If You Only Knew: A Letter to Others Who Affirm My Son
If you only knew…
…what it is like being told by your adult child that he believes the horrible is possible. That he was born in the wrong body and is going through treatments and procedures to right what he sees as wrong and fixable.
If you only knew…
…how it feels to listen to your child read a prepared script outlining the new rules for being his mother, telling you not to use the name you so lovingly picked out for him to honor loved ones who have died and are now established guardians over their namesakes. Telling you that this name, which rolled off your tongue like a song, is now a “deadname” and you must use another one, which sticks in your throat and cuts like barbed wire.
If you only knew…
…how it feels to watch your son take drugs that are harming him in the long term even as they falsely uplift him in the short term, how he has already altered his body and mind, in a charade of repairing what is not broken; how it feels to know each poison pill he dissolves under his tongue could be rewriting his destiny and shortening his lifespan, and you know it because there is scientific evidence - the same science that determines him as male - but that he shuns as summarily as he rejects his biology.
If you only knew…
…how to learn to hide the daily silent tears with a forced smile, to silence the growing screams, to pray that your broken heart will not someday just explode from the anguish, to watch your child self-destruct into a delusion that society has shaped him to believe, and how society has embraced him even as I, his mother, am thrust into a void, a macabre version of “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” while friends, family, and casual acquaintances celebrate and glorify this new twisted iteration of the miracle that was my son.
If you only knew…
…how it feels to dread weddings and family celebrations and events and even funerals, because you have somehow developed a sense of shame; you feel the judgment of those who will whisper and gossip and pity and blame you for the unwitting indoctrination of your son, the left-field new reality that has been foisted on you, and though you pray every day that it will change, you still feel that this is somehow your fault, and you are found lacking in the eyes of those who are looking in.
If you only knew…
…that my son has become a completely different person, with glimpses of his former carefree self but with the façade of a badly drawn caricature now permeating his every word, step, mannerism, and that he has changed so drastically you no longer see the boy who was growing into a man.
If you only knew how it feels when people like you say, “if you loved your child, you would accept this into your heart, do what is asked of you and you will embrace the new daughter you have now, because oh, by the way, that’s still your child…”
But you don’t know. You don’t understand and you never will. You can watch from afar and approve and affirm and agree and enable, because anguish is not a part of the role that you have taken on.
All you’ve had to do is learn a new name and use the pronouns that naturally and objectively go with that name even as they don’t go with the person assuming them, and to you, it’s as easy as changing your socks.
If you only knew….
…that you know nothing at all.
My daughter who was in the trans-psychosis for all of high school seems to have desisted over the last year (except for the name—ugh—she named herself after a planet). We are so grateful. A couple months ago, as she was home for the holidays, she went and visited high school teachers and mentors—now presenting very “girly” and confident (she wore the stereotypical “trans boy” garb/haircut/slouchy posture in high school). I’d love to hear what all these affirming ‘trusted adults’ think about the new vibe. These are the vaulted adults that told her where to get a secret binder, testify at school board meetings supporting trans rights over girls privacy, and proudly shout her ‘trans name’ into the microphone while ‘he/him’ appears in the school newspaper…do they know that this is not new ‘look’ for her (she was never a tomboy) and she’s returned to her original self—a girl who exudes self worth and joy (feelings that trans robbed her of)? Nope. They know nothing of the cruel emotions you describe so well.
This is a crumb of pain, frustration compared with the hell that you are living. I hope that your son pulls out of it and you both get some peace.
Sad, but true... Praying for a miracle for all of our lost boys... Hang in there, you're not alone!