Holiday Resources and a Plea for Unity

The holidays are often a very difficult time for parents with “trans” identifying children, as the happiness and joy in sharing this time with your loved ones can easily be overshadowed by stress, pain, and trauma within the family.

Lucky for us, several parent supporting organizations and individuals have put together resources to help parents navigate this challenge. We are not alone!

If you find yourself dreading the holidays, please take the time to review these helpful materials. We hope they help you to find peace and a way to move toward family togetherness.

Resources:

• From Advocates Protecting Children: https://www.advocatesprotectingchildren.org/post/surviving-the-holidays-with-a-transgender-identified-child

• From Gender: A Wider Lens Podcast, with Stella O’Malley and Sasha Ayad:

  • When Gender Hits the Holidays: https://gender-a-wider-lens.captivate.fm/episode/50-when-gender-hits-the-holidays

  • Ep 35 - Communicating About Gender: Translating Between Parent & Child - https://gender-a-wider-lens.captivate.fm/episode/35-translations

• From Genspect:

  • Brief Guidance for Parents: https://genspect.org/guidance-for-parents

  • Brief Guidance for Friends and Family: https://genspect.org/guidance-for-friends-and-family

As we approach the holidays, we’d also like to extend our hope for unity in our parent community. What we are doing is working, our stories are being heard, other communities fighting back against gender ideology are mobilizing, and journalists are finally starting to take notice. The climate of fear that caused our entire community to stay silent, even while our children and families face an unparalleled threat, is beginning to dissipate, albeit very slowly.

Until the pot boils over and trans ideology is finally subjected to the light of discussion and debate, our path is perilous—because an enemy that’s been cornered is dangerous. And we have cornered the activists, the cowardly politicians, and the complicit medical practitioners. They know it, and they are going on the attack. We have seen an uptick in activity from activists trying to break our tenuous alliances apart and now, more than ever, we must not let this happen.

Parents swept up in the gender wars are not a single entity. Despite what activists would have you believe, we cover the entire political spectrum, all religions, many countries and ethnicities, all different types of parenting strategies, and a range of economic classes. Our parent groups see the entire gamut of opinions and strongly held beliefs that often fundamentally conflict with the world views of others within their own support group. We have learned that none of that matters, because we are all here for our kids and that overpowers any other petty differences. Also, our alliance extends beyond just parents, to feminists, the LGB communities, the gender critical individuals, and even religious groups. Often the belief systems and world views of these groups conflict with parents’ motives and reasoning. What unites us all is stopping the medicalization of identity, and the spread of a toxic ideology that’s harming people (most importantly to us, our kids). That’s it.

We must keep a laser focus on our goals, and not allow politics or differences in motive, strategy or tactics to break us apart. We ask for you, our readers, to keep this in mind as you read our stories. You may not agree with each one, but they are all important, they are all true from each author’s perspective, and every one of them is the product of sweat and tears, and tremendous emotional effort. Those who go out on a limb and share their stories or research are not doing it for advice (we have support groups for that) or criticism (we get plenty of that in our daily lives). PITT authors write because their story may help other parents, or cause someone outside our communities to take notice and help.

It’s time for us to commit to locking arms and supporting each other. To pledge to ignore and downplay our differences and emphasize our commonalities in the fight for our kids and our families. We are so close to the tipping point. In 2022, let’s stand strong, united in purpose. Together, we are an unstoppable force. It’s time to show the world what parents are made of.