Please Don’t Part 2: Autism

This past spring, at lunch with my department’s teachers, someone who is no longer my friend brought up the new proposed Missouri law. He knows my family’s situation with my youngest daughter (his oldest daughter has an eating disorder). I have no idea why he brought this up but as I looked around the table, I quickly realized that I have no allies here. I stayed. I kept my mouth shut. They were mostly upset that it would be a felony for a teacher to use a student’s preferred pronouns and be put on a sex offenders list. There was no way to tell them that using a student’s preferred pronoun, with or without parent consent, is a powerful psychosocial intervention they are not licensed to give. It can solidify the wrong identity in a vulnerable kid and set them on a path towards lifelong medicalization. What I wanted to say was, “It shows you how serious opposite-sex pronouns really are - that adults protecting the vulnerable are willing to go to extremes. I don’t agree with the entire bill but anyone at this table who indulges my daughter’s delusion that she is a gay man is actively contributing to her harm. Please don’t. Please protect autistic (or gay or mentally unwell or traumatized) children and do not use any pronouns.”

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that, since my first PITT submission, my daughter has been diagnosed with autism. Since she already had an ADHD diagnosis (two years after she claimed a trans identity), the cool kids are calling it AuDHD. I don’t. The last thing we need are more labels (and kids trying to make disabilities glamorous). I should be grateful that the trans issue led us to ASD. I think the Asperger’s (ASD level 1) is driving everything, especially gender non-conformity, and I am not sure I would have searched for it without the insane idea that she can be a boy. I am not so grateful these days as we are lost in a holding pattern. Maybe it is for the best, due to the recent crazy coming out such as:

• The Alabama lawsuit led to subpoenaing the WPATH (I call it WarPATH) files which proved lack of evidence for gender affirming care.

• The suppression of Johns Hopkins systematic review

• The revelation of activist pressure from the White House for no age limits.

• The Final Cass Review proving low quality evidence and lots of harm.

• The Germany study from 2013-2022 using detransitioners’ insurance records to show an almost 63% desistance rate in five years.

• The Texas Children’s Hospital scandal

• Eithan Haim’s legal case

• All the detransitioner lawsuits.

I just need my child to see it for what it is. Until then, she can’t go to college even in our red state. She would ask for he/him pronouns and want to use the men’s toilets and showers. And they would let her. A camp for autistic youth just last summer put her in a boy’s cabin - didn’t ask her, didn’t tell me. Part of me wants to sue them but nothing bad happened. But it could have. She is 17 years old but maybe as emotionally mature as a 14-year-old and clearly her danger-sensors are off.

She thinks only of herself, which is age-appropriate for teenagers, especially in high stress situations. I was blindsided this spring both at the drama banquet and at graduation. I work for my district in a different high school that reaches out to families when students ask for a different name at graduation. Not my daughters’ school. I figured it out days before the ceremony and thought for sure I wouldn’t survive. I was going to be on stage with her giving her the diploma. So many adults, family, some friends, would be witnessing this wrong name read aloud with “they/them”. So many adults at the drama banquet witnessed pronouns read aloud, “he/him”, with her on my arm. I made sure everyone I met there knew that she has autism and that I use “she/her”. If they think I am wrong, no one has said it…yet. Most faces are confused and then relieved when I say, “she has autism” and may be taking a gap year. Those three words explained our whole high school adventure. Humor (with cursing) was one of the things that kept me going this spring as we neared the end and I remember bursting out in laughter at a post by Mrs. Miller about theater and their suburb (SSA) while my own child was attending prom in a sequined jacket. The parallels with turning 18, drama club, prom and graduation made me fell less alone. This one gave me hope, along with StoicMom’s story. Two of the most therapeutic things I did for myself early on were to offer my story to PITT and be interviewed by StoicMom, “Looking for Miracles” on her podcast.

There is not enough help for autistic young ladies, let alone any of us in this situation. I really have no idea how to help my autistic daughter grow up when I am not allowed to talk about anything female. Yes, she does see a non-affirming psychologist. Yes, I do study autism including a class last summer. “Aspie Woman” by Tania Marshall is still on my Reading List. I follow Christina Buttons for insights, listen to detransitioners on YouTube and r/detrans and even, unrelated to trans, I get advice from Danny Raede, whose tagline is “remember: people do the best they can with the emotional capacity they have”. So true. At 18, my daughter’s capacity or, should I say, agency is pretty weak right now. Mine is too for that matter. Dr. Miriam Grossman, in her book “Lost in Trans Nation” says that parents have disenfranchised grief (p.155) from unrecognized trauma. Many people might think that I should not be so sad about the loss of her name on graduation day. I can see that, but it is just not true. In the last two months, I have lost myself. I must be grieving. I was a fighter; I clung to hope. I still pray ceaselessly but now I am just resting and waiting. Doing what needs to be done and waiting. Recovering from four years of high school and waiting. Celebrating and waiting. All I did for four years, even though I didn’t know what I was dealing with or really how to help, was work on our relationship. Work on our family. Prayer and relationship. I approached every crisis with a learned calm and a “how can I help?”. I learned to not walk on eggshells but that timing of questions and conversations was key. Repair was precious, so no more fear of misspeaking. I kept her close. I tried to understand by asking questions, being curious. I did not fake my interest. I did not fake being excited she wanted my help at one in the morning. I know I am her safe person and I repeatedly told her I can handle her big valid emotions. I fought hard for her to not feel like a burden to me. I told her repeatedly that she made me a better person, a better teacher. I learned so much from this experience. I wanted her to be seen, heard, understood and to feel “felt”. And now I am exhausted. Almost five years, tired-to-the-bone exhausted.

I need to recharge before my new school year and I need to find myself outside of my three adult children’s schooling. Most of my new identity will center on helping others but, again, I have no idea what I am doing. I think we learn by living through it (“the obstacle is the way” to quote Marcus Aurelius, Ryan Holiday and StoicMom) and then share and empathize with whomever God puts in our lives. But it is truly by the Grace of God that I can get up each morning.

When I began this adventure, I went searching for the “adults in the room”. No stone was left unturned, which led me to people with whom I have nothing in common except our beliefs about trans ideology. And it was enlightening. My most recent insight has come from Maia Poet through Benjamin Boyce. She found very few gender non-conforming detransitioner/desister role models (1:28:03-1:37:16) but realized women can dress any way they want. I have pointed my daughter in her direction because I wonder if autistic girls feel they must be trans because they don’t dress like stereotypical girls. As for me though, at the end of the day, I found I needed a support group and maybe you do too. I found Cardinal Support Network through Genspect (along with PITT) and that led me to Connected Through Christ. Although I am not Catholic, my small group of all Christians, mostly Catholic, has been a lifesaver. We meet once a month and have laughed and cried together. We pray for each other. There is nothing quite like it because for the most part, we stay “underground”. If you are in the Cincinnati, Ohio area, please reach out to cincyctc@yahoo.com.

Update: since writing this PITT piece July 3rd, my grief-fog has lifted and I am getting back to myself. It is hard for me to be around people whose children have a “normal” pathway through high school but I am becoming very good at listening to non-normal pathways. And I do mean listening and empathasizing and walking alongside them, only sharing my story when needed. In a crisis, “look for the helpers” (Fred Rogers), sometimes they have been through hell to get so good at helping. I want to be like the helpers because they bring hope. “But we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces perseverance and perseverance produces character, and character produces hope” (Romans 5:3-4), even if somedays I have to hope for hope.