Daniel’s Story

In memory of my  beloved son, “D”.

My son, “D” was 32 when he revealed to me out of the blue he was transgender. At the same time he told me he had decided to medically transition and register with the NHS for radical body altering gender surgery. I was blindsided by this revelation. I was never aware that he was unhappy as a boy or as a man. I knew nothing about gender issues at the time and had no idea how to respond. I was just shaken to the core.

At this time my son was severely depressed and undergoing a life crisis following the breakdown of a very difficult relationship. He was making things up about his past., describing people who had been close to him growing up as evil. I was deeply disturbed by and concerned about his mental state. I begged him to get counseling. He became angry and told me he would only get counseling from a trans counselor because no one else was able to understand what it was like being transgender. Then he yelled at me angrily accusing me of being transphobic and told me not to contact him again. I was confused and distressed.

I started to do my own research which did nothing to alleviate my anguish. I wrote to him and tried hard to persuade him not to take this radical action, at the same time letting him know that I would always be there for him. He texted back, asking me to refer to him by his new female name. I couldn't find it in me to do this. Although I tried to maintain contact he never spoke to me again. His mental health continued to deteriorate.

Six months later he took his own life by hanging.

I cannot put into words the continuous and ongoing mental trauma and pain I have suffered. I had to make the arrangements for and attend the funeral of my only son.

Compounding my distress, LGBT activists campaigned to have my son called his chosen female name and pronouns at the service, as well as to have them inscribed on his gravestone and printed on his death certificate. Their representative, whilst pretending to want to support me, intervened and interfered every way possible, going behind my back to the police with his Deed Poll certificate, remonstrating with the funeral director and the funeral operative and drawing up a petition.

My son had lost his way. He was born a boy and died as a man as far as I was concerned. I wanted him to be buried with dignity. The trans activists gathered around the grave, drinking, chanting and throwing things in, one of them shouting his chosen female name angrily. My son’s father, who had enthusiastically supported him in his intention to medically transition, was a ring leader. I was confronted and shouted at on two occasions by two of the members at the wake. I wanted my sons friends to be there to share their grief irrespective of their gender identities, but was unprepared for this wall of hostility. To this day, four years later, I am still traumatized. I have suffered two nervous break downs, have not worked since and have frequent nightmares. The 'what ifs' and 'if onlys' haunt me daily. If only I had understood more and realized how cult like and toxic this trans activist movement is I would have done everything to get him out of it. 

Growing up

My son was a typical boy growing up, playing with boys’ toys and wearing boys’ clothes. He preferred reading books and playing board games over football or sports, as many boys do.

When he was seven we moved to Bangkok where his father had secured a job. When he was nine years old his father started taking methamphetamines. He became verbally abusive and irrational. He was also having affairs with sex trade workers. We rarely saw him. He was not willing to change his ways and we separated.

D. was a happy child up to this point but this experience with his father, and the trauma of the resultant separation and family breakdown affected him deeply, and led to behavioral problems. Our life changed dramatically following the separation. I got no financial support from his father and had to work to pay the rent and bills. Trying to cope as a single parent, and to protect my son from his father who was gas-lighting us both, meant I was anxious and stressed. I didn’t know how to support my son who had become oppositional and withdrawn.

He spent too much time on his computer in his bedroom. I later found out he was accessing the dark web.

D overdosed at 14, dropped out of school and spent time in psychotherapy, but no amount of psychotherapy and counseling after that was ever able to fix his broken soul.

Adulthood

As a teen and young adult he had girlfriends. I know he was looking for that stable lasting relationship, which he had had in childhood, but sadly it eluded him.

I was proud of D that he did well at sixth form college back in the UK and secured a place at university. In hindsight I think this wasn't the best course for an impressionable young man with low self esteem. His university was in Scotland, 470 miles from my home. I didn't want him to go so far away as I knew it would be hard for me to visit. At the time I was unaware that universities had become liberal, woke establishments. His university, it turned out, is a Stonewall Diversity Champion and LGBTIQ plus aligned.

He did well for his first year and found a nice girlfriend. In his second year he moved into a shared house—but then his father turned up and stayed for several months on his floor. D was unable to cope and dropped out of university, suffering from depression. He joined various political activist groups on campus and started supporting extremist political movements. He tended to be particularly confrontational around ideological issues. When he returned home he was identifying as a Marxist and an anarchist. University was meant to educate him not politically radicalise him. He continued with his studies but had very little contact with me from that time on, and I felt that I personally had become the enemy because his Marxist convictions clashed with my faith. Despite all of these challenges, he graduated with a degree.

The Gender Clinic

I found out that, a few months after his disclosure to me that he was transgender, he attended a private transgender clinic in Edinburgh. He was seen by the medical director, a leading gender specialist in Scotland. I managed to find the presence of mind after the funeral to write to the gender clinic and request their notes.

I found he was advised to change his name by Deep Poll on his first visit. He was also told he would need to live full-time as a woman for two years so that he could change his birth certificate. She offered him a psychiatric evaluation but he declined, saying he would wait for an NHS assessment. This never took place. The gender clinic, interestingly, does not mention psychiatric assessment on their website but just advertises support and help with the entire transitioning process. It would seem that they exist purely to medically transition their clients.

Following his first visit to the clinic, he began socially transitioning and taking three opposite sex hormone prescriptions, which he obtained online, daily. A few months later his gender specialist authorized blood tests to be carried out at the clinic as a means of monitoring his liver and hormone levels. The specialist was aware that D suffered from depression, anxiety, and insomnia. He also told her on his second visit that he had been experiencing mood swings as a result of taking the medication. Ignoring all of this, she stated in her letter to his doctor that he had a typical history of gender dysphoria. Even his close friends and family members were baffled by this diagnosis.

The gender specialist blamed my faith as the reason I could not approve his transitioning—as if any mother in her right mind would be fine with her child taking experimental medication and having healthy body parts amputated. She said that he was in daily contact with his father who was very supportive even though this was a lie—D had not seen his father for two years at that point.

My son did not receive any warnings about the dangers of self medicating, the side effects of experimental opposite sex hormones, and the horrific likely complications from surgeries. If he had, that might have gotten through to him—my son was always sensitive, self conscious and hated hospitals.

There are few or no safety nets for gender dysphoric individuals with suicidal ideation. Doctors who are captive to gender ideology or fearful of trans activists are failing their patients by affirming them in their chosen gender and referring them to gender clinics where they are offered a 'quick fix', ignoring mental health comorbidities. They offer only one possible solution to distress—and it’s a path which leads to lifetime dependency on medication and radical surgery with catastrophic complication risks.

D’s gender specialist told me that their clinic follows WPATH guidelines—but WPATH is set up and run by transgender activists and is founded, with no scientific basis, on the belief that transitioning is the only path for people with gender dysphoria.

Reflecting

Reflecting on his past, I suspect that a combination of factors—depression, trauma, anxiety, the need for emotional security and acceptance, a crisis of confidence coupled with an addiction to social media and ideological alignments, plus the absence of a suitable male role model growing up, created fertile ground for gender ideology to take hold in my son. Delusional thinking then led D down unhealthy rabbit holes including the belief he was a woman trapped in the wrong body. Whilst I believe D's specialist was well meaning, she was ideologically captured and thus incapable of treating my son with appropriate care. Surely people like my son, with a background of mental health issues, deserve to be treated better and in accordance with rigid, standard medical practice and ethics as they would in any other medical field.

I wish more than anything I had been able to protect my vulnerable adult son. He fell victim to a dangerous cult that separated him from his loved ones. I am sure he could been saved had his difficult past and the root of his unhappiness been explored rationally and had he been able to come to terms with and embrace himself and his natural body. It is too late for me son—but I am compelled to tell my story to raise the alarm along with a growing army of other parents and professionals to expose this abhorrent medical scandal.

Ultimately, it is my greatest hope that no more children suffer my son’s fate; that no more families experience this pain and horror. All patient-led, affirming gender clinics should be disbanded and replaced by accountable, rational, unbiased mental health services, and those suffering from body dysphoria should be treated holistically and compassionately and offered an alternative solution to medical transition.