During the last week of school before summer break my son’s 4th grade teacher asked the students in the class to write something down on a piece of paper. She asked them to write a problem they were having or what was on their minds. My 10 year old son thought about it and decided his particular problem may fall under the category of TMI (too much information) but he was feeling brave that day and decided to go for it.
Such power in your honest words. Thank you for sharing. We are living through a weird ring of Hell right now and speaking up is the only weapon we have.
My daughter/son behave the same rude male behavior, plus talking to me raughly... he said to make his voice become a male voice !!!! She only got infotmation on the social networks... i hate that... all this startef when she was bullied at school and her father passed away... i feel so lost dealing this alone 🥺🥺🥺
This extreme induction is breaking up families, and even more importantly ruining these young peoples lives. I don’t know what to do besides pray and advocate as we see fit and support each other. My genius of a son, now 27 seems almost afraid to come out of his government female housing for fear of being “ misgendered “
How did this happen so quickly to a society who considers itself educated and informed.
We let kids control too much. We care if the are “happy.” We use the names and the pronouns because people tell us we have to. I know parents who inspired me. I no longer use the chosen name or the pronouns. I no longer care if I am called transphobic. I had a daughter with anorexia and it did affect the whole family. But doctors and the school were helping — not hurting. Doctors say cutting girls breasts off makes them happy. Let them be unhappy with breasts rather than without. There is enough evidence out there of the social contagion and harms being done to these kids. I am fighting for these kids. Be strong — teenagers are ridiculous and tough no matter what. Hold the line protecting all your kids. Sending you strength.
After reading this today, I realized that by simply silently fuming and aching for, and about all of this - that what I believe more of us must do is connect. Reach out. Inform. Educate. Alert. My kids are college grads, both long out of school. But I decided to send an email to our Superintendent of Schools and his under secretary, who just happened to have been both of my children's guidance counselor. I knew them both so I reached out to ask if they were aware of this Trans epidemic and if not - I included, 'Finding Hope on the Road to Ruin' and another wonderful essay by Andrew Sullivan and the experience his daughter is having at a very fine, progressive private school where only recently did he learn that 13% of her class identified as Trans. What?! Including, his daughter. I hope to hear back from them, but encourage all of us not to sit idly by. It's time to bang the drums loudly.
There was an organization in the late 80s, early 90s led by a psychiatrist for parents of wayward teens called Parents For Youth. The weekly groups were led by professionals committed to helping to support parents to provide didscipline & resistance to teens engaged in drugs, crime, etc. They advised us to use tough love. Provide reasonable rules (school or work attendance, respectful language and no drugs) & change the locks if necessary. It was very effective for hundreds of families (they kept the data). They admitted the risks but we knew that the risks ran in both directions. Sadly people got older & retired so the group or even the concept is no longer in existance. It saved many lives
"The problem with kids today is that they don't rebel against authority. The big corporations have convinced them that becoming a lifelong patient/customer of the medical industry is somehow rebellious, that there is something radically liberating about treating gays like they do in Iran, which is full of transgender surgeries - the ultimate conversion therapy. I don't know how my kids turned out so full of regressive gender stereotypes, so anti-gay and so conservative!" This is what you tell a friend over the phone, or pretend to tell a friend over the phone, with your kids in earshot.
I don't know.. I would tread lightly. If I did something like that my daughter would feel betrayed that I talk about her and her views to others behind her back. But, of course, every person is different and it may work for some kids.
That is a very good point. I'm writing from the perspective of a mom who found out about trans madness before it got big enough to soak onto my kids, so I started this early to prevent them from falling for it, and they don't identify as trans (though they find me annoyingly counter-cultural on this point). Thank you for pointing this out. I think if my own child were already trans-identified I would have the same instinct you do. I might a parallel conversation about a non-trans issue, one my kids weren't big into, with a similar point. Like when my kids' father was bad-mouthing me to them, I couldn't defend myself explicitly, but I pointed out how in the Chipmunks movie the Evil Uncle Ian was bad-mouthing the nice man who gave them a strict bedtime and rules for their own benefit and isn't that interesting. Maybe I'd point out that, in a general sense, how people who love us tend to be annoying with their warnings - wear a seatbelt, go to bed, don't eat too much candy, brush your teeth - and the people who want to destroy us so often do it with a smile - You've come a long way baby, now that you're smoking our cigarettes . . . Never trust someone who smiles too much, who is too quick to embrace you . . .
Transgender activists insist the only acceptable way to treat gender dysphoria is with puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, which will in most cases permanently sterilize all of those children, then surgery. But is it a good practice to turn children into life-long medical patients? We are talking about powerful drugs that have many negative side effects and surgeries that amputate healthy body parts. And in most cases, they are not necessary: Studies show that 80 to 95 percent of so-called Transgendered children come to accept their natural biological sex as their hormones change during puberty… IF they are allowed to go through the natural puberty process!
Yet in no other area of life are parents expected to simply accede to a child’s weird version of “reality”. There is no other medical condition that a child can self-diagnose, that has no objective test, and where parents are pushed into blindly allowing life-altering medications and surgeries.
“Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters,” by Abigail Shrier
Many children change their minds later, but if a “loving” Parent has had them physically or chemically “castrated”, it’s much too late! Enabling stupidity and delusions is stupid and delusional… and cruel!
Parents will need to show them neither OVERT “Support” or “Condemnation”. You will need to just let them work it out for themselves. However, Leftists have made it a Criminal Offence to council the person on their transgender mental delusions!
Sick parents or other “authorities” who have control of the child, then push the child into ‘presenting’ as the opposite gender and pushing children to question their sexuality just to prove the parents’ or authorities’ own point is a most damaging form of Child Abuse.
The Munchausen Syndrome (MS) is a mental disorder that causes a person with a deep-seated need for attention to fake sickness or injury. Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy (MSP) is a disorder in which the caretaker of a child either makes up fake symptoms or the parent causes real symptoms to make it appear as though the child is injured or ill. The term “by proxy” means “through a substitute”. Though MSP is primarily a mental illness, it’s also considered a form of severe Child Abuse.
BTW: There is no such thing as Transsexual, or ‘gender dysphoric’, it is only people with mental problems!
Sex or gender is definitely NOT “Assigned at Birth”! Your mother’s gynecologist was not stupid and made an error, nor were you parents and your pediatrician imbeciles!
You are the sex that God “assigned” to you at your conception, your DNA was set for LIFE the moment you were conceived!
There are at least 6,500 Genetic differences between Male and Female and every cell in the body proclaims the difference! Surgery, hormones, drugs, or ‘feelings’ cannot and will not change those scientific FACTS!
“A young child does not understand the difference between reality and fantasy. If you inform a 4-year-old that Spider-Man isn’t real, he literally will not know what you mean. So, if your young boy says he’s really a girl, the statement has no objective meaning whatsoever”. —Matt Walsh
Cardinal Raymond Burke has stated: “Gender theory is an invention, an artificial creation. It is impossible to have an identity that does not respect the proper nature of man and that of women. It is madness that will cause immense damage in society and in the lives of those who support this theory”.
Those who think that other people should go along with this insanity, they are the one who is insane!
(1) has your child been diagnosed with Autism, ADHD (or ADD), or Aspergers (the heady, daydreaming, nerdy sub-type of autism - the ones that live inside their heads)?
(2) Has your child experienced trauma (either personal trauma - molestation, early sexualization, rape, bullying, or family trauma - death, divorce, etc)
(3) Does your child have mental illnesses - OCD, bipolar, borderline (which cannot be diagnosed till age 18), depression, anxiety -- which are in most cases the by-product of being neurodivergent - autistic, and asking yourself, "why am I different from my peers."
(4) Do you think your child might be gay or lesbian or bisexual?
The 2nd set of questions a therapist needs to ask is - who are your child's closest friends, and have they declared a trans ID recently? How many hours is your child online and what content are they watching?
The internet indoctrination is a profound source of confusion ultimately leading to trans declaration.
Keep on fighting this vile ideology. A
round 16 they will come to their senses. 14 was HELL for my daughter as well. It took us 2 years on a long road towards healing for her to become her self. We both cried so many times. I was always the terfiest terf. Now I have a bunch of real illnesses from stress, grief, despair. Our family was imploded. She is doing much, much better. I am ill but at least I don't feel any more like a shell of my former self, like I did in 2020.
As I said earlier, this is a profoundly interesting, and very important post. And, it brought up a nagging question about which I can't stop thinking....
As a former stay-at-home dad, and a teacher, I'm very interested in the perceived "stereotypical" ways that trans kids (and adults) are behaving when they try to act like the "other gender." For instance, "She now enjoys manspreading, burping and farting loudly... etc." It's as if the stereotypes from decades ago have reemerged. I've heard these "stereotypical" beliefs voiced by my children, too.
I would be interested to know how common these "stereotypical" behaviors are among other trans kids of either "gender." Have both boys and girls generally adopted these exaggerated characterizations? I'd be interested in anyone's opinion via a reply to this comment.
My daughter did the manspreading and tried to walk differently. You could tell it took a lot of effort for her to do those things because she had to think about it. I remember she wanted to watch the movie Stand By Me many times. I think she was studying "boy" behavior so she could copy it. And, yes, she was rude even out in public.
Same here - except for the movie. She'd manspread her legs in the car with me and work on her posture & walk & facial expressions and put her elbows on the table (no man in the family does that). When not concentrating (or concentrating on something else) she would sit in the most exquisitely feminine way as she has always been very feminine. She likes boys so took on the "I'm a gay boy". ???
Oh, and her language became rude for a time - where we don't have a ton of cussing in our family. She didn't sound like any guy related to me or my husband!
Thank you for the reply. It's interesting that many of these kids take on these exaggerated behaviors that they assume are stereotypically male or female.
It's incredibly weird. What do you make of it? I see it as the kids having no real life experience or wisdom and other's slide in (or a meme slides in) & convince(s) them that GI explains everything and their parents are the bad dummy outsiders... "How to be" is hijacked - family ways are traded for cult stereotyping and ideas like "dead names" and "pronouns" (not at all an innocent thing that they are in everyone's email, etc.), "misgendering"... especially just at the time when a girl needs to differentiate herself from her mother. She and I were always soooo close. She is loving again with both parents but for a time thought we were "jerks".
The kinds of facial expressions she would make changed at times. I would see her practice them in the mirror and sometimes they seemed like a sort of insecure messed up gay boy thing. She was dating a really bizarre boy in high school. He did not manspread himself. He wanted to borrow the little black dresses she still had but I put a stop to that. The head of the HS GSA had set her up with him and we did not realize just how odd he was at first - before she became really involved with him. There is nowhere you can go to get your kids away from bad influences now with modern technology. We tried. It took a long time but our daughter finally rid herself of the boyfriend.
And, as someone else pointed out - even if you had no phones or other tech in the family the kids can read stuff from someone else's phone at school or use a computer at the library...
Thank you. I think this is very interesting. I wonder, if you have to practice being something else, are you really that other identity? And, at some level, do you know that you are pretending? Does that make sense?
Yeah, I do. A man stated it well when he said, "I don't even know what it feels like to be a man." And I agree. I'm a woman and cannot tell you what it feels like to be a woman. It's like asking my dog what it feels like to be a dog. There is no answer for that!
Thanks for sharing this. It illustrates very aptly, if painfully, the consequences of lying to our children.
One of the most agonizing aspects of having a trans-ID'd child is the isolation we feel it imposes, or that we impose on ourselves. But I think you should try to talk to your friends and neighbors about what's happening in your family. Choose your confidantes carefully, but share with them how painful it is to have to lie all of the time at home, and how confusing and distorting this is for you and your non-trans-ID'd little boy. I honestly think you'll get much more support and solidarity than you think.
I'm vacationing with family now, and they've had two very lefty friends up to join us recently. One is a black French woman, the other a white female religious leader. Transgender issues came up in conversation with both. With the religious leader, she had totally bought the popular narrative, and was confused when I used correct sex pronouns and told her about my daughter's trans-ID phase (long since desisted, thank goodness.) But she was curious, and asked questions, and listened. I urged her to do her own research to see that there's really no evidence that transitioning helps people, especially the ROGD crew, and that we need to focus on the depression and distress in these kids first. The other woman was 100% on my side of questioning and skepticism, and practically jumped out of her seat to talk about the cultishness and nonsense she's seeing.
These are women who live in the bluest city in a blue state & send their kids to progressive schools--people you might assume would reject your analysis outright. But I think if you want to overcome the isolation and feelings of helplessness, you could probably find a lot more allies out there than you might think.
"There are so many of us now but somehow it still feels like a lonely path."--you have perfectly captured so much of what many of us struggle through every single day. And despite the growing number of resources and support groups and voices who align with our concerns, it is still immensely lonely. Maybe especially in blue-bubble states and families, where revealing what we are experiencing and how we are making sense of it will most likely make us monstrous in the eyes of friends, family, neighbors. The rage of that wears me down--I feel such disbelief that loving your children enough to want to keep their bodies and minds whole and healthy is now "monstrous." I cling to the hope that the tide is starting to turn, but don't know that my 16-year-old will be spared irreversible damage. She is hell-bent on medicalizing when she turns 18, though we are desperate to help her find reasons to hold out until she is at least 25. But the world everywhere has "affirmed" her for three years, and she just sees our unwillingness to "affirm" as monstrous and unloving. And yes, she is slovenly and rude and we plunge into despair over it--as a child, she was delightful and buoyant with zero sign of any type of dysphoria-- until she "discovered" she was a boy and had always been a boy--her exact line. They are all reading from online scripts.... I just want you to know that your essay is incredibly moving--thanks for taking the time to create such a beautiful statement about the sorrow of all this.
Thank you so much for taking the time to share what it’s like for the siblings and families. It’s all so crazy. Why can’t others see that? It’s so heartbreaking. I share your pain as I watch the same train wreck and unable to stop it. Why is this even happening?😢.
Now that you make me think on it, it does seem like part of this may be because we've given our children everything, but I can't be sure.
I sent a prayer your way, I know it's just another intangible gesture but you're not alone, we're on your side and on your daughters' side in wanting what is truly best for them.
My heart goes out to you. As a mom of a 15 yr old ROGD daughter with three stairstep sisters, I feel a fraction of your pain and loss. I left all social media and even tear up when memories on my photo stream pop up. I grieve the close sisterhood my four girls shared that was shattered by the trans-fallacy. I’m guilty of thinking that I may have to ‘lose one’ to save the other three. A Sophie’s Choice hell. My 16 year old daughter (who, in Northern California circles, has no choice but to affirm her ‘new trans-brother’) said “there’s no way out of this, mama.” What breaks my heart the most are the ‘friendly-fire’ casualties of this war.
Such power in your honest words. Thank you for sharing. We are living through a weird ring of Hell right now and speaking up is the only weapon we have.
Oh no, some moron thinks I'm mean!
My daughter/son behave the same rude male behavior, plus talking to me raughly... he said to make his voice become a male voice !!!! She only got infotmation on the social networks... i hate that... all this startef when she was bullied at school and her father passed away... i feel so lost dealing this alone 🥺🥺🥺
You are correct and not alone.
This extreme induction is breaking up families, and even more importantly ruining these young peoples lives. I don’t know what to do besides pray and advocate as we see fit and support each other. My genius of a son, now 27 seems almost afraid to come out of his government female housing for fear of being “ misgendered “
How did this happen so quickly to a society who considers itself educated and informed.
My prayers are with you.
Kate
We let kids control too much. We care if the are “happy.” We use the names and the pronouns because people tell us we have to. I know parents who inspired me. I no longer use the chosen name or the pronouns. I no longer care if I am called transphobic. I had a daughter with anorexia and it did affect the whole family. But doctors and the school were helping — not hurting. Doctors say cutting girls breasts off makes them happy. Let them be unhappy with breasts rather than without. There is enough evidence out there of the social contagion and harms being done to these kids. I am fighting for these kids. Be strong — teenagers are ridiculous and tough no matter what. Hold the line protecting all your kids. Sending you strength.
So true. 👏🏻👏🏻
"We let kids control too much" is very true. Where has parental authority gone?
After reading this today, I realized that by simply silently fuming and aching for, and about all of this - that what I believe more of us must do is connect. Reach out. Inform. Educate. Alert. My kids are college grads, both long out of school. But I decided to send an email to our Superintendent of Schools and his under secretary, who just happened to have been both of my children's guidance counselor. I knew them both so I reached out to ask if they were aware of this Trans epidemic and if not - I included, 'Finding Hope on the Road to Ruin' and another wonderful essay by Andrew Sullivan and the experience his daughter is having at a very fine, progressive private school where only recently did he learn that 13% of her class identified as Trans. What?! Including, his daughter. I hope to hear back from them, but encourage all of us not to sit idly by. It's time to bang the drums loudly.
Yes! 🙏
Reach out and alert? If you alert anyone to anything, you will be accused of shaming like is being done in this thread.
Good luck!
Like I said, I'm frank and forthcoming with my words. Cope.
There was an organization in the late 80s, early 90s led by a psychiatrist for parents of wayward teens called Parents For Youth. The weekly groups were led by professionals committed to helping to support parents to provide didscipline & resistance to teens engaged in drugs, crime, etc. They advised us to use tough love. Provide reasonable rules (school or work attendance, respectful language and no drugs) & change the locks if necessary. It was very effective for hundreds of families (they kept the data). They admitted the risks but we knew that the risks ran in both directions. Sadly people got older & retired so the group or even the concept is no longer in existance. It saved many lives
"The problem with kids today is that they don't rebel against authority. The big corporations have convinced them that becoming a lifelong patient/customer of the medical industry is somehow rebellious, that there is something radically liberating about treating gays like they do in Iran, which is full of transgender surgeries - the ultimate conversion therapy. I don't know how my kids turned out so full of regressive gender stereotypes, so anti-gay and so conservative!" This is what you tell a friend over the phone, or pretend to tell a friend over the phone, with your kids in earshot.
I don't know.. I would tread lightly. If I did something like that my daughter would feel betrayed that I talk about her and her views to others behind her back. But, of course, every person is different and it may work for some kids.
That is a very good point. I'm writing from the perspective of a mom who found out about trans madness before it got big enough to soak onto my kids, so I started this early to prevent them from falling for it, and they don't identify as trans (though they find me annoyingly counter-cultural on this point). Thank you for pointing this out. I think if my own child were already trans-identified I would have the same instinct you do. I might a parallel conversation about a non-trans issue, one my kids weren't big into, with a similar point. Like when my kids' father was bad-mouthing me to them, I couldn't defend myself explicitly, but I pointed out how in the Chipmunks movie the Evil Uncle Ian was bad-mouthing the nice man who gave them a strict bedtime and rules for their own benefit and isn't that interesting. Maybe I'd point out that, in a general sense, how people who love us tend to be annoying with their warnings - wear a seatbelt, go to bed, don't eat too much candy, brush your teeth - and the people who want to destroy us so often do it with a smile - You've come a long way baby, now that you're smoking our cigarettes . . . Never trust someone who smiles too much, who is too quick to embrace you . . .
INSTITUTIONAL CHILD ABUSE
Transgender activists insist the only acceptable way to treat gender dysphoria is with puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, which will in most cases permanently sterilize all of those children, then surgery. But is it a good practice to turn children into life-long medical patients? We are talking about powerful drugs that have many negative side effects and surgeries that amputate healthy body parts. And in most cases, they are not necessary: Studies show that 80 to 95 percent of so-called Transgendered children come to accept their natural biological sex as their hormones change during puberty… IF they are allowed to go through the natural puberty process!
Transgender Delusions Debunked by Dr. Cretella
https://tfpstudentaction.org/media/videos/transgender-delusions-debunked-by-dr-cretella
Yet in no other area of life are parents expected to simply accede to a child’s weird version of “reality”. There is no other medical condition that a child can self-diagnose, that has no objective test, and where parents are pushed into blindly allowing life-altering medications and surgeries.
https://thefederalist.com/2019/05/31/equality-act-devastate-parents-ability-get-trans-children-help
“Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters,” by Abigail Shrier
Many children change their minds later, but if a “loving” Parent has had them physically or chemically “castrated”, it’s much too late! Enabling stupidity and delusions is stupid and delusional… and cruel!
Parents will need to show them neither OVERT “Support” or “Condemnation”. You will need to just let them work it out for themselves. However, Leftists have made it a Criminal Offence to council the person on their transgender mental delusions!
Sick parents or other “authorities” who have control of the child, then push the child into ‘presenting’ as the opposite gender and pushing children to question their sexuality just to prove the parents’ or authorities’ own point is a most damaging form of Child Abuse.
“What Is Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy?”
https://www.healthline.com/health/munchausen-syndrome-by-proxy
The Munchausen Syndrome (MS) is a mental disorder that causes a person with a deep-seated need for attention to fake sickness or injury. Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy (MSP) is a disorder in which the caretaker of a child either makes up fake symptoms or the parent causes real symptoms to make it appear as though the child is injured or ill. The term “by proxy” means “through a substitute”. Though MSP is primarily a mental illness, it’s also considered a form of severe Child Abuse.
BTW: There is no such thing as Transsexual, or ‘gender dysphoric’, it is only people with mental problems!
Sex or gender is definitely NOT “Assigned at Birth”! Your mother’s gynecologist was not stupid and made an error, nor were you parents and your pediatrician imbeciles!
You are the sex that God “assigned” to you at your conception, your DNA was set for LIFE the moment you were conceived!
There are at least 6,500 Genetic differences between Male and Female and every cell in the body proclaims the difference! Surgery, hormones, drugs, or ‘feelings’ cannot and will not change those scientific FACTS!
“A young child does not understand the difference between reality and fantasy. If you inform a 4-year-old that Spider-Man isn’t real, he literally will not know what you mean. So, if your young boy says he’s really a girl, the statement has no objective meaning whatsoever”. —Matt Walsh
Cardinal Raymond Burke has stated: “Gender theory is an invention, an artificial creation. It is impossible to have an identity that does not respect the proper nature of man and that of women. It is madness that will cause immense damage in society and in the lives of those who support this theory”.
Those who think that other people should go along with this insanity, they are the one who is insane!
"Enabling stupidity and delusions is stupid and delusional.." Well said.
-- the first set of questions is:
(1) has your child been diagnosed with Autism, ADHD (or ADD), or Aspergers (the heady, daydreaming, nerdy sub-type of autism - the ones that live inside their heads)?
(2) Has your child experienced trauma (either personal trauma - molestation, early sexualization, rape, bullying, or family trauma - death, divorce, etc)
(3) Does your child have mental illnesses - OCD, bipolar, borderline (which cannot be diagnosed till age 18), depression, anxiety -- which are in most cases the by-product of being neurodivergent - autistic, and asking yourself, "why am I different from my peers."
(4) Do you think your child might be gay or lesbian or bisexual?
The 2nd set of questions a therapist needs to ask is - who are your child's closest friends, and have they declared a trans ID recently? How many hours is your child online and what content are they watching?
The internet indoctrination is a profound source of confusion ultimately leading to trans declaration.
Keep on fighting this vile ideology. A
round 16 they will come to their senses. 14 was HELL for my daughter as well. It took us 2 years on a long road towards healing for her to become her self. We both cried so many times. I was always the terfiest terf. Now I have a bunch of real illnesses from stress, grief, despair. Our family was imploded. She is doing much, much better. I am ill but at least I don't feel any more like a shell of my former self, like I did in 2020.
Good luck! Stay strong.
So true! I have serious trust issues from all this and can be paranoid where I wasn't before. This ideology is a mindf**k for the whole family.
As I said earlier, this is a profoundly interesting, and very important post. And, it brought up a nagging question about which I can't stop thinking....
As a former stay-at-home dad, and a teacher, I'm very interested in the perceived "stereotypical" ways that trans kids (and adults) are behaving when they try to act like the "other gender." For instance, "She now enjoys manspreading, burping and farting loudly... etc." It's as if the stereotypes from decades ago have reemerged. I've heard these "stereotypical" beliefs voiced by my children, too.
I would be interested to know how common these "stereotypical" behaviors are among other trans kids of either "gender." Have both boys and girls generally adopted these exaggerated characterizations? I'd be interested in anyone's opinion via a reply to this comment.
Thank you, Frederick
My daughter did the manspreading and tried to walk differently. You could tell it took a lot of effort for her to do those things because she had to think about it. I remember she wanted to watch the movie Stand By Me many times. I think she was studying "boy" behavior so she could copy it. And, yes, she was rude even out in public.
Same here - except for the movie. She'd manspread her legs in the car with me and work on her posture & walk & facial expressions and put her elbows on the table (no man in the family does that). When not concentrating (or concentrating on something else) she would sit in the most exquisitely feminine way as she has always been very feminine. She likes boys so took on the "I'm a gay boy". ???
Oh, and her language became rude for a time - where we don't have a ton of cussing in our family. She didn't sound like any guy related to me or my husband!
Thank you for the reply. It's interesting that many of these kids take on these exaggerated behaviors that they assume are stereotypically male or female.
It's incredibly weird. What do you make of it? I see it as the kids having no real life experience or wisdom and other's slide in (or a meme slides in) & convince(s) them that GI explains everything and their parents are the bad dummy outsiders... "How to be" is hijacked - family ways are traded for cult stereotyping and ideas like "dead names" and "pronouns" (not at all an innocent thing that they are in everyone's email, etc.), "misgendering"... especially just at the time when a girl needs to differentiate herself from her mother. She and I were always soooo close. She is loving again with both parents but for a time thought we were "jerks".
The kinds of facial expressions she would make changed at times. I would see her practice them in the mirror and sometimes they seemed like a sort of insecure messed up gay boy thing. She was dating a really bizarre boy in high school. He did not manspread himself. He wanted to borrow the little black dresses she still had but I put a stop to that. The head of the HS GSA had set her up with him and we did not realize just how odd he was at first - before she became really involved with him. There is nowhere you can go to get your kids away from bad influences now with modern technology. We tried. It took a long time but our daughter finally rid herself of the boyfriend.
And, as someone else pointed out - even if you had no phones or other tech in the family the kids can read stuff from someone else's phone at school or use a computer at the library...
Thank you for this thoughtful comment...
Thank you. I think this is very interesting. I wonder, if you have to practice being something else, are you really that other identity? And, at some level, do you know that you are pretending? Does that make sense?
Yeah, I do. A man stated it well when he said, "I don't even know what it feels like to be a man." And I agree. I'm a woman and cannot tell you what it feels like to be a woman. It's like asking my dog what it feels like to be a dog. There is no answer for that!
Thank you. This is a very good point!
Thanks for sharing this. It illustrates very aptly, if painfully, the consequences of lying to our children.
One of the most agonizing aspects of having a trans-ID'd child is the isolation we feel it imposes, or that we impose on ourselves. But I think you should try to talk to your friends and neighbors about what's happening in your family. Choose your confidantes carefully, but share with them how painful it is to have to lie all of the time at home, and how confusing and distorting this is for you and your non-trans-ID'd little boy. I honestly think you'll get much more support and solidarity than you think.
I'm vacationing with family now, and they've had two very lefty friends up to join us recently. One is a black French woman, the other a white female religious leader. Transgender issues came up in conversation with both. With the religious leader, she had totally bought the popular narrative, and was confused when I used correct sex pronouns and told her about my daughter's trans-ID phase (long since desisted, thank goodness.) But she was curious, and asked questions, and listened. I urged her to do her own research to see that there's really no evidence that transitioning helps people, especially the ROGD crew, and that we need to focus on the depression and distress in these kids first. The other woman was 100% on my side of questioning and skepticism, and practically jumped out of her seat to talk about the cultishness and nonsense she's seeing.
These are women who live in the bluest city in a blue state & send their kids to progressive schools--people you might assume would reject your analysis outright. But I think if you want to overcome the isolation and feelings of helplessness, you could probably find a lot more allies out there than you might think.
I wrote about this for PITT last month: https://pitt.substack.com/p/real-conversations-one-at-a-time
"There are so many of us now but somehow it still feels like a lonely path."--you have perfectly captured so much of what many of us struggle through every single day. And despite the growing number of resources and support groups and voices who align with our concerns, it is still immensely lonely. Maybe especially in blue-bubble states and families, where revealing what we are experiencing and how we are making sense of it will most likely make us monstrous in the eyes of friends, family, neighbors. The rage of that wears me down--I feel such disbelief that loving your children enough to want to keep their bodies and minds whole and healthy is now "monstrous." I cling to the hope that the tide is starting to turn, but don't know that my 16-year-old will be spared irreversible damage. She is hell-bent on medicalizing when she turns 18, though we are desperate to help her find reasons to hold out until she is at least 25. But the world everywhere has "affirmed" her for three years, and she just sees our unwillingness to "affirm" as monstrous and unloving. And yes, she is slovenly and rude and we plunge into despair over it--as a child, she was delightful and buoyant with zero sign of any type of dysphoria-- until she "discovered" she was a boy and had always been a boy--her exact line. They are all reading from online scripts.... I just want you to know that your essay is incredibly moving--thanks for taking the time to create such a beautiful statement about the sorrow of all this.
Thank you so much for taking the time to share what it’s like for the siblings and families. It’s all so crazy. Why can’t others see that? It’s so heartbreaking. I share your pain as I watch the same train wreck and unable to stop it. Why is this even happening?😢.
Now that you make me think on it, it does seem like part of this may be because we've given our children everything, but I can't be sure.
I sent a prayer your way, I know it's just another intangible gesture but you're not alone, we're on your side and on your daughters' side in wanting what is truly best for them.
God bless you and your family.
My heart goes out to you. As a mom of a 15 yr old ROGD daughter with three stairstep sisters, I feel a fraction of your pain and loss. I left all social media and even tear up when memories on my photo stream pop up. I grieve the close sisterhood my four girls shared that was shattered by the trans-fallacy. I’m guilty of thinking that I may have to ‘lose one’ to save the other three. A Sophie’s Choice hell. My 16 year old daughter (who, in Northern California circles, has no choice but to affirm her ‘new trans-brother’) said “there’s no way out of this, mama.” What breaks my heart the most are the ‘friendly-fire’ casualties of this war.