174 thoughts on “There’s a sudden surge of trans students coming out at my college … and I’m scared to talk about it”

1. OMG THANK YOU for this. There are days when I feel like maybe I’m the crazy one or maybe I really am just an evil bigot, and it’s so helpful to hear the stories of others. No, you are not alone. I am a junior at a large state school in the northeast. While my school being huge makes it less obvious, in a statistics (yes, really) class last semester, 4 out of 36 students were visibly trans. The professor taught five sections (poor guy) of the same course and he would have daily surveys for us to take on Blackboard, creating a data set that we would then use for some of our in-class examples. Surveys included everything imaginable except any breakdown of sex or gender–little wonder why. This made me think that he probably wasn’t on board the trans train (because if he was, wouldn’t he have made a big deal out of showing us how open-minded he was by including survey questions with eleventy gender options?). So I took a huge risk and confided in him once at office hours how horrifying I thought it was that a(nother) one of my classmates was spending her spring break getting her breasts removed. He smiled sympathetically and said, “I really can’t say anything, but I am very….understanding….of your concerns, and while I can’t say a whole lot, if you want to talk about it I am always happy to listen.” All of this was just uncomfortable until they started making it a campus-wide policy that everyone should use the bathroom “in which they feel most comfortable.” I am a survivor of childhood sexual abuse and rape as an adult, so when 6-foot-3 “people with penises” started using the ladies’ room (most dressed as men, some with full beards) it scared the hell out of me. I don’t use the word “triggered” as I think that should mean a very specific thing related to PTSD (with which I am diagnosed), but I found it impossible to enter a stall and remove half my clothing with men nearby. The disability office assured me that they weren’t trying to remove options for anyone and gave me a list of single-stall bathrooms (which, to be fair, there is at least one or two in every building, so that’s something.) I really can’t wait for this trend to be done already. YESTERDAY MORNING at an 8am class that I get to early since I have to take an early bus, I heard two girls a few rows behind me celebrating because they had finally chosen their boy names for after their transitions, which they were beginning soon. How can anyone not see this for what it is? Sorry for such a long comment. I just felt so relieved to read your piece. –P.S. While I was writing this (sitting by myself in one of the on-campus restaurants) a conversation broke out at a table next to me with one gay guy insisting that he would SO date a transman and a few other guys and one girl giving him “yeah, sure you would” type responses, to which the first guy proudly announced his lack of bigotry.

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   • Hi H, thank you so much for your comment. There are so many crazy instances of this around campus it’s impossible to document all of them, and I’m sure it’s not just isolated to my school. The weirdest part is how impossible it is to discuss, so thank you so much for sharing your experience as a college student as well. It feels very lonely having no one to turn to about this, who is also brave enough to say something.

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   • Sorry, but this comment reads like pure BS. Too many interactions with transgenderism to be believable. The massive 2016 HERI survey of 140,000 American college freshmen showed that 0.4% identified as transgender. Even though freshmen are all 17 and 18 years old and we are constantly told that transgender identity is found in greater prevalence among the young, the survey revealed a prevalence lower than the 0.6% currently being pushed by trans activists for the whole population and only a bit higher than the 0.3% previously pushed by trans activists as the number for the whole population.

     Maybe you really did have a statistics class where 11% of the students were trans – 27.5X the prevalence revealed in the HERI survey. But I doubt it. We all need to be skeptical of anonymous anecdotes on the internet.

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     • The author knows 50 transgender people. I am an extreme introvert with a really serious anxiety disorder and I personally know 8 for sure. This morning I saw a girl I had a class with three semesters ago. Her hair is buzzed and she’s either binding her breasts or had them removed, but I don’t know for sure so I’m not counting her in my number. I agree with you that the numbers are outrageous. (It’s almost like it’s a fad, AKA something that sweeps through a generation in massive numbers, huh?) The moderator can verify that my IP address is from a huge northeastern state university and that my email address indicates an interest in mathematics. You may be skeptical to the point of thinking I created a fake email address and took my laptop to a nearby university just to lie more convincingly, in which case you’re probably committed to a belief that it’s not as bad as you think. Go to a blue state university campus and stay awhile. (In case I’m coming across badly–it’s midterm week and I’m stressed–I applaud your skepticism and I truly wish I were exaggerating. I’m just not.)

     • We can confirm H’s assertions re: IP address and email name. (We will not reveal the name of the university hosting the IP without H’s permission.) Thanks, H., for replying. Many people with no experience of contemporary university life have no comprehension of how pervasive this all has become.

     • I think this shows that this is all psychological and not biological.

     • Dave, I would share your skepticism if my own personal experience, and knowing so many parents who have observed the same, said otherwise. The survey data you reference does not capture what is happening in clusters, notably in liberal areas at liberal schools — both high schools and colleges.If you use rely on broad survey to extrapolate across different populations, you will not capture the evidence of social contagion, which is seen in clusters of kids suddenly id’ing as trans. I have seen this happen with my own eyes.

       My youngest daughter started thinking she was trans after attending a school presentation. This was at a school where over 5% of the entire student body thought they were trans.

       I have an older daughter in college. She knows many kids who think they are trans. She said most came out after college. She said on the first day of class, everyone must introduce themselves with “preferred pronouns.” She said at every extracurricular event she attends, they begin the first meeting with a name/pronoun introduction.

       She has seen kids start college with one pronoun, and months later, change to the opposite. They/them is also very common. Some of the kids she knows just dress like the opposite sex. Sometimes she is not sure which sex they are. She also knows several who are taking testosterone. They brag about it on their social media accounts. She knows several girls with mastectomies. She has shared their social media pictures with me, and the accompanying cheerleading they receive from their friends when they “come out” or start T or rant about “cis privilege.” It is absolutely insane.

       I have met several parents in real life whose children got swept up into this at college. They also talk about how common this was and how blindsided they were…and how they had no idea what being “transgender” was all about until this hit them personally.

   • I’m right there with you on this. I, a white man, went to a similarly small and leftist liberal arts college in Ohio (take a guess as to which one), and when I arrived I was very open and accepting of all kinds of gender identities, though I still identified as a man. I was also a socially awkward individual, eager to make friends and prove myself as an ally or whatever. As time went on however, and the quasi-abuse towards white men continued, I convinced myself that I identified as a non-binary person, using “they/them” pronouns, which I did for about a year. When I finally stopped doing that, and stopped buying into the utterly insane politics of the popular kids, I realized how disgusting it all was. Here we have a ton of people who have appropriated trans identities just to be cool, edgy, and fit into their counter-culture of choice. I can only imagine the immense detriment this all has had for actual trans people who struggle every day with dysphoria and violence. If I were one of them, frankly this whole situation would be massively discouraging, as now when more conservative individuals think “trans people” they think of all the gender-trenders who’ve hopped on the bandwagon. It’s just disgusting, pathetic, and deeply depressing. Once I realized all this, I dropped out of my school because I didn’t want to continue being in a place that supported such a toxic, angry culture.

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     • Dave,

       This indeed is the point. The sheer popularity of it is the first indication that there is something going on here outside of any possible medical necessity. I think that’s why a lot of us parents have come to this site.

       My 13yo daughter thinks she is transgender. Had I not known anyone (or very few) that has recently come out, I might be more inclined to believe her. My older daughter’s HS has at least 5 trans kids (I don’t know all the kids) in a school of around 400.

       I know your comment is more than a year old, but I’m new and wanted to add that this is not just a college thing.

     • Moderator, can I delete my previous comment?

     • Done.

2. Emily – You have so much insight into this phenomenon. Four years ago, my smart, athletic, somewhat socially-awkward daughter was 17 and decided she was a boy. From my observations of her, I conclude that this is the new anorexia – the latest way for girls terrified to become women have found to punish themselves. Sigh.

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3. I teach college and I have seen exactly what you have seen. I think it is a dangerous fad, anti-scientific, has pernicious effects on the people formerly known as women, and I weep for all these young women who are drawn into the seeming social power and self harm of the trans movement. It is very hard to speak, I know. How and where can we share your writing so that it might have some good effects in this sad time?

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4. Thank you so much, Emily, for this perspective that we rarely hear about precisely because, as you said, young adults are afraid to speak out. I hope that other young people will read this and chime in as H did.

   I spoke to my nephews a few years ago about this subject since my won daughter has been drawn into this mess. They were in middle school and high school. My oldest nephew, who is in the accelerated classes said that you just can’t talk about this subject and he thought it was more prevalent in his class. He just doesn’t say anything although he finds it very uncomfortable. Now that was 2 years ago, he may be more comfortable with it now because of the continuous brainwashing that goes on.

   I’m glad you can see through this as a social contagion. I hope you are able to find other like minded people, so that you don’t feel so isolated. You write very well, maybe a career in journalism would be a option.

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5. Thank you for this piece! I, too, found it very interesting.

   I’ve been so sad about the campus situation specifically, because both of my daughters went to historically women’s colleges and encountered an onslaught of trans propaganda, successful in my older daughter’s case unfortunately. As I understand it, these colleges were established over 100 years ago, specifically to take women and their educations seriously. To give women a place to shine and excel, away from what were the massive pressures and prejudices of a male-dominated culture. And, in some ways, to give young women a safe place to just be… young women. Without having to worry, quite so much, about some of the issues that arise when males are around. I know that both of my daughters found the high school environment way too dominated by the boys, and both were hugely grateful to have the opportunity to spend four years in an all-female environment.

   Except … not so much. When I visit now, it’s all “mixed gender restrooms” and “bash the binary” and the girls are expected to room with biological males, and half the girls seem to be trying to be, or at least look like, boys, and there’s nothing anybody can do about any of it, much less speak up with that “strong, proud voice” that these colleges are supposed to be promoting. In some ways it seems as if the women’s colleges are the most “hand-maidenly” of all, and it puzzles and disturbs me to no end.

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   • Worriedmom (with apologies for having lamely copied your moniker when I first fell into this), I know what you mean about colleges. I have a professor cousin who’s near retirement age at an eastern all-female college, and she’s just keeping her head down until she’s done.

     I visited her recently and was stunned at the number of “trans bois” walking around there who should have been proudly embracing their uniqueness and ‘power’ as young women with limitless futures.

     According to my cousin, it’s the female professors in the “gender studies” department who have embraced the trans ideology most enthusiastically. WTF?!?

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     • Thank you for bringing up the inexplicable fact that this is so embraced by professional women.

       When my family found out by accident that a school transgender curriculum had prompted an interaction between our underage child and a counselor that had led to “affirmation” behind our backs, every single person involved was a woman and a self-identified feminist.

       Now, don’t get me wrong, I completely get the fact that “women” with penises are bashing lesbians in the skulls at women-only demonstrations. I completely get the influence of money from high-profile billionaire transwomen like Jennifer Pritzker. There is definitely a chauvenistic, abusive aspect to this, and I really appreciate the work that the trans-skeptical feminists are doing.

       But that’s only part of the picture.

       And, unfortunately, I’m finding it’s taboo to mention the enthusiasm with which this is being promoted women who consider themselves feminists.

       In the wake of my family’s trauma, I looked up all the various medical, psychological and financial resources available in my community for “trans” identifying youth, so I’d know who the hell to keep away from my child. And it was women, women, women, women, women, women, women, women from top to bottom. And not just transwomen–only a few of those. I’m talking biological women, many of them with biological daughters, including the therapist who abused mine.

       We need to shed light on every aspect of this injustice. And I mean EVERY.

     • This is too do with power dynamics. It’s always women who police other women.

       We should remember that actions repeated for millennia are shaping people today. Women were socialised, all ofover the world, to submit to men. It’s only been a few decades of feminism.

       I read a book by a girl who met a man online, went to Italy to meet him, instantly he took her passport and said, you’ll be working as a prostitute to pay my debts. This was right away. And Italy: she wasnt trapped in Columbia or Bangkok.

       He didn’t threaten her family, not then. He simply spoke to her with force, called her names, acted powerful, . And she submitted. Immediately. She said it was like something came over her, her will to be independent collapsed. Later, much later, after obeying him and selling herself, she was rescued… And it’s also terrible how quickly she got used to prostitution and had her regulars, whom she did not hate for degrading her…. She went back to UK and the police told her not to worry, the man would never come to England. But he did, and although she could have called for help, she submitted again.

       Look How many women still seek economic dependence, looking for a rich man to marry, how many look for men to pay the bills. ” a husband is supposed to be a cover…. It’s his responsibility to see I’m taken care of, financially” says a woman in Susan Faludi’s Stiffed….this woman even has a job! The writer of the Cinderella Complex spoke of how, when a man was paying the bills, her ambition vanished, she started potting geraniums and gazing dreamily at the sunset, with an empty mind.

       To me, it’s terrifying to think that submission is right there, waiting for the trigger, that i might like it if a man began to boss me around. Look at all those guys complaining how women prefer the men who are not polite, who ill treat them and are dominant…. how the men who believe in equality are disdained. Women in millions bought 50 Shades of Grey….its not just a sex fantasy, it’s a rescue one too : ordinary woman is given a life by billionaire. Men don’t read about being rescued from life, they fantasise using weapons expertly, knowing things… saving women.

       I think feminism failed here. The insistence we are all born the same and being a woman is imposed from birth is wrong. We are born the inheritors of billions of very oppressed women, and it’s all lying there waiting to activate.

       Hence the power dynamics of trans. It’s, about submission. The violence, the demands, the whole male tone of TIMS, it should engage women. It enraged me, it enraged the GC women, but look at the handmaidens, falling over themselves to obey. They joyfully submit, and then go to work on other women.

       It’s not Men mostly, trying to force lesbians to fuck TIMS. IT’S WOMEN. It’s women shooting about TERFS. helping these TIMS to assault women. They are submitting, and they either like it, or they hate it but feel helpless, and want other women dragged down to their level.

       If only girls were taught about this taught to feel disgust at the idea of living in slavery, sellng your life for a platinum credit card… Women who do this act as if they’ve achieved something! They should be scorned. .nothing motivates like shame. I’m sick of seeing nonsense about strong brave women when women are so weak, yet, so weakened by oppression that the feminist movement has been handed to men. It’s like they want to think of womanhood the way TIMS do and they hate feminism because it says, stand on your own feet.

     • One the women all the way down tip, I will tell the story of my kid’s outpatient stint.

       It was an IOP (intensive outpatient program). She went five days a week, seven and a half hours, and she was there for six weeks. They were supposed to be teaching the teenagers CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy) in order to understand their various flavors of disordered thinking, how that could influence their emotional reactions, and how to change those thoughts and improve their outlook and their relationships (particularly family relationships). Once a week, parents and teens met in a group family therapy session to mostly go over CBT information and talk a little about things which happened during the week, although it wasn’t an intensive group therapy vibe (I say now, having been in an intensive group therapy situation). My kid spent half of that hour, each week, verbally and emotionally abusing me in front of a room full of strangers. AND THE WOMAN THERAPIST DID NOTHING. EVER.

       Things didn’t improve for my daughter in that program — she slept though most of it, we later found out, and I called the nurse and the therapist multiple times and explained that my daughter was being violent and abusive. the therapist took me aside and said, “I don’t think your daughter is really trans. But, if you ever repeat that, I’ll deny having said it. I’m sorry I can’t help you.”

       So, yes — it’s women all the way down. I mostly think it’s women who are out of their depth and refuse to stand up to total bullshit because they will (at least in the state where I live) lose their jobs. But, I also don’t know how most of them sleep at night, honestly. Every therapist, social worker, and counselor we dealt with IN OUR STATE was told about the outrageous behaviors of our daughter and most of them spoke to my other children, who corroborated our observations of our kid. They abandoned us. We had a mentally ill kid and they left us to her mistreatment. Many of them saw her lies and manipulations and the only advice I got from anyone was a psychiatrist in a mental ward who observed some of the behavior AIMED AT HIM and told us, “Sometimes, you have to kick them out of the house when they reach adulthood and hope for the best.”

       If that is the best that the “helping professions” have to offer in this situation, they should not be allowed to practice. When we went out of our state and a therapist BELIEVED US and treated our daughter’s MENTAL HEALTH ISSUES FIRST, that was when things changed for everyone.

       Yes, I’m incredibly bitter.

6. I some glad you have the courage to be clear to yourself that you don’t believe all this bollocks. Hopefully the banality and obviousness of it will make it obviously trendy amd hence suddenly not-cool. Then everyone will listen to the Raincoats and carry round a well thumbed copy of Gender Hurts.

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   • Gendercriticaldad, you have described my idea of utopia!

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7. Thank you for sharing this. While parents are on the forefront of openly challenging the trans phenomena, the questioning DOES need to be done by peers as well. It is an educational tragedy that you feel scared to bring your observations up for an open respectful discussion on a COLLEGE CAMPUS!!!
   Yet, I understand your discomfort with that bc of the full on belligerent, violent protests that consistently follow brave attempts TO HAVE A CONVERSATION with the LBGTQetc. students.
   Debates used to be THE norm for such situations. A classic debate, ongoing, should be happening on all campuses. With rules of order, of course. Has your college done this? Could you suggest it?

   Complète hijacking of the liberal arts education is what’s happened.
   You, brave young woman, are feeling the TRUE pangs of injustice. Your voice has been silenced. THAT is the real injustice.

   Nobody ever said the LBGTQ community could not have their right to speak. But, everyone else must say exactly what that group wants or be fired, assaulted, ridiculed.
   Wake up America!!!

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8. Thank you Emily! My oldest niece graduated from college several years ago and told my mom that iat her college it was groups of girls that did this. If this was truly because it is more accepted to come out … then we should be seeing this rise in both sexes and across age. It is so remarkably evident to me, that this is socially driven. I wouldn’t care if it wasn’t for the medical piece of it. Therapists and doctors need to wake up fast and face the facts. No more too afraid to speak up. They are responsible for under diagnosis AND over diagnosis.

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9. Thank you so much for writing this, Emily. It astounds me that you know 50 people in real life who identify as transgender. I have lived more than twice as long as you, and I did not know a SINGLE PERSON in real life who believed they were transgender until I met the kids at my daughter’s former school.

   I still don’t know a single person over the age of 20 who identifies this way.

   Don’t the professors at your college see this happening in the classroom? Don’t the therapists at the campus mental health center see this in their counseling sessions? Don’t the administrators see the rapid rise of kids applying for special housing?

   Emily, do you think any of the “grown-ups” at your college are disturbed by this? And if they are, why don’t they speak out? Or do you think they really believe this all perfectly normal?

   I am so thankful that my daughter “came out” as trans when she was a minor living at home. It is so much worse for parents who are blindsided when their child goes off to college and returns home for break looking like the opposite sex. On top of it all, these kids have easy access to hormones and surgeries thanks to the college health care plans. And even if they are still on their parents’ health insurance, these insurers won’t tell you anything once your child is 18.

   I have met many of these parents who have “lost” their kids in college to medical transition. I can’t even begin to imagine their heartache. And I can’t imagine the serious regret many of these student will likely have in a few years when they realize what they have done to their healthy bodies. This is so sad and tragic.

   Thank you again for writing. I hope that other college students will consider sharing their honest concerns and observations. I suspect there are many more like you who are also afraid to speak out, but it is so important that they do.

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   • OMG. I can identify with so much you have written, and every other parent who has replied to the original post. It’s so hard not to cry reading these familiar sentences that I’ve thought and said about my daughter. Especially your names, like ‘FightingToGetHerBack” or “worriedMom”. I AM fighting, and I don’t want to lose her. I’m called a bigot because I believe it’s a social contagion and a dangerous fad. I”m glad there’s a place here for us. I thought I’d lose her when she went to college, but she hung on. She wanted to do hormone therapy toward the end of HS a few years ago, and I said I couldn’t support that and TriCare wouldn’t cover it (Finding out later that they DO cover dependent’s gender transition procedures! surprisingly quiet from the military, the fact it is covered gives me heartburn compared to what they don’t cover for active duty, but that’s another story) Since then, she had her first experience with a serious boyfriend–a biological male–although it didn’t last. And she is still looking more like a boy with haircut and dress, etc. We don’t talk about it these days. We are dealing with multiple issues besides the trans, as many young girls do. Her anger toward me has subsided which is our biggest blessing. I pray that she will learn to love herself and the way she was made. I will continue to pray for that, and for ALL OUR DAUGHTERS to learn to love themselves. I think that’s what it all boils down to. <3

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     • I am so sorry, Aimee. It sounds like you have been living this nightmare for a very long time. I think all of our girls have underlying problems or struggles; identifying as trans seems to be their way of avoiding the real issues. Like you, I am also thankful that my daughter’s anger against me has subsided and am very thankful for that. And like you, I also pray they will all see the truth and learn to love themselves as they are, not how they fantasize themselves to be.

   • When Princess Diana died there was a huge hoopla. People weeping in the streets and even attacking those appalled people who suggested that maybe this was not a case of Britain “growing up” as the media put it, but actually regressing to childhood

     A year later, and those same people were denying they had wept at all. They were all claiming to have been the cool skeptics on the outside. They only went to the funeral to make fun of the idiots, not to bewail a woman they didn’t know

     That’s what will happen here. In a couple of years, when these poor mutilated sterilized kids are out of college they’ll run into the ones who didn’t get around to medical transition. And those kids will mock the ruined, managing their health conditions and trying to convince people to date them… the lucky ones will pretend they knew all along not to medicalise, dude, they’ll say, you weren’t meant to take it that seriously! Lol at you dude, smh.

     Tell your trans kids this, especially the autistic. Often just one gender presentation has been enough. Give them a presentation of the future: the people who were stupid enough to take it seriously. Tell them the chill kids are laughing at them behind their backs.

     There will be articles soon. Mommy, Why Didn’t You Stop Me?

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     • I’m not being flippant. I’m just looking at what’s happened with other fads. The people who were screaming for the blood of those who opposed them, pretend they were against it all along.

       Look at the nazis. All of Germany took very seriously the whole Aryan bit. All those SS officers, solemnly debating which racial groups were human. Yet literally as soon as the eat was over, where was that ideology? It vanished, and everyone was saying they had always been ‘inwardly opposed’ to the regime.

       And autistic kids are very suggestible. I was one, i know. Just a hint that the cool kid are moving on, and I’d have dropped any fad, I’m serious, really.

10. Emily Williams, I’m with you. I believe it’s an epidemic; I too believe the ones claiming “Trans” do suffer from anxiety and do have problems making friends and keeping them. I also wonder if some of them aren’t a “bully” in some way. What I will not give in to is the sudden onset of claiming to be “trans” and suddenly they have already “transitioned”….what????!! then the demanding to be called whatever they choose (and that may change overnight too) and the iintimadation.

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11. Thank you for sharing this. I’m sorry for your childhood friend that has bought into the trans ideology. I hope that you can find a way to share your concerns for her well being, with her. Sometimes brutal honesty is what’s needed. She may hate you for it. You may lose her as a friend. BUT, you may save her from herself. Friends should be the ones giving brutal honesty. Be that friend, please. Do it because you care and love this person so much that you don’t want to see her suffer.

    I wish that every person witnessing a friend go through this, would tell that friend they are perfect just the way they are. That there’s no need to transition and destroy their healthy body.

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    • Thank you, Jenny Cyphers. This is the most important piece of the puzzle, even though it’s the hardest to do.

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12.  “If you can’t determine gender by someone’s appearance, why have gender at all? Why not just call each other by our biology, whether we are happy with it or not, if only for consistency and clarity’s sake?”

    Definitely not alone! These questions sum it up.

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13. Please hang on to your sanity, Emily. This stuff is all very crazy and dangerous for women, and you are absolutely right to question it.

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    • It is very dangerous for boys and men as well

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14. Very acute observations, thank you!

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15. The paper referred to in this is Littman, July 2018. It posits a number of hypotheses, centred on the idea that a phenomenon called Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria, ROGD, is central to this trans epidemic. The trouble is, nobody knows what ROGD might actually be.

    In classic theory, trans is provoked by Gender Dysphoria, a sense of more or less intense discomfort at being obliged to socially present as the gender one’s birth sex might suggest. It occurs in males and females and in two completely distinct forms in each: homosexual and non-homosexual. This might not always seem to be the most sympathetic way to triage the forms, especially in a culture which remains deeply uncomfortable with sex, but it works.

    Homosexual GD leads to HSTS and is relatively rare. Since it ONLY affects persons who are already uniquely homosexual, from their earliest experiences, there is a clear upper bound on the numbers. The precursors to homosexual GD may onset as early as age 2 and so it is called, in the DSM-V ‘early onset’. In males, non-homosexual GD is caused by Autogynephilia, ‘a man’s propensity to be aroused by the thought or image of himself as a woman’.(Blanchard.) These individuals are not homosexual although they may well begin to seek relations with men as a function of their AGP. (Pseudo-bisexualism.) Again, this linking of gender to sexuality does not please some people, but it works and the profile is consistently accurate.

    Now the problem today is amongst young females. The Portman and Tavistock in UK recently reported a 4500% increase in referrals (it is the UK’s main gender clinic) over 8 years. FOUR THOUSAND, FIVE HUNDRED PER CENT in EIGHT years. That beats any stats on this, anywhere and to make it even more shocking, whereas the historic prevalence amongst females has always been 2/3 being female.

    We should expect to see more referrals as awareness of trans lives increases, alongside lessened social intolerance, but the staggering amount of the increase and, more importantly, the inversion of the relative rates m/f, should give pause.

    Autogynephilia, the stimulus for male non-homosexual GD, differs from the homosexual stimulus in many ways but two of the most significant are in the age of onset and the duration of the occult stage (ie, that period between beginning gender non-conforming behaviours and cross-sex identification and fully transitioning.) Although the occult phase of AGP in adult transitioners can be very long indeed (voir Jenner), in adolescent transitioning AGP it can be very short; it could even be described as ‘rapid onset’. To give a comparison, typically HSTS begins the occult phase in the 2-4 age range but transition does not occur till 13-16. So there has been a decade-long occult or quasi-occult period. In adolescent AGP this could be reduced to weeks or months.

    So, what is happening in young women? Unfortunately, in a repetition of a common error, the published figures do not classify by sexual orientation. But it is clear from anecdotal evidence that a significant proportion of these females are non-homosexual. It seems possible at least that their condition might be inversely related to AGP, in which case it may be ‘Autoandrophilia’ (AAP) a woman’s propensity to be aroused by the thought or image of herself as a man’. AAP, if it were a mirror to AGP as seems likely, might well exhibit the same characteristics of rapid onset. (Note: ‘Arousal’ does not always mean in a strictly physical, sexual manner. Other forms of reward also apply and in females particularly, these seem more social than sexual.)

    This DOES NOT mean we should be complacent. Much work needs to be done. Personally I am highly sceptical that surgical therapies are appropriate in AGP and have made many enemies saying so; I see no reason why they should be any more appropriate in AAP, if that be found to be what we are looking at.

    Further, feminising hormones, principally oestrogen, are relatively mild in effect; a large part of the reason HSTS appear so feminine is that they naturally are so, anyway (in males, inverse in females). Further, most of the effects of oestrogen are reversible; if the subject has not had orchidectomy or GRS, if they stop taking the HRT, they will masculinise. Testosterone is not gentle at all. Its effects are drastic and permanent, even after cessation of HRT. I would question its use in non-homosexual female GD under any circumstances.

    Again I will restate: the above caveat applies to the NON-HOMOSEXUAL forms of GD, either male or female. Homosexual GD is quite different and in this, transition with HRT and possibly surgery is often entirely appropriate and can lead to a full and satisfying life in the target gender. Subjects, if male, can integrate into society as women and may find partners amongst regular straight men. They do not become a part of the gay lifestyle and often simply vanish. (Those who think they can ‘always spot’ a transwomen simply have not met any HSTS; or maybe they have and were completely taken in.) This life-path even has a name: ‘woodworking’. It might be a little harder for females, but many do achieve it.

    ROGD, then, is not a simple phenomenon and, worse, it is a poorly understood one. Until very recently the amount of research into any female non-homosexual GD was tiny; a few papers. We need a lot more and, until we have it, we need a moratorium on non-reversible therapies for the phenomenon being called ‘ROGD’, especially in the non-homosexual form and particularly amongst females. What is happening now is like a game of ‘Pin the Tail on the Donkey’ with therapists who have little idea what they are dealing with, fast-tracking individuals to the surgery conveyor-belt..

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    • Addendum: I see a formatting error in the html of my reply. The section referring to relative prevalence should read ‘whereas the historic prevalence amongst females has always been (less than) 1/3 that for males, in the recent referrals this is reversed, with (more than) 2/3 being female.

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    • Rod, I don’t know the basis of AAP, as they do not reflect my personal observations. I just don’t see this as being driven much by sex as I do by other factors.

      You wrote: “But it is clear from anecdotal evidence that a significant proportion of these females are non-homosexual.”

      My daughter “came out” as trans as 13. She learned this at school. Over 5% of the student body identified this way. None appeared to be same-sex attracted. The two traits they shared were intelligence and social awkwardness.

      My college daughter told me that all the kids she knows who id as trans remind her of her sister: smart and socially awkward.

      So what I am seeing, and what I and others have theorized, is that many of these girls simply don’t fit in. This is an identity crisis. This is a way of finding their “tribe” and their “group.” On top of that, we have a hypersexualized culture. Perhaps some of these girls id as boys as a subconscious way to protect themselves from men. Maybe others, because they don’t fit in to this culture, feel more comfortable expressing themselves in opposite ways — and rather than being a girl who dresses however she wants, they are explicitly taught that this means their “gender id” is that of a boy…and that to be their “authentic selves” they must medically alter their bodies.

      Just my observations and two cents’ worth…

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      • I agree with your comments, FightingToGetHerBack. I suspect the most we will learn from studying this might have very little to do at all with any historical sense of gender dysphoria but the unique ways a social contagion can spread in the era of social media when we have a medical community selling ‘true identities’ like candy to girls not wanting to grow up in a troubling era and laws being proposed that prevent reason, all being funded by some very wealthy individuals with twisted minds.

16. Emily, we need more young peers to speak out. Thank you for your strong voice.
    It is tragic what is happening with so many teen girls and young women.
    Why is questioning these unlikely transgender proclamations forbidden?
    Why become a lifelong medical patient–for an identity?
    I hope that college students can help to extract the political from these identities.
    Shouldn’t it be possible to be a questioning liberal?

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17. Emily, thank you for speaking out. My own daughter went to a college that sounds very similar to yours, until anxiety caused her to drop out. But it was there that she was exposed to the whole pick-your-pronoun insanity, and to her it was a ready-made explanation for why she was struggling so, emotionally. I consider the cowards in administration and faculty offices who nod and go along with all this to be the worst of the worst.

    Best of luck to you, and with such a clear-eyed view of reality as you already have, I’m sure you’ll go far in life!

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18. I work in academia and have seen some similar things. What I keep coming back to is this. In the 1990s, when I was a confused kid/teen coming to grips with my lack of straightness, I paid a LOT of attention to all media about lesbians and gay people. There wasn’t a lot back then, so it wasn’t difficult to find the few young adult books about gay teens. I watched every “very special episode”, every program about the subject I’d be glued to. That time period was really interesting as it coincided with the Internet emerging and was the first time a lot of people heard about LGBT people in a positive way.

    One thing I keep coming back to that strikes me as a big difference is this. The real-life people whose stories I read came from every walk of life. Married mothers of 3 who always just knew something was wrong in their marriage. Teenagers, teachers, seniors, firefighters, athletes; people of all ages, races, interests and occupations who had always been gay and finally felt OK enough to come out. If they lived in an area and had a life where it was safe to come out, you’d see people doing so.

    But with this most recent trend – I feel like I can’t really say this aloud, but every single person I know, specifically women now identifying as male or nonbinary or anything not female, fits basically the same profile. Pick all or most of: late teens to late twenties, white, born female, creative interests, some kind of mental illness or disability, very into fandom/internet culture, socially progressive/into activism, hard time fitting in, appearance some flavour of goth, punk, dyed hair. Now I’m sure some people could argue that some of those things come directly from never identifying with being a woman, but that wasn’t the case when it came to gay and lesbian people finally feeling free to come out. It just feels…weird to me. (I have been reading this blog for awhile but don’t usually comment because I’m not a parent and don’t really know teenagers, which tends to be a big focus, but figured I’d chime in here since it’s about the college/uni age)

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    • This is a really interesting point, thank you for sharing this.

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    • I feel like I can’t really say this aloud, but every single person I know, specifically women now identifying as male or nonbinary or anything not female, fits basically the same profile. Pick all or most of: late teens to late twenties, white, born female, creative interests, some kind of mental illness or disability, very into fandom/internet culture, socially progressive/into activism, hard time fitting in, appearance some flavour of goth, punk, dyed hair. Now I’m sure some people could argue that some of those things come directly from never identifying with being a woman, but that wasn’t the case when it came to gay and lesbian people finally feeling free to come out. It just feels… weird to me.

      For what it’s worth, I’m around your age, also work in academia, and I went through the exact same process of private skepticism as an observer of MTF trans identity. Same age range, similar pattern: geeky guys who were STEM majors (typically math or CS) or had transferred from STEM to gender-heavy arts or humanities subjects. Personalities that were intensely cerebral in ways that would be considered stereotypically “masculine,” but awkward, anxious or depressed in ways that made it difficult for them to fit in with “the bros.” There was little or nothing stereotypically “feminine” about them until they “discovered” their trans identities (I’m talking here about MTFs who identify as lesbian or “queer” women after their transition, not the gay-man-identifying-as-straight-woman variety.) They were always white. And they were inevitably passionately involved with anime, comics, RPGs, or similar fandoms.

      Like you, I had never noticed anything like this uniformity in my gay and lesbian friends, who come from a wide range of backgrounds and occupations. I wrestled with the possibility that this was just selection bias on my part — that is, the reason all the trans people I know are geeks is that I’m a geeky STEM guy myself and the people in my work and social circles are too. But I spent a lot of time reading online trans material in a sincere attempt to be an “ally,” and this was inevitably the pattern there as well.

      And for all we hear about how misgendering is literal violence that drives innocent trans women to suicide, I couldn’t help being struck by how few of them made a sincere effort to “pass” after coming out as trans by wearing age-appropriate women’s outfits. Instead, there’s a distinct goth-cyberpunk-raver “~trans girl uwuu~” look (neon hair, striped leggings, and so forth) that you can spot from a million miles away.

      Eventually I had to come to grips with the fact that I just didn’t buy it. Was this really about “feeling like a woman”? Or was it about feeling like an outsider around other, more traditionally “macho” men and finding solace in a subculture?

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      • Heteronerd, you have just described my son to a T. Thank you for helping me understand a little more context on what he is experiencing in coming out as trans. He announced to me just weeks before starting college in Computer Engineering Technologies program this year. I just keep scratching my head trying to understand . To me, he is all boy – loves comics, D&D and other role-playing games, video games and regularly talks about violent movies and TV shows he watches – he doesn’t act like his 2 sisters in anyway at all. Then he goes back to school and puts on a falsetto voice and pretends to be a girl. I can only pray he figures this out and comes to his senses before doing anything irreversible.

19. One of my teenaged daughters is caught up in this. It’s just so hard to deal with. I do not think the identity she has been cultivating for the last year will serve her long term. But we are “making her miserable” by throwing down roadblocks, trying to slow things down. And the parents of those young people mentioned in the article? I bet they are lost, confused, hurt, angry, and beaten down by therapists and doctors who are helping their offspring rush into synthetic hormones and major surgery. And feeling that they, too, can say nothing.

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    • Cut her internet connection. If she is at college, stop paying the fees and get her home. Then do physical things with her that makes her look beyond herself. Lie on your backs and star gaze, clean the nearest beach of plastic. Hug trees. Ask her opinion on stuff. Go to a comedy show together. Get her to do your hair and make up anyway she choses then go shopping for a bottle of wine done up like that. Don’t let those bastards get between you and your baby!

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      • This can work. Swimming was really helpful in our family. At first our approach drew some raised eyebrows from the trans critical therapists we talked to, but over time they were telling me, you know, this is working with other kids too.

        Because this really is about withdrawing into the self. Life is supposed to give young adults real, almost heroic dragons to slay. Not basements to vlog in. And universities are supposed to be the springboard for those adventures, not a nursery school or holding pen that staves off adulthood indefinitely.

        Internet restriction is important too, but trickier. We need better net nanny services. But parents absolutely have the right to dictate what’s done with equipment they own.

20. This is crazy. Do you think this is more unique to your college or is this trend at most liberal arts colleges?

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    • It’s everywhere.

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    • If you go to most college websites and put the word “transgender” in the search engine, that will give you your answer. It seems to be everywhere. In speaking to many parents who lost their to this at college, it is appears to be quite prevalent at the more “elite” schools.

      Oddly, these colleges seem to be competing on who can provide the most healthcare coverage for their trans-identifying students. For example, the University of Michigan proudly announced this week how medical transitioning will become even more accessible. https://www.michigandaily.com/section/research/uhs-launches-new-service-expand-healthcare-transgender-non-binary-students

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      • That is awful. It sounds like there needs to be a list of colleges that do not subscribe to any of this as a resource for parents on where to send their kids to school. Our kids are being hijacked.

21. Hi Emily! I’m not much older than you and am not studying at university. Instead, I’ve been doing online courses, since being away from my parents and essentially fending for myself in an environment like uni sounds like absolute hell for a girl with Asberger’s syndrome.
    However, that doesn’t mean I am totally cut off from the real world. I’m really interested in cosplay and fandoms and love going to conventions. I spend a good deal of my spare time on Instagram and Tumblr and know a lot of other cosplayers/fan artists of my favourite cartoons. Something that has really worried me is that when I look at people’s profiles (always those of biological females) a tremendous amount of them identify as trans/non-binary/genderfluid etc (and probably gay/pan on top of that). It’s really got me wondering just why the geek community has such a high percentage of LGBT people and my only conclusion is that the people who are drawn to fandoms are young social outcasts, perhaps with mental health problems or autism or other disabilities, who struggle to fit in. The LGBT community is filled with this type of people so it’s inevitable they cross over.
    I didn’t know any trans people at all until a couple of years ago when I had an experience similar to yours involving a close childhood friend. We were thick as thieves through the ages of 4-8 and spent many happy afternoons dressing up as fairies, watching Barbie movies and playing with dolls. However, when she turned eight, something strange happened to her. She started having this weird obsession with becoming a teenager. I knew that one day I’d be a young adult, but had never thought it was something to rush. I thought teenage girls were silly and loud. I didn’t get what was so desirable about becoming one. Surely it would just happen when it happened. My Mum said to me that once my friend did become a teen, she’d want to be an adult, and when she became an adult, she’d want to be a mother, and so on.
    My friend and I drifted apart. She started wanting to be a pop star and trying to experiment with bizarre fashions. Five years later, we were not close any more. I got on a lot better with her younger sisters. One of them told me that my former best friend was now “basically an adult” – at thirteen! I couldn’t believe how prophetic my Mum’s words were.
    She and her family moved away and we all but lost contact with them until a few years later I found the two oldest daughters on Instagram. By this time, I was eighteen – an adult – and Mum’s prophecy had taken an unexpected twist. My former best friend now identified as trans! She was already on T and anticipating top surgery. I told my Mum about this and she wasn’t surprised!
    I eventually discovered my former best friend has autism as well and suddenly her life of constant obsessions made sense. It maddens me so much that she and her parents were told by professionals that she’s really a man, not a confused and easily influenced young woman. I know her so well and can see this trans identity is just her latest in a long line of expressions. I suppose some people might have thought of her as “trans-age” when she was younger!
    I’m already beginning to wonder just how long her “trans” phase will last. How long will it be before she needs to mix it up again? I’m waiting on 23…
    I’m just as worried about the trans people I know via Instagram and Comic Cons. How many of them have Asberger’s syndrome or other issues? How many of them are similar to my childhood friend? How many of them are going later to regret their transition or even commit suicide? The latter is what I fear may be – after many more phases – the final stage of my once best friend’s obsession-fuelled life…

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    • What a great comment!

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      • Thanks! 😀

    • My daughter fits the trans stereotype perfectly. Anxious, artistic, teenage girl who loves anime and cosplay. I wonder if it will ever strike her as odd that all her trans friends are clones of each other. Will it ever become an embarrassment on campus to be one of these stereotypical trans girls?

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      • I really hope that this will happen soon — that these kids will realize they have become caricatures, and the trans craze among young people will die as quickly as it emerged.

      • “Anxious, artistic teenage girl who loves anime and cosplay” – I can think of a few trans guys I know both online and offline who more or less fit that description. It’s believable that girls in their teens and twenties wouldn’t notice that they’re essentially clones of each other (regardless of what sort of “clique” they’re in) but when the “professionals” start denying that this has any significance, that’s what makes me really suspicious…

      • Our daughter looks like the would-be transdude of the Atlantic cover story — the “blue-haired believer”.

      • Wow, mine too. Except only anxious in certain social situations. Artistic. Anime, cosplay, Marvel – all things I think are cool about her. And now has short blue hair.

22. Another aspect that has not been discussed here is complete alienation of family and friends. Sadly, the people identifying as transgender are cutting off ties with their families, friends and anyone who does not completely affirm them. It seems the rhetoric and coaching within the trans community is for the trans person to distance themselves from everything that could remind them of their former life. The ripple effect from this is worsened mental and physical health for those who love to the subject.

    Mentioning side effects (for which there are numerous, peer-reviewed studies on NIH and various other institutions), will get one branded as transphobic. In any other subject, academia welcomes research and discussion. Why can’t we discuss this?

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    • Yup!

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    • So what if you are branded transphobic? It is a meaningless insult. Why would anyone care about being called an independent thinker who believes people shouldn’t destroy their body with off-label drugs and surgery? It’s a badge of honour to be called transphobic surely? Repeat that the suicide stats are lies more often rather than less often. Repeat that the early death figures have been plucked from black trans sex workers in Brazil, so irrelevant to white college students from middle class homes. Go to your family member that is claiming to be transitioning and do things with them so they don’t feel isolated and in need of trans cult buddies

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      • Hoi Polloi, I’m with you. I never minced words, though I was compassionate. And I’m not afraid of “transphobia.” Some things in life deserve to be feared and suspected until they’ve provided outstanding evidence that they’re not worth fear and suspicion. Same with hate. Some things in life are hateful. I own those words proudly. Epithet away; it won’t shut me up.

        My child didn’t ever use the “phobe” word on me because I didn’t let the opportunity arise. I said:

        “I’m not going to lie to you. There are people out there who will call me a transphobe. People who will help you do this, even pay for it. People who’ve made it our state law that a minor child like you can do this today, without my permission or knowledge. But to those people you are not the most important thing in the world. They are willing to lie to you to make you happy, but only I am willing to tell you the truth even if you hate me for it. And even if you have me for it, I will never, ever, stop loving you to the last molecule.”

        And then we got that kid the heck out of the house and into twice-a-week swimming lessons where there was no hiding in floppy sweats from a female body, and no hiding from all the different shapes and sizes and tattoos and scars and flabs of all kinds of people, being themselves.

        Within a few weeks she was back into her girl clothes and hasn’t mentioned testosterone or mastectomy or metoidioplasty again.

      • In my workplace, if my gender critical stance was known, I could be accused of potentially creating an environment where trans people may feel “unsafe”. If you are a teacher, professor, therapist, or work in a federal workplace, being openly gender critical could ensure that you lose your job. It’s scary.

      • Question PDX,
        How old was your daughter when she ventured into Transworld? I think developmental stage really impacts approach.

      • Dave,
        I, too, work on a university campus (I’m a prof) and have already encountered the gag order. My soon to be ex husband is a closet autogynephile (he couldn’t pass, so limits his activities to home); I stayed in his closet for three years after he dropped his trans bomb on me. My health, physical and emotional, suffered. I withdrew from my colleagues and work life, because I was walking around under a bell jar and felt dishonest with every person. When I finally found the strength in myself to leave him, after 35 + years of marriage, I began to tell a few of my friends what had happened. Then my supervisor threatened me with disciplinary action, because “gender identity” is protected. Never mind what he’d done to me at home; never mind the abusive situation I lived in. Nope. His “rights” and value trumped mine. I refused to betray my principles and values, and to be further silenced. I moved up my retirement date!
        Our college, too, a small, selective, midwestern liberal arts college, trumpets its trans friendly campus.

      • Stjoeelvira, I think you’re right that developmental stage makes a big difference in approach. It hit us at the center of the bell curve, 15. Also, just the individual kid and the individual parent. In a way, we’re all having to be our own experts. But you know, we’re a lot better at it than the crap psychology industry at this point.

        Out of His Closet, that is just heartbreaking that your workplace tried to make something political of your personal tragedy. I hope you will find, or have found, better people who do a better job of deserving your company. This truly is a cult. I wish it a speedy trip back to the depths of hell from which it came.

      • To be very honest, there is nothing ‘phobic’ of any variety, if one is questioning the lack of logic in the junk science that is being foisted on the public in the name of being fair. This also assumes that the discourse in same, is done in a civilized manner…which the brigade, for the most part is incapable of doing.

        One argument that can be made, directly is this: how is some person injecting the cocktail into a normal [as in nominal health] body or removing actual WORKING AS INTENDED parts, different than some junkie who is injecting themselves with coke, heroin or other concoctions, or slices open a body part to be ‘fashionable’ in the extreme? Bluntly stated…there is none and if we are not careful, we will have more of those in BOTH above situations clogging the medical system, in the next 20 years, while placing those who need the care, to take care of failing parts for other reasons, in a form of social & medical limbo. After all, an MI does not have the same social cache as someone getting their penis removed.

        If someone wants to be called by a different name or use cosmetics to match same, shit…the first amendment allows for that to be the case. There however, is a major problem with those, who are rather immature, making the calls on this, because the brigade has groomed the mind [no different than a pimp does with a runaway] to do so and those raising logical objections being called ‘phobic’, be that in the schools or the workplace. And if these objections are being raised by parents who have read, chapter and verse what can result from the cocktail, et al….all the better. The child will be better off, long term.

    • I’m trans and not all trans support alienating families. However I want you to consider this… How do you talk to someone that clearly dismisses you?

      It is like you want all trans folk to confirm your ideas, that they are crazy for going into the restroom they want, and not passing etc.etc.

      But why no one here ask how crazy is it to be so hung up on who is using the stall next to you?
      Like if men bother you so much why even go to school with them? Hell why even walk out you house? There’s men outside your door and they can rape you there!? If a woman don’t want the possibility to dorm with someone they hate, why dorm at all? All those risks are implied in being in a public/shared space…

      Anyways;
      After reading a large portion of the conversation here all I see is a bunch of people patting eachother on the back for thinking liberals are crazy, and that all transgender are going through a phase. My mom told me that same thing about 12 years ago, and I guess I never grew out of it?

      The craziest thing to me is how the poster is trying to make a case that trans people is a threat to her safety; then post a pic someone took of a person, that probably apart of the LGBT community, using the restroom which should be illegal? Is that not a threat to the transgender person’s safety?

      All I can say for sure is; You may not understand trans however that feeling is mutual. Most transgender people don’t understand what it’s like to just be normal! However, both groups have their fears.
      Sadly, transgender usually has to face their fears everyday just walking out the house, that probably why they don’t care as much about your own personal fear. That feeling of stress around an unpassable transgender usually is mutual. That’s not to make light of the possibility of a sexual predator making its way into the woman’s restroom. However falsely equating being trans to being a sexual predator is ridiculous.

      I’m not active in the LGBT community but I will say with my friends I never really had much discussion about how people feel about ‘us’ using the restroom. I don’t understand why I’m supposed to care if someone cares what toilet I’m using, if I got to use that bathroom I’m going to use a bathroom. Not soil myself waiting for someone to okay my entrance.

      That being said; I’m actually for segregated trans restrooms because the women’s room are usually a hot mess! Between nasty pads and tampons on the handicap bars, or all the toilet paper everywhere; best believe most women’s restrooms are a nightmare. I even recently went to a campus with gender neutral bathrooms and saw females going in it. Which means I had to wait!? We make up less than 1% the population yet I had to wait to use that bathroom made for us? I kind of wanted to tell em to get out and use their correct restrooms!! Could you imagine, told you can’t use a restroom? No you can’t, if someone told you that you wouldn’t listen to em either. Unless it was out of order.

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      • Thanks for this! I’m also trans , and I believe there should be both gendered and a neutral bathroom. It’s hard to change people’s minds when they are set in their ways, but I hope the people on this site can listen to some trans voices and expand their views.

23. Thanks for sharing your story. Our daughter, who thinks she is transgender, fits many aspects of your narrative—smart, etc. She is currently a student at Colorado State University and I wonder what you think about the idea of parents starting action groups at universities to try and create a counter-narrative? At CSU, there is definitely a dominant narrative by those in high places, which I find cult-like. If this idea about an action group has merit, do you have thoughts on how one might proceed?

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    • That’s a great idea forming an action group. I think the main issue is large lack of awareness by the public at large. That together with the people who are aware not standing up and speaking is helping epidemic increase in speed. Money always talks, imagine if parents started to openly avoid schools like the one Emily went to? I know it is far easier said then done but we need a social revolution pushing back and exposing this massive, dangerous social contagion. So sad to think of how many young girls will be left in this aftermath.

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      • Thanks for this brave piece. My daughter fits the description–creative, socially awkward, social justice warrior. Went off to college, and suddenly socially transitioned. It’s a disaster. We are doing all we can to hold off permanent changes because we know this is total BS and her latest obsession. She had obsessed with other topics in the past, but this one seems to be societally encouraged so I am so concerned that this particular phase might not pass fast enough. After all, who has the guts to walk away from so much positive reinforcement–immediate hero status and all? I would love to be part of some action group to bring awareness of this trend. Doctors and mental health professionals are committing malpractice by allowing our girls to turn this experimental gender-bending phase into permanent, irreversible, devastating changes. There used to be such thing as LUG–lesbian until graduation. Unfortunately, at the rate the doctors are encouraging our kids, there will not be any TUG–trans until graduation. They are permanently sealing our kids’ fate.

      • Well Zemmane, I asked Rene Jax, a trans gender who has desisted, about paying for support for kids who decide to go this route and take hormones and move towards surgery. He suggests to pull all monetary support. If the child all of a sudden has to pay for their own school, shelter, food, etc., there will be now money left over to buy hormones or have surgery. When reality sinks in and they desist, then consider re-subsidizing school. In the mean time, don’t give them anything; nada. On the outside, this may sound cruel to most folks, but it is one of the most loving things that can be done. Good kuck!

      • I do think that parents should send certified letters putting institutions on notice that their gender claims are scientifically unfounded and unsafe, that their push for gender treatments circumvent informed consent, that there is evidence (e.g., the Littman study and the UK NHS investigation) that this is a social contagion, [and any other red-flag issues you want known, like previous trauma history, heath complications], and that we parents hereby put you on notice that you’ve been informed of the dangers and will be held liable for any damage that comes to our children as a result of interfering with our childrens’ health and bodily autonomy.

        Granted, it’s easier to do at grade, middle and high school level, where you’re still the legal guardian.

        But even if a college student goes full transition, they may detransition some day and need help paying for it, and you will have your certified letter to give to their lawyer, showing that the school, the therapists, the doctors knew or should have known there were problems.

      • Maybe parents of kids struggling regarding gender could start a private parents group at each campus, perhaps on a WordPress blog, so people wouldn’t be using their real names at first, for safety, to discuss the situation, and then have a collective voice, to communicate with the administration and profs. A group.of parents would have.more clout, and not feel so isolated. Especially.clout if they collectively suggest pulling their kids out or not donating to that campus if there are censorship and harassment or even firing of gender-critical people in the campus.community who speak their views, including profs.
        .
        “Progressive CSU Parents Concerned About Transgenderism” or similar title.

        These parent groups could then connect with similar parent groups on other campuses.
        .
        Also, in experimenting with how to.approach people on this topic, many people are afraid to openly question or disagree with trans ideology, especially progressives, for fear of being labeled religious conservative bigots and transphobes. So having that be the initial (or.sole) topic of conversation seems to be an ice breaker.

24. Thank you for opening up this very serious debate and I don’t want to get people riled but I have to say this:

    What is wrong with all you that are too frightened to open your mouths?
    What is wrong with the parents that didn’t cut internet access immediately you discovered a problem?
    What is wrong with medical professionals that are caving into Guidance clearly not written with patients’ best interests in mind?
    What is wrong with college and university staff indulging this bullshit?

    So what if people call you a bigot or a transphobe? Would you rather be stupid? Would you rather hand your brain over to another to do your thinking for you? You know this is a bad fashion trend like big 80s hair, or 70s men in catsuits, or speedos on a beach with a huge tummy hanging over them. So say so!

    The next time you are asked what your preferred gender is, tell them that no one owns a pronoun, they are decreed by the person describing you, and that if they can’t work your one out then there must be something wrong with them.

    The next person that tells you to call them by a trans-ed name, LAUGH AT THEM and say, oh you are so funny! Don’t be stupid. I know who you are, I stopped playing make believe at about 5 years old.

    The next person that claims to be non-binary, tell them that you are a Democrat/Republican/Green. Because non-binary is an ideology nothing more. If you don’t force your politics on them, they must not force their politics on you.

    The next woman you hear of wanting to cut off her own breasts, tell her that you had always thought she was really smart and can’t believe she’d damage something as incredible as women’s breasts that can nurture a child for six months without a bit of help, that can communicate with a baby so easily that they can feed the baby antibodies for any bugs they catch.

    The next man you catch in the women’s toilets, soak the bastard! He is a pervert getting off on the upset he is causing women. You make it too uncomfortable for him to come back.

    The next time the LGBTQwerty society puts signs over the toilet doors TAKE THEM DOWN!!!! Who died and left them in charge?

    And know that at least 60% of the LGBTQwerty crowd are not having sex, so their announcements of sexual identities are fantasies.

    Make something else on trend because this gender bending shit is boring navel gazing nonsense. Queer Theory was developed by perverts that promoted pedophilia. You want to be dealing with that next? No me neither.

    The only way to take the power out of this is to stand up to it and laugh in it’s face. So grow some ovaries and do it!!! If you get “reported” for having a backbone, tell whoever tries to discipline you that Mummy Muscle was supposed to be something a child leaves behind with infancy. You are protected by the First Amendment – tell others that you will not see your freedom of speech being taken away by stealth or citizen censor.

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    • HP, everything you said sounds great in theory, but the sad reality is that calling this BS out in the way you suggested is not practical, and in some cases, is actually dangerous. Some equate “misgendering” to “actual violence” and respond in kind. Even the likely social ostracism is no small price to pay. At my daughter’s liberal college, one student who spoke out against the PC culture was publicly shamed, threatened on social media, and made to feel so uncomfortable that she ended up transferring within a month after the bullying began. In my own case, I have attempted to spread the truth through comments on media articles and public forums. I have been blocked and censored on four occasions — not because I wrote anything false, or used bad language — simply because I wrote about my honest experiences with a daughter caught up in this dangerous trend.

      What we really need are organized groups to speak out against this — groups whose mission it is to protect. Unfortunately, all of these orgs are either afraid to touch this topic, or, like the American Academy of Pediatrics, are controlled by powerful trans activism.

      We need the media to report what is really going on. But right now, with few exceptions, the only media outlets who cover the transgender narrative in any critical way are conservative.

      Until we see more honest and widespread coverage of this topic, individuals risk losing their jobs, friendships, and their personal safety.

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      • This was just published on Sunday. It is fantastic! Another main stream source that is not conservative. Not that there is anything wrong with the conservative articles, but to get a more widespread audience, this issue needs to be cover across both left and right leaning media.
        https://www.forbes.com/sites/julianvigo/2018/09/30/what-about-reality-technology-in-the-age-of-make-believe/#11f5623438f2

      • Some of the advice experts give friends or family trying to help a person who has been sucked into a cult is to not criticize the cult directly. Try to maintain your connection to the cult member, don’t alienate her, remind her of her past life with you. When you see opportunities, try to help the cult member notice inconsistencies in cult doctrine or ways it is detrimental to her. I think that is the reason many parents don’t directly tell their kids this is B.S. and knock it off. The trans cult will very quickly help the cult member sever ties with family who appear unsupportive. Parents are doing their best to maintain their connections with their kids in hopes of very gradually helping them to see the truth. That really limits parents’ ability to go public with their stories and also to take doctors, therapists and school personnel to task in any public way.

      • Please see my.comment a few comments up ^^^ about forming a parent group.at each campus, to have a collective.voice.

      • Fighting To Get Her Back, everyone.else wants someone else, or.some other group, to go first: to.speak up first. Well, journalists get censored or fired for doing so. Doctors and academics and politicians, too.
        .
        We each need to find ways to speak up, to.form groups.of like-minded colleagues or activists, and to make space for others to do the same, by our going first, even if just a tiny bit.

    • Hell yeah! You rock! This is awesome. I’m out there saying WTF and telling people to cut internet and open their mouths too, and now I have some funnier ways of doing it thanks to you. I hope we meet; then we can say it in stereo.

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    • I’m not certain that you fully understand the climate of academia or medicine these days. It’s not as simple as “First Amendment” rights. Students can be expelled for “hate speech” per the discretion of the administration with little to no recourse. Physicians also have our hands tied in many regards. As a pediatrician, all of the professional organizations providing clinical practice recommendations endorse the “affirm and treat” model. If I disagree and a patient chooses to complain, my professional credentials can be on the line. And in the state I practice, a conversion therapy law was passed, which literally means I could LOSE MY LICENSE to practice medicine if I don’t affirm a patient’s gender identity.

      I think your pep talk was well-intentioned, but sadly, we are past that point. Until people in power and positions of influence start to see the danger in all of this, students like Emily and physicians like me will be limited in what we can do and say, (though I do my best with my own patients).

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      • I hope you will be sharing the Lisa Littman’s paper and the articles by the GD Working Group with colleagues.

    • Thank you, thank you thank you. I am so sick of all aspects of this, and other areas of our society, telling me how to think, feel, believe. This trans ideology is ridiculous on its face. As far as the term “Transphobic” I will wear that as a badge of honor. YES, I am phobic of the ideology of transgender taking my son away, having him ruin his body, ruin his life. And steal my wonderful son away due to some sick, unhealthy social trend. I have lots of “phobias”. Afraid to fly, hate heights and am claustrophobic as well. Sometimes have social anxiety. Well I’ll gladly add this phobic response to the others I have. This one is fear of losing my wonderful son and having him ruin himself for life. Makes all the other phobias seem silly in comparison.

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    • Hi Hoi. I have felt the way you do and agree that it’s the silence on the issue by those concerned that helps to keep this trend going. One major reason some are not able to be as vocal is just part of the variety of human responses. Think of the Jim Jones cult for example. Some adherents professed they were ready & willing to commit “revolutionary suicide” while others, with their own lives on the line stayed silent because speaking against it was either socially daunting or deadly.

      As a lesbian I have often thought of going to our local LGBTQ Pride (Pawns Reduced Into Dehumanized Entities) board to discuss transing kids or incorporating D (for detransition) to the milieu. But honestly there is fear, not of ridicule, but that someone will take my picture, use facial recognition, and potentially threaten me & my family, because this has been a common tactic. Also it’s no laughing matter when that laugh becomes material for doxing, threats, and violence.

      What’s frustrating is even in the gay/lesbian “world” speaking truth that doesn’t go along with the party line will get you censored. Try talking about Harvey Milk’s connection to Jim Jones, or Matthew Sheppard’s murder not being motivated by homophobia, and you get banned or crickets. Sadly the silence on the scientism and cult like aspects of transgenderism began long ago in the late 70’s gay rights movement. That’s a lot of years of propaganda and hidden truths to work through, that “our own” refuse to discuss. Same with feminism and POC issues.

      Instead of laughing I suggest we find ways to empower especially gays, lesbians, and bisexuals to speak to each other safely until there are enough in a group to demonstrate power though peaceful means (intelligent respectful debate, confronting the money/power players, and listening to a variety of perspectives even if they are not feminist, liberal, or gay). As you mentioned Hoi, it’s also necessary to stand firm in not being afraid to be called names. Most important though, is getting back to focusing on ones own family and community and helping especially teens to understand self acceptance doesn’t ever require confirmation by quasi-transhumanist means. Being fully embodied in the body you were born in is a great way to demonstrate that you can’t create joy by cutting into oneself. These kinds of role models are important as is forgoing worship of celebrities who have many plastic surgeries.

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    • I totally understand the rage being expressed here. I find myself often having fantasies about just snapping at people and screaming that they’ve lost their damn minds. I also have been withdrawing from social interaction more than usual because I just can’t associate with people who are in the trans cult anymore, my blood pressure can’t take it. However, I still don’t express my rage publicly. These days people get fired for even stating the most basic facts of human reproductive anatomy, and I can’t afford to lose my livelihood. It’s not about being cowardly, it’s about self-preservation. We absolutely should resist, but we can’t resist in ways that harm ourselves.

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      • Purp, thanks for writing that. I finally exploded, a week and a half ago, at a small public meeting, where I was.applying to be on a.technical advisory committee (volunteer position.) A man who.looked like he was trans identified suggested that there should be a.separate house for LGBTQ homeless people,.separate from our city’s main shelter, for their safety.and.privacy. That man, playing woman-face, thinking that would be safe for him, while ignoring that.it.wouldn’t be a safe place for lesbians and bi women, was the final straw for me.

        I said, “You know who needs a safe space? Biological women. I’m sick and tired of the sexism, the woman hating, the misogyny of the LGBT “community.” The LGBT has never been supportive of feminism,.of feminist lesbains. I’m sick and tired of men in that “community” having no respect for The needs and rights of women….” etc. And a few people.in the room nodded and.smiled, including the male facilitator, who will decide who gets into that.committee I applied for (I’m not that set on it. There are people (such as a hardworking, dedicated WOC who applied) who are more deserving and insightful. Rather her than me. Incredibly, no one gave me flak about it. Everyone was silent. One woman who stepped out before I spoke, who.I tried to fill in on it afterward, said she couldn’t hear about it because she was recovering from surgery and it was too upsetting. But no one else gave any flak. One said she’d meet me to discuss transgenderism this week, and got upset when I said trans rights activists (TRAs) are censoring the media, and she walked away, couldn’t hear it, but was friendly afterward.
        .
        But oh boy, it felt so good to finally say it in a room of people most of whom I know and collaborate with as a volunteer. Most aren’t SJWs on this topic,.so I was fortunate. Feels like a ton of bricks off my chest. 🙂

    • Hoi Polloi, I certainly share your frustration with the lack of public courage on this subject. I’m particularly frustrated at the silence of the medical establishment; the only pediatricians and child psychiatrists willing to speak critically on the record about the teenage trans fad are those associated with Religious Right groups.

      But you should understand that it’s not as simple as being too chicken to deal with a bit of hostile name-calling. Particularly in deep blue parts of the country, there are serious personal risks involved in being publicly gender-critical.

      Others have already explained the concerns of parents, particularly of over-18 college students, and of clinical professionals. For parents, going public under their own names means potentially losing contact with their children, who are encouraged by online activists to cut “toxic,” “transphobic” family members out of their lives. It also means exposing their children — not just their trans children, but their entire families — to aggressively hostile scrutiny and harassment by pro-trans media and by activists, who have no problem targeting vulnerable young people to whip them into line. And many professionals, such as psychotherapists and social workers, must now keep silent for fear of violating their own licensing standards, which have been rewritten to suit the demands of trans activists — often by well-meaning but clueless enablers who assume that trans is the next civil rights frontier, like fighting racism and sexism.

      I’m not a healing professional or the parent of a trans-identified adolescent, but I have small children of my own whose well-being is my first responsibility. In my own workplace, it has been made crystal clear by the HR department and by workplace activists that we are to acquiesce in self-declared trans and “nonbinary” identities without question, full stop, no exceptions. If I were to share under my own name the reasonable (I hope) skepticism about trans identities that I express in my comments here, I could become the target of an activist smear campaign and lose my livelihood with little recourse. I work in academia, so I am particularly vulnerable to this risk, but my understanding is that this is increasingly the case in large corporations as well. Never forget that the purpose of an HR department isn’t to seek justice, it’s to manage an employer’s legal risk; I am not a lawyer, but my understanding is that the presence of an open gender critic can now be construed as creating a “hostile environment” in a gender-diverse workplace in the same way as the presence of an open white supremacist in a racially diverse one.

      Never in a million years did I ever imagine that I might some day find myself comparing my life as a middle class American to that of a Soviet dissident… but are you familiar with Vaclav Havel’s essay “The Power of the Powerless”?

      The manager of a fruit-and-vegetable shop places in his window, among the onions and carrots, the slogan: “Workers of the world, unite!” Why does he do it? What is he trying to communicate to the world? Is he genuinely enthusiastic about the idea of unity among the workers of the world? Is his enthusiasm so great that he feels an irrepressible impulse to acquaint the public with his ideals? Has he really given more than a moment’s thought to how such a unification might occur and what it would mean?

      I think it can safely be assumed that the overwhelming majority of shopkeepers never think about the slogans they put in their windows, nor do they use them to express their real opinions. That poster was delivered to our greengrocer from the enterprise headquarters along with the onions and carrots. He put them all into the window simply because it has been done that way for years, because everyone does it, and because that is the way it has to be. If he were to refuse, there could be trouble. He could be reproached for not having the proper decoration in his window; someone might even accuse him of disloyalty. He does it because these things must be done if one is to get along in life. It is one of the thousands of details that guarantee him a relatively tranquil life “in harmony with society,” as they say.

      Obviously the greengrocer . . . does not put the slogan in his window from any personal desire to acquaint the public with the ideal it expresses. This, of course, does not mean that his action has no motive or significance at all, or that the slogan communicates nothing to anyone. The slogan is really a sign, and as such it contains a subliminal but very definite message. Verbally, it might be expressed this way: “I, the greengrocer XY, live here and I know what I must do. I behave in the manner expected of me. I can be depended upon and am beyond reproach. I am obedient and therefore I have the right to be left in peace.” This message, of course, has an addressee: it is directed above, to the greengrocer’s superior, and at the same time it is a shield that protects the greengrocer from potential informers. The slogan’s real meaning, therefore, is rooted firmly in the greengrocer’s existence. It reflects his vital interests. But what are those vital interests?

      Let us take note: if the greengrocer had been instructed to display the slogan “I am afraid and therefore unquestioningly obedient;’ he would not be nearly as indifferent to its semantics, even though the statement would reflect the truth. The greengrocer would be embarrassed and ashamed to put such an unequivocal statement of his own degradation in the shop window, and quite naturally so, for he is a human being and thus has a sense of his own dignity. To overcome this complication, his expression of loyalty must take the form of a sign which, at least on its textual surface, indicates a level of disinterested conviction. It must allow the greengrocer to say, “What’s wrong with the workers of the world uniting?” Thus the sign helps the greengrocer to conceal from himself the low foundations of his obedience, at the same time concealing the low foundations of power. It hides them behind the facade of something high. And that something is ideology.

      I’m not proud of being “afraid and therefore unquestioningly obedient.” But I have kids to feed.

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      • I am not a lawyer, but my understanding is that the presence of an open gender critic can be construed as creating a “hostile environment” in a gender-diverse workplace in the same way as the presence of an open white supremacist in a racially diverse one.

        Just to be clear that I’m not granting the analogy between gender skepticism and racism any validity, I should rephrase that as: “that the presence of a quote-unquote ‘transphobe’ in a gender-diverse workplace…” (4WN, any chance you could fix this since my comment is still in the approval queue?)

25. Emily, you are brave, brilliant, and more progressive than you know. Your respect for the gravity of the issue and the concern you show for your friend and classmates shines through in your words. But that doesn’t matter. You will be called a bigot, a transphobe, perhaps even the catch-all of TERF, but your words come from compassion and love. Keep your head up and keep telling the story. The Emperor has no clothes.

    The confusion we see today will eventually give way to clearer thinking — clarity into the anxieties and disconnectedness that young women face, the new and old coping mechanisms these women employ, and a revelation of the rush codify, medicalize, and profit from these mechanisms through big pharma “Astroturfing” and run-of-the-mill “Slacktivism” on college campuses.

    When attacked and misquoted by the Zinnias of the world, teach them to understand that it’s not about them. It’s about their journey. They are victims of something much larger than the silly bathroom debates and Barbie dolls. They lash out at you in fear of the light you bring.

    Remind them that, as parents, friends, and loved ones, we only want the best for our children and friends who consider themselves in the “T” segment of LGBT. “We love and support you.”

    Remind them that our first real encounter with “T” came with that first pronouncement of “I’m a [insert sex here]” from our loved one. “We are not experts.”

    Remind them that reliable knowledge and research on “T” is widely scattered, carefully curated, often censored, outcome-oriented, and that nearly all medical guidelines are based not on evidence, but from a single HRC document crafted by a young person who’s story very much aligns with those you shared. “Let’s learn about this together, in the open, with caution and understanding.”

    No, you are not spouting hate or preaching purity or intolerance or promoting a radical feminist agenda. Emily, you are a light of hope and friend to girls that are in a very dark place right now. Thank you for speaking up and being the kind of person they need most right now.

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    • Beautifully written! And yes, I agree, Emily is courageous, compassionate, and shows incredible wisdom and insight. Thank you, Emily!

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26. My daughter ‘came out’ to her then 7th grade teacher in Middle School. A rather all-American woman, married, small children, no ties to LGBT and yet, she encouraged my daughter ‘to be who ever she thinks, wants to be’. This teacher never spoke to me about it, even though we had a few parent-teacher meetings regarding my childs (outstanding) academics. Fast forward, three years later, my daughter walks around in boys cloth, has a low fade haircut and uses foul language straight out of street rap music. We get along fine until the topic comes up, then it’s the silent treatment for me.
    She received two Presidental awards for outstanding academics, now she is just in the middle field, sometimes failing tests and assigments. It is heartbraking whatching her ruin her own future with this garbage. Her being in college, if she even makes it there, will be the finale tipping point and she will be lost. The few friends she has at school are not in the LGBT movement. They pretend to accept her the way she is but talk about her behind her back. Invitations to hang out stopped coming, so she turned more to her internet friends, isolating herself even more. I am scared to death for her. I don’t know how this ends, one thing I know for sure; there needs to be more public education on this contagious social disease as we are on the path of losing thousends of bright young ladies and turn them into something they biologically never, ever can be.
    We need to educate teachers, coaches and counselors at schools. They need to be informed and trained to recognize gender dysphoria and act in a helpful way and not just hugging them and tell them they can be whatever they want to be. This kind of encouragment might be well meaning but is misguided advise and can be interpret by the child as confirmation of a self-diagnosed condition. To undo the damage this causes is extremly difficult, requires a lot of love and counseling and all of us parents affected by this know very well, the majority of the gender counseling crowd is not in our corner.

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27. I have decided I will not accept the label of TERF. I am however NaFCI Natal Female Cis Identified, and I feel just as unsafe in the restroom presence of Natal Male Female Identified persons as they express feeling in the presence of Natal Male Cis Identified persons. Their discomfort does not trump mine, and if they insist it must, then it is clear they neither care what natal females feel, nor acknowledge the privilege they possess of natal male physiques and strength.

    Did I use enough jargon?

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28. I will start by saying that I am to the faaarrrrrr left. I hate #45. Kavanaugh is a liar & the investigation was a scam the repubs pulled, & if he’s confirmed we’re fucked. I don’t like cops. I don’t smoke but support legalizing cannabis. If you want to work in the sex industry that’s your business. I support gay/lesbian people. I admire the Black Panthers among others. I said all of that to say that just b/c I align myself this way, doesn’t mean I support the mockery that is now the LGBT community. Even the gays/lesbians I know personally are ashamed. Facts are facts and just b/c they don’t fit whatever narrative pops into your head one minute doesn’t keep them from being facts the next. If you have a green crayon in your hand but don’t like the color green & would prefer it be blue, does that make the green crayon a blue crayon? No. That shit is still going to be green!!! The narcissism & threats of submission I am not here for and I don’t mind being vocal about it. Just b/c I say you are a man when you are in fact a man doesn’t mean I hate your community. It means that you are in fact a man and nothing will change that. It’s sad that so many people are so mentally weak that they feel the need to “become” someone else even sometimes going so far as to get surgery just so they can be trendy. A few years ago there was a “True Life” episode of trans people who were reversing their hormones/surgery b/c the said it no longer fit them! WTF??! Either way they were going to cont being gay/lesbian but they just no longer felt the need to live as someone else. This makes no sense, yet people who told them this would happen from the beginning were I’m sure ostracized as being “negative” and “harmful”. Just like the person you mentioned in the article who said some days they want to me called “he” and some days “she- IT MAKES NO FUCKING SENSE. Why should we have to not only accommodate this nonsense, but literally be required to obtain superpowers to determine wtf you want to refer to yourself as today? I have D cup breasts, I wear skinny jeans, and tight shirts, sometimes heels or cute sandals, I wear my long hair in various cute styles. Although I’ve never been a makeup wearer, it would be a complete waste of daily life for people to ask me “What my preferred gender pronouns are” b/c I am clearly presenting myself as a woman. Now say there is someone else who looks just like I’ve described myself. If that person was to get offended by someone calling them “she” and demanded that they be called “he”, that person is mentally ill and should fuck off. I make no apologies b/c I mean just that. I saw another doc series the other day of a man (who was married to an actual female) transforming to a woman. He was built in terms of physique & there was no way to mistake him for a woman. If you see the Hulk walking around in high heels and a mini-skirt w/ a full beard & a buzz cut, YES people are going to stare. Of course kids are going to stare longer than adults, but either way we’re all going to be confused. You can’t look like you’re both about to jump into a wrestling match & do a spread in Playboy at the same damn time yet expect us to know what you want to be referred to as. Life doesn’t work like that, b/c this world doesn’t revolve around your snowflake mental illness. Also, he was married to a woman & said he wasn’t gay & had no intentions of ending the relationship. Again, this is insanity. If deep down you know what you are, you’re lying to yourself & you were lying to your wife & you wasted her time by not telling her your intentions years ago. She could’ve walked away & been w/ a man who actually wants to be a man. Instead she was conned & wasted precious years she’ll never get back. Overall I think these new-aged, snowflake crybabies are disturbed and want everyone to worship the ground they walk on. Maybe others will cave- look at the laws & dangerous bathroom signs popping up- but I never will. Like you I tried to have sympathy for them, but I just can’t. Their complete delusion & refusal to acknowledge reality is something I can’t support. As a woman, my safety is my first concern. Do you know how easy it is for a man (who has no intentions whatsoever of being trans) to say he’s trans and go into a public “fluid” bathroom & rape us?? If me being against rape makes me anti-trans then so be it. I make no apologies.

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29. Emily,

    thank you for speaking out against the madness–my nephew just started college and is aghast at the whole declare-your-pronoun culture. The story of your friend echoes that of our heretofore completely normal bright, sweet son, who has declared himself to be a trans woman. He was struggling with various other issues, sought therapy on campus, and wound up with this conclusion–that the root of all his issues is that he is really trans. So even if social contagion doesn’t quite do the job, there is a raft of college therapists ready to help. He is now on hormones, growing breasts, and we are heartsick watching the whole thing play out.

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30. It is sad to see my daughter identifying as a boy for nearly 4 years, start taking testosterone. As soon as she graduated. She is attending community college. I am glad she is not at a University. Still hoping she sees the light

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31. Thank you, Emily for this much needed and well written piece. Your voice as a young person that understands more deeply what is happening is so important. It is not just your peers that are injecting testosterone and lopping off their breasts that need to be educated and guided back to reality, it is your peers that are accepting, harboring and praising their friends. For through this acceptance comes the twisting of cultural norms to the point of great harm to the building blocks of our democracy. There is much at stake aside from the once healthy young adult bodies that are being physically mutilated that have been written about elsewhere such as women’s rights, education and freedom of speech. All the students and staff on college campuses need to be aware. By continually pitting women against men and individual feelings above the common good, democracy is being undermined. This works quite well for the masters of this scheme. They are becoming more and more powerful and wealthy as your young college peers reply with their obligatory chosen pronouns when asked by campus staff as though hailing to some transgender god. Youth truly are the greatest pawns in this malicious scheme. It is a sick world when youth are not permitted to grow into adulthood. I can only imagine how daunting it must be to a questioning student among all this on a college campus. Do you have thoughts to share on how it might be possible to reach your peers in mitigating this social contagion?

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    • Thank you. I wish that I knew how to answer this. There is just no way I could bring this up to someone who is transitioning. People get very defensive about their identities. It is also really hard as a “privileged white girl” to comment on someone else’s lived experiences. It is just not something you are supposed to do. This also may sound judgmental, but I think a lot of these kids are either narcissists or mentally ill. Most of the girls I know who are into this are really into posting pictures on Instagram and begging for compliments, which they get. But they also have mental health issues that are almost glamorous. I don’t know why my school doesn’t do anything about this. All of their policies just seem to feed into it.

      I wish I could talk to my non-trans friends about this, but I don’t know how. Everyone I know acts like this is normal. Just last week when I attended a new club meeting, we all went around to say our name and pronouns. It’s just something everyone does and doesn’t even think about. When one of my closest friends told me that one of her good friends said she was trans, we talked about this a little. She agrees that it is strange how common it is, but it doesn’t seem to bother her the way that it bothers me. I think most people are just “live and let live,” and would think I am a horrible person if I told them what I really believe. Part of the problem is I go to a very liberal school, so everyone’s politics are the same and it is just assumed that you believe a certain way. I’m sorry I can’t be more helpful.

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      • Part of the problem is I go to a very liberal school, so everyone’s politics are the same and it is just assumed that you believe a certain way.

        If these people are all so liberal, one would imagine that they would be able to keep an open mind towards others and tolerate dissenting opinions.

        We live in a topsy-turvy world. I wish you the best of luck for the future. I’m sorry this is so difficult for you. 🙁

      • Most people in the world are sheep. There are a fair number of wolves (cult leaders for example) as well. You sound like a shepherd. We need more shepherds.

        As for narcissism, there’s quite a bit of research on the prevalence of narcissism among autogynephiles, so it doesn’t surprise me to hear anecdotal evidence of narcissism in other trans groups. Great observation.

        It’s a crazy world but you have your head on straight and will be fine. Know that you are not alone, but many people you encounter are either blind sheep or are terrified of the wolves.

32. I am a transgender man that goes to a very liberal arts school, and I’ve noticed a very big difference between actual trans people (those like me, who’ve gone through extreme gender dysphoria since a very young age and have seen themselves as the oposite sex all their lives), and those I call “transtrenders”.

    Most transtrenders are gender non-conforming lesbians, that, as echoed throughout the comment section, are very socially awkward. These girls go to college, where they meet other trendy “queer” individuals, and decide to buzz their hair, bind their breasts and call themselves trans. Now, these girls have never identified as male before, and don’t experience dysphoria, so it’s pretty clear they aren’t actually transgender.

    Being queer is the new punk. No, literally. Being a trans trender has become the new subculture in colleges. They all have similar fashion, listen to the same music, have similar instagram aesthetics, and as you pointed out in your article, all their instagram posts about transitioning have the same almost copy-pasted cutsey nacissistic captions. I’ve also seen how many people have been swallowed into the trender cult, and I’ve even lost some friends to it.

    My point is, please don’t disregard the fact that there are real transgender men out there. This whole trender fad is completely separate from us, and it’s a problem many girls are going through. However, there are men that were born in the wrong bodies. We exist. I’ve seen many scared parents in the comments, and I’d you to consider that your child might be going through a phase, but there’s also a small chance they might actually be transgender and they were repressing their male identity this whole time. It happened to me, I only began transitioning a year ago because I was in deep denial, but I am happier than ever.

    Reply ↓

    • I think you’ll find that commenters here, although they/we will have sympathy with you and wish you the best, do not accept the “born in the wrong body” narrative.

      Personally, I can say that as I do not accept the existence of a soul or an essence that is supposedly the actual person, separate from the body, I also cannot accept that anyone is “born in the wrong body”. Nobody is “born in” any body. We *are* our bodies. Suffering from dysphoria as you do must be terrible, and I feel for you, but whatever sex your body is, that is the sex that you are and always will be. Your sex is in every cell of your body and cannot be changed. Gender, on the other hand, isn’t a real thing. It’s just a set of ideas in our heads that alter with time and place. Regardless of which sex your body is, you can do and wear whatever you like.

      The conflation of sex and gender is a very dangerous idea and has done a tremendous amount of harm, and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.

      I think I share this standpoint with most of the other commenters here.

      Your input is interesting and you are definitely right that a lot of young adults today, especially young women, are part of the trans ideology now as a trend due to social contagion. But the “true transgender” concept I’m afraid will not necessarily find a lot of traction here. That does not mean that we do not respect you as an individual or that we do not feel sympathy with you.

      Any more regular commenters: feel free to correct me if you disagree with any of what I have written.

      Reply ↓

      • I believe the trans man who posted said he was now happy – which is a small comfort.
        And a rare outcome, at least by the parents posting here.
        My daughter is definitely unhappier since transitioning, less socially and emotionally functional, and regressed.

      • Intrepid, I don’t believe it’s a rare outcome, at least with people who experience true gender dysphoria and are not doing it for the fad. What you said about your child sounds worrying. Are you sure they are unhappy because they aren’t really trans, or because of the backlash and discrimination they face (if any)? Some people become depressed after transitioning because of the social backlash that some experience.

      • I also forgot to mention that when cisgender (non transgender) people take cross-sex hormones, they start experiencing real dysphoria as their body changes. A famous example of this is the John-Joan case, where a cisgender infant was transitioned to female after a botched circumsison, and later in life transitioned to male again, before committing suicide because of the extreme dysphoria. My point is, if your kid is really trans, they’ll feel better transitioning. If your kid isn’t, they’ll experience what real dysphoria is like, which is something I don’t wish on anyone.

      • “I think you’ll find that commenters here, although they/we will have sympathy with you and wish you the best, do not accept the “born in the wrong body” narrative.”

        I’m a neuroscientist at a well known University. I’ll turn on the VPN now and maybe the IP will confirm this. Don’t know.

        Now, while I’m in agreement with most of what is said on this site, as a matter of fact I think it might be possible to be “born in the wrong body”. I was reading Eric Kandel’s latest pop sci book. He got the Nobel prize in 2000. It’s not a very novel book because he is now very old and just pottering. But, he did chime in on the transgender issue. And what he says is roughly this: In mice, there are male phenotypes and female phenotypes. Each has specific behaviours that are subserved by specific circuits in their brains, which apparently can be identified. For example males mount females and kill other males’ pups, and he can point to how that works in a physical sense. So in mouse brains sex specific behaviour is, partly at least, subserved by sex specific brain anatomy.

        But here is the thing: It seems that both sets of circuits are present in both sexes, but the stuff for the opposite sex lies unused. That could make sense in terms of developmental parsimony or something. It’s certainly very plausible, possibly he shows hard proof. So he says that, because much of the required brain anatomy is present in both sexes, actually it is possible to get male mice to behave as female mice, and female mice as male. And if I recall it’s not that hard to get this to happen experimentally. I think maybe it even happens spontaneously. So this is rodent transgenderism. I was convinced.

        I can’t remember what causes this behavioural switch in mice, I don’t have the book with me. Presumably something endocrine. Anyway if these mice were a bit more lyrical, they might describe being trapped in the wrong body.

        This is suggestive of a mechanism for transgenderism in people. Of course they are just mice. But honestly, quite a lot of stuff that seems true in mice does turn out to be true in humans. But not everything for sure.

        While I agree there is clearly a huge social contagion, and what we are seeing is overwhelmingly a social phenomenon, not a biological phenomenon, I wouldn’t rule out that there is something real in a biological sense at the heart of this. It could be that a small number of people really are “born in the wrong body” And, sadly, they’ll quite possibly be more marginalised than ever when this wave crashes.

        The book is cheap and readable.

        Eric Kandel “the disordered mind”

        https://www.amazon.co.uk/Disordered-Mind-Unusual-Brains-Ourselves-ebook/dp/B07B4F3VRC/ref=dp_kinw_strp_1

      • Sulcus,
        Luckily for the transmale mice, they can mount female mice and kill the pups of male mice without taking off-label drugs or having major surgeries first. Mice don’t embrace the idea that they must have bodies that match the behaviors they wish to engage in. During the second wave of feminism, human females also felt they could do things men do or dress as men without first becoming men. Unfortunately, we have moved away from that radical idea.

      • Susan my point is that there may be a biological basis for some trans stuff. What you would do with information is up to you. I don’t know what I think should be done in policy or ethical terms. I’m just pointing out it’s possibly not as simple as saying “there are no trans people”. I think it’s more like “trans people do exist, but there is also a separate, larger, transitory social movement”. Or not, maybe trans is all just mutable psychological oddness.

        I have no idea. I think it’s crazy for all these kids having these surgeries that will harm them, while their elders and doctors often egg them on. However I think we must be open to the possibility that there are people who are truly trans in the sense they claim.

        One would suspect the latter population ought to be identifiable. Surely, at least, they’d be consistent in their gender dysphoria from birth.

        I don’t know what I think. I haven’t given it much thought till recently. I think I would not want my kid to have surgeries, although I don’t have one who wants to.

      • Sulcus, you said, “Each has specific behaviours that are subserved by specific circuits in their brains, which apparently can be identified. For example males mount females and kill other males’ pups, and he can point to how that works in a physical sense. So in mouse brains sex specific behaviour is, partly at least, subserved by sex specific brain anatomy.” So, if the urge for a male to mount a female is wired in the brain, and if the wiring gets crossed in a mouse so that a male wants to mount another male mouse, haven’t you just described a possible biological basis for homosexuality, not transgenderism? What part of the brain anatomy indicates that girls like pink and sparkly nail polish? I would suggest that there isn’t one. One of the complex things about this topic is that biological sex, gender identity/socialization, and sexual orientation are sometimes hard to tease out and are often conflated. There are definitely people who think they are the wrong sex. Might this be about how the mind maps its perception of the body (ala anorexia)? Just wondering…

      • Skeptic – yeah sure, maybe. Who knows. Maybe Eric Kandel knows. You can’t just rule out the existence of genuine transgenderism is the point I’m making here.

    • Alex — please direct me to the objective medical tests which distinguish “real trans” from “transtrender”. As a dad with an autistic daughter who is injecting T with the help of her university (although she can’t even legally buy beer), I am desperate for answers.

      Reply ↓

      • I cannot speak from the medical perspective, and I don’t have time to google research papers right now, but I’ve realized, from anecdotal evidence, that the difference between “trenders” and transgender people is that “trenders” decide to be trans from one day to the other, usually as a way to fit in with the queer counterculture, while transgender people have only been able to see themselves as the other gender/sex since they were young, way before they knew about the existence of other trans people.

        I have known that I was male since I have memory, and I could never see myself growing up into a woman. In my early childhood I thought I’d grow up to be a man, and as soon as I realized that wouldn’t be the case, I wasn’t able to see my future at all, which made me depressed and suicidal. After I started transitioning – which was a year before I could legally buy beer, by the way – everything became clear and I could see myself growing up into a happy, well adjusted adult, which had never been the case for me.

        If I were you, I’d talk to your child about when these feelings started. If they started when they went to college and started hanging out with queer kids, you might be right to question them and worry, but if they’ve always known they were a man, even before they knew of trans people, they might actually be trans. Does your kid seem happier, or more calm now that they’re on T? Or is it the opposite? When people who aren’t really transgender access HRT, they usually start experiencing the dysphoria that transgender people experience, so watch out for those symptoms, because that’s how you’ll really find out if they’re trans or not.

    • Alex, What got you out if your deep denial?

      Reply ↓

      • Experimenting, to be honest. I identified as non binary for a while, allowing myself to experiment with gender, and after that didn’t help much either, I started being honest with myself and accepting that I’ve always felt male. My oldest childhood memories are of feeling like a guy, and while growing up I always pictured my future as a man. After puberty tho, I stopped being able to picture my future at all, which made me extremely depressed, and right after transitioning, I was able to picture my future again, as a man. I could never see myself growing up into a woman. It was just not possible.

      • Alex,

        Do you think your parents ever noticed you felt like a boy as a child? Were you acting or dressing like a boy when you were a kid or were you processing these feelings internally?

    • I am enjoying the self-assertion of definitive knowledge of self and then denying that self-knowledge to others within the original poster’s age and identity cohort. It’s hard to be special and taken seriously when EVERYONE’S DOING IT.

      Reply ↓

    • Alex, if you can’t answer a direct question, like the one Davek699 asked, “please direct me to the objective medical tests which distinguish “real trans” from “transtrender”” other than replying that you can’t speak of the medical perspective and you don’t have time to google the answer right now, then you’ve just proven that there is no medical perspective. Did you have to go through some medical tests to prove that you are a “true” transgender as you claim? Obviously, your answer is – no. I’m sure Davek699 asked you this precisely because he knew that you don’t have an answer to that. There are no medical tests proving this, so don’t waist your time googling.

      I grew up with an older brother and I preferred doing everything that he did. I wanted to have a penis, stand up while I peed, play rough games with his friends, play with matchbox cars rather than dolls, etc. the list goes on. In middle school I remember wearing his clothes because they were more comfortable. I dreaded having to get a bra and shaving my legs, but I felt forced to do it. I never wore make-up. But I grew up in a time where girls could do all of that and no one thought much of it. In fact girls were encouraged to do anything they wanted to. As my friend noted, she told her own daughters how lucky they were to be girls since they can do girl’s and boy’s activities without a problem (boys have it a little tougher). The pressures on girls to be sexualized were definitely not as strong and there was definitely no talk of the possibility of being transgender (as a matter of fact this is only in the past 10 years or less, which probably seems like forever for you).

      I am now a middle aged woman married to a man and I have a daughter about your age. She, too, thinks that she’s a “true” trans. It kind of puts you at a higher level if you consider yourself a “true” trans rather than one of those “fake” trans, doesn’t it? Be careful not to fall off of that pedestal you put yourself on.

      Well, in the end we are our bodies and if you are an adult human and you produce eggs, then you are a female (that’s you, Alex!) and if you produce sperm, then you are a male. Period! Your personality does not determine your sex and the more you try to escape that reality, the more conflicted mentally you will be in the long run. And Alex, the long run is not senior year in college. The long run is 10-15 years from the time you started your medical interventions when your body starts to really break down, if it hasn’t already beforehand. Your “true” trans friends may be happy now, but check them out in 2028.

      Reply ↓

      • Well said.

        I wonder why a gender dysphoric girl doesn’t take extra estrogen instead of testosterone. Has anyone tried that?

      • Benita, why would someone take hormones that would aggravate their sense of dysphoria?

      • What do you mean when Alex’s body begins to break down? Why would it break down?

        Thanks.

33. Alex, thank you for expressing your thoughts here. It does seem many females have been recruited to fulfill this transgender prophecy thereby negating all those that truly suffer. Many people on this board have read much literature around the history and treatment of gender dysphoria and truly want to understand. However, it seems to be forever changing at he whims of activists. This is simply not medicine.
    When I read the histories of older natal men that have transitioned I hear of unfortunate childhoods of abuse and abandonment. I have never heard an older FTM speak out about her own childhood nor have I found much at all in literature. This today seems to be an educated middle class cohort of patients, mostly teen girls and young women. It is more like anorexia in this regard.
    I believe you when you say you have suffered your entire life but still you are transitioning at a very young age (I assume you are college age). I believe in the realities of our bodies and as Leisha said above you can only be born not be ‘born wrong.’ You ‘are’ your body. Opposite sex hormones are so damaging to human bodies they truly should be a last resort. Young people should allow themselves the gift of growing into their bodies at the very least until they are 25 (30?) and their brains are mostly done developing. You have many many years ahead and time can permit youth to grow into being comfortable in their own skin. You could be very surprised by how you feel at 30 compared to how you feel at 20. Time is on your side.
    I do hope you pay attention to some of the older transgender folk who can truly speak to the ravishing effects of hormones on their bodies. Many destransitioners say it takes years before they were let down after transitioning so pay heed to this. They say it is normal to feel really up after transitioning but the let down does come and it is hard. I wish you health for yourself.

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34. Alex, you said: “I have known that I was male since I have memory…”

    I appreciate your comments. Yes, I am concerned that you are so young to make mostly- irreversible changes to your body. Brains are malleable.

    One question that I have for you, was it glaringly obvious to your parents, siblings, grandparents, etc. that you were a boy trapped in a girl’s body? Did you insist that you were a boy at a young age?

    After all, what you have said is exactly (sorry to use this word) similar to a script that many parents have received–all with no observational evidence to back up the assertation. We all have stories we tell about ourselves.

    I would agree with what beyondmad says about how damaging cross-sex hormones are to a body.
    The hormones will change one’s appearance, true. Testosterone can also lead to some very serious side effects. Is it worth it?

    If you wanted to take on the social role, gender role, of a male–what not do that without the medical interventions?

    Reply ↓

    • Oops, the above was to read: why not do that without the medical interventions.

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35. “We played with Barbies and dressed as Disney princesses when we were young. We talked about our crushes on boys, and experimented with makeup and fashion when we were teens. I can’t believe that she really thinks she is a man.”

    Your article was good until this point. A man can have these interests just as well as a woman. It’s your biology which makes you female, not conforming to sex stereotypes.

    Reply ↓

    • Mark,
      I would guess that Emily talked about stereotypical behaviors because transgender people often explain that they know they are trans by their attraction to the stereotypes associated with the other sex. Or they talk about feeling like the other sex, and those feelings also tend to be stereotypical.

      Reply ↓

36. Having seen this article shared by an acquaintance on Facebook, I decided to read it with an open mind. This comment isn’t really in response to the article, but kind of a general comment directed towards people who visit this site regularly. I see that this site may be mostly frequented by people who don’t believe in transgenderism in any capacity, so perhaps there’s no point in me saying this, but I figure I will anyways and just cross my fingers that it reaches somebody.

    Like many people my age, I know a small number of people who consider themselves either transgender or something else not male/female. I grew up mostly before the recent spike of unconventional gender identities, which made some skepticism fairly natural. The friend that opened my heart on this issue did not do so with words. This friend is transgender. This friend does not flaunt or politicize it. She doesn’t even bring it up, often not even with his closest friends. But the pain she feels, and his disconnect from her masculine body, is palpable. It took me a long time to recognize that when she shuts down mid sentence or becomes distant its because her dysphoria is worsening. I knew her through college, we graduated, and I didn’t see her for 2 years. In that time she finally publicly came out (she had told a few of us privately beforehand) and started taking estrogen. When we met up again, she was still fundamentally himself, and we hung out like we always did…. but this time she was so joyful and engaged that it was absolutely contagious! It felt like a layer of something heavy and dead had been peeled off of her, and revealed pure life inside <3 Prior to befriending this person I was unsure about where I stood on gender issues, but having seen her lived experience, I can no longer bring myself to close my heart to transgender people. I think one of the best things about being human is sharing our experiences with other people, and hearing about their experiences in return, and I feel very fortunate that my friend was willing to trust me enough to share hers with me. So to you, Emily, and whoever is reading this, I really hope someday you guys have the luck to meet somebody like my friend, and I hope you show them kindness. They have important things to teach us about humanity and empathy.

    Reply ↓

    • I noticed that I got my friend’s pronouns wrong a few times in my comment, just wanted to clarify that she is, in fact, a she! I still don’t get it right all the time, but she’s very gracious while I make inevitable slip ups while adjusting! Let’s be real here… switching the pronouns of someone you’ve known for a long time DOES take quite a while, and you may never get it right 100% of the time… but also in the interest of being real let’s acknowledge that it doesn’t actually require that much expenditure of effort, just time and patience!

      Reply ↓

      • Kit,
        What makes you think this site is frequented by people who don’t believe in transgenderism in any capacity? I’m really curious about your perception.

      • Hi Susan,
        I guess I was assuming things based on the tone (and sometimes the content) of some of the comments! I do still worry that there are a minority of readers who are harboring some seriously dubious ideas about transgender people behind a patina of concern, but looking through more of the articles I see that is not what the site is about or who the site is for. I understand where you’re coming from better now!

      • Hi Kit,
        Thank you for taking a closer look at what this site is about. If you want to understand more, I would suggest reading the article in this link about the various kinds of gender dysphoria: //4thwavenow.com/2017/12/07/gender-dysphoria-is-not-one-thing/
        I also wrote an article trying to explain the many misperceptions people have about teenagers who suddenly come out as trans and their parents: //4thwavenow.com/2017/12/13/wanting-to-protect-my-daughters-health-does-not-make-me-a-bigot/

    • I’m going to gently suggest that being a friend to a transidentifying male is a much different situation to being a parent to a transidentifying female minor.

      But, you know, keep trying to paint parents as close-minded and if we’d just be NICER things would all change and we’d see the light. For your information, my daughter DID socially transition and her life completely fell apart. But, that doesn’t fit the triumphant transnarrative, so no one wants to address it.

      Reply ↓

      • I’m a parent who two years ago was discussing with my daughter how wonderful a transgender person was on TV and ‘she should be who she wants to be’. My daughter had never even heard of the word transgender. She went away and googled it and after bingeing on social media decided that she was transgender. How little did I know that day would change our lives beyond all recognition. My daughter has gone from such a happy young person to a really troubled one at the worst possible time – she has GCSE’s coming up next year. We are all now at rock bottom and time is running out for us. I’ve followed this website for at least 18 months and it’s been a godsend to me. She’s been seeing a ‘critical’ therapist for a year now but not much seems to be changing and I’m so afraid for her. There were absolutely no signs of this when she was growing up and we are all at the end of our tether. I so hope that she just holds on, but it seems that when she is 16 it will be out of our hands. This whole thing has just worn me down and I couldn’t bear to lose her.

      • Hi guys-
        I misunderstood where this site was coming from , and after reading more of the articles I understand better! You and your families seem to be in a very nuanced and difficult situation and I hope for the best possible outcome for all of you ❤️

      • Kit, you say “you and your families seem to be in a very nuanced and difficult situation”. I’m glad you took the time to read enough of the posts on this site to be able to see that. Thank you for making the effort and for your comment.

        For me personally, all I know is what happened to my own daughter….which quickly revealed a whole new mindset in the psych community and a shocking lack of safeguards to protect those with real mental health issues that lead them to be certain they must be transgender. When all someome meets is “affirmation” and absolutely no digging deep into motivations, it can lead people quickly astray and far along on the transgender train tracks.

        Testosterone in females is very potent with real effects quickly. That young women are so quickly able to access this potent cross-sex hormone, certain it will bring them a happier life, without any time spent in diagnostics and counseling, is absolutely shocking. So our reality is that we are all dealing with our personal situations, many with young adult children quickly put on a medical pathway, even if they expected to be in counseling first.

    • Kit have you ever observed people when they first join a cult? They are so happy, peaceful, beatific. It does wonders for recruitment. It can pass, if they awake, or it can go on indefinitely. Maybe your friend has made the right choice, but it’s just as likely he’s in deep in delirium. Don’t make up your mind yet.

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37. Pingback: There’s a sudden surge of trans students coming out at my college … and I’m scared to talk about it | My Thoughts - for me and you

38. Long time reader, rare commenter. Like a few others above, I also work in academia, and I’m commenting to ask Emily and the other students here what, if anything, would help you identify a professor or administrator as being a safe person to talk to about this? If there can be any way to begin to open doors on campuses for you to talk about your concerns without fear, and to be heard without judgment, I’d like to know what may help do that.

    Also, I want to voice caution to parents who may be considering cutting off financial or other ties with their trans-identified children in college. My parents did that to me, and it just made my relationship with them worse. I stayed in school and still transitioned (10 years ago before “informed consent” clinics). The relationship is healing, but that hurt doesn’t go away easily. You of course need to do what you believe is best, but when I look back at the past 10-20 years, what I wish had been different had just been more listening, and less fighting about the small things like short haircuts and boys clothes. Girls are still girls even if they dress differently, and you can support your daughter in navigating the source or nature of her dysphoria by helping her understand that social roles are constructs. A lot of commenters here say they support their children’s nonconformity, and I hope that for those of you who do that your children feel a little more room to be open about what’s going on for them than I did. That open channel of communication is crucial. Maybe for some of them (like myself) transition will still be the route they take to feel at home in their body, and they can lead happy and fulfilling lives after transition, but maybe for others, having someone listen will give them room to talk through other concerns and they’ll find a way to feel better without (any/further) permanent changes to their body.

    Reply ↓

    • fabmind, you say “what I wish had been different had just been more listening”. Me too. Were you willing to listen at all to your parents concerns? my daughter wasn’t. And she never made any attempt to talk to me before making such a huge decision to start using testosterone because she saw “living as a woman feels like a lie”. If she had, I would have listened…but I would have needed time to work thru the shock first. Why has gender nonconformity become “transgender” that to me….a child of the 1960s….means “transsexual” once you jump into any medical interventions. Testosterone is very potent and these days it’s being prescribed shockingly fast.

      Listening is a two-way street.

      Reply ↓

      • I’m sorry that you don’t feel heard by your child, but please do not make assumptions about others’ experiences. I waited several years to transition after coming out, for a variety of reasons including time to deliberate if it was truly the right decision and time for others to adjust. “Informed consent” was not an option back then. So over that time I did listen, and I tried to be heard, but it wasn’t a two-way street.

        I wish I knew a concrete answer to why “trans” seems to include all gender nonconformity these days, rather than just transsexuality. But I don’t.

    • If you don’t want people to make assumptions about other people’s experiences, maybe you should do the same. Telling everyone here that things would just be better if we didn’t have arguments about hair and clothing shows that you don’t REALLY read here. The vast majority of regular posters here don’t and didn’t argue about that.

      And, let me add MY experience which was working to constantly lower the emotional temperature in my family and home and being constantly provoked and eventually ABUSED by a teenager who was mentally ill and was presented with a transnarrative which included emotionally blackmailing parents that kids will kill themselves if they don’t get what they want.

      THAT is why everything gets attached — because the story is out there and professionals push this as a solution when even my own kid eventually has said, “I’m a lesbian.” But, you know, her mental illness wasn’t actually treated and it blew up in our family. She abused every single person in our family and she can’t live with us anymore because of THAT, not because she transidentified. She shaved her head and life went on. She wore t-shirts and jeans and life went on. It was the screaming when she wouldn’t get her every demand met unrelated to identity and then she made it ABOUT identity which did us in. Screaming FOR HOURS. Throwing stuff. Hitting everyone. Spitting on everyone. Calling CPS on us to get revenge because she was not legally in charge as a minor.

      But, you know, keep believing this is just parents who aren’t listening and aren’t doing their part. As a parent, it is IMPOSSIBLE to treat a mentally ill child alone. When the supposed-helping professions are all on the trans-train and the moment a kid says, “I’m trans” the professional STOPS or ascribes EVERYTHING to the trans identity, well, THAT is where the actual problem lies.

      Reply ↓

      • Your post really speaks the truth and is hard to stomach. This is patient abuse on the part of an industry feeding on unassuming young people. These patients are not mature mentally as brains are not finished growing until mid twenties and often not physically mature either. These patients take that abuse that they receive under the auspice of ‘CARE’ and then abuse their own families with their new found ‘trans’ power. No one here claims to be perfect parents but when your own child abuses their own family in the name of an ideology and a family can find no help, no reprieve from insanity, we do not bow to it. If you are in your 20’s, shooting up ’t’ and lopping off your breasts, you need real CARE. We are parents who believe ‘first do not harm.’ When you are 30 and that ‘care’ was not enough, then maybe considering plan B could be an option for you. You should not be funding an ideology. By the time you are 30, I bet most of you thinking you are trans will be quite over it and actually smirking at the whole ordeal. You might want to have breasts and a healthy body to get on with your life at that point. If it were not so criminal and atrocious we would be truly smirking at the stupidity of those caught up in this movement. I am crying for my daughter instead.

      • Katiesan,

        Well said and I couldn’t agree more. I too have a daughter with well documented mental health issues (ASD, BPD) and while mental health ‘experts’ will address those they won’t touch the ensuing belief that she is a boy trapped in a girls body with a 10 foot pole. And yes, then that makes the treatment of her conditions IMPOSSIBLE. I have had several mental health people tell me, ONLY OFF THE RECORD, that her (sudden) belief she is a he is NOT authentic and a direct result of her underlying conditions. So as a parent I know this is driven by a social contagion, mental health professionals ADMIT this is true BUT will not address it with her. A parents worst nightmare, a problem is staring us in the face but nobody is willing to help. What is a parent to do?

        A never ending nightmare of epic proportions.

      • @Katiesan – Thanks for that bit of reality.

        Aside from terminal cancer, I can’t think of something more terrifying for a parent than a mental health issue that cannot be treated. That is exactly what the transgender movement is.

        My daughter at 19 had made great strides working through learning and social issues. Even though her underdeveloped corpus callosum [recently diagnosed] will always affect her decision making/social skills – we at least got her to college. Psychology 101 and the Pride movement found her right away.

        So here she is completed derailed. She can only focus on ONE thing at a time, and now it’s become at 21 – only the trans-activist agenda. Eventually she failed out of college, is ‘walking’ to work, and is only focused on trying to understand trans-theory in her spare time to figure out which if the “99,000 genders” she is. Counselors, even Christian ones…are afraid to touch this…due to the chance of losing their license. Also, she’s been counseled by trans group members online about the “freedom from alternative facts” her adulthood allows her.

        She’s angry. She’s hard to deal with. We are left with ONLY one out, and that’s putting her out to be on her own. It breaks my heart. We had her learning true life skills, working SO hard to give her a path to independence, but the trans-lie has basically derailed her attention to invest in something that has NO return.

        …and online she calls us hateful and ignorant…as she’s been taught. They even teach kids, teenagers, and adults how to alienate the only people who truly love them.

        We listened. We researched. We identified a dangerous lie. We’re done listening.

    • Fabmind,

      I think the environment may have changed since you came out to your parents.
      I have helped my daughter shop for boys clothes. I call her the name she wants. I take her for the haircuts, She still feels I am rejecting her and has threatened suicide. Kids sucked into this ideology today believe parents should not set any limits, and their teachers, therapists, and doctors support that belief. Setting limits used to be considered a loving thing for a parent to do.
      My daughter assured me there is absolutely no way I can help her other than to agree to testosterone. I believe she is too young to take that step, so I am evil and violent.

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39. Pingback: There’s a sudden surge of trans students coming out at my college … and I’m scared to talk about it - The College Fix

40. I am an English guy, just turned sixty, and for the past week I have been reading up on this subject, something which is totally alien to me. Back in the day my wife and I were heartbroken that we couldn’t have children, but reading through these posts, it seems as though it may have been a blessing in disguise.
    I have always been brought up to be respectful to people, regardless of their gender, colour, creed or sexuality.
    However, it now seems as if this latest craze is spreading like a virus.
    I am not suggesting that there are not genuine transgender people, but the way this is happening – groups, clusters, certain schools, it certainly seems to me that it is a social movement.
    I have been saddened to read the heart rending stories on here about the “lost children”, accusations of transphobia, when all that is really happening, is parents being worried and concerned.
    I have also seen videos online, which I would consider to be “grooming videos”, aimed at children, trying to lure them into the “translife”, encouraging them to move away from “abusive” parents.
    One of these videos was from a Dr Rachel McKinnon, an assistant professor at the College of Charlestown who teaches philosphy (God help the children at that establishment), and seems to spend a lot of time as a transactivist.
    It also appears that we are no longer allowed to question things which do not seem right to us, based on our upbringing and education, and failure to do so may result in us being labelled “bigot” or possibly accused of “hate crime”, both of which could possibly wreck people’s lives.
    I really do not know what the answer is anymore, because to state the obvious could get you into serious trouble.

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41. Great post. Thank you. My daughter suffered abandonment from her mother. She is 14 and started to claim that she wanted to be a boy about a year ago. It’s been extremely difficult for everyone. She just compensate the pain she feels by switching from bulimia, to cutting herself and now this. She doesn’t really face the real issue which is, forgiving her mother an accepting herself, and we’ve been in therapy for years now. She tried to kill herself last year. Society and school laws do not help either. It is like schools just want productive kids and avoid being sued by discrimination, and the hell with the contact school-family. All this is bizarre, and is a decline in social values an morals not because kids want to be transgender, but because the interaction and mechanics of society are just twisted.

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42. My teen relative fits the profile mentioned in some of the comments. Extremely intelligent.. finished high school in three years w honors and college scholarship. Attended an elite high school mostly with boys. Not a lot of friends. Only child, socially awkward. Spent a lot of unsupervised time online, obsessed with fan fiction, fandoms, cosplay. Anorexia and cutting followed by the trans thing. Now at college and still insisting on it. Just praying she doesn’t take hormones or pursue surgery. Her parents .. very liberal intellectuals… afraid to antagonize e her, seem to go along with it all.

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43. Emily, thank you for this very well written, eye-opening article.
    Two questions, please: how many students were there in your high school? And how about in your college, please? I ask because it would help us to know the proportion of people you know who identify as trans relative to the combined total of students at these schools, and to be able to compare them to various surveys on trans-identifying youth and adults.
    Thank you again. Your article has clearly resonated with many people, by all the responses.

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44. I have a question. What do you say to someone, who is not very informed about the new trend of Transgender , when they say that we see more now because it is so much more accepted now days. I do not believe that is the case. But I cam actually at a loss for a good response to that attitude.

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    • @susanmzam – You simply say that leftist movements against social norms have co-opted terms like “hate” “hate speech” “phobia” and “acts of violence/aggression” to use as labels against anybody who stands in their way or questions their ideas. Activists are recruiting kids/teenagers/young adults – from the very bedrooms they grew up in and are not apt to leave – to attack physically, socially, and digitally – ANY [especially single gender hetero] person who questions any concept that frees any individual from current accepted biological realities.

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45. @susanmzam,
    I was thinking about this the other day, because I was talking to some folks who just adopted the “live and let live” attitude to everything – as long as it doesn’t affect them. I pointed out the all too obvious dangers of transwomen being allowed into women’s safe spaces, and they kind of agreed with me, but then we got onto the problem of numbers, and I said to them – look at the numbers of people who now wear jeans with slash marks on them, making it look as though they have survived a car crash, I wouldn’t be seen dead in clothing like that, and you never used to see anyone walking around dressed like that.
    Is it just possible that the transgender “thing” is simply another trend?

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46. You are certainly not the only person who has figured out the attention-getting part of the transgender phenomenon. Having been a child, and raised children, and observed thousands of children I can tell you one thing for sure, FADS are all over the place, and I fear that for many young people this is an attention-getting FAD. Maybe not all, but for many I believe this to be true. As you pointed out, how often it is the socially-awkward child, or the attention-seeker. Wanting to be noticed but not sure how to go about it successfully. Certainly one should be wary of rushing a young person toward the doctor’s office to have things modified that cannot be undone. I cannot recall the proper name for it, but I watched a program where a psychiatrist was talking about the part of the brain that discriminates between images of others and images of one’s self, like when you look in the mirror. In some people this part of the brain isn’t working correctly, so these people never ‘recognize’ themselves, often thinking they must be someone else. Sometimes these patients who need psychiatric help to solve their problem, end up falling into the hands of the pro-transgender movement, and become convinced their lack of self-recognition has to do with their gender-identity, and some end up mutilating their bodies transitioning, and the problem persists because it was never about their gender. They don’t recognize their new self any more than their old self. If they are lucky they get the right help, so they don’t commit suicide. Unfortunately, once they have received therapy for their self-identity problem, they now recognize themselves as their were originally, and have to deal with the depression that comes because they realize they can’t undo what has been done to their bodies. Everybody needs to slow down a bit and not rush to support every person who
    comes out’ without knowing what the real condition is that the person is dealing with.

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47. Hey, you’re not the only one. I’m at a liberal-arts, progressive college, and I’m seeing the same phenomenon. I dislike gender roles and stereotypes, and am trying to figure myself out in this increasingly polarised and politicised society. I don’t ‘identify’ with either binary (and I’ve got several theories about why), but using they/them pronouns doesn’t ‘feel right’, either, so I’m experimenting socially. Hopefully I’ll feel comfortable and right with myself at some point in my life, but for now, I accept that that isn’t the case, and I’m eager to figure out why not and how to begin the process.

    The ‘figuring-myself-out’ stuff is perfectly normal, considering I’m a fifteen year old. I want to be able to discuss this with others in person, but even attempting to exhibit a more moderate outlook will instantly result in name-calling and direct or indirect shunning (from students and faculty alike, even suspension and expulsion from the school if your outlook is ‘repeatedly offensive’ to others). This frustrates more tremendously, because I want to be able to have a logical and reasoned conversation with people, but there seem to be only extremists, and not an even spread (more liberal than conservative), and I am scared to speak out as well.

    Maybe I’ll do so after I graduate with my degree/s intact, but for now, I’ll be silent.

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48. I think your assessment that this is a narcissist and attention seeking phenomenon is correct. There is a distinct difference between the small percentage of transgender people of the past and this new group of transtrenders. They often make almost zero attempt to pass as the gender they now want to be referred to, but will say that it’s a hate crime if you accidentally forget their pronouns that don’t fit their appearance

    It often seems the least attempt someone is making to pass, the more likely they will take up everyone’s time telling the world that they are valid as a transgender person, and trying to teach people their pronouns. Especially in situations where nobody is interested. I recently took an extension class at an Art school, and a fellow student who was biologically female and presented female stopped the teacher mid-instruction to announce that “he” was trans, and that his pronouns were he and him. Ok. Understandably, people forgot and called her she and her a few times. I’ve seen passing trans who had had surgery and who were on hormones who behaved less offended than this person. I fully expected “him” to start talking about a hate crime had just been committed against “him”. Am I weird to think that if being called the wrong pronoun is THAT offensive to a person it might behoove them to make SOME attempt to present at least a tiny bit like that gender? I know the whole “gender is in your mind, not between your thighs” philosophy, but can we all agree that acting offended and calling being misgendered a hate crime should only apply to people that are only clearly attempting to present as the gender that align with their pronouns

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49. I really don’t see an issue, personally.

    Sure, someone assigned female at birth might want to start using they/them pronouns, cut their hair, come out as non binary, whatever – it’s how they identify, it’s only polite to respect that. Even if they ‘change their mind’, or go back to IDing as female, or whatever… in my opinion it doesn’t make those feelings in those moments invalid.

    My second question would be ‘who does it hurt to respect people’, but I know that many of you would say that it hurts the person in question as they begin to medically transition.
    I would say that that’s a dangerous way of thinking, and sometimes, not your concern (if you don’t know the person well).
    If you really don’t think that a person that you are close to has thought their need for medical transition through (again, the social stuff really can’t hurt anyone), if you tell them this, you will immediately shut them out.
    Instead, let them know that you are always open to talk, and if they allow it, ask questions. Make yourself available to have open and honest discussions about gender. Perhaps that person is worried about xyz aspects of transition, or perhaps they’re not. If they let you, talk to them about if they want to raise kids one day, or where they see themselves later in life.

    Some people it will become blindingly obvious that they really do need to transition medically. For me, a trans guy, as soon as I started IDing as male I could suddenly see my future (no, not in a tarot card way). I could see myself having a family and raising kids and having a job and a house and everything else – when I was IDing as female I couldn’t imagine life past my 18th birthday, because I always just assumed I’d be dead by then.
    And this has only intensified as I’ve transitioned socially and medically over the years, from where I started (15 and desperately unhappy), to the point I’m at now where I’m 20 years old, a year and a half on hormones, and 8 months post top surgery. And happier every day.

    Some people it won’t be so obvious, but they might decide to do it anyway. And that’s their decision, whether it’s the right one or the wrong one. And trust me, it can be good OR bad, not just bad.

    Point is, there really are trans people. We’re not unicorns, we’re not mythical, we exist. You will only lose respect through disrespect. Please, don’t make yourself someone who people close to you who are trans want to distance themselves from, whether you’re a parent, or a friend, or someone else. It won’t help anyone.

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    • When people close to you have mental health conditions, there is a choice. Your concept of affirming their delusion, even to the point of ‘man-made’ changes [surgery, drugs, hormones, etc.] is simply a result of your condition – and a social movement happening now whose damage is finally starting to get attention.

      You may not have ever raised a child, and may never. Your idea of “here to talk” reaction to a child/teen coming to you NOT liking their real existence, including biological factual gender – is reflective. I’ve seen what happens when a young lady who had a common discomfort going though ‘changes’ interacted with the strong ‘respect and love’ facade of the movement supporting your concepts: They told her, and are telling ‘every young girl’ that gender does NOT exist and they are likely not living their REAL life – planting that doubt, in as YOUNG a mind as they can legally access. With social media, there is little barrier.

      Sorry – listening to your version ‘common sense and compassion’ – is similar to taking advice from the high IQ schizophrenic.

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      • A huge AMEN to the above comment about high IQ schizophrenics. So true. No one is under any obligation to play along with someone else’s ideas about reality. Even if those ideas are presented in a calm, seemingly rational way . The observer still gets to choose if that is how they see things. I believe all of those folks who are so called “real transgender folks” believe that about themselves. They have that right. But no right to make others join that belief. Mental illness is not a civil right, It is not a means to thrust a certain version of politeness and etiquette on others either. You have the right to have your physical well being not infringed by others. But no right to control how others perceive you or behave.
        Another point. What if people like me and those who are critical of the transgender trend think that backing up your delusion actually hurts you in the long run? Should we be forced to say things that we feels actually hurt the self proclaimed transgender person? What about our consciences guiding us. And when it comes to our kids…the profound emotional and time investment in our kids. Well no way will I do something that in the long run hurts my kid. I believe playing along with the nonsense of transgender will hurt him. No matter how eloquently he tries to convince his father and me..still like arguing with a schizophrenic.

      • They are calm and eloquent right now, because they believe with Hollywood, the cowardly politician, and seemingly everybody ‘in public’ nodding in approval…they’ve somehow won without a fight. The backlash is coming. Soon the older retired generation, who are not afraid of lost wages, destroyed careers, and/or threats of imprisonment for “hate speech” will rise up against the mentally ill hunting & recruiting their granddaughters and grandsons in game rooms, social media clubs, and colleges…for their ‘alphabet funded’ trans-cult.

        NOBODY has gotten over Bruce being called a “hero”, after he stopped being one. They were and are the quiet and much larger majority, who are watching this cult contagion spread in awe – shocked for sure – but not thinking by any means it’s the end of the world. Sure – we may loose 1-3% of a generation of socially awkward kids, a few with brain malformations [mine], and a few just wanting attention who allowed their perceived entitlement and feeling of power to take it too far – but I assure you this tide will shift.

        It won’t be a religious backlash, but a explosion of biological common sense and rage against a government funded cult.

        BE CAREFUL if you have young people entering college. For the 100th time, the Pride movements are well funding by the left over ‘G.M.’ lobby money and have ALL been taken over completely by the trans-agenda. They are befriending, counseling [without license], and affirming quickly any young people who don’t have a strong support group. That is what happened to my daughter. It’s like a religious experience. They are using the same tactics of immersion, joy, and love in the figurative sense – and it’s amazing how fast they change them into robots of the movement. A movement that pretends to be of inclusion and love – but will destroy anything/anybody that speaks of ‘normal’ or doesn’t recognize it’s version of reality with immediate acceptance.

        Stay strong parents. YOU are the heroes.

      • I’m curious as to whether you think /any/ trans people exist, or whether you think all trans people are ‘schizophrenic’.

        If there are quote unquote ‘real’ trans people, and ‘trenders’, the only way you are going to find out whether someone is ‘really trans’ is by talking to them – again, only if the person is close to you (like your kid, partner, family member – if they’re not, it’s not your business and you need to be respectful regardless).

        If your kid says they’re trans, and you are adamant that they are not, and leave no room to have an open discussion – YOU WILL LOSE THEM. Whether you enforce a totalitarian regime of ‘I refuse to let you wear that’ or ‘I refuse to use those pronouns’ or ‘I refuse to call you that name’, ‘I refuse to let you see a psychologist about this’ – anything like that and you will lose them. If your kid is trans, and they’ve come out to you, they’ve made themselves vulnerable. They’re not sure how you will react, but I can nearly guarantee you they are preparing for /all scenarios/. Which means potentially leaving your life, for good.

        If you love your kid and want them to stick around, you only have two options, which are to point blank accept them (highly unlikely by the sounds of these comments) or TALK TO THEM. This has not come out of the blue, no matter what it seems like to you as someone who’s not inside that person’s head, and although you might be feeling lost or angry or scared, they do as well – talking about feelings is extremely important if you want any sort of family.

        Talking to them, and potentially ‘affirming their delusions’ by accepting them, is better than them disowning you as a parent and you no longer having a kid anymore. And they will walk away, and potentially medically transition faster and more carelessly regardless (yes, I do think that someone who is hurt could potentially rush decisions, like the one to medically transition). They also won’t be in your life.
        I’m not a parent, but if I loved my kid /that much/ I think I would much rather have my kid in my life, than them walking out,no matter what. I am mainly talking here from a mid-late teens perspective – the best thing you can do for a younger person is to talk to them, and take them to a psychologist (as they are younger, they are definitely not as likely to straight up leave – yet).

        On the note of ‘respecting people regardless of whether or not they’re trans’, if you are talking to a trans person, please do not purposefully use the wrong pronouns or be rude or ask them questions (unless you ask first and they say it’s ok, and you’re not trying to disprove their existence). If someone walked up to me and said ‘I’m a transphobe’, I would say ‘oh ok’ and walk in the other direction. If you truly believe that no trans people exist or anything like that and a trans person is interacting with you in real life or online please keep that in mind. Hence why I don’t really appreciate being called schizophrenic. It’s ok to discuss the topic, and I have engaged in that, but don’t make it personal?

        For example (and it’s an example only), I’m an atheist – I don’t go around telling people that there’s actually no god, or that your religion is wrong, or that you’re delusional. My being an atheist doesn’t affect you, and someone’s being in a religion doesn’t affect me. If I really had a problem with someone’s religion, like, if they were a Scientologist, I would just walk the other way. The same way a Christian shouldn’t have a problem with someone else being Jewish. Obviously this changes if it’s someone close to you and it’s hard to understand (in which case you need to talk, seriously), but someone online, or that you’ve just met – please be respectful.

        Again. Talk to people, and be respectful.
        To be honest, I really just don’t want some parent sitting on the fence about these issues to read these comments and decide the best option is to ‘not feed into their delusion’. Because it could break a family

50. I strongly disagree about the wrong body comment. I honestly believe that gay, lesbian, trans etc do feel like they were born into the wrong body. Do you remember the response that Mayor Pete gave when he was asked about being gay? He said he would like to be able to flip a switch and be straight. He said that living life as a gay person was not his choice. I do believe that wires are crossed in some individuals that cause them to be gay or whatever lifestyle has been manifested upon them. It is a tough life and most people endowed with alternative lifestyles don’t really have a choice of being straight. I am probably opening up a can of worms here but I bet almost all alternative lifestyle folks would choose the straight lifestyle if granted a choice. I do think there is something faddish with all the hoopla with trans today. Yes some were born in the wrong body but most are probably just regular folks being infatuated and glamorized by these new ways of living. You may not agree with me but at least I said my piece. Chercher

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    • I do believe that there are people who honestly suffer from the feeling that they were born in the wrong body, however, there is no scientific evidence to prop up the theory that these people were actually “born wrong.”

      Why is it that for these people suffering from distressing feelings, the go-to remedy is affirmation that they were “born wrong” and must physically and medically transition? Feelings change over time. Feelings can change simply with life experience and the aging process, or feelings can change with the assistance of a skilled therapist who can help a patient get to the root cause of their distress. It is dangerous and negligent to immediately affirm kids and young adults as the opposite sex and recommend off-label, sterility-inducing, body-modifying treatments as the go-to treatment for their feelings of body distress.

      Transition should be the last resort, not the first-in-line prescribed treatment. Yet, when trained, skilled therapists try to help a person come to accept their natural body, they are vilified and are at risk of losing their professional licensing for the crime of practicing “conversion” therapy. Additionally, affirmation and transition advice certainly should NOT be coming from Queer Club leaders, elementary school teachers, summer camp RAs, high school counselors and GSA club sponsors, etc., who are not qualified to advise a dysphoric child, teen or young person on the steps they should take. Yet this is what is happening. Unqualified but well meaning people are often leading the charge toward physical transition for these kids, while skilled mental health professionals have their mouths taped shut and their hands tied, unable to even attempt a noninvasive approach.

      P.S. Please do not conflate homosexuality with transgenderism. If a person believes they might be gay or wants to experiment, then finds that they are not gay, all they have to deal with is perhaps the memory of a few awkward dates or failed relationship attempts. However, a girl who believes she should have been born a boy and has her breasts surgically removed at 14, and vaginal/uterine atrophy induced via testosterone by age 19, then at 23 or 24 realizes her desire to rid herself of her female body stems from being sexually molested as a young girl, will never be able to get her healthy, whole, pre-transition body back.

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      • “vaginal/uterine atrophy induced via testosterone by age 19…”

        Wow. Is this a typical medical outcome for these trans-identified women?

      • Considering that child molestation has been linked to homosexual behavior before, and that despite years of research there has never been any “gay” gene found, maybe we should consider it. I swear, only in the West is it deemed unacceptable to question where homosexual behavior comes from. Now that this “I was born this way” mentality has gone from homosexual behavior to “gender identity”, now we’re allowed to question if people are truly are born that way? I’ve heard more than one gay person say they were molested as a child and say that’s why they engaged in homosexual behavior. And I can tell you from my own personal life life experience, wasting years of your life thinking that you were gay because you fear the opposite sex as a result of trauma and abuse can be negative disruptive life altering detour. For years you think the only way you’ll be able to have kids is through some test tube and you ignore that you may have feelings for men because you’re supposed to be gay, you don’t want to come off as one of those phony people who “betrays” the lesbian community by sneaking around with men, or someone who pretended to be lesbian just to be interesting…to men. There is a whole…gay/queer ideology and some people just become obsessed with it the same way they become obsessed with trans ideology. And it can be used as something to distract you away from other areas of your life that you might need to concentrate on. Anyway, most of the girls I know who thought they were lesbians eventually ended up with men, two of them actually “transitioned” into men (but I’m not sure how long that’s going to last), and only a few remain as lesbians. I think there can so many life altering consequences associated with sex/gender and sexuality we should have the right to question it ALL as much as we feel is necessary. People need to stop acting like they don’t know the idea that it’s not acceptable to question someone’s “gender identity” didn’t come from the idea that it’s not acceptable to question someone’s sexual behavior and/ or sexual identity. The idea that questioning someone’s gender identity, even if they’re your kids, is like subjecting them to “conversion therapy” came from the idea that questioning someone’s sexual identity, even if they’re your kids, is like trying to engage in “conversion therapy”. It didn’t come out of thin air.

      • So that means that individual shouldn’t be on hormones… No one would know that circumstance besides the people involved.

        Having pressure to not take HRT and change your body isn’t always a bad thing. Because the people that really want it will still go for it, it’s better than just handing it out to everyone that thinks that’s what they want.

        However I must say, it’s so hypocritical how people on here behave. People are trying to say transgender people’s feelings are invalid, but mine are. And how they are trying to prove that? By deducing being transgender is invalid in and of itself. “Your feelings can’t be real, cause your not”.

        I don’t see transgender trying to kick cisgender people out of the restroom?However people here are insinuating that the presence of a male figure in a bathroom is dangerous; which is ludicrous. I don’t get the association between being a male and being dangerous by nature?Why is a female presence in the restroom not dangerous?

        What most ridiculous is how the entirety of the subject devolves into a political debate. Generally few care about scientific evidence, even though they claim they do and care more about justifying why their opinion is better than ‘LGBT’. They believe their own kids are stupidl, sheepish and are easily persuaded by LGBT ‘propaganda’ while they sit here and recite every single insult/steretype tossed at the trans community brought up by pundits such as Ben Sharpiro.

        This is exactly why it’s hard to have a conversation like this cause both sides believe the other is crazy. I scrolled up and saw someone say that someone shouldn’t be afraid to antagonize their own kid…. But for what? Like if you want to have a sane conversation, first stop calling your kid crazy/stupid/confused/sheep/whatever talk with them. I don’t know why is it so hard to talk to your own kids while not being dismissive, when you can sit here and talk to eachother almost normally.

        I will tell u this my mom wanted me to have a kid, but when I started my journey she was just like this board. Told me I was coocoo, sent me to outpatient, ignored me… So I had to go it alone. I didn’t plan for surrogacy or anything out day, and now all she does is complain about how she coulda changed my mind. If my mom took the opportunity to work with me, offer useful advice, and express herself in a non dismissive/combative tone…. Maybe we coulda got what we both wanted. There was no room for compromise thanks to her unwaivering conviction that my thought and feelings were invalid.