This is the "most appalling" not "wonderful" time of the year for PITT families.
I hope you are all struggling through it as well as can be expected, and I assure you that I have spent every day of the past year campaigning against GI ideology. I write and tweet for the "Emperor's new clothes" to be shown to be FAKE, that the GI ideology is the worst export from California ever, etc. etc. I will not rest until this nightmare is recognised as such by everyone in positions of authority everywhere, and the victims start to get proper treatment / compensation, etc.
Ouch. This epitomizes how so many families have been torn apart whether by transgender issues, medical / COVID related beliefs, politics, etc. So ultimately, rather than talk, they avoid each other. If only I had a solution, but alas, this weekend my some family members are having a wedding to which I was not invited.
I am so sorry. I had the same experience of not being invited to a family wedding. I found out when I saw wedding photos on Facebook, including a photo of my trans-identified son looking terrible. The "being kind" relatives suck. But it is nice to be able to share that here with others who understand : )
Thank you for the link. I always thought it would be easier with other siblings (my son is an only child) but now I think it may be easier without them if it just adds more "drama". I am so sorry.
I think it is hard for everyone. Maybe it is hardest for parents who “go along” with the nonsense. It is hard to keep up a lie. But I do know some families whose other children do not go along and these children are a comfort. So I think we both are wishing we had some healthy sensible children.
I finally had the courage (and healing) to send a photo Christmas card of our family out to family and friends for the first time in the three years since our daughter was last home with us for Christmas….with new spouses, grandchildren, and sadly, still missing our beloved trans-identified 18 year old daughter.
One year ago, she re-entered our lives after over a year gone “no contact”, in complete hostility towards us for not “affirming” her new identity. It took miracles and an attempted suicide, but we have had some restored contact as we looked for opportunities to show her love. We now talk (still avoiding calling her any name at all) every few weeks. I dared send her a Christmas card last week, addressed with her “birth certificate name”. Today, I just listened to a voice message from her informing me that if I wanted to send anything to her address I was to use her new name or don’t send anything.
I had a gift box packed to send…I knew it was a risk…and I guess I pushed farther than I could get away with. Every day we hope and pray that the blinders will fall off and this nightmare will end. That she will stop destroying her body with T. That she will remember the truth about her family, her childhood, about our love for her, about God. It could be any minute now. Some days I can taste it…
Until then, I try to live joyfully and with hope for myself, my two daughters left at home, for my grieving, hurt, angry husband, and for my other grown children who have all been hurt by the loss of their sister and deal with it in different ways. So the Family photo was for us. For the gifts, the blessings, the beauty that remains. I’m so sick of “living in hiding”. I’m so sick of letting the loss define me.
So this year, I’m dodging land mines and just pushed “send” with 60 envelopes in the mailbox to old friends, family, dear ones. May love and light and truth and joy travel through those cards…
I am thinking of all of you PITT parents, family, and dear ones. Sending out prayers for all of you as you learn to walk in joy and hope without your “missing piece”.
covidcovidcovidcovidcovidcovid...over & over & over again. If no one has conducted an indepth study on HOW THE PREPOSTEROUSLY DESTRUCTIVE RESPONSES TO COVID OPENED A PERFECT PATHWAY TO MANIPULATE & MINDSUCK THE VAST MAJORITY OF THE WESTERN WORLD'S YOUTH POPULATIONS, may be one for the history books. Wait, are they still publishing history books?
Or possibly the preposterously destructive responses to COVID were INTENDED to separate families and make kids easy marks for transgenderism and myriad other indoctrinating belief systems.
Yes, I send out Christmas letters and have done so since 1992. I used to have a paragraph in my letters for each of my four children, who are adults now and among them, I have six grandchildren. I stopped doing that in 2017 when we were in formed the youngest “is trans and there is no negotiation.” Then, the next year, her brother announced to us on a visit to our part of the country when his father was seriously ill,that he, too, is trans. The youngest has not spoken to us since 2017 because we refused to say we are “on [her] team when [she] refused to define what they meant. No contact with that grandchild or our younger son’s two children, as they live with their mother, who divorced their dad. Rather than only mention the oldest two, I don’t say anything at all about any of them, even though we have much good news to report about the older two.
It is just sad and sickening and like a wound that never heals. We try to have a happy life despite that and this past year has been an amazing one of great changes in our lives and many blessings. We focus on what we can change and don’t spend our energy on those things we cannot do anything about. I did mail gifts to all four of their families this week, even the one who doesn’t talk to us. So far, nothing has come back, “Return to Sender.” I hope so, because that little granddaughter turned 13 in September. Haven’t seen her for a long time.
The older two, Gen X, are in contact and we have a relationship with our older daughter’s children. The younger son, who pretends to be female (acknowledges at least, he is not), talks to us. We don’t have relationships with his kids, who live with their mother, or our oldest son’s son, who is in college and has no interest in grandparents. Two out of six grandchildren. I am still hoping my youngest’s daughter, once she is an adult, will reach out. We’ll see— five more years to legal adulthood!
Also Stephanie Winn had a great Podcast come out this week or last week, it was exceptional helping understand this issue. It was very deep but nothing all of us self taught Gender Ideology PhD's could not handle as we all know most of use have deeply dived this issue from every angle possible. Stephanie Winn is awesome.
Peace, Joy and Love to all the PITT parents out there - you are not alone, stay positive, take care of yourself, find beauty and/or truth near you in this world and rejoice.
5 Stars on this from Average Dad: Stephanie Winn with Jaco van Zyl....
My heart goes out to you. This evil has many tentacles, but one of them makes it very difficult for parents to maintain their social relationships. It's so fraught. you're not alone.
I was with a friend when he got to “ring the bell,” after his last cancer treatments. He is cancer free. When we reached the car he wept. I thought it was overwhelming joy. He told me today that he was really weeping because he wished his wife had survived (Alzheimers) instead of him. People need time to mourn. It’s in Ecclesiastes. In the 1800’s it was understood that there would be a period of formal mourning for immediate family. But when we mourn the loss of our children to the cult we are largely forced to mourn alone.
It certainly confines you to a place of loneliness, my circle has shrunk. But it makes me resolute that it’s an evil ideology that has captured the minds of good people. My sisters ‘support’ denies its existence, they think I am obsessed with it, that’s it’s unhealthy & that I should find other hobbies!!!
I do have a lot of people who don’t want to talk about it much. My mother said “ can you just forget you have a son? “ She meant well . she does not want me to suffer. I asked if she could forget she had me.
I used to spend time crafting a New Years email with family photos that included my son and daughter along with my husband and myself smiling and proud of our beautiful family. Since my now 22 year old SON succumbed to this heinous body/mind destroying cult at 19, I have lost momentum to write and choose photos for a New Years greeting. The trans cult poisons holidays, as holidays are anything but celebratory, but instead a painful reminder that my life is farther and farther away from my son being healthy and intact hearts of my husband and myself. My daughter's holidays are also a painful reminder of her close family torpedoed along with her close relationship with her brother. There is no holiday outside my horror and daily effort to salvage scraps of well-being. I am disgusted by two holiday letters I receive with photos of parents smiling with a pretend "son" and another couple smiling with their disfigured "nonbinary" daughter, flat chested after her double mastectomy at 19. I am also sad when I receive holiday cards from others unscathed and oblivious to the horror I endure every day.
Holidays are the worst, true everlasting Joy, true everlasting Peace can be found in Jesus for those so inclined. God loves us all, do your best everyday. Salt and Light, Truth, Peace and Joy to you all.
I did not send out a Christmas news update/card with pictures for the first time since 1988. Last year, I just sent one with pictures and news of me, but I didn't feel like doing that this year. The ripple effect of one child's actions are vast.
(((Hugs))) This tradition is a struggle for so many. I never really liked it anyway. It's dear of you to try, but I'm sure it would be just fine if you simply sent out a traditional Christmas card. Far too few of those being sent and received these days as it is.
Great advice. I took it. I just sent a few cards and I did not mention my children. I haven’t told these things to any of my many friends in the different cities I have lived in. I pretty much avoid communicating with them..
This was my thought process, I did change the names and cities.
This is our second year as PITT parents. Second Christmas letter. A tradition we have held for over 30 years. We do the whole photo spread. Letter, etc. 120 people. Because of our business, it is a combined personal/business endeavor. Last year we skirted the whole issue by sending a photo card of our new grandchild born on 12/24. This year we were able to just do photos of the two of us from a trip we took over the summer. We still did the narrative but only included 1 line about each of our 3 kids. The youngest- the trans identified son- we just said "Patrick started a new job at xxx, as xxx, a good raise! Is it a lie? By omission? by not using his preferred female name? I don't know, I don't care. They are our friends, relatives, and business associates. Hopefully one day it won't be a thing anymore
Same thing with graduation post on my Facebook page, even though my daughter is not a part of my FB since she blocked me when she started this but she still can “rule by remote control” with some NCSU cult leaders. I wasn’t welcome to her graduation but apparently I can’t even post a proud message. My mother, some of her friends and extended family are my friends on FB and we come from a conservative town. I was not going to put my mother through the questioning. Plus for me, my daughter will always be my daughter.
Your son is the boy you named Patrick. If you want to refer to him that way, you have every right. It's just the truth. And it's your letter.
Also, nobody who starts going by a new name as a young adult needs to get their knickers in a twist over their old name. Like so many others, I started going by my full name instead of my (hated) childhood nickname. My aunt said aggressively, "Well, I'M still going to call you xxx." I just laughed. It didn't matter. It's been almost 50 years now, all the elders in my family always called me by my childhood nickname, and my parents still call my by an even shorter nickname. It doesn't matter in the least.
You are in control of your own story. It's not just the trans-identified children who are permitted to craft their own narratives. The difference is that yours will doubtlessly have more truth, and theirs are all lies. If your trans-identified child sees this letter and complains about it, it could open up an opportunity to communicate with him. Stay strong. You can be loving but firm about standing in truth.
I'm so glad that recently, more people and institutions are speaking up to point out that just one trans-identified child or teammate demands the collusion of whole classrooms, schools, sports leagues, etc. The old rejoinder of "what do you care? You're not trans, your child isn't trans, so STFU, it's just a tiny vulnerable minority!" isn't working any more.
When my daughter (then 14) was trans-ID'd, she saw that on my iPhone's contact list that she was still "Birthname," not "Tommy," and angrily complained to me. I told her--also angrily--that my iPhone contacts are my business, and that I didn't go about telling her how to call or think about herself, so she should butt out of my business. Of course I was going to call her Birthname in my head for the rest of her life--her father and I had spent months deciding on a name for her, and it was selected in that love and anticipation of her beautiful life. She seemed to back down and get it a little bit. (She desisted about 2 months later, and is a happy and healthy heterosexual young woman of 21 who has repeatedly expressed her gratitude that we didn't affirm her.)
Thrilled for you in her desisting after a few months. Standing firm and giving common sense reasoning had to have been a large part in that outcome. May we all be so blessed one day to celebrate our own joy in our children “coming home”.
This is the "most appalling" not "wonderful" time of the year for PITT families.
I hope you are all struggling through it as well as can be expected, and I assure you that I have spent every day of the past year campaigning against GI ideology. I write and tweet for the "Emperor's new clothes" to be shown to be FAKE, that the GI ideology is the worst export from California ever, etc. etc. I will not rest until this nightmare is recognised as such by everyone in positions of authority everywhere, and the victims start to get proper treatment / compensation, etc.
Keep strong, keep campaigning in 2025!
Very best wishes signed: a Transwidow.
Ouch. This epitomizes how so many families have been torn apart whether by transgender issues, medical / COVID related beliefs, politics, etc. So ultimately, rather than talk, they avoid each other. If only I had a solution, but alas, this weekend my some family members are having a wedding to which I was not invited.
I am so sorry. I had the same experience of not being invited to a family wedding. I found out when I saw wedding photos on Facebook, including a photo of my trans-identified son looking terrible. The "being kind" relatives suck. But it is nice to be able to share that here with others who understand : )
I was not invited to my son’s wedding https://www.pittparents.com/p/a-wedding-story Here is the story
Thank you for the link. I always thought it would be easier with other siblings (my son is an only child) but now I think it may be easier without them if it just adds more "drama". I am so sorry.
I think it is hard for everyone. Maybe it is hardest for parents who “go along” with the nonsense. It is hard to keep up a lie. But I do know some families whose other children do not go along and these children are a comfort. So I think we both are wishing we had some healthy sensible children.
Yes, I agree
I finally had the courage (and healing) to send a photo Christmas card of our family out to family and friends for the first time in the three years since our daughter was last home with us for Christmas….with new spouses, grandchildren, and sadly, still missing our beloved trans-identified 18 year old daughter.
One year ago, she re-entered our lives after over a year gone “no contact”, in complete hostility towards us for not “affirming” her new identity. It took miracles and an attempted suicide, but we have had some restored contact as we looked for opportunities to show her love. We now talk (still avoiding calling her any name at all) every few weeks. I dared send her a Christmas card last week, addressed with her “birth certificate name”. Today, I just listened to a voice message from her informing me that if I wanted to send anything to her address I was to use her new name or don’t send anything.
I had a gift box packed to send…I knew it was a risk…and I guess I pushed farther than I could get away with. Every day we hope and pray that the blinders will fall off and this nightmare will end. That she will stop destroying her body with T. That she will remember the truth about her family, her childhood, about our love for her, about God. It could be any minute now. Some days I can taste it…
Until then, I try to live joyfully and with hope for myself, my two daughters left at home, for my grieving, hurt, angry husband, and for my other grown children who have all been hurt by the loss of their sister and deal with it in different ways. So the Family photo was for us. For the gifts, the blessings, the beauty that remains. I’m so sick of “living in hiding”. I’m so sick of letting the loss define me.
So this year, I’m dodging land mines and just pushed “send” with 60 envelopes in the mailbox to old friends, family, dear ones. May love and light and truth and joy travel through those cards…
I am thinking of all of you PITT parents, family, and dear ones. Sending out prayers for all of you as you learn to walk in joy and hope without your “missing piece”.
covidcovidcovidcovidcovidcovid...over & over & over again. If no one has conducted an indepth study on HOW THE PREPOSTEROUSLY DESTRUCTIVE RESPONSES TO COVID OPENED A PERFECT PATHWAY TO MANIPULATE & MINDSUCK THE VAST MAJORITY OF THE WESTERN WORLD'S YOUTH POPULATIONS, may be one for the history books. Wait, are they still publishing history books?
Or possibly the preposterously destructive responses to COVID were INTENDED to separate families and make kids easy marks for transgenderism and myriad other indoctrinating belief systems.
God Bless. For context, you might start with www.newdiscourses.com. Especially the 17 minutes bullet points.
Yes, I send out Christmas letters and have done so since 1992. I used to have a paragraph in my letters for each of my four children, who are adults now and among them, I have six grandchildren. I stopped doing that in 2017 when we were in formed the youngest “is trans and there is no negotiation.” Then, the next year, her brother announced to us on a visit to our part of the country when his father was seriously ill,that he, too, is trans. The youngest has not spoken to us since 2017 because we refused to say we are “on [her] team when [she] refused to define what they meant. No contact with that grandchild or our younger son’s two children, as they live with their mother, who divorced their dad. Rather than only mention the oldest two, I don’t say anything at all about any of them, even though we have much good news to report about the older two.
It is just sad and sickening and like a wound that never heals. We try to have a happy life despite that and this past year has been an amazing one of great changes in our lives and many blessings. We focus on what we can change and don’t spend our energy on those things we cannot do anything about. I did mail gifts to all four of their families this week, even the one who doesn’t talk to us. So far, nothing has come back, “Return to Sender.” I hope so, because that little granddaughter turned 13 in September. Haven’t seen her for a long time.
So sad to read this. 7 years, two children. What a nightmare. I hope your other children are still in your life.
The older two, Gen X, are in contact and we have a relationship with our older daughter’s children. The younger son, who pretends to be female (acknowledges at least, he is not), talks to us. We don’t have relationships with his kids, who live with their mother, or our oldest son’s son, who is in college and has no interest in grandparents. Two out of six grandchildren. I am still hoping my youngest’s daughter, once she is an adult, will reach out. We’ll see— five more years to legal adulthood!
💔
Also Stephanie Winn had a great Podcast come out this week or last week, it was exceptional helping understand this issue. It was very deep but nothing all of us self taught Gender Ideology PhD's could not handle as we all know most of use have deeply dived this issue from every angle possible. Stephanie Winn is awesome.
Peace, Joy and Love to all the PITT parents out there - you are not alone, stay positive, take care of yourself, find beauty and/or truth near you in this world and rejoice.
5 Stars on this from Average Dad: Stephanie Winn with Jaco van Zyl....
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/you-must-be-some-kind-of-therapist/id1612777134?i=1000680533597
My heart goes out to you. This evil has many tentacles, but one of them makes it very difficult for parents to maintain their social relationships. It's so fraught. you're not alone.
I was with a friend when he got to “ring the bell,” after his last cancer treatments. He is cancer free. When we reached the car he wept. I thought it was overwhelming joy. He told me today that he was really weeping because he wished his wife had survived (Alzheimers) instead of him. People need time to mourn. It’s in Ecclesiastes. In the 1800’s it was understood that there would be a period of formal mourning for immediate family. But when we mourn the loss of our children to the cult we are largely forced to mourn alone.
Not only alone, but indefinitely...a mourning without closure.
So true
I have no sympathy from friends & family. I haven’t lost my son, I have a daughter. Accept it
I that must be awful. My parents and all my in-laws are sensible.
It certainly confines you to a place of loneliness, my circle has shrunk. But it makes me resolute that it’s an evil ideology that has captured the minds of good people. My sisters ‘support’ denies its existence, they think I am obsessed with it, that’s it’s unhealthy & that I should find other hobbies!!!
I do have a lot of people who don’t want to talk about it much. My mother said “ can you just forget you have a son? “ She meant well . she does not want me to suffer. I asked if she could forget she had me.
Not only forced to mourn alone, but often criticized and called names by others -- privately if not publicly. 😥
This insanity must end.
And they say, "It costs you nothing to..."
When something costs one nothing, it just means somebody else is paying the price.
I used to spend time crafting a New Years email with family photos that included my son and daughter along with my husband and myself smiling and proud of our beautiful family. Since my now 22 year old SON succumbed to this heinous body/mind destroying cult at 19, I have lost momentum to write and choose photos for a New Years greeting. The trans cult poisons holidays, as holidays are anything but celebratory, but instead a painful reminder that my life is farther and farther away from my son being healthy and intact hearts of my husband and myself. My daughter's holidays are also a painful reminder of her close family torpedoed along with her close relationship with her brother. There is no holiday outside my horror and daily effort to salvage scraps of well-being. I am disgusted by two holiday letters I receive with photos of parents smiling with a pretend "son" and another couple smiling with their disfigured "nonbinary" daughter, flat chested after her double mastectomy at 19. I am also sad when I receive holiday cards from others unscathed and oblivious to the horror I endure every day.
Holidays are the worst, true everlasting Joy, true everlasting Peace can be found in Jesus for those so inclined. God loves us all, do your best everyday. Salt and Light, Truth, Peace and Joy to you all.
Well said!
Dear,
I hope and pray with you. Big hug!
I did not send out a Christmas news update/card with pictures for the first time since 1988. Last year, I just sent one with pictures and news of me, but I didn't feel like doing that this year. The ripple effect of one child's actions are vast.
That is so true.
(((Hugs))) This tradition is a struggle for so many. I never really liked it anyway. It's dear of you to try, but I'm sure it would be just fine if you simply sent out a traditional Christmas card. Far too few of those being sent and received these days as it is.
Great advice. I took it. I just sent a few cards and I did not mention my children. I haven’t told these things to any of my many friends in the different cities I have lived in. I pretty much avoid communicating with them..
This was my thought process, I did change the names and cities.
This is our second year as PITT parents. Second Christmas letter. A tradition we have held for over 30 years. We do the whole photo spread. Letter, etc. 120 people. Because of our business, it is a combined personal/business endeavor. Last year we skirted the whole issue by sending a photo card of our new grandchild born on 12/24. This year we were able to just do photos of the two of us from a trip we took over the summer. We still did the narrative but only included 1 line about each of our 3 kids. The youngest- the trans identified son- we just said "Patrick started a new job at xxx, as xxx, a good raise! Is it a lie? By omission? by not using his preferred female name? I don't know, I don't care. They are our friends, relatives, and business associates. Hopefully one day it won't be a thing anymore
Same thing with graduation post on my Facebook page, even though my daughter is not a part of my FB since she blocked me when she started this but she still can “rule by remote control” with some NCSU cult leaders. I wasn’t welcome to her graduation but apparently I can’t even post a proud message. My mother, some of her friends and extended family are my friends on FB and we come from a conservative town. I was not going to put my mother through the questioning. Plus for me, my daughter will always be my daughter.
Yes! Your daughter will always be your daughter. We know who we birthed.
Your children do not own your voice.
Your son is the boy you named Patrick. If you want to refer to him that way, you have every right. It's just the truth. And it's your letter.
Also, nobody who starts going by a new name as a young adult needs to get their knickers in a twist over their old name. Like so many others, I started going by my full name instead of my (hated) childhood nickname. My aunt said aggressively, "Well, I'M still going to call you xxx." I just laughed. It didn't matter. It's been almost 50 years now, all the elders in my family always called me by my childhood nickname, and my parents still call my by an even shorter nickname. It doesn't matter in the least.
Names are not battlegrounds.
Only cults are.
And congratulations on the grandchild! There is light in the darkest of days, when we celebrate an ancient birth.
You are in control of your own story. It's not just the trans-identified children who are permitted to craft their own narratives. The difference is that yours will doubtlessly have more truth, and theirs are all lies. If your trans-identified child sees this letter and complains about it, it could open up an opportunity to communicate with him. Stay strong. You can be loving but firm about standing in truth.
I'm so glad that recently, more people and institutions are speaking up to point out that just one trans-identified child or teammate demands the collusion of whole classrooms, schools, sports leagues, etc. The old rejoinder of "what do you care? You're not trans, your child isn't trans, so STFU, it's just a tiny vulnerable minority!" isn't working any more.
When my daughter (then 14) was trans-ID'd, she saw that on my iPhone's contact list that she was still "Birthname," not "Tommy," and angrily complained to me. I told her--also angrily--that my iPhone contacts are my business, and that I didn't go about telling her how to call or think about herself, so she should butt out of my business. Of course I was going to call her Birthname in my head for the rest of her life--her father and I had spent months deciding on a name for her, and it was selected in that love and anticipation of her beautiful life. She seemed to back down and get it a little bit. (She desisted about 2 months later, and is a happy and healthy heterosexual young woman of 21 who has repeatedly expressed her gratitude that we didn't affirm her.)
What young people need are both love and boundaries.
What they get from the Trans Moral Panic is neither: it's constant encouragement to indulge in absolute narcissism.
Your girl got both the love and the boundaries she needed from you. And that is the definition of good parenting.
Thank you.
Thrilled for you in her desisting after a few months. Standing firm and giving common sense reasoning had to have been a large part in that outcome. May we all be so blessed one day to celebrate our own joy in our children “coming home”.