When I was a kid, my family had a set of rotadraw circles that fascinated me. These were circular plastic stencils. First, you drew in all the stenciled openings for “1,” then rotated the circle one phase and filled in those for “2,” etc. This process took concentration and careful alignment. Slowly, the underlying drawing was being built, but you would not be able to recognize it until you completed the task and lifted the stencil off to reveal it. The anticipation was agony. It was brilliant.
I’ve been thinking a lot about that toy recently, and our culture’s general impatience. Just over a year ago, our then 15-year-old son announced to my husband and I that he thought he might be trans. As my other essay described, this was not just totally out-of-the-blue, but totally out-of-character.
As many other parents have described, this announcement usually triggers a brutal, all-encompassing, multi-front campaign into finding a therapist, reading the latest research, exploring anti-depressants, physical and cognitive assessments, re-evaluating and adjusting your child’s friends and internet influences, reinvesting in family time, and hopefully building a support group. It isn’t easy.
As this process plays out, parents are filling in the stencils, shifting the circle, and following the guidelines. Literally – this is how mature parents are designed to work. Life has taught us to look before we leap. Years of observation and self-reflection have revealed to us that humans sometimes want things or do things that are short-sighted and harmful to ourselves and others. A little bit of time, a deep breath, a small moment away to stop and think and gather more information can prevent a lot of errors.
But teenagers are not capable of this. They lack the ability to accurately estimate risk. They are impulsive. They misread social cues. They can be aggressive. Their brains are literally under construction at this point. Their prefrontal cortex won’t be fully formed until they are around age 25. These trans-identified kids are prematurely lifting off their rotadraw stencil, declaring that they are absolutely certain they know what the final design should be, and demanding the permanent markers, scissors and glue to form it the way they think some intangible gender spirit tells them it should be. They literally cannot think logically about this topic. They only think emotionally.
Here’s the good news: if you’ve got a teenage child, you are probably in your forties. You’ve been around the sun a few times. You’ve had your hipster grunge phase, your “Friend’s” haircut, your Pottery Barn furniture phase. You may even be entering the expensive hobby phase – unless you’re still in the expensive braces-for-your-kids phase. You understand that some desires, choices, and actions are harmless, some profoundly beneficial, and some truly damaging. Altering the body by hormones or surgery is permanent. Use that wisdom, use that perspective, and give your kid the things they truly need: time, meaningful experiences, better friends who appreciate them for who they actually are, and lots and lots of love.
Because meanwhile, while you are freaking out (internally!) and pretending to have Carol and Mike Brady-like levels of aplomb and sensitivity, your child’s brain will start filling in the stencils, rotating the circle, and building up their design. A year from now (as long as you don’t give them puberty-suppressing hormones which totally mess up the brain development), their brain will have more capacity to think. Their mind will have more capacity to understand its self.
So yes, your child’s trans thing is a phase. Like multiple studies have shown, around 85% of children with gender dysphoria desist by the time they are adults. If your teen is like mine (no evidence of gender non-conformity throughout their life, profoundly gifted, socially isolated) they are probably going to desist. If they are like my friends’ kids (ADHD, Asperger’s/ASD) they are probably going to desist. If they are like my other friends’ kids (gay or lesbian) they are probably going to desist. With some love and some time and no social transitioning, it may take a year or so, but you’ll get there.
And if your child is one of the ones whose gender dysphoria never abates – you’ll know it after they’ve completely filled in their rotadraw. You’ll have seen those lines forming those patterns for years and years, since childhood and through adolescence. My heart goes out to those families. To you I caution slow slow decision making. Help your kid understand that sex never changes. Make sure your kid knows what their sexuality is. Encourage them to date until they know who they like. Delay anything permanent until their brain has matured, too. Give them the opportunity to let their brain mature naturally. Let them finish their work of growing up. As the thousands of detrans people can attest, you can always go forward, but you can never go back.
So it comes down to this: if you think it might be a phase, it probably is. If you know it isn’t a phase, it probably isn’t. Either way, we all need to stop messing with the stencil and stop interrupting the natural development of the brain and the body. Have a little patience and respect for the phases, folks. Stop demanding that teenagers know who they are immediately and stop freezing their puberty in its tracks. Phases are weird and ugly and often unpleasant, but phases are natural, too, and we’ve come a long way thanks to them.
68 comments
this article is poorly written, manipulative anti-trans propaganda. This is the thinking that leads to children being murdered and killing themselves because their environment, society, and families will not let them be who they are. The author and everyone who shares their opinion should be ashamed of themselves and read and actually get educated on the topic instead of reading this obvious misinformation. It truly depresses me that people not only think this is okay, everyone responsible for this piece of shit word vomit should be ashamed, and everyone who agrees with it should be truly ashamed of themselves for believing an ideology that puts transgender childrens lives in danger.
Some of the people in these comments are despicable and not ready to accept that research is on the side of the trans community. 🏳️⚧️ We won’t let your bigotry stop us from being who we are. Find a way to fill that hole in your shriveled, dead heart.
100%. Medium was correct on censoring this person opinion. Also, you might try to actually know what a pre frontal cortex e tails as it has nothing to do with sense of self, which is where gender identity comes into play. Kids know around 4. Trans adults were once trans kids. This is the same propaganda they used against gays and lesbians. It’s tired, harmful, and incorrect.
You cant just describe in detail how you gaslit, controlled and manipulated your own daughter and say “see, this PROVES it was just a phase”.
The main reason kids dont show signs of gender nonconformity is because of how YOU would react if they did, as is the reason they desist. Which you have proven.
You are a manipulator. If you truly believed your kid was not trans, you should have no fear in accepting the possibility.
Transitioning was the worst decision my twelve year old self has made and now the rest of my life experiences its consequences in everything I do. Worst thing is ALL of my female friends from middle school have ended up transitioning. None of them ended up like me because I actually went through social transition, I enabled myself, for them it’s simply changing pronouns and convincing others to lie to them everyday. We experienced the same pattern that always arises but no one is allowed to point out: insecure (teen) girls in the same groups with the same personalities all become LGBT obsessive. I’m still living as Trans because detransitioning is so much harder than transitioning. Detransitioning is for grown ups capable of thinking logically and emotionally, transitioning is for teens only acting out on emotion. Don’t get me wrong, I know a lot of people who are genuinely trans..transitioning… they became a minority in their own group, I watched them die out from my hands. I wish we could coexist but the community doesn’t accept any criticism, either you let everyone transition or you’re transphobic. Don’t get me started on how they cover up fetishism, a real issue with real people struggling, but again they have to have everyone transition so let’s pretend there’s not a single issue! I remember a time where trans people could actually criticize themselves but that went down with the dysphoric people.
Thank you for speaking out and I’m sorry you’ve experienced what you have.
It’s really ridiculous how any questioning at all is considered transphobic. I think the more defensive people get when being questioned, the more uncertain they actually are. And there’s always that threat of suicide – believe every young person knows exactly who they are (often only after being introduced to the concept) or they may die. It’s really out of control.
I had no access to social media as a kid, and went to a private religious academy. Still knew I didn’t feel right as my birth gender as early as kindergarten, and was miserable and disassosciating until coming to terms with and accepting that. So it’s not as though I had no desire to transition prior to learning about trans people, just hadn’t realized it was an option beyond wishing and praying.
Trans people have existed long before the internet, although medical advancements have obviously made it easier to live openly and physically transition. The first trans person underwent transition in 1952.
SEGM Society for Evidence-based Medicine
“We are an international group of over 100 clinicians and researchers concerned about the lack of quality evidence for the use of hormonal and surgical interventions as first-line treatment for young people with gender dysphoria. We represent expertise from a range of clinical disciplines.
Our objectives include evaluating current interventions for gender dysphoria, providing balanced evidence summaries, promoting the development of effective and supportive psychosocial approaches for the care of young people with gender dysphoria and generating good, answerable questions for research.”
https://segm.org/about_us
Good luck to anyone with bone fide reasons to feel put down, as we are all going to need it once the mask on the police state finally comes off. Tbh for those who have clearly subcontracted their sense of psychosocial perspective out can tell it all to the miltary police one day, whose rifle butt blow to old gender fluid heads & cis ones alike, might validate the way humans just became tools – cattle.
Out there is an interesting LGBTQA academic. Claiming to be a former elite sports star ( no a prob there – the ivy league can fix it so their sprogs get everything to astronaut status ) With a fishy story about an injury that would not heal until ten cells were used ( moaning about the expense fairly suspiciously ) and then a miraculous transformation of the sport stars personal business as the stem cell trades leading trade directory on sourcing inventories of stem cells and cord blood etc. Incredible – all rolled into one is a lgbtqa science advice location where you can find out where to get hold of stem cells. Nope are is no reason why there should not be coincidence as such. It just seems strange that such high powered hub facilities manifested overnight like magic just because of a stem cell treatment.
Have a look at the industrial expressions of interest / corporate logo’s. Read about the donors, consider the $$$$$ involved & what the supply chain can consist of. Stem cells do not seem to grow via synthesis thus actual human products are required – preferably from the unborn and infant.
Who can afford this & what are the range of applications, does it include cosmetic reasons ? Dead people seem to be not the highest quality source but pretty good unless the are the ultimate i.e the unborn baby and even umbilical cord & related fluids. This is an industry that scoffs at empathy towards the living experiencing human unless they are the elite humans in receipt of these life giving forces.
Thus it suits this industry is advantaged by a impugned sense social conscience concerning biological realty, bits of people & people who will pay large sums for bits of people is what this industry needs, its interested in all human scrap & the feelingless society that promotes a sense of a self disfranchisement and expectations of biological disintegration among the people. LGBTQA and a mass being manipulated to assist with this erosion is not even required for a single persons happiness, in fact its buying into revenge on others who had nothing to do with anyones predicament with gender.
Best guess for reason for MRNA based jabs ? – the promotion of richer bone marrow for harvest in the future, this industry cannot meet the demand to the sums of trillions.
James was former alms as bad. In a podcast workshop recently he remarked on how feminists were shocked at the genie that came out a box( gender argument context). New Atheism was always a completely pointless merry go round of personal hubris, and it eroded humanity’s perspective in a similar fashion. The is always going to be a tough paradox when seeking to degrade the human body. I’m not saying that a God is evident & was ever about to prevent misanthropy – none ever did. But humanity just hasn’t got the power to prevent laws of consequences just by applying logic when the motivational force for that logic is really business & commerce. Similarly LGBTQA et al has nothing to gain by being taken in by an establishment using the issues as an excuse to lower out human standards of personal responsibility, just so that fiendish and disgusting practices like hating peoples cells to sell to the rich can seem ethical.
Its all going to get messed up with an organ donation sense of persona/ humane responsibility. Yet no ordinary person knows if organs are whisked away to be flogged off to the rich who can financially jump the queue. We ned to ask ourselves are the worlds most powerful and rich trustworthy enough to be ethical when so much money can be harvested from human parts. Indubitably it is also the most powerful who created the superfluous psychosocial contents of LGBTQA which encourage people to disregard biological factors. Yes there is supporting ‘ empirical science’ out there for the decoupling of the relevant biological factors & claiming MRI evidence so on. Its lamentable fake science, off research grants from shady sources that will be discredited as results to order science.
The probability is that in a police state certain people will be a laughing stock and will be targeted for extra pernicious treatment. The state will have cancelled everything it dealt under the table concerning the ways it manipulated people to help them degrade the status of humankind having disowned all decoupled logic and blamed it on the groups themselves.
Theres bandits cutting babies out of women – think about it.
Thats YOU.
** Given that the technologies emergent from clinical research puts stem cells way above the price of diamond ounce for ounce, it has become harder to envisage an undertaker to leaving things alone. If pfizer’s MRNA manipulation technology helped immune system efficiency good thats good. And one can reasonably assume many are a richer harvest by now.
The film ‘knock at any door; comes to mind here with its phase ”live fast die young & leave a good looking corpse” is very ‘Woke upper class” in attitude, and the younger someone is, the more valuable the stem cell harvest. It isn’t going to be ‘cool’ expect people to take a step back & think about the ethics in that top young woke strata of society is it ? – put a downer on this exciting new technology with is free body parts & huge growth potentials ?. Does this man that the upper class wokes going into this big industry are hoping for quality young lower class wokes to live fast and die young ? it does rather smack of it, but how could they be so cruel?.
Well Money – they cannot even stay away from the pursuit of bits of people & everyone is supposed to believe they are sincere concerning critical theories linked to peoples Emotions ?
Another thing we cannot deny is the existence emerging peddlers of this trade & the way the one claiming to be top dog is LBGTQA. Just coincidence ? – or does the disregard for humankind biological nature tie in perfectly ?
Meaningless non binary bits or Meaningful binary bits.
Which of those attitudes carelessly supports the idea of a non democratised for profit private industry in human body parts & fluids mostly interested in the unborn ?
”The gender i was assigned at birth” <<< blaming parents at lest level. And just by one of those most odd of coincidences, there is a massive pro abortion row. Not judging that either way unless someone thinking of a stem cell battery farming operation are they ? You see before stem cell tech nobody was interested in the proletariat just for there body part harvesting potentials After ? well some movement ad to going around begging & imploring for the masses to disregard Biology!
Little Woke ? – if you ever have the misfortune to meet big powerful elite young woke you ain't gonna need no body to be wittering on about!. You want empathy over gender after hearing the propaganda ? The maker of the woke criticality just what to break you for spares one day and thinking asap !
This person sounds like they have a shirt made by their friend that says “Trump Girl.”
Can you explain why you feel the person sounds like that ?
So you think it is alright for someone to mutilate a child before their prefrontal cortex is developed enough to know what they my actually want for the rest of their life? If I had a surgery for every phase I went through in my adolescent years ud be a walking Picasso. The writer of this is just expressing not to jump the gun with surgery and hormones until the child’s mind is surely settled. Then again I suppose there are some perverted people in the world that think mutilation of a child’s private parts is alright, even though it is irreversible. Well if not being a perverted person makes me a “Trump girl” get me a shirt.
What about people who didn’t vote at all, are not religious, and still agree with this article? What sort of brilliant insult do you have for them?
It’s 2022 and this article is still pushing the routinely debunked “85% of children with gender dysphoria desist” myth.
I realize this is a Christian website, and you guys like believing anti scientific nonsense, but this is really irreponsible. The latest studies and DSM classifications utterly debunk this.
“DIE CIS SCUM!!!”
“KILL TERFS DEAD!!!”
Death threats, assaults on women and championing MAPs (“minor attracted” paedophiles). You’ve really got the moral high ground there, Swampy.
Child Trans is a Manufactured Lie!
Trans Inc. is a Weapon of the Ruling Class!
“Transgender” is the Opium of the New Bourgeois Aristocracy!
REALITY IS FREEDOM!
from a former (’80s/’90s) gay activist, anti-T-hegemony realist and non-Christian
Thank for saying this!
I have known two people who outgrew gender dysphoria. One was a young girl who loved her older brothers and was always following them around. She eventually grew out of it and is now married to a man and had 3 kids. The other was an adolescent who had eating disorders and insisted people call her Jeff rather than Jennifer. She got help for her ED and eventually stopped trying to get people to call her Jeff. She is now married with 2 adult children and grandchildren. So yes, people do outgrow gender dysphoria.
Not a Christian. Didn’t vote. Still agree.
Fuck off nark, as a lesbian parent of 4 kids at 31, I think parents need to be supportive of their kids. My oldest is non-binary, my second oldest is lesbian okay that’s fine with me. You really need to think before you speak.
So you would allow a minor child to make life-altering decisions for themselves? Glad you didn’t raise me. Fool.
What are the odds that 2/4 of your kids would have something wrong with them? I’m curious if this is leaned behavior due to having a lesbian as a mother, I know many people who have3-4 kids and none identify as any of this. You’re easily influenced by your environment and id be curious at how many kids grow up confused due to parents identifying as gay or lesbian or trans.
WHY IS IT SO DIFFICULT TO UNDERSTAND THAT NOT EVERYBODY IS THE SAME??? SOME PEOPLE FEEL THAT THEY DON’T BELONG IN THE SEX THEY WERE BORN SO THEY CHANGE THEIR SEX AND IT IS VALID, AND OTHERS ARE CONFUSED AND THINK THEY BELONG IN THE OTHER SEX, ONLY TO FIND OUT LATER THAT IT WAS A PHASE, AND IT IS VALID!.
WHY ON EARTH IT IS WRONG, BAD OR EVIL TO REALIZE ONE WENT OVER A PHASE???? TO CONDEMN THIS IS AS EVIL AS CONDEMNING TRANSITIONING.
I have a question for you. Did you know at age 15 you were a girl? Did you know you liked boys? If the answer is yes, then you understand that cisgender and heterosexual kids can know who they are any age they want. It is only when it comes to trans or gay kids that they are “too young to know”.
If you told your parents you had a crush on a boy, did they tell you “Oh no, you can’t know for sure”? If you asked for a dress, did they say you weren’t allowed because you didn’t know who you were? That’s because being cis and straight is considered normal. It’s the default. It’s like how in books they never describe a white character’s skin color, but they do describe a POC’s skin color. It’s because being white is the default; it’s assumed. So you “son” thinking he is trans should be accepted as much as him saying he was going on a date with a girl.
As a trans teenager, I want to say that your child has probably been thinking about this for a very long time. He probably didn’t feel comfortable talking to you because he knew your views. There’s a reason that 42% of LGBTQ youth have seriously considered suicide, and it isn’t because they are struggling in school or they are sad they are queer. It is because they are not in a home that will love and accept them. It has been proven that gender-affirming medical care is life saving. Trans people have been backed up by science for years. Your child isn’t going to start puberty blockers, get hormones and surgery in the span of a week, these things take time. They actually can’t start anything without being properly assessed by a trained medical professional. I think you need to do some research and really understand the information you are putting out there. That study you showed was held by already transphobic people, and many of the people they surveyed likely “changed their minds” about being trans because it was too hard to live that way so they pushed their feelings down.
Take it from a trans teen whose parents struggled at first, but learned and were there for me when it mattered, When it got too hard and I wished to die every night, I needed my parents. I needed support, I needed help. And it made all the difference when my parents understood I wasn’t faking, that what I was saying was backed up by my therapist and by science. Being there for your child when they need it most, even if you don’t completely understand, makes all the difference. For me, it was the difference between life and death. Listen to you child, get him a therapist, doctors appointments, do your own research (there are lots of resources for parents of trans teens!) and I know your child will be so grateful.
. No, this industry is not careful with your lives. You should ask why the people who are careful with your lives are pushed out like those who believe in watch and wait. Why is something that would need puberty blockers surgery and cosmetic surgery suppose to be such a common thing that every impressional child and teen needs to hear about it.
Not all trans people have to get surgery some trans people are already okay in their bodies.
I agree with this 100%, and coming from an FTM whose parents don’t accept them, well I can say that not having your parents to support you and say that they love you no matter what hurts more than you will ever know. If your “son” comes out and says that SHE is trans, then you should accept it like that. Not think about if it’s “just the trend” or if it’s “just a phase”. No. If SHE decided to tell you then SHE would’ve been thinking about it a lot.
I’m just saying, you should trust your kid, and support them no matter what and no matter what you may think or were taught. Because trust me when I say, when a parent says to you in your face, “It’s just a phase,” Or, “It’s just the world today, it’s not you,” Or, this one is my favorite, “It’s just the trend going on. It’s not real.” It will not make your kid listen to you more.
Hope this makes you see a lot more.
Sincerely, Your Neighborhood FTM <3
So what you’re saying is that there is no possibility whatsoever that the child is confused? If an 11 year old girl asks you that they want surgery and transition I should go ahead? Just asking, not contradicting you.
Since you are still a teen, I won’t say to you what I would say to an adult who was pushing the nonsense that you are, but I will say that you have been manipulated by people with an agenda that doesn’t have your best interest at heart.
When you have regrets about your “transition”, and you will, I assure you, remember who was trying to get you the help you need, and who was encouraging you to permanently mutilate your body for the sake of a political agenda.
Between 1-3% of transgender youth who transition do come to detransition. Although a large number of detransitioners still consider themselves trans, just not part of the gender binary.
Gender affirming care helps the overwhelming majority of trans people. Not that we should ignore detransitioners entirely, but why prioritize making care more difficult to protect the few at the expense of the many helped by gender affirming care?
Personally, I was trans as a child and teen raised in a conservative Christian household with no media access, while attending a private academy. Still trans at 27, and much happier since transitioning.
The fifteen year old I know who is on hormone blockers and hrt is one of the brightest and happiest kids I know, and I just wish I’d had the freedom to be myself from an early age as they have had.
Why are people so caught up on the false narrative of transition regret, when recent studies have proved regret is minimal. Again, around 1-3% regret rate. Comparatively, a knee replacement surgery has a regret rate around 30%. Statistically you would help more people by complaining about knee surgeries.
I have a question, and I’m not asking to sound rude or like I’m just uninformed on the topic. I personally have not gone through any of this – I mean literally me, I’m a heterosexual mom of 3. I have never thought of myself as a closed mind person. I am always open to being educated. I do know people who truly don’t feel like they are the gender that was assigned to them at birth. My nephew who I’ve known since the day he was born I can still remember him as a toddler and everyone who knew him knew that he would be gay, he’s now in his mid 20’s nothing has changed and he is definitely gay.
My concern/question is this – my 9 year old daughter has never mentioned anything to me or anyone in the family about feeling different. She likes video games so she will say boys are cooler because they are always the cooler character and she recently cut her hair herself to have it short but today we saw her pediatric specialist, she has diagnoses of ADHD, depression, and anxiety and out of nowhere the dr started asking her about her gender identity. I could tell my daughter was confused as she is only 9 plus the adhd affects her so that developmentally her brain development is similar to a 6 year old. Do you think this is appropriate to just discuss with a patient??
getting therapy while your younger could help with gender affirming, to actually see if your child is transgender or not. try to speak to her about what gender identity is to help her understand her dr better and what hes trying to ask her.
I started transitioning at the age of 15 after enduring years of sexual abuse in my home and having been forcibly raped, stalked, and then coerced into dating by my 28-year-old neighbor who would not take no for an answer and of course my already sexually abusive dysfunctional family didn’t protect me from him any more than my mom protected me from my dad. Being a dumb teenager, I didn’t connect my sexual victimization to my hatred of being a girl. I’d always been a tomboy anyway so when I learned I could transition to leave my body image issues and discomfort with my sex behind it all made so much sense to me. I first thought I might be trans at 14 after reading about it on social media.
A “friend” provided me with testosterone cream for the first few years and then when I turned 18 I started on T injections. I got top surgery not long after that. All of this (except the testosterone cream which I was encouraged to apply to my genital area to maximize “growth”, which I paid for with money from my part time job) was paid for by the government.
The “gender therapist” I had to see before my insurance would approve anything never once suggested that maybe something else might be causing my feelings: not my eating disorder, not my long history of being sexually abused, not the fact that I’d grown up with an sexist, abusive, alcoholic rapist for a dad or a weak-willed enabler for a mother. At one point during one of the sessions (I think it took 2 or 3 visits in total for her to okay my life-altering hormone replacement therapy and double mastectomy) I told my gender therapist that I was afraid I would regret it if I jumped into surgery too quickly but that I also wanted to get it as soon as possible because I wanted men to stop looking at me. I told her that I had doubts about injected T because it would have real results (the product I’d been buying hadn’t done much so it’s questionable whether I was even getting the real deal or what it was mixed with) but I didn’t know if the results would go far enough and I thought I might find it easier in the long run to live as an attractive but miserable woman than an ugly half-way man.
She dismissed all of my concerns. She said doubts were normal and no one who isn’t trans thinks about the possibility that they might be trans. She okayed my surgery and HRT. I got both of those things within three weeks of turning 18, thinking that by going to a therapist and “researching” transness for so many years online I had done my due diligence.
I moved in with another trans friend after that but my hatred of my body never went away. I felt like I was accomplishing something when I ‘passed’ as male, but it was a hollow and brief pleasure and at all other times I was crippled by ‘dysphoria’, the sense that I wasn’t passing well enough, envy for cisgender male bodies, and shame about my female past.
Something happened around the time I turned 21. Suddenly, I was able to see that everything I’d done to my body was a mistake. First, I found myself envying beautiful girls. Then, I found myself dreading my weekly testosterone injection. And then I experimented with going off T. I found that my health improved, I immediately I lost the weight I’d gained on T, and I was less impulsive and suicidal. Then, panic set in. My doubts were not just doubts anymore but certainty that I’d messed up. I had been told that detransition was a transphobic myth. When I searched online I found a small community on Tumblr (where I’d learned about transness and had been convinced that my normal feelings were dysphoria in the first place). From there, I was connected to a private detrans group on Facebook and then Reddit. There I found many stories that were similar to mine.
I also found that the online trans community persistently perpetuated the myth that people like me did not exist. I was accused of being a TERF pretending to be trans, blamed for making it harder for trans people to access treatment by merely speaking about my experience on Reddit (I didn’t even vote in elections back then and didn’t tell my former doctors I was detransitioning so I wonder how I was supposed to have been making things harder for trans people). The online trans community said that I deserved my suffering and it was my fault for being stupid–this was the same community that had encouraged me to disregard my doubts about transitioning and had told me (just as my gender therapist had) that detransition didn’t exist. Then, people started trying to dox me and I deleted my Reddit. I never once said anything transphobic on Reddit–I simply shared my experiences of detransitioning. I never blamed the trans community for what happened to me, but simply existing as a detransitioner is too much. I was told that detrans people need to shut up and deal with the consequences of their own actions because it’s our fault we’re in this state and speaking simply speaking is doing violence to trans people.
Yes, I’ll admit that I made rash decisions and I take complete ownership of the fact that I was the one who injected myself in the thigh with testosterone (my insurance only provided IM and no subcue T). I was the one so certain of my transness that I overcame my fear of needles to insert a very long one into my leg regularly. But, the horrible advice I got from the online trans community and my gender therapist didn’t help either.
Again, at 14 or 15 I was told by various sources (the online trans community, my then-trans teen friends who have since grown up and detransitioned, my gender therapist):
1) Detransition is a transphobic myth. The only people who go off hormones after starting do so only temporarily because of money or because they’re living in a transphobic environment and need to stop until they’re in a safer place. Nobody ever regrets transitioning.
2) Everyone who thinks they might be trans is trans.
3) Not wanting to be a girl, hating your body, hating penetrative sex, not wanting to be submissive in bed, being terrified by the idea of ever going through pregnancy and childbirth, liking masculine things (climbing trees with my brothers) while disliking traditionally feminine things (cooking and shopping), and being a tomboy is gender dysphoria.
4) That it never gets better. Because I was trans, my only option was to either transition or end up committing suicide. There was no chance of things getting better. That because I was trans (and remember, anyone who even thought about the possibility of being trans was supposed to be trans) I would always hate my body unless I changed it and would never be happy unless I transitioned. Testosterone could cure my depression and what I now know was PTSD and nothing else could.
5) Anyone who doubted my transition was transphobic and would rather I commit suicide as a girl than live as a happy boy. Anyone who misgendered me was doing LITERAL violence and thought I was subhuman.
6) That I would definitely be at risk of getting beaten up and/or murdered by transphobes because society was so violently transphobic, but that the alternative was trying to live a lie as a girl and killing myself. (I lived in a Portland suburb and this was in the early 2010s so all of my fear was unrealistic.)
7) That if my parents wouldn’t let me transition, it was okay to threaten suicide (“would you rather have a dead daughter or a trans son?”) and that if my parents didn’t totally affirm my gender then that was tantamount to abuse and meant they were transphobic. My parents were in fact abusive, but they didn’t really care that much when I changed my gender because they never really cared much about me or what the consequences might be. It was all fine as long as I did it on my own time and they didn’t have to drive me anywhere (they never let me use their cars).
8) That if I didn’t want kids and didn’t care about the possibility of becoming infertile at 14 or 15 or even 18, then I wouldn’t care about it in the future.
9) Trans people have always existed in such high numbers (when I came out, I was one of three female-to-male trans identifiers in my year at a relatively small school) and the only reason we were suddenly seeing so many was because of more widespread education on LGBT issues.
10) That if I waited until I was older to transition the testosterone wouldn’t be as effective at changing my body (which turned out to be completely false and I don’t know where this myth comes from).
I believed all of those lies. And beyond that, being part of the trans community made me feel supported and like someone cared about my pain for the first time in my life.
I’m not allowed to speak about my experiences now that I’ve detransitioned. My pain is now suddenly invalid and my mere existence is damaging and transphobic. I’m not only to blame for everything that happened to me, but also should have all of my experiences questioned and should be assumed to be lying or wrong about being detrans. They think I’m either in denial or that I just transitioned because it was trendy because they think teen girls will do anything for attention.
I feel like the online trans community is going to end up killing people if they don’t accept discussion of detransition or allow for nuance. Not everyone who looks dysphoric is trans. Transition hurts some people. My pain didn’t become less valid the day I stopped injecting myself with testosterone.
May these two beautiful symbolic short videos evoke old long suppressed memories that explain why so many of us have not been happy with our human bodies:
“A Gathering of the Tribe | POWERFUL Short Film by Charles Eisenstein w/ Jon Hopkins & Aubrey Marcus”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XinVOpdcbVc
“ET 101”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ut3Jn-cANMk
So sorry you’ve had such a terrible time! I’m just deeply grieved at the horrible experiences you’ve had. And the way you’ve been treated, I’m sure is deeply painful. I hope that things get better for you. The good thing is that you’re still young and have a long life of opportunity ahead of you. While you’ll never forget the trauma of the past, you can look forward to the future. Your past will always be a part of you, but your future is not yet written and is entirely in your hands. Don’t let your past control you. Many prayers and God Bless!
this is a real experience for you, and the trans community respects that detransitioners exist. We just also know that less than 4% of people that transition are unhappy/detransition. We only want cases like yours to stop being used against us. This was your situation, you story. It is extremely rare to just get testosterone cream from a friend, so I suspect it either wasn’t real or you were just in a bad situation. I am sorry everything that happened to you happened, and I completely understand and validate your experience. It just doesn’t take away from the 96% of trans people that notice significant improvement after medical transition, and are completely happy with their decision.
“and the trans community respects that detransitioners exist.”
They do not. Not from anything I’ve seen or experienced.
“so I suspect it either wasn’t real””I completely understand and validate your experience.”
Your two-facedness is showing.
She just told you about the horrible care and the psychotic counsel that is the standard for medical care. Be there is not a single person in your movement addressing this.
“She said doubts were normal and no one who isn’t trans thinks about the possibility that they might be trans.”
That absolutely set me off. What a horrible, evil therapist you had. That’s the exact opposite of what we know about homosexuality; that it’s completely normal for everyone to consider it and it doesn’t mean anything by itself. I’m so sorry you were sucked into a cult and lied to. I do empathize with the feeling of a microculture that has nothing but love for you so long as you agree with them, and treats you like Hitler as soon as you don’t.
Thank-you for telling your story. Knowing the truth will help others.
I am so touched by your story and also so deeply sorry that you have been so isolated through the worst kind of traumas. You are also very brave to speak it in light of the rejection you have suffered.
We all need a sense of belonging in this world and you have been dealt a cruel and unfair hand.
But I also want to thank you. Your story is so important. I am just a mother of teens who has fallen across this page trying to understand the current culture that is moving so fast. I’m old enough to know that every story is different and of equal value and I see a dangerous and aggressive single-track propoganda machine that is taking young minds into a place without debate or nuance. Thank you so much for explaining the other side.
I truly wish you well and hope you find the kindest of people who listen to understand, that your story is very valid, that you are worthy and that you don’t have to fit in anybody’s rule book. You are unique x
I am so sorry for what you went through and are still going through. I hope you have been able to find a measure of peace for yourself.
I am very concerned about my 18 year old, witching the last year she started dressing like a guy and cut her hair, before that there was nothing even resembling male behavior. She is extremely sensitive and if she decides to transition (she is on the fence) and regrets it going through all of the current hate out there for detransitioners scares me. I don’t know if she would survive that. For now she is not overly depressed, she does have anxiety but has had that her entire life, is not suicidal nor has had any thought of self harm. Her entire friend group is LGBTQIA however so it also scares me that there is some social component. Aside from all of that, will the dysphoria get worse and cause her to have those feelings? I’m damned if I do and damned if I don’t. Hopefully we can get through it together.
Anyhow, I digress. I wish you a very hopeful and happy life, I hope you will be able to find it.
she may have hid it if she didnt feel like the enviorment she was in would accept her but it could also be something else try to get her a well known doctor to help her understand herself.
Hi I just thought I would add a vote of confidence in your story and this is coming a transwoman myself. I transitioned about 30 years ago and in all of those years I don’t have any doubts or regrets about my decision. My own ‘gender non-conforming’ started as soon as I hit kindergarten. That insistence or persistence of being the wrong gender never changed. Likewise in my travels I know a few people who transitioned as teens even back then. But here’s the thing. Kids who did this back then they didn’t just go “I think I’m trans one day out of the blue” no it was extremely obvious they (parents) had a kid who insisted they were of the wrong gender just like it was for me. It was obvious from the moment that child could talk and insisted they were the wrong gender. So the condition is real it’s just massively over reported. I think this population of people like myself and others like me is very very small. A tiny tiny fraction of humanity and why not? It’s not like I serve a biological purpose any more because I’m an evolutionary dead end.
What has happened is that over the years transgender activists have been pushing this constant enlarging of the umbrella so that ‘everyone is now trans they just don’t know it yet’ which is completely nonsense. There has also been a push to weaken what is known as the standards of care for transgender people. When I transitioned the SOC was a couple of pages long, now it’s a book. What happened between now and then? Have human beings evolved into something else? Or is someone just padding the numbers for clinical dollars?
Don’t get me wrong I am not for outright banning of treatment for trans kids, I am just pointing out that it is extremely rare and should be extremely rare and not treating someone is not good for society and the health of the young kid who will really benefit from it. I think going back to the old standards would be a great step in the right direction instead of free and unfettered access to hormones and surgery that activists demand today. A little oversight is a good thing. It all worked out for me and I knew in the end I didn’t make a mistake because I had a little birdie on my shoulder talking to me to make sure I was doing the right thing. What we have now is instead of it being 1 in 100,000 kids it’s every 3rd kid is trans and I just think that’s insane and yes I also believe that it’s a phase and will pass in time. Hope that helps!
ps: True story. I disappeared from the ‘trans community’ for many years just living my life and after a while I was curious as to that was being discussed. When I came back I was like WTF are people talking about. This is nuts. So I tried talking to people, trying to reason with the trans community. But not only did they reject me, they said I wasn’t trans and get the hell out, so in 2022 I’ve been excommunicated from the trans community but that doesn’t mean I am not going to stop speaking out about the madness that is going on.
It amazes me how many people currently behave like they have never met a human being, and have no idea how humans think and feel. It amazes me how many people currently behave like they never grew up as a human being, and never went through all the turmoil late into their teens as they tried to figure out their strengths, weaknesses, motivations and desires – i.e. who they are. Maybe David Icke is right. Maybe we really are being ruled by a race of lizard people, who cannot relate to humanity. 🙂
I am a trans woman. I began transitioning at 33, and have lived socially as a woman (in the sense that I am rarely “clocked” and am simply assumed to be female) for roughly five years now. I do believe that my life would have likely been considerably improved had I begun transition about 10 years earlier. Even that would have been difficult. Imagine being told that you cannot, effectively, begin your life until age 25; until then, you can’t really start to build social networks, and you certainly can’t begin to form a meaningful romantic relationship. That is the position that trans people are in.
Don’t take me wrong, I largely agree with this article. But if your child hasn’t “grown out of it” by 18 or 19, then my guess is that they probably won’t. Remember that transition, done properly, takes a long time. There are months of therapy, followed by years of hormone replacement during/after which there is a (usually) deeply awkward period of gradual social transition. After all of that comes any surgical procedures the trans person feels are necessary, along with not-insignificant recovery times. For most people this whole thing is, realistically, a three to five year process.
While I am personally not comfortable with young children starting hormone replacement, I also believe that, by 25, a trans person will want to have all of the above-mentioned steps fully out of the way so that they can begin to really live while they are still in their twenties. Expecting someone to wait until 25 to *begin* this process is not just impractical; it’s callous.
Incidentally, most of the trans people I have known are not actually very interested in queer theory, or in settling whether they are, in some ontological sense, a “real man/woman.” They are just trying to deal with the very real, pragmatic difficulties of their situation.
P.S. Here is one tip for parents that I rarely hear mentioned in regards to trans issues- Help your child become comfortable with his/her body, in a way that is completely unrelated to the concept of being trans. Maybe your child is struggling with weight, fashion-sense, confidence, or some other aspect of self-presentation; sort that out first if you can. In my case, when I was in my late twenties I finally lost a lot of weight, started going to the gym, and learned how to dress well (as a man). I was considered fairly attractive, and had little difficulty getting dates with women. It was only after I committed to trying to live well as a man that I fully accepted the fact that I simply couldn’t. I wish someone had told me to get on with this process much earlier so that I wouldn’t have spent 10 years in a kind of genderless limbo. Don’t let your child get stuck! Moving forward, even toward the wrong goal, can be helpful.
They do not want caution. Why is that ?
Perhaps would have been better to have the title say “…is (probably) a phase”, gives a better sense of the article?
I agree with the trans desistance, not the lesbian desistance. This is 90 per cent media (social media and TV) influenced; the latest and trendy, ‘question your reality and authority’ attitude which is then peer circulated.
Modern media desires to purposefully create chaos by aggrandising actual demands of oppressed people and blasting them out into their channels as a trendy, in thing.
This must be separated from the actual lives of lesbians the world over, who do not consume this kind of media.
Lesbianism is not a phase. The act and process of a woman loving another woman does not end as one finishes secondary school. Sometimes, it starts then, sometimes later, sometimes much later, 30 years and above.
There were and always have been dykes who were out, before it was made trendy by the propagandist media.
You need to get out and talk to lesbians, about their lives and journeys.
If you’re referring to the end of this article where it says: “If they are like my friends’ kids (ADHD, Asperger’s/ASD) they are probably going to desist. If they are like my other friends’ kids (gay or lesbian) they are probably going to desist.” then the author doesn’t imply lesbianism is a phase, just like ADHD or Asperger isn’t as well.
It only points to those specific teens that might feel and unclear feeling of discomfort that could lead them to think they are trans…
The author is not saying that one is probably going to desist from being LG or B.
The author is saying that the young teen who is *allowed* to go through puberty despite “thinking” they are trans but their emerging sexuality is LG or B, is likely to desist from being trans and embrace being LG or B.
Many of the young girls in particular, funnelled through the “trans” tunnel, may be on or more of autistic or other neurodiverse; had traumatic experiences; serious health issues; maybe just LG or B.
If left alone and not encouraged to “trans” but also not have a fight over it, they will just be themselves.
Trans people have always existed too. We don’t take away from lesbianism or the lesbian experience. Just because lesbian history is more well known doesn’t mean there’s more of it than trans history. We have a full, rich history that has been covered up, largely due to colonization and enforcing the European idea of gender binary.
Well, I can tell you at 50 that it’s a hell of a long phase for some of us.
Trans people, or if you’d prefer “People with variably masculinized and feminized brains” have always existed. We existed before we had the name “trans” to describe it. We were lumped in with homosexuals and other sexual “sinners”. We were considered mentally ill, badly-parented, psychologically disturbed, failing at our god-given roles.
I existed long before I had a name for what I was. I existed as a “tomboy”, who bargained with her mother (herself a former tomboy) to wear a dress to visit family and sit nicely before being allowed to change into shorts or jeans and go find boys (and willing girls) to tear around, play sports and games, and sometimes fight with, and who pictured herself as a man in her mind when asked what she wanted to be when she grew up.
I existed as a “genderbender” teenager who preferred jeans and boots most of the time and sometimes shaved her head, and who still played sports, and sometimes fought with boys. I flung back and forth between the feminine clothing that was fashionable (and sometimes adored), and socially rewarded, and the male clothing that was more comfortable and practical. And still stubbornly often kept picturing myself as a young man as I existed in a fairly male leftist group of friends. Bit of a Marxist, peace group, May Day parades, disarmament, Anti-Apartheid. Anti-authoritarian.
I existed briefly disillusioned with the Left , the betrayal of an adult mentor on the Left, the disintigration of my friend group. Reevaluated my attacks on the “bourgeois” attitudes of my family (which it turned out were working class attitudes anyway). Rejected intellectual Marxism as fraudulent middle-class posing and went off with the skinheads, who let me be as masculine as I pleased. Drank. Swore. Fought. Fucked.
I existed as a young feminist, raging at the world for teaching me to hate and fear my own sex and disparage it, wondering when, if ever, I would be feminist-reprogrammed enough to make the feelings of discomfort and “un-fit” with my sex go away.
I existed as a mother, outwardly conformed and trying to be religious but never fitting. Struggling always. Only feeling well, and properly female for more than a few hours at a time, when pregnant and for a few months afterward. (Psst, hormones) Had an insanely high sex drive and got tested for testosterone levels. I assumed normal when nobody called, but maybe they weren’t so normal.
I existed for 9 months in perfect happiness, with a brain that finally seemed to function, finally fit perfectly, seamlessly with the body. I embraced Judaism wholeheartedly and began to study Torah, talmud and kabbalah with Hassidim. No more depersonalization. No more anxiety. No more depression. Better than being pregnant. I felt the beauty and power of the female state, of the religious role.
I existed recovering from a head injury, with a neuro-psychologist telling me mine was the most masculine neuro-psych exam he’d ever scored. Not the most masculine for a woman. The most masculine, period. I struggled with anger from the injury, from the loss of what I’d found and then lost. I lost religion.
I existed making my way back to Judaism, broken again. Struggling again, but never quite so much as before those 9 months that changed my life. Torn between the close-knit but highly gendered Orthodox and the liberal end that permitted me aliyot. Frustrated by attacks on my chosen religious dress (it’s hard enough trying to stay consistently female without people interfering in everything I do. No, I’m not going to be single-handedly usher in a new Patriarchy and the death of Feminism because I wear long skirts, please take your hyperbole and fuck off now.) One moment picturing myself baking challah, another moment picturing myself in tallit and tefillin, studying and arguing.
I existed writhing back and forth in my mind. What am I? Why do I not feel like either sex most of the time? Why do I sometimes then FEEL female? Why do I (less often) sometimes feel completely male, hideously hyper-aware of my female body (yet not hating it as, for better or worse, it is the only body I have) and feeling as awkward in a skirt or dress as if I’d been dressed in a clown suit for a funeral. (Why must everyone else obsess about what I wear and whether it’s masculine or feminine?)
I existed studying neurology and psychiatry evenings and weekends. Trying to understand my brain. Trying to understand my other problems, seizures, migraines, Depersonalization Disorder, Alexithymia. Maybe it’s Autism…but no, autistics don’t get well for 9 months suddenly. Then there it is “neural masculinization” links to Autism, alexithymia.
I existed coming across Trans. Non-binary. Genderfluid. Those are good words. Nice little shortcuts that explain what I experience. Excellent. Links to migraine, depersonalization. Things are falling into place, making sense.
I existed learning about sex and gender. A spectrum of gender expression, just like a spectrum of height. 50 different genes control height, two of them are sex chromosomes. Sex is a binary pushing us further in one direction or the other, shorter vs taller., feminized vs masculinized. Sex is an imperfect binary, genes can have flaws limiting their expression, including on the X and Y. SRY genes migrate. Androgen receptor genes fail creating intersex DSDs. Prenatal and early hormone exposures, endogenous and exogenous. Men and women inhabit overlapping bell curves on most traits. Many people are outliers on one trait, some are outliers on clusters. Gender dysphoria shows up on imaging as an opposite sex pattern of activation in an area that is believed to govern sexual self-body schema. Gender nonconformity shows up as another opposite sexed pattern. Homosexuality shows up as an opposite sexed pattern in an area governing sexual attraction other-body schema (gay men have the pattern of heterosexual women there, and lesbians have the same pattern as men).
I existed coming across Queer Theory. Heard of that years ago, via feminism, didn’t pay it much mind then…seems to have something to do with trans stuff though, should have a look-see. What the fuck? Why is this pretty blonde teenage screaming about how awful transsexuals are? What the fuck is a Truscum? Why is everyone screaming, “Trans People are Dying!”
(Followed shortly by, Holy Fuck, why has the entire Left gone off the rails? Everyone’s screaming. Nobody’s making any sense. Wait, this isn’t the far Left exactly….these are liberals. Liberals? Pseudo-marxist talking points everywhere…but nary an actual class-based Marxist to be fou…wait there they are getting called class -reductionists by these weird liberal…. Social Justice Warriors? I just left a liberal synagogue with social justice people. This isn’t social justice…this is shrieking, anxiety-ridden authoritarian harpies. These are my controlling, abusive ex on steroids! No, the conservatives don’t want to kill us all, I was just at the Orthodox synagogue for Shabbat, five people invited me for dinner, nobody wanted to kill me or anyone. This has to go. These people are insane!)
So here I am. Still existing as a non-binary genderfluid transperson just after my 50th birthday. Some people grow out of it, some people don’t. Still also a woman. Not a body with a vagina. Not a uterus-haver. Not a cervix bearer. Woman. Adult, female, human. Not negotiable. If I wanted to transition I would move into the social and legal categories of a man (under my country’s laws) but I would remain a biological woman for life. Social roles and laws are flexible constructs, biology is immutable.
Still thinking gender is a spectrum. Still thinking sex is not. A complicated binary with multiple factors is still a binary. You can express a lot of complicated things with computers, they still boil down to the binary.
Still agreeing that sex roles are constructed and gender expression influenced by society, still steadfastly believing that they are not constructed out of thin air, but based on a mixture of the society’s current needs and the available bell curves of normal gender expressions and how far from their natural biological gender expression you can push people without paying for it dearly.
Still refusing Queer Theory, still refusing CSJ. Has some good ideas…there are such things as systemic issues in society, intersectionality is a real thing IMO…but dangerous in the hands of stupid people. See also Carlo M Cipolli’s The Laws of Human Stupidity.
“Lived Experience is real.” Nevertheless, your personal lived experience can’t be allowed to define wide swathes of people who share your characteristics. No, the lived experience of most people who share my characteristics, or whose narrative you prefer, is not allowed to erase my lived experience. Even if your self-IDing yourself into that lived narrative is correct, we must “gatekeep” so that bad actors are kept out.
Queer Theory is dangerous to children. Most tellingly it is MOST dangerous to the children most likely to be trans. Children with a solid sense of their gender because their sex and gender id match, and their gender expression is close to the mean, are unlikely to be shifted by the Queer narrative. Though now that it is being brought into daycares we’re about to find out if that still holds when you get them young.
It’s the children who are struggling with an issue who are most apt to take it up, looking for community, just as I joined peace groups and then skinheads, looking for a place to be accepted and belong despite my weirdness. That means kids who aren’t really trans jump on the bandwagon, and kids who are trans like me jump on and get surgeries even though we already know that the less “classic trans” you are, the less likely transition is to fix your problems, and the more likely you are to desist, or to regret and detransition. Lower-dose hormones help some people but that’s about it. This is also why we “gatekeep”, to keep scared, lonely and confused people away from transitioning rashly, hoping it will fix other mental health problems, which it won’t. Even classic trans people experience post-transition disappointment and even they’ll tell you that it has medical repercussions down the road even when it is the best choice overall.
Queer Theory is the exact opposite of the “It Gets Better” campaign for homosexuals. It sells them a lie that everything will get worse. That the judgement and exclusion of high school will go on forever. That they’ll become suicidal if they don’t get hormones and surgeries promptly. That everyone hates them, including their families. That people like them are constantly in danger of dying. Bullshit. My life has had some very rough patches, most of which had little or nothing to do with my identities or nonconformity, yet here I am. I’ve survived rapes, head injuries, job losses, mental illness…and you know what, nobody hates me, most people seem to like me OK, and I’m more or less happy most of the time. Your trans children need to hear that. It normally gets better… the only thing standing in the way of things getting better for them right now is Queer Theory and CSJ Wokeness itself.
I never thought that I’d be happier to have lived at a time when strangers punched you in the street for gender non-conformity but here we are…a world where well-intentioned people fall over themselves to help trans and pseudo-trans kids mutilate ourselves, and where I get fired from my job for questioning the wisdom putting Queer Theory in daycares. Yeah, a daycare that had a trans staff member now doesn’t have any trans staff members but it will be filled with cis staff who know how to SAY the right things about trans people. That is woke inclusion in a nutshell… an appropriate receptacle.
Now that it’s OK to assault Black conservatives for being ” white supremacists’ I can only imagine it will shortly be OK for total strangers to punch me again, too.
Just remember that most of the ‘Queer Theory’ world is for the abolishment of all age of consent laws.
“Queer Theory” is the moral diarrhea of totalitarianism.
Parents who are shocked that the Socialist State is now controlling their children (via manufactured transgenderism) weren’t paying attention when that very State explicitly explained all along that removing control of children from parents to the State was a primary goal. The Socialist State politicians, professors, media, etc. never hid their plan to create an indoctrinated Red Guard generation who obeyed the State and not their own parents. Transgender is the weapon to achieve this aim. How can anyone be shocked at a plan that has been so public for so long?
Now that it’s happened, perhaps these shocked parents should take a deep look at their personal culpability by examining their own beliefs, statements and positions (or lack of them) over the past decade to see the direct causality of their go-along-to-get-along acquiescence , social status-aggrandizing via virtue signalling, mob pile-on silencing and denouncing of all warnings about this truth as conspiracy theories, arrogantly dehumanizing all opponents of this reality as “racists” and “phobes” and “deplorables”, and smugly showing off on Facebook their Oprah/The View-curated acceptable new progressive-bourgeoisie views that downplayed and normalized Socialist State transformation weapons such as DiAngelo-Kendies and Trans Trendies.
If you wore the “Pussyhat” or related leftist conformity totems , perhaps you should have delved deeper into exactly what such symbols actually represent: a 21st century “revolutionary” Bonnet Rouge that signals your public loyalty to barefaced Totalitarianism.
Now the Socialist State’s got your kids and you’re sobbing and wailing. But where were you for the last 20 years as this incrementally but openly transpired with your own culpable consent or deliberate avoidance greasing its wheels? Why are you crying over a situation that you helped create? It’s too late for tears.
It’s refreshing to read an article like this; thank you. My 14 year old daughter just started grade 9 at a newly-opened arts integrated high school. In a class of 30 students, there are 5 transgender boys plus a number of other gay, lesbian and bisexual students, totalling a good third of the class. One already-lesbian student changed her name and began to identify as a boy within the first 10 days of the school year. These scenarios scream ROGD plus all kinds of ‘still exploring who they are” – but no way will any staff challenge the affirmation-only narrative. Add to that, the administration wants to meet the needs of the ‘gender-fluid’ students when deciding who should use which washrooms and change rooms. It’s all a bit much for a 14 year old who just wants to dig into subjects beyond gender identity.
Homeschool
What do you do if/when your child’s school, doctors, the courts, decide that your refusal to “affirm” your child’s “trans” identity is child abuse, and remove your parental rights? This has happened to families in Canada, Australia, California, Washington….So, how do you protect your family?
Give more context lol
The author is this (and her other) articles is very brave; and I applaud her honesty and sincerity.
Three comments as an old homosexual who fought against “Trans: The Political Mechanism” when it started in the ’90s (and lost the fight):
1) You don’t need to research or consult anyone. You are a parent. Anything you say to your offspring is all the expertise required for your OWN CHILD. Anyone saying otherwise is trying to get money from you or power over you.
2) When I was young (centuries ago) two phenomena occurred causally: a) there was no internet and b) there was no “trans”. Trans as it is known today started when the internet started and did not exist before.
Before the internet and modern “trans”, there were Transvestites of two types: i) homosexual males who failed as men so adopted a mask/persona of “woman-ness” to compensate; and ii) fetish heterosexual/bisexual men who eroticized dressing as women and who today are called Pigs in Wigs. As well, there were Transsexuals (0.1% of humans) a very rare condition related to hermaphrodites and intersexed humans. The first type was a lifestyle/psychological choice while the second was a medical/psychiatric condition. Current “trans” has morphed the two genuine human types into one manufactured and politicized anti-human shmorgensen.
Trans as a society-wide manufactured and politicized entity did not exist before the late 90s because the internet and social media did not exist . Manipulative political groups weaponized for their own ends the 50 years of public goodwill built up by gays and lesbians by utilizing social media to manufacture a false “safe” virtual avenue for your kid’s rebellion. Not scary real world rebellion places like heroin shooting galleries or SM sex clubs or radical leftist cell meetings. But a nice safe. pink, rainbow, unicorn, green haired, middle class, acceptable to liberal parents who were so open minded their brains fell out form of rebellion was brought into their children’s suburban bedrooms on the kid’s smart phones/laptops (and into the K-12 system) where children were indoctrinated to demand their parents’ bow down to the child’s newly instilled “rebellion” or else be publicly branded as “racists”, phobians, Trumps, smellys, boo-boo on fee-fees, child-killers, etc.
Since trans was not a problem before social media because social media created trans, the solution is simple: Cut the cord: no smartphones, no internet, no social media and your child would never have known what “trans” was. Trans is coming from OUTSIDE your child — not from INSIDE! And this imposition is not benign! It is a highly calculated targeted political action.
3) If your kid is old enough to demand to be “trans”, they are old enough to hear some hard facts of real “trans” life. Ask your kid:
Do you want to join a group that shrieks slogans like Die Cis Scum at anyone who questions them? Do you want to be part of a violent cult that dehumanizes any opposition as “TERFs” and screams Kill TERFs Dead! Do you want “trans” role models like “Zoey Tur” a linebacker man in a dress who when challenged on a public talk show barked to another panelist, “You cut that out or you’re going home in an ambulance.” Then threatened to “curb stomp” the panelist who opposed Tur’s trans lies.
Does your child want to join a “community” that is so ruthlessly violent and viciously vindictive that their own mother has to use a fake name for fear of violence, attacks and personal ruin by “trans” for speaking her mother’s truth? (In my own country, the govt is trying to pass a law that would make this online comment by me a “transphobian” criminal offense punishable by prison.)
Is THIS the “community” your child wants to join?
This is all the information any parent needs to deal with their kid’s brainwashing into the political online cult called “trans”.
“hermaphrodites and intersexed humans. ”
There is no such thing as a hermaphrodite. This is supposed to be a creature that has *both* male and female sexual reproductive systems and in theory can “impregnate” themself. It is impossible which is why the concept of a “hermaphrodite” is a myth and a legend.
“Intersex” is also wrong. There is NO “third” or additional sex. Just two: Male (small mobile gamete) and Female (large immobile gamete).
Those offensively termed as “intersex” have a Congenital Chromosomal medical condition of the sexual reproductive system – Better or more respectfully known as CCSD or DSD. (Difference in sex development).
Every single person (less than 0.3% of the population, not the incorrect 1.7%) is still *either* Male OR Female. This is due to the DSD they have being *sex specific*.
There are very few Congenital Chromosomal medical disorders – most that occur, will result in the foetus dying. But there is another one – that of Downs Syndrome. No one would use THAT medical condition to prop up some ideology that posited that there is a *different type* of human.
Lets not pretend that CCSD/DSD is a “third” or “additional” sex. They are not.
DSDs have absolutely NOTHING to do with “trans” ideology which is ableist, sexist, homophobic, and disrespectful of religious thought whilst demanding everyone else follow their mantras.
The ideology seeks to control freedom of thought and speech. It seeks to lock people into every smaller, rigid stereotypes with needless, harmful surgeries and drugs.
Its utterly authoritarian and needs to be stopped. No child (no one before age 25) should be “affirmed” as “trans”. No drugs, no surgeries. None.
Anyone after age 25 needs to understand that it is a choice. The other choice is to learn to live with ones biological sex. What one wears, is interested in, does is irrelevant. Ones sexed body doesn’t changed sex.
It is a cruel, cruel lie to everyone whether “trans” identifying or not, to impressionable children, to confused teens, to society to say that humans can change sex in any meaningful way.
Those who “live” as trans are just performing as a stereotype of the opposite sex. That is it.
I agree, but I would go further. Chemically and surgically mutilating anyone with a mental disorder like gender dysphoria is unethical to the point of evil. If someone thinks he’s Napoleon, we don’t give him a 19th century French general’s uniform and troops to command and persecute anyone who refuses to address him as Mon Empereur. We attempt to reconcile him to reality, treat him with medication and/or therapy if we fail, and lock him up if he is a danger to himself or others. I fail to see the distinction if he thinks he’s a woman (or she thinks she’s a man).
There are differences.
1. We don’t have the technology to turn a person into Napoleon in a way that would help with their historic conqueror dysphoria, but we do have the technology to transition a person in a way that would alleviate their gender dysphoria.
2. Giving a person troops to command is more dangerous to other people around them than allowing that person to change their gender.
It’s interesting how you consider giving access to surgical and chemical treatment to an adult who wants those to be evil, but are totally OK with locking that person up if they are so miserable without said treatment that they are willing to physically hurt themselves.
We do NOT have any “technology” to change sex.
Anyone who has surgery does not have properly functioning opposite sex genitalia. They have a lifetime ahead of them of pain, discomfort and considerable damage to their body.
The drugs they are on will cause cognitive impairment, osteopenia leading to osteoporosis which is a nasty condition where spontaneous fractures of bones occur and do not heal properly due to the lack of calcium in the body and the *body’s now inability* to use exogenous calcium. Physical and mental disability are likely.
There is NO reason for any properly functioning, healthy body part to be removed for a mere “idea” in that patient’s head that they are *not* that person.
What is next? Person A is convinced their entire HEAD is not theirs and wants it replaced with a correct one? Would you then advocate for that surgery?
Bravo!
“…we do have the technology to transition a person…”
Yes. And that “technology” has a name:
AMPUTATION!
Identarian Warlord Regimes throughout history (including the current WEF Totalitaria) have always used this “technology” on captured male thralls. Cutting off these men’s genitals didn’t just create Eunachs. Penis and testicle amputation freed these new “members of the Chopped community” to “live as their true selves” (mutilated and humiliated castrato-slaves of the regime). Praise inclusivity! Praise diversity! Can you feel the love? I’ll bet they felt it.
Write the following two truths on the blackboard 100 times:
1) “Indulging delusions and enabling dementia makes mentally ill people WORSE!”
2) “Trans is a manufactured political LIE!”
ps this “technology” is also used on females to AMPUTATE their breasts. Woke schools should be forced to celebrate Feb 5th, Saint Agatha’s Day, to honour the female whose extermination involved having her breasts AMPUTATED. Her executioners were just being Inclusive and Diverse by creating the world’s first trans”man”. Another glorious moment in trans history.
“Give them the opportunity to let their brain mature naturally.”
Wise words. Not hate speech.
“Altering the body by hormones or surgery is *permanent*. Use that wisdom, use that perspective, and give your kid the things they truly need: time, meaningful experiences, better friends who appreciate them for who they actually are, and lots and lots of love.”
What an orgy of malpractice it is, that these Professionals (and their MSM pals) get to push such weakly-tested, poorly-understood hormonal etc. practices upon *minors*, based on so-very-dubious theories of “gender”.
If you’re going to give your kids “lots and lots of love”, it’ll be all-but useless, unless you package with it guidance/ perspective.
If you really want your kids to have a clue, and not be putty in the hands of power-drunk Elites, you’d best tip them off, to just how untested so much Conventional Wisdom is, and just how mistrusted so many of its purveyors have become.