Dear Family

I wrote this letter to a family member because an exchange left me unsure where she stood and because I wanted her and her daughters’ help with our son. Her immediate response made me feel heard and understood; more so than any I’ve received from the few people in whom I’ve confided. She’s had concerns about her younger daughter’s belief in gender ideology and her trans-identifying friends. Our conversation after she read the letter was both satisfying and dissatisfying. I felt supported and understood and that I had a committed ally. I was also dismayed by our shared fear of the risk of involving her daughters in reaching our son – the younger who is a staunch ally and the elder because the opportunity needs to be “just right” not to upset the whisper of hope we hold today. So, we wait. I am glad the door is open, so if an opportunity presents for her direct involvement, we need only ask.

Dear Family Member,

I appreciated you asking and talking with me about my son and listening to my requests and feelings during our last visit together. I’m so grateful for you and your family’s presence in our lives. I treasure our connection.

I’m writing this to you because I want to be clear and don’t want to forget anything.

Our beloved son has aggressively self-harmed by taking powerful sex-rejecting drugs that cause sterilization. Rejecting his healthy body and believing his life will be better if he presents as female is a sign of a mental health condition. Acting on this belief by self-harming has been profoundly scary and heartbreaking. For several years, every single time (and it is almost nightly) I have woken up in the middle of the night I immediately think about him and my deepest fears for his wellbeing. We are traumatized and is affecting all areas of our life.

The medical impacts of using drugs and surgeries to help present as the opposite sex destroy lives, lead to increased mental health issues, and are life-threatening. Cross-sex hormones and puberty blockers cause life-altering harm to boys including increased fat cells and weight gain; causing testicles to shrink; stopping sperm production and causing permanent sterility; forming blood clots in the brain which cause strokes, clots in the chest which lead to heart attacks, and clots in the lungs which cause embolisms; bone weakness and mass loss; muscle loss; depression; headaches; loss of sex drive; erectile dysfunction; liver disease; fat accumulation in veins; tumors in the lining of the brain; breast cancer; and insulin resistance leading to a long list of serious health problems, the most minor of which is near-constant fatigue.

Six months ago, our son asserted that he could make it on his own because we tied funds for college to test results that show he is drug free and consistent sessions with a gender critical therapist. We hope that he is on a path of recovery. We believe he is not currently taking drugs. We need him, for his own sake, to leave the transgender cult and return to us and to reality. We are doing everything we can to support this.

We desperately need you and others who love him to support and encourage any steps he takes to stop presenting as female or trans. Please only refer to him by his name. Please do not encourage or imply support for his pursuit of a female presentation. Please let us know immediately if you see evidence that others we know are affirming a female presentation. Please encourage your daughters and his cousins to affirm all his gifts and value as a young man and discourage them from supporting his self-harm as you’re able. Please, please help us protect him from himself and his capture by this cult.

I have spent days and days and days learning as much as I can about this. What I have come to understand is the following:

• Corrupt and wealthy extremists have actively promoted transgender identity ideology for their own ends over the last 25 years, and it has become imbedded in our laws and education. It is not based on science or justice.

• Social media and online engagement contributed to a social contagion for youth and vulnerable people, especially during the pandemic. Educators, social workers, counselors and trans activists recruit and promote this ideology.

• Humans are not born into the “wrong body”. There are two biological sexes that are unchangeable. Boys cannot become girls and girls cannot become boys through double-mastectomies, castration, plastic surgery, puberty blockers, or cross-sex hormones.

• Gender identity ideology is based on falsehoods promoted by extreme activists in medicine, education and politics; an over-emphasis on misplaced kindness and care by unquestioning people; and adopted through the failures of the medical and mental health professions. Drug companies and gender clinics also profit.

• Corrupt researchers and providers who issued guidance that was not evidence-based misled the medical and mental health professions who broadly adopted the guidance. For example, a rampant myth is that if you do not affirm your child’s self-asserted identity, they are likely to commit suicide. This is not true and the research does not support the claim.

• The social impacts of trying to present as the opposite sex are detrimental and negatively impact mental health, employability, relationships, and life satisfaction.

• Gender identity ideology

  • is harmful to women and girls because it puts the rights of men and boys who want to be women ahead of women, e.g. boys who want to use a locker room because they self-identify as a girl are prioritized over girls’ private single-sex spaces.

  • objectifies women and girls by implying that a boy can become a woman as if it only requires surface changes (surgery and drugs), not lived experience or biology.

  • relies on outdated stereotypes to define women as if being a woman means long hair, shaving your legs, or wearing dresses, jewelry, or makeup.

  • requires compliance with false references to pronouns or gender – it demands that all of us to lie to ourselves and others when engaging with or referring to someone as if they are the opposite sex.

  • is homophobic -- it pushes youth and vulnerable people who are gay or lesbian to adopt the presentation of the opposite sex as a less scary alternative.

Thanks for reading this and thinking about what I’m asking of you. If you realize you can’t help us support our son as described, we need you to let us know.

With love,

More resources if you’re interested:

• Democrats for an Informed Approach to Gender

• Detrans ai

• LGB Courage Coalition

• LGB Alliance USA

• Genspect

• Beyond Gender podcast

• Beyond Trans

• TransMuted podcast

• Society for Evidence Based Gender Medicine

• Health and Human Services Review

• Cass Review