by Carey Callahan
Carey Callahan is a family therapist, writer, and organizer advocating for responsible healthcare for gender dysphoria. You can find her writing at medium.com/mariacatt42 (where this piece was first published), and she tweets at @catt_bear.
This piece is an intro to a series Carey will be writing in the coming weeks.
One of the sadder parts of being detransitioned and public about it is that the parents find you. They’ve been told by a doctor or a social worker that the only route forward that protects against suicidality is to affirm their kid’s trans identity. That they need to be open to the possibility their kid may need their pubertal process disrupted, may need to begin what could within a couple of years turn into a life time commitment to cross sex hormones, and could need surgeries to socially function. They’ve been told asking questions about the impact of their kid’s peer group, internet use, drug use, co-morbid diagnoses, internalization of sexism, or family dynamics is transphobia. They’ve been told, no matter what their authentic emotions are, to celebrate their child’s transition.
I’m in the novel position of being both a detransitioned lady and a family therapist. I am not, and probably never will be, your family therapist. At this point in time I won’t work with families with a gender dysphoric young person because I’m scared of the risk to my license. In the past few months activists have filed complaints to the licensing boards of two therapists I’m connected with, both of whom have been public in their defense of the research into Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria. To trans activists, promoting and enforcing “affirmative care” as the sole available clinical response to youth gender dysphoria (“GD” for the rest of this essay) is a battle so righteous that the ends justify the means. Those means include punishing mental health professionals by threatening their livelihoods, calling DHS on non-compliant parents, slandering youth GD researchers whose research documents majority youth desistance, harassing researchers whose research suggests the existence of a new cohort of youth GD diagnoses that may have vastly different outcomes than previous cohorts, or slandering and harassing even the reporters who acknowledge these events are happening. There is a group of activists within the trans community who truly believe that doubts about a child’s ability to understand and consent to the long term consequences of medical interventions whose long term consequences are a matter of intense controversy among adult patients can only be motivated by transphobia.
Pediatric transition has always been a troublesome topic for me. My efforts to advocate for resources and training for detransition mental healthcare have consistently put me in positions where I have to pick a side about pediatric transition. My choices have been: critique pediatric transition, be labeled a transphobe and be cut off from opportunities within the trans healthcare community to build an infrastructure for supporting detransitioners OR focus only on detransition care, and endorse pediatric transition.
Carey Callahan
At the end of the day, if I had a kid, they’d have to wait till they were 18 to get themselves on hormones and pursue surgeries, so I don’t feel right recommending parents do anything different. It’s not that I don’t believe I could have a kid who, in order to have a good life, truly did need to move through life in a gender role I didn’t expect. I know trans adults like that, and their medical transitions reduced their GD to such a level that they could function well, with loving partners and meaningful work. But my doubts about the ethics of pediatric transition are not based on assuming a trans kid’s identity isn’t going to be stable and long-lasting. (Although it’s worth remembering in 2009 hardly anyone had heard the word “nonbinary,” so I don’t think we can even can speculate about the gender schemas that will be popular in 2029.)
My insistence that any kid I raise be a legal adult before making these choices is based on knowing trans adults who have been surprised by the challenges of their long term healthcare. I am not going to create a situation where my kid is 25 and gets to blame their mom for pain when they orgasm, fusion of their uterus and cervix, reduced mitochondrial function, or straight up never having an orgasm. No way am I running the risk of allowing my kid to halt their puberty with Lupron shots and create a future spending big bucks at the dentist, rheumatologist, and endocrinologist. I didn’t have steady health insurance till my mid-thirties, so I don’t have faith that if my kid had chronic symptoms like the people in the Lupron Survivors Facebook group do that they’d be able to access specialists without sliding into inescapable medical debt.
Once I told a prominent psychiatrist and affirmative care researcher that there’s no way I would let a teen take testosterone because there’s a high likelihood they’d end up needing a hysterectomy in their twenties. After a hysterectomy you are dependent on HRT for your lifetime and need to prioritize having health insurance both for the HRT and the complications following the hysterectomy. It’s normal for Americans, especially in their twenties and thirties, to have long stretches of time where they can’t afford to see a doctor. The psychiatrist, appearing deeply perplexed, replied (this is a paraphrase), “But you can’t make decisions about your identity based on fears you won’t be able to access healthcare.”
The trans community is pretty clear you don’t need to take testosterone to identify as a trans man. Thus, testosterone isn’t actually a choice about your identity, it’s a choice about body modification, and yes you can absolutely choose to avoid body modifications that create risks to your health you fear you may not be able to manage. But if a Harvard educated psychiatrist can’t keep that distinction clear, can a teenager? Do the teenagers in your life know about co-pays, or how to get a referral to a specialist, or what COBRA is? I’ve had a fair amount of the letters of the LGBT alphabet soup confidently explained to me by teenagers, but I’ve never met a teen who knew how to apply for Medicaid benefits.
All this to say, if you are suspicious of the increased prevalence of youth GD referrals and the righteousness of activists who believe minors know what they’re getting into when they medically transition, I’m there with you. But if parenting teens were just about creating sane rules and explaining how the world works, teen boys could be trusted to shower regularly, teen girls could be trusted to use school bathrooms without putting fights on Snapchat, and Smirnoff Ice would have a significantly smaller market share.
The reality is that in many states on your teen’s 18th birthday they can walk into a Planned Parenthood and have the first of the two appointments it will take for them to get HRT. You have the power (although only if you and your coparent are on the same page) to keep your kid from initiating medical transition until that day. That day will roll around quicker than you think.
What this means is that cultivating a positive relationship in which you have credibility and influence with that person you made is paramount. From my work as a family therapist I can tell you being able to do that, when that person is in their teens and twenties, is a spiritual triumph. Young people’s psyches are built for separation, independence, and risk taking. But you, passionately loving parent, with the privilege of both your life experience, and fully formed pre-frontal cortex (boy howdy I’m hoping you can fully access all that emotion regulation) are gonna love that kid into some wise choices.
How do you do this?
The short answer is:
- An unconditionally loving relationship demonstrated by you giving them feedback that is intentionally overwhelmingly positive
- and lots of offering them your reflective listening skills;
- bounded by clear and explicit, age appropriate boundaries
- which are backed up by logical and consistent consequences.
Doesn’t strike you as that short of an answer, does it? But in actuality that answer above is the recipe for every successful relationship- kids, spouses, friends, coworkers. Having children hit puberty is a fantastic way to find out all your weird personal myths about how relationships should go and how exactly they do not work.
Here’s the basics of any human relationship: People love to be liked. People love to be understood and most people love to talk about themselves. People are most relaxed when rules, roles, and boundaries are clear, and people love to be relaxed. People absolutely don’t love logical consequences for their behavior. But the least painful way to learn about the process of considering logical consequences is from navigating logical and consistent consequences doled out by your parents.
Over the next two months I’ll dive into those 4 components of building a positive relationship with your kid, and how your kid’s gender dysphoria and trans identification interact with these components. I am NOT saying you can detrans your kid. I am absolutely saying that if you build a positive relationship with your kid, you can be both a valuable sounding board and a source of information for them. I know from my own experience the sources of information and the sounding boards (i.e. gender therapists and online community) available to gender dysphoric people who are discerning their medical choices tend to put forth a very rosy view of medical transition.
If you’re a parent, and you’re feeling desperate, the very best thing you can do before this series gets going is to get SERIOUS about your self-care. Having a child begin a clearly inappropriate medical transition is a specific level of hell, and I would never want to minimize how bad that situation sucks for parents. But in the midst of that hell you need to bring your parenting A game. You have to take up running, yoga, meditation, prayer, Xanax- whatever can chill out your emotional lizard brain so that you can access your logical, strategic, patient pre-frontal cortex. If you’re not giving an hour each day to chilling yourself out, you won’t be able to stay non-reactive when that baby you nursed tells you they’ve got a surgery date. An hour of self-care is the minimum, and I don’t want to get any emails from you if you wrote them before 2 hours.
Check back in about a week for Part 1, the deep dive into positive feedback for your endlessly confusing child.
I did join the gym and it has helped me escape. My mental health after nearly 2 years after my daughter started taking HRT is better
That’s right, honey. Hit the gym and work those muscles. It’s the best therapy. I hope all is going well.
Thank you !
Update …as you know my daughter was sexually assaulted at age 13 – we also suspected she was gay from a very young age ( 8) . We sought help when she was 13 . At age 15.5 she came to us and said I am meant to be a man. Long story short – a visit to the Montreal Children’s Hospital ‘s Gender Clinic and 18 months of help at our local CLSC . By age 18 birth cert changed – breasts removed and fast forward 2.5 years of testosterone. 7 years of self -harm – 4 visits to our local mental health facility – a diagnosis of dissociative identity disorder chronic ptsd chronic anxiety and depression by 3 psychiatrists with 100 years of experience . Where are we today ? Has de -transitioned and admitted that she became a man to avoid being sexually assaulted and to avoid the discomfort of being gay . All of which we told the Gender Variance Clinic and Counselors years ago . What am I left with ? I have a 22 year old severely depressed – suicidal who I am watching almost 24/7 . Where the hell are all these so called gender -specialists ? My daughter has been thrown under the bus by her own so-called LGBTQ community. I have emailed several groups for support with no response what so ever . Including this one . My daughter feels isolated and alone – like she is the only one de-transitioning . Thank god she has a great family – good friends and a great therapist.
It breaks my heart to read what happened to your daughter, and to you. You do have each other, and that’s worth something even though it doesn’t feel like it. I guess my only advice would be to listen to your gut and don’t ever let anyone make you feel like you should apologize for fighting for your daughter.
She’s definitely not the only one going through this. I don’t even like to call it de-transitioning, because “transitioning,” like every other word this industry–or political movement, really–uses is a fabrication. And I think it adds to people’s feeling that they’re different, that they’ve actually gone somewhere different from humanity, and that there’s a chasm they must cross to get back.
The truth that she’ll have to learn, is that she hasn’t gone anywhere. She was human and deserving of love all along. That regardless of the shape of her scars, they are human scars, from human struggles. That others don’t necessarily have to share the exact same scars to understand or care for her. That was a lie the “transition” peddlers sold her, and I suspect that the only way toward recovery is the way that leads far, far away from the separatism those peddlers of lies sold her. (I hate them, and what they do to language.)
It’s really important that your daughter has you to watch and encourage her through this discovery. That is far, far more powerful than any lie. It may not seem like it right now, but it is.
I hope you have great family and friends to watch over *you* through this. A great therapist would help, but if I’ve learned anything through this it’s that no therapist is better than a crap therapist, and we’ve survived more than 100K years as a species without therapists because we have the power within ourselves, and within the communities that we make.
You will find a community. There are certainly support groups of other families who will not judge you. But even if you don’t find answers there, you can also find support from those who aren’t *like* you and your daughter. Decent human beings can understand and support the healing of scars that they themselves don’t bear.
Best to you.
This was a beautiful reply, QuestionPDX. Yes, so true.. I came to experience this myself, in my mid-20’s. I am lesbian. I experienced depression from my teens into my mid-20s.
Struggling to—I don’t know… Self-actualize? Improve myself? Understand myself?–I took a self-improvement seminar of sorts, where lots of intimate, open sharing was encouraged and was in fact the medium for the promised inner transformation.
I remember it being a revelation to me, when I finally had the courage to share details about my innermost shame and self-judgment, and other things I felt I had to hide…. and finding nothing but compassionate acceptance and understanding by the varied group members, who were otherwise very different, outwardly, in their life experience and apparent expression, from myself.
I’m so sorry to hear what your daughter has been through. Are you both aware of detransitioners on YouTube? As well as Carey’s videos, have a look at the Pique Resilience Project and GNC Centric.
Also, on Medium, look up Charlie Evans, who writes about the Detransition Advocacy Network, due to launch in the UK next month.
And on Reddit there’s a detrans community that’s 5,000 strong.
I’m so sorry this happened to your family. There’s always a rational clear reason, as you know, motivating someone to alter their outward identity 180°. I have a stepdaughter I fear is experiencing something similar, but not to the same extent. Regardless, I’m one of the very few in the LGB community who thinks the trans phenom is 100% not what it’s reps or the medical community advertise it as. It’s a symptom of a larger problem that must be approached with psychotropic medication, not hormones and surgical mutilation. Hook your daughter up with 4thwave. They’re a detransition website for individuals such as your daughter. Tell her there’s a gay male nurse in the USA who is on her side and in her corner. I’ve no clue what’s caused big med and big pharmaceutical here in the USA and Canada to respond to the trans phenomena as they have. It’s unconscionable and unethical.
Great article. I would add a qualification that positive support for a child means that you positively love them and seek what is best for them. It doesn’t always mean having a positive response to everything they do, or never letting them see you have a negative emotion or reaction. That’s an ideal that no parent can or should live up to. Our species has survived negative parental reactions for hundreds of thousands of years. Kids are built to recognize love and care when they see it, and to recognize the human reactions of other people. When kids do terrible things and no one says they’re terrible, that’s far, far more damaging. Positive support means telling your kid the truth from a standpoint of love, and articulating that. But it doesn’t mean never letting them see you sweat, or never letting them know you’re human and have doubts.
Best.
The author never suggested having a “positive response to everything they do”. She specifically says you need to have boundaries and logical consequences and consistent consequences for overstepping those.
She is not suggesting allowing kids to do terrible things and not tell the kid they are terrible. Quite the opposite. But she is saying that, other then when the kid steps over the boundaries, be positive with them (eg if they make mistakes or are trying their best but maybe not getting things 100% right).
Thank you for this. I am looking forward to reading more on this series, I am working hard on keeping a good relationship with my 13 Yr. daughter. She just won’t open up and talk about anything, so when I try to get her to open up she gets defensive, but I’m learning how to tell her that as a mom I need to know how she’s feeling and I want to help her with her issues of self harm and gender confusion. She says she’s taking it slow and not checking boxes, so that’s good.
Another wonderful resource is provided by Sasha Ayad on her Patreon page.
Regardless of our good relationship with our child and spending thousands and thousands of dollars on therapy and evaluations for our child who suffers from ADHD, Borderline Personality Disorder, and has been hospitalized for clinical depression and severe anxiety, my baby walked into the transgender unit at Mt. Sinai as an 18-year-old and will start hormones in two weeks. Previous therapists wouldn’t sign on to allow it and an attempt to be treated in NJ did not go through. However, no issue at Mt. Sinai! And my kid is 18 so I can’t stop it. My child has gone in and out of this for four years and now we asked that nothing happen until 18. And now it’s 18. And my daughter is becoming my son. I couldn’t save her. What do I do now? I’ve actually tried to contact Cher because she wasn’t excited about her child’s transition. So now I just stand by and love my child and hope that the coming new puberty doesn’t ruin the great college situation my kid has and the dreams of studying and being a musician. But who knows how this will exasperate my child’s underlying issues! NO one seems to care too much. Oh well. We’ve been through self-harm, sexual attacks, substance use, school defiance, etc. so those things have gotten better but this isn’t. GOod luck to all the other parents out there. I am just trying to remember how much I love my kid and that the journey isn’t over.
So sorry for your difficult situation Scamozz. Are you on the Gender Critical Resources site? You will find other parents there going through similar things, so at least you won’t be alone. Sending love and prayers to you and your family.
Oy — as a fellow New Yorker, I feel special empathy with your story. Now I know to avoid Mount Sinai! My girl is 19 now and while we have so far prevented her from going on hormones, we realize it is something she could do at this point if she was really determined to do it.
I don’t know if this is helpful, but one way we were able to hold the line on hormones and other medical treatments was by simply refusing to pay for them. She is still on our insurance and financially dependent. Also, to a certain extent, financial dependence is wrapped up in other kinds of dependence. You might be surprised at how much ability you do have to say this is a bridge too far, and it is not okay.
That can work with a double mastectomy but not with hormones, where the co-pays are so cheap. I’ve never talked to a parent who managed to stop a kid who is over 18 from obtaining hormones. You will discover that all the other adults in the room have left the building if you challenge this. Big pharma is just making too much money off it.
I personally don’t believe that parents, the very same parents that created the family environment that created the conditions which led to their children being confused about their bodies and roles, can turn the tide and magically create an environment that undoes the emotion damage to their children. I just don’t see this happening. Many of the author’s suggestions make no mention of the parent’s own culpability in their kids emotion problems,
1. An unconditionally loving relationship demonstrated by you giving them feedback that is intentionally overwhelmingly positive.
Q. How is the possible for contemporary parents, who are self-absorbed, who never took time to interact with their kids, are divorced, and let smart phones, and play stations raise their own children.. suppose to work in reality? “Oh, I love you darling and want only the best for you” are, at the end of the day just words. These GD kids are emotional wrecks, and are running toward a cliff because it offers them a silver bullet at ending their emotional pain. Words are cheap.
2. ….”and lots of offering them your reflective listening skills”
Q. Really? most western kids stop listening and talking to their parents at age ten. They then get their support on Reddit and the various social boards. By the time GD takes over, the parents have lost their kid to the addictive quality of the internet and school pro gender ideology.
Warm fuzzy 1980 group therapy hugs don’t work with 2019 gender dysphoria patients.
These GD young people are addicted to the idea that the pills and surgery will cure their personal confusion. Their social groups and schools promote this.
Here is my personal experience to get our kids over this disease.
1. Remove the source of the contagion. Take away their smart phones and internet. Prohibit them from going on line unless you are present looking over their shoulders.
2. Remove them from their pro transgender school.
3. Start acting like a parent of a child, instead of a spoiled teenager who has been saddled with a child. No more “me time, mother’s time having her nails done, dad’s time at the gym” and actually start interacting with your kids at dinner. I saw an entire family of five at dinner, and they didn’t speak a word to one another. all of them on their phones surfing.
4. “get SERIOUS about your self-care… You have to take up running, yoga, meditation, prayer, Xanax- whatever can chill out” is what helped cause this. You’re a parent for F***** sake, cowboy up and stop thinking child rearing is an elective class in High School that it doesn’t matter if you put in the time or not to pass.
Over 550 couples with GD kids have reached out to me over the last two years, and many follow Carry’s type of advice. And none of their children have de transitioned. NONE.
Only those parents who step up to the plate, act like adults, and take control of their children’s lives and social media have reported their children have backed off from GD thinking.
Good luck to you all
Rene Jax
Rene, wow, what a terrible comment! Until now, I have admired you and your voice on this topic.
Blaming the parents is unhelpful, cruel, simplistic and judgmental. Not all “contemporary parents” are “self-absorbed, who never took time to interact with their kids, are divorced, and let smart phones, and play stations raise their own children”, nor are they hanging out at the gym or nail parlor in preference to spending meaningful (non-screen) time with their children.
I belong to a support group of approximately 1500 parents whose teens have GD. Virtually every one of them is a plugged in, hands-on, active parent. Some having given up careers to home school their children from the start of their school lives. Most allow their teens little or no internet time. Many have changed their teens to different schools, but find that even in new schools the trans-affirmation continues. They have paid tens of thousands of dollars to get professional help for their teens (and spent countless hours driving them to and from appointments), only to be told by professionals that they are bad and abusive parents for not affirming and agreeing to hormones and therapy. Some have even had children removed by family members and authorities, for the very things you so scathingly demand they do … removing interest access, removing them from affirming schools, refusing medical treatment. Anything that is not immediately affirming their trans identity is considered abusive by authorities in certain states. Many move to different states which are not so affirmative, only to find laws changing to support (and even mandate) affirmation at school or by therapists. In some states therapists are being deregistered by professional bodies for even discussing alternatives to affirmation. In Canada, Dr Ken Zucker was fired had his clinic shut down because he refused to rush to affirmation (yes, he was later cleared of any wrong doing, but he was not allowed to re-open his clinic). Teachers are being fired for refusing to use preferred names and pronouns. In some districts, there are no schooling options other than trans-affirming and in many cases, parents are removing teens from school altogether and opting for homeschooling.
Virtually every teen of the parents in that group are suffering from serious co-existing conditions including PTSD, OCD, bipolar disorder, ASD, depression, suicidal ideation (the list goes on). Most parents of these teens have been hands-on, and most certainly not the casual unconcerned, selfish, screen-dominated families you describe.
MANY of the parents, having ridden this nightmare roller coaster do report that their children eventually desist. Strong professional voices in helping parents with GD teens (such as Sasha Ayad and Lisa Marchiano) suggest approaches totally in line with what Carey is recommending, and they report great success in their clinical practices with such models.
I don’t doubt that some parents are self absorbed, but to assume that all (or even the majority) parents of GD teens fit into that category is insulting and ignorant. The parents that I have come into contact with are concerned, caring, active in their teens lives, spending time with their teens giving heart and soul to their teens.
How you can find fault with Carey’s suggestion that parents need to engage in self-care is beyond me. She is not in any way suggesting to disengage as a parent. The parents that I know going through this struggle give so much of themselves that their own mental and physical health suffers. They absolutely do need to take care of themselves to continue to be engaged parents. It is not only sensible, but totally recommended by any mental health association worldwide, that all people (whether parents or not), should take care of themselves. Doing exercise while your teen is at school is in no way taking time away from the family.
I am very concerned that you feel the need to disparage parents who (in the group I belong to) are trying their very best and working their guts out to help their teens get the best outcomes. It is also really sad that you feel the need to insult Carey, who is providing information that some of us find helpful.
This issue is not one of parents who are too busy and self-absorbed for their kids. Here is an example of a parent who is trying to take a stand. His son is 7, and he is ordered by the court to affirm his son’s transgender identity, including using a girls name for him https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/parenting/kids/texas-jury-rules-against-dad-trying-to-stop-sevenyearold-sons-gender-transition/news-story/72de8b437a6c4af0e60ffdd12a5c0ce4
Agree!!
I have to say that a lot of what Rene said rang true in my heart. I don’t feel I’ve provided the best environment for my daughter growing up, living with a narcissist and the constant fighting. I thought staying and keeping a whole family intact was best, but I feel it ended up being a bad decision. (I didn’t recognize he was a narcissist until 15 years in.) And now she won’t talk to me about any of this transgender stuff, and thinks I’m “transphobic” if I even mention anything contrary to her beliefs, which she got on the internet. I always try to be respectful, but she’s lost her respect for me to be an authority on any subject after all these years.
But I’m not sure I agree with the tough approach, as I think it may push many of them further away. If you’re dealing with a 10 year old, maybe cutting off sources would help. But my daughter is 17 now, and we’re 3 years into this hell and at this point she won’t hear a thing I have to say. I try to be caring, but I will NOT affirm her or call her by her new name. (We play verbal gymnastics on that one, trying to avoid all pronouns and names at all. Come to think of it, I haven’t called her an actual name in years.) Once these kids get it in their heads (which they’re being told) that we parents are being phobic and unreasonable and are trying to hurt them, everything we say to the contrary becomes more fuel for their fires. In their minds it proves them right, over and over. It’s a tough battle. I’m not giving up, but it’s a really tough line to walk.
Dear Mom, my heart hurts for you. But I can’t tell you the number of other families who have told me the same story over and over. Now everyone knows I’m not a doctor, or PhD, but I know manipulation when I see it. And so many of these teenagers are leveraging their gender confusion as a weapon to control their parents and take on the power role in the family.
There comes a period where every young person believes their thoughts and feelings are more important than any other consideration. And it is usually right after their hormones kick in. It’s during this time that what they want to do, conflict with what their parents want / need them to do. They want to stay up late playing video games, the parents want them to be in bed by midnight and do chores the following day, And there are a thousand versions of this.
It is during this new hormone raging time that the kids discomfort with their bodies and being shy and not well liked at school kicks in. But with GD the schools and doctors and social boards, support the child’s feelings. And God help the parents who stands in the way of them getting what they want. GD kids can now bludgeon the parents into submission by threatening the family with suicide, transphobia, and child abuse and now legal action, if the GD kid doesn’t get their way.
All you parents think about this for a moment. What other medical condition, mental state of mind, or other problem in puberty,… in the history of human kind, allows and supports the child to rule the entire family and demand that the kid gets what they want? I can’t think of anything, any case, any situation ever recorded where this takes place.
This ability of GD children to rule the parents, emotionally and legally is a sea change, a complete game changer in family dynamics and structure.
And in my hard ass, post operative transsexual opinion, it can’t be allowed to take place. To allow children to blackmail their parents with threats of self harm, suicide, removal of parental rights, police and legal action puts physically/emotionally immature children in charge of the family and family decisions. This is Lord of the Flies on a global scale.
But for those of you who are in this situation, I know how brutal the constant, day in and day out struggle for parental dominance is with children who are fixated on getting their needs/wants met. Whether it is a boy wanting a parent to buy him a video game, or a girl wanting to go out and meet her friends on a school night, it can be like being locked in a boxing ring 24/7 with Mohammed Ali .
And whether their demands are for a Xbox console, or to get Testosterone shots, it is in these constant confrontations and arguments where a parent’s understanding of what is right, moral, and best for the child must take precedence over the child’s needs and wants. And it is here, on this battle field of family interaction that parents must rise to the occasion and embrace the fully responsibility that is parenting, that is being an adult. You must do it, not only for your own sanity, but for the child who stands on the abyss of permanently damaging their bodies and future with these irrevocable procedures.
These kids are not trapped in the wrong body. They are addicted to the emotional support they get from the technology (smart phones) applications, and LGBT support they get in their schools and peers.
Personally I don’t want or need your admiration. I want only for these new GD kids from going down this wretched, horrible path that I did.
And all parents and family members dealing with this must stand up against this epidemic of medical and social malpractice. It’s too late in this game to go have your nails done, times running out.
So, Who is in charge of your family?
In reply to your response Rene Jax, I totally agree with your point that kids shouldn’t be allowed to make the decisions or run the families. BUT your suggestion that this is happening because parents are lazy, unplugged and self-indulgent is misinformed and insulting.
Parents are fighting tooth and nail for these kids and the decision making power is being taken away from the parents. Schools are allowed to (and even required to) change teens names and genders on school records without informing parents, parents who refuse to use “preferred names or preferred pronouns” are labelled abusive by authorities, parents who refuse consent for the minor children to received hormones or sex-change operations are overridden by other family members seeking court decisions.
Your comments are patronising and damaging. Parents ARE out their fighting for their kids. We ARE seeking people to help us, doctors who will confirm that hormones are not the right way to go (but the doctors refuse to help because they don’t want to loose their licences). We are not out there getting our nails done while our children go off the rails. We are petitioning everyone we can think of to get support, to get laws changed, to find districts or cities that will not mutilate our kids.
If you could help these desperate parents get some changes going in the law, that would be great. Disparaging them and blaming parents who find themselves in their worst nightmares while their children are mutilated against their will is unhelpful.
The current epidemic of gender dysphoria seems correlated with the autism epidemic, and both likely have the same cause: Late parenting. People who have kids after age 40 are more likely to have kids with these problems. Sadly most gyn doctors don’t bother to tell this to women and our society celebrates late motherhood and fatherhood. Biologically we’re best equipped to have kids in our 20s but our modern society has engaged in a concerted effort to get people to delay parenting until their 30s because that serves the interests of corporations, more time to exploit young healthy workers before they start demanding maternity/paternity leave and the FAMLA. It’s genetics not environment usually and as you get older your chromosomes deteriorate.
I’m going to disagree with you wrt the autism epidemic. I suspect that the biggest contribution to autism rates doubling is that schools have been redesigned to be more extravert-friendly, especially requiring much more group work than before. In other words, schools are less accessible, and so kids who would have just been introverts before now need IEPs.
I’m going to really push back on this. The studies linking parental age and autism rates do not show a straightforward causality — certainly not one that could lead anyone to conclusions about deteriorating chromosomes, etc.
the strongest correlation in any study has been with older FATHERS specifically. And DNA mutations are believed to only explain a small fraction of their increased incidence of fathering autistic children. it’s just.as likely that men who become fathers later may be men with autistic traits themselves who marry later, etc., so these kids may just be a chip off the old block. More research into this is needed.
The relationship between mothers age and autism is even less clear cut. There is evidence that older moms have an increased chance of having a child with autism, but so do teenage moms. And again, women who have autism traits themselves might marry and have children later anyway.
And bottom line, older parents seem to have only a minimal impact in the overall prevalence of autism.
So this is kind of appeal to the supposedly “natural” age of childbearing is not terribly helpful, either to understanding why kids on the spectrum seem to gravitate toward transgenderism or why they are autistic in the first place.
Here’s a link for more info: https://www.spectrumnews.org/news/link-parental-age-autism-explained/
People have been having babies in their 40s for thousands of years. Lots of women who had marriage and babies in their teens and 20s were *still* married and had *more* babies in their 30s and 40s (apart from the ones who died in childbirth or something and dragged down the average-lifespan figures).
Spot on. Warm and fuzzy will do absolutely nothing to interrupt this trans phenom. Abuse, family dynamics, absent parents, etc.,……all solutions start at home.
Thank you for a great article, Carey. I can’t wait to read the next installment. Parents really need this information
Thanks! Awesome article!
Is 18 really old enough to make these decisions? There is still brain development into the early 20s, and this is also the age where people experiment with identity regardless. (In the ’90s it was sexual orientation. Life was so much simpler, then.)
Personally I would put the absolute minimum age for medical transition at at least 25, but even higher if age above that is related to the likelihood of regret. There will come a point where no matter how much older and wiser a person can get with increasing maturity, it’s not going to affect the likelihood of doing something stupid, at which point society just has to shrug our shoulders (after making sure people have the best information available, of course). 18 is, IMO, way too young for that. 35 or 40 might be old enough. In between, who knows?
That’s not a bad idea, I think. In the old days, didn’t they make people live as the opposite sex for a year or two before taking more drastic steps? Maybe the rule should be taking those two years starting at age 18.
Exactly…….that was the old protocol, as far back as the early/mid 70’s. However, as we all know….the brigade over time, decided that this kind of triage/trial process is ‘phobic’. As were the guidelines for prescribing the cocktail[s].
Ridiculous. A person of majority is of majority, full stop. Surgical transition, amongst MtF HSTS, can be delayed to 18, but hormonal transition can begin, with puberty blockers, at around 13, depending on the individual. It’s the hormones that do the work of transition and in world terms, only a tiny number of MtF HSTS have GRS. It’s not necessary to be passable.
I think the old ‘real life test’ was a good idea, certainly as far as AGPs are concerned, but good luck making it obligatory again; after all, it was the AGP TRAs who succeeded in getting it dropped. That battle has been fought and won (or lost.) And as for restricting access to hormones, I’d have thought USicans would already know what Prohibition does. I mean you did it twice already, and in both cases fostered massive increases in criminality and human suffering; do you really want to do it again? Because trust me there is a massive grey market in hormones already, with a fully functioning marketing branch.
All you will do is drive people into self-medication, probably using contraceptive pills (for MtF), with no controls or blood tests, indeed no support at all. — just exactly as they were doing until about ten years ago. That your desired outcome? Or what, sending huge numbers of parents and their kids to jail for breaking absurd, unenforcable laws — like you did with Volstead and still do with the risible ‘war on drugs’ which everyone knows was just Tricky Dicky’s way of getting at the anti-war hippies? You want an upsurge in theft and black marketing of hormones — contraceptives, mainly, which you want to be freely available to women? The market is AWASH with hormones. You really want the FBI investigating concerned parents? And if you do, how do you know they won’t investigate you?
I am against the ‘surgery express train’ and the forced ‘transing’ of children — but a balance must be arrived at. Prohibition NEVER works. The genie is out of the bottle now. Start looking at the rest of the world and adapt to the fact that the USA’s long suppression of transsexualism is history — which you are on the wrong side of. I know this because I have spent years studying the phenomenon outside the Anglo-Saxon West and I know what’s happening Read Blanchard, learn the facts — this is not monolithic and these ridiculous one size fits all solutions will not work.
Nobody, no doctor, no politician and no pharmacy has been “suppressing” transsexuals to go through with transition. The reason so many GD people in the past who went into therapy never got approved to go through with the SRS, was from the fact that they had other major psychopathology conditions going on , other than gender confusion. that they weren’t fit emotionally to make such a decision. Only a tiny fraction of people who cross sex live and cope with what life is like on the other side of the decision.
Medicine has taken centuries to reach the point that doctors are able to properly diagnose some of our medical problems.
Why in God’s name would you want thousands of young men and women to self diagnose and be surgically sterilized without being properly diagnosed for Anxiety, body dysmorphia, Suicide thinking, Depression, Agoraphobia, sexual trauma and abuse?
This genie is not out of the bottle, it is medical malpractice that is being driven by LGBT politics and social media and with no honest care for the patients. Inject, cut, chop and see ya, is all these Affirmative Doctors care about and is hidden in the rush to avoid the Twitter Pillory that comes with questioning.
Prohibition of minors getting their hands on dangerous mind and body altering drugs that they hope to alleviate their emotional confusion, is not the same as Heroine and Crystal meth. We control heart medications, blood pressure meds, cancer meds, and even high dose aspirin. It is done for the simple reason that people are often careless and all too often rush to pills and self medication for the wrong reasons. Look no farther than the over use of Antibiotics by people to treat the common cold.
There may be a grey market for these drugs, but that is where proper adult parenting comes in. Parents can’t just step aside and let their 12 year old kid and their peer group determine their own medical treatments.
If we go your route, let’s just give up all parental and social responsibility in favor of giving in to every whim and caprice the child has.
Better yet, but what you’re saying, let’s just give up on parenting all together and leave the infant in a dumpster to raise themselves,
“but even higher if age above that is related to the likelihood of regret. ”
Is this like when a 40-year-old virgin regrets not starting to date earlier even more than a 30-year-old virgin regrets not starting to date earlier?
It’s more like getting a tattoo in your twenties, then regretting it in your thirties, except more serious. I mean, there’s not much of an upper limit to losing your virginity, or lots of other experiences, for that matter (being pregnant *is* something you can run out of time earlier for, though not normally in your 20s).
I’m talking about things that are difficult or impossible to reverse.
Minimum age of 25 sounds like a good thing to me. My kid just went off T after injecting it for 18 months — based on NOTHING. What other non-FDA-approved drugs can you get just through “informed consent?” And my kid still can’t legally buy a beer. Malpractice, anyone?
What are the physical ramifications to your child? Mine is starting in two weeks, against our wishes, but … you know, ADULTIng starts at 18 (ugh)
Voice will break, face and body hair will grow, face and body acne, period will stop, the beginnings of infertility — affects brain chemistry and every cell in the body, but since there have been no clinical trials — who knows the impact on heart attack, stroke, cancer risk? And the mood swings have been vile. I wish you and yours strength, because this is criminal malpractice.
@Dave, I am a 48-year-old lesbian, and I am crying at the moment—crying—at reading your comment about what lengths women, specifically your daughter, are going to, to avoid being …women. In this day and age. It is most discouraging.
Thank you, Carey. I look forward to reading the rest. I was touched by the “spiritual triumph” comment as my DD is now 21, has been dealing with the “gender” stuff since the middle of high school (plus several other professionally diagnosed mental health issues) and … oddly …. has still not opted to go over to the student clinic or Planned Parenthood and start up on T.
I often feel like a big reason this hasn’t happened is because the kid is hearing my cautionary tales in her head. It is not a fun place to be, standing between the kid and what she thinks she wants, but … sigh. Somebody’s gotta do it. Lord knows the “community” and the med/psych/pharm industry don’t know/love this kid like I do, and won’t advise any caution with the body, mind, or finances, whatsoever.
(Oh, and praying. I do a lot of praying.)
The situation could change any day, but to me every month, every year, of brain maturation is a victory. A month, a year, closer to the time I can truly say the kid is launched as an adult, can think like an adult, and has to own her own decisions, for good or ill.
Anyway. I’m grateful for your writing and anticipate the coming installments. Be well.
Puzzled I’d like to hear more about your cautionary tales. I’m in the same boat mine is 18 and has agreed to wait until after college. Any discussion with her ‘triggers’her dysphoria evidently but I do try to throw facts at her about the dangers and feel this is my obligation as her parent. I never know if I’ve made an impact or just pushed her further away though.
Lhatt, I hear this same comment from so many parents, Your child is manipulating you with their claims of being triggered. They are leveraging their GD to control their relationship with you, to ensure they get what they want and to make damn certain you back off from being the adult in the family. As a child their brain is not developed and yours is. They can’t make informed decisions based on their brain development, YOU CAN
Stand up to them, show them pictures of what the real scars of a double mastectomy looks like, or of what a real 50 year old mtf looks like, It aint pretty. And make them read the real science of how 95% of kids grow out of this without any intervention.
Rene,
You’re right – it is important to be the adult in the family. The 18-year-old brain is far from mature. And manipulation is probably part of the equation. But it’s important to recognize that the distress of dysphoria can be very real – even if it arises only after ruminating with peers about gender identity. I also think you have to be careful with the heavy-handed approach. I’m particularly skeptical about the line “make them read the real science….” Good luck making an 18-year-old do just about anything. And you have to remember – an 18-year-old is a legal adult. If she gets too much pressure, she can just walk away. It happens every day. As frustrating and painful as it is for the parent, Lhatt’s approach makes a lot of sense. Occasionally and judiciously sharing information about the realities of transition, then backing off when the kid pushes back, is probably the only way to go for older adolescents and young adults.
Rene ift helps no one to lay the blame on lazy parenting. That is so simplistic it’s laughable. And as usual mostly mothers will be blamed for whatever ails ther kids. The truth is that this could happen ,and is happening, to kids from all different walks of life. The blame lays solely on the gender experts the doctors and the therapists. So for 18 years my kid never displayed gender dysphoria then after a period of isolation surrounded herself with a group that was deep into trans ideology. Boom! Kid is asking for medical intervention. I took her for help to 3 different therapists and they all affirmed . I fought for my kid with all my might. I refuse to pay for medical interventions but hormones are cheap. Now all that’s left is for me to just keep my kid close and loved and focused on the future. I really am so disgusted with all the “experts”. They are useless and clueless. I am not CSS a perfect mother. I’m sure there is plenty I did wrong but I am not to blame for this ideology that is wiping out young lesbians. There are too many reasons to mention why a young vulnerable person could get swept up in this. Autism, isolation, internalized homophobia, poor body image etc. etc. . The bottom line is the parents get blamed for accepting this ideology (called child abusers) or rejecting it (transphobic bigots child abusers). I let’s lay the blame where it belongs …clueless therapists that aren’t even taking the time to rule out much more probable causes for dysphoria and the medical professionals that are blindly medicalizing feelings.
Try telling an 18 or 19 year old kid anything! Ha! Especially if it’s the new edgiest thing. I loved and respected my parents but when I was that age I was going my own way. I was experimenting . This is all normal. What’s not normal is the medical and therapeutic industry medicalizing feelings!!!
I find myself in this ROGD hell with my 13 yr old daughter, as of this Tuesday night. She’s been out as a lesbian since 6th grade, and is now in 8th grade. She told her friends on Monday afternoon that she was a boy and to call her Oli, short for Oliver, and after asking who’s Oli, her friends snapped to attention and will now vehemently deny shes a girl, and anyone who doesn’t fall in line asap is transphobic.
Her immediate friend group of 4 kids- 3 girls and a boy, now have 2 trans kids, MtF and my daughter FtM, and 1 who’s not a girl but not a boy, and the 4th girl is a pan witch.
What I’ve found about the immediate push to transition once the word Trans is mentioned, truthfully has me terrified! Without any questions about any underlying issues, not what specifically makes them think they’re
a different gender, versus a severe case of body dysmorphia?
My daughter claims she’s felt this way since 5th grade- yet has never displayed any interest or indication of being male until this week. Yet, the time she claims she’s felt like a boy is exactly when her father decided to come back after 0 contact for 10 years, and then lied in court, claiming I kept her away (which isn’t true but is a very long story), and the judge, rather than have a hearing that would interrupt his lunch plans, ordered twice weekly phone calls. So my daughter had to be forced that same day with speaking to him, without a therapist present (as my lawyer, myself and her therapist insisted on!) She seemed to be adjusting to the calls ok, and after her beloved therapist stopped private practice, we found another one- one who would see a 10/11 yr old. My daughter hated her, but since she was seemingly adjusted, begged to stop.
Middle school brought anxiety, which seemed slight, and manageable with the schools guidance counselor.
In the past 3 years my daughter has grown 7 inches and went from a kids size 10-12, to a womans size 10. and from flat to a full C cup (this was more rapid than the height). Other than annoyance that shes bigger than her cousin, there’s been nothing to indicate that she was unhappy about her breasts or his, other than calling herself fat one day this school year, because she was the “fat” girl in gym class.
Based on her PowerPoint she and her friend made to “prove” to me shes a boy- she doesn’t like her big breasts, wished they were smaller, doesn’t like having full hips, and thinks her hands are too small. She pulled GD definitions off of Google, as ‘proof’.
She’s now been going overboard on trying to be more like a boy- but forgets it a times and acts like she used to. So it’s taking real effort to keep the persona up.
I’m now the evil witch because I refused to snap to and call her by Oli and as he/him.
Apparently several teachers at her school have already agreed to this, as well as her friends. So she’s getting positive reinforcement from those who know nothing about her other underlying issues, and who have never asked what makes her feel she’s a male. And her friends have labeled me as transphobic and been quite rude and profane about.
Since she was on a previous punishment for not doing any homework the weekend before when she ran for Homecoming Queen, and as a result had 3 Fs, I went thru her internet browser history and discovered that she’s online at night when I thought we were both sleeping. Up until Saturday night, October 26, there was absolutely no searche, videos, etc on anything related to FtM transition, male hair cuts, Nothing! She took a Buzzfeed Quiz, ‘Am I Trans’, Saturday night at a sleepover, and is now convinced she is.
My cousin, who works with LGBTQ + Collge kids, was the first to point out the Rapid onset GD, and said she fits the description of it to a T. But this doesn’t make me feel better.
I feel like I’m drowning in all of this and terrified my daughter is going to be swept up in this “trending trans” phenomenon (my cousin’s term)that seems to be prevalent in young teen girls right now.
I’ve searched for a support group where I live but only found one for the parents of teens in transition.
Go to parentsofrogdkids.com. There are groups throughout the country. Ours has been meeting for two years.
i went through 4 years of gender transition to become a man and have recently decided to go back on my decision, and detransition back to being a woman. ive been doing a lot of soul searching about why i may have made this decision in the first place (in my early 20s) and i think the sort of rapid body dysphoria and turbulent life situation id been going through may also be similar to your daughter. it’s very difficult to have such a rapid change happen to your body (you must know, as you pointed it out specifically here) and she probably is struggling a lot with fitting a new image as a woman, especially if her body is now being sexualized in general because of her breasts and stuff. a lot of GD can also be looked at as misdirected generalized body dysmorphia. im not sure how to talk a teen out of thinking that dysmorphia is dysphoria especially with a supportive friends group, but as someone who went through this I’d advise you to be supportive in adopting your kids chosen name so they dont feel alienated from you and as if you’re working against them. instead, try showing that you care EXTRA by being proactive in finding them more therapy and counselling that may present them with alternative solutions. in their heart your kid knows whats going on, she may be acting out because she’s feeling isolated, ugly, or lost in her life. since it is trendy right now, seeking solace in gender transition can be easy, but when it starts to go too far, she’ll know. it’s only at that point that you’ll either be someone she will turn to for help, or maybe not. honestly, good luck! if you want to talk more to someone who went through gender transition feel free to contact me at kerukeru666@gmail.com
My 15 year old daughter started identifying as trans at 13. Most accounts of ROGD that I read of here involve girls that come out as lesbian prior to coming out as trans, however my daughter is attracted to boys and claims to be a “gay boy”. At only 15, she hasn’t had any serious relationships, so I’m hoping that as she matures and her relationship needs develop, the she will learn to embrace her femininity and her womanhood. She is feminine, and doesn’t really even try to pass as a boy as far as her mannerisms and her dress. I did read an article here a couple years ago or so about a young lady who was heterosexual but identified as trans. She eventually detransitioned. Are there any other experiences anyone would share here regarding daughters that are heterosexual that take on trans-identification?
When a bunch of us parents met as a nation-wide group, we discovered that any of our daughters who were “in a relationship” were with another trans-identified female. That is, they are two young females in a lesbian relationship — but they “identify as gay boys”. Of course, you can find exceptions to this — but living the fantasy of being young gay boys seems high on the list for a lot of our daughters. And instead of mental health support, which is obviously desperately needed, you will get nothing but demands for affirmation of their “gay maleness”.
It would be great if that could happen. I just don’t understand how or why these drugs and surgeries are being pushed on children who are considered too young to vote, smoke, drink, get a tattoo, serve in the military, or even drive a car. Most jurisdictions won’t even let these kids exclude a parent from their lives during a normal custody battle, but throw in the transgender word, and poof, everyone seems to lose common sense and push transitioning and radical surgical procedures and a lifetime of drug dependency.
Rob have to say I agree with Rene on this. Also I’m not sure that just because non Western countries have high populations of transsexuals that that is a good thing or implies that those societies are more accepting. I believe Thailand raised its age for medical intervention after gay right activists raised concerns. Also all the changes to how we are now treating gender dysphoria were caused by bullying,scare mongering and unproven ideaologies by trans activists not by evidence based science . If a child has truly struggled w severe documented dysphoria for years than maybe hormonal intervention at 16 is reasonable. I do think that compromises need to be found but this train is going so fast that it’s just a free for all. It’s a recipe for disaster. Being accepting of trans people is different from glorifying and celebrating transsexualism which is currently what oursociety is doing. The narrative is very one sided and we have all seen how people who urge caution or detransitioners are vilified and the voices being shut down.
I thought this article was great…where is the rest of the series?
not written yet maybe
Is anyone else here wondering if parents will start turning to puberty blockers for other reasons too?
Like sure blockers are a way for children born with penises to not have facial hair growth become too stubborn for lasers to fix before they’re legally old enough to transition.
But in some ethnic groups (like mine) even children born with vaginas often get significant facial hair growth at puberty (the sex difference here is that we get beard and mustache growth and our brothers get *lots more* beard and mustache growth).
If I had blockers when this shit started, then maybe the laser hair removal I had once I was old enough for lasers could have worked fully? If I never had a face that kept pushing out mustache and beard hair (and never had the parents who planted this shit on my face also out me about it) maybe the harassment and isolation ruining the best years of social-skill learning wouldn’t have happened?
Anyway, some other people come from cultures (unlike mine) so paranoid about premarital pregnancy that they marry off girls at puberty. So, postponing one’s daughter’s 1st period until 20something could be a way for immigrants from these cultures to obey both the law in the new country (“don’t make her marry years before adulthood!”) and obey their own strict parents in the old country (“don’t leave her unmarried so long after she can get pregnant!”).
3rd case: Ever heard a parent be all “my little girl’s growing up too fast!!!”? I once saw someone ask how many sports she’d have to sign up her daughter for in order to postpone periods. How good would blockers look to that mother, and to other parents who don’t feel ready yet?
Can someone please direct me to or post the links for the rest of this series? and is there a contact page or email for the author, Carey Callahan?
I would also be interested in the links for the series.
Disappointed that this series never seemed to have materialized as promised. So many parents are in uncharted waters without a map or a paddle.