” I am all for treating adults as they wish and I am treating my 14 year old as she wishes because her depression unrelated to her gender identity is too intense to take on extra conflict. BUT when I say that I don’t want to join a support group for trans people that includes trans kids and adults who are trans and parents it is not because I am a bigot or I can’t accept my child as she is, but because the entire point of the group is for you to get on board with the inevitability of transition and I cannot get on board with radical medical interventions whose long term effects are ill understood. My husband is Jewish but I was clear even before we were married that I would not circumcise a male child because I could not imagine making that choice for a child. So I am sure as hell not going to sign on to sterilizing my daughter or subjecting her to a mastectomy or pretending like that is some life affirming thing to do. It doesn’t seem that complicated to me, and I don’t think it’s transphobic to agree with Dr. Blanchard that we can accept an adult’s sense of subjective sex out of humanity and compassion without conceding without any real evidence that his or her subjective sex is an objective fact that must override the material reality of the situation. There is just no way around the fact that transpeople will always straddle the sex binary and be a bit in between, and all the distress that activists claim is caused by a failure to see them as how they perceive them I think is really caused by being set up to fail by those incredibly unrealistic expectations that everyone else will be able to share your subjective perception frictionlessly.
well said
The emperors new clothes. Transphobia seems to be the fear of trans calling one a bigot. An actual phobia is an unreasonable fear. Fear that your child is making an irrevocable mistake is reasonable. Really, shouldn’t transphobia be fear of travel or change?
holy crap, the more I read the more I realize ALL our girls (have no idea about parents of boys) have SO MUCH IN COMMON. And our fears and the reality of being accused as “trans-phobic” is so effective at shutting down real conversation about this. How ironic that these kids who want to be so different from the mainstream are joining a social phenomenon that is so widespread.
Jesus. It sounds like she’s been given a lobotomy.
Honestly though,there can be no doubt that this trans “movement” is a serious brainwashing operation. It is probably big money funded professional psyops to study and enforce serious gender conformity, to counter and prevent the effects of the real women’s liberation movement which took place in the 60s and 70s.
Honestly, however conspiracy theory that sounds I can believe it. I could certainly imagine someone saw an opportunity in it. where did it all come from, so suddenly? where did all the money come from? why is ALL the media on board…and what about the fear? What civil rights movement has sought to terrify people, vindictively pursue them, take away their livelihoods and literally make them too afraid to speak out to protect their OWN CHILDREN?
I’m so sorry about your daughter, Free. That must be so terribly depressing and upsetting … and it’s just like it was in the early days of PFLAG, where parents have no-place to go to share what’s really on their hearts. It’s so strange how things circle back, isn’t it?
My son, now 28 told me he was “transgender” a few months before his 27th birthday. I first asked him what that meant to him. His answer horrified me. He had been working away from home earning a good living as an engineer. He told me he had worked up a spreadsheet with all of the costs layed out for full transition. HRT and surgeries. At the time I knew little about trans, maybe slightly more than the average person but perhaps a single percentage point of what I know now.
He told me about 5 months before he had purchased a pair of prosthetic breasts and when he tried them on it was “awesome”. He then started looking for a “therapist” to help him understand this feeling.
Initially he was somewhat open about his “therapy”. Once he knew I was critical of it, he completely shut down any communication about it. He had told me the counseler asked him about any memories he’d had that made him believe he was a woman. He came up with a couple anecdotes that to me at least seem very fuzzy and simplistic. He told me he found out he’s been lying his whole life and now, he’s suddenly 100% honest. When I tried to get him to explain, his fallback is consistently “it’s just a feeling” He wouldn’t tell me anything about the counselor, name, sex, qualifications? He said I didn’t “deserve” to know. He was upset that I didn’t trust his judgment and accept his fantasy at face value.
Shortly after revealing his issue, he lost his job and came back home. I was somewhat happy about that, he wouldn’t be able to transition right away and I’d see him often enough to have a positive influence on him. No such luck. He started wearing his prosthetic about a c-cup under a t-shirt around the house. Other than that and he hasn’t cut his hair in over a year he’s made no effort to “present”. He started estrogen 13 months ago and they are taking effect. He started a new job the first week of this year.
He hasn’t called me a “transphobe” yet, but has called me a “bigot”. It’s easily been the worst year of my life. I’m leaving a lot out hear but this is the core of it. He has never been feminine in any way, and still isn’t especially in his demeanor.
Sorry for running off, I wanted to mention my pflag experience. Which to be fair isn’t existent. I looked up the local chapter and two things immediately stopped me from going. One of my former students was on their home page. The second was the first paragraph of their transparent support brochure. “Parents must learn to mourn their daughter/son and celebrate their new daughter/son”. I’ve been in mourning for a few months now. Celebration? They’re out of their minds.
I’m so sorry, absurdysphoria. When is this BS going to stop? When will the medical profession wake up?
absurdysphoria, I’m so sorry. Have you researched “autogynephilia”? maybe this factors into your son’s decision?
I have. It’s quite possible that is a large part of the issue. The trans activists of course deny the existence of autogynephilia. Blanchard’s theory is the only one I’ve read to date that has any rational thought behind male to female impersonating transgenderism. My son “just has a feeling” and doesn’t care about rational thought on this subject.
Freenampeyo
Isn’t it amazing how the “nonconforming” group is all about Conform Conform Conform!
Notice how quickly it took for the T to be added to LBG, and then for gay men to suddenly be not minority status because of “white privilege”/
Good to see people are talking about this. This whole thing boils down to people IN SCHOOLS pushing hardware solutions for what are mostly software problems. Even at the operating system level of culture, accepting more diversity in what we expect from men and women is far better than tempting people to mess with the hardware unnecessarily.
The hard left loves to dumb down problems and remove options. It’s time for America to push back and do what’s best for our kids – and for the most part, that is to free up medicine and religion from political control. We need to get the left OUT of control of our schools, where they are the ones pushing this stuff into the minds of kids. PARENTS know their kids best, and need to be able to intervene.
Yes – I had to intervene, and actually MOVE, and then go to charter schools, to avoid toxic curricula and school officials getting way too controlling about the sexuality of the students. I was shocked that teachers and counselors had been trained to ASSUME that any bullied student was likely “gay”. Ridiculous.
Thank goodness our problems were before “trendy trans”, where kids are experimented on like human guinea pigs. Mark my words – this will be a HUGE scandal once the radical left is fully out of power, and the press is free to investigate anything.
This bullshit is NOT the Left! It’s neoliberalism, which comes from capitalism.
Whatever it is, or whoever is responsible. I can say this – I know a few cultural Marxists on the hard left (who at least SAY that they despise capitalism) who worked very hard to plant the gender fluidity meme. Or at least, I know it now.
It’s very disappointing to hear that people who otherwise consider themselves Marxists believe in gender identity. Far left politics are about liberating the working class from class oppression. Purchasing cosmetic surgeries and hormones from the for-profit medical system in order to live out one’s subjective internal identity does not achieve the goals of the Left, not in the least! Here is an article from a Communist newspaper about why the Left should not support gender identity, in case it might be useful.
I know people of all political persuasions who are calling bullshit on this gender identity nonsense. Let’s not turn off potential allies by claiming you need to be a hardcore leftist to dispute this stuff.
I did not claim that, but thanks.
What matter right now isn’t which end of the political spectrum has been infested with this stuff, but the fact that we who oppose it are from all over the political spectrum, religious and atheist, joining forces.
I, too, would LOVE to see a group formed for people who were willing to openly question the “Gender Affirming Model” of care. It would be risky, at first, but I think we would be surprised how many people share our sympathies and would fall in line to support us, including many professionals. I also think we might be surprised how easily the gender-affirmative model falls apart under scrutiny, and how quickly the trans-activist bullies run and hide once their sham is exposed.
To quote Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York who guided his city so bravely through the 9/11 terrorist attacks: Stand up to bullies.
I have done some informal testing of your theory that many professionals would support this. I had four doctor appointments with four different doctors in the last six months. The intake forms now include all sorts of language designed not to offend anyone’s gender identity. All four times I told the doctor, when I finally saw him or her that I thought this was BS. All unhesitatingly agreed.
Excellent, informative post, WorriedMom. It is horrifying that so many are on the trans path possibly out of fear from persecution or any attempt to buck the trend.
It is difficult to say where all the push for trans started but I tend to agree with Wolfmoon1776 in the fact that in schools and media near us, if you don’t go along with the thought police on trans ussues, you are labeled conservative, religious, transphobic. It feels like liberals are bashing conservatives when most conservatives I know don’t have any issue with gays and lesbians. No one I know thinks it is more acceptable to have a transgender child than a homosexual child. They just have as much concern for kids and adults getting permanent surgery and medications without question.
We also had to leave public schools where anything and everything was accepted and even made into support clubs. I’m finding now, since my daughter had to return to public school due to curriculum, the administration is supportive individually but has to support any demands my daughter or any student makes in regard to “feeling accepted” . Now the GSA at her school has trans kids and straight kids, not so much LGB.
With that in mind, I am at a point where I think it might be good to have a support group for parents and friends of those who are trans identified. I think it might be more accepted but I do see the crazy transactivisits going after these vulnerable people.
I realized after I posted that I missed detailing that the school administrators were supportive of us parents individually about seeing our children as their natal sex not the identit BUT their professional response is to support the identity in whatever accepting way they can. Sad. Frustrating!
ALL POINTS ALERT: Article published today chronicles major health problems suffered by women who were put on Lupron as girls for precocious puberty. The women say they were “experimented on” and many talk of depression and suicidality. The article makes no mention that this is the very same drug currently being administered to “trans kids.” Safe and reversible? Not so much. Please share far and wide.
http://californiahealthline.org/news/women-fear-drug-they-used-to-halt-puberty-led-to-health-problems/
https://twitter.com/4th_WaveNow/status/827272840273551360
This is major. Let’s see how the doctors pushing this on kids to stop their puberty for transition purposes respond. I’m guessing crickets.
Sadly, you are probably right. But isn’t there anyone – any organization – that will listen and take action on this?
This is a bombshell. If it doesn’t prompt substantial soul-searching in the transgender medical establishment, it will be hard to believe they have the best interests of children and teens at heart.
It’s also a perfect example of why it is so reckless for a group like PFLAG to endorse child and teen transition. In my opinion, PFLAG went down the trans road for reasons that related more to organizational survival than anything else. That there are potentially devastating scientific and medical uncertainties involved, that do not justify the risk, is something that never seems to have occurred to PFLAG.
We have been saying that one of the huge reasons to avoid child/teen transition is that there are too many “known unknowns.” The devastating impact of Lupron has now become a “known known,” and we wait to see what the next development will be. Common sense tells us that this won’t be the last. A group which lacks all medical expertise gets out front at its peril.
*We have been saying that one of the huge reasons to avoid child/teen transition is that there are too many “known unknowns.”*
You have put your finger on one of the huge problems of human knowledge these days – ***rush to judgment*** when we have early but incomplete understanding. This has been a problem with much of science, most particularly visible in the climate debates (where I’m a true “skeptic”, not a “denier”). Instead of answering the next 10 layers of questions, including the most critical ones which may actually _reverse the appropriate response_, we compose and legislate solutions, ignoring the history of science, which is brimming with examples of reversals, and even more “walk-backs to inconsequential”.
One of the main problems I’ve noted in childhood sexuality is how much fluctuation there is between birth and young adulthood. Everybody I ever knew went through phases, including myself and my son. Sissy, tomboy, prissy, macho terror. Loved boys, hated girls. Loved girls, hated boys. Loved them all, hated them all. Kids do it all, and end up somewhere we can’t predict. Add in physical changes, and it gets worse. Even the phases themselves are subject to interpretation. What feels “adventurous” to a girl may seem shockingly tomboyish to a parent. Likewise, boys may enjoy girl-hero anime images and whatnot, and just because that seems strange to the GI Joe generation, does not mean that it’s not an expression of emergent heterosexuality and full enjoyment of male gender. Or something else that NOBODY is qualified to render judgment on.
This kind of thinking (recognition of fluctuation) is obviously not impacting the counseling, which means that in practice, it’s an unknown. But yet it’s obvious to almost any parent that it’s a factor.
So the big question is simple – ARE
And one final point about “unknowns”. We have to be careful about *pretending not to know things*. When professionals are feeling uncomfortable holding views, that is the way out – to pretend not to know things. Many things are only partially known. It is better to admit that, than to try to force it to be a known or an unknown.
Sorry – my post got cut off by screwy WordPress behavior. There were going to be lots of edits. I’ll just finish the missing paragraph.
So the big question is this – are people defining trans policy “pretending not to know” all sorts of things about “trans” – and particularly HOW LITTLE WE KNOW? Are they pretending not to know about bad outcomes? Are they pretending not to know about dysphoria being more a problem of journey and not one that can be cured by destination? In fact, are they pretending not to know all sorts of things that say “you don’t know” instead of “don’t worry – we know”?
This is really sobering because while it was easy to be skeptical about my 13 year old’s gender identity epiphany given all that I knew of her prior life and the fact that she was basically bathing in Tumblr pages all about how cool it is to be non-binary, I am not at all certain that if she had expressed this when she was much younger that I would have been as skeptical. I can definitely imagine a scenario in which I would have agreed to puberty blockers to give a child time to decide. I hope that if I had actually been in that situation I would have done more research on side effects but I am not at all certain that I would not have listened to Dr.s recommending this.
I agree. I think that if my daughter had expressed these thoughts for years as a young child, I would have been much more likely to believe it and follow the recommended treatment. I’m so glad that my daughter has already hit puberty, so puberty blockers are off the table.
Thank you for taking us through the evolution in your thinking Worriedmom. I tend to judge LGBT and other liberal organizations who are promoting the transing of children harshly, and it’s enlightening to learn how this has come about. I mostly blame the psychiatric professions for all of this, of which I am a retired member. I don’t believe that money was the impetus for setting this off. I think the specialty created strong boundaries at the outset that are difficult to cross. No therapist has expertise or training in transgender issues unless at some point they got on board with transitioning as primary treatment. Professionals who always smelled something strange about this never made it a specialty, and consequently lack the experience to speak as experts. The only reason Blanchard can is that he has been part of the specialty and has enabled this form of treatment. It has become a vicious circle: you can’t gain expertise in this increasingly widespread disorder unless you facilitate the prescribed treatment, and if you question the treatment you will not gain the experience to speak with authority.
I think this is an extremely good and overlooked point. Unless a person became part of the orthodoxy around transgender issues, he/she never would have the ability to gain any expertise or authority in the field.
It may be that only the people who have “been there” – whether that’s detransitioners, or former allies such as myself, or professionals who change their minds – will be in any position to speak out. Which will leave a very small group of us indeed!
hearthrising, thank you for this sobering perspective. The trick now is finding a therapist willing to overlook the self-diagnosis of transgender and help clients to explore underlying issues. If someone, like my daughter, is not interested in questioning “his” self-diagnosis, there are a wealth of people on “his” college campus willing to affirm and ingrain the whole transgender ideation. Amazing how quickly it can get ingrained.
PFLAG is the ONLY game in town. There are no other Lesbian or Gay organizatoons or even groups except the campus one which is entirely that is trans positive and nobody knows what gender or sex they are and they’re all in their twenties which I can no longer relate to but pflag is run by lesbians and one gay man and who is extremely conservative and they all been over backwards for Trans so there are trans there and a lot of lesbians more lesbians and I’ve seen all together in one place and this town except for pride and P flag puts on Pride so there’s nowhere else to go to meet NE lesbians except pflag so I feel entirely sold out and I’m not sure how to organize a lesbian only group separate from the trans and there are several of them in the group some of them only teens with their mothers and some in their twenties and the mothers are like mother hens speaking for their children these kids are so mixed up they don’t know who they are and yet the president of the group is so affirming of their transition or beginning to transition or for them to transition it’s is just disgusting to me why push all that if the kid really knows who and what they are once they figure it out then they can decide for themselves when they are the age of majority I am just absolutely opposed to trans and kids before their legal age. And all the cheerleading going on about it when really they’re going to have mangled bodies in the long run. Thank you for sharing the long history of pflag with us and I’m absolutely appalled but I have no other choices or no other groups to join if I want to make lesbian friends here otherwise I will travel to women’s festivals and women circles and women land to connect with them because I always feel compromised when I’m around trans and especially pushing these young people who aren’t even of legal age to do it as always I thank you for this group and I am passing it on to other parents who absolutely need this lifeline.
I’m shocked to read that PFLAG is the only game in town. When I lived in NYC, there were Gay Men’s Health Crisis, Act Up and more whose names I can’t recall off the top of my head.
Also, right now there’s the LGB Voice, which was founded by the guy who created the “Drop the T” petition. Maybe they need a straight friends and loved ones auxiliary.
Did you miss the part where she says she is in NE? Most of the country is nothing like NYC!
lovetruthcourage
I know she’s not from NYC, but the groups exist – and I know Act Up had chapters in a lot of places. As far as I knew GMHC was the only group that was only in NYC.
It wold be interesting to investigate how groups besides PFLAG are interfacing with trans activists. Maybe it’s time for a little web surfing. Home with a bug anyway, so I might as well.
Sounds like where I live. The on-campus queer-straight alliance is full of navel-gazing 20-somethings who behave just like that. I’m a much older 20-something, but I’m allergic to stupid. I mainly meet other lesbians via online dating but unfortunately there’s lots of trans creeps.
My beef with PFLAG is that back in the old days, when they were arguing for an end to discrimination against gays and lesbians, they claimed that homosexuals are born homosexual and can’t change their orientation. (I personally am agnostic on that question; I know people of both orientations on both sides of the “born that way” dispute, and I don’t see how it’s possible to prove or disprove either side’s claims.) In any case, the “born that way” argument was a large part of the push for an end to discrimination against gays and lesbians.
But now the same people want me to believe that just because someone is born male or female, that doesn’t mean that person actually IS male or female, that one can change one’s gender via hormones and surgery, so that a natal male can become female and vice versa. Excuse me, which is it? Does being born a certain way determine what one is, or not? Is biology destiny, or not? Someone please correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think you can have it both ways. Yet this is what PFLAG is trying to do.
Although I’m totally live-and-let-live with regard to how other people choose to order their lives (assuming they aren’t harming anyone else), I don’t accept the notion that people can choose what sex they want to be, irrespective of the genitalia or chromosomal configuration they were born with. Just my opinion obviously, but I don’t believe you get to choose your gender any more than you get to choose your race or your species; there are some things nature decides for you. You can certainly fight against nature if you want to, but it probably won’t end well, since nature always bats last.
Still, if just for the sake of the argument I were to accept the idea that people get to choose their gender, the question would remain: Why not choose to be the gender you were born? If you were born female, you can choose to BE female. If you were born male, you can choose to BE male. You can’t say that you CAN’T do that, or you have demolished the argument upon which transgender ideology is based. A girl can choose to be a boy, but she can’t choose to be a girl? A boy can choose to be a girl, but he can’t choose to be a boy? This is nonsense.
Apologies if anything I have said offends other readers here; that was not my intention. I’m just expressing my own frustrations.
I guess the way I feel (and this is also just me talking) is, in terms of sexual orientation, it doesn’t really matter all that much whether somebody chooses it or not. Because, unless there is a lack of consent or other harmful coercion involved (such as with a minor), it doesn’t seem to me like loving or being attracted to someone has a negative impact on anybody else. I do agree that in PFLAG we really pushed the “born this way” narrative, mostly because it made sense to parents and took the guilt burden off of them, but for my own part I have never really had a dog in that fight.
In terms of gender identity, though, people ARE hurt. First, of course, are the children and teens who are convinced, or permitted, to harm their bodies and minds with long-term, irreversible treatments. Second, and it’s kind of outside the scope of this community, but women and especially lesbians are hurt by trans. There is a whole feminist perspective on trans that makes a lot of sense to me.
I agree with your overall point, though… the idea that “biology isn’t wrong” (when it comes to gay) but “biology IS wrong” (when it comes to trans). It does seem like they’re trying to have it both ways, doesn’t it?
Not to mention the whole, “It’s about gender, not sex” except, you know, sexual orientation is, in fact, ALL ABOUT PHYSICAL SEX. Which then leads into all the craziness of males who transition but maintain their penises and insist that they’re lesbians and therefore lesbians are being transphobic if they won’t have sex with them. Or, girls who say they’re gay boys and seem perplexed that biological men who are gay aren’t really interested.
katiesan,
I actually suspect that in the case of teens – especially in the case of the sudden massive increase of FTT teens – it’s about a rejection of physical sex, but more important, it is a rejection of growing up. The FTT teens don’t appear to me to want to be men – they want to be boys, like One Direction (or, I date myself, Menudo). Finishing puberty means being an adult.
Trish, I think a lot of FTT don’t really want to be men, they don’t want to be the kind of woman they think society expects them to be. My transman daughter in fact gave me that justification: “living like a woman feels like a lie”. I was so flabbergasted, I didn’t have a good answer at the time. I am not exactly a primpy woman, and saw my daughter as falling close to the tree. Now “he” is happily living as a man on a college campus…not to be questioned there, that’s for sure.
I agree! No matter what the facts show, the trans-activists will argue. Choice is supposed to mean something else in the world of many genders….
Excellent point. So, to paraphrase,
The gays insist, “We were born that way. Don’t try to fix us!”
And the transgenders insist, “We were born wrong. Fix us!”
Here’s another oxymoron:
The Gender Affirmative Model states, “There is nothing pathological about being transgender / Transgenders need major medical interventions to become their ‘authentic’ selves.”
Huh?
They are in a thorny position, because in order to get one’s health insurer (or the taxpayers, depending on where you live and whether or not you have private insurance) to cough up the big bucks necessary to pay for hormones and surgery, you have classify transgenderism as a disease or disability. That makes it sound as if there’s something wrong, doesn’t it? Well, it does to me, but I’m old-fashioned and unenlightened. Just ask my kids.
It also boggles the mind that the same people who consider what used to be called “reparative therapy” for homosexuality to be tantamount to torture, consider cutting healthy tissue off of young healthy bodies and pumping those bodies full of dangerous chemicals to be sound medical practice. Has the world gone stark raving mad?
bluebird of bitterness
Another excellent point! Trying to talk someone out of viewing him/herself as gay is too much, but hormones and surgery on minors – which violate US laws requiring a judge before treatments that can sterilize minors – are just fine.
I think the trans activists very cleverly – and underhandedly – noticed already-existing organizations like PFLAG, and instead of creating their own organizations modeled on PFLAG, just – to use an sjw buzzword – appropriated those organizations. That’s why there is no intellectual coherence in the arguments.
This seems to happen to a lot of advocacy organizations once they have achieved the purpose for which they were formed.
bluebird, I think you’re right. For the first 150 years, or so, of America existing as a nation, corporations were limited to a 50 year timespan, and had to justify why the corporation would be good for the community – not just whether the corporation would make big bucks for the share holders. If the corporation wanted to last more than 50 years, it required a lot of “good for the community” evidence to justify.
Definitely should be such a time limit on nonprofits doing work on social issues.
Yeah, that is very contradictory. Then again, I keep hearing that trans is also a “born this way thing” and that once you realize you’re trans you can’t change it. Here’s the thing though, even if you believe in born this way, people make mistakes. When I was in high school in the early 2000s, most of my friends thought they were bisexual because for some reason being bisexual was trendy. Now, only a couple of high school pals who are nearing 30 like me still consider themselves bisexual. Plus, thinking you’re bisexual by mistake doesn’t involve anything like becoming a life-long medical experiment.
I do think people can experience gender dsyphoria, like other body dsymorphic disorders. However, I think trans is a bizarre fetish in a lot of cases (autogynophilia) and in other cases it’s an attempt to “cure” homosexuality. SRS was invented because homosexuals were considered “inverts” who were born the wrong sex. I also don’t agree that the best way to treat body image issues is through body modifications. It’s like validating an anorexic by agreeing that they are too fat. It’s like pro-ana, but being taken seriously.
I’m a lesbian, and I just say I wouldn’t choose to be heterosexual. That’s my stance on it.
I attended two PFLAG meetings last summer on behalf of my 16 year old daughter who was presenting as a boy. There was a straight teen girl there who explained that she wanted to transition to a gay boy. The facilitator thought it was a great thing and that she should start on hormones right away! That they would make her life so much better! I got the hell out of there and didn’t look back.
I am glad you didn’t stick around to get shamed into doing something you know is wrong. I am so sad that PFLAG, which used to be such a source of positive support, has turned into a place where parents are guilted into facilitating their children in doing dangerous things to their minds and bodies.
worriedmom,
You have just identified one of the most important tools in the trans activist toolkit – shaming the rest of us. I am sure this is what turned the rest of my relatives into uber believers that trans is a thing and that I am a rigid, uptight (leftwing atheist) for not getting on board and asking questions.
We must not let the attempts to shame us slow us down!
all I can say is whew. Thank you Jesus you all exist and are willing to tackle this and have this place where we can all scratch our heads together. I find this whole subject overwhelming, and then I stop thinking rationally, when rational thought is exactly what is called for. So thank you for the “repressed memory” analogy, and the “conversion therapy” analogy. A friend of mine talked about the early days of gastric by-pass and how few criteria or regulations there were – you want it, you got it. All these things are so helpful in terms of recognizing what (else) might be going on.
blanche,
Thanks for being here too. It really helps to know I’m not the only one questioning this ideology. Our strength is that we come from all kinds of backgrounds – believer and atheists, rightwing and left wing, and so on!
I would also add to the analogies to things like repressed memories and conversion therapy, the complete lack of analogy to actual rare diseases – in a previous post about “Gendercare” in the UK, I pointed out that it is claimed that transgender accounts for 0.3%, which would be a very rare disease or condition indeed. And while most rare diseases are referred to by the medical establishment as “zebras” and they use the adage, ‘When you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras” to discourage people jumping to the conclusion that they have the rare disease, this does not happen in “gender” clinics. As far as I can tell, anyone who walks into one of these places claiming to be trans is diagnosed trans, on the first visit, with not even a whiff of differential diagnosis.
Absolutely. Affirmation only. This is what happened to my college-age daughter. What is at the root? well who knows, she has never had any counsel for that. It is now me who has set up an appointment for her to screened for Asperger’s/ASD high-functioning. And no seeking of root causes despite the fact that her genetics include a rich soup of mental health diagnoses, including depression, bipolar, anxiety, OCD, ADHD….things that could certainly have played into being a “different” kind of girl who never fit in and had friendship issues, who never entered the primping phase of teen girlhood…now happier as a man – ?? on college campus maybe, where “he” is now on HRT. Madness.
What has happened to the LGB movement, now that trans has come to town is not so much LGB mission creep. To me, it’s more like the species of beetle that lays its eggs in the head of an ant, where the larva matures, while using the still-living ant like a meat vehicle.
An apt analogy.
I like it because it’s kind of gross.
😉
Gross but accurate. 🙂
I know several people who were working with young gender dysphoric children before the trans machine started. I know one woman in particular in this field who would like to speak out about this. And there are several of us who are also interested in telling our stories although some of us still have youth so its more difficult. But I really want to put you in touch with this professional who has a very good perspective on this and is willing to speak. I dont want to leave my email in the comments but I assume you can get it. Thank you.
I would like to be in on any gathering of stories.
Worriedmom, you might want to look at the connection between mtf transgendered people and autogynophilia. The fact is, as boys, these people don’t know what it is actually like to be a woman, and some misidentify their attraction to the idea of having the body of a woman as actually being a woman in a man’s body. See how many mtf trans are attracted to women (become lesbian) and are on the autism spectrum.
Thank you Dan – you are right that this is a factor of which many of us are aware. It is very striking how many trans adult males appear to be quite “overly interested” in the sexual development of children and teens. Even when nothing overt is said or done, there is definitely something “creepy” about it, and our parental “sixth sense alarms” ring loudly. We choose not to suppress those alarms in the name of today’s faddish thinking.
I also find it interesting how many grown men want the public to blindly accept the narrative that it’s simply a case of “switched wiring;” like there is nothing untoward or sexual involved with their attraction to female clothing, accessories, and what they think is female behavior. You know what? I don’t really care much at all what somebody’s fetish or sex play involves, in the privacy of their own home. Whatever floats your boat, as long as nobody else gets hurt. What I do object to is the idea that somehow they have the right to tell us what to do with our kids, all the while pretending it’s not some sexual trip for them.
I think that may be one of the reasons this bothers me so much. My sons fetish would be none of my business if he’d have kept it to his bedroom or the cabaret on the weekends where it belongs. In fact, I believe he’s afraid it’s a fetish and can’t separate it from his identity so he feels the need to go full transition to save himself from being perceived as a sexual deviant. Wow, hard to say out loud, but seems more based in reality than “just a feeling”.
I just received a fund raising letter from PFLAG. As discussed here, every one of their action points is about the trans agenda. They do not mention any gay or lesbian issues at all.
PFLAG National sent me this today as part of their fundraising:
https://www.pflag.org/blog/donor-highlight-frederick-weldy
Here is a gay man thinking that Pflag helps boys grow up gay in a better environment. Would anyone else like to tell him their experience? I found his email easily at his university. This just disgusts me so much that gays contribute to what has become an anti-gay group.
I attend PFLAG in my area, and I can assure you that the large majority of meetings and members focus on gay and lesbian family members.
Hello Worried Mom,
I am looking for a support group for parents of gender nonconforming kids in the Miami area. Are there any alternatives to PFLAG? I am critical of the trans trend. It has too many characteristics of being a cult, and I think an enormous amount of damage is going to be done to our kids, much to the financial benefit of the counseling and surgical community.
Hi there – if you go to https://www.parentsofrogdkids.com/ and click on the red bar at the top of the site, you’ll be directed to a portal where you can sign up to participate in a support group for parents in our same situation. I am very personally involved in both organizing and leading my local group, and I can tell you that it’s absolutely wonderful to meet with other parents who feel as you do. There’s nothing like sharing “experience, strength and hope”!
Is parentsofrogdkids still active? I signed up for an account have not heard anything, but not sure if a few read the emails and respond. My college son told us 1.5 yrs ago he was trans cis gender, I think that was his verbiage and he was autistic. The latter self diagnosed. A few months ago in an email he told us he is trans and changing his name and coming out this fall coinciding with a recital. Never did we see any signs of gd. More to the story to write here, but I am skeptical on the trans and also the autism for several reasons. I am super concerned as he may now be getting drugs to help with a physical transition based on all the stories he reads on medium and going through his $$ which he never spends more than $50 in a year. Looking for a support group.
Concerned Mom, the parents group is highly active and approaching membership over 2000. Check your spam folder because you generally would get a response within a week. Or reach out again.
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