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.
Great point, She Desisted. "Absurd circumstances" or as one parent put it, "dystopian nightmare." I had to use my son's pronouns and name at some point because he was an adult and he flat out told me that he didn't think he could be in a relationship with me in the future if I didn't. The relationship is the most important thing, I told myself over and over. I yelled and wept in my rental car. Then I did my best to use his name and pronouns the next day, while trying not to choke on my words, feeling anger and humiliation but trying hard not to show it.
My son has since destransitioned and apologized for how he treated us. Because he was an adult I knew I had no power to change him, just a trace of influence that I wasn't willing to lose.
There is no formula. Every kid, every family is different. We're all just trying to survive this. No judgement. Just love and support here.
your story gives me hope, I keep reminding myself the only path to them getting out will be provided by the lifeline of the people who love them most. I have not agreed to pronouns at this point, but we are rapidly approaching adulthood, and it will change soon how long I can hold out.
For the author, I’m wondering if you truly feel that you’re “in the clear,” as it says on your Substack? Is that a feeling you actually experience? Or is the assertion more of an intellectual wishful thinking, while simultaneously fearing lightning could strike again?
I really do believe and feel we're in the clear. I do experience it. My daughter "peaked" on gender and I'll write about it sometime. But so much more to say in the meantime... like that societally we're deep in the mess, our kids' whole generation has been miseducated, my daughter navigates carefully among her friends in our liberal metropolis...
Thank you everyone for your support. I am so happy for you that your child is desisting. I and one of my good friends are both struggling with kids who just refuse to discuss the dysphoria, and despite thousands in counseling, the only topics discussed are how to cope, adjust and live in the world "as a trans person" , they refuse to discuss how we got here. I thought my kid was desisting, the energy changed, the arguing stopped, but turns out, they are just settled into the idea they will wait till 6 months from now when they are 18 to do hormones without us. I have seen a referral system for counselors, but I cannot find it now. Also, any advice on how to open up the discourse on dysphoria as opposed to "being trans"? I feel really stuck, and wonder if I need to make at least reading a book or talking to a gender counselor requirement for us to pay for college? it is so overwhelming,.
you are in a critical phase of your & your child's life. It is overwhelming. No doubt about that. I've seen other parents give advice, such as: don't let your child go away to college because they'll be fast-tracked into medicalization by the student health center and the LGBTQ++ Club. There's some truth in that. My own child fell into highly destructive relationships in college & the fall-out was deeply harmful & now two years later the harm is on-going.
Setting up a clear set of agreements about the terms on which you fund college is a less radical approach than insisting your child stay home. Prohibiting college after all does not seem highly desirable. ... The thing is, your proposal that your require your child to read a book or see a gender counselor is not likely to provoke desistance. That's because "gender" counselors all practice "affirmation only." ... On the other hand, GETA lists counselors who do not practice affirmation only, so you could insist on your child seeing a GETA-listed counselor.
I wish I had better answers for you. I hope someone else chimes in with productive suggestions.
The bottom-line best advice I've seen: love, love, love. Don't get upset. Don't argue or raise your voice or threaten. Commiserate. Provide as many distracting activities as possible, including most especially outdoors activities and activities that really engage the body. This is a mind-body problem of dissociation. So aim to heal that mind-body connection. Yoga? Dance? ...
yes, my kid joined a team and it has literally saved their life, and plan on doing that in college. I completely agree with all you said, and I have no intention of withholding college funding in totality, and I am weighing smaller options like books, GETA ( I forgot their name, thanks) and such. Staying home would make everything worse, they are trying to individuate, trying to contain them only creates increased oppositional behavior. I do know better than that.
the thing is, the "individuation" plays straight into the hands of the pro-trans-medicalization activists (of which there are many). ... Your child will have to grow up & have a life of his or her own. ... Steven Hassan's book, Freedom of Mind, might be helpful for you. It is about how to keep a relationship with a loved-one who falls into a cult. Hassan himself fell into a cult while in college. He emphasizes keeping the relationship and gradually offering life-lines to help pull the child out. It can take years. [recently on Amazon Prime I watched the series The Restaurant & in it the main character's daughter falls into a type of cult ( a Communist Cell that's very secretive & abusive). It takes her five years to come out of it. ... I've heard that many times: five years, seven years ... maybe ten years ... then they wake up & wonder what's happened.
well, individuation is a clearly well defined stage of development. You are correct the transcult has used this well defined part of childhood against parents. One cannot ignore the developmental stage however, because trying to control them is always a bad idea during that phase, so hard to watch.
We shouldn't be controlling our young adult children but we still should be guiding them as much as possible. You know your child best. It's quite possible that college is the right choice, for some of them it is. If possible, please don't let your child share a dorm room with another trans-identified person or opposite sex person. You are paying for dorms, you can set some rules without being a controlling jerk. If your child is on an athletic team, can he/she room with a teammate? Frame it as something convenient, like this way you always remember to be on time for training or something. On a different note, I read somewhere here that one mom just bribed her kid , putting some money aside for her for every year she didn't start medicalizing. So, this way she wasn't controlling (Taking something away) but was offering an incentive.
yeh, I have placed a priority on schools that will room my kid with a teammate. I am also totally for bribing, we are pretty generous with our kids, so I do plan on saying the extras come with some strings. My hope is the peer pressure against medicalization will override any voices of support. I feel the energy draining out of the medicalization. I also plan on calling any medical facility offering treatment and remind them I will be calling a lawyer if my kid has any adverse outcomes. My experience is that it dampers peoples enthusiasm to treat my family when I do that. I had to do that for aging parents in the past, when doctors were handing out dangerous/addictive meds to an old man because he wanted them. Our dad was taking his ambien during the day and driving around, asleep at the wheel, but the doctor was giving him 3 pills a day. I called the doctor and threatened they would be responsible for what happened. The next call I got was " for some reason my doctor wont give me anymore ambien", " really?" Giving the rapidly increasing number of lawsuits, I feel a similar conversation coming.
wishing all good luck with navigating this! Maybe you'll be lucky and your child will value natural health over the hyperbole of those pushing drugs & surgery. ...
Our son was in his 1st year of college when he succumbed to the ideology. We firmly told him we would not continue to support him financially if he took ANY steps towards transitioning. Use the leverage you have right now before they go in deeper. It took a couple years, but son desisted after doing a semester in another country.
that's good, but in other instances kids readily get funding from pro-trans organizations that provide scholarships & other funding (such as for medicalization). I'm glad it worked for you, but there's substantial money out there that is ready & waiting for the "poor trans kid who was disowned by their parents"
They might provide money for medicalization, but would these individuals/organizations really pay for someone’s entire college education? A lot of these talk the talk, but the kids soon discover that their real family is who they can really count on. In any case, not assisting financially forces them to have face reality.
this is exactly my concern, and I can hear in the plans that my kid is trying to figure out how to be financially independant, if a group gave them a lifeline, I think they would take it.
The term "sexual abuse" is of limited usefulness because it covers such a wide variety of behavior. Abuse may be emotional, physical, nonsexual and sexual. youth are too often unprepared to stick up for themselves and resist abuse effectively. Tho i'm not a mom, it appears to me that many schools and principals aren't able to effectively prevent bullying in school. I think the setup with one teacher having the responsibility for several dozen kids, to both teach them subject matter and keep classroom discipline, is not the way we were evolved to educate children and not the way they are evolved to learn.
This book has lots of great info about bullying prevention: Bully: An Empowering Companion to the Acclaimed Film & An Action Plan for Teachers and Parents to Combat the Bullying Crisis
When i was in grade school, i was the class scapegoat; the boys harassed me and the girls ignored me. Fortunately, my mom shared that she had also been harassed at that age, and she was clearly doing just fine. Also, she consciously raised us to be self-reliant; as an older mom, she was not sure she and my dad would be around to take care of us.
In 5th grade, i was on the "student council" which was like baby cop. My beat was by the janitor's little room, and i got to be 'friends' with mike the janitor, an old italian. During that year he groomed me in a way that was light and not uncomfortable. But when i returned to 6th grade and went to visit my 'friend,' he started out by raising the ante with more intrusive physical behavior. The added sophistication i had gained and my own feelings of bodily autonomy and independence crossed my psychological boundaries, and i never went back.
Please note i was never threatened or coerced. and i knew what he had done was wrong, but i never told anyone because i had solved the problem. Did i sense that i might not have been believed? Can't say. but i can say that it did not occur to me that telling what happened might protect other kids, likely because they didn't give a rat's ass about me.
So i think it's really important to prepare kids to defend themselves effectively before puberty hits.
"As parents, we were holding steady for our child's sake while falling apart inside" This seems to encapsulate perfectly the state that so many parents seem to be in. As parents you can never win - unless you're lucky enough to have a teen pull back relatively quickly; before too much damage is done. I have absolutely no sympathy for Transhausen parents who KNOW about the risks to health but actively ignore them, for the attention and virtue the parent gets.
But mostly, it seems to be:
Affirming Parent - doing the right thing, giving your child the best chance, letting them live their authentic lives, while they're with you (and often behaving like a tyrant). You'll also be clobbered by the others side (GC/reality/truth/biology/feminism)
OR it's
Non-Affirming Parent - 'though still supportive and showing love - who's seen by the rest of the world and all those "structures" mentioned, as being cruel, abusive, neglectful, dangerous, guilty of conversion therapy or "LGBTQ hate" and clobbered by the other side (Transpositives/allies/social justice/literally the rest of the world) also often mirrored in the tyrannical behaviour of your own child as they absorb and transmit the fury and dogma of the cult elders (men) online.
It makes you realise how many parents APPEAR to be in the first camp,(but are they all, really?) in order not to migrate to the other camp - where hell lies, hope dies, and social death is a certainty.
We loved and supported our daughter as much as we could. Until she would no longer let us. The grooming and indoctrination was too stealthy & powerful and had been going on behind our backs. So she reached a point where the balance tipped and she estranged US over 5 years ago now, started on T in haste and had her breasts cut off. We are exiled from her life now because she has rejected us for holding an inconvenient view (that sex exists), while her physical & mental health declines. And so the cult took her - she just melted into the arms of her love-bombing, queer family, re-invented and revised her own personal history, and is now radicalised.
Politicians and journalists, policy-makers and allies alike, need to know that there is far more nuance to the whole < parents affirming/not affirming > issue. It really doesn't work like the way they think it does. It's not a binary of Good V Evil. SO many parents are just desperate to keep their kids onside, so they will live a life appearing to hold steady, while falling apart, for the sake of their child. Genspect need to do more to amplify the voices of those who stay anon for the sake of their muchl-loved children's health and well-being, however fragile or brittle that may be. Love, strength & Power to ALL parents (but not the abusing transhausens ones) dentonyogacarter.substack.com
What I like about your post is that you don’t fall into the trap which some parents of desistors do of presenting yourselves as having all the answers and having got it right. Some posts like this come across as smug and self-congratulatory, which you do not. You’ve muddled through like the rest of us and shared what you did. Well done and thanks for posting it so thoughtfully.
“An infinity of ways to respond to absurd circumstances”. You nailed it. I am navigating with both a daughter who started this at 18 and a niece who is now at 26, embracing this ideology. How to show up, love, embrace yet try to remain a light house and holder of a life vest ready to throw it when they will accept it as they swim out to sea convinced they know what they are doing is so challenging.
I bookmarked this post to share with parents, like you, who wonder what they did wrong. Children, and especially adolescents, are shaped by many things other than their parents: their unique mental and emotional make-up, society, including peers, teachers, media, the Internet.
These parents raised two children. One became caught up in gender; the other wrote this extraordinary essay.
Thank you for trying to protect your son and help him reach adulthood with his health and potential intact. Everyone here is rooting for you both.
What an awful situation! OK, I am not an expert, just another mom. First, great job getting him to stop for now and buying some time. This is a great achievement on your part. Second, as much as you can keep stalling. If he lets you set up his appointment, look for an older endocrinologist who is more likely to be gender critical. I suggest looking for an immigrant from a third world country MD. (Sorry, no time for political correctness here). At the very least , look for the one with the longest wait list and highest copay. Third, perhaps try to have a gentle conversation about side effects in general. Start perhaps with a medicine you or someone close to you have taken - the good and the bad of it, that there are absolutely no meds without side effects. Ask him how estrogen made him feel both better and worse - without leading. Maybe mention a few side effects women have when they are taking it. He must have at least some unpleasant effects. Lastly, if he is at all open show him this https://mungeribabu.substack.com/p/estrogen-is-really-bad-for-men , or read yourself and drop some bread crumbs. You probably have more influence on him than you give yourself credit for since you convinced him to stop for now. Best of luck! Hugs.
first of all: it's not your fault. It's not that you did something wrong. ... this is a sickness of our society.
second, I read an article by an endocrinologist very critical of the Jazz Jenning's book and so maybe you could look him up & see if he can take your case or can refer you to someone? (Michael K. Laidlaw, MD is a board-certified physician in Rocklin, California specializing in Endocrinology, Diabetes, and Metabolism.)
third: when your child turns 18 you do not have legal authority to be involved in medical decisions. Even if you pay the insurance, you don't get a say in the treatment. That's the law. Of course, your child can allow you to participate, but your child can also not allow you to participate.
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.
Thank you, and I'm so glad your nephew has desisted.
Great point, She Desisted. "Absurd circumstances" or as one parent put it, "dystopian nightmare." I had to use my son's pronouns and name at some point because he was an adult and he flat out told me that he didn't think he could be in a relationship with me in the future if I didn't. The relationship is the most important thing, I told myself over and over. I yelled and wept in my rental car. Then I did my best to use his name and pronouns the next day, while trying not to choke on my words, feeling anger and humiliation but trying hard not to show it.
My son has since destransitioned and apologized for how he treated us. Because he was an adult I knew I had no power to change him, just a trace of influence that I wasn't willing to lose.
There is no formula. Every kid, every family is different. We're all just trying to survive this. No judgement. Just love and support here.
your story gives me hope, I keep reminding myself the only path to them getting out will be provided by the lifeline of the people who love them most. I have not agreed to pronouns at this point, but we are rapidly approaching adulthood, and it will change soon how long I can hold out.
Gut-wrenching.
And yes.
The relief must be overwhelming!
For the author, I’m wondering if you truly feel that you’re “in the clear,” as it says on your Substack? Is that a feeling you actually experience? Or is the assertion more of an intellectual wishful thinking, while simultaneously fearing lightning could strike again?
I really do believe and feel we're in the clear. I do experience it. My daughter "peaked" on gender and I'll write about it sometime. But so much more to say in the meantime... like that societally we're deep in the mess, our kids' whole generation has been miseducated, my daughter navigates carefully among her friends in our liberal metropolis...
Look forward to your next post. For most parents, feeling “in the clear” seems like an unobtainable goal.
Thank you everyone for your support. I am so happy for you that your child is desisting. I and one of my good friends are both struggling with kids who just refuse to discuss the dysphoria, and despite thousands in counseling, the only topics discussed are how to cope, adjust and live in the world "as a trans person" , they refuse to discuss how we got here. I thought my kid was desisting, the energy changed, the arguing stopped, but turns out, they are just settled into the idea they will wait till 6 months from now when they are 18 to do hormones without us. I have seen a referral system for counselors, but I cannot find it now. Also, any advice on how to open up the discourse on dysphoria as opposed to "being trans"? I feel really stuck, and wonder if I need to make at least reading a book or talking to a gender counselor requirement for us to pay for college? it is so overwhelming,.
you are in a critical phase of your & your child's life. It is overwhelming. No doubt about that. I've seen other parents give advice, such as: don't let your child go away to college because they'll be fast-tracked into medicalization by the student health center and the LGBTQ++ Club. There's some truth in that. My own child fell into highly destructive relationships in college & the fall-out was deeply harmful & now two years later the harm is on-going.
Setting up a clear set of agreements about the terms on which you fund college is a less radical approach than insisting your child stay home. Prohibiting college after all does not seem highly desirable. ... The thing is, your proposal that your require your child to read a book or see a gender counselor is not likely to provoke desistance. That's because "gender" counselors all practice "affirmation only." ... On the other hand, GETA lists counselors who do not practice affirmation only, so you could insist on your child seeing a GETA-listed counselor.
I wish I had better answers for you. I hope someone else chimes in with productive suggestions.
The bottom-line best advice I've seen: love, love, love. Don't get upset. Don't argue or raise your voice or threaten. Commiserate. Provide as many distracting activities as possible, including most especially outdoors activities and activities that really engage the body. This is a mind-body problem of dissociation. So aim to heal that mind-body connection. Yoga? Dance? ...
yes, my kid joined a team and it has literally saved their life, and plan on doing that in college. I completely agree with all you said, and I have no intention of withholding college funding in totality, and I am weighing smaller options like books, GETA ( I forgot their name, thanks) and such. Staying home would make everything worse, they are trying to individuate, trying to contain them only creates increased oppositional behavior. I do know better than that.
the thing is, the "individuation" plays straight into the hands of the pro-trans-medicalization activists (of which there are many). ... Your child will have to grow up & have a life of his or her own. ... Steven Hassan's book, Freedom of Mind, might be helpful for you. It is about how to keep a relationship with a loved-one who falls into a cult. Hassan himself fell into a cult while in college. He emphasizes keeping the relationship and gradually offering life-lines to help pull the child out. It can take years. [recently on Amazon Prime I watched the series The Restaurant & in it the main character's daughter falls into a type of cult ( a Communist Cell that's very secretive & abusive). It takes her five years to come out of it. ... I've heard that many times: five years, seven years ... maybe ten years ... then they wake up & wonder what's happened.
well, individuation is a clearly well defined stage of development. You are correct the transcult has used this well defined part of childhood against parents. One cannot ignore the developmental stage however, because trying to control them is always a bad idea during that phase, so hard to watch.
We shouldn't be controlling our young adult children but we still should be guiding them as much as possible. You know your child best. It's quite possible that college is the right choice, for some of them it is. If possible, please don't let your child share a dorm room with another trans-identified person or opposite sex person. You are paying for dorms, you can set some rules without being a controlling jerk. If your child is on an athletic team, can he/she room with a teammate? Frame it as something convenient, like this way you always remember to be on time for training or something. On a different note, I read somewhere here that one mom just bribed her kid , putting some money aside for her for every year she didn't start medicalizing. So, this way she wasn't controlling (Taking something away) but was offering an incentive.
yeh, I have placed a priority on schools that will room my kid with a teammate. I am also totally for bribing, we are pretty generous with our kids, so I do plan on saying the extras come with some strings. My hope is the peer pressure against medicalization will override any voices of support. I feel the energy draining out of the medicalization. I also plan on calling any medical facility offering treatment and remind them I will be calling a lawyer if my kid has any adverse outcomes. My experience is that it dampers peoples enthusiasm to treat my family when I do that. I had to do that for aging parents in the past, when doctors were handing out dangerous/addictive meds to an old man because he wanted them. Our dad was taking his ambien during the day and driving around, asleep at the wheel, but the doctor was giving him 3 pills a day. I called the doctor and threatened they would be responsible for what happened. The next call I got was " for some reason my doctor wont give me anymore ambien", " really?" Giving the rapidly increasing number of lawsuits, I feel a similar conversation coming.
wishing all good luck with navigating this! Maybe you'll be lucky and your child will value natural health over the hyperbole of those pushing drugs & surgery. ...
I will continue to pray for that for sure.
Our son was in his 1st year of college when he succumbed to the ideology. We firmly told him we would not continue to support him financially if he took ANY steps towards transitioning. Use the leverage you have right now before they go in deeper. It took a couple years, but son desisted after doing a semester in another country.
that's good, but in other instances kids readily get funding from pro-trans organizations that provide scholarships & other funding (such as for medicalization). I'm glad it worked for you, but there's substantial money out there that is ready & waiting for the "poor trans kid who was disowned by their parents"
They might provide money for medicalization, but would these individuals/organizations really pay for someone’s entire college education? A lot of these talk the talk, but the kids soon discover that their real family is who they can really count on. In any case, not assisting financially forces them to have face reality.
this is exactly my concern, and I can hear in the plans that my kid is trying to figure out how to be financially independant, if a group gave them a lifeline, I think they would take it.
yes, that happens all the time & the laws in all sorts of locations facilitate the "run-away" trans kid getting free housing, hormones & surgeries.
overseas travel is massively therapeutic for so many things
The term "sexual abuse" is of limited usefulness because it covers such a wide variety of behavior. Abuse may be emotional, physical, nonsexual and sexual. youth are too often unprepared to stick up for themselves and resist abuse effectively. Tho i'm not a mom, it appears to me that many schools and principals aren't able to effectively prevent bullying in school. I think the setup with one teacher having the responsibility for several dozen kids, to both teach them subject matter and keep classroom discipline, is not the way we were evolved to educate children and not the way they are evolved to learn.
This book has lots of great info about bullying prevention: Bully: An Empowering Companion to the Acclaimed Film & An Action Plan for Teachers and Parents to Combat the Bullying Crisis
https://www.thebullyproject.com/about_book
When i was in grade school, i was the class scapegoat; the boys harassed me and the girls ignored me. Fortunately, my mom shared that she had also been harassed at that age, and she was clearly doing just fine. Also, she consciously raised us to be self-reliant; as an older mom, she was not sure she and my dad would be around to take care of us.
In 5th grade, i was on the "student council" which was like baby cop. My beat was by the janitor's little room, and i got to be 'friends' with mike the janitor, an old italian. During that year he groomed me in a way that was light and not uncomfortable. But when i returned to 6th grade and went to visit my 'friend,' he started out by raising the ante with more intrusive physical behavior. The added sophistication i had gained and my own feelings of bodily autonomy and independence crossed my psychological boundaries, and i never went back.
Please note i was never threatened or coerced. and i knew what he had done was wrong, but i never told anyone because i had solved the problem. Did i sense that i might not have been believed? Can't say. but i can say that it did not occur to me that telling what happened might protect other kids, likely because they didn't give a rat's ass about me.
So i think it's really important to prepare kids to defend themselves effectively before puberty hits.
"As parents, we were holding steady for our child's sake while falling apart inside" This seems to encapsulate perfectly the state that so many parents seem to be in. As parents you can never win - unless you're lucky enough to have a teen pull back relatively quickly; before too much damage is done. I have absolutely no sympathy for Transhausen parents who KNOW about the risks to health but actively ignore them, for the attention and virtue the parent gets.
But mostly, it seems to be:
Affirming Parent - doing the right thing, giving your child the best chance, letting them live their authentic lives, while they're with you (and often behaving like a tyrant). You'll also be clobbered by the others side (GC/reality/truth/biology/feminism)
OR it's
Non-Affirming Parent - 'though still supportive and showing love - who's seen by the rest of the world and all those "structures" mentioned, as being cruel, abusive, neglectful, dangerous, guilty of conversion therapy or "LGBTQ hate" and clobbered by the other side (Transpositives/allies/social justice/literally the rest of the world) also often mirrored in the tyrannical behaviour of your own child as they absorb and transmit the fury and dogma of the cult elders (men) online.
It makes you realise how many parents APPEAR to be in the first camp,(but are they all, really?) in order not to migrate to the other camp - where hell lies, hope dies, and social death is a certainty.
We loved and supported our daughter as much as we could. Until she would no longer let us. The grooming and indoctrination was too stealthy & powerful and had been going on behind our backs. So she reached a point where the balance tipped and she estranged US over 5 years ago now, started on T in haste and had her breasts cut off. We are exiled from her life now because she has rejected us for holding an inconvenient view (that sex exists), while her physical & mental health declines. And so the cult took her - she just melted into the arms of her love-bombing, queer family, re-invented and revised her own personal history, and is now radicalised.
Politicians and journalists, policy-makers and allies alike, need to know that there is far more nuance to the whole < parents affirming/not affirming > issue. It really doesn't work like the way they think it does. It's not a binary of Good V Evil. SO many parents are just desperate to keep their kids onside, so they will live a life appearing to hold steady, while falling apart, for the sake of their child. Genspect need to do more to amplify the voices of those who stay anon for the sake of their muchl-loved children's health and well-being, however fragile or brittle that may be. Love, strength & Power to ALL parents (but not the abusing transhausens ones) dentonyogacarter.substack.com
Just to say, you are well supported here.. Ty for sharing this truth.. Sending out healing vibes to everyone.
What I like about your post is that you don’t fall into the trap which some parents of desistors do of presenting yourselves as having all the answers and having got it right. Some posts like this come across as smug and self-congratulatory, which you do not. You’ve muddled through like the rest of us and shared what you did. Well done and thanks for posting it so thoughtfully.
“An infinity of ways to respond to absurd circumstances”. You nailed it. I am navigating with both a daughter who started this at 18 and a niece who is now at 26, embracing this ideology. How to show up, love, embrace yet try to remain a light house and holder of a life vest ready to throw it when they will accept it as they swim out to sea convinced they know what they are doing is so challenging.
I bookmarked this post to share with parents, like you, who wonder what they did wrong. Children, and especially adolescents, are shaped by many things other than their parents: their unique mental and emotional make-up, society, including peers, teachers, media, the Internet.
These parents raised two children. One became caught up in gender; the other wrote this extraordinary essay.
Thank you for trying to protect your son and help him reach adulthood with his health and potential intact. Everyone here is rooting for you both.
https://open.substack.com/pub/pitt/p/how-an-ugly-elephant-transformed?r=brys&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post
What an awful situation! OK, I am not an expert, just another mom. First, great job getting him to stop for now and buying some time. This is a great achievement on your part. Second, as much as you can keep stalling. If he lets you set up his appointment, look for an older endocrinologist who is more likely to be gender critical. I suggest looking for an immigrant from a third world country MD. (Sorry, no time for political correctness here). At the very least , look for the one with the longest wait list and highest copay. Third, perhaps try to have a gentle conversation about side effects in general. Start perhaps with a medicine you or someone close to you have taken - the good and the bad of it, that there are absolutely no meds without side effects. Ask him how estrogen made him feel both better and worse - without leading. Maybe mention a few side effects women have when they are taking it. He must have at least some unpleasant effects. Lastly, if he is at all open show him this https://mungeribabu.substack.com/p/estrogen-is-really-bad-for-men , or read yourself and drop some bread crumbs. You probably have more influence on him than you give yourself credit for since you convinced him to stop for now. Best of luck! Hugs.
Do you have a link for Why Testosterone us really bad for Women?? Please??? Anybody??
I don't , I am sorry. I wish I did.
Dr. Michael Laidlaw is an endocrinologist in California speaking out against gender ideology. If you call his office, he will likely consult with you.
https://www.drlaidlaw.com/site/index-new.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NA2xtmN0zo
Hi Treppy, Best of luck. Here is an endocrinologist from Montreal, Canada also speaking out.
https://calgaryherald.com/opinion/columnists/opinion-alberta-is-right-children-should-be-protected-from-transgender-procedures
first of all: it's not your fault. It's not that you did something wrong. ... this is a sickness of our society.
second, I read an article by an endocrinologist very critical of the Jazz Jenning's book and so maybe you could look him up & see if he can take your case or can refer you to someone? (Michael K. Laidlaw, MD is a board-certified physician in Rocklin, California specializing in Endocrinology, Diabetes, and Metabolism.)
third: when your child turns 18 you do not have legal authority to be involved in medical decisions. Even if you pay the insurance, you don't get a say in the treatment. That's the law. Of course, your child can allow you to participate, but your child can also not allow you to participate.