I can no longer stay silent

I finally spoke out. It's the most liberating thing I've ever done.

It's been nearly six years since my daughter's announcement. For four years before that, there had been a drastic change in her attitude, her appearance, her interests. She has spent half of her life being one person, and half being another. It destabilized me for a long time.

I was not equipped to deal with what was happening. There was no other parent in my circle dealing with something so dramatic. I am deliberative, perhaps to a fault. I make no decision without gathering as much information as I can. I did not know anywhere near enough to be comfortable taking strong action, so I did nothing. I hoped it was a phase. I asked my wife where my baby girl had gone. My wife answered, "She's still in there. She'll come back." Much like the father in the Parable of the Prodigal Son, I remain on watch for the child I pray will return to us soon.

The announcement of the trans identity, in spring 2019 while my mother-in-law was on her deathbed, wasn't unexpected. It was still a gut punch. She was two years from turning 18 and I was on high alert.

Following my peacemaking instincts and the advice of therapists, including those who understood the trans phenomenon, I stayed quiet. We prioritized our relationship with her over telling the truth. On a few occasions, the topic came up, and I told her where I stood. Medical interventions are a permanent response to a temporary problem. You have no idea who you will be when you are 30 or 40 years old, so don't put future you into danger because of something you can't resolve now. We discovered at age 18 that she is autistic. I hoped that autism would be a hook to get her to rethink the sources of her very real discomfort. No such luck. She had spent too much time online and in real-life worlds that convinced her that her body was the source of her pain, and that harming said body would bring her peace.

My pleas fell on deaf ears. In April 2023, a month before she turned 20, she took her first shot of testosterone. My anxiety, bordering on panic, became a deep depression. Now, every time she speaks, her once-beautiful voice cracks like a teenage boy. I wince every time I hear it. People have noticed. She's probably noticed. I'm OK with that. I get to be in pain, too, and my pain matters. I have no idea what parts of her future she's taken away by this decision, but I wonder, and it makes me so desperately sad.

The election of Donald Trump gave me a small boost that sense would finally arrive. I had, however, been demoralized by a decade of having my reality turned upside down, my language policed, my parental agency robbed, and watching an entire culture, particularly the college-indoctrinated waters that I somewhat swim in, cheer the whole thing on as if my destruction and that of my beloved daughter constituted cause for celebration. I didn't really believe change would happen.

One month has changed me.

It's undeniable. The script has flipped. The culture that aimed to destroy our children and families was in reality a micro-culture that somehow had managed to control the rest of us. (Read C.S. Lewis' "The Abolition of Man" if you want to find out how. He predicted this about 70 years before it happened.) The truth has been revealed. The villains are unmasked, and it isn't loving, concerned parents like us. It never was. I now have the freedom to breathe, and the freedom to speak. And so, I am.

This isn't an act of courage. Courage looks like Beth Bourne, Jeannette Cooper, and many others who experience alienation from their children for telling the truth publicly. Courage is telling the truth when it isn't popular. Telling the truth now that the truth can be told again isn't courage. It's necessity.

I am grateful we still have a warm relationship with our daughter. I pray that never changes. We love her and all of our children more than life itself and would willingly lay down our lives for them. I hope they know that.

But for the sake of my own integrity and mental health, I can't stay silent any longer. For years, my children, and many friends and acquaintances, have loudly proclaimed where they stand. To keep the peace, I did not. My silence punished me internally. I stuffed a lot, and I did it for a long time. That's not sustainable. But I sacrificed for what I believed was a higher cause: family unity. I've always believed that a man's role is to sacrifice for his family, and so I sacrificed myself.

Now, when family members, friends and acquaintances rail against Trump, I point out that it's he, not the Democratic Party, who is trying to protect young people from medical experimentation and long-term harm. I point out that this sinister medical regime only exists because of the patronage and protection of the Democrats. I understand that Trump is polarizing, has not lived a virtuous private life, and has said and done things, and stands for things that I and many others don’t care for. Yet I voted for one reason: to protect my daughter and thousands of other young people from this dark period in the history of medicine. That's what a father does: protects his child and others. I do this in person and on social media. I will continue to do so. My aim is true: to tell the truth so that the harm stops. That's it. Any other motive that someone else pins on me exists in their imaginations. You’ve heard them: “transphobia,” “right-wing conspiracies,” and similar rubbish. I, and all of us, have lived too long in this imaginary world circumscribed by a weird micro-culture. It ends now.

And it ends with more of us telling the truth. Each parent knows their own situation, and I'm not ordering anyone to do what I've done, but the truth is its own defense, and it brings peace to those who tell it. The more the truth is told, defended, and reinforced, the sooner the nightmare ends.