My daughter was in middle school when she had her first major depressive episode. I knew she was being very quiet – but then she’d always been a quiet child. I knew she had social issues at school – but she did have one good friend, who had now moved away but with whom she was still in touch. And a few new ones. I knew she was worried about her friend, to the point of wondering if the friend was suicidal – but I didn’t know she was projecting her own issues on the friend.
I am sick to death of self diagnosed pathologizing. Its damaging, often useless. Mental Health issue as an identity. How sad is that. Totally relate to you mama. Our daughter is in her 2nd year of college. Our relationship is strained at a time when most kids enjoy parental support. Parents are made to feel they are wrong, abusive, stupid and bigoted. Its a hard row to hoe. Just hoping that great equalizer, maturity kicks in at some point. I've never felt so alone or angry as when I went to the PFLAG trans support group and was told I just needed to accept everything without question.
Your story sounds a lot like my own. It is so difficult to deal with mental health and gender dysphoria at the same time, when the gender ideology is every where, society and governments seems so sportive of the gender ideology not of the wellbeing of the child.
We parents are left to pick up the pieces and deal with our own mental distress and our children wellbeing. It feels like everyone is agains you. People also is saying, that they have to protect the children from their own parents. It is a nightmare!
Be firm in your beliefs, not harsh. Be respectful with love. Find power in simplicity and let go, but not of your affection. This will make you stand out clearly against the noisy background. Be aware of your confusion, own it. "I don't know what all of this means, but it scares me, because I seem to be able to see, what it does to you. I am your mother, but I am also an adult. I have my opinions, but being older gives me a bit broader perspective. I know what it means to be your age. Things changed a lot since I was that young and you cannot understand that, because this is all you know! It is like coming out of the cinema and talking to someone just going in, you know. I love you and I want you to be well. This world is a dangerous place. Parents are there to help protect their offspring, that is you, chuckle. You are my child and I love you so much. When you have a child, there will be feelings so natural, that you can not even imagine. Why call me fearful of something that I know to be bad, dangerous and seductive. Look, your father and I, you know, we were not the perfect couple. We fought, we broke up, we cried and slept alone in an empty bed. There is a lot of suffering out there in the world and neither did we always succeed in creating that safe and reliable place you call home. It is a mess, I know, but I love you. I want to let you go and see you grow up. I want to know that you become the best person in the world, who is strong and confident, who loves to have friends and learn new things. This is all I can say, because I love you. I want you to feel free. Now let's look together at the world and don't run away. See that yonder rainbow over the lake, that is the sunlight refracted in billions of tiny droplets. It is the magic of nature and your life can be like that, but first you have to realise who you really are and it is not what they pretend to know. Your love, your life, this tiny light that dances in the center of your mind, this is what you are, love, consciousness, God. Be simple in your attitude. Let yourself be free. Illusions are everywhere, see beyond them. That is the way to clarity. Now let's eat some!" (...)
The best thing you can do for your daughter is lots and lots and lots and even more exposure to nature. Playing with the animals is good, add to this visits to parks, national parks, anything. I know from myself that this is among the best medicine, for just about anything, and especially these society-induced feelings of being wrong, which causes depression, and, and, and... A lot has been written about how nature heals us, from neglected children to war veterans, and here is another article I came across recently: https://www.yesmagazine.org/health-happiness/2018/02/08/one-more-benefit-of-nature-it-makes-you-like-your-body-better
Sylvia, this to me is one of the best comments I have read on the SS with all these stories over the year. I always had all my kids outdoors, camping, going to beaches, hikes in woods and up to the snow. Even lived in a woodsy area half their childhood. Seems as 30 something adults they have forgotten nature. I am hoping to buy a small piece of land somewhere in the west and get everyone I know to it. Thank you for the link to the YES article as well~
it out as fascistic: a government+corporation enabled means of subjugation. It's being used to infiltrate societies (those vulnerable to & valuable for targeting) around the world. Freighting on preexisting mental disorders it induces ideological possession in primary victims and provides an irrational sophist (shielding from reasonable discourse) worldview enabling violence and furthering chaos. Lesbians, gays, women, liberal whites and progress made in race relations are some of its victims and even those who seem to benefit are also deeply injured … only differently.
I view this weaponized phenomenon as one
feature of a global war on humanity itself
both an intentional and emergent happening
to the benefit of a parasite class. They are VASTLY outnumbered and NEED to weaken, and divide people. They cannot win unless we fight one another.
"Can’t wait to get her out of school and away from the in-person peer support system," Ma'am, what do you think college will be? "Higher ed" will only make things worse.
Such a great summary - it's like they are all reading the same blog. These people that coach these girls should all be arrested for crimes against humanity.
You are a good mother. My husband are I are just beginning parenthood with our one year old. We have a lot to prepare for...May I suggest Healy frequency therapy? There are plenty of programs to run that can bring us back to who we are. The outside influences are brutal for our children!
This is my life experience as well. My daughters believed it would solve all their problems if they were diagnosed with some mental illness. One of them had a cake and had friends over like a bday party when she got a diagnosis of ADHD. She got on antidepressants and ADHD medicine and a few months later took herself off them because they weren’t working. She asked to go get diagnosed for autism but I didn’t pursue that and she didn’t keep pushing, thankfully. She would not have believed them if they said she didn’t have it anyways.
I'm estranged from both my daughters who believe I'm a terf monster. They now live together, the 13 year old with the transidentified adult teen and the family has simply imploded which only a year ago would have been unthinkable.
I feel your pain. In late 2020 and into 2021, our family was also imploding. Two of our three daughters identified as "trans", brought on by a lot of time spent online during the Covid lockdowns. They coached each other, watched a lot of anime and talked about femme boys and how each character represented some weird gender or other. They appeared to be acting out as gay males. They both shaved their heads at one point. They hated both my husband and I and talked about moving North to live with their older sister, who also hated us because we didn't automatically affirm our younger daughters' delusions. I first heard the term "terf" during this time.
My youngest talked about surgeries and hormones and mentioned suicide if she couldn't get them. She wore a binder for months, somehow given to her by a friend of hers. Both daughters had meltdowns if we referred to them as girls. They wouldn't eat meals with us or be in the same room with us. Christmas was horrible. Our three daughters were together with us then and their pact against us was humiliating, demoralizing and frankly, terrifying.
The strains in our marriage began to show. I thought of nothing but the gender ideology nightmare that we were in. I spent hours researching, which is how I landed in this group. My husband and I talked about one of us taking one girl and moving away to get them away from each other. At one point, I checked myself into the emergency room as I was having an all-out panic attack. I began seeing a psychiatrist shortly after and was on anti-depressants and anti-anxiety meds for about a year. Although I never would have done anything, I thought about walking out into traffic. I didn't want to die. I just wanted to end the pain.
About eight months after the delusions and chaos began, our youngest decided she was a girl again. The fake name took another two years to be dropped altogether, partly because her friends, sisters and teachers addressed her by it. She told me that trans stuff wasn't real and how toxic and misogynist it all was. She figured all this out without any help from us, her parents. My middle kid still thinks she's non-binary.
Advice to you for what it's worth-When my youngest sent me a link to a video during the trans identity time, she texted me and said, "Watch this, it's what I am, whether you like it or not." We had a conversation about it later that day. She said, "I'm trans and you can take it or leave it. Do you believe what I'm telling you?" I replied, "I believe that you believe it" and left it at that. I never agreed with her delusions. I always tried addressing her directly, not calling her by her new name. Sometimes, I used her "deadname" and she would hurl abuse at me. She was seeing a psychologist for an issue with eating. I don't know if they discussed the gender thing.
When she insisted on seeing a "gender therapist", my spouse and I had a meeting with an infamous clinic head, who began talking about puberty blockers within about 15 min. My red flags went up. I later discovered the book Irreversible Damage by Abigail Shrier. I held my youngest off by telling her I was looking for a therapist, but many were booked up or weren't taking patients because of Covid. That was partly true. I believe Sasha Ayad's advice that no therapy is better than bad therapy. For us, that was true.
I am beyond thankful that our youngest girl got out of the trans cult. Sadly, we are still hoping for our middle girl to figure it out. She's 19 and has other mental health issues. She talks about having a double mastectomy.
Stay in touch in any way you can with your daughters but try not to support their beliefs as much as is possible. If there's any way you can let them know you love them by not getting into a conversation about gender, do it. That's what I am trying with my 19 yr. old, who was away at college for a year but had to return home. I don't know what the future will bring. Get help for yourself and be kind to yourself. Best to you. xxx
I can't imagine what that was like. You must have felt so alone. I'm so sorry but it's so great to hear that your youngest has come out the other side. I hope that your oldest daughter sees now how lucky your youngest is that you didn't support her transition. What would she have said to you if your youngest transitioned and regretted it?
Thank-you, Ebdc, It's actually our middle one who is still "drinking the Kool-aid" as our youngest now puts it. (The irony would be laughable if it weren't so painful.) I see these parents having to stand by as a "gender physician" tells them their kids need hormones or they will kill themselves. It's an atrocity. I feel it could have been me, still fighting for my youngest. One of her friends (age 16) is on testosterone. It's heart-breaking. They don't talk anymore. The bizarre thing is, my youngest doesn't remember a lot of what went on during those dark months. I don't think she remembers the abuse hurled at my husband and I. We don't talk a lot about it.
Also, maybe your older daughter can help (the one who lives up North). You mentioned that she was mad at you and your husband for not affirming the young two. Hopefully she understands that your youngest would have been hurt if you affirmed her identity and sees how awful it would have been if your youngest had medically transitioned before deciding she wasn't trans.
The burden of parenting is not something most people can understand until they become a parent. There is a lot of "turning the other cheek." Hopefully with time, your girls will understand what you went through for them and be humbled by it. But it's possible that your youngest can't face what she did yet (or maybe she never thought about it). I know it doesn't make you feel any better but clearly you are doing a darn good job. Fighting against this tide is no easy task and you were able to save one of your daughters from lifelong medicalization (and it sounds like there is still hope for the other one).
I'm pretty hard on a lot of the parents here who tell tell these stories, particularly the ones that start with "I'm a good liberal but..." However, this one really got me. Sure, I could rail about home education and taking away her smartphone (I have before)... and maybe those things would have worked. Maybe not. But every family's circumstances are different, and it sounds like you're doing everything you can in your circumstances.
You're a brave person, and it makes me angry that keeping your daughter alive and healthy requires you to fight against an entire society that has lost its collective mind. But keep fighting it.
Being countercultural is REALLY hard. Homeschoolers know this; we have support groups and conventions where we get together to remind ourselves that we're not insane. That's what PITT is too -- a place where everyone can be reminded that they're not alone, and they're not crazy.
You're right about the mental illness gold stars! I can't tell you how many times a young person, store clerk or server, apologizes for a mistake by saying, "Well, I have ___________." Fill in the blank with ADHD, OCD, anxiety, Tourette's ... I told my husband, we used to keep such things to ourselves; now they seem proud of it.
In fact, sometimes kids don't actually have these conditions. For instance, fake Tourette's is widespread among girls. They display their "symptoms" for each other on TikTok.
Wow. My heart breaks for you but I also want to say well done you're doing a great job at loving your daughter. These sorts of stories are so important to hear and help me as a father of two young daughters who at the age of 6 are already being exposed to this ideological nonsense in their school make sure I keep the fight going. Bless you.
I'm a former teacher and have commented on Facebook that teachers need to stop pushing gender ideology, having lessons on pronouns and reading books like I am Jazz! I feel for all parents of young kids today. They are up against a lot of ideology. Check out this list from the Boston Public Library.
You are doing great -- bravissima. I agree that we have to put the information out there, as you put it, regarding the health impact of medical interventions. Here's a tip to parents of ROGD girls: one day about a year ago, just before mine went off to college, I three something out there: "You probably don't know that on testosterone the genitals change. The clitoris enlarges. Yes, it does. It grows and eventually hangs down like a baby carrot." She immediately went silent, and I could see the wheels turning in her head. Just the fact of hearing me using the word clitoris must have been surprising. I am sure she went off and starting Googling that, and I know she must have found out that what I said was true. Here's another tip: when it seemed all but inevitable that she would access medicalisation using the mandatory college health insurance, I made her a financial incentive. A certain sum of money for every year that she delays medicalisation, up until age 26. The money goes into a trust fund and will be there for her to use as she wishes if she reaches that age without medicalising. At first she scoffed at it, but a few months later when she was home on a short break from college, she said she hadn't started any treatments yet "because I really haven't had the time. But I'm definitely going to do it at some point in my life!" I restrained myself from doing a few cartwheels, remained calm, and said, "It's good you're tell me this, because I've been wondering whether I should go ahead and set up that trust fund we talked about." She came back with, "Yes, go ahead with it." I don't know what will happen. She is almost 20, and pretty engaged in her studies, internship, etc. and looking forward to career, etc. My husband and I are hoping she will delay until 26, when her brain development is complete. But it could go either way. Right now it's a day at a time, and she is calling and texting frequently, full of chatter about her internship experiences. I am grateful for today.
I am sick to death of self diagnosed pathologizing. Its damaging, often useless. Mental Health issue as an identity. How sad is that. Totally relate to you mama. Our daughter is in her 2nd year of college. Our relationship is strained at a time when most kids enjoy parental support. Parents are made to feel they are wrong, abusive, stupid and bigoted. Its a hard row to hoe. Just hoping that great equalizer, maturity kicks in at some point. I've never felt so alone or angry as when I went to the PFLAG trans support group and was told I just needed to accept everything without question.
Your story sounds a lot like my own. It is so difficult to deal with mental health and gender dysphoria at the same time, when the gender ideology is every where, society and governments seems so sportive of the gender ideology not of the wellbeing of the child.
We parents are left to pick up the pieces and deal with our own mental distress and our children wellbeing. It feels like everyone is agains you. People also is saying, that they have to protect the children from their own parents. It is a nightmare!
Be firm in your beliefs, not harsh. Be respectful with love. Find power in simplicity and let go, but not of your affection. This will make you stand out clearly against the noisy background. Be aware of your confusion, own it. "I don't know what all of this means, but it scares me, because I seem to be able to see, what it does to you. I am your mother, but I am also an adult. I have my opinions, but being older gives me a bit broader perspective. I know what it means to be your age. Things changed a lot since I was that young and you cannot understand that, because this is all you know! It is like coming out of the cinema and talking to someone just going in, you know. I love you and I want you to be well. This world is a dangerous place. Parents are there to help protect their offspring, that is you, chuckle. You are my child and I love you so much. When you have a child, there will be feelings so natural, that you can not even imagine. Why call me fearful of something that I know to be bad, dangerous and seductive. Look, your father and I, you know, we were not the perfect couple. We fought, we broke up, we cried and slept alone in an empty bed. There is a lot of suffering out there in the world and neither did we always succeed in creating that safe and reliable place you call home. It is a mess, I know, but I love you. I want to let you go and see you grow up. I want to know that you become the best person in the world, who is strong and confident, who loves to have friends and learn new things. This is all I can say, because I love you. I want you to feel free. Now let's look together at the world and don't run away. See that yonder rainbow over the lake, that is the sunlight refracted in billions of tiny droplets. It is the magic of nature and your life can be like that, but first you have to realise who you really are and it is not what they pretend to know. Your love, your life, this tiny light that dances in the center of your mind, this is what you are, love, consciousness, God. Be simple in your attitude. Let yourself be free. Illusions are everywhere, see beyond them. That is the way to clarity. Now let's eat some!" (...)
The best thing you can do for your daughter is lots and lots and lots and even more exposure to nature. Playing with the animals is good, add to this visits to parks, national parks, anything. I know from myself that this is among the best medicine, for just about anything, and especially these society-induced feelings of being wrong, which causes depression, and, and, and... A lot has been written about how nature heals us, from neglected children to war veterans, and here is another article I came across recently: https://www.yesmagazine.org/health-happiness/2018/02/08/one-more-benefit-of-nature-it-makes-you-like-your-body-better
All the best to you and your daughter! 🙏🏼🌹
Sylvia, this to me is one of the best comments I have read on the SS with all these stories over the year. I always had all my kids outdoors, camping, going to beaches, hikes in woods and up to the snow. Even lived in a woodsy area half their childhood. Seems as 30 something adults they have forgotten nature. I am hoping to buy a small piece of land somewhere in the west and get everyone I know to it. Thank you for the link to the YES article as well~
Now that we destigmatized mental illness, let's destigmatize mental wellness.
Mental Illness is now a fetish.
Heck yeah! Put that on a t-shirt! Love it!
CRT & woke genderqueer were built to sow
chaos.
Even the old school Communists call
it out as fascistic: a government+corporation enabled means of subjugation. It's being used to infiltrate societies (those vulnerable to & valuable for targeting) around the world. Freighting on preexisting mental disorders it induces ideological possession in primary victims and provides an irrational sophist (shielding from reasonable discourse) worldview enabling violence and furthering chaos. Lesbians, gays, women, liberal whites and progress made in race relations are some of its victims and even those who seem to benefit are also deeply injured … only differently.
I view this weaponized phenomenon as one
feature of a global war on humanity itself
both an intentional and emergent happening
to the benefit of a parasite class. They are VASTLY outnumbered and NEED to weaken, and divide people. They cannot win unless we fight one another.
Blessings & courage upon all who
stand free, do not comply with and oppose
this scapegoating madness.
It's not in a vaccum.
Social engineering is happening.
Who's at the helm?
And, why?
Who's benefiting by the chaos?
Find those answers.
Then, the wild merry go round can be stopped.
Meanwhile, heartbreak and family breakdowns continue.
Sad for all of us.
"Can’t wait to get her out of school and away from the in-person peer support system," Ma'am, what do you think college will be? "Higher ed" will only make things worse.
Such a great summary - it's like they are all reading the same blog. These people that coach these girls should all be arrested for crimes against humanity.
You are a good mother. My husband are I are just beginning parenthood with our one year old. We have a lot to prepare for...May I suggest Healy frequency therapy? There are plenty of programs to run that can bring us back to who we are. The outside influences are brutal for our children!
This is my life experience as well. My daughters believed it would solve all their problems if they were diagnosed with some mental illness. One of them had a cake and had friends over like a bday party when she got a diagnosis of ADHD. She got on antidepressants and ADHD medicine and a few months later took herself off them because they weren’t working. She asked to go get diagnosed for autism but I didn’t pursue that and she didn’t keep pushing, thankfully. She would not have believed them if they said she didn’t have it anyways.
It maybe a small consolation but good for her for taking herself of the unnecessary meds. It takes strength and determination to do that.
I could have written this myself. Thanks so much for sharing!
I'm estranged from both my daughters who believe I'm a terf monster. They now live together, the 13 year old with the transidentified adult teen and the family has simply imploded which only a year ago would have been unthinkable.
I feel your pain. In late 2020 and into 2021, our family was also imploding. Two of our three daughters identified as "trans", brought on by a lot of time spent online during the Covid lockdowns. They coached each other, watched a lot of anime and talked about femme boys and how each character represented some weird gender or other. They appeared to be acting out as gay males. They both shaved their heads at one point. They hated both my husband and I and talked about moving North to live with their older sister, who also hated us because we didn't automatically affirm our younger daughters' delusions. I first heard the term "terf" during this time.
My youngest talked about surgeries and hormones and mentioned suicide if she couldn't get them. She wore a binder for months, somehow given to her by a friend of hers. Both daughters had meltdowns if we referred to them as girls. They wouldn't eat meals with us or be in the same room with us. Christmas was horrible. Our three daughters were together with us then and their pact against us was humiliating, demoralizing and frankly, terrifying.
The strains in our marriage began to show. I thought of nothing but the gender ideology nightmare that we were in. I spent hours researching, which is how I landed in this group. My husband and I talked about one of us taking one girl and moving away to get them away from each other. At one point, I checked myself into the emergency room as I was having an all-out panic attack. I began seeing a psychiatrist shortly after and was on anti-depressants and anti-anxiety meds for about a year. Although I never would have done anything, I thought about walking out into traffic. I didn't want to die. I just wanted to end the pain.
About eight months after the delusions and chaos began, our youngest decided she was a girl again. The fake name took another two years to be dropped altogether, partly because her friends, sisters and teachers addressed her by it. She told me that trans stuff wasn't real and how toxic and misogynist it all was. She figured all this out without any help from us, her parents. My middle kid still thinks she's non-binary.
Advice to you for what it's worth-When my youngest sent me a link to a video during the trans identity time, she texted me and said, "Watch this, it's what I am, whether you like it or not." We had a conversation about it later that day. She said, "I'm trans and you can take it or leave it. Do you believe what I'm telling you?" I replied, "I believe that you believe it" and left it at that. I never agreed with her delusions. I always tried addressing her directly, not calling her by her new name. Sometimes, I used her "deadname" and she would hurl abuse at me. She was seeing a psychologist for an issue with eating. I don't know if they discussed the gender thing.
When she insisted on seeing a "gender therapist", my spouse and I had a meeting with an infamous clinic head, who began talking about puberty blockers within about 15 min. My red flags went up. I later discovered the book Irreversible Damage by Abigail Shrier. I held my youngest off by telling her I was looking for a therapist, but many were booked up or weren't taking patients because of Covid. That was partly true. I believe Sasha Ayad's advice that no therapy is better than bad therapy. For us, that was true.
I am beyond thankful that our youngest girl got out of the trans cult. Sadly, we are still hoping for our middle girl to figure it out. She's 19 and has other mental health issues. She talks about having a double mastectomy.
Stay in touch in any way you can with your daughters but try not to support their beliefs as much as is possible. If there's any way you can let them know you love them by not getting into a conversation about gender, do it. That's what I am trying with my 19 yr. old, who was away at college for a year but had to return home. I don't know what the future will bring. Get help for yourself and be kind to yourself. Best to you. xxx
I can't imagine what that was like. You must have felt so alone. I'm so sorry but it's so great to hear that your youngest has come out the other side. I hope that your oldest daughter sees now how lucky your youngest is that you didn't support her transition. What would she have said to you if your youngest transitioned and regretted it?
Thank-you, Ebdc, It's actually our middle one who is still "drinking the Kool-aid" as our youngest now puts it. (The irony would be laughable if it weren't so painful.) I see these parents having to stand by as a "gender physician" tells them their kids need hormones or they will kill themselves. It's an atrocity. I feel it could have been me, still fighting for my youngest. One of her friends (age 16) is on testosterone. It's heart-breaking. They don't talk anymore. The bizarre thing is, my youngest doesn't remember a lot of what went on during those dark months. I don't think she remembers the abuse hurled at my husband and I. We don't talk a lot about it.
Also, maybe your older daughter can help (the one who lives up North). You mentioned that she was mad at you and your husband for not affirming the young two. Hopefully she understands that your youngest would have been hurt if you affirmed her identity and sees how awful it would have been if your youngest had medically transitioned before deciding she wasn't trans.
The burden of parenting is not something most people can understand until they become a parent. There is a lot of "turning the other cheek." Hopefully with time, your girls will understand what you went through for them and be humbled by it. But it's possible that your youngest can't face what she did yet (or maybe she never thought about it). I know it doesn't make you feel any better but clearly you are doing a darn good job. Fighting against this tide is no easy task and you were able to save one of your daughters from lifelong medicalization (and it sounds like there is still hope for the other one).
I'm so sorry. I hope that your family heals with time 🙏
I'm pretty hard on a lot of the parents here who tell tell these stories, particularly the ones that start with "I'm a good liberal but..." However, this one really got me. Sure, I could rail about home education and taking away her smartphone (I have before)... and maybe those things would have worked. Maybe not. But every family's circumstances are different, and it sounds like you're doing everything you can in your circumstances.
You're a brave person, and it makes me angry that keeping your daughter alive and healthy requires you to fight against an entire society that has lost its collective mind. But keep fighting it.
Being countercultural is REALLY hard. Homeschoolers know this; we have support groups and conventions where we get together to remind ourselves that we're not insane. That's what PITT is too -- a place where everyone can be reminded that they're not alone, and they're not crazy.
You're right about the mental illness gold stars! I can't tell you how many times a young person, store clerk or server, apologizes for a mistake by saying, "Well, I have ___________." Fill in the blank with ADHD, OCD, anxiety, Tourette's ... I told my husband, we used to keep such things to ourselves; now they seem proud of it.
In fact, sometimes kids don't actually have these conditions. For instance, fake Tourette's is widespread among girls. They display their "symptoms" for each other on TikTok.
Wow. My heart breaks for you but I also want to say well done you're doing a great job at loving your daughter. These sorts of stories are so important to hear and help me as a father of two young daughters who at the age of 6 are already being exposed to this ideological nonsense in their school make sure I keep the fight going. Bless you.
Hi Chris,
I'm a former teacher and have commented on Facebook that teachers need to stop pushing gender ideology, having lessons on pronouns and reading books like I am Jazz! I feel for all parents of young kids today. They are up against a lot of ideology. Check out this list from the Boston Public Library.
https://bpl.bibliocommons.com/list/share/114354577/940206117
Blessed be your soul ❤️
People like yourself are so needed
That's appalling. I regret enormously giving in to hubby's pressure to move back to his now woke country.
You are doing great -- bravissima. I agree that we have to put the information out there, as you put it, regarding the health impact of medical interventions. Here's a tip to parents of ROGD girls: one day about a year ago, just before mine went off to college, I three something out there: "You probably don't know that on testosterone the genitals change. The clitoris enlarges. Yes, it does. It grows and eventually hangs down like a baby carrot." She immediately went silent, and I could see the wheels turning in her head. Just the fact of hearing me using the word clitoris must have been surprising. I am sure she went off and starting Googling that, and I know she must have found out that what I said was true. Here's another tip: when it seemed all but inevitable that she would access medicalisation using the mandatory college health insurance, I made her a financial incentive. A certain sum of money for every year that she delays medicalisation, up until age 26. The money goes into a trust fund and will be there for her to use as she wishes if she reaches that age without medicalising. At first she scoffed at it, but a few months later when she was home on a short break from college, she said she hadn't started any treatments yet "because I really haven't had the time. But I'm definitely going to do it at some point in my life!" I restrained myself from doing a few cartwheels, remained calm, and said, "It's good you're tell me this, because I've been wondering whether I should go ahead and set up that trust fund we talked about." She came back with, "Yes, go ahead with it." I don't know what will happen. She is almost 20, and pretty engaged in her studies, internship, etc. and looking forward to career, etc. My husband and I are hoping she will delay until 26, when her brain development is complete. But it could go either way. Right now it's a day at a time, and she is calling and texting frequently, full of chatter about her internship experiences. I am grateful for today.