In June of 2021, PITT published my essay “Layers of Sadness” after my son started wrong sex hormones during his freshman year of college. Since that time, my son has deteriorated mentally and physically. He would say otherwise as he grips his fantasy of being a woman and my "daughter." Alienation grips me as I witness my son’s decline.
Screenshot so many paragraphs of this essay, like picking up beautiful stones on the beach to keep and remind me. This essay shows real human empathy, real human compassion.
I have to wonder if parents who are grappling with this nonsense happening to their kids are still paying for the kid's cell phones, college, clothing, food, video games, etc. Wouldn't it make more sense to stop funding their bourgeoise lifestyle whereby they must fend for themselves as adults, making adult decisions, where survival must come before delusional fantasies? These young adults are coddled way too much. If they choose to shun all the hard work their parents put into them, why continue doing the hard work? Maybe, they'll wake up to reality!! Tough love - it hurts but it works. If you're afraid they'll abandon you if you stop funding them, remember, they'll likely abandon you if they keep transitioning too.
It’s another facet of a current world-wide fascist uprising, destabilizing many aspects of Western style democracy. Thanks, Vlad. (Also, read Susan Stryker’s Frankenstein diatribe.)
Should parents ask their current pediatricians where they fall on this cultural topic? And try to find pediatricians who don’t follow the AAP? I have young kids and if they ever bring up gender woo-woo stuff, I want their doctors to reaffirm reality.
Yes, I think so. And beware of states/practices where the pediatrician and the child have a private portal beginning at 12 or 16 - one that parents do not have access to.
If I had young kids now, I would move. I believe states that have portals for minors (parents not included) push pronouns and GI over them. To me it is a red flag.
Short of that, maybe you can find a pediatrican via Genspect? I don't know. Some states are making it hard for a doctor not to follow GI.
Maybe we can push this all back before it is relevant to your kids?
I have lived in France since my daughter had me arrested one night before Christmas for, among other horrendous accusations, failing to use her male pronouns and name. It is a wonder that you only enjoy something once you come to realize that you have it, or the lack thereof in this case. No one asks for your pronouns and I delight in the freedom of thought. Back in the UK, I had been so scared of losing it. Don't get me wrong, France is itself a battlefield for activist doctors and surgeons and silent politicians, but there seems to lack the level of harassment I experienced elsewhere.
I think it was Peter Boghossian who said that wokeness travels in English speaking countries, and less so elsewhere. The reason is that English is the language predominately used in online forums like Reddit, so non-English speakers have some protection.
I was always a bit of a misanthrope, but after seeing this gender madness sweep through society, and get endorsed by people who should know better. I have concluded that I was overly optimistic in my assessment of humanity. Our society is full of naivete, ignorance, foolishness, stupidity, and actual malice.
This writing is wonderful despite the awfulness of what you write about. You truly have captured the absolutely depleting effects of the trans infection of our minds through the societies we are embedded in. I want everyone I know to read this piece. I think if you feel able, you should expand it. I feel the kernel of a great work of literature born of your pain and suffering and incredible insightfulness is here. Your perception needs to be shared and fully. Keep strong and keep hope.
We MUST stop seeing "trans" as a thing someone can actually be. There quite literally is no such thing.
Remember not so long ago when we told tomboy girls and effeminate boys that behavioral norms and tastes, such as in toys (Barbie vs GI Joe) and clothing colors (pink or blue), didn't matter and that it's ok to be how they are, with the underlying notion being it's ok if you end up being a lesbian or a gay man? Stereotypes were bad. But these ideas morphed (on purpose) into "gender roles" pushed by men with fetishes they sought to normalize, chiefly autogynephelia, but also pedophilia. This further morphed into telling kids - spreading the word in schools, no less, disguised as necessary sex education - that being "gender diverse" was brave and praise-worthy and we should celebrate this all under the same umbrella, and they even gave opposition to these whacked (and women's rights-erasing) ideas the name "transphobia" so as to conflate it with the well-established-as-bad "homophobia." (They did this on purpose, I promise you.) And on top of that they've inundated little kids, with a lot of well-meaning but wrong adults' help, with ideas about how maybe they are trans because they like Barbies despite being little boys. Parents and other adults have failed them miserably and can't see that fact, but truly must. What do you think happens to little girls taught to hate their bodies, disassociate from the realities of their breasts and periods as if they are diseased and disgusted? When I was a young girl I was massively unhappy and fixated on the things I didn't like about my body. But no one was telling me I was right and valid to criticize what I saw in the mirror and presented outwardly. They didn't "affirm" my somewhat normal, and normally awkward, stage of developing into a woman. What the actual FUCK are we doing to the girls, telling them to step aside while the pretend boy takes their trophies and prizes and athletic scholarships? And how shameful is it we've encouraged and even demanded they listen to the doctors and therapists, also fully inundated and indoctrinated to immediately and unquestioningly affirm their delusions or risk losing their licenses if they show "hate" to kids seeking relief that definitely won't come along with the roid rage from the T, the sliced off body parts and permanent sterility, and eventually assured but likely fiercely denied (because they are in a cult) regret.
By the way, although "gender dysphoria" made it into the DSM it's there because it's been pushed by those clearly in line to profit from the massively growing numbers of people seeking "gender affirming care" benefitting BigPharma and very soon hiking the profits for BigFertility. Kids cannot "be" trans. They can be, at some point, same-sex attracted, which sometimes comes along w mannerisms and behaviors we have come to expect in gay culture circles.
Adults can't "be" trans. They can decide to embrace their fetish or the lies they have heard and in fact shoved down their throats for years.
Stop promulgating this by using terms like "biological women" and just use "women" when you mean women. Stop allowing yourself to support people's wholly manufactured notions that there is a grey area between the very straightforward distinctions between men and women.
I'd suggest reading about John Money and the truth about Foucault and "queer theory" and the real roots of "gender ideology.
Read these women's works: Helen Joyce, Kara Dansky, Kathleen Stock, and Jennifer Bilek's https://www.the11thhourblog.com/. There are many more these will lead you to discover.
I ask you to start correcting people that blame feminists or women or women's studies programs for this. The feminists called this out long ago, but have been throttled effectively by the men with all too many gaslit women joining in the chorus of criticizing other women. Also look into the absolute psychotic monster that is Martine Rothblatt and the Pritzger family (maybe worse, quite possibly even MORE dangerous than the Sacklers, if you can even fathom such a thing), and understand that this has been a psyop from the start, and they are coming for your kids.
More and more people waking up to this. Look after yourself now and your husband as there is always hope and like the burned trees.. given time he may well come back and he will need you both .. so keep healthy and as strong as possible. Love and respect and prayers for you
This is such a gripping and powerful account. I have only read about the gender cult. I haven’t been personally affected - I haven’t even been asked my pronouns. Nonetheless I find the experiences of others gripping. I am mystified that seemingly all intelligent, otherwise good go along with this. I hope you get your son back.
Your pain is palpable and matches my own. My 18 year old daughter has announced she will be attending “her” Gender Clinic on Thursday at 2pm and wants to start on Testosterone before we travel to the US on holidays as a family. I asked her what her Therapist had advised her after 6 or 7 sessions and she replied “Yep all good she’s happy for me to go ahead!” (Here was I thinking the Therapist would get to the bottom of my daughter’s delusional thinking and help her at least desist but alas no.) We had a massive screaming match as soon as I mentioned a group I belong to called “Binary” are calling for a Royal Commission into Publicly Funded Gender Clinics and their suspect claims of Gender Affirmative “Care“. She just said I was stupid, ill-informed and didn’t know the “Science!” I’m back to square one feeling gut punched again and scrambling for a way to accept the unacceptable and to save my sanity, my health and my marriage. I’ve started reading Dr Miriam Grossman’s book “Lost in Trans Nation” because I desperately need to find the voices of reason in this nightmare world we find ourselves in. Please let your son see logic and sense and return to his real life in your loving arms.
Wonderful essay. You put into words what we have been feeling about our son, who announced in 2017 that he was trans at age 37.5. Since he was career military and his assignments were far away from us, we tried to be loving and focus on the positive in letters and e-mails. About six weeks ago, he separated from the service and relocated two hours away from us. We had hoped the first meeting could be with other “normal” family members so we could dilute our attention to his and his “wife’s” drag presentations. Unfortunately he had developed new seasonal allergies, got tested and with our state’s 40 PCR cycles, of course he was positive. They begged off. Now, we will have to with them,the two of us, and the two of them (two middle aged men in drag) by ourselves. Worse, in a public restaurant where their bizarre appearance will surely generate stares in a conservative county of the state (where we agreed to meet). We are both dreading it.
Our son was a 6’2” handsome man with blue eyes, blond wavy hair, an infectious smile, and great military bearing. Now, from his FB posts, I see he is balding, dyes his hair a lurid color of red, has boobs, and thinks he is convincing as a female with size 14 feet. No one talks about female appropriation. I was once a 1980’s feminist in my younger, less aware days. It offends what is left of my feminist mind set to see men pretending to be woman and presuming they know what it is like to grow up female in a world that has been more male centric than not in my life thus far. It actually enrages me and I have no place to put all that, so I stuff it down.
Thank God, and I seriously mean that, we are moving from the PNW to the middle of the country by March of next year and our contact face to face will lessen or cease. Don’t even get me started on grandchildren. We have six but have relationships with two. They just moved across the country a week ago. My younger two children imagine themselves trans. We have never met our son’s children as visiting grandparents was never on his list when he was married to his children’s mother, not to mention being deployed across the country or in a foreign country for the past twenty two years. His children are 17 and 14. My youngest, daughter, has not allowed us contact with her daughter since our granddaughter was five, for differences in political viewpoints. She is now 12. My oldest’s son is in college and was raised by his mother after they split up. My son renewed his relationship with his son about six years ago. We have never been given an acknowledgment or thank you for gifts from him, our oldest grandson. Same with my younger son’s two children, who live with their mother since the divorce, precipitated by the trans announcement. Same with my youngest daughter and her daughter. We were told it offends our daughter to gets gifts from us, so we quit sending her gifts. We still send to our granddaughter, however, but who knows if she is even told who sent the gift.
I changed my Will recently. It seems petty but the only ones who will get an inheritance from my estate if my husband passes before me are those who kept the names I gave them at birth, with the allowance for spousal surnames. I know it will be highly offensive to them, but I see it this way - I put a lot of thought into choosing names for them (oldest son named after my ex’s two grandfathers; oldest daughter named after my great aunt who was my connection to my grandfather who passed when my dad was only 8 years old; younger son was named after that grandfather, a man I never knew but who touched many lives; and my youngest daughter named after my older sister, who passed away before I was born and who was an invisible presence in my life growing up as I had no other sister, just brothers). The two youngest named themselves after role playing game characters. I just smack my head. They have no appreciation for how offended I feel that they discarded the names I gave them for fantasy names. Or, how offended and hurt I feel at their pretend “genders.” I literally read (and followed) the book on how to choose the sex of your baby for both of them. It isn’t guaranteed (more like 80%) but it worked in both cases. I made them. I should know what sex they are. DNA doesn’t lie.
We are living in an alternate universe. I want out. I want my old life back.
Thank you for this essay, so well capturing what we parents endure and what our lives are like. I have walked this same journey, every step, all the heartache. My heart goes out to you!
I need you all so much. It’s as if I wrote this essay, but my son is 22. I’m so sad and lonely all the time. I cling to my husband and daughter and other son. I pray daily- numerous times a day. I function, but barely.
Screenshot so many paragraphs of this essay, like picking up beautiful stones on the beach to keep and remind me. This essay shows real human empathy, real human compassion.
Thank you for sharing this familiar description of your maternal despair. Like you, I have become a one-issue voter too!
I have to wonder if parents who are grappling with this nonsense happening to their kids are still paying for the kid's cell phones, college, clothing, food, video games, etc. Wouldn't it make more sense to stop funding their bourgeoise lifestyle whereby they must fend for themselves as adults, making adult decisions, where survival must come before delusional fantasies? These young adults are coddled way too much. If they choose to shun all the hard work their parents put into them, why continue doing the hard work? Maybe, they'll wake up to reality!! Tough love - it hurts but it works. If you're afraid they'll abandon you if you stop funding them, remember, they'll likely abandon you if they keep transitioning too.
It’s another facet of a current world-wide fascist uprising, destabilizing many aspects of Western style democracy. Thanks, Vlad. (Also, read Susan Stryker’s Frankenstein diatribe.)
Should parents ask their current pediatricians where they fall on this cultural topic? And try to find pediatricians who don’t follow the AAP? I have young kids and if they ever bring up gender woo-woo stuff, I want their doctors to reaffirm reality.
I switched to urgent care. I do not trust AAP now that they have shown they are in step with this nonsense.
Yes, I think so. And beware of states/practices where the pediatrician and the child have a private portal beginning at 12 or 16 - one that parents do not have access to.
That’s our state.
If I had young kids now, I would move. I believe states that have portals for minors (parents not included) push pronouns and GI over them. To me it is a red flag.
Short of that, maybe you can find a pediatrican via Genspect? I don't know. Some states are making it hard for a doctor not to follow GI.
Maybe we can push this all back before it is relevant to your kids?
The lawsuit against the AAP is promising:
https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/10/Ayala-v-AAP-Complaint_stamped.pdf
https://www.dailywire.com/news/exclusive-american-academy-of-pediatrics-named-in-bombshell-detransitioner-lawsuit
I have lived in France since my daughter had me arrested one night before Christmas for, among other horrendous accusations, failing to use her male pronouns and name. It is a wonder that you only enjoy something once you come to realize that you have it, or the lack thereof in this case. No one asks for your pronouns and I delight in the freedom of thought. Back in the UK, I had been so scared of losing it. Don't get me wrong, France is itself a battlefield for activist doctors and surgeons and silent politicians, but there seems to lack the level of harassment I experienced elsewhere.
I think it was Peter Boghossian who said that wokeness travels in English speaking countries, and less so elsewhere. The reason is that English is the language predominately used in online forums like Reddit, so non-English speakers have some protection.
I was always a bit of a misanthrope, but after seeing this gender madness sweep through society, and get endorsed by people who should know better. I have concluded that I was overly optimistic in my assessment of humanity. Our society is full of naivete, ignorance, foolishness, stupidity, and actual malice.
This writing is wonderful despite the awfulness of what you write about. You truly have captured the absolutely depleting effects of the trans infection of our minds through the societies we are embedded in. I want everyone I know to read this piece. I think if you feel able, you should expand it. I feel the kernel of a great work of literature born of your pain and suffering and incredible insightfulness is here. Your perception needs to be shared and fully. Keep strong and keep hope.
Very well said, agreed
We MUST stop seeing "trans" as a thing someone can actually be. There quite literally is no such thing.
Remember not so long ago when we told tomboy girls and effeminate boys that behavioral norms and tastes, such as in toys (Barbie vs GI Joe) and clothing colors (pink or blue), didn't matter and that it's ok to be how they are, with the underlying notion being it's ok if you end up being a lesbian or a gay man? Stereotypes were bad. But these ideas morphed (on purpose) into "gender roles" pushed by men with fetishes they sought to normalize, chiefly autogynephelia, but also pedophilia. This further morphed into telling kids - spreading the word in schools, no less, disguised as necessary sex education - that being "gender diverse" was brave and praise-worthy and we should celebrate this all under the same umbrella, and they even gave opposition to these whacked (and women's rights-erasing) ideas the name "transphobia" so as to conflate it with the well-established-as-bad "homophobia." (They did this on purpose, I promise you.) And on top of that they've inundated little kids, with a lot of well-meaning but wrong adults' help, with ideas about how maybe they are trans because they like Barbies despite being little boys. Parents and other adults have failed them miserably and can't see that fact, but truly must. What do you think happens to little girls taught to hate their bodies, disassociate from the realities of their breasts and periods as if they are diseased and disgusted? When I was a young girl I was massively unhappy and fixated on the things I didn't like about my body. But no one was telling me I was right and valid to criticize what I saw in the mirror and presented outwardly. They didn't "affirm" my somewhat normal, and normally awkward, stage of developing into a woman. What the actual FUCK are we doing to the girls, telling them to step aside while the pretend boy takes their trophies and prizes and athletic scholarships? And how shameful is it we've encouraged and even demanded they listen to the doctors and therapists, also fully inundated and indoctrinated to immediately and unquestioningly affirm their delusions or risk losing their licenses if they show "hate" to kids seeking relief that definitely won't come along with the roid rage from the T, the sliced off body parts and permanent sterility, and eventually assured but likely fiercely denied (because they are in a cult) regret.
By the way, although "gender dysphoria" made it into the DSM it's there because it's been pushed by those clearly in line to profit from the massively growing numbers of people seeking "gender affirming care" benefitting BigPharma and very soon hiking the profits for BigFertility. Kids cannot "be" trans. They can be, at some point, same-sex attracted, which sometimes comes along w mannerisms and behaviors we have come to expect in gay culture circles.
Adults can't "be" trans. They can decide to embrace their fetish or the lies they have heard and in fact shoved down their throats for years.
Stop promulgating this by using terms like "biological women" and just use "women" when you mean women. Stop allowing yourself to support people's wholly manufactured notions that there is a grey area between the very straightforward distinctions between men and women.
I'd suggest reading about John Money and the truth about Foucault and "queer theory" and the real roots of "gender ideology.
Read these women's works: Helen Joyce, Kara Dansky, Kathleen Stock, and Jennifer Bilek's https://www.the11thhourblog.com/. There are many more these will lead you to discover.
I ask you to start correcting people that blame feminists or women or women's studies programs for this. The feminists called this out long ago, but have been throttled effectively by the men with all too many gaslit women joining in the chorus of criticizing other women. Also look into the absolute psychotic monster that is Martine Rothblatt and the Pritzger family (maybe worse, quite possibly even MORE dangerous than the Sacklers, if you can even fathom such a thing), and understand that this has been a psyop from the start, and they are coming for your kids.
More and more people waking up to this. Look after yourself now and your husband as there is always hope and like the burned trees.. given time he may well come back and he will need you both .. so keep healthy and as strong as possible. Love and respect and prayers for you
This is such a gripping and powerful account. I have only read about the gender cult. I haven’t been personally affected - I haven’t even been asked my pronouns. Nonetheless I find the experiences of others gripping. I am mystified that seemingly all intelligent, otherwise good go along with this. I hope you get your son back.
Your pain is palpable and matches my own. My 18 year old daughter has announced she will be attending “her” Gender Clinic on Thursday at 2pm and wants to start on Testosterone before we travel to the US on holidays as a family. I asked her what her Therapist had advised her after 6 or 7 sessions and she replied “Yep all good she’s happy for me to go ahead!” (Here was I thinking the Therapist would get to the bottom of my daughter’s delusional thinking and help her at least desist but alas no.) We had a massive screaming match as soon as I mentioned a group I belong to called “Binary” are calling for a Royal Commission into Publicly Funded Gender Clinics and their suspect claims of Gender Affirmative “Care“. She just said I was stupid, ill-informed and didn’t know the “Science!” I’m back to square one feeling gut punched again and scrambling for a way to accept the unacceptable and to save my sanity, my health and my marriage. I’ve started reading Dr Miriam Grossman’s book “Lost in Trans Nation” because I desperately need to find the voices of reason in this nightmare world we find ourselves in. Please let your son see logic and sense and return to his real life in your loving arms.
Wonderful essay. You put into words what we have been feeling about our son, who announced in 2017 that he was trans at age 37.5. Since he was career military and his assignments were far away from us, we tried to be loving and focus on the positive in letters and e-mails. About six weeks ago, he separated from the service and relocated two hours away from us. We had hoped the first meeting could be with other “normal” family members so we could dilute our attention to his and his “wife’s” drag presentations. Unfortunately he had developed new seasonal allergies, got tested and with our state’s 40 PCR cycles, of course he was positive. They begged off. Now, we will have to with them,the two of us, and the two of them (two middle aged men in drag) by ourselves. Worse, in a public restaurant where their bizarre appearance will surely generate stares in a conservative county of the state (where we agreed to meet). We are both dreading it.
Our son was a 6’2” handsome man with blue eyes, blond wavy hair, an infectious smile, and great military bearing. Now, from his FB posts, I see he is balding, dyes his hair a lurid color of red, has boobs, and thinks he is convincing as a female with size 14 feet. No one talks about female appropriation. I was once a 1980’s feminist in my younger, less aware days. It offends what is left of my feminist mind set to see men pretending to be woman and presuming they know what it is like to grow up female in a world that has been more male centric than not in my life thus far. It actually enrages me and I have no place to put all that, so I stuff it down.
Thank God, and I seriously mean that, we are moving from the PNW to the middle of the country by March of next year and our contact face to face will lessen or cease. Don’t even get me started on grandchildren. We have six but have relationships with two. They just moved across the country a week ago. My younger two children imagine themselves trans. We have never met our son’s children as visiting grandparents was never on his list when he was married to his children’s mother, not to mention being deployed across the country or in a foreign country for the past twenty two years. His children are 17 and 14. My youngest, daughter, has not allowed us contact with her daughter since our granddaughter was five, for differences in political viewpoints. She is now 12. My oldest’s son is in college and was raised by his mother after they split up. My son renewed his relationship with his son about six years ago. We have never been given an acknowledgment or thank you for gifts from him, our oldest grandson. Same with my younger son’s two children, who live with their mother since the divorce, precipitated by the trans announcement. Same with my youngest daughter and her daughter. We were told it offends our daughter to gets gifts from us, so we quit sending her gifts. We still send to our granddaughter, however, but who knows if she is even told who sent the gift.
I changed my Will recently. It seems petty but the only ones who will get an inheritance from my estate if my husband passes before me are those who kept the names I gave them at birth, with the allowance for spousal surnames. I know it will be highly offensive to them, but I see it this way - I put a lot of thought into choosing names for them (oldest son named after my ex’s two grandfathers; oldest daughter named after my great aunt who was my connection to my grandfather who passed when my dad was only 8 years old; younger son was named after that grandfather, a man I never knew but who touched many lives; and my youngest daughter named after my older sister, who passed away before I was born and who was an invisible presence in my life growing up as I had no other sister, just brothers). The two youngest named themselves after role playing game characters. I just smack my head. They have no appreciation for how offended I feel that they discarded the names I gave them for fantasy names. Or, how offended and hurt I feel at their pretend “genders.” I literally read (and followed) the book on how to choose the sex of your baby for both of them. It isn’t guaranteed (more like 80%) but it worked in both cases. I made them. I should know what sex they are. DNA doesn’t lie.
We are living in an alternate universe. I want out. I want my old life back.
Thank you for this essay, so well capturing what we parents endure and what our lives are like. I have walked this same journey, every step, all the heartache. My heart goes out to you!
Thank you for sharing your pain. I too hope that I will love to see the end of this hideous cult.
I need you all so much. It’s as if I wrote this essay, but my son is 22. I’m so sad and lonely all the time. I cling to my husband and daughter and other son. I pray daily- numerous times a day. I function, but barely.