You did a great job writing this letter to your oldest daughter, who has taken on the role of "mothering" your two younger children. This dangerous and evil cult divides families and tears apart the family structure and foundation. I don't know if you sent or intend to send this letter to your oldest daughter, but it is written with love, deep compassion, and the truth. I wish you the best outcome and hope that your son does not medicalize and that your family will one day be reunited. A mother's love runs deep, and you did indeed do something right if your three children are close and love each other. Cling to HOPE, do not give up and continue to stand firm.
I don't understand this. How is your oldest daughter the 'sister mom'? Why are you letting her assume this position? Is she a legal adult and your two youngest have chosen to live with her? It sounds like she shouldn't be parenting *anyone*, and that someone needs to protect the two younger from her malign influence (even though she doesn't mean to be...)
I didn’t “let her” assume the role of mother, she took it by accusing me of causing emotional harms (by not affirming my son), so she turned them both against me for my beliefs. They are now both over 18.
This one is so much like my story I can’t believe it. My oldest daughter is also being sister mom to my 2 youngest daughters and she also holds a tremendous sway by on them. They all live together. I can’t believe that although she is 5-7 years older than them she is not demonstrating common sense about transitioning and is supporting her sister in her taking cross sex hormones that could cut decades off her life. She has re-written our family history to be one of control and abuse that is not the case at all, and because she is so much older they are believing it. I also raised my kids to love each other and my oldest daughter is super compassionate like yours. Hugs to you.
I’m so sorry you are suffering this nightmare too. No parents should ever have to experience this evil. My 3 are all 6yrs apart, I guess maybe my being an only child is why I didn’t realize the power of influence older siblings can have. I always have been so proud of my oldest as she appears very sensible ( happily married and runs her own business), I fully trusted her with my younger kids and was honestly devastated by her literally stealing them away from me since 2021 when she and her baby sister, secretly affirmed my son and encouraged his delusion. She has demonized me in their eyes, for my beliefs in natural health and in God (that she was raised with but has turned against), it’s heartbreaking.
I know I did raise them best I could, with lots of love and I have to hold hope in my heart that they will all find their way back home to me and to reality. Miracles happen every day, never give up hope
This is going to sound harsh, but I think it needs to be said.
You've lost the battle for your oldest so now you must protect your two other children from her influence. Do whatever it takes to do that because she will indoctrinate them with the same pseudo-science used to corrupt her.
You assume your oldest will listen to you. The trans movement is based on unhappy people indoctrinating other unhappy people so they have someone to share their "experience." She is not rationally going to give up doing that because her underlying real, untreated mental health issues will not let her. You have to stop her.
Moms should be mom's first and friends second. Respect and trust can't be had if you are willing to bend your principals because it is fashionable. Stop apologizing for who you are and just be the mama bear and protect your two young cubs.
I agree and always strive to be mother before friend, and absolutely don’t feel I have bent my principles, that’s how we have to come to this state of semi estrangement.
Thanks for feedback. My cubs are now 18 and 23 and I have done all I can think of to try and keep them connected to reality, but thanks to the same public school woke brainwashing and social media influencers that my oldest daughter was captured by; they have decided to believe my perspective is hateful and that they are on right side of history and the path to a better future for humanity.
I feel only option for me at this point is to give it up to God and try to save myself before I lose myself completely in the grief of this nightmare.
The past couple months have been tough, having to deal with 3 surgeries in 6 weeks ( one to tackle an infection), a friend's suicide, another one killed by fentanyl, fights with the very few VIP of my life, a car totalled, financial problems, and a small kid with issues who needs extra attention, among other things. I feel depleted .
I'm really glad I was an encouragement to some hurting parents at times. That makes my day.
Thanks for your kind words of encouragement. They are a light on my path 💗
Wow. This has been heart stopping to read. Especially today. I could pretty much write the same letter to our oldest son. Our three oldest children attended the same liberal university and came out “all things social justice.” The third, our autistic son, disappeared suddenly six months after coming out in 2014. To our oldest, I was seen as the greatest threat because I asked a few cautious questions. It was the most dizzying thing to me. How was this a threat? Last night I just learned from our second son, whose mind is changing, that our estranged son has not been answering his very limited text exchange...for months. We now have no way of knowing if he is alive unless our oldest speaks. Sometimes it takes a supernatural strength to love the son who has demonized me and supported a predatory capture of our vulnerable son.
In case it's useful, I met a young male agnostic whose father was a pastor. To stop arguing over religion, they agreed to exchange articles of approximately the same length. If the son wanted his father to read a 3-page article, the son had to agree to read a similar length article of his father's choosing. If the father wanted the son to read a 200-page book, the father had to agree to read a similar length book of the son's choosing.
Maybe your kids would be open to this. We are much more likely to be listened to if we are willing to listen (or read.)
Maybe just ask them to send you the writings on this topic that most influenced them, or that resonate with them, then eventually ask if they'd be open to an exchange.
Also, it may help to say, "To make wise decisions about anything, it's important to read (not just listen to, but read) directly from sources from across the ideological spectrum on that issue, and in general, and then use one's critical thinking skills to think for oneself."
And to be wary of any group that doesn't want you to read or listen to any point of view other than their own.
"If someone tells me not to read something, I go and read it right away."
What was the result with the agnostic and the pastor?
I’ve attempted this sort of tit for tat exchange of info on controversial subjects. Unfortunately, my experience is that it just leads to rabbit holes and that there’s always a written rebuttal to whatever you produce. (Plus people stop reading when you get past three page articles and start pushing books.) What I’ve found to be (slightly) more effective:
1. State my best one or two points unequivocally and unapologetically. (But with compassion and an open door policy of revisiting the discussion.)
2. Eventually the person “might” experience something in their life that validates my perspective.
3. If I’m lucky enough for them to reopen the door at that point, in a non judgmental way I’ll try to provide more evidence.
I’ve found that most people will justify their feelings with so-called logic and there’s no changing minds unless they’re either ready, or if you can get through with one zinger that resonates.
When I think of election-changing presidential debates throughout my life, they usually came down to one or two memorable lines a candidate said that resonated with folks as opposed to exchanging 300 page books on topics.
I only had the one conversation with the agnostic. The gist of his comments were that exchanging books and articles had averted arguments, and had made their conversations more peaceful.
I've had the successful experience of sharing a book title, and, with a different friend, on a different topic, an online documentary.
The documentary, on detransitioners, transformed a pediatrician friend from pro-trans to gender-critical, when all of our hours of conversation over several years, had not.
The book, on the science against dieting and the pursuit of weight loss, which she read, shut up that acquaintance. She has not pushed dieting or said a word about my size ever since (a year ago.)
However. I can see your point about those likely being rare instances, and article exchanges leading to bickering-by-article.
One thing I learned not to do, years ago, for example, was to stop trying to teach men about sexism, especially by recommending books. If a man doesn't understand my point within a sentence or two, I don't let myself get dragged into what is probably just a game for him. It isn't worth thumbing through my bookshelf trying to find the perfect explanation for him. Instead, I'll say, "If you really cared about this, you'd have read feminist books. If you're interested, I'll recommend a few titles you might relate to." Then I stop, lol.
O like your suggestion of just providing a couple of key points, and leaving it there. And to just recommend reading from across the ideological spectrum.
One thing that might be different about gender-critical writings, is that most people haven't been exposed to those ideas at all, and are debunkings of sex-role (trans) ideology. So my hope is that they're more useful than on other issues.
An acquaintance gave me several sex-role identity academic articles. They were a mind-blizzard. Until I went through with a pencil, word by word, and wrote corrections or criticisms in the margins in response to all the illogic. Sanity restored. The articles were all filled with pencil notes, they were that full of illogical, and easy for a gen-crit to debunk.
Perhaps that's what we should do: recommend to young people, academics, and others, to go through their articles with a pencil, and write in all the logic errors and make corrections.
Otherwise, I can see how those articles would be indoctrination-by-word-salad.
Thanks, Jason. Tell me more about what you wrote, please. I am interested in keeping this conversation going. It's important to figure out the various strategies we can use to crack this nut.
Wow, that’s great that the book exchange has worked for you. For me, it was a different highly polarizing subject and I eventually gave up trying to convince anyone unless they specifically asked my opinion. I just found that with rabbit hole after rabbit hole, no one wanted to change their minds...they just wanted to prove that “their experts” were better than other side’s experts.
That makes sense. What I was trying to say is that, with a few exceptions I've experienced, I think your experience of book exchanges not being effective is probably most often the case for anybody. I just cited a few examples where I lucked out. I also agree that anything more than a few-page article will likely not be read.
One thing gen-crits have not been doing for two decades now, for the most part, has been to write 1-page fact sheets, and tri-fold brochures, with citations, on each of the issues within the whole sex-role identity topic. I call it sex-role identity because it seems to be mostly about people feeling like they don't entirely fit all the sex-role stereotypes for their sex, and therefore they are susceptible to the irrational belief that they must somehow be the opposite sex(!) instead of the rational viewpoint that they don't fit all the stereotypes for their sex because they're just stereotypes, that no one perfectly fits all of for their sex. We need to be teaching about sex stereotypes being irrational and sexist, and can be rejected.
Anyway, concisely written brochures are portable, brief exposure to gen-crit facts and views, that could be printed out and shared with people we know or meet offline, to build local, gen-crit offline community. Then we wouldn't feel so isolated, and afraid to speak up. We could then have allies to go to school board meetings, or local healthcare board meetings to go with.
I keep writing about this, but struggle to write these fact sheets. I need to get on it.
Great advice! Thank you, and we are working on it… In fact the day my son came out to me last June 2023 he gave me his copy of whipping girl by Julia Sorrento (and reading it totally ruined my summer), but it definitely helped me understand how he sees things and made me realize just how messed up and delusional he’s thinking is. And for the exchange, I purchased “lost in transnation” and have asked him to read that… He hasn’t yet, it’s still sitting here waiting for him though. I don’t think he is ready yet to be open to it, and he would only read it to try to find fault.
Hi Reality, I'm glad it's useful and that you've already been doing that! May I ask, are you the author of Sister Mother, please (if you are willing to share that with us?) I'm writing down those titles , to read both. The more we know about what's influencing them, the better. I'm sorry he hasn't read at least part of your book. Perhaps you could ask him for another title, but then say, "Will you read Lost in TransNation first? I hated reading 'Whipping Girl,' but I did because I care about you."
I'm sure you don't need these suggestions, you're already on it, and know how to say it better than I do, because you're a Mom. Of someone caught in this.
We have also recently exchanged list of links to videos and articles to share. I have sent him a few Benjamin Boyce detransitioners videos and Genspect podcasts and he has sent me a bunch of philosophy tube and other trans activists YouTube videos. Doesn’t feel like we are getting anywhere but you never know what might click something in his brain
I'm going to post links to some very short YouTube videos, below, including one from a male detransitioner who realized his pretending to be a woman was harmful to women.
Your article is very powerful. Thank you for sharing.
I’ve come late to the Genspect podcast and I’ve been trying to find some episodes that might resonate with my daughter who I think is on the brink of taking hormones. There are so many episodes to get through though. Are there any that you’ve found particularly useful for our children, or could you share the other list of resources you sent your son? My daughter won’t read a book unfortunately but might commit to a podcast, video or short article.
Yes, I would like to have that list of resources that Reality check has created, too! It would be invaluable: both her and her son's lists (for learning about what is influencing them and how.)
Are you familiar with the YouTube Lesbians United channel? Their videos are super short (15 seconds to 2 - 3 minutes), powerful, sympathetic, and appeal to a person's social justice concerns. So it's speaking their language. And they educate about the medical danger, sexism, and lesbophobia inherent in the prescribing of blockers and testosterone for girls. I'll go get the link and post it here when I'm on my tablet next. Wishing you well with your daughter.
No I don’t know that channel but am very interested. Thank you for suggesting it (and offering to post the link). It sounds like it might be something she could tolerate.
And thank you for your kind wishes. This is hard stuff isn’t it!
Wow, that's fantastic. I mean, at least he's exchanging links with you. Any chance you could copy and paste both his and your lists here, please? I'd love to read and watch everything on both your lists.
Fantastic article, by the way. Thank you for it. I wish there were a way to persuade him to start checking out the info you've provided. But it does feel hopeful to me that he's exchanging lists with you. Even though it's probably really hard that he hasn't looked at any of them yet.
I should perhaps use your letter as a template letter to my daughter who has a huge influence on her much younger sister and had me arrested and out of the house for my non belief in trans ideology.
Here is a link to the biggest detransitioner sub Reddit on the Reddit social media platform. It has 52,000+ members. I only became aware of it about 3-4 months ago when reading Dr. Miriam Grossman’s excellent book “Lost in Trans Nation.” At that point it had about 49,000 members. Obviously it is growing quickly. I’m sure most us share the belief that detransitioners are best to talk amongst themselves and not to be shamed or “I told you so’d” by their families. But you can easily lurk and see how they think, what the social pressures are, etc.
Ironically, I tried to have a respectful debate in another Reddit forum about trans. I pointed to this link and made a few other points, mostly that I felt children are not capable of giving informed consent. I was banned for life from that other subreddit. Clearly they only want to cultivate an echo chamber.
Sagaciousness sentiments here "you are not a mother is why you can’t fully understand my primal protective instincts and can’t see how important it is to understand all aspects of anything that threatens your vulnerable offspring."
I have thought about this so many times when attempting to write a letter to my son who is in this and his ally older brother. You can't understand and you never will because you can never bear and birth children. The hormonal changes that gives women protective instincts when they birth their off-spring.
I do hope your children see the delusion that trans is and come back unharmed. Peace and strength.
> Being born at the end of 60’s’, growing up in the 80’s, becoming your mother in 90’s, (then blessed twice more in 2000’s), I admit I ignorantly didn’t pay enough attention to how the world was changing. I believed I was progressive, but believing natural biology isn’t real and that we can be our own creator, is not my idea of progress.
That always happens. The relentless march of "progress" eventually steamrolls its way past everyone's boundaries, and they're forced to either relocate their boundaries, or open their eyes and realize what's been going on. The last few years have brought millions around to a personal understanding of what Ronald Reagan meant 60 years ago when he said, "I didn't leave the Democratic Party; the Democratic Party left *me.*"
> I absolutely accept all my children unconditionally, regardless of who they love or how they present.
Love them. Definitely love them unconditionally, regardless of what they do. But never *accept* them as they are. That's not what a friend does and it's not what a parent should do; that's what an admiring fan does, from a safe distance. Someone who truly loves and cares about you, though, should not accept you as you are, but should always encourage you and help you to become even better.
"Someone who truly loves and cares about you, though, should not accept you as you are, but should always encourage you and help you to become even better."
Unfortunately, I think Gen Z (& perhaps some millennials) do not view this as love, but control. I know my Gen Z'ers do. It's much better in their view to estrange than to try to understand this.
Progressivism is always an illusion. The illusion is that it can ever end.
Francis Bacon and Rene Descartes together put us on a road to utopia (believe it or not, Bacon actually wrote a 15th century sci-fi book about this called The New Atlantis). Bacon recast science as not about UNDERSTANDING the world but about CONTROLLING it, and Descartes claimed that we were infinitely malleable, lacking a core essence or nature or soul. Put those together, and if you use politics to control human choices and science to alter the human environment... you can create Utopia, as Thomas More called it.
The Utopian, liberal, progressives have largely ruled since then -- and why not, they delivered material prosperity! Pavlov and Woodrow Wilson (the first "modern" progressives) both had a centuries long intellectual heritage behind them. But in the 20th century, this system ran up against the wall of human nature (in Russia) . In the West today, it's running up against the wall of biology itself. Because man is not infinitely malleable in body or mind or soul -- Bacon and Descartes are wrong. In fact, Bacon and Descartes are full of crap. But without them, modern man is left hopelessly adrift. We've spent 500 years transitioning our faith from God to Progress, but now that Progress has failed us, we have no idea what to do.
We will either rediscover something transcendental (beyond ourselves), or Bacon's descendants will succeed in modifying human biology to, as Noah Harari says, create Homo Deus, a new man capable of self-creation-- Nietzsche's superman... 100 late. (C.S. Lewis' book That Hideous Strength is a wonderful picture of this.) Should the latter happen though, Bacon's heirs will have succeeded in taming human nature only by ceasing to be human.
People who think this is just about teenagers taking hormones really don't understand the stakes.
..and I agree... this is not just about teenagers taking hormones.... this is so much bigger and so much more convoluted..... sterilization, lower consent age, state owned subjects, subjective reality trumps, integration of AI, disintegration of belief in God, uniformed subjects of the state with no identity and equal incomes, digital identity, lower earnings, eugenics, Pharma, stock, MONEY, greed, paedophilia, baphomet rising, GLOBAL SOCIALISM, control, CIA, depopulation, sexual deviance, child sacrifice, cult think, brainwashing, human mind experiment, progress, CONTROL......
I gave my philosophy students a variety of books to choose from for Christmas break. When Mark chose Homo Deus, my response was, "you can read it, but I'll warn you that Noah Harari is on my short list of people most likely to destroy the human race."
We come back on Monday. Mark's book report is the one I'm most looking forward to.
Oh yes, imho Noah Harari even for a the description of the anti Christ to me. I REALLY can't stand him. You are right... him, Klaus Schwarb, George Soros, Obama, davos, WEF, Black Rock, Vanguard, Oprah, Neil de Grasse Tyson, FBI, Fauci etc etc together will destroy humanity as we know it.... with their "progressive BIG ideas" and ownership of the world and single mindedness to do it their way and the arrogance they have in themselves as they play god and manipulatw the tide..... how? how can we fight them???????
Well said - it is much bigger than just the trans issues. Paul Kingsnorth's essay series on The Machine sums it up pretty well too (and he has written about Gender and been cancelled of course). Progress and Science ARE the modern day secular religion of the west, and Nietzshe predicted it all with his declaration God is Dead.
Yet He isn't.... nietzche was wrong. The living God is eternal and Good. He may allow evil for a time, but only to allow fools to condemn themselves. God, the Divine Intelligence behind complex life, will still judge the human soul and cast all that in unholy and unrighteous to outer darkness. Just as all that is good on earth... nature, beauty and love... can be marred by what is bad.... sickness, death and destruction.... the good always wins In the end. love ALWAYS wins and God is love, so God WILL bring justice and truth, as that is the highest form of love.
Nietzsche is very misunderstood! When he said his famous edict God is Dead, it was not a declaration but a lament, he was in pain and grieving for the end of an era, and he was also fearful of what kind of world would follow after the West had given up on God. So I don't think he was wrong, he was trying to warn people what was coming.
Renz is correct. The setting is the hermit Zarathustra having just come off his mountain. Conversation with the first man he encounters turns to religion. After the man walks away, Zarathustra is talking to himself when says, "haven't they heard that God is dead?" It is said in pity for his prior visitor, and also as a lament for the state of the world. It's at the very end of one of the first 3-4 chapters of Zarathustra (ch 2 I think). Which is good, because that book is really weird, so Nietzsche saying the important stuff early is wise.
I'm less clear that Nietzsche himself was upset about it though. About the next 20% of Zarathustra is extolling the rise of the ubermenschen, since now that God is dead, man must replace Him. This gets translated as "superman" but "next man" is probably a better idea. Noah Harari's term Homo Deus is close as well.
> you can create Utopia, as Thomas More called it.
And people have been misunderstanding him ever since. Utopia was a satirical critique of the idea of a perfect society. The name is Greek for "no place," and plenty of other named people and places in the book have names similarly connoting nonexistence, nonsense, foolishness, etc. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people out there with a flimsy grasp of satire.
Also, it's worth noting that Bacon never believed in Descartes' notion of the naturalistic, soulless, infinitely malleable man. He was a devout Christian who actively fought against the pollution of science by such ideas. As has happened in so many other areas, Descartes took Bacon's ideas and twisted them, rather than building upon them.
Oh, I agree that Descartes and Bacon weren't on the same page. However, put together by others, they form the basis of modern materialistic science and modern atheistic philosophy. And those are perfectly married to each other, since if there is no god, there is no natural law, and there are no natural limits on what human beings or science can or should do.
So you think Moore was actually satirizing the idea and Bacon instead took it seriously when he wrote New Atlantis? I'll have to reread Utopia (ugghhh!) now to see if I can find that in Moore's actual words. I always took the translation of the title as wistfullness not parody.
You did a great job writing this letter to your oldest daughter, who has taken on the role of "mothering" your two younger children. This dangerous and evil cult divides families and tears apart the family structure and foundation. I don't know if you sent or intend to send this letter to your oldest daughter, but it is written with love, deep compassion, and the truth. I wish you the best outcome and hope that your son does not medicalize and that your family will one day be reunited. A mother's love runs deep, and you did indeed do something right if your three children are close and love each other. Cling to HOPE, do not give up and continue to stand firm.
Thank you so much for your lovely comment. Yes hope is the key to getting through this nightmare.
This sounds more like it was written for the mother's therapy than anything else...
We all need to process and find some peace somehow. I see nothing wrong with that.
I don't understand this. How is your oldest daughter the 'sister mom'? Why are you letting her assume this position? Is she a legal adult and your two youngest have chosen to live with her? It sounds like she shouldn't be parenting *anyone*, and that someone needs to protect the two younger from her malign influence (even though she doesn't mean to be...)
I didn’t “let her” assume the role of mother, she took it by accusing me of causing emotional harms (by not affirming my son), so she turned them both against me for my beliefs. They are now both over 18.
Okay, so all involved are legal adults. That wasn't clear in the article.
Mothers don’t stop being mothers when child turned 18, especially when their children are all lost in harmful delusions
That's right! Thank you.
This one is so much like my story I can’t believe it. My oldest daughter is also being sister mom to my 2 youngest daughters and she also holds a tremendous sway by on them. They all live together. I can’t believe that although she is 5-7 years older than them she is not demonstrating common sense about transitioning and is supporting her sister in her taking cross sex hormones that could cut decades off her life. She has re-written our family history to be one of control and abuse that is not the case at all, and because she is so much older they are believing it. I also raised my kids to love each other and my oldest daughter is super compassionate like yours. Hugs to you.
I’m so sorry you are suffering this nightmare too. No parents should ever have to experience this evil. My 3 are all 6yrs apart, I guess maybe my being an only child is why I didn’t realize the power of influence older siblings can have. I always have been so proud of my oldest as she appears very sensible ( happily married and runs her own business), I fully trusted her with my younger kids and was honestly devastated by her literally stealing them away from me since 2021 when she and her baby sister, secretly affirmed my son and encouraged his delusion. She has demonized me in their eyes, for my beliefs in natural health and in God (that she was raised with but has turned against), it’s heartbreaking.
I know I did raise them best I could, with lots of love and I have to hold hope in my heart that they will all find their way back home to me and to reality. Miracles happen every day, never give up hope
This is going to sound harsh, but I think it needs to be said.
You've lost the battle for your oldest so now you must protect your two other children from her influence. Do whatever it takes to do that because she will indoctrinate them with the same pseudo-science used to corrupt her.
You assume your oldest will listen to you. The trans movement is based on unhappy people indoctrinating other unhappy people so they have someone to share their "experience." She is not rationally going to give up doing that because her underlying real, untreated mental health issues will not let her. You have to stop her.
Moms should be mom's first and friends second. Respect and trust can't be had if you are willing to bend your principals because it is fashionable. Stop apologizing for who you are and just be the mama bear and protect your two young cubs.
I agree and always strive to be mother before friend, and absolutely don’t feel I have bent my principles, that’s how we have to come to this state of semi estrangement.
Thanks for feedback. My cubs are now 18 and 23 and I have done all I can think of to try and keep them connected to reality, but thanks to the same public school woke brainwashing and social media influencers that my oldest daughter was captured by; they have decided to believe my perspective is hateful and that they are on right side of history and the path to a better future for humanity.
I feel only option for me at this point is to give it up to God and try to save myself before I lose myself completely in the grief of this nightmare.
Excellent
Thank you for providing a good template for a letter from me to my daughter.
I really appreciate you taking the time to write.
The past couple months have been tough, having to deal with 3 surgeries in 6 weeks ( one to tackle an infection), a friend's suicide, another one killed by fentanyl, fights with the very few VIP of my life, a car totalled, financial problems, and a small kid with issues who needs extra attention, among other things. I feel depleted .
I'm really glad I was an encouragement to some hurting parents at times. That makes my day.
Thanks for your kind words of encouragement. They are a light on my path 💗
Wow. This has been heart stopping to read. Especially today. I could pretty much write the same letter to our oldest son. Our three oldest children attended the same liberal university and came out “all things social justice.” The third, our autistic son, disappeared suddenly six months after coming out in 2014. To our oldest, I was seen as the greatest threat because I asked a few cautious questions. It was the most dizzying thing to me. How was this a threat? Last night I just learned from our second son, whose mind is changing, that our estranged son has not been answering his very limited text exchange...for months. We now have no way of knowing if he is alive unless our oldest speaks. Sometimes it takes a supernatural strength to love the son who has demonized me and supported a predatory capture of our vulnerable son.
Thank you.
In case it's useful, I met a young male agnostic whose father was a pastor. To stop arguing over religion, they agreed to exchange articles of approximately the same length. If the son wanted his father to read a 3-page article, the son had to agree to read a similar length article of his father's choosing. If the father wanted the son to read a 200-page book, the father had to agree to read a similar length book of the son's choosing.
Maybe your kids would be open to this. We are much more likely to be listened to if we are willing to listen (or read.)
Maybe just ask them to send you the writings on this topic that most influenced them, or that resonate with them, then eventually ask if they'd be open to an exchange.
Also, it may help to say, "To make wise decisions about anything, it's important to read (not just listen to, but read) directly from sources from across the ideological spectrum on that issue, and in general, and then use one's critical thinking skills to think for oneself."
And to be wary of any group that doesn't want you to read or listen to any point of view other than their own.
"If someone tells me not to read something, I go and read it right away."
Cults hate that.
What was the result with the agnostic and the pastor?
I’ve attempted this sort of tit for tat exchange of info on controversial subjects. Unfortunately, my experience is that it just leads to rabbit holes and that there’s always a written rebuttal to whatever you produce. (Plus people stop reading when you get past three page articles and start pushing books.) What I’ve found to be (slightly) more effective:
1. State my best one or two points unequivocally and unapologetically. (But with compassion and an open door policy of revisiting the discussion.)
2. Eventually the person “might” experience something in their life that validates my perspective.
3. If I’m lucky enough for them to reopen the door at that point, in a non judgmental way I’ll try to provide more evidence.
I’ve found that most people will justify their feelings with so-called logic and there’s no changing minds unless they’re either ready, or if you can get through with one zinger that resonates.
When I think of election-changing presidential debates throughout my life, they usually came down to one or two memorable lines a candidate said that resonated with folks as opposed to exchanging 300 page books on topics.
Oh, Jason, this is such a great comment!
I only had the one conversation with the agnostic. The gist of his comments were that exchanging books and articles had averted arguments, and had made their conversations more peaceful.
I've had the successful experience of sharing a book title, and, with a different friend, on a different topic, an online documentary.
The documentary, on detransitioners, transformed a pediatrician friend from pro-trans to gender-critical, when all of our hours of conversation over several years, had not.
The book, on the science against dieting and the pursuit of weight loss, which she read, shut up that acquaintance. She has not pushed dieting or said a word about my size ever since (a year ago.)
However. I can see your point about those likely being rare instances, and article exchanges leading to bickering-by-article.
One thing I learned not to do, years ago, for example, was to stop trying to teach men about sexism, especially by recommending books. If a man doesn't understand my point within a sentence or two, I don't let myself get dragged into what is probably just a game for him. It isn't worth thumbing through my bookshelf trying to find the perfect explanation for him. Instead, I'll say, "If you really cared about this, you'd have read feminist books. If you're interested, I'll recommend a few titles you might relate to." Then I stop, lol.
O like your suggestion of just providing a couple of key points, and leaving it there. And to just recommend reading from across the ideological spectrum.
One thing that might be different about gender-critical writings, is that most people haven't been exposed to those ideas at all, and are debunkings of sex-role (trans) ideology. So my hope is that they're more useful than on other issues.
An acquaintance gave me several sex-role identity academic articles. They were a mind-blizzard. Until I went through with a pencil, word by word, and wrote corrections or criticisms in the margins in response to all the illogic. Sanity restored. The articles were all filled with pencil notes, they were that full of illogical, and easy for a gen-crit to debunk.
Perhaps that's what we should do: recommend to young people, academics, and others, to go through their articles with a pencil, and write in all the logic errors and make corrections.
Otherwise, I can see how those articles would be indoctrination-by-word-salad.
Thanks, Jason. Tell me more about what you wrote, please. I am interested in keeping this conversation going. It's important to figure out the various strategies we can use to crack this nut.
Wow, that’s great that the book exchange has worked for you. For me, it was a different highly polarizing subject and I eventually gave up trying to convince anyone unless they specifically asked my opinion. I just found that with rabbit hole after rabbit hole, no one wanted to change their minds...they just wanted to prove that “their experts” were better than other side’s experts.
That makes sense. What I was trying to say is that, with a few exceptions I've experienced, I think your experience of book exchanges not being effective is probably most often the case for anybody. I just cited a few examples where I lucked out. I also agree that anything more than a few-page article will likely not be read.
One thing gen-crits have not been doing for two decades now, for the most part, has been to write 1-page fact sheets, and tri-fold brochures, with citations, on each of the issues within the whole sex-role identity topic. I call it sex-role identity because it seems to be mostly about people feeling like they don't entirely fit all the sex-role stereotypes for their sex, and therefore they are susceptible to the irrational belief that they must somehow be the opposite sex(!) instead of the rational viewpoint that they don't fit all the stereotypes for their sex because they're just stereotypes, that no one perfectly fits all of for their sex. We need to be teaching about sex stereotypes being irrational and sexist, and can be rejected.
Anyway, concisely written brochures are portable, brief exposure to gen-crit facts and views, that could be printed out and shared with people we know or meet offline, to build local, gen-crit offline community. Then we wouldn't feel so isolated, and afraid to speak up. We could then have allies to go to school board meetings, or local healthcare board meetings to go with.
I keep writing about this, but struggle to write these fact sheets. I need to get on it.
Great advice! Thank you, and we are working on it… In fact the day my son came out to me last June 2023 he gave me his copy of whipping girl by Julia Sorrento (and reading it totally ruined my summer), but it definitely helped me understand how he sees things and made me realize just how messed up and delusional he’s thinking is. And for the exchange, I purchased “lost in transnation” and have asked him to read that… He hasn’t yet, it’s still sitting here waiting for him though. I don’t think he is ready yet to be open to it, and he would only read it to try to find fault.
Short video under 1min., from a male detransitioner about "trans" being sexist. I posted a link to the short Lesbians United video, below.
https://youtu.be/1qavvCzNgek?si=yyCTHB37fmM09P-A
Hi Reality, I'm glad it's useful and that you've already been doing that! May I ask, are you the author of Sister Mother, please (if you are willing to share that with us?) I'm writing down those titles , to read both. The more we know about what's influencing them, the better. I'm sorry he hasn't read at least part of your book. Perhaps you could ask him for another title, but then say, "Will you read Lost in TransNation first? I hated reading 'Whipping Girl,' but I did because I care about you."
I'm sure you don't need these suggestions, you're already on it, and know how to say it better than I do, because you're a Mom. Of someone caught in this.
Thanks again for feedback and suggestions.
Yes I am author.
We have also recently exchanged list of links to videos and articles to share. I have sent him a few Benjamin Boyce detransitioners videos and Genspect podcasts and he has sent me a bunch of philosophy tube and other trans activists YouTube videos. Doesn’t feel like we are getting anywhere but you never know what might click something in his brain
I'm going to post links to some very short YouTube videos, below, including one from a male detransitioner who realized his pretending to be a woman was harmful to women.
Hi
Your article is very powerful. Thank you for sharing.
I’ve come late to the Genspect podcast and I’ve been trying to find some episodes that might resonate with my daughter who I think is on the brink of taking hormones. There are so many episodes to get through though. Are there any that you’ve found particularly useful for our children, or could you share the other list of resources you sent your son? My daughter won’t read a book unfortunately but might commit to a podcast, video or short article.
Yes, I would like to have that list of resources that Reality check has created, too! It would be invaluable: both her and her son's lists (for learning about what is influencing them and how.)
Are you familiar with the YouTube Lesbians United channel? Their videos are super short (15 seconds to 2 - 3 minutes), powerful, sympathetic, and appeal to a person's social justice concerns. So it's speaking their language. And they educate about the medical danger, sexism, and lesbophobia inherent in the prescribing of blockers and testosterone for girls. I'll go get the link and post it here when I'm on my tablet next. Wishing you well with your daughter.
No I don’t know that channel but am very interested. Thank you for suggesting it (and offering to post the link). It sounds like it might be something she could tolerate.
And thank you for your kind wishes. This is hard stuff isn’t it!
Wow, that's fantastic. I mean, at least he's exchanging links with you. Any chance you could copy and paste both his and your lists here, please? I'd love to read and watch everything on both your lists.
Fantastic article, by the way. Thank you for it. I wish there were a way to persuade him to start checking out the info you've provided. But it does feel hopeful to me that he's exchanging lists with you. Even though it's probably really hard that he hasn't looked at any of them yet.
You write beautifully.
I should perhaps use your letter as a template letter to my daughter who has a huge influence on her much younger sister and had me arrested and out of the house for my non belief in trans ideology.
Wow!! Literally could have written this, (perhaps not as well). Thank you! This is a keeper!
I’m with you on this one.
Sorry you are going through this nightmare too. I feel like I have lost all 3 of my babes to this evil, but I will never give up hope
I am so sorry for you xxx
Here is a link to the biggest detransitioner sub Reddit on the Reddit social media platform. It has 52,000+ members. I only became aware of it about 3-4 months ago when reading Dr. Miriam Grossman’s excellent book “Lost in Trans Nation.” At that point it had about 49,000 members. Obviously it is growing quickly. I’m sure most us share the belief that detransitioners are best to talk amongst themselves and not to be shamed or “I told you so’d” by their families. But you can easily lurk and see how they think, what the social pressures are, etc.
https://www.reddit.com/r/detrans
Ironically, I tried to have a respectful debate in another Reddit forum about trans. I pointed to this link and made a few other points, mostly that I felt children are not capable of giving informed consent. I was banned for life from that other subreddit. Clearly they only want to cultivate an echo chamber.
Sagaciousness sentiments here "you are not a mother is why you can’t fully understand my primal protective instincts and can’t see how important it is to understand all aspects of anything that threatens your vulnerable offspring."
I have thought about this so many times when attempting to write a letter to my son who is in this and his ally older brother. You can't understand and you never will because you can never bear and birth children. The hormonal changes that gives women protective instincts when they birth their off-spring.
I do hope your children see the delusion that trans is and come back unharmed. Peace and strength.
> Being born at the end of 60’s’, growing up in the 80’s, becoming your mother in 90’s, (then blessed twice more in 2000’s), I admit I ignorantly didn’t pay enough attention to how the world was changing. I believed I was progressive, but believing natural biology isn’t real and that we can be our own creator, is not my idea of progress.
That always happens. The relentless march of "progress" eventually steamrolls its way past everyone's boundaries, and they're forced to either relocate their boundaries, or open their eyes and realize what's been going on. The last few years have brought millions around to a personal understanding of what Ronald Reagan meant 60 years ago when he said, "I didn't leave the Democratic Party; the Democratic Party left *me.*"
> I absolutely accept all my children unconditionally, regardless of who they love or how they present.
Love them. Definitely love them unconditionally, regardless of what they do. But never *accept* them as they are. That's not what a friend does and it's not what a parent should do; that's what an admiring fan does, from a safe distance. Someone who truly loves and cares about you, though, should not accept you as you are, but should always encourage you and help you to become even better.
"Someone who truly loves and cares about you, though, should not accept you as you are, but should always encourage you and help you to become even better."
Unfortunately, I think Gen Z (& perhaps some millennials) do not view this as love, but control. I know my Gen Z'ers do. It's much better in their view to estrange than to try to understand this.
Progressivism is always an illusion. The illusion is that it can ever end.
Francis Bacon and Rene Descartes together put us on a road to utopia (believe it or not, Bacon actually wrote a 15th century sci-fi book about this called The New Atlantis). Bacon recast science as not about UNDERSTANDING the world but about CONTROLLING it, and Descartes claimed that we were infinitely malleable, lacking a core essence or nature or soul. Put those together, and if you use politics to control human choices and science to alter the human environment... you can create Utopia, as Thomas More called it.
The Utopian, liberal, progressives have largely ruled since then -- and why not, they delivered material prosperity! Pavlov and Woodrow Wilson (the first "modern" progressives) both had a centuries long intellectual heritage behind them. But in the 20th century, this system ran up against the wall of human nature (in Russia) . In the West today, it's running up against the wall of biology itself. Because man is not infinitely malleable in body or mind or soul -- Bacon and Descartes are wrong. In fact, Bacon and Descartes are full of crap. But without them, modern man is left hopelessly adrift. We've spent 500 years transitioning our faith from God to Progress, but now that Progress has failed us, we have no idea what to do.
We will either rediscover something transcendental (beyond ourselves), or Bacon's descendants will succeed in modifying human biology to, as Noah Harari says, create Homo Deus, a new man capable of self-creation-- Nietzsche's superman... 100 late. (C.S. Lewis' book That Hideous Strength is a wonderful picture of this.) Should the latter happen though, Bacon's heirs will have succeeded in taming human nature only by ceasing to be human.
People who think this is just about teenagers taking hormones really don't understand the stakes.
..and I agree... this is not just about teenagers taking hormones.... this is so much bigger and so much more convoluted..... sterilization, lower consent age, state owned subjects, subjective reality trumps, integration of AI, disintegration of belief in God, uniformed subjects of the state with no identity and equal incomes, digital identity, lower earnings, eugenics, Pharma, stock, MONEY, greed, paedophilia, baphomet rising, GLOBAL SOCIALISM, control, CIA, depopulation, sexual deviance, child sacrifice, cult think, brainwashing, human mind experiment, progress, CONTROL......
Basically EVIL
Noah Harari is one of the most evil villains alive today
I gave my philosophy students a variety of books to choose from for Christmas break. When Mark chose Homo Deus, my response was, "you can read it, but I'll warn you that Noah Harari is on my short list of people most likely to destroy the human race."
We come back on Monday. Mark's book report is the one I'm most looking forward to.
Oh yes, imho Noah Harari even for a the description of the anti Christ to me. I REALLY can't stand him. You are right... him, Klaus Schwarb, George Soros, Obama, davos, WEF, Black Rock, Vanguard, Oprah, Neil de Grasse Tyson, FBI, Fauci etc etc together will destroy humanity as we know it.... with their "progressive BIG ideas" and ownership of the world and single mindedness to do it their way and the arrogance they have in themselves as they play god and manipulatw the tide..... how? how can we fight them???????
Well said - it is much bigger than just the trans issues. Paul Kingsnorth's essay series on The Machine sums it up pretty well too (and he has written about Gender and been cancelled of course). Progress and Science ARE the modern day secular religion of the west, and Nietzshe predicted it all with his declaration God is Dead.
Yet He isn't.... nietzche was wrong. The living God is eternal and Good. He may allow evil for a time, but only to allow fools to condemn themselves. God, the Divine Intelligence behind complex life, will still judge the human soul and cast all that in unholy and unrighteous to outer darkness. Just as all that is good on earth... nature, beauty and love... can be marred by what is bad.... sickness, death and destruction.... the good always wins In the end. love ALWAYS wins and God is love, so God WILL bring justice and truth, as that is the highest form of love.
Nietzsche is very misunderstood! When he said his famous edict God is Dead, it was not a declaration but a lament, he was in pain and grieving for the end of an era, and he was also fearful of what kind of world would follow after the West had given up on God. So I don't think he was wrong, he was trying to warn people what was coming.
Renz is correct. The setting is the hermit Zarathustra having just come off his mountain. Conversation with the first man he encounters turns to religion. After the man walks away, Zarathustra is talking to himself when says, "haven't they heard that God is dead?" It is said in pity for his prior visitor, and also as a lament for the state of the world. It's at the very end of one of the first 3-4 chapters of Zarathustra (ch 2 I think). Which is good, because that book is really weird, so Nietzsche saying the important stuff early is wise.
I'm less clear that Nietzsche himself was upset about it though. About the next 20% of Zarathustra is extolling the rise of the ubermenschen, since now that God is dead, man must replace Him. This gets translated as "superman" but "next man" is probably a better idea. Noah Harari's term Homo Deus is close as well.
Really?? I think I need to read Nietzche. I only ever HEAR about him or read quotes. But still, he did believe God wasn't real didn't he??
> you can create Utopia, as Thomas More called it.
And people have been misunderstanding him ever since. Utopia was a satirical critique of the idea of a perfect society. The name is Greek for "no place," and plenty of other named people and places in the book have names similarly connoting nonexistence, nonsense, foolishness, etc. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people out there with a flimsy grasp of satire.
Also, it's worth noting that Bacon never believed in Descartes' notion of the naturalistic, soulless, infinitely malleable man. He was a devout Christian who actively fought against the pollution of science by such ideas. As has happened in so many other areas, Descartes took Bacon's ideas and twisted them, rather than building upon them.
Oh, I agree that Descartes and Bacon weren't on the same page. However, put together by others, they form the basis of modern materialistic science and modern atheistic philosophy. And those are perfectly married to each other, since if there is no god, there is no natural law, and there are no natural limits on what human beings or science can or should do.
So you think Moore was actually satirizing the idea and Bacon instead took it seriously when he wrote New Atlantis? I'll have to reread Utopia (ugghhh!) now to see if I can find that in Moore's actual words. I always took the translation of the title as wistfullness not parody.