A Desistance Story

Our world 

I am the mother of three. children. I am a leftist, agnostic and a feminist. A woman who would be described as progressive.

My husband and I have built a family with a stable and peaceful life. Since the children were born, we have lovingly and presently dedicated ourselves to their upbringing and care, and the five of us very much enjoyed the time we spent together.

In March 2020, our 15-year-old son, whom we will call Andrés, gave us a letter that made our world tremble, made us doubt about our own judgment and common sense.

Andrés is our dear, middle child. He has a brother one year older and another, six years younger. As a child, he was sweet and dreamy, although somewhat melancholic and had difficulty knowing what things he liked and what he was good at.

Just before the pandemic his life began to change. He seemed sad, discouraged, isolated. We were worried, so we contacted a psychologist and then a psychiatrist, who diagnosed him with depression.

A few months after receiving this diagnosis, he gave us “the letter.”

Stage 1: The letter

In a letter written with a childish handwriting, Andrés informed us that he was a girl. Although he asked us not to talk about this, as it was very difficult for him, he urged us to get him hormonal treatment and begin a quick transition.

I am still not able to express the unexpectedness of the revelation. In what we could recognise as an epiphany, Andrés told us that he was not the boy with whom we had been so close.

I told him immediately that I was going to love him and always be with him. However, for us as parents, something didn't fit: we always saw him comfortable with his sex and nothing made us think that his life had been a mistake. Could we have been so disconnected?

From that day on, Andrés began to ask us for different things related to advancing in his transition. That's how one day, he let us know that he wanted to consult a “specialist” in gender issues.

Stage 2: Searching for answers from specialists

As parents, we considered that we also needed guidance regarding what we were experiencing and we wanted to accompany him as best as possible, so we agreed to look for someone who had experience and knowledge of these issues. We did it, thinking that the professional would take into account what we saw in Andrés: his insecurity, lack of self-esteem and self-knowledge, and that his self-diagnosis could cover up something more profound that needed to be explored.

We believed that the “expert” would take what we saw into account and act with caution.

The gender specialist

Without Andrés, we arranged a first appointment with a psychiatrist, a “specialist” in gender. She let us know that, based on what our son was telling us, it was very likely that he suffered from gender dysphoria. That was her opinion, even without knowing him.

We shared our doubts and apprehensions with her, as well as our observations regarding his behaviour and the context in which his statement was made. She surprised us when she told us, “Bring Andrés as soon as possible. Don't make him wait anymore." The diagnosis was already made. As expected, she confirmed her opinion after two evaluation sessions, where she “applied the DSM V and WPATH criteria.”

We insisted on our doubts, to which, somewhat annoyed, she responded that we had to validate our son's experience, because "the only person who knows what he feels is himself." When we asked how to proceed, she told us that we had to do what he asked of us, whether it was a name change or hormonal treatment.

The Rorschach Test specialist

Andrés's psychologist suggested we request a Rorschach test for our son. It was to be conducted by a renowned psychodiagnostics specialist who concluded that anxious and depressive symptoms were present, as well as suicidal risk. Although her report indicates that “there were times when Andrés could not objectively appreciate reality,” she suggests moving forward in the transition process. In this evaluation, we were considered, but only to suggest that we should seek support for ourselves, because this was a difficult path.

I am not a mental health professional and yet I wondered, how is a teenager who cannot "appreciate reality objectively" in a position to make such radical and permanent decisions regarding his body, psyche and future?

In parallel, we consulted a couple of therapists who work in gender organizations. They told us about the difficulties our son was going to face and how supportive we needed to be.

Until this moment, none of the four “specialists” said anything about exploring what could underlie the discomfort that Andrés was experiencing, and so, dysphoria was never considered a representative or emergence of something else. They just took my sons word as the truth.

The recommended therapist

Together with my son’s psychiatrist, we agreed that it would be good for him to start an analytically oriented therapy. We knew results would take time, but we believed that it was the only way to reach our son's deepest pain, which is where we believed this idea of "transforming himself into another individual” was born.

We consulted a very experienced psychologist, as well as a well-known teacher on adolescent issues. The experience was very hard, because after two evaluation sessions, he pointed out that the problem was ours: we resisted grieving the loss of our son. The psychologist spoke to us about human rights and how himself had accepted the non-binary friend of one of his kids. He was so convinced of this that he triangulated our relationship, communicating directly with Andrés and telling him that it was our decision not to continue with the sessions.

We had felt frustrated. Now we were also…angry. Why did the “specialists” insist on leaving us out, on clarifying that we knew nothing? Why did they take our son's statement as an absolute truth? Why didn't they ask themselves how Andrés came to such a conviction, held with indubitable certainty?

Stage 3: Medicalization

Following the indication of the gender psychiatrist, we consulted an endocrinologist who worked at a highly prestigious university clinic. As before, we asked for an interview without our son present in order to convey our doubts. The doctor seemed to listen to us with interest. He suggested a pubertal blocking scheme, absolutely reversible, that would give him “time to think.” If Andrés' idea persisted, he would move on to a cross-hormonal regimen.

But it also made clear to us that if we didn´t support our son's transition, the probability of suicide could reach 70%, while, if we supported him, this probability would be similar to that of the general population. The underlying message was: if you don't give him what he wants, he's going to kill himself. And if he ends his life, it will be your fault.

The only time we went together with Andrés to the endocrinologist’s office, we left with a prescription for puberty blockers in hand, an indication for calcium supplement and a referral to a gamete cryopreservation clinic, since the “treatment” in addition to osteoporosis, could cause sterility. But this was considered a secondary cost to becoming who he really was.

I must add that, to receive the prescription for hormonal treatment, the endocrinologist didn’t ask us to sign an “informed consent”, he didn’t require Andrés psychiatric inform (he had no contact with that professional) nor a clinical meeting to discuss the case.

Why was this institution, which years ago had refused to perform a vasectomy on my husband for “interrupting the natural course of life,” was now willing to potentially sterilize a 16-year-old boy?

That day, the doctor also registered Andrés' social (female) name in his medical record, which is still there to this day and indelibly. We heard about this a year later, when we took our son to the same institution, for an unrelated problem. In the waiting room, Andrés was accompanied by his dad, when he was called by his female name. In short, the institution assumes what a 16-year-old boy said is permanent and definitive. And he does it without our consent or his. From that day on, we decided never to take our son to that clinic again, because there they will treat him with another name, which is not his.

The impact on our lives:

- The anguish

With great difficulty, we tried to sustain our family life, but we kept on thinking about Andrés from the moment we woke up until we fell asleep. For our other kids, we had very little mental space left. We were tortured by the idea of ​​how we could explain his transition to the rest of the family, especially his nine-year-old brother and his grandparents. How were we going to be able to give them peace of mind, if everything we were experiencing had no logical explanation?

I quit my job. It was impossible for me to concentrate, and I felt clumsy and inadequate in the interpersonal interactions that once were my specialty. The entire economic burden remained on my husband's shoulders because I no longer had control over my thoughts or my time. I lost independence and freedom.

The threat of suicide required me to undertake the role of caregiver day and night. During the day I locked myself in the house, going out only for what it was essential, in emergency mode, with the feeling that “something was going to happen.” At night my sleep was not restful. My husband started taking sleeping pills. I always fell asleep after Andrés, on alert.

A year later, I learned that many parents describe this feeling as post-traumatic stress disorder. It makes sense. After receiving news like the one written in “the letter”, anything could happen.

-Loneliness

In that context, having social interaction was unthinkable. I had no energy and felt that no one would understand what I was experiencing, except my husband with whom we were absolutely monothematic. Thus, during the first months, I kept the strictest silence regarding my son.

When I finally, thanks to my husband's suggestion, talked about it with a couple of very close friends, it was very relieving. To this day I appreciate their generosity and affection. They heard me, they saw me. They gave me time and wise advice. It was always the same message: wait, trust your instincts, your judgment. Hold on as long as you can.

With that impulse, I discussed our skepticism towards Andrés' statement with a wider circle of friends and family. It was a different story. I received silence, disapproval, distance and questioning.

The social circles in which we had felt comfortable (left-wing, liberal, critical-thinking people) judged us. We were not doing what would be expected of us. We were not up to par. We had become prudes, right-wing conservatives. We needed to provide a lot of explanations.

What we experienced was similar to what an American mother who, while she was undergoing treatment for cancer, told me of her trans-identified daughter. Because of her illness, she was filled with people willing to support her. Her friends and acquaintances were very attentive to her. They called her on the phone to see how she was progressing and if she needed anything. When that mother commented that she questioned her daughter's trans identification, she received the same treatment we did. Solitude and silence.

The losses we suffered during that time were significant: distance from friends and family, little space for our other children, no freedom, little rest, few certainties. Everything felt like loss. I looked at other families with envy. Any other problem could have a solution, but apparently, for the rest of my acquaintances this was not a problem, it was something that “happened” but we were reluctant to accept it. I felt like we were living a nightmare.

-The Discovery

One day, by chance, on the family computer, I found Andrés' activity on Reddit and Discord. It was terrible. I was able to see how my son expressed his feelings and received advice and celebration from strangers in different parts of the world, some of them adults who said they had transitioned. Nobody asked many questions. He received only virtual hugs and reinforcement for being “brave.”

There was even an adult who gave him instructions on how to move forward, calmed his doubts and was available 24/7.

He met these people, anonymous individuals, through online games and forums.

Although this discovery added more to my anguish and concern, I decided to open anonymous accounts on those platforms to find out how the system worked. I learned that interaction does not only occur when opening the app, but that email is bombarded with notifications. I saw how the children shamelessly shared photos with strangers, how they exchanged tips, their need for reinforcement. I discovered subgroups like femboys. I learned what “breaking the egg” meant. I confirmed the link between trans identification in kids with anime and the furry community (identification with anthropomorphic animals), that is, I immersed myself in the adolescent world.

Although we feared that, through the Internet, our children could be exposed to explicit sexual images, we never thought that they would be susceptible to this type of co-option.

Stage 4: The tip of the strand

One day we watched an Abigail Shrier interview on YouTube. This Wall Street Journal journalist, liberal feminist, with training in Philosophy and Law, wrote “Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters”, which was selected as the best book of the year by The Economist in 2020.

We bought the book and devoured it secretly. We were impressed that someone so different, described cases identical to ours, with stories of family interventions that ranged from suspending the WIFI in the house, to moving entire families to live close to nature.

Shrier led us to other authors, such as Errasti, Stock, Evans, Littman, Moore and O'Malley. We read so much! To make it more efficient, we divided the readings. We were racing against time!

I opened an anonymous Twitter account to find out what was happening in Europe and the United States. And yes, there was a lot going on. I realized that we were far from the only family in this situation and even more so, Andrés' behavior followed a pattern reported by other parents and that a non-specialist doctor detected and named as ROGD (Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria).

I learned about the explosive 4,000% increase in self-identified trans kids at the Tavistock Clinic and about the Cass Review that precipitated its closure. I learned about its social dynamics, the prevalence of cases in children on the autism spectrum, and the comorbidities that are usually present such as depression or anxiety. I also learned why countries with pioneering trans laws, such as Finland, Sweden or France, are moving off the affirmation model, updating their guidelines and limiting hormonal treatments for minors to exceptional cases. I read about Keira Bell's lawsuit against the NHS. She claims that the institution did not put obstacles in the way of her rapid transition at age 16, which resulted in her undergoing hormone therapy and having a double mastectomy, which she regrets upon reaching adulthood.

I also learned that gender transition occurs in a sequence of steps that range from changing pronouns or the way you dress, to the use of synthetic hormones and surgeries. Each step paves the way for the next and in all of them, no matter how trivial they may seem, there is often no turning back. In fact, 95% of children who use hormone blocking continue to cross-sex hormones. I learned that the use of puberty blockers is far from being reversible, as they can cause infertility, retard brain development, and cause osteoporosis, among other permanent consequences.

I also realized that “the letter” was not a spontaneous creation of our son. It follows a familiar pattern including a boys’ request to consult specialists and not talk about the matter. They fully know the medical transition process. All of them also say that the feeling of being in the wrong body has always been there. There is a canned format which I was able to verify with 90% of the many parents from all over the world with whom I come into contact.

Everything started to make sense to us. Trans identification in children and adolescents could be read as a symptom, not only as a diagnosis. In short, in order to reinforce our parental authority, so questioned by specialists, knowledge and learning became essential to us.

At that moment, we realized that we could and knew how to help Andrés. We needed to give our son what the professionals were denying him: TIME.

Stage 5: Part I, Family Intervention

We started by doing the complete opposite of what the “specialists” told us. We had the audacity to ask our son to wait. We needed to give him time to grow, get to know himself, go out into the world. But it was not a passive wait: we designed a plan fueled by our common sense, prudence and in line with our family style.

The first point of that plan was to return to square one. This is what I told him: You have to start from a neutral point, not from the end. We would do the rest together.

Our plan was faithful to our family style, modifying some things and accentuating others.

What we did

- We constantly reinforced his self-esteem.

-We organized many family walks, highlighting everything that is natural, in landscapes and people.

- We made family dinners the most fun and important part of the day. We listened to his music, made jokes and remembered family anecdotes from when he was a child. With this, we reinforced the idea that our family has a particular identity and is a very good place of belonging and reference.

- We looked at photos of happy moments from his childhood, which contradicted his story of permanent discomfort.

- We watched movies that showed people who could change their minds or grow up and remain sensitive and kind.

-We stimulated his critical thinking, talking about and discussing different controversies. We discussed stories of people who embraced false illusions or what it was like for us to grow up, our fears and frustrations.

-We criticized the internet and social media a lot.

-We avoided discussing or confronting him about issues related to gender.

-We tried to ensure that he was not alone in his room for a long time. We used any excuse to get him out of his thoughts and daydreams.

-We encouraged him to contact his childhood friends and subtly discouraged meeting with peers who reinforced his self-diagnosis.

-We promoted artistic incursions that allowed him to express himself.

-We showed him the positive things about being a man and the different types of men that exist.

-We encouraged him to do physical activity to connect with his body, skate, bike or simply walk.

But we also did the hard work which we could progressively implement, as we saw Andrés mood improved thanks to the effect of the anti-depressants.

-We restricted his use of money. He couldn't spend it on women's clothes.

-Claiming that his cell phone enslaved him and made him waste too much time, we blocked his access to social networks, including YouTube through a parental control app. We didn´t have access to his privacy, we only blocked his interaction with strangers.

-We dared to tell him that we were not going to finance hormonal treatment, at least not before he was 18 years old.

-In order to start from a neutral point, I asked him to give me the women's clothes he had managed to collect.

Our son expressed his disagreement, he seemed angry, frustrated, impatient, but in general, without great opposition to most of the changes. Could it be that, on some level, he was aware of the need for some limits?

However, there were times when our son strongly protested against these restrictions. When I say strongly, I mean confrontations in public, no matter who saw or heard him. On those occasions, he asked me for explanations, he told me that he didn't know what we had become, that he didn't expect this attitude we were taking, that he didn't understand why we didn't let him move forward if, in the end, we were talking about “his” body.

When this happened, I avoided arguing and stated our decisions were based on love, care, how much we know him and as a last resort, that we were the parents he got.

Stage 5: Part II, The therapeutic intervention

Meanwhile, Andrés' psychiatrist continued to see him with prudence and common sense. After almost a year, she referred us to family counselling with another psychiatrist, who, luckily, was also not a specialist in gender issues.

In this process, the family therapist went from a more affirmative position to the installation of doubt. We started the sessions with just the three of us: parents and son. Andrés did not want to include his brothers yet. The explicit reason for consultation was the difficulty we had in talking about gender and so we agreed that this would be the space where we could do it.

There were many tense moments in the sessions, leaving everyone feeling sad and exhausted. We were still very distressed and worried. Our fantasies about his future were endless: he could get hormones on his own or go live in a foster home where he would accuse us of restricting the development of his identity and would be widely supported. Even by law.

A few months after the start of those sessions, Andrés decided to open up to his older brother, whom we will call Ignacio. Our son was looking for an ally within the family but found someone who spontaneously encouraged him to question his perceptions and sayings. His older brother saw the weak support for his assertions and even told us: “you are not the ones who have to explain the measures you have taken; it is Andrés who must try to explain what he asserts.”

Since Ignacio arrived at the family counselling sessions, Andrés changed his attitude, becoming less childish, more “mature” and gradually, other issues emerged, such as his insecurity, loneliness, anxiety regarding the idea of ​​becoming an adult, the feeling of “not fitting in,” fear of his own anger, and the man he could become (bad or aggressive). Our idea that identifying as trans could be an escape route from all that, was confirmed. That, and the terrible fear of growing up.

Stage 6: Desistance

Towards the end of the second year, the first signs of desistence began to appear. One day it became apparent where his idea of ​​being trans had originated. Andrés mentioned the discovery of the possibility of being of the opposite sex, by chance, on Internet. This possibility became a recurring thought.

Over time, he began to feel better and better, more connected, more enthusiastic. In one session, he commented that he would like to listen to his parents more and then in another, and to our utmost astonishment, he said that he no longer felt trans. We were shocked, we didn't know what would happen next.

The sessions began to be less threatening and relaxed. At last, there was room to talk about other things and people, like, for example, his brothers. He even commented about his concern for a friend who was having a hard time. It wasn't just him anymore!

We were closing this long process.

Today, Andrés's self-esteem has improved significantly, as has his physical appearance, his attitude towards us and towards his peers. He even started going out with a beautiful young woman.

Not only that. He took an improvisation workshop outside of school and has already stood on a stage with his classmates. Little remains of the boy who avoided his reflection in the rearview mirror of the car, who did not allow anyone to take photos of himself, who hid behind a jockey, long hair and a face mask. The boy who wanted to disappear.

At present, we have had several conversations with Andrés, where he clearly states that the idea of ​​being the other gender has retreated in the past. He attributes these thoughts to having experienced a deep crisis of self-esteem, the influence of social media, pressure from his environment and peers, since he knew that once he told them about his trans identity, they would support him without question and he would be guaranteed a place in the group. Today he looks at that with distance.

-Our emancipation

Like his trans identification, there is no single reason for our son's desistance. What we can acknowledge is that our own journey could help him: Our doubts made us investigate, what we learned led us to trust our intuition and parenting and with that, we were able to build a plan.

Added to the family intervention was the common sense and prudence with which his psychiatrist and family counselor behaved. They were able to SEE our son and not stick to their moral agendas and preconceived ideas, just as happened to us with the “specialists.” Andrés did not need to be saved from us or from a discriminatory society, but rather had to be seen for who he is.

For us, this path that seems linear was full of doubts, even political questioning. Finally, we did not do what would have been expected from left-wing, progressive parents like us. We took a path of independence where we met other parents who declared themselves politically orphans. We took an independent, autonomous stance that had very high costs (it still does), and we distanced ourselves from what we were told to do or from what was expected of us to have the freedom to apply our own criteria.

If we had done what we were told, today Andrés would have a female name, he would be injecting himself synthetic hormones, he would have grown breasts and would have a different voice. As a result of the hormonal blockage, he would already be sterile and perhaps be on a list for “sex reassignment” surgery, removing her healthy sexual organs. But none of that happened, because we told him he had to wait.

Our son was lucky. Our family had resources, aligned parents and prudent therapists, but I am convinced that prudence cannot become a right only for some. It cannot and should not be elitist.

Some may say that our son was not a “true trans”, but it turns out that he was a true trans, until he stopped being one. This was confirmed by the specialists.

Others may say that our son's desistence represents his defeat against the force exerted by us. But it turns out that he used to be depressed, and now he is happy. Two years ago, he was a dark, anguished and sad teenager, a boy very afraid of harming by becoming a man. Today we see a bright, attractive, happy young man with plans and challenges for the future. Everything we did can be summarized as reinforcing and “time givers”. That's not conversion therapy.

-Parents’ experiences

What we have been through makes us think about what many parents experience, because we are not listened to, nor do we find a space where we are not branded as transphobic, conservative or fascist. We are discarded, as it is considered that we react with anxiety and fear towards our children's sexuality. We are seen as a nuisance and as people who do not know how to adapt.

I think about the stories of other fathers and mothers whom I have met: like the father from New York, who allowed himself to be hit by his son so that he could connect with his masculinity and his body, the mother from New Zealand who discovered that her son had a papier-mâché bust made where he tried on women's clothing, the mother from Santa Fe who suffers from the entanglement of her daughter and has not seen her in four years, the famous Colombian fashion designer, the Mexican police chief, the aunt worried about her niece in Argentina, the Uruguayan engineer or the Spanish mother whose 25-year-old son committed suicide after transitioning. Marriages that separate because they cannot cope with the anguish or have differences regarding what position to take. Fathers and mothers who begin to have panic attacks or even suicidal ideation.

But, above all, I think of the Chilean mother who took her son to the Gender Unit at La Florida Hospital, where they told her that her son was not a gay boy, but a trans girl. At eight years old.

I also think of the detransitioners that I have met, whose stories are of an almost intolerable level of suffering, since physical pain is added to the psychological pain. I think of Ritchie, Rachel, Chloe Cole, Prisha, Laura and so many others.

The stories of those families and people are the ones that accompany me here today.

Although everyone in our house has returned to our normal lives after having been on hold for more than two years, I cannot ignore what I have seen and have learned, and I feel that the privilege that we had entails a social responsibility.

I am not an activist. I don't want the result of our experience to be used politically, but I believe that our story shows that a young person's trans identification is neither genetic nor immutable.

It demonstrates that parents shouldn’t be left out, that there must be safeguards, that boys and girls can be confused, that the search for identity is still part of a growth process, that research is urgently required, that there are norms and laws that do not consider the stages of development, that it is necessary to talk, debate, apply judgment and prudence. That is my invitation to health professionals, teachers, therapists and governments. It is an invitation and a challenge.