Let’s start with a caveat: I love passion. I do. And I have a deep, strong instinct to stick up for people whom I think are ignored or mistreated. I’m a typical bleeding-heart liberal. You know me: coexistence bumper sticker and a cloth grocery sack. I feel your pain, I do.
So let me assure you, I love those incredibly self-assured, brash, righteous, young activists who are screaming for trans rights. I see you. I’ve been one of you, too, believe it or not. And occasionally, I still go out with my protest sign and my sensible sneakers to make some noise on behalf of those who are ignored or mistreated. That’s all okay – and it’s good, and it’s necessary.
But today, I’d like you all to just take a deep breath and center some voices that are being silenced and ignored: the moms of the world. Because we moms might have a few things we’ve learned along the way, and you might save yourself a hoarse voice and some embarrassment by just stopping for a minute and listening. You might just shift your idea of who needs our protection right now.
A few weeks ago, I published an open letter about my Weird Son and his sudden and very unlikely self-diagnoses of being transgender. To my surprise, it was blocked as “Hate Speech” by Medium. Apparently, acknowledging that someone is weird (by the way we all are) is just too too much for our society to hear. It was picked up by New Discourses (thanks James!) where it has had a good run.
Among the many comments was the theme: “Her son is probably trans and she just can’t tell. She’s just oblivious. She’s probably just been ignoring the signs. She should just believe him. She’s a bad mom.”
Beside the laughable idea that a stranger on the internet could adequately diagnose a teenager from afar by reading a description of him written by his mother, I was bothered by the dismissal of a mother’s observations and insights. As if what mothers observe, note, and infer is somehow not to be trusted or valued. There is a knee-jerk reaction out there against the moms of the world. Let’s just call this “misomatery,” a hatred of mothers. (My apologies to the Classics majors of the world.)
It is time to stop dismissing mothers. Because these women are the experts on their children.
And yes, no person can read the thoughts inside another person’s head, nor perfectly measure every emotion someone else feels, but moms are as close to that as it gets. The survival of our species has depended on moms being able to read their children accurately. Was that newborn’s cry hunger or a wet diaper? Is that strange cough and fever within the normal range, or should we blast off to the doctor? Are you really too sick to go to school? There is even a fancy term for this: “mother’s intuition.”
But amazingly, within the context of transgender politics and medicine, these insights are dismissed. The broader culture’s wide-spread misomateric attitude tells teens: if your parents question your self-diagnosed gender dysphoria and are skeptical about your trans identity, they are transphobic and you should ignore them. Trans activists reject parental surveys as being inaccurate or irrelevant (unlike, say, parent reports of a child having depression or tics). Schools begin to socially transition kids without parents’ approval because they think they know these kids better than the parents do.
And incredibly, within mothers, internalized misomatery begins to build. We start to doubt ourselves. Did we really miss evidence of our child’s true nature for years and years? Are we really those bad mothers who have been blind to years and years of our children’s deep distress? Let me tell you, that’s possible, but it’s just not probable. Too many of us are seeing the same thing.
Over the past few months, I’ve joined a community of parents working to help support our trans-identified sons. We’re up to around seventy now, and we’ve coordinated to uncover research studies, track down experts, build surveys and gather data, share ideas and insights, and grapple with the possible ramifications of different treatment options.
Here’s what we see: there is something else going on with this spike of transgender teen boys. These are kids who were “typical” boys in early childhood. They did not cross-dress, they did not demand nor even show much interest in the toys of the other sex. They were completely “normal” until their sudden announcement between ages 14-16.
Well – not completely normal. 100% of the boys in our group are socially awkward. 64% have anxiety, 52% have depression, 40% have ADHD, and around 50% have Autism or Autism-like behaviors (our survey total is 67). Amazingly, over 85% of these kids are gifted (IQ above 130). Sadly, 20% of them have recently experienced a significant trauma such as the death or chronic illness of a parent or sibling. But generally, these are nerdy, awkward boys on the edges of their social circles. Some of them have no friends at all. Despite their announcements, these boys still strongly lean towards the “masculine”: we’ve got lots of video gamers, chess players, computer programmers, D&D, debate club and math club kids. Some of these boys might be gay, and a few say they’re straight, but mostly they’re just sexually inexperienced and/or late-bloomers.
This is not your grandma’s transgenderism. This has nothing to do with Caitlyn Jenner. This is not Jazz Jennings. These are not boys with a strange sexual fetish. These are not porn addicts. These are boys who acknowledge they had never even questioned their gender until quite recently. Most of them have not changed their public behavior or requested female pronouns. These are lonely, isolated, and confused boys, trying to understand why they feel so different.
They need our help and our sympathy – but they don’t need your “affirmation.”
Because we should all agree that kids with mental health issues should have treatments that are safe and effective. And the “affirmation” model is a complete mess. There is no “brain scan” for being trans – there is no biological marker – this is just based on a “feeling.” Affirming doesn’t actually decrease suicide. Puberty-blocking hormones are being used off-label to treat gender-dysphoric children, and the latest study from Tavistock show they don’t actually improve mental health. Cross-sex hormones and surgeries permanently alter a child’s body, by stunting growth (always) and weakening bones (often), and by decreasing IQ (likely), increasing cardio risks (likely), and sterilizing and eliminating sexual function. And even then, they don’t always work. Just ask the over 17,000 desisters and detransitioners in their twenties on reddit!
The old model of watchful waiting seemed to work, though. We know that most (60-85%) young children with gender dysphoria who were left alone came to terms with their birth sex by the time they were 18. We know that psychotherapy has a long history of helping people deal with their mental distress.
And these kids are in distress. They’re lonely, they’re sad, and they are vulnerable. Most of them are struggling with underlying mental health issues. A fair number of them are “weird.” All of them are struggling with the growing pains of adolescence. Perhaps some of them will persist. But a fair chunk of them will not.
But we do know that kids and teens do not have the emotional or cognitive capacity to make these choices themselves. Our teen boys can’t even remember to put the ice cream away – let alone floss their teeth or wear coats on cold days. Their brains are literally not capable of accurately assessing risks or predicting consequences. That’s why they have mothers (and fathers)!
So here’s my idea: let’s start listening to mothers. Let’s center their voices. Let’s overthrow the misomateric idea that what mothers think and observe doesn’t matter. Let’s believe moms, and trust moms. So when a mom says “hey, my kid isn’t trans, he’s just weird, and he’s just fine” we say yes – we believe you. Because you are a mom.
Now put down your “trans women are women” posters. Stop shouting TERF at me. Stop it with the blind affirmation. And get your drugs and surgery and pathology and cult-like messaging away from my vulnerable kid. Stop, and really listen. There are some voices that need to be heard – and they aren’t yours.
57 comments
I would talk to some of the parents, Dr’s & neurologist in the Autism community. I would get a MRI, EKG,& blood work for viruses and a dna stool analysis looking fo r infections or imbalances.I know it sounds weird but my son who has autism was changed by treating underlying health conditions that no regular doctor ever considered. He went from being psychotic and wanting to kill himself to being calm happy guy from just changing diet and treating infections. Some of the reasons the diet worked was because it lowered serotonin unlike the psych meds that increase serotonin that they give to asd. We later learned that he also has epilepsy even though he never had a seizure and the diet also helped his epilepsy. All things that were treated as just normal autistic behaviors were signs of serious health conditions.
No kid with Autism Spectrum disorder should ever be validated this way. My sister’s husband has this ASD step brother from this flakey guy his mom remarried. This Autism Spectrum Disorder step brother has always had these strange intense pursuits he’d undertake for a few years. As an adult at one point he ran off for a few years TO JOIN THE AMISH! That ended with him coming home with his tails between his legs. Imagine if he mutilated himself in a temporary transgendered delusion? What I’m trying to say is it’s normal for ASD kids to come up with far fetched schemes for radical transformation in the hopes that it will do the impossible, cure their inability to socialize and fit in normally. I’m somewhat “off” myself and I ordered blueprints to build an airplane at age 14. My dad laughed it off and I quickly realized I didn’t have $100,000 worth of machine tools, drill presses, grinders, milling equipment to even begin to undertake such a fools errand. No way should such a kid ever be encouraged with this.
The minute “Autism Spectrum Disorder” comes up this should be a giant stop sign to any legitimate mental health expert as to what the actual issue is. Tony Atwood is an expert psychologist in this condition and I saw him mention several years ago that these kids are so desperate to escape themselves they often undertake drastic measures such as “moving to Japan” etc. thinking it will change their underlying inability to socially fit in. He also mentioned some are now confused by this “transgendered” thing the schools are obsessed with and think that will fix them. Any boy interested in intensely male interests like math, science, and video games absolutely does not have a “female brain” and can be disqualified immediately. Just watch the early 90s documentary “Paris is Burning” about the Harlem Drag Balls to see what real transgendered people are. (It’s also almost ALWAYS something that affects males, like virtually all forms of sexual deviancy are disproportionately occur in males so the idea that all these young girls are “trans” is an utter joke.) Kids with Autism Spectrum disorder have always been poorly served by the psychiatrics community frequently being misdiagnosed by the fad condition of the times. They were “ADHD” or “Manic Depressive” etc. and just when the condition was beginning to be seen for what it is now the fad condition of “transgender” is being erroneously applied. Perhaps the biggest lie is the idea that it’s even possible to “change your gender” when all it means is a bunch of plastic surgery to turn you into a freak like Michael Jackson. Kids these days weren’t around to see the Jackson freakshow with the disfiguring surgeries, but if they did, perhaps pointing Mr. Jackson’s self destruction and hideous appearance might be some cold water on the face of any kids thinking of going forwards with this expecting actual acceptable results from a surgeons butchering scalpel.
Such a wonderful article, thank you for it…Lord it has been needed so much. From the time my youngest was around 5 or 6 until he was about 16…some people in the family told me he was going to be gay. There was something about him, he was blond and liked to take time with his hair, he liked a certain popular-style clothing, and I was told he was ‘pretty’ rather than handsome. I let my son be himself (his ‘authentic’ self they call it) and let him call the shots on his appearance and style, as long as he was clean. I would have gladly accepted whatever lifestyle he chose and the partner to go with it but as it turned out, he loves women with a vengeance…a bit too much and I won’t go into those details but let’s just say….I’m happy with my ‘hands-off, wait-and-see approach. He’s an entirely happy 35-year-old whose only fault is, he’s marriage-averse. Plenty of girlfriends, daughter-in-law (or grandchild) nowhere-in-sight (at least yet!).
Yes, Donna. Moms are amazing and your incite is more important than any other in this whole world. Stay strong in this very, very difficult time to raise a child. Always trust your gut, and kiss your child a lot! It’s obvious you already do!
From a Grandmother worried for her grandchild and the world she will live in.
I am short on time so I didn’t read the comments (I’ll come back to them). I just need to say that the same thing goes for daughters!
My pre-teen daughter started telling people she is “bi-” in the fifth grade, and her teacher said she noticed that it was happening with a lot of kids at that age. It was as if they wanted to fit in with the crowd, so they all started saying , “Yeah…me too!”
Anyway, a year later she’s all about the Pride flag, and the NonBinary flag. She asked her teachers to call her by a boy’s name. She cut her hair super-short, refuses to wear “girl” clothes, and when someone says, “HEY…you look like a boy!” she wears it as a badge of honor. The Pandemic did a number on her mental health (anxiety, sleeplessness, we suspect ADHD), and so she is in counseling.
At first this all freaked us out. We have no problem with her asking her teachers to call her by a boy’s name, but we made it clear that we are her parents, and we have the right to call her the name that we gave her. There were EPIC arguments, but we are standing our ground. We have spoken to the counselor, and we have done our own reading and research, in addition to remembering the torture that we put our parents through at 12 years old.
Bottom line is this: This child dresses like a boy, wears her hair like a boy, and just like in Donna M’s article, she is very bright, and has lots of friends but also has a lot of social anxiety. She LOVES rockets and space and everything NASA.
HOWEVER, she also loves to play with model horses, and wants to take riding lessons when things finally open up. She wishes Girl Scout camp would open back up again. She loves Gacha and Star Stable Online, and she loves to experiment with cosplay and makeup (not the typical makeup, but some pretty incredible things ranging from zombie face to the David Bowie/Peter Gabriel look from the 80’s).
So I, like Donna M, have the sense that she is in a period of discovering who she actually is. And her dad and I have decided that we are going to ride it out. My child literally does not care if anyone thinks she is weird, and frankly, neither do I. She could be sneaking out at night, taking drugs and stealing cars, but she’s not. She is smart and creative and courageous and vulnerable and sweet, and she’s a GOOD KID, and that’s all that matters.
I support the health and wellbeing of my children and that includes their endocrine system. I must do everything I can to make sure they develop into a healthy adult. Until they develop into a healthy adult I have to make tough decisions about my child. I will have to do things like turn off the tv and make them to go bed on time. I will have to make sure they have a healthy diet. I will have to make sure they do not associate with groups that might make them do something harmful to their own body. This includes cutting, bulimia, anorexia, or any other type of self harm. I have to keep them away from people that might attempt to influence them in harmful ways. This includes gangs and cults. I must also make sure they understand that they are beautiful the way they are. It is child abuse for me to do anything that would be harmful to their health. I must protect them from any group or individual that might influence them that any form of body integrity disorder is healthy no matter how they feel about it. This includes any practice that would undermine the healthy development of my child or their endocrine system or extreme forms of BID that include but are not limited to apotemnophilia. I know that my child’s brain won’t develop fully until they are around 25 years of age or so. Therefore I will not allow them to make any permanent decisions in life while they are a minor. This is a responsibility that all parents have regardless of who is in political power. I will not allow any form of child abuse no matter how shiny of a box it’s packaged in. I know that bad decisions made as a parent will affect me for the rest of my life and continue to affect others long after I’m gone.
I stumbled upon this today and it really helped me – thank you, as a MOM. Is there a link to join the support group you mentioned? I’ve not done anything like that before.
Just wanted to ask did you manage to find the support group?
Wow, I knew the stats for autistic girls getting swallowed up by the transgender movement was high, I didn’t know it was so high for boys. That is just plain sad – what a horrible movement to exploit young people who will already have enough battles navigating life with ASD. Thank you for writing this.
I love this term. I have been guilty of discrediting mothers in the past but this is a great article.
People are not born into the wrong bodies. They are born into bodies, period. They may like or dislike their bodies, but there ain’t no changing its immutable genetic-based characteristics.
There is no such thing as ‘trans’; what is going on is gender roles and behaviors are being treated as if they determine your sex. using what I call the ‘one drop of trans’ rule. Thus gender non-conformity=trans.
This is because the activists have appointed themselves (or been allowed to become) the arbiters of what is or is not ‘gender role conformity’ and are using it to recruit for their cult.
Good article. It’s about time somebody coined this term. Misomatery. My kids aren’t teens yet, and I’ve felt our culture’s Misomatery in the following ways:
-Our culture gives the message that being a mom is contemptible. It’s not something that “smart” women do.
-In fiction, moms are portrayed as silly and shallow OR frustrated and unfulfilled (e.g. Mother’s Little Helper) OR brittle, self-righteous and super controlling. To be fair, dads don’t get a good rap either.
-Women are encouraged to have as few children as possible and get back into “the workforce” ASAP. We are encouraged to use birth control and to kill our offspring. This is billed as a right and as key to our “liberation.” From what? From motherhood.
-We judge the hell out of pregnant women and parents of young children. This is, incidentally, the most vulnerable time in a woman’s life, when she needs the most support. Many parenting books don’t actually tell you what to do so much as list a bunch of horror stories of mistakes moms make and tell you “don’t be that mom!”
To those commenters who think Donna’s “get your cult away from my child” closer is over the top, she is defending her vulnerable child. Read James’s analysis of how cults operate. Those methods are used by the trans movement as well as CRT. One step is alienating the mark from their family. In the case of transitioning, the results are irreversible, which makes the stakes very very high. She is justified in going in to full mother bear mode.
What these kids need, the boys in particular, are some Dead Kennedys and Slayer records. Something to help them forge a real and healthy sense of identity and self worth.
I’d bet half these kids, upoun a first listen to Holiday in Cambodia or Seasons in the Abyss, would ditch the fairy wings and would soon be seen leaping off the stage into a rocking mosh pit, knowing that they will be caught by strangers arms and remain unharmed.
I find it interesting that we continually hear about “ways of knowing” in the critical race/critical theories and that we cannot understand other ways ok knowing. So how is a mom’s knowing not fall into this narrative for these activists then?
Each of Critical Theory’s fundamental tenets, such as “trust the lived experience of ____” has glaring, unabashed, inconsistencies in the application. Each one is applied very specifically to certain groups and conspicuously not to others. The society Wokism advocates for will be constructed entirely of double-standards.
– The system is racist so we need to make race-based hiring decisions
– Inclusion is our goal and we need to route out all persons who challenge this viewpoint
– Speech is violence so violence is an appropriate response to speech we don’t like
– Respect all women, and by ‘all’, we mean trans-women, and anyone else can go to hell
yadda yadda, it goes on…
If 15 years ago we were an imperfect society striving toward an idealism of justice and fairness, the winds have decidedly changed toward blatant abandonment of actual justice “for all”.
Y’all need to read Debra Soh’s “The End of Gender” if you haven’t already. She’s as pro-LGBT as they come, but she’ll tell you the cold hard truth about gender, sexuality, and transgenderism backed by data.
I read the Soh book, but do not like it. She did not do a good job. She is Woke, and it shows in the book. Rather than a clear statement about trans, she tries to walk the middle line, saying that some are trans, others are not. We need clarity here. Trans is a delusion, and is never true.
You start out the article by trying to be all nice and humble, but by the end you’re lashing out about cults and transgenderism and terfs and etc etc. Trans people were trans kids too once, and as much as you might want to deny it, they know what is going through the minds of many trans youth. Trying to disavow young trans girls’ gender identity as a need to feel special is just gross. This whole article reads like a transphobic mother desperately begging for attention to get someone to keep her daughter pretending to be someone she just isn’t. And now, this ROGD shit creates a perfect shield from reality for parents who would ordinarily just be rightfully dismissed as anti-trans nutjobs.
I think the perspective Donna has to offer is an important one, but I have to agree that delivering it with a more even hand would make it more palatable to people who might otherwise dismiss it based on some of the reasons you mention.
You are correct that currently happy trans people were once trans kids who evidently knew exactly what they were feeling. But it’s also true that trans people who regret their transitions were “trans kids” who may have misidentified what they were feeling. I think these letters would be much stronger if these two categories were first outlined, so that the concern is shifted toward minimizing the possibility of the latter situation. That way it’s clear that the goal is to nurture neuro-atypical people toward proper self-assessment, rather than to imply that transgenderism is always an easy scapegoat, as it sort of reads now.
The subreddit Donna refers to is most likely r/detrans. While it might work in Donna’s favor to explicitly acknowledge that transgenderism *is* valid for many people, we can’t just cover our ears and pretend that every person who has transitioned ends up feeling like they made the right choice. There is a surprising amount of people in trans communities who suggest that any article mentioning transition regret is a plant written by a transphobe, but it’s a hell of a stretch to read through the r/detrans posts and suggest that every single one of those is a plant as well.
I get that it’s complicated; depression might be common with people who have transitioned due to social perceptions rather than because they made a personal mistake, but we can only hear so many stories by people who want to de-transition before we have to start listening to them as well.
Gays are born, trans are created by social media, strongly influenced by homophobia. When you truly understand why you are unable to provide the name of the manufacture and model name of the mind reading machine that shows that some males have the mind of a female you will understand why. Indoctrinating children that they are of the opposite sex is child abuse. There is zero chance that the 95% heterosexual males will consider that males are females. You really need to understand the reality of this. Someone’s own mental status cannot change the mental status of someone else. You are attempting to “cure” heterosexuals of their sexuality. That will never happen. That’s all there is to it.
My reply is to Trish. It may have posted as a reply to Kevin on accident.
Still no proof that people are born gay. No gay gene has been found. The recent transgender problem isn’t with the children, it is with society that has become depraved.
There isn’t even a remotely transphobic sentiment in this article, on the contrary. Your response is inflammatory and borderline hysterical.
You are wrong and this is exactly the type of response she’s talking about.
Thanks ‘Trish’ for reminding us just how demented tranny cult members such as yourself can be.
Have a nice day.
The recent surge in transgenderism is a solution in search of a problem, a problem that didn’t exist until recently. The problem is due to the cultural upheaval caused by immoral actors in trying to transform society.
Trish: You are a trannie pimp. That’s child abuse.
Bravo, Donna. Bravo 🙌
-fellow mom
The opinions of teenagers on any subject have to be treated with unquestioning reverence these days. It is a dangerously flawed concept:
From the Health Encyclopedia of the University of Rochester Medical Center:
UNDERSTANDING THE TEEN BRAIN
It doesn’t matter how smart teens are or how well they scored on the SAT or ACT. Good judgment isn’t something they can excel in, at least not yet. The rational part of a teen’s brain isn’t fully developed and won’t be until age 25 or so.
In fact, recent research has found that adult and teen brains work differently. Adults think with the prefrontal cortex, the brain’s rational part. This is the part of the brain that responds to situations with good judgment and an awareness of long-term consequences. Teens process information with the amygdala. This is the emotional part.
In teen’s brains, the connections between the emotional part of the brain and the decision-making center are still developing—and not always at the same rate. That’s why when teens have overwhelming emotional input, they can’t explain later what they were thinking. They weren’t thinking as much as feeling.
Contrary to what many trans activists think, the boomers were pretty good at accepting difference. We knew people who marched to a different drum. You know nowadays if I were a teen, they would say I am non binary, because I have always had interests not associated with being feminine. I imagine I would be as confused about myself as many teens today. What I am saying, is do not label and change the sex of someone because they do not fit a rigid male or female stereotype and let people grow to be who they are..if they find as an adult they want to change sex than they are making an adult decision. I worked with people until I retired and I am amazed how many teachers, medical people, etc just go along with this and forget that teens are still developing. In the next decade, I believe questions will be asked of people who transitioned our youth. Glad I am not one of those people. I spoke out against it instead. I won’t feel sorry for you, because professional people should know better.
https://quillette.com/2021/04/02/when-sons-become-daughters-parents-of-transitioning-boys-speak-out-on-their-own-suffering/
Quillette is running a five part series on gender dysphoric boys. Readers of this excellent piece might be interested.
Thank heavens for common sense. Thank YOU for publishing this. (Only quibble – it’s extremely uncomfortable reading white on black; can it be reversed out??)
Yes. You can set your website color preference on desktop by clicking the light bulb icon in the top right corner of the site. Your theme choice may be toggled anytime, and will be preserved when you return to the website in the future. This also works on mobile.
I find this spike in transgenderism suggestive of environmental influences. Specifically, the current vaccination mania. The HPV vaccine is given at around puberty, when the body is full of pubescent hormones. It contains an adjuvant (an aluminum salt) which is designed to trigger an immune response to the viral antigen which is included in the vaccine. But the child’s sex hormones are also part of the mix. Autoimmunity to one’s own hormones is known to exist in some people.
Here’s more info: http://thoughtcrimeradio.net/2019/07/study-finds-transgender-autism-link/
IF, and that is a very big IF, there is a chemical influence behind the transgender craze, it is far likelier to be hormone -disrupting synthetic chemicals in the environment rather than the HPV or any other vaccine. Research over the last thirty years has identified a large number of chemicals introduced into our food, soil, and water that can cause severe sex organ anomalies during fetal development, even in tiny doses. Hormones during embryonic development shape not only genitalia but also behavior, specifically sex and aggressive behavior, in the resulting adult. Scores of these chemicals have been discovered, from pesticides to ingredients in plastic bottles, the lining of tin cans, flame retardants, and detergents. They are having dramatic effects on some species of wildlife. e.g. frogs and fish born with both male and female organs, alligators with tiny penises) and have been implicated in declining sperm counts in humans worldwide. These may well be behind not only transgenderism but also apparently increasing rates of homosexuality and bisexuality.
There is no biological basis to trannie-hood. It’s all social contagion, social hysteria. There is no biological test for trannie-hood.
ANother anti-vax idiot. How can you breathe and walk?
You’re right, of course, in the minds of rational people. Unfortunately, poster-carrying, TERF-shouting, hormone and surgery-pushing cultists run the trans show, and nothing you say, no matter how rational and data-backed it is, will ever get through to them. Good luck with your son.
Very well said. Stand up Moms!!
Another brilliant article. Thank you for sharing!
PS is ‘misomateric’ a typo?
‘Derived’ from ‘mis(o)’, a Greek verb root meaning ‘hate’, and ‘mater’, a Latin noun meaning ‘mother’. Hence the apology to Classics scholars for the mixed root word.
I’m a parent with a young teen that’s also questioning their gender identity. I appreciate what Donna M. is going through and am sorry she’s going through all the blowback to her letter. I think my job as a parent is to be supportive, loving and be a guide through whatever stage of life my kid is going through. That includes respecting what my kid has to say. I don’t need to agree with it but telling them “No, you’re not trans,” labeling them as “weird” and addressing them as “my son” is not respectful and probably not helping the situation. This could very likely just be a stage and probably they aren’t really trans. But telling them they’re wrong when they’re going through a questioning period in their life is not a recipe for success.
It’s ok to tell our kids that they could be wrong. It is part of parenting. Too often they are being told who they are by peers or online communities. Why is it that parents are being asked to give up their instincts and knowledge and experience when it comes to transgender issues and their own kids.
Being supportive is part of a parent’s job. The other part is teaching, so your kids don’t have to start from the zero knowledge they’re born with. To do that, you have to be aware of reality and able to show them good ways through it. The second half is the point of the post. The first half is the point of your comment, if I understood it right.
There’s some slack in figuring out what’s real and what isn’t (although most of our species understands sex in humans without requiring scholarly research), but being supportive is another topic.
It is your primary job as a parent to protect your children and instill in them good moral values. Being supportive, loving, and a guide to your child are all well and good, but if these contradict your primary job as a parent, you are playing with fire (or more accurately, letting your children play with fire).
The fact is, being trans is dangerous. Suicide is common, maiming is ubiquitous. You have authority as a parent and it is your solemn duty to use that authority to protect your children from their own shortsightedness and irrationality.
This X 1000.
Sounds like you think being trans is immoral. As far as your conclusion that it’s dangerous, correlation does not imply causation.
Has it ever occurred to you that life long medication and surgery is not really something to encourage for anyone if alternatives can be found?
You might misunderstand my point a bit. In my first point, I included the “instill moral values” bit as a part of parenting because only protecting children won’t produce good adults. I support the idea that children are anti-fragile and shouldn’t be protected from every petty problem and danger they might encounter so that they grow strong and mature. Perhaps it could be rephrased as “instill character”.
Of course, there are some limitations to dangers children should be exposed to so that they develop. It would be ridiculous to send a child into a warzone to instill character. If the child survived, they likely would have learned some important lessons about courage and self-reliance, but the chances of them not surviving or being permanently maimed are unacceptably high.
I don’t believe being trans is immoral, equally as much as any condition or state your body and mind could be in; it’s not moral or immoral to be tall, quadriplegic, Kazakh, anxious, heterosexual, etc.
I do believe it’s immoral to tell people that maiming surgeries on otherwise healthy people are not dangerous (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUGrOeEcE0U).
Child abuse is immoral. Watching a child have BID issues such as gender dysphoria, bulimia, or anorexia and not taking action is child abuse. Anything that results in harm to the child’s body is child abuse. This includes but is not limited to apotemnophilia or anything that would harm a child’s endocrine system. Do you think that apotemnophilia, anorexia, bulimia, or gender dysphoria are immoral? I don’t think there is a moral component to a disease itself. When we don’t treat the disease it becomes child abuse which is immoral. There is a single treatment for every form of BID and that is to get the child healthy and to stop the BID. There is no exception to this rule no matter how it makes you feel.
No, suicide is NOT common. It’s as common as for any other psychiatric disorder, of which trans is the delusion of the moment. There’s a LOT of evidence that suicide rates INCREASE post-transition, especially after surgical maiming.
You say it’s important to support your child and not tell them they are wrong, but there are clear harms at play here. Would you “affirm” an anorexic child? “Yes, you are fat, let’s get you liposuction” – is that loving and supportive? Is it love to lie to your child and encourage them towards lasting harm in the name of “supporting” their (incorrect) belief? I agree you should guide them – towards the truth.
No. Your job isn’t to be supportive first. It’s to protect your child first.
We all have to make tough decisions, but once you lie to your child once you can’t really stop because they will never trust you again. Allowing a child to believe something that isn’t true is child abuse. This include allowing a child to think that anorexia, bulimia, or any other form of BID is healthy. Affirming any form of BID to a child is child abuse.
Well, do what you wish, but don’t allow him to cut off his dick.
Geezus, you are going to wind up with a sterile child who has cut off stuff. If this deluded child came to you and said “Dad, all the kids are jumping off the roof, and I am going to jump off the roof too.” Do you 1) give him a parachute or 2) stop him from jumping off the roof?
Only an unfit parent allows his child to jump off the roof.