Duct Tape

Despite prolonged effort, my husband and I were not able to help our young adult son find his way out of the trans cult. He believes the lie that he is a she and always has been, that wrong sex hormones are magic pills, and that this absurdity paves the path to his well-being. It’s like my son tied himself to a train track, euphoric about the trans train that harms him. It feels like my mouth is sealed by duct tape, which I resist peeling off to implore my son again with reasons to desist. Even the most cogent guidance could prompt my son to tie more ropes around his deteriorating body on the trans train track. I do not tell him how unconvincing he looks as a faux woman, as this could be a catalyst for mutilating surgery. Also, estrangement could be more likely. 

Underneath the duct tape is an avalanche of truth. This is what I yearn to share:

After taking hormones, your appearance has diminished: weight gain, unflattering looking clothes, and gynecomastia.

Your anxiety persists, and you’ve added depression and fatigue on top of that. You were healthier and more mentally balanced just a few years ago in high school.

HRT destroys sexual function and increases the likelihood of heart attack, blood clot, stroke, and dementia. You have likely sacrificed your fertility—but you could restore sexual function and sidestep health risks if you stop wrong sex hormones.

You are being manipulated and treated cruelly by people who are duping you to believe you can change your sex, and these people pad their bank account with you as a lifelong medical patient. 

You are also being treated badly by everyone, including those you think of as friends, who sanction putting dangerous hormones into the one healthy body you will ever have.

People who seem accepting of your “transition” when you present yourself in the world are not fooled—and they likely feel sorry for you. 

Your autism traits fuel your obsession with being “trans.” Aspects of autism, which include feeling weird, having social difficulties, and hyper-focusing have prompted you to fixate on the fantasy of escaping your male body. 

You cannot be a woman, only a diminished version of yourself as a man.

You did not have an abusive childhood. You were raised by attentive, caring parents. Your memory and perceptions of the present have been manipulated to separate you from Dad and me, who want to help you sidestep a path that is stealing your health and potential for a happy, fulfilled life. 

You have so many strengths, yet you are throwing your best self away with your obsession with the fantasy of being a woman.

You can overcome your actual difficulties with self-esteem, anxiety, and social connection with support from your family and caring others, therapy, and helpful medications. 

Time outside can also improve your well-being in a more sustainable way than the trans path: walking, backpacking, cross country skiing, kayaking — it doesn’t matter whether you appreciate the earth or trees or a pond or an ocean or a mountain. Time in nature could help you let go of your over focus with gender and embrace your actual body in the actual world.

Your father and I pleaded with you to choose non-invasive ways to deal with your feelings until you were at least 25 and your brain matured. We are devastated that you devalue our longstanding love and guidance. Your plowing ahead with transition during college while dependent upon us is callous and self-absorbed. You still have the capacity to reach for real help and restore kindness and respect toward your parents and to yourself. 

WAKE UP! WAKE UP! WAKE UP!

________________________

Taking the duct tape off to impart again the truth with tact and gentleness would not wake up my son. Online and in the real world, he has been indoctrinated that the “trans” path is optimal and necessary. Many more hands than his own tie my son to the track, where he is assaulted by the trans train with its horrid cargo of hormones and lies. My son suffered a terrible mental health crash. He remains out of reach from the help of his parents, and there is no ambulance. 

I yearn for others to wake up, too. At the grocery store, walking my dog, or just about anywhere, I want to shout: Did you know Planned Parenthood prescribes wrong sex hormones to vulnerable young people? Did you know that these hormones sterilize within months and have serious health risks? Did you know families are being shattered while their children are groomed as lifetime medical patients who pretend to be the opposite sex? Please read PITT.  Please read the tragic stories of detransitioners. At the ballot box, please vote to end this madness.

In the spirit of sanity, I occasionally allow a duct tape reprieve and share the truth about the trans cult. No one, not even my physician, was aware of Planned Parenthood’s evil franchise of prescribing wrong sex hormones. People react with appropriate objection. But even those who hear the truth from under my duct tape may not be concerned that much about the trans cult because it’s not their child who has been stolen. Or they may fear being canceled or losing their job.

At the end of another day of loss, the duct tape that seals in my pain is loosened when I try to sleep. Thoughts flood. My 21 year old son is likely sterile in stereotyped awful outfits. I replay him insisting he is a woman with what seems an impenetrable, narcissistic delusion. My husband next to me is sleeping, but when he wakes up, often in the middle of the night, he will grapple with feeling enraged, hurt, and depressed. Insomnia grips. The trans cult’s thwarting of my parental instinct to help my son inflicts an unnatural ache. Sometimes I scroll on my phone in the dark through photos that preserve the years of my son’s healthy self and our close family. Invariably, this retreat into the past provokes profound sadness, and I need duct tape around my heart if there is any chance of sleep. 

The trans cult wraps duct tape around common sense among those it ensnares, and it provides income for the opportunistic. I wish I could wrap duct tape around the trans cult the way one treats a wart. Contain the wart until it's recognized as a virus, and the body sheds it. When will enough people recognize the trans cult as a harmful mass psychosis to be shed?