In a previous article I wrote for Pitt, I talked about some of the difficulties of living with a partner and two children who have bought into the current gender narrative that is sweeping the world, while I stand firmly in the knowing that only men have penises and only women can be pregnant. I ended that piece with this: Staying together and connected in loving and supportive relationships is perhaps the greatest "F*** you" to the current system trying to tear us apart.
It’s a hard thing to admit, but if our kids are putting more trust in strangers on the Internet than in us, then we need to ask ourselves what we did to alienate them.
We can’t change the cult, but we can change our relationship with our kid.
I've commented several times (thanks for all the replies) but I just wanted to add that women can have beards. This does not mean there is more than two sexes but it is real and natural. Bearded Ladies were a constant in 19th and early 20th century circuses. There is considerable natural variation in secondary sexual characteristics and this includes gynocomastia or enlarged breasts in men and boys who may suffer horrible teasing and bullying as a result. https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/gynecomastia/symptoms-causes/syc-20351793. Our current vision of women's body hair is based on a society in which almost all women spend a lot of time removing their body hair. This started only after safety razors became cheap in the 1930s. Removal of body hair is part of the sex role (gender) norms that feminists rejected in the 1970s (I never shaved my legs until I went to England got worn down by teasing around 1990). It doesn't matter whether you personally like women removing all body hair or not (and all the rest of rigid female body norms) - it's not helpful or truthful to argue women can't have beards when you're trying to maintain a relationship with a trans child. Primary sexual characteristics are genes, gonads( ovaries and testicles) and genitals. There are people with genetic diseases in whom these are improperly formed - they have DSDs or are (older term) intersex. They often suffer a great deal of pain and are infertile. They are not a third sex. Secondary sexual characteristics are hair and breast tissue (men with gynocomastia do not have the underlying system needed to produce breast milk).
Thank you for this great article. I am 12 months into this nightmare journey and my 19-year-old daughter is about to start taking testosterone. I have spent 12 months raging against this insanity and desperately trying to make her see how deluded she is, and how she is about to ruin her life. All this has achieved is to drive a wedge between us - our relationship has never been so estranged. So, like you, I am faced with a choice: do I prioritise my need to be right and thereby lose my daughter, or do I step back, accept that I have no control over any life but my own, and save my relationship with my daughter? The answer is obvious to me. I’m off to check out the Stoic Mom site next.
I just read this your letter right after reading Isaiah 9:7-11. It begins -
He who chastises evil men shall receive dishonor to himself, and he who reproves the ungodly man shall be blamed himself.
Do not reprove evil men, so they may not hate you.
Then the rest of it tells you how you can benefit the wise man.
Those who are entrenched in the trans lie (evil) will only turn your reproof back onto you (transphobic, bigot, racist, hater, etc), tell you "judge not lest you be judged" (out of context) and hate you. If you don't reprove them, they will not hate you.
Instead, if you know right from wrong (knowledgeable) and are wise (have a fear of God), then spend your energies reproving, instructing, and couseling those who also love the Lord.
And if you are wise (which should be all of us) then accept these opportunities to learn, because it shows that you have a sound and healthy mind.
If a person who has bought into this evil ideology begins to see and understand the evil and foolishness that it is, it is their beginning of fearing the Lord, the first step towards wisdom, and gaining knowledge, knowing right from wrong. Keep your eyes open, learn to discern who is seeking, and be available to shepherd them towards the love that God has for them. In a few short years there will be fields of broken spirits and bodies so let us be ready with God's love and compassion.
Thank you for this! I needed this I have been struggling and even contemplating leaving my family. That is what the cult wants. It wants children to hate parents and family. It is a tornado tearing families apart so it can have them. I needed to remind myself I matter. Me first for a change. Family second and put my oxygen mask on first. Find some pleasures that I used to have and even make a life outline to give me direction out of the gender hole. Make peace I can not change a ridged 15 year old mind and make her bend at my will. Society has really taken most of parents power away. Looking for some middle way now and some peace. May we all find some of that.
Thanks for sharing. As a husband and father with teenage kids in the UK I can definitely relate. I'd say that we naturally feel enraged by the abusiveness of the whole trans thing, the complicity of leaders and teachers who should know better and protective for the duped kids which can lead to us coming across in the wrong way. I agree that finding common ground as the lady below suggested e.g. we all agree tht sexism and misogeny is wrong is better as a route to placing alternatives in our kids thought processes. It's crucial to allow our kids to come to their own conclusions based upon common ground and facts about the trans-grooming and abuse of women. No teenager wants to be told what to think (and this is the problem with so many schools these days - they are alienating a huge section of especially boys who feel completely disempowered - by pushing the whole woke agenda without room for discussion). Good luck with it - my kids (18 and 15 - almost) are getting it and once teens are on board they're a force to be reckoned with!
This poor guy. His therapist is helping his wife to Jedi-Mindtrick him into going along with the insanity. Therapists are masters of manipulation. They mean well, but most of them have been captured by gender ideology. But not all:
Thanks you for sharing your thoughts. Children Hurt from the truth told by their parents is better than comforting children with lies. The hurt from truth will hurt a little while but the damage and hurt from the lies being told to our children will hurt them and others who love them for a lifetime. Be strong
Thank you for that thoughtful essay. Helen Joyce, the author of the book, 'Trans,' says trans 'gender identity' is a faith-based ideology. That is, we are to believe a man is really a woman b/c he professes it and we can't disprove it. But, of course, by sex-based material reality we can disprove such a nonsensical claim. Some things are nuanced and complicated and I try to avoid black/white thinking for the most part. But if a person tells me he has little invisible wings and jumps off a building I know gravity will answer.
One technique I've found helpful with teens and young people is to HEAVILY emphasize agreement on just one central aspect of an issue.
In this case: sexism is bad--no one should be trapped by gender stereotypes attached to their sex.
Being a 2nd-wave feminist who has spent my entire life fighting to destroy sexism and its poisonous influence on all of us, I can wax quite eloquent and extremely emphatic on this subject.
NO ONE SHOULD BE TRAPPED BY GENDER STEREOTYPES ATTACHED TO THEIR SEX.
Women are not make-up and dresses. We do not just cook, clean and care for babies.
Men are not crewcuts and lumberjack flannel shirts. They do not just work, mow lawns and watch football.
We are each a unique, multi-faceted, extraordinary individual with our own interests and tastes and loves, which can be anything safe that we want them to be. The world is magnificent and full of amazing choices. As Mordecai Gerstein said (in the fabulous children's book The Mountains of Tibet): "Each one is different, and each one is beautiful."
It helps a lot to prepare beforehand to use feminist language instead of the language of the trans cult: not "gender," but "sexism" and "gender stereotypes"; not "transwomen are men," but "men can be anything they want--they can be soft and sweet and also strong and kind, they can have long hair and wear make-up and dresses, if that's what they like (David Bowie, am I right?)"; not "transgenderism" but "thinking outside the box, flying your freak flag, etc." These kids are being fed a newly-invented vocabulary they only faintly understand. They've probably never heard the real vocabulary that they THINK they're agreeing with.
Once I've got us worked up in 100% EMPHATIC agreement on this (and teens and young people might have a lot they want to say on the subject, even if most of it is regurgitated talking points they've heard elsewhere), then we're allies. I'm on their side!
After that, it's much easier to segue into innocent outrage at the idea that anyone should ever suffer in any way for the sake of sexism--those poisonous gender stereotypes--including damaging their beautiful, unique, healthy body, which is their temple and their home, the only one they're ever going to get.
Of course, they'll come to a screeching halt when they realize where you've taken them. But (as with handling disclosure from abused children) you can let the conversation plateau there, shrug off disagreement as confusion ("Really? That's not where the logic leads me. But anyway. . ."), retreating back into the 100% emphatic agreement against sexism and quickly redirecting the conversation into something harmless, like ice cream preferences ("good thing we both know french vanilla is the only ice cream flavor that counts, eh?"). Instantly lift the lid on the boiling pot, so it cools down right away.
End on hugs and "I love talking with you! Let's talk again soon," and then let it go, having left them with something to think about.
It won't be the end of the battle (not by a long shot) but it WILL plant the seeds that you need to grow: why are they thinking about hurting themselves for the sake of the very thing--sexism--that they feel so strongly is wrong?
Yeah, but if gender is a social construct means that people can change their gender by changing how they force others to socialize them. Gender ideology has feminism in its roots.
Gender IS a social construct. It is violent patriarchy's way of easily distinguishing between those to oppress (women) and those who get to oppress (men).
Violent patriarchy is ENABLED by gender.
Feminism is about ABOLISHING gender, so we can all live full, valuable lives doing whatever we love and are good at, without being forced into strait-jackets based on our sex.
Gender ideology has violent patriarchy as its roots. Feminism is the fight to free us from it.
Do you see how gender ideology lead to trans ideology? If 'gender' is real, andi if gender is something that you perform, then mèn can transform themselves into women. And vice versa. This is the moment to take a bow. You won. You won the culture war.
(The patriarchy isn't real. There's only sin and righteousness, men and women producing children, and their tendencies. Sin and Evil is what is causing issues between the sexes. Evil is real and IT is trying to take you down. Not your brothers, fathers, husbands and sons.)
Do you see how gender stereotypes lead to trans ideology?
Gender is not sex. How do you not know this?
Men can perform the behaviors that violent patriarchy assigns to women. But it doesn't change their sex. They are and always will be men.
This is the moment to take a bow. Violent patriarchy won. Men now own everything that once belonged to women. You won the culture war. Yay you.
You can lie about violent patriarchy all you want, but facts are facts. Girls and women are the largest and oldest violently oppressed demographic in all human history by an astronomical percent. All the data proves it, as well as ordinary common sense.
The evil that is violent patriarchy is real, and it IS trying to take you down.
and yet, trans men and trans women claim that it is 'gender' that makes a person Woman or a Man. That is why they can even say, "Trans women are women." because gender and sex are 'different' and that in fact, they feel as is 'gender' trumps biological sex.
Only as and when it suits their few toothless and dogmatic "arguments", though! That's why trans ideologues who squeal about "But - sex and gender are different! Sex and gender are different dummy!" - yet then in the very next breath go on to demand taxpayer or insurance funded mutilating surgeries and cross-SEX hormones, never have a logical response to someone daring to call them out. They have used the confusion surrounding the motte and Bailey of sex vs gender to successfully undermine and even revoke utterly the long fought for rights of women, gay adults and children in far too many jurisdictions and it's beyond time we all put our feet down and said "No more!", IMO anyway.
Do you believe that this is a proper frame work to view all of existence?
???
And...you're going to refuse to acknowledge that seeing gender as a social construct isn't what lead to ppl believing that they could change genders? Come on, wake up!
There is: Male and female. Anomalies prove the binary. There are personalities and there are societal expectations and culture. There is sin and there is righteousness. Of course there's God.
There is no such thing as gender. It is a faith based belief system made up by female academics looking for solutions to the human condition and discomfort of suffering and/or a prideful and selfish desire to know justice and human function better than God..
Yes, I know: men can be anything they want. . .EXCEPT women. And horses. And alligators. And cars. And bicycles. And fish. And typewriters. And fungus. And slime molds.
Men can be anything they want that includes still being men.
And, okay, maybe we can all be slime molds sometimes, if we try really hard.
(This is the kind of thing you can use the lift the lid on the boiling pot.)
I’m new to this platform and I’m really appreciating all the stories. We are all in this storm together but are in different boats with very similar stories. Sometimes I feel like I’m reading my story. My heart aches everyday and I worry constantly. These people are playing this terrifying game with incredibly vulnerable human beings. I don’t know how they sleep at night!! I’m sorry but I can’t accept something that just doesn’t make any sense. That’s my vent (for now) !!
My family is going through this gender crisis like many others j you and I feel no one knows their child better than a mom - I’m not trying to change my daughter (this cult has already done that 🙁) I just want her back 💔
Thanks for sharing some of the ways that are helping you and your family continue to connect. Hope you won't mind if I comment on a small thing-- There ARE some women, actually, who do have beards. Penises, no; beards, yes, once in a while.
It’s a hard thing to admit, but if our kids are putting more trust in strangers on the Internet than in us, then we need to ask ourselves what we did to alienate them.
We can’t change the cult, but we can change our relationship with our kid.
Hera
8 min ago
I've commented several times (thanks for all the replies) but I just wanted to add that women can have beards. This does not mean there is more than two sexes but it is real and natural. Bearded Ladies were a constant in 19th and early 20th century circuses. There is considerable natural variation in secondary sexual characteristics and this includes gynocomastia or enlarged breasts in men and boys who may suffer horrible teasing and bullying as a result. https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/gynecomastia/symptoms-causes/syc-20351793. Our current vision of women's body hair is based on a society in which almost all women spend a lot of time removing their body hair. This started only after safety razors became cheap in the 1930s. Removal of body hair is part of the sex role (gender) norms that feminists rejected in the 1970s (I never shaved my legs until I went to England got worn down by teasing around 1990). It doesn't matter whether you personally like women removing all body hair or not (and all the rest of rigid female body norms) - it's not helpful or truthful to argue women can't have beards when you're trying to maintain a relationship with a trans child. Primary sexual characteristics are genes, gonads( ovaries and testicles) and genitals. There are people with genetic diseases in whom these are improperly formed - they have DSDs or are (older term) intersex. They often suffer a great deal of pain and are infertile. They are not a third sex. Secondary sexual characteristics are hair and breast tissue (men with gynocomastia do not have the underlying system needed to produce breast milk).
Thank you for this great article. I am 12 months into this nightmare journey and my 19-year-old daughter is about to start taking testosterone. I have spent 12 months raging against this insanity and desperately trying to make her see how deluded she is, and how she is about to ruin her life. All this has achieved is to drive a wedge between us - our relationship has never been so estranged. So, like you, I am faced with a choice: do I prioritise my need to be right and thereby lose my daughter, or do I step back, accept that I have no control over any life but my own, and save my relationship with my daughter? The answer is obvious to me. I’m off to check out the Stoic Mom site next.
I just read this your letter right after reading Isaiah 9:7-11. It begins -
He who chastises evil men shall receive dishonor to himself, and he who reproves the ungodly man shall be blamed himself.
Do not reprove evil men, so they may not hate you.
Then the rest of it tells you how you can benefit the wise man.
Those who are entrenched in the trans lie (evil) will only turn your reproof back onto you (transphobic, bigot, racist, hater, etc), tell you "judge not lest you be judged" (out of context) and hate you. If you don't reprove them, they will not hate you.
Instead, if you know right from wrong (knowledgeable) and are wise (have a fear of God), then spend your energies reproving, instructing, and couseling those who also love the Lord.
And if you are wise (which should be all of us) then accept these opportunities to learn, because it shows that you have a sound and healthy mind.
If a person who has bought into this evil ideology begins to see and understand the evil and foolishness that it is, it is their beginning of fearing the Lord, the first step towards wisdom, and gaining knowledge, knowing right from wrong. Keep your eyes open, learn to discern who is seeking, and be available to shepherd them towards the love that God has for them. In a few short years there will be fields of broken spirits and bodies so let us be ready with God's love and compassion.
Oops! Edit! It's Proverbs not Isaiah.
Don't lie to you children through compliance. My dad did this, and I don't recommend it. Calmly and simply share your position but don't argue.
"I love you, and you know my position on this ideology." If it comes up.
Thank you for this! I needed this I have been struggling and even contemplating leaving my family. That is what the cult wants. It wants children to hate parents and family. It is a tornado tearing families apart so it can have them. I needed to remind myself I matter. Me first for a change. Family second and put my oxygen mask on first. Find some pleasures that I used to have and even make a life outline to give me direction out of the gender hole. Make peace I can not change a ridged 15 year old mind and make her bend at my will. Society has really taken most of parents power away. Looking for some middle way now and some peace. May we all find some of that.
Thank you. This article couldn’t have come at a better time.
Thanks for sharing. As a husband and father with teenage kids in the UK I can definitely relate. I'd say that we naturally feel enraged by the abusiveness of the whole trans thing, the complicity of leaders and teachers who should know better and protective for the duped kids which can lead to us coming across in the wrong way. I agree that finding common ground as the lady below suggested e.g. we all agree tht sexism and misogeny is wrong is better as a route to placing alternatives in our kids thought processes. It's crucial to allow our kids to come to their own conclusions based upon common ground and facts about the trans-grooming and abuse of women. No teenager wants to be told what to think (and this is the problem with so many schools these days - they are alienating a huge section of especially boys who feel completely disempowered - by pushing the whole woke agenda without room for discussion). Good luck with it - my kids (18 and 15 - almost) are getting it and once teens are on board they're a force to be reckoned with!
This poor guy. His therapist is helping his wife to Jedi-Mindtrick him into going along with the insanity. Therapists are masters of manipulation. They mean well, but most of them have been captured by gender ideology. But not all:
https://www.genderexploratory.com
https://www.conservativetherapists.com
Thanks you for sharing your thoughts. Children Hurt from the truth told by their parents is better than comforting children with lies. The hurt from truth will hurt a little while but the damage and hurt from the lies being told to our children will hurt them and others who love them for a lifetime. Be strong
Thank you for that thoughtful essay. Helen Joyce, the author of the book, 'Trans,' says trans 'gender identity' is a faith-based ideology. That is, we are to believe a man is really a woman b/c he professes it and we can't disprove it. But, of course, by sex-based material reality we can disprove such a nonsensical claim. Some things are nuanced and complicated and I try to avoid black/white thinking for the most part. But if a person tells me he has little invisible wings and jumps off a building I know gravity will answer.
One technique I've found helpful with teens and young people is to HEAVILY emphasize agreement on just one central aspect of an issue.
In this case: sexism is bad--no one should be trapped by gender stereotypes attached to their sex.
Being a 2nd-wave feminist who has spent my entire life fighting to destroy sexism and its poisonous influence on all of us, I can wax quite eloquent and extremely emphatic on this subject.
NO ONE SHOULD BE TRAPPED BY GENDER STEREOTYPES ATTACHED TO THEIR SEX.
Women are not make-up and dresses. We do not just cook, clean and care for babies.
Men are not crewcuts and lumberjack flannel shirts. They do not just work, mow lawns and watch football.
We are each a unique, multi-faceted, extraordinary individual with our own interests and tastes and loves, which can be anything safe that we want them to be. The world is magnificent and full of amazing choices. As Mordecai Gerstein said (in the fabulous children's book The Mountains of Tibet): "Each one is different, and each one is beautiful."
It helps a lot to prepare beforehand to use feminist language instead of the language of the trans cult: not "gender," but "sexism" and "gender stereotypes"; not "transwomen are men," but "men can be anything they want--they can be soft and sweet and also strong and kind, they can have long hair and wear make-up and dresses, if that's what they like (David Bowie, am I right?)"; not "transgenderism" but "thinking outside the box, flying your freak flag, etc." These kids are being fed a newly-invented vocabulary they only faintly understand. They've probably never heard the real vocabulary that they THINK they're agreeing with.
Once I've got us worked up in 100% EMPHATIC agreement on this (and teens and young people might have a lot they want to say on the subject, even if most of it is regurgitated talking points they've heard elsewhere), then we're allies. I'm on their side!
After that, it's much easier to segue into innocent outrage at the idea that anyone should ever suffer in any way for the sake of sexism--those poisonous gender stereotypes--including damaging their beautiful, unique, healthy body, which is their temple and their home, the only one they're ever going to get.
Of course, they'll come to a screeching halt when they realize where you've taken them. But (as with handling disclosure from abused children) you can let the conversation plateau there, shrug off disagreement as confusion ("Really? That's not where the logic leads me. But anyway. . ."), retreating back into the 100% emphatic agreement against sexism and quickly redirecting the conversation into something harmless, like ice cream preferences ("good thing we both know french vanilla is the only ice cream flavor that counts, eh?"). Instantly lift the lid on the boiling pot, so it cools down right away.
End on hugs and "I love talking with you! Let's talk again soon," and then let it go, having left them with something to think about.
It won't be the end of the battle (not by a long shot) but it WILL plant the seeds that you need to grow: why are they thinking about hurting themselves for the sake of the very thing--sexism--that they feel so strongly is wrong?
Yeah, but if gender is a social construct means that people can change their gender by changing how they force others to socialize them. Gender ideology has feminism in its roots.
Gender IS a social construct. It is violent patriarchy's way of easily distinguishing between those to oppress (women) and those who get to oppress (men).
Violent patriarchy is ENABLED by gender.
Feminism is about ABOLISHING gender, so we can all live full, valuable lives doing whatever we love and are good at, without being forced into strait-jackets based on our sex.
Gender ideology has violent patriarchy as its roots. Feminism is the fight to free us from it.
Do you see how gender ideology lead to trans ideology? If 'gender' is real, andi if gender is something that you perform, then mèn can transform themselves into women. And vice versa. This is the moment to take a bow. You won. You won the culture war.
(The patriarchy isn't real. There's only sin and righteousness, men and women producing children, and their tendencies. Sin and Evil is what is causing issues between the sexes. Evil is real and IT is trying to take you down. Not your brothers, fathers, husbands and sons.)
Do you see how gender stereotypes lead to trans ideology?
Gender is not sex. How do you not know this?
Men can perform the behaviors that violent patriarchy assigns to women. But it doesn't change their sex. They are and always will be men.
This is the moment to take a bow. Violent patriarchy won. Men now own everything that once belonged to women. You won the culture war. Yay you.
You can lie about violent patriarchy all you want, but facts are facts. Girls and women are the largest and oldest violently oppressed demographic in all human history by an astronomical percent. All the data proves it, as well as ordinary common sense.
The evil that is violent patriarchy is real, and it IS trying to take you down.
"Gender is not sex."
and yet, trans men and trans women claim that it is 'gender' that makes a person Woman or a Man. That is why they can even say, "Trans women are women." because gender and sex are 'different' and that in fact, they feel as is 'gender' trumps biological sex.
Only as and when it suits their few toothless and dogmatic "arguments", though! That's why trans ideologues who squeal about "But - sex and gender are different! Sex and gender are different dummy!" - yet then in the very next breath go on to demand taxpayer or insurance funded mutilating surgeries and cross-SEX hormones, never have a logical response to someone daring to call them out. They have used the confusion surrounding the motte and Bailey of sex vs gender to successfully undermine and even revoke utterly the long fought for rights of women, gay adults and children in far too many jurisdictions and it's beyond time we all put our feet down and said "No more!", IMO anyway.
Your philosophical premise is that men are to blame for everything and you hate them. Pure academia.
Do you believe that this is a proper frame work to view all of existence?
???
And...you're going to refuse to acknowledge that seeing gender as a social construct isn't what lead to ppl believing that they could change genders? Come on, wake up!
Gender is a fiction.
There is: Male and female. Anomalies prove the binary. There are personalities and there are societal expectations and culture. There is sin and there is righteousness. Of course there's God.
There is no such thing as gender. It is a faith based belief system made up by female academics looking for solutions to the human condition and discomfort of suffering and/or a prideful and selfish desire to know justice and human function better than God..
Yes, I know: men can be anything they want. . .EXCEPT women. And horses. And alligators. And cars. And bicycles. And fish. And typewriters. And fungus. And slime molds.
Men can be anything they want that includes still being men.
And, okay, maybe we can all be slime molds sometimes, if we try really hard.
(This is the kind of thing you can use the lift the lid on the boiling pot.)
Eleganta, thank you. That makes a lot of sense! Patience and playing the long game is the hard part.
You're welcome. As a parent, my heart is with you!
I’m new to this platform and I’m really appreciating all the stories. We are all in this storm together but are in different boats with very similar stories. Sometimes I feel like I’m reading my story. My heart aches everyday and I worry constantly. These people are playing this terrifying game with incredibly vulnerable human beings. I don’t know how they sleep at night!! I’m sorry but I can’t accept something that just doesn’t make any sense. That’s my vent (for now) !!
My family is going through this gender crisis like many others j you and I feel no one knows their child better than a mom - I’m not trying to change my daughter (this cult has already done that 🙁) I just want her back 💔
They are the ahokes for sure!! Thanks blunt is what this world need more of, from a loving place 😆
Thanks for sharing some of the ways that are helping you and your family continue to connect. Hope you won't mind if I comment on a small thing-- There ARE some women, actually, who do have beards. Penises, no; beards, yes, once in a while.