Our daughter’s in there. We just know she is, waiting to come back. With flowing long hair, Easter dresses, and dating a young man. But it’s so cold here, with an exposed neck, no dreaming to keep warm. She’s getting older; there’ll be no turning back, taking the wrong form. We daily wrestle with your timing, Lord, waiting in frustration. She’s your clay vessel, bears your image, Lord, cause for celebration. So, please direct her; guide her safely home, back to our embrace. So, please perfect her; make her truly known, hope shining on her face.
This is dedicated to all religious mums with a dream to see their children come home to praise God. A beautiful old song from the film The Fiddler on the Roof
This is a beautiful poem by a hurt mum in despair and with a dream like all of us. Shame on the far left rude commenters for giving their unwanted opinion to a suffering religious mum. You have displayed a lot of poison. Maybe take your comments elsewhere.
All who wrote objecting to the (to me) nightmarish "feminizing" of the girl/woman, thank you. Do we want individual solutions where daughters end up running away in order to not be so constrained or do we want to support all girls and women to stay female and not destroy their health and lives through the trans cult?
I never wanted to be male for many reasons, but that wish is just what my mother wanted for me and if I had not found a supportive Lesbian Feminist community I might very well have decided that I must then be male. I want to support parents going through this hell, but not if they actually want to make their daughters into these grotesque caricatures that is a kind of mirror of what Jazz Jennings has been put through. None of those stereotypes make girls female, but they do endanger girls in a lot of ways. Looking back, I believe that my mother so much wanted me to be that caricature with irritating long hair and dresses that exposed and restricted me (many of us were not allowed to go to school without wearing dresses, that made us so much more vulnerable to assaults and injury) that she would have overlooked my being sexually assaulted if only I had a boyfriend.
Wanting your daughter to be feminine and to worship God and have a good family is the best dream a mother can have for her. I find this intrusion by the left into this beautiful writing by a Christian mum to be very toxic. Your support for parents is selective and this is based on your desire to demonise conservative religious parents. Hey, we exist and we aren’t going anywhere. Dresses don’t make you more vulnerable to assault. Where do you get that? Rapists don’t care what women wear, they just say they do. Why would you blame parents for sexual assault? Isn’t the perpetrator responsible? The left is messed up. This is why conservatism is back to stay. You need to solve your issues with your mother - your feelings are yours to own, not hers. She isn’t responsible for your negativity - you are. And frankly us parents aren’t to blame for our children’s choices to join the trans cult. FFS they aren’t victims. Often these children are cruel perpetrators of parental abuse with their screaming, their chaotic behavior and their ghosting and alienating whole families.
It is the left that has created trans. Society must once again be founded on family values of a man and a woman joining their lives to bring up children for the preservation of societies and the glorification of God’s name.
Really disappointing to see some of these responses. Bringing judgement due to your own ideals, basically condemning political/religious beliefs, again, due to your opinions is not what this site is for. EVERYONE no matter what your belief system who has a trans offspring deserves respect and support. If you don't support them, why not just move on? I would ask, what would you say to someone who has a trans son, who was a big, strong father of children and married who decided to become what he thinks is a woman? If he was described as big and strong, the protector, would you take issue with that? And do you know this person, did you know their child? I think not. To label someone you know nothing about is rude and horribly judgemental.
The inconvenient truth is this is probably what her daughter was, and how she hoped to see her future, which has been destroyed. There is nothing wrong with that, a mother's dream. It's HERS, not yours. That doesn't make her anything, except in other's opinions. Maybe keep those opinions to yourself instead of tearing down a mother who is definitely suffering, she deserves support and kindness.
Thank you. I am shocked at the poison by these ultra radical feminists. This is why radical feminism has such a bad reputation. They seem to hate everything. Shame on them. They can’t even support a religious mum in distress. What awful people
But it's often that exact rigid framework of expectations that drives non-conforming teens to despair how they'll never be happy as a "real" (stereotype-conforming) Girl or boy—whether in general, or at least within the family/household—and ends up convincing them they were "born in the wrong body" and pushing them directly into the arms of those who onto the trans grooming treadmill.
I wrote my comment because the OP reminded me so uncannily of the all-around tragic situation of a Friend of mine from the Philippines, who has grown into a self-aware Lesbian and a pillar of support for young people in Her community whom their families found it too "difficult" to support... but only at the price of estrangement from Her Mother who ultimately decided it was more important to cling to centuries-old Spanish colonial strictures of femininity like a security blanket, than to maybe try to meet her grown adult Daughter where She stood for once.
Her mother, as of the last time my Friend or I had seen her, was as dedicated as ever to praying the rosary over and over with cloying pleas to bring back the beautiful Daughter she forever reminisced to life in a lovely traditional Maria Clara gown. TBPH, the entire act was a pretty deeply compelling showpiece of, essentially, Method acting... and I would not be surprised at all if she had ultimately brought the separation from her own Daughter upon herself through her own immersion in this 'scene' (non-coincidentally also the exact main premise of Method acting) which re-dedicated her to the fiction she'd made of her Daughter.
Here's the thing though. My Friend in actual reality was a classic tomboy right from moment zero. She had worn a Maria Clara gown exactly once in Her entire life—for about 2 hours at age 6 or 7 for an older brother's Church confirmation, and this only (as the brother himself wryly recounted) after a multi-hour standoff with the assembled lola-tiyahan (Grandmothers and aunts), and that his mother was indeed grieving the 'loss' of a pious, demurely pretty Proverbs 31 Daughter who never actually existed, while having silently erased the entire existence of her real Daughter from mind, heart or soul.
Thankfully, corporate trans ideology had not made landfall in the Philippines when my Friend was a teen or just entering adulthood; else She'd have been driven straight into aggressive transition, both out of despair at Her mother's impossible expectations—and as an act of self-harm effectively outsourced to doctors (which the "transitions" of so many thousands of Girls and young Women so obviously are).
.
And lastly, maybe I'm just being a bit truculent but... Absolute fealty to an entire anthology of sexist typecasts, most of which are entirely superficial and many of which are truly just petty, is not "religious belief" in any halfway legitimate sense.
In other words, if you're a self-styled Christian and you swear up and down that God hates tomboys, that's just not a substantive point of faith, and should absolutely NOT be "respected". At best it's just cognitive garbage, nothing but mental noise. At worst it's a one-two of malignant narcissism and actual blasphemy—in which it's actually just you who hates tomboys, and who presumes to say so on behalf of the Lord Himself!
No, it’s not US “driving kids to despair”. I can’t read all these long comments so next time you guys invade the posts of a religious mum in distress with your ill conceived feminist fundamentalism keep it short and simple please. How long before owning a Bible is turned into a hate crime?
I have said nothing or implied anything you stated there. If anything, I was the one who was a tomboy growing up, my daughter was never a "girly girl" but yet my "big burly" son transitioned to female as an adult. I have relatives and close friends in the LGBTQ community. I love all of them. Their personal life is just that, personal. So don't put words in my mouth or assume I am anything you just said. And the same for the mother who wrote the thoughts to begin with. No one here knows her, you have no idea how she raised her daughter or how and why her daughter decided she was trans. I am nothing of what you said here, said nothing of the kind, and I would never speak on behalf of God himself. That is utterly ridiculous. Your opinions mean nothing to me and I just hope this mom can ignore the negativity and all the false assumptions and realize there are those of us who support her grief of losing her child and completely understand.
When "flowing long hair, dresses, dating a young man" literally tops the list of 'missed' qualities in a Daughter-manquée-turned-faux-son, you are not challenging trans ideology, nor are you telling any inconvenient truths about it.
When the instinctive first answer to "What has been taken? What is missed? What shape is the hole in our hearts and household?" is a quick Top 3 greatest hits of performative femininity—superficial appearance, clothing choices, and self-abnegating focus on the other half of whatever relationship—then YOU have become the radical trans ideologue.
Exact same regressive typecast-based ideology. Exact same belief that Girls and Women should all wear femininity, like the players on your favorite team should all wear the same uniform.
That IS trans. It's the exact same ideology and the exact same value system. The ONLY point on which you diverge from the medical and institutional groomers is that they're determined to mutilate bodies to better resemble whichever pop stereotype set (masculinity or femininity) a young person's mind happens to be gravitating towards... whereas the values underlying this piece idealize the pop stereotypes coercively slapped onto our sexed bodies—where it's the mind and personality being warped and, indeed; mutilated to fit the stereotypes.
In both cases, the stereotypes are the aspirational ideals, the 'greater good' (🥴).
I mean. Yes, some Girls do just gravitate towards the exuberant performance of femininity, including the items above. That's also fine. You are who you are, and ought to be free to be who you are. But THOSE Girls are not in the crosshairs of the "trans" groomers and abusers.
It's the tomboys. The Girls who define Themselves by Their own needs rather than in subordination to everybody else's wants. Who play with toys by taking them apart. Who roughhouse and dive in the dirt and aren't afraid to start sentences with "I". Who learn to say "no" and just leave it there, without immediately following up with an explanation, excuse and/or apology. Who would NEVER end a declarative statement with that pathetic upwards inflection that makes every single sentence sound like a desperate plea for approval.
What's being lost is the ability of THOSE Girls to be all those things, and yet still be proud, secure and self-aware in Their embodied Female sex, whether or not They might ever throw on a flouncy dress just for the sheer hell of it. They're 100% Girls and Women if They do, and 100% Girls and Women if they don't.
That's what is being ripped away and destroyed and is leaving giant holes in hearts—the right of ALL Girls, from the exuberantly feminine ones to the most diehard "practical" tomboys, to grow into an adult confidence and embodied awareness as Women, and to be accepted and loved as Girls and then as Women. No matter what They're wearing, whom They're dating, how They style Their hair or anything else.
This is so beautiful. Your words are honored here as they should be. I am so sorry for the pain that your family has been living through. Trust me when I say I know this well. We have lost our beautiful daughter. (For now) But we have HOPE. Nothing is impossible for our merciful loving God. Prayers for you. So many prayers🙏🙏🙏
What if she’s not that kind of girl, and never has been? What if she doesn’t want long, flowing hair and dresses? What if she’s not sexually attracted to men? What if she doesn’t want to have kids? All of this could be the case, (or only some of it, or none of it), and she would still be every bit as much of a girl / woman!! And while I don’t know your family, or what’s really going on with your daughter, I suspect this could very well be part of the problem. That a very traditional, regressive, conservative, hyper sexist idea of «womanhood» was pushed on her, and so she started to equate womanhood with being all these things, that society wants of her. And she may just always have felt at odds with it, due to knowing that these sexist expectations do NOT align with who she is! Then gotten increasingly more uncomfortable with it, as said sexist expectations, (and likely unwanted sexual attention from boys), got amped up, during puberty! And ultimately concluded, due to the fake idea of «trans» being pushed and normalized by this sick society, that the problem is HER! That the issue is, because she does not fit into this ridiculously and infuriatingly sexist and harmful little box that conservative religious people expect for women to fit into, that must mean she is not a woman, at all! Rather than the issue being the infuriating, despicable, extremely limiting box, itself! And true rebellion consisting of being able to say: «eff this box!! I want absolutely nothing to do with it!! That is all just socially imposed garbage, and I don’t have to be, or do, ANY of that, just because I am a woman! I should blame SOCIETY! Not my body!» She likely failed to make that connection, in her mind, and then she instead concluded that that box IS womanhood, and because she does not fit into it, she is not a woman. And mistakenly concluded that trying to become a fake «man» is the only way she gets to be herself, and gets to escape from it.
Likely, not all of this might fit your family’s situation, but I’m just putting it out there, anyway. As a woman who, myself, does NOT fit into most of this egregiously sexist BS, that constitutes the so-called «woman box», either. But I’m still a woman, because I was born, still am, and will always remain, FEMALE. And seeing the extreme sexism of it all..? Is part of the reason why this ideology so infuriates me!!! Although the sexism very much PRECEDED the ideology. It is more like, gender ideology FEEDS off of the already existent sexism. And the more girls get sold that, if they just so happen NOT to fit into this dumbfuck, regressive, socially constructed box, the likelier it is for them to fall prey to gender ideology! Which then makes them increasingly more delusional and more detached from reality, with the end result usually being that they want to harm themselves, for the sake of this despicable lie. (That sex can be changed, and that there is a «right» way and a «wrong» way to be a woman.)
Also, speaking as a non Christian, I would find it really demeaning and infuriating if my parents had seen me merely as a «clay vessel» to be shaped by the «Lord». I am my own person, and not some object to be constructed and used by a male «Lord» god, thanks!!! (I’m also not an atheist, though. Although I used to be one, during an earlier life stage. I’m an agnostic spiritual person, and a feminist, who really likes to connect with the FEMALE aspect of divinity, and who even often thinks of it as the GODDESS! Which is really beautiful and empowering to me! Why the hell should women have to play along with the idea that the divine is some sort of MALE overlord, who’s got unquestioning dominion over them??? Yuck. I think it’s absolutely sick, how men have co-opted even THAT, in the name of patriarchal religion. Women should take it back!!) And yeah… You may not like this, because clearly, you are believing Christians. Which, don’t get me wrong, you have every right to be! But perhaps you’ll want to be a bit more careful with how you word this around your daughter, because if she’s anything like me, she will NOT react well to it. And it may just push her even further down the path of «trans» identification. What if you got your daughter back, and she stopped thinking she was a man, or wanting to harm herself for the sake of a lie, but she still wanted short hair and baggy pants? And she was a lesbian, or bisexual, or just not interested in men, for whatever reason? And she did NOT want to be a mother? And she did NOT enjoy traditionally «feminine» pursuits? What then? Wouldn’t that still be a really wonderful outcome? Hopefully you think so, too. Because if you disavow the sexist garbage, and make it known to her that you will still love and cherish her, no matter what kind of woman she turns out to be, then I think that might make it at least SLIGHTLY more likely that you’ll get her back. Which I really hope you do. Fingers crossed.
Cece, Your comment resonates with me. "Although the sexism very much PRECEDED the ideology. It is more like, gender ideology FEEDS off of the already existent sexism."
You've expressed so well, that which so often needs to be said, in these PITT conversations.
Many of us who didn't conform to gendered stereotypes as children were motivated to move away from our families who expressed such expectations for us, and that we viewed as limitations.
With all respect for parents who are religious, one of the realities they might face is having a child who wants nothing to do with the religion.
Also, parents negatively expressing the idea of having a lesbian daughter or a gay son, is a very common, and often a deeply subconscious motivator of many who transition.
Parents who cling to these expectations, that their child will remain in their religion, or marry someone of the opposite sex and give them grandchildren, may inadvertently be pushing their children to transition.
This mom gets to pray however she wants for her child. She should not be judged. No one walks in her shoes but her. This beautiful prayer poem comes from the depths of her hurting heart. I know this kind of pain and loss well. Please dont judge people's hearts.
Thanks for being supportive. I am mortified that at least two commenters are responding to this substack submission with their own agenda. A mother’s outcry for her child should not be used to grind your own axe.
Exactly, I agree. The fact that she was a girly girl has nothing to do with what happened to her, that was caused by brainwashing in the schools and online. This mother was clearly mourning the person who her daughter used to be. Those commenters are using this platform for their own agenda and are doing nothing to help others on this site.
Thank you for defending me. For many of us with kids with ROGD kids, our children are lying to themselves about who they are and it is destroying them. Our daughter still loves My Little Pony, making and wearing jewelry, and wearing makeup. We won’t accept a fake version of herself pushed on her by groomers.
All my support Joy. I am disgusted at what these ultra radical feminist extremists are doing to your beautiful poem. They want to blame religion for trans lol. What awful people. In truth trans is left wing. You can tell from their totalitarianism
And when I said absolutely I meant absolutely I am supporting you. Of course 100% . Hundreds of thousands of beautiful families are being divided and destroyed by the woke culture mentality. There needs to be more compassion and understanding and this should be a forum where we are not judged for expressing the truth and reality of our hurt and loss!
Absolutely. The transgender ideology is a cult, and has a complete absence of Truth. The woke mentality is not even able to recognize the science. There is no relativism in the science of male or female. It is what it is. All truth has gone out the window and our poor children have become victims and families are being destroyed 💔💔💔🥺🙏🙏🙏
I agree. While I'm a heterosexual woman with long hair who has a (now 35 year old) child, I am not the most feminine woman in the world. I don't wear makeup. I don't shave my legs. And, as the late Magdalen Berns said, I don't frolic about in frocks. I can't remember the last time I wore a dress. And although I respect people's right to their spiritual beliefs, I have a history of being verbally abused by people calling themselves Christian. Therefore, the idea of the Christian church's Lord directing my life does not sit very well with me.
There's no right or wrong way to be a girl. A masculine girl is far more female than the most feminine boy.
This is dedicated to all religious mums with a dream to see their children come home to praise God. A beautiful old song from the film The Fiddler on the Roof
May the Lord protect and defend you.
May He always shield you from shame.
May you come to be
In Israel a shining name.
May you be like Ruth and like Esther.
May you be deserving of praise.
Strengthen them, Oh Lord,
And keep them from the strangers' ways.
May God bless you and grant you long lives.
May the Lord fulfill our Sabbath prayer for you.
May God make you good mothers and wives.
May He send you husbands who will care for you.
May the Lord protect and defend you.
May the Lord preserve you from pain.
Favor them, Oh Lord, with happiness and peace.
Oh, hear our Sabbath prayer. Amen.
This is a beautiful poem by a hurt mum in despair and with a dream like all of us. Shame on the far left rude commenters for giving their unwanted opinion to a suffering religious mum. You have displayed a lot of poison. Maybe take your comments elsewhere.
Praying this with you every day!! For yours and for mine… 🕊️
Amen.
All who wrote objecting to the (to me) nightmarish "feminizing" of the girl/woman, thank you. Do we want individual solutions where daughters end up running away in order to not be so constrained or do we want to support all girls and women to stay female and not destroy their health and lives through the trans cult?
I never wanted to be male for many reasons, but that wish is just what my mother wanted for me and if I had not found a supportive Lesbian Feminist community I might very well have decided that I must then be male. I want to support parents going through this hell, but not if they actually want to make their daughters into these grotesque caricatures that is a kind of mirror of what Jazz Jennings has been put through. None of those stereotypes make girls female, but they do endanger girls in a lot of ways. Looking back, I believe that my mother so much wanted me to be that caricature with irritating long hair and dresses that exposed and restricted me (many of us were not allowed to go to school without wearing dresses, that made us so much more vulnerable to assaults and injury) that she would have overlooked my being sexually assaulted if only I had a boyfriend.
Wanting your daughter to be feminine and to worship God and have a good family is the best dream a mother can have for her. I find this intrusion by the left into this beautiful writing by a Christian mum to be very toxic. Your support for parents is selective and this is based on your desire to demonise conservative religious parents. Hey, we exist and we aren’t going anywhere. Dresses don’t make you more vulnerable to assault. Where do you get that? Rapists don’t care what women wear, they just say they do. Why would you blame parents for sexual assault? Isn’t the perpetrator responsible? The left is messed up. This is why conservatism is back to stay. You need to solve your issues with your mother - your feelings are yours to own, not hers. She isn’t responsible for your negativity - you are. And frankly us parents aren’t to blame for our children’s choices to join the trans cult. FFS they aren’t victims. Often these children are cruel perpetrators of parental abuse with their screaming, their chaotic behavior and their ghosting and alienating whole families.
It is the left that has created trans. Society must once again be founded on family values of a man and a woman joining their lives to bring up children for the preservation of societies and the glorification of God’s name.
Really disappointing to see some of these responses. Bringing judgement due to your own ideals, basically condemning political/religious beliefs, again, due to your opinions is not what this site is for. EVERYONE no matter what your belief system who has a trans offspring deserves respect and support. If you don't support them, why not just move on? I would ask, what would you say to someone who has a trans son, who was a big, strong father of children and married who decided to become what he thinks is a woman? If he was described as big and strong, the protector, would you take issue with that? And do you know this person, did you know their child? I think not. To label someone you know nothing about is rude and horribly judgemental.
The inconvenient truth is this is probably what her daughter was, and how she hoped to see her future, which has been destroyed. There is nothing wrong with that, a mother's dream. It's HERS, not yours. That doesn't make her anything, except in other's opinions. Maybe keep those opinions to yourself instead of tearing down a mother who is definitely suffering, she deserves support and kindness.
Thank you. I am shocked at the poison by these ultra radical feminists. This is why radical feminism has such a bad reputation. They seem to hate everything. Shame on them. They can’t even support a religious mum in distress. What awful people
But it's often that exact rigid framework of expectations that drives non-conforming teens to despair how they'll never be happy as a "real" (stereotype-conforming) Girl or boy—whether in general, or at least within the family/household—and ends up convincing them they were "born in the wrong body" and pushing them directly into the arms of those who onto the trans grooming treadmill.
I wrote my comment because the OP reminded me so uncannily of the all-around tragic situation of a Friend of mine from the Philippines, who has grown into a self-aware Lesbian and a pillar of support for young people in Her community whom their families found it too "difficult" to support... but only at the price of estrangement from Her Mother who ultimately decided it was more important to cling to centuries-old Spanish colonial strictures of femininity like a security blanket, than to maybe try to meet her grown adult Daughter where She stood for once.
Her mother, as of the last time my Friend or I had seen her, was as dedicated as ever to praying the rosary over and over with cloying pleas to bring back the beautiful Daughter she forever reminisced to life in a lovely traditional Maria Clara gown. TBPH, the entire act was a pretty deeply compelling showpiece of, essentially, Method acting... and I would not be surprised at all if she had ultimately brought the separation from her own Daughter upon herself through her own immersion in this 'scene' (non-coincidentally also the exact main premise of Method acting) which re-dedicated her to the fiction she'd made of her Daughter.
Here's the thing though. My Friend in actual reality was a classic tomboy right from moment zero. She had worn a Maria Clara gown exactly once in Her entire life—for about 2 hours at age 6 or 7 for an older brother's Church confirmation, and this only (as the brother himself wryly recounted) after a multi-hour standoff with the assembled lola-tiyahan (Grandmothers and aunts), and that his mother was indeed grieving the 'loss' of a pious, demurely pretty Proverbs 31 Daughter who never actually existed, while having silently erased the entire existence of her real Daughter from mind, heart or soul.
Thankfully, corporate trans ideology had not made landfall in the Philippines when my Friend was a teen or just entering adulthood; else She'd have been driven straight into aggressive transition, both out of despair at Her mother's impossible expectations—and as an act of self-harm effectively outsourced to doctors (which the "transitions" of so many thousands of Girls and young Women so obviously are).
.
And lastly, maybe I'm just being a bit truculent but... Absolute fealty to an entire anthology of sexist typecasts, most of which are entirely superficial and many of which are truly just petty, is not "religious belief" in any halfway legitimate sense.
In other words, if you're a self-styled Christian and you swear up and down that God hates tomboys, that's just not a substantive point of faith, and should absolutely NOT be "respected". At best it's just cognitive garbage, nothing but mental noise. At worst it's a one-two of malignant narcissism and actual blasphemy—in which it's actually just you who hates tomboys, and who presumes to say so on behalf of the Lord Himself!
No, it’s not US “driving kids to despair”. I can’t read all these long comments so next time you guys invade the posts of a religious mum in distress with your ill conceived feminist fundamentalism keep it short and simple please. How long before owning a Bible is turned into a hate crime?
I have said nothing or implied anything you stated there. If anything, I was the one who was a tomboy growing up, my daughter was never a "girly girl" but yet my "big burly" son transitioned to female as an adult. I have relatives and close friends in the LGBTQ community. I love all of them. Their personal life is just that, personal. So don't put words in my mouth or assume I am anything you just said. And the same for the mother who wrote the thoughts to begin with. No one here knows her, you have no idea how she raised her daughter or how and why her daughter decided she was trans. I am nothing of what you said here, said nothing of the kind, and I would never speak on behalf of God himself. That is utterly ridiculous. Your opinions mean nothing to me and I just hope this mom can ignore the negativity and all the false assumptions and realize there are those of us who support her grief of losing her child and completely understand.
The "you" in that comment is a generic, like "one". I didn't intend it to mean You personally; my sincere apologies if it reads that way.
Your comment was full of poison. The way you dehumanised your friend’s mother it’s disgusting.
When "flowing long hair, dresses, dating a young man" literally tops the list of 'missed' qualities in a Daughter-manquée-turned-faux-son, you are not challenging trans ideology, nor are you telling any inconvenient truths about it.
When the instinctive first answer to "What has been taken? What is missed? What shape is the hole in our hearts and household?" is a quick Top 3 greatest hits of performative femininity—superficial appearance, clothing choices, and self-abnegating focus on the other half of whatever relationship—then YOU have become the radical trans ideologue.
Exact same regressive typecast-based ideology. Exact same belief that Girls and Women should all wear femininity, like the players on your favorite team should all wear the same uniform.
That IS trans. It's the exact same ideology and the exact same value system. The ONLY point on which you diverge from the medical and institutional groomers is that they're determined to mutilate bodies to better resemble whichever pop stereotype set (masculinity or femininity) a young person's mind happens to be gravitating towards... whereas the values underlying this piece idealize the pop stereotypes coercively slapped onto our sexed bodies—where it's the mind and personality being warped and, indeed; mutilated to fit the stereotypes.
In both cases, the stereotypes are the aspirational ideals, the 'greater good' (🥴).
I mean. Yes, some Girls do just gravitate towards the exuberant performance of femininity, including the items above. That's also fine. You are who you are, and ought to be free to be who you are. But THOSE Girls are not in the crosshairs of the "trans" groomers and abusers.
It's the tomboys. The Girls who define Themselves by Their own needs rather than in subordination to everybody else's wants. Who play with toys by taking them apart. Who roughhouse and dive in the dirt and aren't afraid to start sentences with "I". Who learn to say "no" and just leave it there, without immediately following up with an explanation, excuse and/or apology. Who would NEVER end a declarative statement with that pathetic upwards inflection that makes every single sentence sound like a desperate plea for approval.
What's being lost is the ability of THOSE Girls to be all those things, and yet still be proud, secure and self-aware in Their embodied Female sex, whether or not They might ever throw on a flouncy dress just for the sheer hell of it. They're 100% Girls and Women if They do, and 100% Girls and Women if they don't.
That's what is being ripped away and destroyed and is leaving giant holes in hearts—the right of ALL Girls, from the exuberantly feminine ones to the most diehard "practical" tomboys, to grow into an adult confidence and embodied awareness as Women, and to be accepted and loved as Girls and then as Women. No matter what They're wearing, whom They're dating, how They style Their hair or anything else.
This is so beautiful. Your words are honored here as they should be. I am so sorry for the pain that your family has been living through. Trust me when I say I know this well. We have lost our beautiful daughter. (For now) But we have HOPE. Nothing is impossible for our merciful loving God. Prayers for you. So many prayers🙏🙏🙏
What if she’s not that kind of girl, and never has been? What if she doesn’t want long, flowing hair and dresses? What if she’s not sexually attracted to men? What if she doesn’t want to have kids? All of this could be the case, (or only some of it, or none of it), and she would still be every bit as much of a girl / woman!! And while I don’t know your family, or what’s really going on with your daughter, I suspect this could very well be part of the problem. That a very traditional, regressive, conservative, hyper sexist idea of «womanhood» was pushed on her, and so she started to equate womanhood with being all these things, that society wants of her. And she may just always have felt at odds with it, due to knowing that these sexist expectations do NOT align with who she is! Then gotten increasingly more uncomfortable with it, as said sexist expectations, (and likely unwanted sexual attention from boys), got amped up, during puberty! And ultimately concluded, due to the fake idea of «trans» being pushed and normalized by this sick society, that the problem is HER! That the issue is, because she does not fit into this ridiculously and infuriatingly sexist and harmful little box that conservative religious people expect for women to fit into, that must mean she is not a woman, at all! Rather than the issue being the infuriating, despicable, extremely limiting box, itself! And true rebellion consisting of being able to say: «eff this box!! I want absolutely nothing to do with it!! That is all just socially imposed garbage, and I don’t have to be, or do, ANY of that, just because I am a woman! I should blame SOCIETY! Not my body!» She likely failed to make that connection, in her mind, and then she instead concluded that that box IS womanhood, and because she does not fit into it, she is not a woman. And mistakenly concluded that trying to become a fake «man» is the only way she gets to be herself, and gets to escape from it.
Likely, not all of this might fit your family’s situation, but I’m just putting it out there, anyway. As a woman who, myself, does NOT fit into most of this egregiously sexist BS, that constitutes the so-called «woman box», either. But I’m still a woman, because I was born, still am, and will always remain, FEMALE. And seeing the extreme sexism of it all..? Is part of the reason why this ideology so infuriates me!!! Although the sexism very much PRECEDED the ideology. It is more like, gender ideology FEEDS off of the already existent sexism. And the more girls get sold that, if they just so happen NOT to fit into this dumbfuck, regressive, socially constructed box, the likelier it is for them to fall prey to gender ideology! Which then makes them increasingly more delusional and more detached from reality, with the end result usually being that they want to harm themselves, for the sake of this despicable lie. (That sex can be changed, and that there is a «right» way and a «wrong» way to be a woman.)
Also, speaking as a non Christian, I would find it really demeaning and infuriating if my parents had seen me merely as a «clay vessel» to be shaped by the «Lord». I am my own person, and not some object to be constructed and used by a male «Lord» god, thanks!!! (I’m also not an atheist, though. Although I used to be one, during an earlier life stage. I’m an agnostic spiritual person, and a feminist, who really likes to connect with the FEMALE aspect of divinity, and who even often thinks of it as the GODDESS! Which is really beautiful and empowering to me! Why the hell should women have to play along with the idea that the divine is some sort of MALE overlord, who’s got unquestioning dominion over them??? Yuck. I think it’s absolutely sick, how men have co-opted even THAT, in the name of patriarchal religion. Women should take it back!!) And yeah… You may not like this, because clearly, you are believing Christians. Which, don’t get me wrong, you have every right to be! But perhaps you’ll want to be a bit more careful with how you word this around your daughter, because if she’s anything like me, she will NOT react well to it. And it may just push her even further down the path of «trans» identification. What if you got your daughter back, and she stopped thinking she was a man, or wanting to harm herself for the sake of a lie, but she still wanted short hair and baggy pants? And she was a lesbian, or bisexual, or just not interested in men, for whatever reason? And she did NOT want to be a mother? And she did NOT enjoy traditionally «feminine» pursuits? What then? Wouldn’t that still be a really wonderful outcome? Hopefully you think so, too. Because if you disavow the sexist garbage, and make it known to her that you will still love and cherish her, no matter what kind of woman she turns out to be, then I think that might make it at least SLIGHTLY more likely that you’ll get her back. Which I really hope you do. Fingers crossed.
Cece, Your comment resonates with me. "Although the sexism very much PRECEDED the ideology. It is more like, gender ideology FEEDS off of the already existent sexism."
You've expressed so well, that which so often needs to be said, in these PITT conversations.
Many of us who didn't conform to gendered stereotypes as children were motivated to move away from our families who expressed such expectations for us, and that we viewed as limitations.
With all respect for parents who are religious, one of the realities they might face is having a child who wants nothing to do with the religion.
Also, parents negatively expressing the idea of having a lesbian daughter or a gay son, is a very common, and often a deeply subconscious motivator of many who transition.
Parents who cling to these expectations, that their child will remain in their religion, or marry someone of the opposite sex and give them grandchildren, may inadvertently be pushing their children to transition.
No we are not pushing anybody to transition. Talk about victim blaming. We PITT parents aren’t doing that. What’s wrong with you all?
I wrote it because she has always been much more feminine than me. I want her to stop hating the girl/woman she has always been.
This mom gets to pray however she wants for her child. She should not be judged. No one walks in her shoes but her. This beautiful prayer poem comes from the depths of her hurting heart. I know this kind of pain and loss well. Please dont judge people's hearts.
Thanks for being supportive. I am mortified that at least two commenters are responding to this substack submission with their own agenda. A mother’s outcry for her child should not be used to grind your own axe.
Exactly, I agree. The fact that she was a girly girl has nothing to do with what happened to her, that was caused by brainwashing in the schools and online. This mother was clearly mourning the person who her daughter used to be. Those commenters are using this platform for their own agenda and are doing nothing to help others on this site.
I don't really think this is a partisan issue, I think it is a predatory evil issue but you are correct, both sides practice evil.
Thank you for defending me. For many of us with kids with ROGD kids, our children are lying to themselves about who they are and it is destroying them. Our daughter still loves My Little Pony, making and wearing jewelry, and wearing makeup. We won’t accept a fake version of herself pushed on her by groomers.
All my support Joy. I am disgusted at what these ultra radical feminist extremists are doing to your beautiful poem. They want to blame religion for trans lol. What awful people. In truth trans is left wing. You can tell from their totalitarianism
And when I said absolutely I meant absolutely I am supporting you. Of course 100% . Hundreds of thousands of beautiful families are being divided and destroyed by the woke culture mentality. There needs to be more compassion and understanding and this should be a forum where we are not judged for expressing the truth and reality of our hurt and loss!
Absolutely. The transgender ideology is a cult, and has a complete absence of Truth. The woke mentality is not even able to recognize the science. There is no relativism in the science of male or female. It is what it is. All truth has gone out the window and our poor children have become victims and families are being destroyed 💔💔💔🥺🙏🙏🙏
I agree. While I'm a heterosexual woman with long hair who has a (now 35 year old) child, I am not the most feminine woman in the world. I don't wear makeup. I don't shave my legs. And, as the late Magdalen Berns said, I don't frolic about in frocks. I can't remember the last time I wore a dress. And although I respect people's right to their spiritual beliefs, I have a history of being verbally abused by people calling themselves Christian. Therefore, the idea of the Christian church's Lord directing my life does not sit very well with me.
There's no right or wrong way to be a girl. A masculine girl is far more female than the most feminine boy.
You want to be anti-religious that is on you. No cause to take it out on people who are struggling in their life and turn to their faith.
Absolutely 💯
I agree 100%.
Amen🙏
Prayers are my comfort these past years since our daughter told us😔.
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding”.
- Proverbs 3:5
So poignantly beautiful…our shared prayer.
Thank you.