And therapists, if you don't know where to start (a lot is understood that you don't know yet), the information for clinicians at https://genspect.org/guidance/ is a really good place.
They're all good. Also the essays, and book by Susan Evans and Marcus Evans, which has composite case studies. And and and....
Thank you for this essay and thank you to all the therapists who are looking into this, researching it, supporting young people struggling with this by exploring, as therapy does!
I am not a professional academic. I'm a mother. I sometimes reflect about how lame/cowed our academics are even as I understand they fear for their jobs. Maybe the entire academic system, K - University ought to be shut down and restarted :) My own Ivy League alma mater actively promotes pronouns/GI and claims that no one objects.
Alma mater on Wiki: "The phrase is variously translated as "nourishing mother", "nursing mother", or "fostering mother", suggesting that a school provides intellectual nourishment to her students."
Yeah, right. Now, please define "woman". They are morally and intellectually bankrupt, IMO.
And the federal government wants universal pre-k. Then, they can tell the 3-4 year olds they get to choose their sex.
The fact that we are unable - or unwilling - to see that this recent and tremendous rise in trans/nonbinary identity is happening largely in a group that is historically known to be suffering with self esteem and body image issues (adolescent girls) and that rather than work through this we go along with affirming that there is something wrong with their bodies absolutely blows my mind. I was admitted multiple times to an eating disorder unit as a young teen. The parallels are undeniable. Our bodies are changing. We are not comfortable with all that we are being ushered into, both physically and mentally. An eating disorder is a way to prolong childhood - shrink the breasts, stop or at least reduce the frequency of menses. Opt out of all that nonsense dating and adult business. This is not true of ALL women with an eating disorder but it is a very common theme. Bonus - for those who lose enough weight you get to bask in the envy disguised as concern from your peers, and the actual concern from adults.
I remember spending endless therapy sessions discussing how we were more than a number on the scale, how to deal with unhealthy thoughts, how all bodies were different and no one was perfect, how society's expectations of women were unreasoable and unrealistic. By and large we were female - I remember one boy my age (young teen), one adult male (who seemed ancient but was probably about my age now, mid-40s), and one transwoman who was not on the unit for long due to being very disruptive and unstable - otherwise we were all female, most of us 12-18ish, a few women in their 20s. We were a vulnerable group largely due to our age and sex. I remember learning about nutrition and exercise and trying to achieve a focus on health and nurturing and loving your body instead of destroying it - all the while working on whatever other underlying issues we had. There was almost always SOME other underlying issue.
Never once was it proposed that we be sent for liposuction or weight loss surgery (I'm not even sure that existed then but if it did, it would not have been proposed) - the focus was never on drasticaly altering the body in some way to achieve happiness because it was known that the issue was deeper than what we weighed. We might be encouraged to try a new hair style or outfit or make-up, things that were working *with* the body that we had and trying to feel good. We would be encouraged to think of and find things about ourselves aside from appearance that made us feel proud and confident.
In the case of gender dysphoria, not only do we fail to get to the bottom of what is actually troubling these young ladies (and increasingly young white men, I think for different reasons) but we are actively discouraged from doing so! I slashed open my arms with a razor blade over and over and over, over my akwardness and depression and my failure to fit in and my hatred of my body - and yet it was repeatedly drilled into my head that my weight was only a symptom. Parents today, at the slightest sign of dysphoria, at the first regurgitation of the lines learned on the internet sure to take a child down the transition pathline, are warned that their child will harm themself if *not* allowed to change their body!
How did we get to this point? Have we forgotten our own puberties, and how hard they were? How did we become so eager to show our acceptance for the "lgbtqia++" community that we are willing to throw the mental health of adolescents and young adults in general under the bus?
One thing I have found curious is Dr. Rachel Levine, when she was still known as Richard, was the director of an eating disorder clinic. An eating disorder clinic! This person was in charge of helping adolescent girls to see past their physical bodies and to learn to love and value themselves beyond their appearance. I can only imagine how it would have felt to be a patient there, to go through such a program, and then see the director make such a sweeping and hippocritical decision to drastically alter their body in the name of self love. At least in Dr. Levine's case there was no sacrifice of future fertility - that being all in the past - this has to have been a heck of a mental ride for any of the girls who had gone through the program.
I almost feel as though even the experts are thinking "Oooh at last we have an EASY solution to the age old dilemma of adolescent ennui!" and for no other reason than that they are going along with it... but the fallout is so terrible.
Thank you for this wonderful post and I am so sorry for your difficult adolescence. I know a girl who was clearly suffering from an eating disorder & was told that the disorder/discomfort was "because she was trans" and is on opposite sex hormones now. The mother completely bought it. Our own daughter did not have an eating disorder but I remember when they were friends she was easily influenced to set aside food and go do something else & she was getting a little skinny. After changing schools for other reasons her weight returned to normal and I breathed a sigh of relief. Then, she came under the influence of a narcissist Gay Straight Alliance Leader who she admired "for her strength." Adolescent girls are so easily influenced by each other. Growing up is hard and for shame on the adults/professionals now. It
certainly is easier to rubber stamp all these girls with the mythic and not scientifically explained "trans" rather than help them. I feel this is so much like Salem witch times with a socially transmitted (by girls) issue and the adults have no sense or are making money (in Salem adults would jump on the bandwagon and accuse neighbors of witchcraft if they wanted their property).
I understand Richard Levine was a pediatrician :-0
That childhood friend with the eating disorder starved herself to the point where she never really developed breasts. The mother is happy because it means she won't have to have breasts chopped off :-0
My daughter keeps very thin so breasts not developed. Looks like she had surgery but she says “not yet!”. She wants surgery to remove breasts that are not visible? Seems obsessive compulsive disorder, anorexia, autism are all factors behind the desire to change gender. Effective therapy is too expensive?
Yes. There are a whole host of comorbitities. I was diagnosed as autistic as an adult and suddenly my never fitting in made so much sense. I was a fat kid to begin with and I really thought that losing weight would make me more popular and fit in better - and it didn't work like that. But to an extent that is a normal part of adolescence, thinking that if you change X or buy Y, you will suddenly be one of the cool kids.
I inititally thought the rise in trans was simply the newest manifestation of eating disorders (it's so much quicker and easier, to get the same results - repression of the body parts you hate, admiration and attention from those around you) but there are really many, many overlapping circles - the high rates among autistic kids is certainly alarming - with one common overarcching theme: the confusion of adolescence and young adulthood.
I feel like a lot of people use autism to justify being "truly trans" because we struggle with gender roles so much - but I don't think we struggle with gender roles any more than we struggle with any other societally placed expectation. Right now gender is a hot topic, and the trans umbrella has become so huge with the addition of non-binary and eight zillion other different labels which are mostly really all just terms that describe feelings every single human among us has felt as some point or another - pick one and you're in! Who wouldn't want automatic acceptance into a group, a place to fit in and at the same time special word for what makes them unique? ESPECIALLY an autistic kid who notoriously struggles to fit in?
We (autistics) are supposed to be black and white thinkers which means we will think we don't think we belong as male or female gender if we don't check off all the boxes - but as black and white thinkers we should be just as apt to say "I have a penis/vagina, therefore I am male/female no matter how I express myself!" As a teen/young adult in the goth scene, a lot of the people I hung out with were probably on the spectrum and it was a very gender bendy lot, men in skirts and painted nails who still identified as MEN - this "gender confusion" we are seeing now is 100% a social construct being driven by the desire to fit in with a group. We have gone backwards in our acceptance of gender fluidity, in declaring gender fluidity as something outside the norm.
As a kid/teen, I wanted to be a boy - but I didn't think I WAS a boy. Being a boy seemed easier. I thought it was a unique weirdness to me but I now realize it wasn't unique to me - a lot of women struggled with puberty, autistic or not, early bloomer or not (I was also an early bloomer which I think made it worse). We struggle with our new bodies and feeling odd and over a few years everyone catches up and we adapt. Now kids are being told this struggle means "maybe we should pause puberty so you can explore your options!" How are girls supposed to be comfortable in their new roles as women if we are encouraging them to live as boys? Do people not realize how stubborn teens are, how hard it will be to say "hey maybe I was wrong?" once we let them bind and call them by boy names and fight to let them use the boy bathrooms?
We are giving kids new labels for an old problem and they eating it up, while leaving the actual issues unexplored completely. Most will grow out of it. Some of those will carry reminders of this phase that are much worse than the scars on my arms.
I also was diagnosed (late in life) as being on the spectrum. At 15 I was anorexic. Both my daughters became anorexic at 15. Puberty is difficult, especially for girls with autism.
Fitting in to society is so difficult that it can seem terrifying. The changes of puberty can be slowed down a bit by fasting. There was no testosterone available for girls when we grew up. This generation are willingly taking part in a research experiment when they consent to “transgender medical treatments”.
It would be much healthier if they would just pretend to be the opposite sex without actually believing they are the opposite sex. I see no justification for them being given “human rights” which defy reality. Girls should not have to compete with men in sport and share their spaces. Being legally male does not make a woman a man. It makes a mockery of our legal system.
My super sensitive hearing causes me distress when I hear my daughter’s deep voice. I still remember her sweet voice and how lovely was the sound of her singing.
"Right now gender is a hot topic, and the trans umbrella has become so huge with the addition of non-binary and eight zillion other different labels which are mostly really all just terms that describe feelings every single human among us has felt as some point or another - pick one and you're in!"
I was going to share your essay, until I came across the phrase, "marvelous transwoman."
That phrase is an oxymoron, a contradiction in terms, and highly offensive to those of us who are battling this normalization of body dissociation for corporate profit which is severely harming children like your own.
1) No man who walks around in womanface and calls himself a female name, let alone a man who teaches schoolchildren while in womanface using a female name, should be described as "marvelous" or any other positive adjective. He is a groomer, grooming children (and gullible parents like yourself) to accept -- and then go out and promote the acceptance -- of men and women LARPing (live action role playing) as the opposite sex, of the normalization of autogynephila in public places, of the erosion of our right to speak and hear the truth in public discourse, and the very concept of what a "woman" is. He and the people who platform him are either knowingly or unknowingly engaging in grooming behavior, make no mistake. He is clearly a classic narcissist, putting his desire to act out his sexual fantasies on the public stage above everything else, including the feelings of his own three children, who were minors when he began doing it. Doesn't that bother you at all? How could that be considered "marvelous"?
2) There is no such thing as a "trans woman." These males are not a subset of women, they are a subset of men. When you use female language for males, or male language for females, you confuse children who are in the very process of learning about the world, about what women and men are, and how to navigate the world safely. Don't you see that this fake, made-up language contributed to the harm of your own child, and to the harm of all the children of the parents who contribute to and read this blog?
3) There is no such thing as "trans" anything -- "trans" is a corporate fiction, a fake made-up concept being used as an ad campaign to sell drugs and surgeries to children like yours, and to vulnerable adults. Why are we acting like there is a new category of human all of a sudden that we have to acknowledge, like a "Z" chromosome has suddenly been discovered? Who -- or WHAT -- does it serve to support this corporate fiction, to refer to anyone as "trans"? Is this helping your child or anyone else's child not fall into the grips of an unrealistic fantasy when you perpetuate the concept that this fantasy is a real thing?
Why in the world would you give unclear, confusing information to kids or anyone else? Again, who, or what, does this muddying of language serve? Does it serve kids and vulnerable adults? Can a man somehow be some sort of woman, or vice versa? Are you saying that boys have a pathway to "stunning and brave" womanhood, or that girls have a pathway to "strong and brave" manhood?
I say not, and I would question why you would want to promote this idea with fake terms and unclear language that obfuscates reality. The fact that Hayton acknowledges that he is a man does not earn him the honorary title of "woman." If you had a son who wanted to go down the same path as Hayton, would you like others to support his delusion and promote it to others by referring to your son as a "marvelous trans woman"? Or refer to your daughter as a "marvelous trans man"? It seems unwise to affirm someone else's delusion when you do not want your own child's delusion affirmed.
I have to take issue. There are indeed people, men and women, who are genuinely transgender who should have the rights and opportunity to fully realize who they are, medically and otherwise. The profound issue is the trend, the contagion in the teenage and young adult population who manifest their mental illness, their dysphoria with medical intervention rather than exploratory therapy. There is a huge difference.
If you notice, the people that are genuinely considered to be "truly trans" are the people who "pass" well as the opposite sex, and these people are almost universally homosexual. The "true trans" are flamboyant men, and women who don't perform stereotypical femininity, who make straight people uncomfortable with their very obvious (and taboo) outright gayness or lesbianism. They made their families uncomfortable, they made their (often religious) communities uncomfortable, they've often been severely bullied for this obvious gayness. It is almost never a heterosexual person who is considered to be one of the "truly trans." The heterosexuals are the ones we all laugh at for being the awkward pretenders. Like Mr. Hayton.
So if you say that these people who pass well as the opposite sex are the ones who are very clearly "truly trans" and require access to medicalization so that they can be their "authentic selves," you are saying that it's OK for the most obviously homosexual men and women in our society, for those gay people who least conform to the regressive cultural stereotype associated with their sex, to react to external or internalized homophobia by putting themselves into a medical closet constructed out of their own bodies and LARP as fake straight people. We call that "transing the gay away," and that is what you are, perhaps unknowingly, advocating.
Ithat the punishment for gayness, for not performing the regressive stereotype associated with your sex, is having your organs of pleasure removed, becoming a medical patient for life, living with a myriad of iatrogenic heath conditions, and dying early. That is why LGB activists such as myself say that transgenderism is politically correct homophobia. If a person feels so bad about their non-conformity that they decide it's better to attempt to perform the regressive stereotype associated with the opposite sex, that isn't something to support.
Point taken. I also agree that there are at least two distinct cohorts here: the AGPs who seem to need more and more affirmation as women for the sexual high and the young people trying to come of age and getting sidelined with the cult of Ideology that is Gender Identity and the massive gas lighting that goes with it. I could be "live and let live" about the AGPs if the activism would stop - but it appears to be part of the mental illness that they cannot? And, it works so well for those profiting from Big Pharma, etc.
If a "true trans" narrative is supported by those of us who should know better, every kid who claims an opposite sex identity will believe that she or he is that thing without question -- as we can see from literally every detransitioner who has spoken out.
Not only is "true trans" a complete fiction and deeply homophobic, it's also deeply harmful to confused young people and vulnerable adults. If people are concerned with being "kind" to confused people, I would suggest that it's far kinder not to support anyone's delusion or to spread false information about material reality.
I am certain from reading this blog from its inception that other parents who are trying to protect their own kids would prefer that people not give THEIR children the false impression that they could be among those who are "truly trans," giving them further motivation to medicalize.
"True trans" harms kids. There is no such thing as "trans" anything. No men are any kind of marvelous woman. Let's just stop all this nonsense right now!
I agree there is a huge difference. As for the rest, it may be a matter of language. What is meant by "genuinely transgender"? Does it mean someone of one sex is somehow locked in the body of another sex? What can that mean? Maybe it means there are a small number of people who are disturbed in this particular way (there are so many ways to have "issues") and maybe some of them can lead full lives and have great careers after medical interventions preceded by therapy to make sure it is the least bad course of action for them. Generally, I think it is fulfilling a sexual fetish. Still, every human being is worthy of respect. That does not mean these people should be hired as pediatricians, people who set health policy, or to teach kids under 18, IMO. Sure, they ought to have rights just like everybody does. Do they need special rights?
But, be all of that as it may, lots of the teens would not especially even have mental health issues but for the cult teachings of GI and the gas lighting at school, etc. Their growth is getting sabotaged at what is a difficult time in life for most people.
So the treatment of some types of treatment resistant mental illness is poisoning an otherwise healthy body and mutilation of the genitals? That makes sense.
There is nothing marvellous about being “trans”. Remember these people are deluded. They used to be offered therapy years ago when transgenderism was recognised as a mental illness. Now these deluded people are forcing mutilation “therapies” on children.
We must protect our children from these treatments designed by mentally ill people.
Gender ideology is the most crazy of ideas as it promotes self harm.
I've noticed that so many of these deluded middle aged men wear almost identical facial expressions. I am struggling to describe it. It's like some sort of "See me - I'm an innocuous matron" sort of thing. Mentally healthy people have varied expressions.
"Schneider claims to be a "smart, confident woman doing something super normal." Schneider felt prepared to participate on the show, according to TMZ, but was not prepared either for the level of success attained in competition, or the ensuing fame."
right.
Anyway, they should live their lives (in dresses if they like) without making everyone else contort themselves and say they are women, give up sports positions to them, etc.
I tend to agree with you but it is good to have someone "from within" acknowledge that men with this psychological malady are men, that there ought to be safeguards, and that young people ought never to be medicalized (or affirmed). There will always be a tiny number of middle aged AGPs and if they eventually want surgeries I'd be ok if it didn't go further. However, the GI religion has to stop. We must recognize that this is a mental illness, not an Identity. And, I am uncomfortable with such people working in a school environment or as a health care professional (there is a lot of that). They cry discrimination but would you allow some other kind of "cutter" in those positions? Currently the mentally ill are running the show.
The worst case is our United States Assistant Health Director and First Female Four Star Admiral Richard Levine though there are such people in county governments as well. Sure, they should get housing and a vote like everyone else, but running health policy? They, like Bruce Jenner running for governor for CA, certainly do it for the sexual high of affirmation - and to make our policies increasingly crazy.
Jenner has at least provided sane and logical insight into the Lia Thomas/NCAA situation... but of course those comments are being ignored as transphobic.
And Genspect gives him a BIG "Pink Mist" YouTube interview where Sasha Ayad and Stella O'Malley fawn all over him for 90 minutes, calling him "she" and "her." Ridiculous.
Yes, I could have written this. So infuriated by the ways we were coaxed by doctors, psychologists, social workers, and psychiatrists to affirm. Nurses suggesting binders, doctors using preferred pronouns, kids going into the ER with one name and out with another.
I do not know how old your daughter is but I would destroy the binder and call her by her name at home. When kids rage against parents they are usually happy inside to know there are boundaries, IMO. It's love.
Some of these girls and young women seem to do fine just going braless (and binderless) wearing loose clothing once it's suggested. There's nothing wrong with that.
Dr Ramani YouTube channel offers help to those who are dealing with narcissists. The Center for Mind/Body, Dr. James Gordon, offers courses in mind/body healing. The cross-sex lobby/cult is shattering families. I post on these issues at uteheggengrasswidow.wordpress.com
As I write in my blog, uteheggengrasswidow.wordpress.com, it appears from detransitioners' testimonies, that their mental health becomes worse with the jump to affirmation. It may be that they are not actually natural narcissists, and this does not fit. "Transition" is life-long, never finished, when those choices have been made. The first step in deprogramming, as detransitioners related, is raged. They might be raging at "being misgendered". If they are supposedly stepping into their "authentic self" why the rage? For teens, who have the confusion of puberty, they are unable to clearly identify the source of their rage and often target parents. I recommend Dr. Ramani YouTube channel, for parents to learning coping with narcissism, and the book, Transforming Trauma, by Dr. James Gordon of The Center for Mind/Body, cmbm. Both of these entities are offering courses remotely. Do not let the cross-sex lobby shatter your family.
Excellent piece. Thank you. And my heart goes out to your child and your family. May health be restored and loving, effective, sane help be obtained.
And therapists, if you don't know where to start (a lot is understood that you don't know yet), the information for clinicians at https://genspect.org/guidance/ is a really good place.
They're all good. Also the essays, and book by Susan Evans and Marcus Evans, which has composite case studies. And and and....
Thank you for this essay and thank you to all the therapists who are looking into this, researching it, supporting young people struggling with this by exploring, as therapy does!
I am not a professional academic. I'm a mother. I sometimes reflect about how lame/cowed our academics are even as I understand they fear for their jobs. Maybe the entire academic system, K - University ought to be shut down and restarted :) My own Ivy League alma mater actively promotes pronouns/GI and claims that no one objects.
Alma mater on Wiki: "The phrase is variously translated as "nourishing mother", "nursing mother", or "fostering mother", suggesting that a school provides intellectual nourishment to her students."
Yeah, right. Now, please define "woman". They are morally and intellectually bankrupt, IMO.
And the federal government wants universal pre-k. Then, they can tell the 3-4 year olds they get to choose their sex.
The fact that we are unable - or unwilling - to see that this recent and tremendous rise in trans/nonbinary identity is happening largely in a group that is historically known to be suffering with self esteem and body image issues (adolescent girls) and that rather than work through this we go along with affirming that there is something wrong with their bodies absolutely blows my mind. I was admitted multiple times to an eating disorder unit as a young teen. The parallels are undeniable. Our bodies are changing. We are not comfortable with all that we are being ushered into, both physically and mentally. An eating disorder is a way to prolong childhood - shrink the breasts, stop or at least reduce the frequency of menses. Opt out of all that nonsense dating and adult business. This is not true of ALL women with an eating disorder but it is a very common theme. Bonus - for those who lose enough weight you get to bask in the envy disguised as concern from your peers, and the actual concern from adults.
I remember spending endless therapy sessions discussing how we were more than a number on the scale, how to deal with unhealthy thoughts, how all bodies were different and no one was perfect, how society's expectations of women were unreasoable and unrealistic. By and large we were female - I remember one boy my age (young teen), one adult male (who seemed ancient but was probably about my age now, mid-40s), and one transwoman who was not on the unit for long due to being very disruptive and unstable - otherwise we were all female, most of us 12-18ish, a few women in their 20s. We were a vulnerable group largely due to our age and sex. I remember learning about nutrition and exercise and trying to achieve a focus on health and nurturing and loving your body instead of destroying it - all the while working on whatever other underlying issues we had. There was almost always SOME other underlying issue.
Never once was it proposed that we be sent for liposuction or weight loss surgery (I'm not even sure that existed then but if it did, it would not have been proposed) - the focus was never on drasticaly altering the body in some way to achieve happiness because it was known that the issue was deeper than what we weighed. We might be encouraged to try a new hair style or outfit or make-up, things that were working *with* the body that we had and trying to feel good. We would be encouraged to think of and find things about ourselves aside from appearance that made us feel proud and confident.
In the case of gender dysphoria, not only do we fail to get to the bottom of what is actually troubling these young ladies (and increasingly young white men, I think for different reasons) but we are actively discouraged from doing so! I slashed open my arms with a razor blade over and over and over, over my akwardness and depression and my failure to fit in and my hatred of my body - and yet it was repeatedly drilled into my head that my weight was only a symptom. Parents today, at the slightest sign of dysphoria, at the first regurgitation of the lines learned on the internet sure to take a child down the transition pathline, are warned that their child will harm themself if *not* allowed to change their body!
How did we get to this point? Have we forgotten our own puberties, and how hard they were? How did we become so eager to show our acceptance for the "lgbtqia++" community that we are willing to throw the mental health of adolescents and young adults in general under the bus?
One thing I have found curious is Dr. Rachel Levine, when she was still known as Richard, was the director of an eating disorder clinic. An eating disorder clinic! This person was in charge of helping adolescent girls to see past their physical bodies and to learn to love and value themselves beyond their appearance. I can only imagine how it would have felt to be a patient there, to go through such a program, and then see the director make such a sweeping and hippocritical decision to drastically alter their body in the name of self love. At least in Dr. Levine's case there was no sacrifice of future fertility - that being all in the past - this has to have been a heck of a mental ride for any of the girls who had gone through the program.
I almost feel as though even the experts are thinking "Oooh at last we have an EASY solution to the age old dilemma of adolescent ennui!" and for no other reason than that they are going along with it... but the fallout is so terrible.
Thank you for this wonderful post and I am so sorry for your difficult adolescence. I know a girl who was clearly suffering from an eating disorder & was told that the disorder/discomfort was "because she was trans" and is on opposite sex hormones now. The mother completely bought it. Our own daughter did not have an eating disorder but I remember when they were friends she was easily influenced to set aside food and go do something else & she was getting a little skinny. After changing schools for other reasons her weight returned to normal and I breathed a sigh of relief. Then, she came under the influence of a narcissist Gay Straight Alliance Leader who she admired "for her strength." Adolescent girls are so easily influenced by each other. Growing up is hard and for shame on the adults/professionals now. It
certainly is easier to rubber stamp all these girls with the mythic and not scientifically explained "trans" rather than help them. I feel this is so much like Salem witch times with a socially transmitted (by girls) issue and the adults have no sense or are making money (in Salem adults would jump on the bandwagon and accuse neighbors of witchcraft if they wanted their property).
I understand Richard Levine was a pediatrician :-0
That childhood friend with the eating disorder starved herself to the point where she never really developed breasts. The mother is happy because it means she won't have to have breasts chopped off :-0
My daughter keeps very thin so breasts not developed. Looks like she had surgery but she says “not yet!”. She wants surgery to remove breasts that are not visible? Seems obsessive compulsive disorder, anorexia, autism are all factors behind the desire to change gender. Effective therapy is too expensive?
Yes. There are a whole host of comorbitities. I was diagnosed as autistic as an adult and suddenly my never fitting in made so much sense. I was a fat kid to begin with and I really thought that losing weight would make me more popular and fit in better - and it didn't work like that. But to an extent that is a normal part of adolescence, thinking that if you change X or buy Y, you will suddenly be one of the cool kids.
I inititally thought the rise in trans was simply the newest manifestation of eating disorders (it's so much quicker and easier, to get the same results - repression of the body parts you hate, admiration and attention from those around you) but there are really many, many overlapping circles - the high rates among autistic kids is certainly alarming - with one common overarcching theme: the confusion of adolescence and young adulthood.
I feel like a lot of people use autism to justify being "truly trans" because we struggle with gender roles so much - but I don't think we struggle with gender roles any more than we struggle with any other societally placed expectation. Right now gender is a hot topic, and the trans umbrella has become so huge with the addition of non-binary and eight zillion other different labels which are mostly really all just terms that describe feelings every single human among us has felt as some point or another - pick one and you're in! Who wouldn't want automatic acceptance into a group, a place to fit in and at the same time special word for what makes them unique? ESPECIALLY an autistic kid who notoriously struggles to fit in?
We (autistics) are supposed to be black and white thinkers which means we will think we don't think we belong as male or female gender if we don't check off all the boxes - but as black and white thinkers we should be just as apt to say "I have a penis/vagina, therefore I am male/female no matter how I express myself!" As a teen/young adult in the goth scene, a lot of the people I hung out with were probably on the spectrum and it was a very gender bendy lot, men in skirts and painted nails who still identified as MEN - this "gender confusion" we are seeing now is 100% a social construct being driven by the desire to fit in with a group. We have gone backwards in our acceptance of gender fluidity, in declaring gender fluidity as something outside the norm.
As a kid/teen, I wanted to be a boy - but I didn't think I WAS a boy. Being a boy seemed easier. I thought it was a unique weirdness to me but I now realize it wasn't unique to me - a lot of women struggled with puberty, autistic or not, early bloomer or not (I was also an early bloomer which I think made it worse). We struggle with our new bodies and feeling odd and over a few years everyone catches up and we adapt. Now kids are being told this struggle means "maybe we should pause puberty so you can explore your options!" How are girls supposed to be comfortable in their new roles as women if we are encouraging them to live as boys? Do people not realize how stubborn teens are, how hard it will be to say "hey maybe I was wrong?" once we let them bind and call them by boy names and fight to let them use the boy bathrooms?
We are giving kids new labels for an old problem and they eating it up, while leaving the actual issues unexplored completely. Most will grow out of it. Some of those will carry reminders of this phase that are much worse than the scars on my arms.
I also was diagnosed (late in life) as being on the spectrum. At 15 I was anorexic. Both my daughters became anorexic at 15. Puberty is difficult, especially for girls with autism.
Fitting in to society is so difficult that it can seem terrifying. The changes of puberty can be slowed down a bit by fasting. There was no testosterone available for girls when we grew up. This generation are willingly taking part in a research experiment when they consent to “transgender medical treatments”.
It would be much healthier if they would just pretend to be the opposite sex without actually believing they are the opposite sex. I see no justification for them being given “human rights” which defy reality. Girls should not have to compete with men in sport and share their spaces. Being legally male does not make a woman a man. It makes a mockery of our legal system.
My super sensitive hearing causes me distress when I hear my daughter’s deep voice. I still remember her sweet voice and how lovely was the sound of her singing.
Gone forever, destroyed by testosterone.
Well said, River. I especially like:
"Right now gender is a hot topic, and the trans umbrella has become so huge with the addition of non-binary and eight zillion other different labels which are mostly really all just terms that describe feelings every single human among us has felt as some point or another - pick one and you're in!"
I was going to share your essay, until I came across the phrase, "marvelous transwoman."
That phrase is an oxymoron, a contradiction in terms, and highly offensive to those of us who are battling this normalization of body dissociation for corporate profit which is severely harming children like your own.
1) No man who walks around in womanface and calls himself a female name, let alone a man who teaches schoolchildren while in womanface using a female name, should be described as "marvelous" or any other positive adjective. He is a groomer, grooming children (and gullible parents like yourself) to accept -- and then go out and promote the acceptance -- of men and women LARPing (live action role playing) as the opposite sex, of the normalization of autogynephila in public places, of the erosion of our right to speak and hear the truth in public discourse, and the very concept of what a "woman" is. He and the people who platform him are either knowingly or unknowingly engaging in grooming behavior, make no mistake. He is clearly a classic narcissist, putting his desire to act out his sexual fantasies on the public stage above everything else, including the feelings of his own three children, who were minors when he began doing it. Doesn't that bother you at all? How could that be considered "marvelous"?
2) There is no such thing as a "trans woman." These males are not a subset of women, they are a subset of men. When you use female language for males, or male language for females, you confuse children who are in the very process of learning about the world, about what women and men are, and how to navigate the world safely. Don't you see that this fake, made-up language contributed to the harm of your own child, and to the harm of all the children of the parents who contribute to and read this blog?
3) There is no such thing as "trans" anything -- "trans" is a corporate fiction, a fake made-up concept being used as an ad campaign to sell drugs and surgeries to children like yours, and to vulnerable adults. Why are we acting like there is a new category of human all of a sudden that we have to acknowledge, like a "Z" chromosome has suddenly been discovered? Who -- or WHAT -- does it serve to support this corporate fiction, to refer to anyone as "trans"? Is this helping your child or anyone else's child not fall into the grips of an unrealistic fantasy when you perpetuate the concept that this fantasy is a real thing?
Why in the world would you give unclear, confusing information to kids or anyone else? Again, who, or what, does this muddying of language serve? Does it serve kids and vulnerable adults? Can a man somehow be some sort of woman, or vice versa? Are you saying that boys have a pathway to "stunning and brave" womanhood, or that girls have a pathway to "strong and brave" manhood?
I say not, and I would question why you would want to promote this idea with fake terms and unclear language that obfuscates reality. The fact that Hayton acknowledges that he is a man does not earn him the honorary title of "woman." If you had a son who wanted to go down the same path as Hayton, would you like others to support his delusion and promote it to others by referring to your son as a "marvelous trans woman"? Or refer to your daughter as a "marvelous trans man"? It seems unwise to affirm someone else's delusion when you do not want your own child's delusion affirmed.
I have to take issue. There are indeed people, men and women, who are genuinely transgender who should have the rights and opportunity to fully realize who they are, medically and otherwise. The profound issue is the trend, the contagion in the teenage and young adult population who manifest their mental illness, their dysphoria with medical intervention rather than exploratory therapy. There is a huge difference.
If you notice, the people that are genuinely considered to be "truly trans" are the people who "pass" well as the opposite sex, and these people are almost universally homosexual. The "true trans" are flamboyant men, and women who don't perform stereotypical femininity, who make straight people uncomfortable with their very obvious (and taboo) outright gayness or lesbianism. They made their families uncomfortable, they made their (often religious) communities uncomfortable, they've often been severely bullied for this obvious gayness. It is almost never a heterosexual person who is considered to be one of the "truly trans." The heterosexuals are the ones we all laugh at for being the awkward pretenders. Like Mr. Hayton.
So if you say that these people who pass well as the opposite sex are the ones who are very clearly "truly trans" and require access to medicalization so that they can be their "authentic selves," you are saying that it's OK for the most obviously homosexual men and women in our society, for those gay people who least conform to the regressive cultural stereotype associated with their sex, to react to external or internalized homophobia by putting themselves into a medical closet constructed out of their own bodies and LARP as fake straight people. We call that "transing the gay away," and that is what you are, perhaps unknowingly, advocating.
Ithat the punishment for gayness, for not performing the regressive stereotype associated with your sex, is having your organs of pleasure removed, becoming a medical patient for life, living with a myriad of iatrogenic heath conditions, and dying early. That is why LGB activists such as myself say that transgenderism is politically correct homophobia. If a person feels so bad about their non-conformity that they decide it's better to attempt to perform the regressive stereotype associated with the opposite sex, that isn't something to support.
What is "genuinely transgender"? People who are genuinely "born in the wrong body," or something else?
Point taken. I also agree that there are at least two distinct cohorts here: the AGPs who seem to need more and more affirmation as women for the sexual high and the young people trying to come of age and getting sidelined with the cult of Ideology that is Gender Identity and the massive gas lighting that goes with it. I could be "live and let live" about the AGPs if the activism would stop - but it appears to be part of the mental illness that they cannot? And, it works so well for those profiting from Big Pharma, etc.
If a "true trans" narrative is supported by those of us who should know better, every kid who claims an opposite sex identity will believe that she or he is that thing without question -- as we can see from literally every detransitioner who has spoken out.
Not only is "true trans" a complete fiction and deeply homophobic, it's also deeply harmful to confused young people and vulnerable adults. If people are concerned with being "kind" to confused people, I would suggest that it's far kinder not to support anyone's delusion or to spread false information about material reality.
I am certain from reading this blog from its inception that other parents who are trying to protect their own kids would prefer that people not give THEIR children the false impression that they could be among those who are "truly trans," giving them further motivation to medicalize.
"True trans" harms kids. There is no such thing as "trans" anything. No men are any kind of marvelous woman. Let's just stop all this nonsense right now!
I agree there is a huge difference. As for the rest, it may be a matter of language. What is meant by "genuinely transgender"? Does it mean someone of one sex is somehow locked in the body of another sex? What can that mean? Maybe it means there are a small number of people who are disturbed in this particular way (there are so many ways to have "issues") and maybe some of them can lead full lives and have great careers after medical interventions preceded by therapy to make sure it is the least bad course of action for them. Generally, I think it is fulfilling a sexual fetish. Still, every human being is worthy of respect. That does not mean these people should be hired as pediatricians, people who set health policy, or to teach kids under 18, IMO. Sure, they ought to have rights just like everybody does. Do they need special rights?
But, be all of that as it may, lots of the teens would not especially even have mental health issues but for the cult teachings of GI and the gas lighting at school, etc. Their growth is getting sabotaged at what is a difficult time in life for most people.
So the treatment of some types of treatment resistant mental illness is poisoning an otherwise healthy body and mutilation of the genitals? That makes sense.
There are men who get aroused by imaging themselves as females from a very young age. It doesn’t make them women.
There is nothing marvellous about being “trans”. Remember these people are deluded. They used to be offered therapy years ago when transgenderism was recognised as a mental illness. Now these deluded people are forcing mutilation “therapies” on children.
We must protect our children from these treatments designed by mentally ill people.
Gender ideology is the most crazy of ideas as it promotes self harm.
I've noticed that so many of these deluded middle aged men wear almost identical facial expressions. I am struggling to describe it. It's like some sort of "See me - I'm an innocuous matron" sort of thing. Mentally healthy people have varied expressions.
For instance see https://thepostmillennial.com/amy-schneider-the-most-successful-woman-on-jeopardy?utm_campaign=64487
"Schneider claims to be a "smart, confident woman doing something super normal." Schneider felt prepared to participate on the show, according to TMZ, but was not prepared either for the level of success attained in competition, or the ensuing fame."
right.
Anyway, they should live their lives (in dresses if they like) without making everyone else contort themselves and say they are women, give up sports positions to them, etc.
I tend to agree with you but it is good to have someone "from within" acknowledge that men with this psychological malady are men, that there ought to be safeguards, and that young people ought never to be medicalized (or affirmed). There will always be a tiny number of middle aged AGPs and if they eventually want surgeries I'd be ok if it didn't go further. However, the GI religion has to stop. We must recognize that this is a mental illness, not an Identity. And, I am uncomfortable with such people working in a school environment or as a health care professional (there is a lot of that). They cry discrimination but would you allow some other kind of "cutter" in those positions? Currently the mentally ill are running the show.
The worst case is our United States Assistant Health Director and First Female Four Star Admiral Richard Levine though there are such people in county governments as well. Sure, they should get housing and a vote like everyone else, but running health policy? They, like Bruce Jenner running for governor for CA, certainly do it for the sexual high of affirmation - and to make our policies increasingly crazy.
Richard/Rachel Levine, another "marvelous trans woman"!
Jenner has at least provided sane and logical insight into the Lia Thomas/NCAA situation... but of course those comments are being ignored as transphobic.
Activists seem to always "cry bully".
"Ethan & Addison" are fainting/having nightmares/cry bullying after Matt Walsh asked them to define what a woman is on Dr. Phil.
It's really very aggressive.
David Hayton is living an AGP's dream - TERFs like Julie Bindel call him "she". He gets off from it.
And Genspect gives him a BIG "Pink Mist" YouTube interview where Sasha Ayad and Stella O'Malley fawn all over him for 90 minutes, calling him "she" and "her." Ridiculous.
I am sure he does.
I absolutely agree with you.
Yes, I could have written this. So infuriated by the ways we were coaxed by doctors, psychologists, social workers, and psychiatrists to affirm. Nurses suggesting binders, doctors using preferred pronouns, kids going into the ER with one name and out with another.
horrible
I do not know how old your daughter is but I would destroy the binder and call her by her name at home. When kids rage against parents they are usually happy inside to know there are boundaries, IMO. It's love.
Some of these girls and young women seem to do fine just going braless (and binderless) wearing loose clothing once it's suggested. There's nothing wrong with that.
Agreed. Well put.
Dr Ramani YouTube channel offers help to those who are dealing with narcissists. The Center for Mind/Body, Dr. James Gordon, offers courses in mind/body healing. The cross-sex lobby/cult is shattering families. I post on these issues at uteheggengrasswidow.wordpress.com
As I write in my blog, uteheggengrasswidow.wordpress.com, it appears from detransitioners' testimonies, that their mental health becomes worse with the jump to affirmation. It may be that they are not actually natural narcissists, and this does not fit. "Transition" is life-long, never finished, when those choices have been made. The first step in deprogramming, as detransitioners related, is raged. They might be raging at "being misgendered". If they are supposedly stepping into their "authentic self" why the rage? For teens, who have the confusion of puberty, they are unable to clearly identify the source of their rage and often target parents. I recommend Dr. Ramani YouTube channel, for parents to learning coping with narcissism, and the book, Transforming Trauma, by Dr. James Gordon of The Center for Mind/Body, cmbm. Both of these entities are offering courses remotely. Do not let the cross-sex lobby shatter your family.