My Story, Part 2
Read Part 1 of our story here.
Unfortunately, while our daughter was exiting the trans ideology, we soon learned our son was becoming more entrenched in it (social contagion?!)
Our son moved on to a middle school where he knew few students. His best friend from the neighborhood was there, and he was in the stage of “This is what you do to be cool”. Our son would ask us to buy him this type of clothing, get him a cellphone, etc, so he could fit in with his best friend and his friend group. After three years there, he told us he wanted to be home-schooled or go to a private high school. As Mom doesn’t have the temperament for home-schooling, we checked out a few high schools. We ultimately decided it wouldn’t be worth the money as our local school district has historically leaned conservative despite being in a Los Angeles suburb.
Again, with an influx of new teachers and the influence of the teachers’ union, it has since become clear that LGBTQ+ ideology stealthily wrapped its tentacles throughout the entire school district. Our son asked to see a counselor to help him through some issues during his freshman year. We found a wonderful counselor who also was Christian which aligned with our beliefs. This counselor told us he believed he could do so much with our son as he is able to share elements of our faith. Our son subsequently got a girlfriend during his freshman year who he dated for several months. They broke up and he started dating a girl from our church for over two years. The relationship ended during his senior year. While at high school, he was nominated as prince to the homecoming court and was asked to the prom his senior year. Like all teenagers, he had ups and downs, but he seemed happy overall.
Again, unbeknownst to us, the college our son attended was quite liberal – left of Berkeley where my husband went to college. He started a rock band and wrote some amazing music! He really seemed to come into his own. We fully supported him and his band as we truly saw his talent. We loved his music – we went to many of his performances at local clubs. We worked our connections to get him opportunities to play locally. We shared his music with all our friends and family. We cautioned him, however, that it’s a very small number of those who succeed in music and they are not always the most talented. We felt a bit better, knowing he was majoring in economics with a minor in business statistics. We figured he had a Plan B should music not work out for him.
His band lost their drummer and ultimately found a new drummer who was transitioning from female to male. The band prided themselves as supporters of women’s rights and LBGTQ+ issues, and they soon had their “shtick”. I cautioned my son that he may want to reconsider this label if he really wants to get a career in music as this decision may limit the band’s appeal to a variety of audiences. My advice went unheeded. That was around the time he started to separate from our family.
Soon he showed up with painted nails. He had the LBGTQ+ flag hanging on the wall of his apartment. He pierced his ears and wore heart earrings – he told me he bought me the same earrings for my birthday so we could be “twins”. He brought a purse to an outing for my husband’s birthday with our daughter. The kicker was at a family dinner for my 60th birthday in 2024. My oldest brother asked me if my son’s band added a new girl member, as he had seen a recent video of a live performance. He said he thought she was really cute – and then realized it was our son dressed in drag. My husband and I discussed this and hoped it was just part of the band’s new shtick. My husband had been diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer in 2022, and we just couldn’t emotionally deal with this “revelation”, so we put it on the back burner. Soon after, our son sent us a letter stating he was “trans”. However, being a writing teacher, I could tell that the writing in this letter was not my son’s voice – the wording was so scripted, it was clear he had help. He also misconstrued events that happened during his childhood to support his “trans” narrative.
This past fall, our son visited our home so my husband could help him with maintenance work needed on his car. When they were finished in the garage, they came into the house so I could finally see him. I was so shocked that I actually uttered a little scream. He looked so weird – he had grown his hair long (not an attractive look for a young man who was balding early), had plucked his eyebrows and shaved his arms and legs. He had also gained a lot of weight, so it was clear he was taking hormones. Being the communicator and the more emotional one in the family, I called him out on his changes. Thankfully I was well-educated as I had immersed myself in all things trans starting with our daughter, so I asked him many questions from things I had read on Genspect and PITT. He had no reasonable or logical answers to any of my questions. He simply said I would never understand what he was going through because I was “cis”.
We have since had a couple of letters we’ve communicated via What’s App. He has admitted that he is using hormones but has no intention to pursue surgery – this relieved our fears a bit. He said he’d like to share his new name and pronouns with us. We let him know we are not comfortable with this. He also said he intends to stay in his current low-paying job as it is with one of the few companies that supported people like him. He now has three part-time jobs to make ends meet, despite having a marketable degree and training in financial analysis through a small non-profit we manage. We let him know that we love him dearly and are very concerned that he is harming his body using hormones. He told us he’s aware of the risks and had spent a great deal of money to freeze his sperm. We let him know that this is just one of the risks.
Our son remains loosely connected to our family group chat on What’s App. However, he rarely reaches out to us on his own. Recently I had emergency abdominal surgery which was life-threatening. Thankfully our daughter immediately came to support me and my husband through the surgery and my stay in the hospital. My son did not communicate with me at all during this time. Once back at home, I was finally able to feel all the emotions that I had put on hold so I could focus on getting healthy enough to be discharged from the hospital. I went to that dark place I go these days when I think about my son and his choices. I got angry – very angry that he was so caught in this self-absorbed, illogical ideology, he couldn’t send a text to let me know he was thinking of me, scared for me, sorry I had to go through this, etc. My husband let him know how much it hurt me; my son subsequently sent me this flowery, overly effusive text to let me know he and his friends were praying for me. The language was not my son’s voice – it sounded like some overly emotional female that didn’t know when enough was enough. It only deepened the wound.
Like all parents in this nightmare, we grieve every holiday and birthday. I grit my teeth and smile as my mom friends share the joyful news of their children getting their dream jobs, getting married, having babies. There is a gaping wound in me where our son had been, and it doesn’t take much to reignite the pain. I called a counselor a family friend recommended to help me process these emotions and truly learn how to let go and let God. I read parent stories on PITT and Substack and am encouraged that I too will eventually find a place when hearing his name or seeing his photo won’t cut me to the quick, when I won’t be half-hearted in wishing my friends well on the good news with their children, where I choose to focus my energy on achieving my life goals. It’s time for me to live my life celebrating the goodness of each moment.
Thank you for sharing. This line was especially poignant: “There is a gaping wound in me where our son had been, and it doesn’t take much to reignite the pain.” Praying for healing — physical, emotional and spiritual — for everyone in your family.
I can so relate to what you have shared. You just have to compartmentalize or the grief can be overwhelming. My child has 10 years in that ideology and four of those our child went no contact and that is still the choice our child has embraced due to the cult influence of ‘allies’. It sickens me how a social contagion is destroying families.
Very sad people can’t just love themselves as who they were born and admit in many cases that they are just gay and can be happy and accepted. Instead they choose a victim mentality and ostracize themselves from their support circle to align with people who will drop them if they desist with that lifestyle.
My heart aches for all of us parents. People don’t understand it is a forever ache and an abiding grief as our wounds are reopened daily at every social interaction, life event, etc. we are forced to learn to navigate the ongoing trauma while our children blithely roll on either not understanding or uncaring of the devastation they have caused in their wake.