I wrote the following in July 2023 as our daughter was desisting. I wrote it in response to Eliza Mondegreen’s request to hear from parents about the difficult position we’re in. It was the first thing I’d written about our experience. Our daughter has since desisted and is doing well.
July 21, 2023:
Our 13-year-old daughter is on the eve of desisting after two years of gender nonsense, so we are in a better place... almost out of the woods.
The main aspect of the difficult position we've been in is: our child's adoption of a trans identity is a maladaptive coping strategy and we see that clearly, but all the institutions around us claim it is a legitimate identity. Therefore, we've been unable to point to anything in the structures of society to make it clear that this is maladaptive; instead, our daughter has been armed by all the external structures to make the claim that it is liberation. We've had to depend on ourselves and our ingenuity and sensitivity to carry our daughter through this.
Some background info below.
Our daughter checks a couple of the main boxes of ROGD kids: she’s ASD level 1 and experienced sexual trauma. Her trans identity occurred at school after learning about gender in health class. She and a close friend socially transitioned simultaneously.
The two of us parents check many of the boxes of parents of ROGD kids: GenX/Millenial progressive Democrats who happen to eschew sex stereotypes, who were always pro gay marriage, and always supported trans people's rights.
We have taken a slow and gentle approach with our daughter, playing the long game. For the first nine months of her gender talk (which started two years ago), we told her she could use whatever words/name she wanted with her friends, but that we her parents were going to hold down the fort with her legal sex and legal name.
But ten months in, we caved on the pronouns and the name. Why? Because our child had just told us of the sexual abuse that had occurred at school a few years before, and she was a wreck.
And as a family we were faced with the difficult job of reporting the abuse to both the police and the school.
As parents, we were holding steady for our child's sake while falling apart inside.
We caved on the name and the pronouns to keep our daughter close. We didn't want her to feel there was a disagreement between herself and her parents at this most vulnerable time. We didn't want there to be even a hint that there could be a wall between herself and her parents.
During the past few months -- after the healing effects of leaving the school where the abuse occurred, getting her ASD diagnosis, and attending a new school that fully accommodates her ASD -- our daughter's trans identity has shifted to agender with continued use of he (and sometimes they) pronouns. While in the past she would dig in her heels and spout gender rhetoric to us, for the past few months she is much more open to reality. We can see that she only needs a nudge or two to get past the finish line, and those nudges are happening this summer.
We had specific reasons for letting the use of the fake name and pronouns go on this long. We hunkered down, focused on healing and gentleness, got the ASD diagnosis, supported her through her first year in a wonderful new school... and now it's time to put gender insanity in the past and inoculate her for the present and future, as the gender nonsense persists in the culture and will be rampant in her generation for years to come.
January 10, 2024:
PITT parents are navigating by the seat of our pants in response to something we never could have dreamed up. We’re all doing it (or did it) in different ways, as fits our families and circumstances. This week I read a comment on a PITT post in which a mother said she has space in her heart for families doing what they think is best, and that it’s important for her to build bridges with parents who are navigating the minefield in a variety of ways. Yes, yes, yes. We are all doing an amazing job in an infinity of ways in response to absurd circumstances.
For more on this author.
But you understand by now the connection between your liberal ideas and what you had experience in your family. Many things had happened that should have happened before as noticed that something was wrong in your daughter's life regarding being abused and health condition but what was available to cope was "transgenderism" , many years ago was popular cut yourself, another way of self harm. There is not such a thing as "gay rights", they are not special at all because we are all special as human beings, and our sexual preferences should be part of our personal privacy and not be imposed in anybody else, nd nobody business. And to use your preferences as a way of life it is inhumane, or dehumanized you, because we are so much more than that. Humans beings have human rights, the only time that being gay is important is when their lives are in danger, and in spite that the cause may or may not be their preferences, to be alive or to have right to be alive is a right!
But you have being very lucky or patient or both. Humans are binary and we cannot change our biological reality, and yes, gender it is a social construct, it is construct around that biological reality. My son was a boy since conception, no outsider gave him his male characteristics , it was my husband who gave his Y to my X, and that is why we know men genes "decide" the gender. That day my doctor came and said "here is your boy", very simple, not undeclared gender, we all has one since when we are conceived. We raised our boy as a boy, we did not treat him as an IT and gave him bird seeds or dog food, we would have been called in Social Services for abuse, but it wouldn't occurred to us never to do that because we are not crazy. As a civilization we got here because we are not mad people but we can see reality for what it is and we built an orderly, precise, organized and compassionate society that took a lot of effort, those people were focus in values, morals and virtues that allowed humans beings to evolved not only economically but also spiritually, that is the main reason why we re here in this planet, to learn how to love helping each other, and be serving others humans beings.
I think, in my humble opinion, that the solution to all this madness of children abused it is to change the education system and make it focus in those principles, and try to eradicated the selfishness of this era. It is a big problem with the American society and transgenderism is only a synthon, we have to go deeper and see why this issue of gender discomfort or confusion either exists at all, and more important why the adults are going for this dialect, why do they think that a human being can change the gender? Yes, we can change our appearance with cosmetics and surgeries and attitudes but that its a change in the form but never in the essence and that is not enough to resolved a psychological problem. We must treat the psyches, no cooperate with the delusional, at less there is an agenda to destroy humans, after all these treatments are experiments that destroy the body capacity of reproduction (sterilization/castration) and the internal organs (liver, kidneys, glands, etc) as any drug that it is going against the nature of something. Parents and everybody, really, must understand how grave this is, and resist!
Congratulations - your story brings HOPE which is what we all need. You handled your family situation remarkably well by listening to your daughter and believing her, then called the proper authorities, had her tested for ASD, and changed schools. That is a lot to deal with, but you handled it well. You are correct in saying that each transgender related situation is unique and how parents maneuver these muddy waters is different depending upon their relationship with their child. What worked for you may or may not work for another family. It is incredulous to me that we are having to plot our way through this minefield of transgender ideology! Before my nephew desisted last November, my sister was in constant agony worrying about what she had said or should have said or what she did or did not do before he left home abruptly and then remained silent for 14 very long months. She and her husband refused to use his new made-up silly name or new pronouns. In your case, it was exactly the comfort and security your daughter needed. I wish you and your family well and I am thrilled that another child has returned to reality! I pray this momentum continues and we start reading more and more stories here on PITT about desisters, detransitioners, and families being healed.