Live and Learn

Its been one full year since my adult son told me he is a girl. And that his two sisters, and my government agree. My worldview has had a extreme awakening since then!

It’s been a crazy year since my world changed on a rainy spring day in 2023, after I casually commented on the local news, saying, “Drag queens in school are wrong. It’s like they are trying to sexualize and desensitize our children. Is the Canadian government grooming children?”.

Then my usually non-reactionary, gentle, loving, autist, adult son couldn’t hold back and blurted out “It’s helping kids that might be LBGT know it’s okay to be themselves! And I should know, because… I Am Trans!”

I was dumbfounded! I think I replied, “No you’re not!” But it’s kind of a blur.

I recall that he went on to explain how “Sex and gender are different things and can be mismatched. The doctor only assumes your gender based on your genitals, but genitals don’t indicate your gender. I feel more like a woman than a man, I feel more in touch with my authentic self as a girl”.

WTF??

I knew a few trans people, and I had kinda accepted them, I honestly never really gave the whole gender identity fad much thought. Truthfully, I felt sad for them. I understood that they are suffering a mental delusion and the best we can do for them is to play along. But everyone knows you can’t really change your biological sex, right? That we’re all just going along with them, pretending they are the opposite sex, to be nice. I didn’t think it was hurting anyone. Isn’t it just about accepting that everyone is free to be who they are, and keeping the bullies away?

I don’t think that anymore.

My son is 23 years old. He is very sensitive, but masculine, like his father. He looks, moves, acts, eats and smells, like a boy! I raised two girls and one boy, and trust me, they are NOT the same!!

Yeah, I had noticed that he has been changing his style a bit, and the nail polish. But so what; he is young, single and just trying to find his own style in these progressive times. I admired his confidence to express himself and not be a stereotype.

But style doesn’t make him a girl! And neither does his feelings!

He almost immediately regretted coming out to me and asked me not to tell his (already emotionally distant) father. I tried, but when he told me he was starting estrogen a few weeks later, I couldn’t keep it to myself. I think he was originally holding off telling us, because in his gut he knew we wouldn’t go along with his lie. We didn’t, and it’s now also been a full year since he and his father have spoken.

He had planned to wait until after the estrogen started to have an effect before telling either of us. He created a fairy tale in his mind that if only we could see how happy he has become with transition we would go along with the lie and affirm. Just like his sisters did two years ago, when he first came to this ridiculous conclusion about himself. [After being isolated in his room for over a year, when he should be away at college and experiencing his real sexual awakening!]

His news totally sabotaged my summer and sent me spiraling. I lost interest in everything I used to care about and spent every waking moment learning WTF is going on in the world! What’s happening right in front of us? How are we asleep and not seeing it? How can he think he is born in the wrong body? Who told him that was an option? I have heard that saying, but I didn’t think that anyone really thought that? It makes no sense to me, we are born who we are, how can we just deny physical reality?

How on earth can he truly believe that he can become a woman, like me? He obviously has no uterus, but he tells me he can be every bit the woman I am (in all the so-called socially constructed ways that a woman is a woman), just by claiming it! NO, he can’t! That is extremely disrespectful! And just silly!

Maybe he is gay and struggling with that? I thought he was just shy from the autism, and, besides, who cares if he is gay? I am sure he knows we can accept that no problem, but trans? And he wants to change his name, take hormones for the rest of his life, and maybe irreversible major surgery? Wait! What? Oh, my sweet boy.

This is when I also first discovered that he doesn’t believe in God, or any creator, and feels he can be his own god, and design himself, in his own imagination! And his sisters agree with this blasphemy! Sure, we didn’t go to church, but I always told them that we have (some kind of) a divine creator.

At first, I felt like I failed as a mother. I had allowed my children to be captured by a cult! (My mother and grandmother are turning over in their graves).

Then as I started to wrap my head around his thinking, every instinct I have told me I have to fight like a mama bear for my cubs. I wasn’t put on this earth to be a victim. I must have a role to play in this.

But how to fight it? It’s everywhere. The flags are flying at school, government, doctor, even the church. And most of society tells me I should just accept it, and even celebrate it!! And that I must be a terrible hateful person if I don’t go along.

Then, like a divine message, an amazing group of local PEI Parents, put out an information flyer that caused a bit of stir in the local news. I reached out immediately. I was so happy to know that others on PEI also saw what I saw. They all shared the common concern over the harms to vulnerable children and that parents are losing the right to raise their own kids.

They warmly accepted me and told me about a support group for non-affirming parents called Our Duty Canada. I connected online soon after and also found an ROGD (Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria) group specific for parents of adult males caught in this social contagion and trying to transition to female. The support has made a huge difference. Knowing I am not alone is both comforting and heartbreaking. It has led me into a world I wish didn’t exist, but does, so I am learning all I can to better navigate these dark times.

One of the kind and caring PEI Parents that I hadn’t even met yet in person, gifted me an audio book of Lost in Trans Nation by Miriam Grossman. It confirmed for me that I am not a so-called bigot, and just an honest, caring and loving parent.

I just needed to find the right words to reach my son, and his two influential sisters. It can’t be too late to wake them up to reality.

That lead me to YouTube. I discovered podcasts. I discovered Gender: A Wider Lens. I found Benjamin Boyce, Leslie Elliot, Keri Smith, and so many more, wise gender critical voices that are speaking to exactly what I was feeling.

I found The Canadian Gender Wars Report and Billboard Chris. I listened to Jordan Peterson and discovered what is happening in Canada with Free Speech laws and Parental rights and I was activated to help fight back.

I found PITT/substack and read about many other parents also struggling with this nightmare. I found comfort in writing and sharing about my own situation in Sister Mother.

I have found real hope listening to detransistioners like Ray Williams, Chole Cole and many others that are bravely surfacing daily. And will continue to, as more harms are exposed from WPATH and the people that fund it!

I learned that some LGBT people are not woke and affirming, especially of children. And I learned about TERFs, and started to realize just what is happening to woman’s rights and safety in my county. As a woman and mother of two actual daughters, I am very fearful of where this is going.

I found James Lindsey and learned about the cultural Marxism called DEI that is at the root of this whole evil new belief system. DEI programs, (and the government departments and corporations that promote and fund them), are responsible for teaching the teachers and the media to say that the emperor has clothes! And everyone has been bullied into denying what their own eyes are telling them.

I don’t feel like the same person I was a year ago. I have been angry with myself for not seeing this coming and protecting my children from it. I am angry at the government and school for lying to my children and society. I am frustrated with my neighbors that are blindly going along with this destabilizing narrative. I was heartbroken when imagining a future with childless, grown, mentally damaged children, that are willing to sacrifice themselves to live a lie and accept a life of pharmaceutical slavery.

This whole experience has sent me running back to my God-fearing roots. Growing up I was raised with some religion, but it wasn’t forced on me. Luckily, I had my loving mother and grandmother as Christian role models. But I dropped the ball and told my kids about a creator that could be called whatever doesn’t offend anyone. Crap like the universe, mother earth, higher power and source energy… WTF was I talking about? My heart was in the right place, but I had also lost God, and played along with sin for way too long.

The pain and misery that comes from being a helplessness witness to your children’s pointless suffering was just what I needed, I guess, to reconnect me to God.

I had no choice but to either accept this lie and celebrate sin or stand in truth and put it in Gods’ hands. I choose truth. I turned to God, for the first time in my adult life, I prayed and it worked! He showed me that this will pass, I can put my trust in Him, and I will have peace in my heart. At least something good has come from this nightmare.

My son has accepted that I will never affirm him as something he isn’t, he can express and present himself however he wants to, but he will always be a boy to me, and thankfully he is still in my life. Our family food ties run deep and he can still be called back home to break bread when occasions come. I will love and support him in all the normal ways a good mother does. I will never stop trying to gracefully reach him and his two anxious sister allies. I will be the solid base they will all need when they are ready to accept reality.

Maybe next year I will be submitting the story of how my son survived this evil possession and has come to accept himself completely. Maybe that he has found love outside of himself and that he, maybe, will even find God too! That’s what I’ll be praying for daily so, ya never know? Miracles happen every day when you let go and let God. Having faith means not worrying about the details, because its Gods plan not mine.