New Thoughts on: They pushed me into this ideology and tried to keep me there forever

I somehow ended up here, typing this thing, contemplating life choices, and struggling with my mental health.

Let’s rewind to the beginning.

My name’s Victoria. I live in Ontario. I have struggled with my gender identity for a while and I only recently realized that I’m actually a biological female, who identifies, well, as a female. I’m extremely glad that I came to this realization before it was too late. When I say too late, I mean medically transitioning which includes hormone therapy and any sexual reassignment surgeries.

When I was younger, I was a bit of a tomboy. I loved sports and I had friends who were boys, but I have never experienced gender dysphoria, I loved dresses and I felt comfortable being a girl. It all changed when COVID hit. I was in fourth grade at the time. That’s when my life started to go downhill. My period started 10 years old, which is pretty young. I was isolated and I couldn’t see my friends and I installed TikTok for the first time. In the beginning, TikTok was a site where I posted videos of my pets but that changed quickly. I discovered the LGBTQ+ community and I started questioning my identity. At first, it was only my sexuality: pansexual, lesbian, maybe bi? After a few months on TikTok I was being constantly exposed to the transgender, or should I say trans-trender, propaganda. “Are you anxious and uncomfortable with your body? You must be trans.” I was seeing these videos everywhere. Transgender activists were actively posting videos about “safe” breast binding and how euphoric testosterone makes you feel and how it makes all your problems suddenly disappear. The more I was brainwashed by these videos, the more I started to resonate with them.

I developed a nonbinary identity by the time I started grade five. We were online on and off then and when we came to school after the new year, I came out to my best friend as a they/them. When a couple of months passed, I came out to the whole class, including my teacher. I cut my hair and tried to dress androgynously. Everyone was supportive and accepting of my new identity. No one even bothered to question it. I told my parents about it. They clearly thought it was a phase, didn’t say much about it, continued to use my legal name and referred to me as a girl. I didn’t have any gender dysphoria at that time either. During summer break before grade six I was spending more time than ever on my phone. I started to think that my body isn’t good enough and I became a “boy”.

On the first day of grade six, I came out as a “he/him”, once again everyone at school blindly supported me. This didn’t seem normal, considering that I went to a Catholic school where the education was supposed to be focused on religious teachings. I was very depressed and hated my body for not being more masculine.

I began self-harming and having suicidal thoughts. After running away with the intention to end my life, I ended up in the hospital. The police officers, nurses, doctors, and psychiatrists all accepted that I was a “boy” and never tried to explore any underlying problems that might be causing these suicidal ideations. When the police walked me up to the triage, the first thing they told the triage nurse is that I identify as male and use he/him pronouns. The triage lady asked me if I wanted my sex marker to be changed in their system. I happily agreed. When they printed out my wrist band, it had my given female name on it and the letter “M”.

All of the hospital workers referred to me as a boy. When the crisis worker talked to me, she asked me if my parents were the reason why I’m here today. As a brainwashed 11-year-old I said yes, my parents are transphobic and seem to not love me as much anymore and this was the reason why I wanted to end my life. When I was brought up to the psych unit, I was given a package to read about gender identity. It included different terms like trans, nonbinary, genderfluid, and some others. That’s the first thing they gave me. Not an anxiety assessment, not a depression test, but a gender identity guide. When the youth crisis worker came to talk to me, she asked me what I was planning to do to transition. I said that when I’m old enough, I will get a double mastectomy and start on testosterone. A double mastectomy and testosterone, you heard me correctly, I knew about those terms when I was 11 years old. She told me that there are lots of other medical treatments that I didn’t name. She said that I could always do more research later.

The whole psych team had a meeting with my parents. They told my parents that the only thing that would help me was supporting my gender identity. And that they must call their biological baby girl by the name she suddenly came up with and refer to her as a boy (when she clearly isn’t one) or else she’d kill herself.

Soon after that, my mom became concerned about my breast binding and took me to my family doctor. The doctor was clearly supportive of the trans ideology because she immediately asked for my preferred name and pronouns when I walked into her office. She told me and my mom that binding is perfectly healthy (it isn’t) and asked me if I was interested in learning about puberty blockers. Please don’t forget I was 11 years old at the time. At that age I can’t make a rationale decision about life altering medical interventions that could make me unable to ever have children.

I learned that binding is dangerous because I was having trouble breathing. I also saw on the internet that binding can lead to bruising, broken ribs, collapsed lungs and a lot more. I saw some stories on the internet where trans and detrans people were complaining about how painful it is/was to wear a binder. I acknowledged those risks but I continued to wear a binder because of my dysphoria.

A similar mental health crisis to the one that I previously talked about happened again. A female police officer brought me to the hospital because of my suicidal thoughts. When we were in the waiting room, she asked me if I was on “T”. She also said that a lot of her friends are trans and that my life will get better once I turn 18 so I can live as my “true self”. I was 12. Did she really expect me to be on cross sex hormones at that age? Are police officers really that misinformed? And she implied that being a female wasn’t my true self.

At the hospital, the workers gave my parents the same story every time, “Your child is a boy, you have to accept it or else things won’t get better”. My parents kept fighting for me. They kept telling me that I’m a girl and that I always will be one, but I was too indoctrinated to listen.

Not that long after the crisis, my school principal invited me to her office. She asked me to sit down in the chair in front of her. She asked me if I’m doing better and if I needed any additional support. I politely declined her offer. She said that she “feels for me” and that she believes that my parents were a bad influence on me because they don’t support my trans identity. She asked me if I would like the support of CAS, The Children’s Aid Society. I declined because I knew that even though my parents and I don’t always get along, it doesn’t mean that child protective services need to be involved. She told me that CAS isn’t only there to investigate abuse and take kids away from families, that they’re also there to give me resources and help educate my parents. I knew that what she said wasn’t exactly true because I’ve heard lots of stories about children being taken away from perfectly safe households. After that, she told me that she can invite a grown transgender person to talk to me at school without my parents’ consent or knowledge. I agreed to that. That person never came and neither I nor the principal ever talked about since.

My parents blocked TikTok from my phone. I didn’t get better. I only got worse. I secretly started watching trans “gurus” on YouTube without my parents’ knowledge.

I started grade seven. The school principal allowed me to use the boy’s washroom, but I didn’t feel comfortable so I stuck with the gender neutral one. The principal also allowed me to use the boys’ changing room for gym. I felt pretty comfortable considering that I changed in the stall. Before I started using that changing room, I asked all the boys in my class if they felt comfortable with me changing with them and all of them said yes. My parents were not informed about that and neither were the parents of the boys who used that change room with me.

I was extremely uncomfortable with my body since the beginning of grade seven and I started to have eating disorder symptoms. I had extreme social anxiety at school. I had a suicide attempt around that time because I “overate” and I was “fat” and “ugly”. When I was sent to the hospital, no one brought up anything about eating disorders. They only focused on the transgender part, just like they did every time. That was the last straw for me, even though I was only 12 years old I could see that something was clearly wrong. Everything was centered around my gender, not the actual issues I was dealing with.

I read the book Irreversible Damage by Abigail Shrier. My dad bought the book for himself. He kept telling me that if I read the book, I won’t understand it and might be triggered by it. Those comments pushed me to read it. What’s the worst that can happen, I though. I was very skeptical at first, and yes, I did think it was transphobic at the beginning, but as I kept reading all of those sad stories of regret about how they became trans in the first place, I realized that I’m on the wrong path and I need to go back before I lose my family, or even my life.

I started to go back to being a girl. I stopped binding my chest. I told my parents and they were overjoyed about the news. When I told my teacher she asked me if this is something that I really want and if my parents are pushing me to go back. No one asked me if I’m sure that I’m a boy when I came out as trans, but now that I want to go back to my biological gender everyone is making sure that it’s what’s best for me. Weird, right? Well, my friends, that is propaganda at its fullest. I had a crisis a month later. I attempted suicide by overdosing and cutting. Thankfully it failed and I ended up at the hospital, again. I’m not trans anymore, so why am I doing this? Because my mental health issues were never resolved. Now that the transgender shield was gone, I was properly assessed for mental health issues. Turns out I had binge eating traits, anxiety, and borderline personality traits.

In most stories that I’ve heard, mental health issues are a huge reason why teens become trans. Those kids and teens thought that since they are struggling with their mental health, they need to find a community that will love and accept them no matter what. Another common reason is early puberty. There are countless different reasons why a young woman might want to transition, but most of them involve getting rid of her normal human struggles. Even if they don’t know it yet, subconsciously those are the main reasons why teenage girls decide to become boys.

Postscript:

I wrote most of this essay when I was 13. Now I am 15. I have added a few important details that I missed before. I am really happy with my life. I get good grades at school and I have amazing friends. I am Christian and believe in God and I have found amazing hobbies like scuba diving and swimming.

Tips for parents:

1. Don’t give your child access to social media. Not even YouTube Kids, the drag queens invaded that space a long time ago. Only allow messaging apps where you as a parent can see every contact that your child is talking to.

2. Monitor their internet use. If you see them spending time on websites that you believe aren’t a good influence, simply block them from their devices.

3. Have a discussion with your child about what’s happening in the world before the woke people get to them first. Explain to your child that there are people in the world who want to profit from your child’s struggles.

4. Be involved in their education, ask the school about the curriculum and opt out from sex ed (which is really bad these days)

5. If you are located in Canada DON’T get a therapist with a Canadian license. There is a ban that prevents Canadian therapists from doubting their patients’ trans-ness which means they legally have to affirm your child’s self-proclaimed identity. Instead, look for a virtual therapist that’s located abroad who has the child’s best interests at heart.

6. Spend more time with your child, whether that’s playing board games, going outside or simply having dinner together as a family.

7. If your child identifies as trans, give them some detransition stories to read. But don’t push too hard, if they don’t want to read those stories tell them that if they read one then you will read one of their favorite “trans success” stories. Tell them that you will try your best to understand what they’re going through, and that they should also try to understand what you are going through as a parent.

8. Encourage your child to find hobbies, sports, or activities that they enjoy to develop their identity outside of gender.

9. Don’t affirm your child’s trans identity. Keep using their given name and refer to them by their biological pronouns. You might feel like this isn’t working, but you have to keep trying because affirming their identity will make your child want more than just a name change.

10. Take them to Church, talk to them about God. Not all of you will follow this step, because you have different beliefs, but I highly encourage everyone to have a grounded faith system to help raise your children so that they can have strong beliefs and a loving community.