4thWaveNow was founded in 2015 by Denise, the mother of a teenage girl who suddenly announced she was a trans man after a few weeks of total immersion in YouTube transition vlogs and other trans-oriented social media. Denise’s daughter Chiara has since desisted from identifying as transgender and in 2019 cofounded an organization for desisted/detransitioned women, the Pique Resilience Project.
4thWaveNow founder Denise and friends.
In early 2015, after much research and fruitless searching for an alternative online viewpoint, Denise began writing about her deepening skepticism of the ever-accelerating medical and media fascination with the phenomenon of “transgender children.”
4thWaveNow has now expanded to feature not only Denise’s writing, but that of other parents, formerly trans-identified people, and others with professional expertise and experience with young people questioning their gender identity.
Readers, please introduce yourselves and feel welcome here.
From the founder:
I created this site because mine is a viewpoint that is seldom publicly heard: that of a left-leaning parent who is critical of the dominant paradigm regarding transgender politics and treatment. My primary concern is children, teens, and people in their early 20s, particularly girls who are contemplating medical transition. While I may disagree with their views, I do understand that consenting adults have the right to do what they choose with their own bodies and minds.
Online, I have been accused of being “unsupportive,” even abusive, simply for daring to question whether lifelong medical treatment–injections and plastic surgeries–is the answer for every young person who has gender dysphoria. In my world, caring about, listening to, and lovingly parenting a child or young adult is not necessarily a synonym for unexamined “support” for everything the child says or wants. In fact, one of the main jobs in parenting a teen is, not coercion, but the offering of alternatives; discussing, and sometimes disagreeing.
It is my contention that the medical and psychological establishments are letting us all down in their rush to diagnose young people as “transgender,” then to give the message that medical treatment is the answer. Much of my writing now and in the future will focus on the adults who are encouraging so many young people to pursue extreme treatments. And I do consider hormones and surgery extreme treatment, if there is any possibility that something less drastic might be a solution.
At4thWaveNow, we are interested in hearing from parents, family members, concerned professionals, and allies from across the political spectrum. However, we are not in accord with conservative, religious-fundamentalist views about sexuality. We are strong supporters of gay, lesbian, and bisexual people.
Please read blog posts and articles carefully before asking questions or commenting, and check our our FAQs for answers to commonly asked questions.
I agree that challenging them with responsibilities can be very helpful. It will help them to get out of themselves and start putting all that energy about whether they are a girl or a boy into something positive. I still think the internet is a huge part though and while I am not foolish enough to think I could have completely blocked it, I absolutely took over and took control to the highest level of my ability. That did make a difference.
I totally agree…It is a VERY EVIL trend. Do whatever you think is necessary to save your child. Out children are all different and will respond to different methods. I pray for everyone on this site. My daughter recognises she got sucked into this. I was fortunate but what little time I spent in that nightmare is more than I wish ANYONE. My thoughts and prayers with Everyone here.
Hi Friends, my husband and I have made a commitment to ‘choosing our battles’, in other words, yes you can bleach your short hair, yes you can change schools, yes you can go to The Queer Ball, but No, you are not a boy, and No we will not use a boy name for you, and until you are 18 you need an open mind to look at how life changes and gender and sexuality are fluid until your early 20’s, and that we don’t believe it is your destiny to be ‘trans’ and we will continue to educate you on why this is our belief.
Our daughter turned 14 this week, and we have had nearly a year of this….it has lessened slightly and confusingly…she wore floral leggings and an MTV cropped t- shirt to go skating, and still loves netball, and doesn’t want to play traditional boys sports….I think it would be emotionally easier if she just picked a side! But this is in essence the nature of the beast. Our daughters are confused and disillusioned with their womanhood. We can get through this, we just need more exposure on the benefit of not being ‘trans’ arhhhhhhhhhh!
This isn’t meant to be a mean comment against you in particular, but I feel I have to say something considering how frequently this attitude seems to pop up here…
Please don’t equate ‘doing girly things’ with being a girl. It’s things like that that have led to lots of teenage girls identifying as trans. There’s a difference between being disillusioned with being female and being disillusioned with the societal expectations of womanhood. Femininity isn’t ‘fun’, especially not for teenage girls, of course she would be disillusioned with it.
And, imho, it’s totally and completely normal for teenage same-sex attracted girls, if your daughter is one, to want to try out boys’ clothes, hairstyles, etc., while still wanting to wear feminine clothes some of the time. This is just based on observation of my friends and myself. Let her be.
Lastly, I hope that if one day your daughter tells you she’s a lesbian, you won’t tell her she’s probably still into men.
Lily, as you don’t know me or my daughter, have not been in my house for the past 14 years, nor experienced life in my family, I really don’t believe you have the right to comment. This is a parent support group, not a ‘ verbally insult’ parents group. Just to let you know my daughter told me she was pan- sexual! Look it up!
They don’t know what they are doing at that age. Perhaps you can find an environment for her where the queer and trans is not the thing. Queer is a steppingstone to trans. Good luck! I don’t know what to tell people on the pronoun thing. I personally would not do it. It sets up a battle but it enables the delusional. And we have rights too. What does it do to us?
I agree. I would not bow into the pronoun thing either. We do have rights and in my house I am the parent. I think it is dangerous to add lufe to the delusion.
It sounds like you have some hope. My daughter went through this trend but is out now. Hee hair still short but I can live with that. I never caved to any idea that confirmed her outrageous idea that she was a boy. I am thankful she now realizes she got sucked in to the idea sumply because she is not a girly girl (used to be called a tomboy). I continue to pray for all the parents on this site. Don’t give in and don’t give up.
We have not changed pronouns either… But I feel lucky, my daughter has not pushed back at all. I told her I wanted her to slow down and just enjoy being a teen- dress how she feels comfortable, keep her hair however she likes it (currently super short) and not worry about pronouns and gender identity. I told her that all my research showed that she would likely change her mind and while she has our love and support if these feelings continue into adulthood, I wasn’t comfortable with permanent changes as a teen, especially considering how suddenly the feelings came on. She seemed understanding of that.
I’ve changed my name from georgiesmum to notyourdestiny.
Yes, my daughter and I have that understanding, well at least that’s what she tells me! I do worry that she tells me what I want to hear, but still it does men she respects my wishes at home, which makes me wonder how ‘in to this’ she really is. She is in a friendship network of all types in the queer rainbow. I told her I was concerned that this may push her towards trans, but she disagreed…sometimes the immaturity really how’s through, sometimes you just feel like grabbing them by the shoulders and shaking the stupidly out of them! But we can’t, we have to ride through it.
My husband told me that my daughter always holds his hand if they are together, which makes me believe there is something else going on, some sort of insecurity …..I told my daughter again, that while she is a child, not an adult, I will be the mother I am meant to be, and guide her in the direction I feel is right! Sending strength and love. Xx
Just discovered she has set up a Facebook account as a boy, after she promised me she wouldn’t. Her father really lost his cool and was yelling at her over the phone. She has promised to fix up Facebook, but we are just sick of the lies, not the fact that she is going through this…
Take away her phone and computer– seriously. If your child had a heroin habit, would you be the supplier? We tried this and all hell broke loose. So, what can I say? Perhaps a lovely trip away from all social media? To a land of people that don’t see her as the strange labels she is trying on, but as a young teenage girl? I think that land is called either Somewhere-In-The-Second-Or-Third-World, or First-World-Sans-Internet.
I completely agree! I took both away and I think I started with two weeks. She exploded, it was NOT pretty and quite frankly was even scary. Be prepared cor that. I decided to use that in my favor and in the end I wound up adding two affitional weeks. It made a a Huge difference. Then I went through her phone and got a better udea of how far she was into it. Our counselor mentioned to me that breaking a habit takes at least 21 days. In the end I had them both for 30 days and I saw a difference. She started entertaining herself drawing and I also got her involved on a swim team and diving lessons. She enjoyed that. Anything was better than letting her have contact with her “support group”. It was tough but it broke the tip of the iceberg and I started winning my daughter back.
Canada is leading the way. https://youtu.be/zp7tCUMVFYo
Wow- what a shocking piece of legislation. Where are our leaders in the U.S. (in the political realm and medical realm) that see how very wrong this all is and will take a stand? I stand with PATE and Dr. Peterson. And I think when it comes to defining adulthood and medicalizing gender changes, perhaps age 30 would make a lot more sense.
Just wanted to let you all know that user ‘Lily’ has taken it upon themselves to not be in line with this website, and should be removed. She has offended me and made me feel that this blog is no longer my safe place….
Advice…..my daughter whom I joined this blog about, has started a new school and has a new good friend. At school he presents as a boy ( born male) but on weekends he becomes his alter ego as a female. His parents do not know he does this…..another confused teen! Do the parents have a right to know?
Hang in there Notyourdestiny. I don’t know who Lilly might be or anyone else on this site. Yes, Lilly– this is a support site for parents and professionals not just passively going along with this harmful trend– while trying to prevent their children from making terrible decisions. I did appreciate Lilly’s past post on enlightening us parents to all the very many identities being promoted on the Internet. If you create an identity or a theory, they will come. As for the friend she hangs out with on weekends, I would want to know as a parent. I would hope his parents don’t over-react. I do think Cosplay is pretty typical for teens but for some of them it might lead to gender confusion.
Lilly brought up a valid point about why some girls decide they must be boys: If they get the message that some behaviors are “girlie” that must mean their gender nonconformity = transgender. Gender nonconformity/defiance of gender norms is something to be supported. This IS a safe place for parents. However, no one should expect that nothing they say or believe ever goes unchallenged. That is exactly the sort of thought policing coming from trans activists. Clearly abusive comments are very different from reasonable comments that offer a different point of view. (Some trans activist comments are even allowed to come through at times, sparingly, to give an opportunity for other commenters to retort.) 4thWaveNow is a support network for trans-skeptical parents no matter their viewpoint. However, it is not meant to be a “safe space” where no challenging comments are allowed to avoid “triggering”.
I’m sad that Liily was offended and left the blog. I felt she was helpful, open and non judgemental. I’ve found this blog a real support and source of information at a difficult time and I would hate it to become a place where people fall out with each other.
Yes, come back Lilly– we need your perspective.
Notyourdestiny, I think you may be misunderstanding Lily. For one, although she did reply to your post, she was careful to state that she was not replying to you in particular. Secondly, she has a valid point: if a girl claims to be a boy because she hates stereotypical femininity, then allow her to dress as she chooses, wear her hair as she chooses, and pursue the interests the prefers, even if they aren’t stereotypically “feminine.” Allowing a girl to be a “masculine” girl, or whatever version of girl she chooses, just might allow her to back off of being trans.
This is my hope for my own daughter, who hates dresses, makeup, and expectations that her contribution to society include being quiet, apologetic, passive and sexually available to males. I am encouraging her to buck stereotypes, and letting her be the type of person she wants to be, while every now and then throwing in a gentle reminder that she can never actually change her sex.
In your defense, notyourdestiny, I didn’t see evidence that you are trying to get your daughter to buy into stereotypical femininity, so on the other hand I’m not sure why Lily chose your comment to respond to.
I like seeing comments here from both of you, and hope that you both will continue to contribute.
In reply to 4thwavenow and Skepticalmom, Yes– how did we get to this point? When I was a teenager in ancient times, it was OK to be a girly-girl, a tomboy, a granola type, a preppy type, but no one ever thought there was one way to be a boy or a girl. Feminine girls can actually like other girls. Girls that have short hair and that are jocks, can actually be attracted to boys (and likewise). These micro identities are so very harmful. There are many ways to be a girl or a boy. It is not your “gender identity”. Come back Lilly, we need your perspective and a wide perspective. I would welcome the perspectives of the Millennials.
My daughter, who has been admitted to hospital on two separate occasions suffering from Anorexia, came out as transgender on her second inpatient admission. she has been influenced by social media and I am aware of a couple of other patients at the hospital in the same situation. the hospital have referred her to the Gender identity service. the hospital have accepted my daughter’s self diagnoses without question hence the referral and I was devastated at how quickly they seemed to push her along this path. she I’ll be 18 in a couple of months. I do not belive my daughter is transgender. I am aware that the brain is not fully developed until age 25. would it be more prudent to have an age limit on the issuing of cross sex hormones/gender reassignment treatment?
You are in a similar situation to us, Polly. Is your daughter getting any ongoing therapy for her mental health issues? Could you find a clinical psychologist who could help her – one who takes a more holistic view of the range of difficulties she is struggling with? Our goal with our DD is to slow things down as far as possible, get her help for her anxiety/depression, make sure she knows we love her unconditionally, so that by the time any irreversible decisions are to be made she has at least a fighting chance of making a rational one (which is simply not possible at the moment). We are hoping the waiting list for the GID clinic stays long. She is also getting assessed for high functioning autism/Asbergers – is this something that your daughter might have too? I have read that people with autism may be vulnerable to anorexia as well as anxiety etc, and it can be missed in girls who are adept at masking their difficulties. You can see how a profound sense of not fitting in could lead someone to think they were born in the wrong body. Best of luck and good wishes to you and your family.
So sorry Polly that you and your daughter are dealing with both of these terrible issues. If she was hospitalised with anorexia then she has serious mental health problems and believing she is transgender may very well be a symptom of this. Anorexia sufferers have much in common with those with gender issues. As with all our children the mental health issues must be dealt with first. However, I am led to believe that in the UK at least the GIDS take a holistic approach and make no assumptions, rather they undertake their own assessment over a prolonged period. It sounds like you live in the UK, if so then I believe your daughter will have been referred due to her thoughts about being transgender by clinicians without expertise and that the GIDS team will undertake the assessment. My daughter is attending the Tavistock clinic for children and we have been reassured of this. Whilst I have no direct experience of the adult services I understand they work on much the same lines and that outcomes for people attending both services are varied with by no means all patients ending up with irreversible physical ‘treatments’. They are I understand particularly cautious with patients with serious mental illness and gender issues
I would also like to add that, although at 18 your daughter has to give consent clinicians can share information with you, you most certainly can share information with them and they do have to give it consideration. In other words you can and should let them know your concerns even if they are unable to share with you what your daughter discussed with them
The very best of luck
Don’t worry, I’ve given in, i cant fight anymore. You all say lily wasn’t personal then why did she add that “when she tells you she’s a lesbian, I’ll say don’t be silly – you still like boys!” It was in reply to MY post, not a general comment.
Come back Lilly, I’m gone.
Please don’t leave, you need support and people on here are best placed to provide it. This is a very emotive topic and people are bound to get upset and maybe say things in a way they do not mean. I can tell you are a loving parent with genuine concerns for the best for your child. Lily is a young person with experience we can all learn from. Our views are likely to be a little different but we share the most important core belief that our children are being harmed by this media frenzy.
Please come back Notypurdestiny! I understand how sensitive and personal this can be. It is a horrible thing to lose your child. We need your perspective and we need Lilly too.
I’m sorry for offending you, notyourdestiny. I admit I got carried away. While my overall message was intended to the general audience, my ending comment was directed solely at your statement ‘sexuality [is] fluid until your early 20’s’. Nobody else on here has ever expressed that sort of statement but you, and frankly as a lesbian I find it offensive. Maybe you meant it with a different meaning than I’m interpreting it, but I’ve seen a lot of people using ‘sexuality is fluid’ to mean ‘lesbians like men’. I’m not trying to fight you, this isn’t tumblr.
The specific part of your comment that inspired my overall post was ‘it has lessened slightly and confusingly…she wore floral leggings and an MTV cropped t- shirt to go skating, and still loves netball, and doesn’t want to play traditional boys sports’. This sort of sentiment has been expressed by other posters previously. While it sounds like her desire to wear boys’ clothes has lessened, I don’t see how that’s relevant to her feelings about being trans, especially considering how pervasive ideas like ‘let trans boys be feminine’ and ‘it’s okay to be a trans boy and want to wear dresses’ are on places like tumblr. I’m assuming you want her to be comfortable being a woman, not just comfortable wearing women’s clothing. (Also, goodness, leggings and a crop top to go skating? Wasn’t she freezing?)
Anyway, I genuinely don’t mean to hurt anyone’s feelings. I’d also like to point out that the description of this blog is ‘A community of parents & friends skeptical of the “transgender child/teen” trend’, and I would hope that ‘friends’ would include a teenage girl with many, many friends and acquaintances who’ve announced they’re trans. If people would truly like me to leave, I’ll go. I know everyone here means well and cares very much about their kids, but sometimes I feel you misunderstand the teenage-”queer”-tumble.hell.com experience. Which is reasonable, since you’re not 15, but I want to clear up some of those misunderstandings.
Glad you’re here.
I have started a blog about legal aspects of the trans phenomenon. I am using the Privacy Now v. U.S. Board of Education case as a starting point, but it will be wide ranging. Here is my first blog entry: http://genderlaw.blogspot.com/
Thanks for letting us know about this important new resource!
We need your perspective Lilly. We parents are not on tumblr. Yes, my understanding of sexuality being fluid is the ability to like men and women. The Internet has created a lot of what I would term, artificial identities, and we need you to help us understand the world in which our daughters are visiting. Your statement about trans boy wearing dresses just demonstrates to me what a warped, artificial, world our daughters have stumbled into. Hey- I am old and a bit fixed in my ideas. Please don’t make snarky remarks about the skating outfit. What notypurdestiny was saying (I think) was that her daughter was dressing in a “cute” teenage girl way and for my thinking (and perhaps her) then how the heck could her cute teen also be pulled into the trans thing? We need both of you here. Thanks for coming back.
I forgot that in the rest of the world ‘skating’ means something other than ice skating, so it just made me a bit confused.
The ‘trans boys can be feminine’ thing is definitely…strange. It’s always been a sort of background idea, but now that the idea of ‘gay trans boys’ has become more prominent, it’s much more visible. They can get very defensive. People can also get very angry if anyone suggests that trans people want to pass as their preferred gender. For example, I just searched ‘trans boy’ on tumblr and I found a picture of a person with a buzz cut, obviously done eyebrows, and lipstick, and with the caption ‘not all trans guys care about passing ✨ we can wear makeup and our identities are still perfectly valid’. That sentiment is definitely not uncommon at all.
There’s also a difference between ‘feminine girl’ and ‘feminine gay boy’ looks, and same with ‘lesbian’ and ‘straight guy’. The trans tags are filled with people with obvious makeup, flannel shirts, dyed undercuts, dresses, weird piercings, and giant glasses that you basically never see cis guys of any type with.
This is what I find the hardest to wrap my brain around. This seems to be sum up my child …a feminine trans boy. I ask myself daily, what does it mean to be born as a girl but “feel” like a boy but still like and gravitate to what society has deemed as “girly”? My child still goes to the make-up section immediately upon entering the store and we have lengthy conversations about clothes, hair, shoes. The type of things that my son and pretty much every other male in my life has absolutely no interest in discussing. I guess I have a hard time understanding gender as a feeling and not just a fact. I’m all for pushing society norms, girls wouldn’t be wearing pants and having careers if we didn’t , but being biologically a girl that wants to be referred to as a boy that presents as a girl…I just can’t get it and have to admit this is where it feels like a fad to me. I’m actually trying to understand where they are coming from because understanding it to me is important to being able to connect and help, one way or another, but the logic of it is lost on me and for the record, anyone I have confided in also has the same struggle. It sounds like to me that they just want to be someone different and that this is their way of expressing it.
I don’t get this either. It’s a new thing. For most of the time that ‘trans man’ as an identity has existed, trans men…dressed like men! Which seems logical to me. Here’s a picture of someone who was basically the first gay trans man, Lou Sullivan: https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Em1PqYgeu8k/V7Mht33mbvI/AAAAAAAADUc/YI6aBsDA53MpAVt634dl8nkHSSByv1BWACLcB/s400/LSullivan.JPG. You won’t find very many people who look like that on a ‘trans mlm’ page. (‘mlm’ stands for ‘men who like men’, and it’s become a Thing in tumblr lgbt discourse).
On that note, I’d like to give you two pages of photos to compare. One of them is ‘fuckyeahftms’, which is sort of the original trans guy tumblr, started when most trans guys were into women. http://fuckyeahftms.tumblr.com/archive/filter-by/photo Warning for top surgery scars. The other is ‘trans-mlm’. http://trans-mlm.tumblr.com/archive/filter-by/photo. Scroll down to March. There’s…clearly a big difference in presentation.
Why is this a thing? I have no idea. In an earlier post here I said my hypothesis is that this is the last place a straight teenage girl can pretend to not be a straight teenage girl and thus be accepted in the one place it’s okay to be weird and female on the internet, but that could be totally off base.
I know I am late to comment on this but Lily, thank you for coming back. My girlfriend’s little son is caught up in a situation where one of his moms believe he is trans and changed his identity in school (kindergarten). So, we still have some distance from the teen years and things are changing so rapidly. I devour the posts here to stay involved with the trends. Thank you.
Hi scaredmum, thank you for responding to me, my daughter is getting help from the eating disorder service for her Anorexia and she is undergoing assessments at the Gid service. I have asked them to “put the breaks” on and they do seem to be listening to my views. I have also discussed the autistic spectrum with them as this may be an issue and one of the questionnaires they asked me to complete was specifically around autism. I’m also considering alternative therapies but after two lengthy hospital stays where she had counselling as an inpatient she’s reluctant at the moment but I’m not ruling it out for the future. I do find it such a worrying and frightening time as in my heart of hearts I know she isn’t transgender. best wishes to you and your family
This is EXACTLY what my child is doing/acting like. I completely identify with what you are saying. She hasn’t asked for anything drastic, such as medical transition, but to consider herself a boy yet still play with Littlest Pet Shop animals and Barbies (at 14 years old), want to watch mermaid shows, and wear tight, high-waisted hipster jeans (that show off her gorgeous figure) and pink shoes, confuses me to no end! I take one day at a time. I try not to criticize, push, or notice the days at a long stretch that she wears big sweatshirts in hot weather, cares nothing about bad body odor, acne, greasy hair. She has completely refused to wear her little stud earrings she picked out 6 months ago, or the expensive eye palettes she begged for at Christmas. Another interesting thing: she will wear flip flops, a short sleeved tshirt, and shorts at home but completely covers every inch of her body at school. It’s as
If she has to keep up the trans boy persona at school to save face, but becomes natural and easy at home.
I’m feeling completely overwhelmed and terrified by all this. This is a whole other world that seems unreal to me but is obviously real to those inhabiting it. There must be some generation gap here. I had so much to do as a teenager – school, homework, sports, music, friends – I can’t imagine finding the time to obsess to this degree. We all thought we were too fat and/or ugly. I worried that my hair was too curly. I felt I might be different from everyone else, then I realised everyone thought that. We ARE all different.
My daughter started cutting after she discovered it was a ‘thing’ – she was really into a musician Emilie Autumn who famously self-harmed and her cutting goes back to the exact time she went to one of her gigs.
When I asked her why she hadn’t told me about her gender dysphoria until recently (years after she identified as gender dysphoric), she said she didn’t realise it was a ‘thing’ but once she did, she knew it was what she ‘had’. There seems to be a strong need to belong to a particular group, even if it’s a ‘virtual’ group, which is perfectly understandable.
Maybe my daughter does need to transition in order to be happy. But maybe given time and support she could learn to accept and love the body she was born with or at least make a much more considered decision. Unfortunately the Online Gender GP will take her money and help her in her rush to go through the physical process. I agree with the post that suggested transition should be postponed until 25. Hard as this for people who desperately wish to transition, it would no doubt give others time to explore their feelings more thoroughly.
Helen Webberley, the doctor behind the UK website Gender GP, has been in the news recently. The BBC reported last week that one of the other sites she manages has had its registration suspended by the Care Quality Commission.
The Gender GP site comes under a different authority, Healthcare Inspectorate Wales, as does Webberley’s My Web Doctor site. At the time of the BBC report, neither of those were registered, though applications were said to have been made.
I note that My Web Doctor has been online for at least two years. The Gender GP site went online at some point early last year.
Thank you so much for that information; I shall look further into this. I had only got as far as checking that HW is registered with the BMC. My daughter had her first session with an ‘expert’ counsellor on the phone this week while I was at work. Half an hour on the phone to confirm that there should be no problems going ahead with hormone treatment. Sadly, my daughter is so desperate to get the transition started that I don’t think anything will put her off just now.
There is some more info on Webberley in this 4thWaveNow post. Scroll down to just past the first image to find the relevant paragraphs.
There is a comment on Gender GP here, by a young ‘transman’ who explains the reasons why, after looking into Webberley’s service, she decided not to use it. It may resonate with your daughter more in that the poster is a ‘transman’ of her own generation.
I do not know whether you are the same as the person in a similar situation who posted in February under a rather similar screen name. But if you are not, you might want to see the comment I left then.
To reiterate part of what I said in that comment: if your daughter is determined to take testosterone, then she needs to take on board the NHS advice to arrange proper face-to-face medical check ups to monitor her health and check for bad reactions.
I am also overwhelmed and terrified by this. My son is turning 25 this month…it doesn’t get less painful, but society supports it even more at his age. So very sad. Docs in the US have him on female hormones. He is not mentally stable but that doesn’t matter to them. The mind control is unreal, yet very real.
I am sorry.The stuff that Lilly is talking about is only one thread of the transgender movement– the role playing and online sites that cater to different identities. There are other people that find transgenderism appealing for various reasons. Some have mental health problems, some are gay, etc.
I would do what was suggested upstream. If you know who is treating or offering treatment to your adult child, then they won’t divulge any information to you. But you can contact them (perhaps send recorded delivery) and make clear your concerns – e.g. other mental health problems that they haven’t told the doctor about, autism diagnosis etc, and the fact that anyone aged 18 – 25 ish is still maturing . The doctor can ignore it, but may take it onto account – it is worth a try.
I would also remind them of their duty of care (which they ignore at their peril). It would seem reasonable to anyone, particularly a professional regulator or court, that the very least a doctor should do is follow guidance for cosmetic procedures (this is from the GMC regulator for UK doctors):
“We’ve issued new guidance which sets out the standards we expect from doctors who provide cosmetic interventions. The guidance came into force on 1 June 2016 and applies to all doctors who carry out both surgical (such as breast augmentation) and non-surgical procedures (such as dermal fillers).
The guidance makes clear the ethical obligations doctors have towards patients and the standards of care they need to provide. It says that doctors must:
market their services responsibly
seek a patient’s consent themselves rather than delegate this to somebody else
give patients all the time and information they need so that they can make a voluntary and informed decision about whether to go ahead
take particular care when considering requests for interventions on children and young people
consider patients’ vulnerabilities and psychological needs when making decisions with them about treatment options”
Of course we are talking here about potentially damaging and long lasting medical interventions so the duty of care should be much, much higher.
CM- I cannot imagine a transition being the way to go. In most cases, I don’t think it will solve the underlying mental disturbance. For me, it is a gazillion shades of gray wrong to destroy your body.
LW- Lilly has stepped into being our Ambassador to Outer Space.
Lilly- you do understand that none of this is real? None of these identities are real?
Someone on this site calls herself mythoughtsformme. Exactly. Our thoughts do form us. The more role-playing and being immersed in a fantasy world your child is, the more she will lose herself and you will lose her. Yank the plug on her feed. If she decided she was a unicorn, would you allow her to have surgery to install a horn?
Goodness, where did I say anything was ‘real’ or ‘not real’? It is a fact that people calling themselves trans men have existed for several decades. It is a fact that these people have overwhelmingly dressed in the way men do up until recently. It is a fact that there are now a significant number of people calling themselves trans men who dress in a very feminine manner. All of these are very real actions; I may not know what other people are feeling, but I can describe what they’re doing.
Anyway some teenage girls do think they’re animals, they’re called ‘otherkin’, and a lot of them are also trans.
I found this article about transgender clinics in the UK. Dr James Barret is given so little page space to talk about the dangers of treat everyone quickly and yet he is obviously well placed to comment in more detail :
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/jul/11/transgender-nhs-doctor-prescribing-sex-hormones-children-uk
I came here by a very roundabout route. I’ve been a Marxist since I was 14 so oppression is my business. I tried for years to be sympathetic and understand transgender and despite mounting unanswered questions and cognitive insults, convinced myself that I must just be missing something. These included the question ‘transwomen want to be treated like women, but they’re also feminists who don’t like the way women are treated, so what do they want?’ (asking which has a similar effect to two nuclear launch keys being turned simultaneously). Then there was when one of the famous trans writers (I can’t remember whether it was Feinberg, Borstein or Halberstam) claimed all women bodybuilders are trans and I was like NO YOU SHALL NOT HAVE THEM. I started to think the radical feminists were right (remain calm – it had to happen eventually) and ‘gender zero’ was a better goal than ‘gender infinite’. The unreality of ‘assigned at birth’ tipped me further, but then I saw the BBC documentary about Ken Zucker’s clinic. He seemed perfectly reasonable but transactivists were acting like he was running his own private Dachau. I looked into the alternative, affirmative therapy, and ended up here. When I first went to school I was contemptuous of gender roles and it occured to me that if gender affirming had existed in the mid-eighties I could have ended up on that conveyor belt. I didn’t even end up bi or gay – I’m boringly heterosexual. That was Peak Trans for me.
I looked for a Marxist analysis, hoping for something like ‘Working-Class War’ by Christian Appy, ‘Methland’ by Nick Reding or ‘Planet of Slums’ by Mike Davis where the whole thing would be dissected, blame apportioned and the appropriate people properly shouted at. Unfortunately they all seem to be onboard with trans ideology or have just copied the radical feminist position. So I’m just going to have to do it myself, however half-assed. I won’t follow the money because you’re doing a very good job at that already.
The general social relations at the time this happened are well known – a working class defeated and on the back foot since the eighties, stagnation of improvements for other oppressed groups, a wave of imperialism that even the largest demonstrations in human history couldn’t stop, and austerity. Since we are talking about children and teenagers the state of the education system is significant. The rise of trans has largely coincided with the global education reform movement or GERM. This is characterised by privatisation, stultifying classroons, a deluge of homework and high-stakes testing. This imposed narrowness also exists in therapy where brief treatments like cognitive behaviour therapy are being mandated, partly to save money and partly to discourage deep thinking. It seems the goal is to treat both ‘I want to stop smoking’ and ‘I want to be a man’ in as few sessions as possible. The best explanation of the links between neoliberalism, authoritarianism and bureaucracy that I’ve found are the works of John Seddon, a management consultant (yes these are strange times).
If we take all this together then it makes sense to literally take trans ideology as a cult or religion – ‘the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, the opium of the people’ (and if we include Twitter rage, the PCP of the people as well). In this desolate wastland can we really blame young people for grabbing on to something that lets them feel something, be a part of something and change something, especially when the old battles seem long-since lost? And of course the ruling class are foaming at the mouth at the opportunity for direct profit, technological megolomania, a premptive strike against homosexuality, diverting the next generation of radicals into a delusional fantasy of dependence and comsumption and, you know, for the lulz.
What the hell is to be done?
Then there was when one of the famous trans writers (I can’t remember whether it was Feinberg, Borstein or Halberstam) claimed all women bodybuilders are trans and I was like NO YOU SHALL NOT HAVE THEM.
It was Leslie Feinberg in the preface to Transgender Warriors (1996, p. x):
I think this is where the “transgender umbrella” meme began, or at least where it began to take hold.
I’m a lesbian, and while not conspicuously butch, I don’t do conventional femininity. I object strongly to attempts to co-opt me for the transgender bandwagon.
The “transgender umbrella” operates as a mechanism for coercive labelling. It pretends to promote some hazy concept of a community born of common experience, but in practice its function is to co-opt and control.
Thank you for your comprehensive and thought-provoking analysis.
Something else that is fuelling this mania is warped eroticism, including a very strong element of pedophilia. See for example the photos of Corey Maison, and the scenes in the My Transgender Summer Camp video discussed here.
I note that the person who five or six years ago was feted in the media as Britain’s youngest ‘sex change’ patient had trouble afterwards finding any employment besides ‘escort work’. That person is now working as a ‘cam girl’, using a twitter account for self-promotion.
Thanks, Artemisia. I wasn’t sure if I belonged here as most of you are trying to save your children from trans ideology, I’m only trying to save revolutionary socialism from trans ideology. I am aware this may be low down on the priority list for most readers of this blog. Also thanks for the reference, I hate it when I forget where a quote comes from.
I really don’t know what to think about the more extreme psychology of transgenderism.
I agree with Darkest Yorkshire that transgenderism is definitely cult-like. And unfortunately, when I went on a trip through some web pages (things my daughter was likely visiting) I found much warped eroticism. Slave collars, just lots of pornography that was combined with micro-identities that many of these young people get sucked into. The warped eroticism can warp the mind.
Not all the people who comment here regularly are parents, though many are. However, a concern shared by just about everyone who comments here regularly is what the trans cult is doing to children and young people.
Your experience of looking back and realising how, if trans ideology had taken hold while you were growing up, you might easily have found yourself steered in that direction is shared by others here, including me. Luckily, as a child in fifties Britain, I was simply labelled a tomboy.
Which particular school of revolutionary socialism do you favour?
And have you read Miranda Yardley’s articles in the Morning Star?
I had read one of Miranda Yardley’s articles, have read a few now and will be reading more, but they aren’t Marxist. It ‘s not a Marxist analysis unless Thatcher is blamed. I don’t care if it’s an article about the Belgian occupation of the Congo in the nineteenth century, it’s still somehow her fault. 🙂 Seriously, I think they are mainly a statement of the radical feminist position in a left publication.
I became a revolutionary in the nineties through the Socialist Workers Party but I have been sliding towards anarchism. Partly this was caused by the disturbing fall of the SWP (over a rape allegation), then the hilarious fall of the International Socialist Network (they say left groups will split over anything but I’m pretty sure this is the first time one has split over interracial lesbian bondage porn). Mainly it was from reading a lot about the Russian Revolution and the aforementioned John Seddon convincing me that a high level of centralised control is unnecessary in the revolutionary movement and the post-revolutionary society (though I do recognise the importance of capable leadership and of coordination).
I’ve also been reading a lot about theories of patriarchy, white supremacy and other oppressions. My definition of these is that capitalism requires a functional level of racism and sexism to operate but if both workers and capitalists are prepared to go against their class interests to extend these prejudices further, essentially subsidising oppression, then sexism becomes patriarchy and racism becomes white supremacy. (But then the social justice crowd demoted the class war to ‘classism’ – what’s that about?) People’s enthusiasm for these prejudices (and others such as against the disabled or mentally ill) and their persistance, even among people who should know better, leads me to believe that seizing the means of production will be the easy part.
I realise that I wasn’t very clear when I alluded to the photos of Corey Maison in the comment I made above.
Maison is an American boy who has been promoted as a transgender icon. In December 2015 a number of photos of him were taken by a professional photographer and posted on an Instagram account and other places. The descriptions on Instagram include credits to a professional hair stylist and a make-up artist.
These photos very rapidly went viral. By this point they are all over the web.
An enormous number of people have shown themselves smitten by photos of a fourteen-year-old boy who is striking some distinctly provocative attitudes while artfully made up to look like a young girl.
In ancient Rome little boys were castrated so that they could be used as sex toys. In the internet culture of the 21st century heavily feminized little boys become wildly popular pin-up idols.
I became a revolutionary in the nineties through the Socialist Workers Party but I have been sliding towards anarchism.
Years ago I knew some anarcho-syndicalists involved with Lib Ed. I had a lot of respect for them; what they were doing was very worthwhile.
You may (or may not) like this passage from one of the letters of Sylvia Townsend Warner. She wrote it in 1936, immediately after she and her partner Valentine Ackland had returned from a visit to Spain. Warner and Ackland were communists, who supported the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War:
“… you cannot imagine, after this mealy-mouthed country [she means Britain], the pleasure of seeing an office with a large painted sign, Organisation for the Persecution of Fascists. Anarchists, of course. That beautiful directness is typical of anarchism, a most engaging type of thought, though I do not want to be an anarchist myself. The world is not yet worthy of it, but it ought to be the political theory of heaven.”
(Letters, ed William Maxwell, p. 42)
Children are so sexualised now I don’t think we should be suprised by the pictures of Corey Maison. Some would probably argue that not sexualizing trans children is transphobic. It’s a sign of the state of affairs that I don’t know if that’s just a joke or if some people would actually make that claim.
I’m surprised I’d never heard of Lib Ed, despite being interested in democratic education. I’ll have to give their website a good peruse. I did like the quote, especially refreshing in this age where we’re supposed to love and forgive those who wrong us. It’s just a shame that when the Spanish government finally said “We give up, you win, we’ll go now” the anarchists quickly changed their tune to “No, we didn’t mean it, come back!” Regardless of what ended up happening in Russia, at least the Bolsheviks did the deed.
Where do you stand politically?
I wasn’t surprised by the photos of young Maison. I adduced them here as particularly striking evidence for the unacknowledged ‘kink’ factor that is helping to drive the support for transing kids.
Where do I stand politically? You would consider me a bourgeois reformist, I imagine.
maybe we should be ready to re-label…i like cross-sex identifying man or woman. that is the truest definition, we can never change our sex, it is forever. our chromosomes, our physical being is binary…unless one considers intersex ed people….you see that is the right word there….intersex. cross-sex identity. same-sex marriage. simply male or female for, dare i say the dreaded word, cisgender. male on male sexual partners, female on female sexual partners. or even male on male erotically inclined….language is important enough for communication that these descriptors need to be clear. it is important to accept everyone for who they want to be, and certainly there is enough intolerance and bigotry in the world….and what is this “they” business, except for adding to the confusion and avoiding the reality that the transsexual (one who has had the hormones and operations) faces. the mutilation, the long-term effects, the sterility, the strokes, embolisms, urinary tract infections, the complications that the physical body wrecks on a perfectly fine body once it is opened and messed with…nature provides the perfect packaging to live, unless it is diseased…sorry, i am just riffing here…..
Our Overview: Daughter age 13, never indicated the slightest dissatisfaction with being a girl until a few months ago when started watching utube transgender videos.
Her personality/Situtation: Happy, hard-working, goal-orientened, physically and mentally strong, loves karate, always liked dresses and wore a little make-up until a few months ago – now dresses like a boy, cropped her hair, no make-up and wants to discuss surgery.
History: We took her to a child therapist who after 2 months said that she is a happy, well-adjusted person and said that we should take her to a person specializing in transgender. We have not. She does have some anxiety issues that the therapist didn’t address or recognize because she only listened to my daughter and never talked with me. Her anxiety manifests in needing a medical intervention for a social problem – 1 example – she insisted she had migraines in 2nd grade – saw pediatrician about it a few times – was ready to schedule MRI – then found out it was only when boys teased her for taking so long on class assignments (because she needed to get 100% on everything). Current example: sets and resets alarm clock for fear of being late for school – wakes up and checks it throughout the night.
Pertinant example of her trans confusion: She used transgender information that she heard and started rewriting her own history. Suddenly she announced to the therapist (while I was in the room) that at age 6, she questioned why she had to wear a jumper to school (that required uniforms) and boys wore pants. She said it in the same exact words and exact tone that I used when telling her that from what I know people who are truly transgender feel like they are born in the wrong body from birth and refuse to wear “thier biological gender’s clothes at a young age.” She uses any transgender information she aquires and twists it to make it sound like it’s her life when it really wasn’t. She looooved her jumper – loooved her princess dresses and ignored the plethora of trucks, rocket ships, army men, plastic insects and snakes etc, etc that we offered her. I KNOW it’s not about toys or clothes, but the point is that she rewrites her own history to convince us that she’s trans… but we were there and that’s not how it went down.
Need: support and advice – going crazy with this and glad to see other’s have a similar experience!!!!!!!!!
So sorry. Your story is very typical. Our society and the communities of professionals (psych and medical) have shifted to blind acceptance, enabling, endorsing, and making possible the horrible maiming of our children– even encouraging them to leave their families if the families are not onboard when a young person decides to rewrite her or his story. The communities of wisdom, the parents, grandparents, extended family and long-term friends who have witnessed and been a part of the child’s story are not consulted. No– children and young adults are allowed to horribly re-write their stories and they are deluded.
Any honorable professionals out there in these psych (APA) and medical societies should walk and form a new ethical professional organization.
Oh how familiar this sounds. My daughter “came out” to me 2 months ago (made her brother tell me). We had been seeing a psychologist at the children’s hospital who wanted us to see a psychiatrist to look at medication for her anxiety and got us in to see someone there. 20 minutes into our first appointment the psychiatrist asked if my daughter would be willing to speak with her alone and as soon as I left the room asked my child if there was an issue with her sexuality (I had told the psychologist that she had a crush on a girl and that it might be causing some confusion) and from there TOLD my child she is transgender. Neither the psychiatrist or psychologist thought to let me in on this for 3 months – despite the psychologist being shocked because she hadn’t picked up on it in the 6-7 hour long sessions she had with my child before that.
She has since changed schools which has helped her overall mood and anxiety and told me last week about feeling pushed by the psychiatrist who has referred us to the gender diversity clinic – which the psychiatrist calls the transgender clinic. According to my daughter the psychiatrist tried to get the intake worker for the gender clinic to come right up during an appointment to get the process going on the spot – without my child agreeing and without me being informed. Our family doctor who actually specializes in trans adults doesn’t see that my child has exhibited any signs of transgender feelings and was shocked by the psychiatrist’s report. In short everyone but the psychiatrist finds this a strange “diagnosis”. Meanwhile she is talking about taking my daughter off her anxiety medication because she is now “cured” having come out – I think that has made my daughter start to question the psychiatrist and realize that we still haven’t resolved the anxiety issue.
I don’t know if I have ever been so angry and scared as I have the past 8 weeks. While I am sorry that anyone has to go through this it really helps to read that we are not alone.
If I thought being transgender was really at the root of my daughter’s anxiety I would be supportive. I do believe that there are transgender children who are suffering and I feel like all this labelling of so many questioning teens as transgender to be undermining of their struggle.
Then my daughter comes home from a workshop day at school where one of the presentations was about LGBQT pronouns and tells me that you can be natal female, identify as a male but express yourself as a female – what?! They had two presenters who we born as women but are transgender men but express as women. Why are people so obsessed with all this labelling?
Dear RurgutsRloudandclear,
Your story sounds almost exactly like our’s. There’s much research on this site to help answer some of your questions. When you’re overwhelmed, you may not know where to start. I found it helpful to read through every article on the site. It was time-consuming but it REALLY helped. This site is so priceless and the folks here are incredibly supportive!
Creating false memory happens more than people realize. There’s a book by Dr Julia Shaw called “The Memory of Illusion” which explains how reality can so easily be twisted to match the control and lies others feed our kids and how over time, memories are change.
One word of caution – more like annoyance: there are several times in this book where Dr Shaw’s love affair with herself will make you want to gag, imo. If you can look/read beyond that, it’s worth the $$ and the time reading it. Here’s a link to it: https://www.amazon.com/Memory-Illusion-Remembering-Forgetting-Science-ebook/dp/B019CGXQA8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1492696845&sr=8-1&keywords=the+memory+illusion
To see how incredibly easy it is to create a false memory, watch this ~5 minute video by Dr Shaw: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfPLTtlo2oY
Add depression and anxiety to the recipe and it’s no wonder our kids are so entranced by this cult.
Thank you for that link. One of the things that bothers me about his therapist is that she had him sift through his memory to identify memory of “feeling” female.
Initially, my son spewed “science” at me until I successfully refuted all of the studies he sited. He now knows there is no science to support his belief. He says no one really understands the complexities of the human brain. He said it’s now a matter of faith. He has a “feeling” that he is female and that’s good enough for him.
Here’s another helpful video. Pay close attention to what says at the 4;30-5:00 minute mark. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHd_TNHsyVA
Thank you for recommending Dr. Shaw’s work and the warning on her self-love – lol. I know how we can rewire ourselves pretty easily. Children’s brains are especially “plastic” (demonstrate neuroplasticity), which is why they have such an enormous capacity to learn and to be creative. They also have hyper-responsiveness to dopamine in the reward centers of the brain. Anything they find rewarding that triggers this pathway (good or bad) and they become much more easily re-wired and addicted. (see https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2826184/). (This is not about me, but I have a PhD in Pharmacology with a concentration in Neuroscience and conducted research and wrote several papers on Alzheimer’s in graduate school. I work in a related but different field now.)
Children are vulnerable to anything that rewards them and they think they’ve found a way to alleviate the pain of adolescence by saying that they have a medical condition that needs a medical solution. My personal belief (and I’m always open to evaluation) is that there is a small percentage of children born with a certain gene expression, brain chemistry, and/or have different neuro-anatomical substructures that cause them to identify as the opposite sex and this presents itself very early on in childhood. I think that the vast majority of adolescents whom suddenly develop a desire to become transgender are searching for groups to belong to – ways to feel good about themselves – and for resolutions of their problems – and finding this non-conforming culture of transgender people with it’s concrete “solution” is incredibly enticing.
Sounds a very familiar story! Almost like your daughter is mine! Hang in there xxx
Thank you – it’s reasurring to hear from others. Every article and book I read only talks about accepting your trans child and suggests trans support groups. I haven’t found anything helpful on how to help older children who never displayed any concern over their gender until they became awkward pre or early teens and started to feel like they didn’t fit in and looked for help online and then became almost brain-washed that they are trans with no real concept of the significance of being trans.
Your story is very similar to mine – my daughter never was anything but a normal girl too, and then boom! Something or someone online got her bent towards the trans trajectory. Hair got shorter and shorter, and not just her. She wants the “they/them” pronouns which I struggle with adapting…
However – now 14, I believe she’s still questioning, and maybe is thinking more… I hope so… this has become such a trend now – but we parents – all of us want happy kids, none of us want damaged unhappy kids.
In my case, I am really trying to fully educate myself about all of this, so I can be better prepared for future discussions. She’s living with her dad right now, and it’s so very hard to “be there” for her, or monitor what she’s doing.
I do believe we need a support group for sure… this is strange new territory… good luck!
Thank you – it’s so reassuring to hear from others! Now that I have read a lot of these posts, I see that there are many more people who see this trend as damaging and confusing our children. Hormones and surgery do not heal the anxiety inside most of these older children. Now, we are armed with more confidence in our guts (my husband and I).
My advice: We asked our daughter to make a comment calendar where she jots down how she is feeling every day – just a sentence or a phrase. Already, we have learned that she mostly questions her gender on “bad days.” This says quite a lot to us. The scenario that is emerging is that she feels anxious, then she follows-up with u-tubing transgender videos and thinks becoming a boy will solve her problems. It’s all so clear to us now. But it is far from clear to her.
What a genius move! Complete, complete genius!
It’s sad that this has to be said
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/04/18/opinion/my-daughter-is-not-transgender-shes-a-tomboy.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0&referer=https://t.co/bunQKAuZXF
I played with toy trucks as a kid. I had short hair. I played in the mud. I always preferred men’s clothing.
I have never thought of myself as anything other than a female.
Re: ourgutsRloudandclear. I absolutely agree with your message of neuroplasticity, brain rewards center, trying to find a place in adolescence– and yes, only a small percentage of children have a biological or genetic expression that would tilt them towards gender dysphoria.
Thank you so much for your support and understanding. It’s so helpful to be able to talk the same language with someone about this whole ordeal. I would be liking a lot of comments here, but I’m not sure I want to register at wordpress.
We have a lot of work ahead of us. We haven’t really talked to her too much about it and gave her some space at first – mostly just saying we love and support her, we took her to see a therapist (who threw in the towel due to lack of experience with gender issues), got her busy with activities, and asked her to take a break from u-tubing trans videos. It was going swimmingly for about a month, now she’s back u-tubing and back on the boy track.
We’re getting our game plan together and in it for the long haul – with love, patience, and hard work.
Thanks again!
I am going through this EXACT scenario with my almost 14 year old daughter. She was always a bright artistic kid, good grades, never an issue. NO behavioral problems, no school troubles. She was even happy to start her period in sixth grade and NEVER expressed shame in her body. She is an artist, goes to an excellent art school however within 6 months of starting 7th grade at this new school with other non conforming artistic kids she suddenly came home proclaiming she is gender fluid, and now full blown trans. She requested everyone at the school call her male and change her name. She cut her hair, wears boxers and wants a binder (which I have refused). She is social media/phone obsessed and has a long distance internet boyfriend who is 14 years old and “cis bisexual” She now has depression and anxiety and panic attacks. Her grades began dropping. We are taking her to a therapist who insists we use males names and male pronouns as well, despite my gut that this is a rebellion. We took her to a pediatrician who advocated for anti depressants to treat her depression.
As a parent I am so STRESSED about this. I cry every appointment, and I just cant force myself to use male pronouns. I don’t even want to go to her appointments so my husband has been taking her. Her therapist thinks I should see a counselor myself to help me adjust to this new identity! This is not the child I had one year ago. I feel like changing her school, disconnecting her phone and moving away. She has had a healthy normal childhood, raised by two stable parents, no trauma, spoiled to a fault! I am ashamed of my feelings one day to the next, I don’t want my kid to hurt herself, and because self harm rates are so high in trans kids, I can’t in good conscious ignore the issue. I want to be supportive but my mom GUT tells me this is a phase. I have told her, her therapist, and her doctor that I will NEVER consent to hormones or otherwise. If she is 18 and a consenting adult she can alter her own body and make her own decisions. The more I resist, the more determined my kid seems to prove to me she is in fact a trans child. It is helpful to hear others are in similar situations.
I feel so much for you – I have been through much the same and continue to do so. It has been almost a year for our daughter and I only just managed my first appointment without crying a few weeks ago. Hang in there and hold on to what you feel and believe about your daughter. We have only used our daughters new gender neutral name and allowed the short hair and boyish clothes. No change of pronouns or anything else. If anything things seem to have settled down a bit over the past year. She is not asking for anything else and states that she is happy as things are at the moment, a change from a year ago when she wanted th legal name change the lot. I don’t know if what we are doing is right or not but it feels right. We love and support her and state that we believe that this is real to her but have never said we that believe this too. We have also made it clear to her therapists that we would resist any physical treatments. We live in the U.K. and her therapists seem ok with this. I would not take her to see a therapist who was pushing things further or unquestioningly going along with my daughter. This is not therapy.
From what I have read on here, young women who do change their minds say that it was helpful that their parents stuck by their own belief about the their gender and did not just go along with everything. I just hang onto this and hope my daughter eventually sees things this way too. And all the other daughters mentioned on is site
I am so sorry for all involved in this. We lost our daughter to her identity meltdown via the Internet. She has been diagnosed with a serious mental health disorder. I believe her mental health problems occurred because of her exposures to identity-warping places she was visiting. Beware of tumblr!
Not to sound like a broker record, but parents if you find your self in this situation, please pull the plug on their phones and computers. Yes, they will hate you for awhile. Take a holiday if you are able. Change environments, if possible. You will have your child back again.
Please disconnect her phone! Hang in there– this is not normal. Naturally, the problem with teens is the more you fight them, they can go in the opposite direction. But if she is getting so far down the trans path, you cannot step aside.
As a on older mom, I am appalled by the idea of gender-fluid. It seems so obvious to me that there are many ways to be a man and many ways to be a woman. But you are still a man or woman. Besides my child getting lost on the identity-warping Internet, there was also a culture at her college of radical feminism advocating the rape culture notions and I think driving young women from a female identity. The feminism I was raised with definitely changed– especially on the college campus. There are many ways to be a woman and it is wonderful being a woman. One doesn’t have to be feminine, if that’s not your thing.
You have my deepest empathy. I am so sorry and mad that this is happening to so many of us.
I am struggling to come up with our own “house rules” on internet/phone usage. I am thinking of trying no internet use except for listening to music (pandora or itunes music that she purchased) and only text and instagram with close friends that I know (adding instagram as a perk so it’s not read as a punishment) for one month or more. We don’t let our kids use snapchat, tumblr or anything else. I would frame this as trying something out to see how it affects her good and bad days over the long run to improve her mental health and well-being (not meant as a punishment). To make it as positive as possible, I plan to schedule a few more activites than normal – even just simple baking muffins together, playing board games and other things she likes. We are hooking up a sound system anyway I’ll play her favorite alternative music, etc, etc. Maybe we’ll take her to a rock climbing gym. I want her to replace her negative electronic habbits (utubing trans vlogs) with good, positive face-to-face interaction with family and friends. My house may be less tidy and my work will suffer a bit, but sacrafices need to be made and I’m lucky I can make these minor sacrafices.
As with all rebellions, it’s a balancing act. We need to carefully guide them to look at their situation in different ways, choose our battles wisely, and make sure we thank them for telling us their feelings when they do.
Best wishes.
Worried&frustratatedmom, so many of us going through this. I have seen a counsellor to help me cope, but I still cry every day, and find it very hard to talk to anyone about. The best advice I have been given is 1. Try not to back your daughter into a corner. 2. Concentrate on other identities she may have (an artist, sportswoman, whatever) to reduce the emphasis on gender, and slow everything right down 3. Avoid pronouns altogether (gets easier the more your try) 4. In contexts other than gender, mention that people can and do change identity over time (she will have been told online that “there is no cure except transition”); how the brain doesn’t mature until 25, so that hopefully she will take these messages on board, and they will be at the back of her head when any decisions are to be taken. I also try and correct people when they say “gender” in place of “biological sex”, as the 2 get conflated all the time.
Has she been screened for autism (lots of other posts on this blog about this)?
There is also a whole other aspect of the transgender epidemic which you may find interesting (or terrifying or irrelevant) which is the feminist view point. As a young bright person this may appeal to your daughter at some point if you choose your time right. I only came to this as a result of my daughter’s difficulties with her gender and I am now outraged that this “rebellion” is so deeply regressive, panders to stereotypes and in many ways homophobic, and very damaging to women, and I can’t believe I sleepwalked into it. She and her siblings (who are fairly nonchalant about the whole business – they just say that gender is independent of biology, no big deal) haven’t a clue about the problems which lie ahead as the factual science of biology is overtaken by a wholly unscientific and cult-like ideology, dressed up as liberal inclusiveness. This is quite a good summary here:
https://gendercriticalgreens.wordpress.com/2016/08/15/a-feminist-view-of-gender-identity-politics/
Hang in there!
Your numbered advice is spot on. The article you posted articulates the gender fallacy issue so incredibly well – exactly what I was thinking. How dare we define what it means to be a boy or a girl other than sex organs? Instead, let’s broaden our acceptance of how a girl or a boy should behave.
To add to the numbered list of things to do: it helped us to focus on teaching our daughter other “grown-up” skills: get a job, meet with a financial advisor and open an IRA with her earnings, learn to drive, etc.
You have to do what you feel is correct. I recommend getting her away from that therapist ASAP! I wish had known about this trend … cult, when my child started this. We thought it was something she would outgrow so we allowed her to get the binder and her friends and teachers use male pronouns. We will not use male pronouns but have learned to structure our sentences without any pronoun. It takes some work but it’s doable. Anyhow, I wish we’d had more info about this and been more proactive and against the social transitioning. We’re trying to get her back but it’s a Hell-of-a-Distance to travel, if it ever happens.
When interviewing therapists, 2 questions are Very important. 1) Do you advocate affirmation, meaning the use of male pronouns, name, binders, etc? 2) How do you treat someone who claims to be trans? If they cannot answer, move on. Sure, every individual treatment is different but they should have a high-level view of how to treat someone. Treat their underlying causes and don’t blame the parents and the trans BS for their problems. If the therapist cannot proactively – meaning you do not coax them along – offer these two answers, no other communication is necessary. NEXT!
Best of Luck with your search!
It’s interesting that many of these kids are artistic ..mine is too. I didn’t resist…I just make it not a big deal…I tell her we don’t hav3 enough strong women roll models in this world…that she doesn’t need to define herself..to just be…and for the most part she hasn’t pushed the trans issue lately.
Mine is artistic and creative also. Thanks to everyone for trying to help each other be strong and supportive of our children and slow them down as much as we can as they grow and mature. Being a parent is indeed a thankless job.
Thank you, thank you for the advice and understanding. My husband really feels that we should go along with her and get her through this depression and that things will also work themselves out. He also feels that we can’t pull the plug on her internet without sending her running in the opposite direction. My instinct is to pull the plug on the internet usage, and yes even considering pulling her from the school despite it being the best school in the area. I honestly don’t know what is the “right” thing to do. She is the oldest, has always been very independent and has always been a bit of a challenge to parent compared to her younger sisters but never had mental illness, developmental issues or behavior issues. As for the counselor, I am leaning toward finding someone else.
Ironically my kid is so focused on people lumping her in with the other “trans trenders” at her school- girls who claim to be trans for a month or two (yes this is a thing!) which is why she began insisting we formally change her name in all of the school related paperwork. This coming from a kid who went into this school wearing dresses voluntarily…
I know what you are going through all to well. I actually hurt for you. This is the most horrific thing. Your story is carbon copy to mine, right down to the creative, artsie, NO behavior issues….My daughter turned 14 in March. It was as though a demon had possessed her. Started in Dec and yes, I shut down all of her media access to her “support groups” , went to the counselors and blatantly told one (who I fired) I would NOT subscribe to acknowledging that my daughter was a He. I told my daughter point blank I couldn’t relate or identify with a He because I had a girl and if she went away then I lost my child. End of story. I found a grounded psychiatrist who agreed with me and through prayer and some very trying times, with help from God I pulled her out of it. The worst nightmare for any parent. I still read this blog because my heart bleeds for each and every person dealing with this evil. I will add you to my prayers.
I agree 100%. Pull the plug on all of it. Yes, they will hate you and it will be miserable but it worked for me. Stay tough and true to what you believe. Prayer works too!
It’s fine for you to say that you pray and that you pray for others. It’s a nice sentiment. But several people have pointed out previously that not everyone has religious beliefs who comments here. Actually probably most people who comment here are not particularly religious. Please bear that in mind. For the most part, people tend to benefit most from practical advice about how to deal with their family issues. Thanks for understanding.
Hi Ann- Thank you for your kind thoughts and prayers. I am glad that your daughter is back on track to being herself again. But I do agree with 4thwavenow, this group is not faith group but a group of parents that find themselves in hell (sorry, pun intended). We need an intelligent response to the trans community– the truth (that is how I see it) and parents need very practical advice on what to do. Not all will agree. One approach will not be right for all. So many young people are attracted to trans for a variety of reasons. Create an identity and they will come, is my thought. We had a somewhat similar experience that you described. It did seem that our daughter was possessed. Suddenly, she hated us and not only did she change her appearance on the outside, her inner self was in self-destruct also. I think Gender Critical Dad described it well: “First, they will hate you”. That is one type of experience with the trans dogma. Many of these parents on this site have not lost their children yet and they are still in conversation and relationship. They can probably take a very different approach and be a bit more nonchalant (of fake it).
Hello,
Just wanted to thank you for this blog. You are intelligent, reasonable, and compassionate. You have done me (and I’m sure many people!) a huge service by making it.
My story is not as close to the bone as many here, but I still feel a huge sense of relief having found your site as an alternative source to the totally unquestioning “party line” I was finding everywhere else when I searched trans issues and theories. I was starting to feel very alone in my questioning. I’m an early 20s woman at college and my best friend’s boyfriend (now MTF) of 3+ years has come out as trans. He only needed a referral from his family doctor and then 2 medical consultations before he got prescribed hormones. He’s been on hormones for over a year now and is considering surgery later.
I never particularly approved of their relationship even before all this trans stuff. My friend became more sad and serious since they got together. Ironically, before any of this happened, I’d complained to other friends about what a typical teenage boy her boyfriend struck me as- a stereotypical “gamer guy” plus resentful loner type. He is dismissive, selfish, self-important, and (quite ironically!) before he came out as trans I’d even confided to a friend about what a “mansplainer”/know-it-all (the first time I’d found that term appropriate to use!) I thought he was (e.g. one time I mentioned I was writing an essay for a class, he proceeded to confidently give me opinions which completely contradicted the actual facts we’d gone over in class and he’d never even taken the subject or knew much about it. He knew I get good grades while his are quite bad). To be honest, he struck me as a bit of a sexist- he seems to treat his girlfriend, me and our other female friends more dismissively than he treats our mutual male friends. He’s also lazy and he very much dependent on his mum and his girlfriend “nagging” him and nurturing him while he wouldn’t do the same for them in return.
I did feel bad for the guy- he clearly struggles with social awkwardness, a lack of motivation (outside of playing video games), and very likely depression and had alluded to suicidal thoughts being a problem for him in his mid teens. I was nice around him, hoped that he would get the help he needed, while also hoping my friend wasn’t going to get dragged down too.
Anyway, he then comes out as “trans”. I was shocked. I could find no clues looking back that he was trans. Awkward and lonely, yes, but awkward and lonely in the way of a typical unhappy male young adult. I have watched documentaries about gender dysphoric children and see how much they struggle throughout their childhood with feeling something was wrong about their sex- this seemed absolutely nothing like that kind of a story.
I’m also confused by his behaviour, I’m worried for my best friend, and it raises some complicated questions for me about feminism and women’s rights and what it means to be a woman (I worry that I’m being sexist for prescribing gender roles when I’ve always been a huge advocate for women to be gender divergent and do whatever they want, myself included). His girlfriend, our friendship circle, his doctors, and our college are all being 100% supportive. A few times I’ve tried to broach the topic with his girlfriend or other friends (really softly softly) that him coming out as trans all seemed to come out of the blue, or the topic of what does it mean to him (and to us) to be female, or the topic of whether there are other underlying mental health concerns that we should be worried about and support him with. They all just say the trans party line and accuse me of being transphobic for expressing any doubt or scepticism at all. They’ve even implied that I’m transphobic when I get a little bit annoyed with him when I perceive him to be being rude about something totally unrelated to being trans- as if him being trans means that we all have to accept every aspect of his personality as perfect and not hold him to the same standards we’d hold all our other friends to!
I’ve felt a bit lost, lonely, and as if I was going a bit mad and totally out of touch with what everyone else thought, and worried that maybe I am a bigot. Thank you so much for this website for presenting thoughtful, alternate views!
Thanks for writing in. It’s actually a known phenomenon for the type of guy you describe to want to transition: socially awkward, involved in computer science in some way. There are several parents now who are regular readers and contributors here who have sons who fit that description. Please feel free to keep commenting here. You are very welcome.
Transquestioningyouth– no need to apologize for having a brain!
Artemisia, I just looked up Corey and his mother. Another Emerald City example. Never mind the pathology behind the curtain.
“Transgender is the new black”
https://m.youtube.com/watch?t=3s&v=ZJbje5ihyrw
(A video about the fashion trend that is transgender)
Hi, I am the mum of a 22 year old FtM and I am so glad to have found this site, though I wish I had found it a year ago. I believe that I am autistic, I have a diagnosed autistic son and my other daughter, who is having counselling for depression, has been told she may also be autistic. She told me about the possible link between children who think they’re trans having autism and I think it is very likely that my trans daughter is on the spectrum too. She always had difficulty socialising and derssed boyishly in her teenage years (like me). She started uni 3 years ago, made a trans friend there and came out as trans in her first year. Nobody in her close family believes that she is a boy, she still has quite a ‘girly’ personality, she has never has a relationship and she says she’s ‘pansexual’.In my naivety I thought that the counselling she would get through the gender clinic would realise that it was more likely a mental health issue and investigate that first. ” 2 years on and she’s on hormone treatment and has had a double mastectomy last month. I have been supportive so far, she does seem happier though she’s on anti-depressants, but now I feel angry that the medical proffession hasn’t explored other options before going down this route. When I asked her about the counselling and whether they had challenged the idea that she’s trans she said no, they just got her to talk through things without exploring other reasons other possibilities.
I’m going to suggest she gets assessed for autism, but I would like to know where I can find a counsellor that is independant of the trans movement? If she is trans then I’m happy to accept that and hope she is happy, but it just doesn’t feel that this is right for her.
Hello Susan, glad you have found us. My daughter says she is “a guy” – and that gender is independent of biological sex. She has suffered badly from anxiety then depression, then came out with this news not long after her 18th birthday. She is in the process of being assessed for autism – I have encouraged it as I had hoped that this would encourage the medical profession to slow things down, and explore other causes for her discomfort, although this doesn’t seem to have happened with your daughter. Or that she will come to find out that the reason she doesn’t “fit in” with her peers is because of her autism, not because she was born in the wrong body.
Like your’s she was pretty gender non-conforming in her teenage years but very happy socialising with her female friends and showed no signs of being uncomfortable with her biological sex before this (although she was very confused about her sexuality, and I think still is). At the moment she has come home from university due to her mental health issues(now greatly improved with medication) , and I have to say I am very relieved to have her safe here for the time being.
She has been seeing a clinical psychologist who specialises in adolescent mental health for her anxiety, although I have to say she doesn’t like to talk about her feelings so is reluctant to go back. I think the theory (but you will know if you think you are autistic) is that she finds it very hard to identity and articulate her feelings. So you could try that – making sure they have a postgrad qualification rather than being a counsellor? Also a weak sense of identity – I can see how acquiring a brand new male one could help if that is a struggle.
Wishing you all the best – this is a real nightmare. I suppose you have to hang on and hope – maybe this is the answer for her – or be there to pick up the pieces if it doesn’t work out for her. People do detransition and pick up their lives afterwards.
Hi Susan,, I’m in exactly the same position with my F2M child, although not quite as far along, We have been to counselling at the Gid clinic and I asked if they would do some exploratory work to establish where he is on the Gender Spectrum. to my horror they refused, saying as he has gone through puberty he will know his gender orientation and the adult service will not go through this process with him. So they are prepared to accept his self diagnosis and allow him to mutilate his body. this is against the guidelines which state that therapy should be readily available at all times throughout the process and like you Susan, I feel that my child is very much a girl.. I m so scared for my child I don’t know what to do apart from complain to the service which I will do. something needs to be done about these Nhs gender clinics. Best of luck in your search for a therapist
Hi Susan and Polly
Your experiences of NHS gender clinics really disturb me. I had thought the NHS would be rather more cautious in their approach given birth costs and the strict guidelines but it seems this is not the case at least with your daughters. My experience so far with children’s gods is very positive but it feels we are up against the clock hoping our daughter figures out she is female before she is 18. I am also convinced that my daughter is not trans – she was never even a tomboy as a young child and still has very female character traits
You should contact the patient advice and liaison service (PALS) for the NHS trust with your concerns and they will help you raise your concerns with the clinical team. Although your daughters are adults they do need to consider your views as parents. In mental health issues collateral information from relatives is vital in making a thorough assessment and you are correct in stating ok these patients should be assessed for autism.
Very best wishes
I would agree – get in touch with them and make known your concerns in writing. You could also let your MP know. If nothing else it will be used as evidence when the sh** finally hits the fan.
The GMC published guidelines for cosmetic surgery which states:
“take particular care when considering requests for interventions on children and young people
consider patients’ vulnerabilities and psychological needs when making decisions with them about treatment options”
You would have thought this would be the least people on gender clinics could do for an intervention which is far more risky, so I would think a disciplinary panel considering a doctor’s poor care of someone with gender dysphoria would make that comparison.
There are published accounts of autistic young people believing they are a different gender because they don’t fit in with their peers, and that this can last for a couple of years, then they revert. (See Tony Attwood etc).
Informed consent does not mean giving a patient what they ask for as long as they understand the risk. Are all these young people meet the clinical standard for a formal diagnosis of gender dysphoria? Are they being coached to say the “right” thing? Adolescence does not stop at 18 – people are still developing until around 25, as everyone in the mental health field knows.
I can’t lay my hands on it but elsewhere on this site there was a link to draft guidelines from WPATH about extra caution needed when dealing with patients with ASD – I think if clinics are not paying attention to that, or not screening for autism, then again that should give a medical professional pause for thought.
My daughter (19) is currently on the waiting list for the GID clinic and I am dreading the day the appointment comes through. She is being assessed for autism tho and I am relieved that will be on her medical record by that time.
Wishing you all the very best, as always.
sorry about the typos above
Line 2 should be both not birth
Line 4 should be GIDS not gods
4thWaveNow,
Your guest poster has agreed to talk with my son concerning transition. One small/huge problem I have now is how to approach him about it. I believe if he knows I initiated the conversation it will be discounted out of hand. Much like when I sent him articles by ThirdWayTrans. Any and all suggestions from the regulars here are welcome. Thanks in advance.
It is all so wrong. Of course, these young people are being coached by their online support groups as to what to say. Good luck everyone!
Just found this interesting article, it’s worth a read
http://www.redstate.com/kiradavis/2016/10/04/gender-theory-non-binary-madness-enough-enough/
I am hoping that there will be a revolt and everyone will say enough-is enough. It is too bad that this was published in something called “Red State”. I keep hoping a major mainstream news source will be willing to publish our stories and say enough-is-enough. This should not be a polarizing, political issue– it is horrible and inhumane to maim young people experimenting with identity presentation.
Popularity of tomboys in pop culture leading many girls to want to transition
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2017/05/08/popularity-tomboys-encouraging-girls-swap-gender-says-nhs-psychologist/amp/
I don’t find this surprising. I have been thinking about the role models we offer in Pop Culture. They can be Polar Opposites. Thanks for posting!
My daughter is now 18 and just decided she is trans. All her life she was a fashion leader. I could learn lessons from her. Young women would comment on her style. She suffered a series of illnesses when she was 13 to include migraines, painful periods and ovulation, dizziness, hot flashes, great fatigue and cognitive decline. She missed a lot of school and lost her friend groups. They were living life and she was staying stagnant. She dropped out of things and struggled to get through a school day. Depression came and anxiety. Doctor after doctor and test after test.
She feels betrayed by her body and friends. Her connection to the world was her phone. I thought she was texting friends but came to find she had multiple blogs on tumblr. Her few conversations would be statistics about the oppressed. She began insulting herself and everyone like her with “privilege”.
Toward the middle of last Summer after a vey close friend let her down, she cut her hair horribly and took no care of herself. She stunk. When school came around she dresses like a lumberjack. Like I did in sixth grade.
In November I found some of her accounts and was saddened at how lost and confused she was. She had changed her friend group and went to a party rather than homecoming. Later I saw pictures and remarks about the lesbian homecoming. I was thinking, that’s not really how I’ve known her but, why would that have to be a big secret especially at an arts school?
In January she sent us a video that she is trans. She also started with a new therapist (the old one still helps with family issues but the new one was for DBT Training). According to the tumblr and Reddit guidelines, all she talks about with the therapist is, I’m transgender.
The therapist, never wanting to speak to us so as to keep patient loyalty (or whatever) decided to finally meet with us and my daughter. With 15 minutes left, he decided that this was the time to address the “elephant in the room “. He then preceded to tell us that if we didn’t validate my daughter as being transgender then she would have a strong chance of committing suicide. Oh, one more thing, she was getting ready to travel on a 9 hour flight and was petrified, but apparently this topic had to be discussed instead. And another client was coming in right after.
Now all other therapist I have told this story to have gasped at the careless way in which this was done. Her psychiatrist shook her head and said her depression and anxiety came way before this popped up.
Her school hosted a movie about a trans boy. Then two weeks later they did a reshowing of Katie Couric’ s Gender Revolution with special guest speakers. The newspaper is writing an article every day about another transgender kid getting their blockers or medicine. Her DBT therapist considers talking about how she came to this place as conversion therapy and unethical where he could lose his license. Who cares if my daughter loses herself. There is a legislature to ban conversion therapy in my state. Now the definition of conversion therapy is essentially torture, but this legislature includes conversations about gender in with that. So essentially, it could be illegal to help a child through their traumas if they utter the word transgender.
My daughter is mad that I won’t pay for testosterone. The therapist tells me I should support her but then says ok, don’t pay for testosterone or surgery . He says I should use gender neutral pronouns. I told him she never even asked that so why are you putting ideas into her head? She’s not mature enough to do her homework. Not mature enough to have a part time job. Not mature enough to discuss anything with us. She’s not mature enough to make this decision right now.
I just keep thinking about all the stupid things I did as a teen and young twenty year old (and I was a good kid trying to find myself). No, she is not ready to make a life altering decision like this when she is stuck emotionally at 12.
So to the therapists who offer all kinds of advice until the bills can’t get paid. To the media loving a spectacular story that they have no stake in. To the tumblr murals who are lost blind leaders. Leave my kid alone. You don’t know her soul. You don’t know her journey. You don’t know her pain. You don’t love her. You are just supporting this because you failed.
Please hang in thee and don’t let her do it. I lost my daughter in a similar way. If you can get her out of her environment, social and the therapy, and get her away from phone and computer, a nice long trip?—I think you will have a better chance of restoring her to herself again.
“She’s not mature enough to do her homework. Not mature enough to have a part time job. Not mature enough to discuss anything with us. She’s not mature enough to make this decision right now.
I just keep thinking about all the stupid things I did as a teen and young twenty year old (and I was a good kid trying to find myself). No, she is not ready to make a life altering decision like this when she is stuck emotionally at 12.”
This sounds almost exactly like my (soon too be) 16-year-old. Depression and ADHD. We are in the process of trying a new therapist – one who is willing to peel back the layers and see if there may be other underlying causes for her now identifying as trans. Her current therapist is out of her element and has suggested a gender specialist.
Thank you for your response. I’m very sorry your daughter is in the same predicament. It’s a scary world of acceptance at the cost of a delicate, hurting young lady. Today she screenshotted DIY top surgery and a “post” about There’s no point raising a daughter so a man can abuse her. And I’m stuck because people all over the place want to push the agenda instead of helping her through this. Thank God she has no money which hopefully can buy me time to get the help she needs.
I’m so sorry you and your child are going through this. It seems to be a similar story everywhere- therapists obsessed with trans issues and affirmation; talk of suicide (so irresponsible) and changed pronouns. You are not alone. Stay strong and stick to what you believe in. Thinking of you and sending psychic support!