Dear Elon

Welcome to the World's Worst Club

Welcome. Welcome to the sanity portal.  There is only one way into this and that is almost always through children - usually your own.

It was only a matter of time before we started to hear about more children, and more high profile parents like you.  Not "adult trans offspring of famous people" but your children - kids, youths, young adults with healthy bodies.  

And so, knowing that you are a science-based thinker and, having heard some interviews and having seen you dance, I fully expect you to nerd out and apply your scientific critical appraisal skills to this topic of "trans kids".  And if that is the case, then I am hoping you look beyond the more obvious 'expertise' that will throw itself in your path.

You will likely be marched before "gender experts".  When you and your child's mother go seeking clinical advice, you will almost definitely be directed to "gender clinics", many of them affiliated with prestigious university hospitals and apparently "legitimate". You may even be lined up with a lunch date with certain "edgy and innovative" young doctors who claim to be world experts in the field of "trans kids".

The minute a so-called expert utters the phrase "trans kids", without air-quoting themself, you will know you are not in the presence of an expert but a shyster.

You will be put in front of "expert clinicians", probably told that - although we don't know the long-term outcomes - we know that when given what they want, when we "affirm" them, our children will be happier immediately and will stop threatening suicide, at least for a year or two.  Our children have actually been coached on this; they know what to tell the doctors.  Many of them even believe these lies being told by people who have chosen to ignore the science.  And these are the people leading us into the next great medical scandal.  A scandal which may irreversibly harm your children as it has ours.

I see your 18 year old is a boy.  Or rather was "assigned male at birth" in activists’ parlance. You will be encouraged to "affirm her", use the "correct pronouns" and that this is the only "evidence-based approach" to gender dysphoria.  But think about it, does that even make any sense?  Humans evolved to be either large gamete-producing or small gamete-producing members of the species.  Everything else claimed about gender is ideology, like a new religion that seeks to negate scientific evidence in favor of people's feelings and desires for social acceptance and attention. For likes and retweets.

What evidence are they citing? Have they read the systematic reviews from Europe?  Are they discounting and nullifying any questions that ask for balanced thought and opinion? Are you aware that standards of care for a particular clinical intervention would normally require rigorous examination and carefully conducted research over many years? Especially for interventions in children that are known to have irreversible outcomes.  They may not mention that what they suggest for your child is entirely experimental and may reduce his lifespan by 20 years and lead him to a lifetime of medical morbidity.  

There is no such thing as changing sex. Your child will not fully grasp this, but you can.

You're a smart guy. My son thinks you're one of the smartest people on the planet.  Though I know this is 16yr old male hyperbole, I also trust that you will think like a scientist and go searching for genuine evidence. That you will want to talk to the real scientists - the ones who are working for free, on their own time, trying to save kids like yours from medically assisted self-harm and what seems like palliative care for kids with teen angst.

Some of these kids - actually, many - are on the autism spectrum and the trans ideology helps them categorize their feelings and their online experiences, explaining away the emotional discomfort of individuation from their parents by responding to the online lure of warm, friendly, love-bombing from strangers. It’s also a convenient mode of rebellion, as you no doubt have noticed, albeit one with irreversible lifelong medical consequences.

Read a lot of books. Listen to a lot of podcasts.  Listen for the science, not the ideology.  When you hear talk about "affirming feelings" and "their true selves", be critical.

And hopefully, before your son has his penis and testicles removed under the advice of ideologically driven young, inexperienced doctors and psychologists, you will find a way to intervene and protect him.

Many of us have failed at this.  My daughter gave up her health, her voice and her breasts when she turned 18. The "experts" in our community suggested that I was in the wrong for not going along with her wishes, with their "treatment plan" for her apparent gender dysphoria which started suddenly at puberty.  That I am transphobic and abusive. But not all of us have failed. Many of us parents on the sanity portal have children that have desisted or, to the extent possible, detransitioned after having engaged in irreversible self-harms to their bodies, facilitated by "experts" who should know better.

So, reach out for the evidence; don't settle for the bad stuff, for the "Cornell review" or the cheap, online survey data.  There are doctors, scientists, psychologists, therapists and many other true experts out there who know how to read the science and have managed to resist the grade-8-schoolyard-level peer pressure coming at us through social media to stop talking about the regret, the health complications and the suicides that happen AFTER transition.

Ask yourself if Jazz Jennings seems truly happy and healthy.  Ask questions, challenge the new patriarchy of trans activism.  When anyone who is childless tries to tell you that they know what's good for your child, walk away, far away.

I am a scientist, a skeptic and a mother. There are many other parents like me who are here for you, who have your back.  Our library is your library and you will find that we have made ourselves the real experts when it comes to gender. You will find that we have become the experts by aligning ourselves with science, and not ideology, when it comes to gender. Because, in the end, our children’s lives hang in the balance.