15 days (and 4 years)
How COVID Lockdowns Locked My Child into a Transgender Identity
In March 2020, we were told school closures would last 15 days in order to slow the spread of COVID. Like most parents, we went along willingly. We believed we were protecting our children and we trusted that the disruption would be brief.
What none of us could have foreseen was how those “15 days” would stretch into years or how removing children from school, friendships, routines, and embodied daily life would quietly and profoundly affect their mental health and sense of selves.
This is why I encourage parents to watch 15 DAYS, a documentary that explores the often-unspoken human costs of prolonged school closures. While the film focuses broadly on educational loss and mental health, it also touches on something many families like ours experienced privately: how this shut down left many children especially vulnerable during a critical stage of their development.
Before lockdowns, school gave my child more than academics. It provided structure, peer interaction, adult guidance, and a steady connection to everyday physical reality. When all of that vanished virtually overnight, my daughter, who was already anxious, neurodivergent, and often dysregulated, retreated deeply into the online world. Screens replaced classmates. Online communities replaced real friendships. Conversations about identity replaced ordinary, grounding experiences.
Lockdowns removed many protective factors all at once: school, extracurriculars, peer relationships, and exposure to a range of perspectives. For many children, distress that might once have been buffered by routine and social contact instead intensified in isolation. Online spaces offered certainty and belonging at a time when everything else felt unstable.
For my child, that certainty came in the form of gender identity narratives. Without regular access to real-world anchors, her distress deepened, and her focus on her body became consuming. What might have been a period of exploration instead became something more rigid and difficult to unwind.
I share this not to claim a universal experience, but to add one parent’s story to a broader conversation that many of us are still struggling to make sense of.
It took four years of difficult conversations, patience, conflict and family rebuilding for our daughter to find her way forward. Today, she is a confident, non-stereotypical young woman who describes herself as a “fully healed human.” We are deeply grateful for where she is now, even as we continue to grapple with what was lost during those years.
The pandemic is often discussed in broad, public health terms, but the consequences played out in individual homes and in our children’s inner lives. If there is one thing I hope parents take from 15 DAYS, it is an invitation to reflect on how this period shaped our children, including in ways we may not have fully understood at the time.
I hope you’ll consider watching the film. These conversations are not about blame, but about learning together, so that we are better prepared to protect our children in the future.
15 DAYS can be found here:
https://www.15daysfilm.com/
And here is a list of currently scheduled screenings:
📍Bucks County, PA - Sunday, February 1, 2026
Newtown Athletic Club
📍Springfield, VA - Sunday February 15, 2026
Kings Park Community Center (Fundraiser for school board candidate Saundra Davis)
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