I Will Not Run a Victory Lap

She is desisting. After over three long, grueling years, it is finally happening. I'm watching her wear earrings, buy dresses and skirts. Her trans flag is no longer on the wall. But it really is true, she really is desisting. She is using her real name at school, and on her art. She is growing her hair out and she is modestly showing off her figure, not flattening it or burying it under a black mountain of a hoodie.

More than the outward changes, there has been an inward transformation, a movement toward health and life. She is not lying anymore, or stealing food without asking, or lashing out with vehement anger at us. She is not cutting anymore. She loves her art, her music, her school - she loves herself again.

But God, this has been a harrowing road, and I won't be doing a victory lap. I think I'm too much in shock to really rejoice. My wife showed me a text just last week - her dear friend from church telling her that her daughter just went to the courthouse and legally changed her name. She now has a boy's name. What's next? Hormones? Mastectomy? Just two months ago I sat next to one of my closest friends in a parked car as he told me his adult daughter had just started testosterone, the result of consulting with a “gender affirming” doctor. He had been up all night trying to console his inconsolable wife. They are devastated. Their daughter's health was already poor. No, I won't be doing a victory lap - I will honor the suffering of my friends with humility and vigilance.

The road to get here has been torturous. I embraced it as a spiritual journey. On that journey, I learned to tell my daughter "Don't hurt yourself, don’t hurt your body”. These simple words. I told my daughter these simple words.

On another occasion, I sat in her room, looking at her pride flag, and her trans flag, and I was just exploring the pain and tragedy of it all. My wife held me as I wept, "They are sterilizing children! How could they do this?!" I needed to let the pain out so I could be at peace when I spoke to my beloved child. We worked so hard, my wife and me. We have five children - how could we balance all of their complex needs with this unfolding nightmare? It was hard. We read books, went to parent groups, and worked with a consultant, Stephanie Winn. It took time, effort, and money. Sometimes it was just too much for my wife, she had to focus on our other kids and their issues, while I focused on the trans thing.

My wife and I worked hard on our communication techniques. We learned how to respect our daughter’s sensitive ego and growing intellect, how to set firm boundaries, and deliver bad news when needed. Most of all we learned how to dance with our daughter, figuratively speaking, rather than fight or avoid, and we were dancing with her toward an exit door from trans madness.

I started having intervention conversations with my daughter - some deeper than others. We also had a number of unplanned parenting moments too, with their degree of drama, but now we had new communication tools, more insight into teenage psychology, and support when we needed it.

It was a long, slow road. But now my daughter and I can have open conversations about how destructive "gender medicine" is for people, how kids are being groomed at school, and how deeply misogynistic the trans movement is at its core. It was hard to get to this point. It was like we had to keep our daughter on chemotherapy so the disease cells could die. No internet, no smartphones, and draconian device protections. She hated the strict rules, resented what we were doing, and was jealous of her friends. I practically needed to hire an IT consultant - I'm an engineer and it is nearly impossible to keep my kids safe from the internet. She was so angry when we took her binder away. I felt so guilty and stupid for letting her have it to begin with. I didn’t want to curtail her freedom, but once I realized how much was on the line, I knew that autonomy was less important than safety. Eventually we extended more freedoms as she demonstrated responsibility, helped her gain autonomy, strengthened our relationship, and she could feel her strength coming back too, and even thanked us for being such devoted parents.

Yes, we worked hard, but there are also angels in our daughter's life. There is her senior-citizen godmother, who takes her out for breakfast once a month. There is her Tae Kwon Do teacher, a sixth-degree black belt, and an amazing role model of a strong woman breaking stereotypes.

I don't take any of it for granted. It didn't have to go this way. It doesn’t go this way for so many. Nor is the battle fully over, but we are in a new phase, the spell has broken. I pray that she continues to grow in her self-knowledge and recognition of the truth, and into full, complete rejection of gender ideology.

I am humbled and awed that it seems I may have the privilege, after all, of watching my daughter blossom fully into a woman. But I won't be doing a victory lap. It is not in me to be joyful that this scourge has been lifted from our family. I will stand in solidarity with the many thousands of other parents who are also fighting for their kids. I will always remember the pain. But I will breathe. I will exhale and allow the out-breath to relax my body and my mind, so I can be fully grounded and present for my whole family.