By March of 2020, we could no longer leave the house unless we had an “attestation,” providing a legal justification for being outside. The European country where we lived as American expats had one of the strictest lock downs in the world. Within a week of the restrictions, I lost my sense of taste. I was pregnant but was advised to stay at home because at that point, the hospitals were full. Patients were being transferred by medical trains across the border. Breathless and coughing, I self-isolated in an empty room in the attic, sleeping on a mattress my husband pulled up the steep staircase. To everyone’s relief, in two weeks, I was better.
I’m happy your daughter is moving back towards feminine dress. I hope she is sorting out the confusion and watching healthier role models on social media.
My stepdaughter continues to pretend that she is a trans person and we agreed to call her the boy name over a year ago. She has never been boyish and seemed to get the idea because people thought she was a boy when she had short hair as a child and then again at 12 when her biomom allowed her to severely cut her long hair into a boy cut.
She idolizes her older brother and hates her breasts. She binds them - her biomom bought binders for her. It surprises me because her biomom has always been fairly conservative like her ex and I.
All of her friend circle are on this LGBTQRSP spectrum and her closest friends identify as boys. She is allowed access to her electronics 100% of the day and night at her biomom’s house. We allow it part time and never in her bedroom.
Her dad knows he should speak with her about all of this gender confusion instead of relying on her mother to do so. Since her mother spends so much time on the internet ignoring her children I can’t imagine she is doing anything but worsening the situation by simply ignoring her daughter.
I have tried to be close to my stepdaughter and we were when she was 11, but her biomom seems to hate that we had a relationship and everything I’ve done since she began puberty has been twisted into something negative between mother and daughter. So I can’t be the one that speaks to her about her gender issues. Whatever I say will be mangled and make the situation worse. On the other hand, her dad is afraid to say anything since his daughter spends so little time at our house (every other weekend).
I suppose my biggest regret is that I agreed to call my stepdaughter the boy name. Only her brother refuses, saying he won’t do it until she legally changes it. He was smarter than all of us.
Have any of you reverted to calling your child by their natural name? It seems like that’s the correct choice even if it infuriates her. I’d love advice. She is 15 and has been confused for a couple of years now. Going into the tenth grade in the autumn. I want to help but don’t know how.
Who are experiencing this constant battle with the Cult of Transgender within their families. My heart goes out to each of you, it is certainly an enormous challenge you face, particularly when this behaviour is promoted throughout the schooling system, online grooming and now even Summer Schools.
We live in Western Australia and remember two American friends of ours who decided to live in this state for a few years. When they returned to the USA their daughter Annie became involved as a ten leader in Summer Schools, teaching children to ski and absolutely loving her experience. During that time there was not a hint of this Cult behaviour including grooming occurring, it all seemed to be a positive experience. So it has been so sad to hear of one you mother's negative experience.
As well as being a mother of six (thankfully well before this Cult behaviour emerged, I did a degree in Multidisciplinary Science including five years of Human Biology, developmental psychology, anthropology and sociology and would like to share with you some of the positive aspects of allowing for normal healthy development. Which I can see from your stories you are aiming to achieve.
Currently I have two of my family members experiencing ill health so my time is limited. However as soon as possible I will provide this information that hopefully may be of some help.
Bless you all, you have been most courageous during the extremely difficult challenges you face particularly when your children also face mental health issues that cloud their judgement to be more objective.
Thanks for mentioning Bardbury's classic story, 'The Veldt.' In it, two harried (and somewhat bullied) parents outfit a room of their house with an extremely realistic form of virtual reality. The children become more and more sullen and demanding that they be allowed to spend much or most of their time in the room, and the parents are clearly panicked and losing control.
It's a fine and famous tale. Until today I did not see how it can be an apt metaphor for what some families struggling with the whole trans identity trend are going through. Thanks for making me see it anew; I plan to read it again tonight.
P.S. I was greatly privileged to get to spend time with Bradbury on four fantastic occasions in his later life. He was an ebullient man with a capacious mind and imagination, and I wept the day he died at age 92 in 2012. RIP Ray!
I have a ton of SF books. I just was looking in a box, and VOILA!! 20 Bradbury books, or so. I am desperately downsizing on the many thousands of books.
Send them to me! I love nothing more than a big box of old SF paperbacks (which, as a kid, epitomized the wonder of exploring new worlds with imagination alone).
Bradbury is known as an SF writer, but in a sense, he doesn't quite fit that definition. He was a nostalgist, a romantic, a poet, and a keen observer of raw human emotion who often (but far from always) set his vividly evocative tales on other worlds or in prospective futures, whether nightmarish or hopeful. He conveyed mood and intensity with language alone, inspiring me to become a writer myself.
Nothing transports me back to my own "golden age of science fiction" (maybe 12-15) than a box of battered paperbacks.... lucky you!
How hysterical!! In grad school, I remember having a long discussion with a friend who contended that Bradbury's SF Opus (Martian Chronicles, etc) made him an SF writer. My contention was, like your notion, that he was more than a simple SF writer. "Something wicked this way comes" is a combination of thriller/horror/SF, for instance. And then there are his Illinois prairie stories.
The Green Town stories, definitively not SF — though kinda sorta fantasy of the lightest sort, if one squints — are among Bradbury's most evocative tales.
You are lucky that you found out so early - my daughter was over 18 and legally changed her sex in Australia. It is all much harder to reverse. I am so glad that your daughter is enjoying being herself, instead of being taught self hate.
Like the author I have known many lovely people in my life and have not cared about whether they were gay or straight. Thinking about all the obsession with Identity and things like "The Gummy Bear Cult" and the colorful jelly beans that were once presented to another child of mine (without my prior knowledge) to explain the ever expanding rainbow identities - I have concluded that we should retire all rainbow and rainbow related flags. I don't know how to get there... Maybe these flags were helpful in the 1970s. But, it's unnecessary and even toxic now. Do I need to think about sexuality every time I buy a cup of coffee? Is this having a positive effect on children? NO. On anybody? Currently it is working for pedophiles and intact adult men who insist they are lesbians like our US Assistant Health Secretary. See "Minor Attracted People" (MAPs) "Johns Hopkins U. hires academic who wants to ‘destigmatize’ pedophilia" https://www.thecollegefix.com/johns-hopkins-u-hires-academic-who-wants-to-destigmatize-pedophilia/ " She will be a postdoctoral fellow at the Johns Hopkins’ Moore Center for Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse!
Maybe we could take back the month of June - and all the twelve months could be for straight and gay people, some of whom might have a parade if they want. We've gone from "Gay Pride month" to "in your face invented nonsense" all the darn time. It strikes me that this has happened in part because of pretty widespread acceptance of actual homosexuality. Activists, fetished people, and mentally ill people have taken over "the movement". So, how about we all agree to remove those flags from public places permanently?
Yes, at this point, I am getting more and more leery of ALL the alphabetters, including L, G, B. The whole perversion agenda is not healthy. I don't care about how popular this idea is. I also have a daughter that is somewhere in the A and L terrain.
What is going on is that the alphabet folks have cultivated a false and pernicious thing that makes this false self-concept attractive.
The alphabet agenda puts people into an unhealthy life situation. Say whatever you like, but normal sexual situations create life-long and stable relationships. Yes, these happen in the L and G groups, but there is a lot less stability. Why is that? Mostly it is due to the FACT that a stable M-F pair often have children, and then the children go on to form stable M-F pairs, who have grandchildren. This is a stable situation.
Those in the alphabet self-identification sometimes talk about a "rainbow" family which is replacing a real family. So, when you are in jail, do you call your "rainbow" mom or your actual mom?
Finally, I am increasingly resentful of the cultural appropriation of the rainbow flag by the alphabet folks. It's my color sphere as well. The alphabet folks do not own the rainbow.
I can understand where you are coming from. I believe that a bunch of people are naturally homosexual. But, in the schools that have 1/4 of the students identify as "trans" (unhealthy fantasy) there are often something like 1/2 the girls identifying as lesbian which cannot be right. And, I really think there should not be any Identity groups of any kind in K - 12 schools. Save it for college. As I said earlier, I think the rainbow flag ought to be retired from public places and put out in private residences where people want it and at an annual parade for those who like that. It's gotten so overloaded and aggressive. My sympathies for the gay man who loved it in 1985.
I am in the process of creating a new flag - the NORMAL flag. We normal people get a flag too.
I am tired of the notion that everything is normal. No, gay is not normal. No, trannie, queer, bi is not normal. Normal is one thing only - heterosexual.
In my UU church, I very deliberately use the word "normal" for a lot of stuff. People will not use that word now. They avoid it. I will use it for normal families - male-female heterosexual couples.
First, let me just say that IMHO, that gummy cult sounds abso HORRIFYING. Also, I do understand where you are coming from, however I respectfully disagree on one thing. YES, flush the 3-colour flag (& the 6,000 other nonsensical ones, or not 🤷🏻♀️), and the 24/365 shoving of sexuality down our throats literally everywhere we go and everywhere we look. 👍👏👏👏👏👏 That said, the LGB (actual) rainbow flag 🏳️🌈 MUST NOT be sacrificed nor altered to include “uninvited guests”, most especially not any parasitic squatters nor predatory populations. Nooooo! I do not claim to speak for the entire LGB community, ever, yet I can assure you that the other letters of alphabet attached themselves to “LGBs” coattails (even the seemingly harmless “Questioning” ppl -the “Q’s”) and slid in under the radar, appropriating the LGBs’ very long, hard fought battles as their own. 😠 The ‘rest of alphabet’, *NOT* the L, the G & B’s, left the back door wide open for the T’s & MAPs and imaginary ‘liquid’ shapeshifter peoples and the endless parade of mind blowing gaslighting terminology that is CONSTANTLY manipulatively used to announce: “I’m special! RESPECT me or I will hurt you!” by multiple lovelies, online & IRL.
Rainbows are innocent and have never committed any prosecutable crimes (that I am aware of). Rainbows are quite enjoyable, and children only see them as pretty colors…while most adults usually see them as an interesting phenomena, yes? Rainbow flags are NOT the toxic entity that you’ve been utterly deceived into rejecting (although I DO understand why you would think this needs to be flushed, and DO SAFEGUARD ALL CHILDREN, ALWAYS!). IMHO, it is the tri-colour flag and all of it’s cousins who are the toxicity and MUST be removed to either exist on their own or whatever. No lesbian should EVER be pressured into even entertaining the appallingly absurd concept of obligatory sex with men (nor ANYONE, EVER!, For any reason) esp not to prove the sincerity of their dedication to a cult they never, ever agreed to join. Likewise, homosexual men must never be pressured into obligatory sex with either females (who believe they are men) nor males (who believe they are women), nor anyone or anything, ever. Period. Additionally, obviously, heterosexual/bisexual/asexual, etc. people must never be pressured into having sex w/ any of the before-mentioned. It’s all VERY ‘rapey’ (rapist mentality) behavior to EVER pressure ANYONE into “mandatory” (“omg, if you do not acknowledge/ auto-respect/ have sex w/ us = you are violent Nazis who want us to die AND/OR you are ACTIVELY a trying to kill us”) sexual engagement with others. 🤡 These people need to be vociferously identified as predators. IMO, the T people have an outright homophobic agenda that is too deep to delve into in a paragraph or two. Mind you, the “transing” of children is a nothing simple… it is backed by a multi, multi, multi TRILLION dollar pharmaceutical industry of cha-Ching! $$$$$ Getting toddlers and kids hooked on a LIFETIME of pharmaceuticals and horrific irreversible body mutilation surgeries-for-cash is a Mengelesque-level of evil worthy of your personal investigation. So…please DO stay aware of all predatory behaviors, pls recognize the “TQIA+” & “MAP” people’s invasion of the LGB as parasitic & predatory, & also understand the L and/or not the B’ womens’ need for same- sex separation from the other letters. Thank you for your kind consideration of these thoughts & suggestions! 🙂
That flag is tainted. Sorry. The lgb let it happen. The vast majority of them still seem to be on the agenda of the radicals. I know there are some who are against the radical agenda. Not enough are. 🤷🏻♀️ The whole group and their actions have completely turned me off lf them all.
LGBT have been bullied and manipulated by biophobes/TRAs (trans rights activists) just like huge numbers of arraight people have. So while it upsets me that LGBs have accepted and are promoting or supporting biophobes, so are huge swaths of straight people, who have also been manipulated and bullied into doing so.
Hi, I agree with about 99.9 percent of what you say and can sympathize with the rest. However, given that "every fetishist and his brother" is currently running with the rainbow flag (instead of just gay men) including at schools and in government, I think it would be good to move it to private spaces for a time at least. We need a break from identity and from sexualization on everyone's mind. I can sit in a coffee shop and sip my drink surrounded by LG and not LG people without flags which have become overloaded. I totally agree about the tri-flag being in need of burning. Sadly, in this day and age children see rainbows and think of things like "pan sexuality" and "demi" this and that which most of their parents have not heard about. It is worked into regular classroom lessons. And our president and our US Assistant Health Secretary want to "trans" children and they discuss it at town halls under the rainbow flag. One could fly it from one's apartment and at the annual parade. Thank you for understanding. - LM
I completely agree. The original (“Gilbert Baker Rainbow Flag”) 🏳️🌈 needs to be preserved in a lucite display in some museum, somewhere, is basically what I was trying to say. The rainbow symbol has been perma hijacked, weaponized & is dead & buried. If the plethora of flags/ symbols & constant stream of declarations of sexualities/preferences/fetishes, etc. were to self immolate, that’d be super fine with me. 👍 PRIORITY: The transing of children and other vulnerables must be stopped.
I completely agree. As a lesbian, ever since the rainbow flag came out in the 1980s, I have never been willing to have a rainbow anything. It represents gay (male) culture overtaking lesbian feminist culture and trying to put us all under the gay (men's) culture. In the 1970s and early 1980s, lesbian feminists and gays had two distinct cultures and communities. It was only upon gays bullying, guilt-tripping, and manipulating lesbians into doing AIDS volunteering, which some of us never fell for, that lesbian feminists, unfortunately, started agreeing to be subsumed to gays under the woman-hating rainbow. We were literally told that we were "literally killing gays" to maintain our own separate community and culture. The rainbow is a symbol of anti-lesbian feminism, and misogyny. Please don't buy or sport anything rainbow if you want to support lesbians and lesbian feminism.
Also, everyone, please never use the word "gay" in reference to lesbians. It erases and subsumes lesbians to gays, and centers men and their experiences,, in the same way that using the word "man" does to women ("family of man", "mankind", "postman," etc.) Always say "lesbian," or "lesbian and gay," etc.
And finally, let's ditch saying "LGBT." Just ditch it from our vocabularies. It's not one big homogenous group. That has just been a marketing ploy from gays and biophobes (cross-sex identified people.)
We need to reclaim language that reflects the politics women want to see in the world, not what sexist men have promoted.
"We were literally told that we were "literally killing gays" to maintain our own separate community and culture."
In the 21st century that has morphed into all of us being told that if we do not buy into Gender Identity Theory it "denies the existence" of people - & not to agree with delusion "literally kills people".
Yes, exactly! So much of what is being foisted upon us by the Cult of Biophobia has been borrowed and amplified from manipulations used by gays on the public and on lesbian feminists back in the 1980s and 1990s.
Everyone should read the free online 1987 article, "The Overhauling of Straight America," by neuropsychologost Marshall Kirk and social marketing and advertising executive Hunter Madsen.
It is chilling, how their advice to gays to curb homophobia, has been used to the max by biophobes (cross-sex activists).
Also, please check out the reviews on Amazon and elsewhere of their book, "After the Ball," by the same authors. The book now costs $900 (!), but apparently can be found by library super search. I need to get this book!. Some of the reviewers say the authors admit in the book that some of what they are recommending are brainwashing techniques.
I need to write a blog post of all the brainwashing techniques and emotional manipulations encapsulated in just the "Preferred Pronouns Etiquette Lesson," alone! It is perhaps the most effective single brainwashing technique ever invented.
Cult expert Margaret Singer, in her book, "Cults in Our Midst," wrote that people who have been through cults and who have been exposed to their coordinated brainwashing campaigns, are getting ever-better at figuring out how to manipulate people deceptively. Then here comes the cult of biophobia, which is focused on using to the max every known deceptive manipulation technique. Such as continually co-opting our langauge.
For example, "They're just being their true selves: being who they are." In reference to people who are pretending to be who they aren't.
Even more manipulative, "Why not just let people be who they are?" As if we're being guilty of meanness or being meddlesome when we're being asked to lie to and gaslight ourselves and others.
I like to reply back, "Being who they are, or being who they aren't?"
Very interesting - and chilling! Margaret Singer is one of the first people I found and started reading online 5 years ago when our family fell into Gender Hell. I hadn't realized that there were people coming out of cults and then turning around and manipulating other people. Yes, the teens are thoroughly confused/gaslit and think they are being their "authentic selves". I often think GI is similar to NXIVM and wonder how we can get to the point where it is the Sunday night docu-miniseries. Right now I am reading Kathleen Stock's "Material Girls, Why Reality Matters for Feminism."
Thank you. I didn't know some of that. Although I personally have no objection to "mankind" I will say "lesbian and gay". I have already rejected anything past "LGB" and the rainbow (a lovely thing from nature that has been made trashy). And, yes, thank you for reminding me to use "biophobes' for the fetished, mentally disordered, and cult indoctrinated. We need to reclaim reclaim language that reflects reality!
How is it nonsense? Ending sexism is a good thing. Itbis conservatives beliefs in sexism that got us here. Biophonia is rooted in conservatives belief in and promotion of sexism/misogyny.
No, feminists who feminized society and have boys running from themselves and women afraid to be women is why we are here. It is the policing of the language like your post that has gotten us here. It sounds no different than the trans cult doing the same with their ideology.
And, I observe the two sexes long described as Men and WoMen, not Men and Wo-. But then I also think we need for feminists like R.K. Rowling and social conservatives like Matt Walsh to fight for the same end - in defense of Reality and against biophobia and normalization of MAPs. I sure do not want to get into a "thing" over mankind v. humankind :) I was never a "political person" but this mama is hopping mad about GI and wants to see it end/be recognized widely for the sick cult it is. I was an "Independent" most of my life but have thrown in with the Rs. Even so, I am frustrated with Republicans and conservative media like the NY Post or Fox that will refer to men as "she". That is literally crazy and harmful to society. - LM
“Cute”? You can just stop with your bs. Your being a woman (or claiming to be a woman) has zero to do with the fact that you declared yourself a homophobe & stated “I wish they'd all go back in the closet.” Your antagonism and DARVOing Lesbians and Gays for what MRAs (Mens Rights Activists) have done is indicative of a closed mind and more. Too bad you’ve swallowed the bait of the multi, multi trillion dollar industrial machine of 1000% unnecessary medical mutilation of children/ vulnerables & pharmaceutical pushing-for-profit, that thrives on creating divisiveness and blatant homophobia. Misogyny, male aggression and homophobia have historically always gone hand in hand. Support one of them and you’ve joined the very cult of which you whine about.
The vast majority of all lgb are going along with it and are just as militant as the trans ppl.
I've swallowed what? I'm against trans nonsense. I am against lgb now (I wasn't always, as I stated clearly) because the vast majority of them are helping it. There is no "support" for them and nothing in my comment indicates that to be the case. How absurd. My comment is solely about the behavior of lgbt themselves and the throat full of it that we get bombed with 24/7 as a result of lgbt militancy and that is why you could probably call me a homophobe now. Idc about your opinion. You're only making me not feel bad about it anymore and showing me that I'm right.
As a lesbian, im sick of seeing rainbows everywhere. In the LGBT colors, at least.
I'm also sick of people referring to us as LGBT, even when it is solely a T issue, or gay (men's) issue.
But I would also ask everyone to step back and start noticing how much heterosexuality and heterosexuals are represented everywhere. Everywhere. Constantly! Name one tv show that doesn't have heteros in it. Name one in which hets don't dominate it. Ditto movies, books, plays, music videos, news programs, etc. Instead of counting up lesbians and gays, count up hets. Or a het : lesbian/gay ratio. Supposedly, lesbians and gays are 10%of the population (1 in 10). Even if we're just 5%, (1 in 20), count up in a night of tv watching, count up the hets relative to the number of lesbians and gays. See what you come up with. I'll be curious. (I don't own a tv.)
You not owning a tv makes sense that you don't see the over representation of gay in tv today. Just today I was watching Wheel of Time. 4 gay ppl, so far. There are not 40 characters in it. That is todays tv. That is todays books. That is todays everything. It is over represented. They do it just to pander.
Praying for your daughter to gain the strength and courage she needs to continue her life’s journey as the female she was born to be. Stay focused and keep her close to your heart. I am hoping for a fabulous outcome for all of you!
It's wise of you to recognize they'll be exposed to and pressured intensely by this cult.
I urge you and everyone in a child's life to prepare kids or grandkids well before the onslaught, so that they are protected intellectually from mind control regarding this and any issue, by teaching them how to think critically in general, and to teach them how to specifically debunk this and other cults.
Here is an analogy:
My atheist parents knew that my older brother and I would be exposed to religion and peer pressure (orchestrated in the background by religions, by the way they talk to their flock) to be religious, as soon as we went to school and were around other kids raised with religion. This was in the 1960s, when almost no one was atheist in American suburbia.
My parents were rightfully frightened we kids would start becoming religious from the influence and peer pressure of other kids at school. They didn't want us to be the delusional, illogocal, scientifically misinformed, manipulated, uncritical robots that they had been pressured to be when they were growing up, by their respective religious upbringings, only to discover they'd been lied to and emotionally and psychologically abused by their religions and religious families, teachers, and priests teaching them a bunch of nonsense. Without their realizing they were manipulated robots.
So before my brother and I entered kindergarten, every night at the dinner table, starting around age 3-4 ( I heard it starting around age 2, as my brother was 3 years older than me), they taught us about the irrationality, danger, and insanity of religion, and how religions manipulate, lie, and attack and dissuade critical thinking.
My parent's explanations were broken down into child-size baby steps of information and reasoning, so it was a slow, patient, steady, nightly process at dinner.
They taught us how irrational and unscientific it was to believe that there was an invisible man in the sky that created the universe, and taught us how the universe was actually created ("big bang" theory).
Of course, for example, to explain "invisible" to a 3 year old takes weeks and months to fully explain. But children that young can indeed learn the big concepts my parents taught us.
It is not only possible, but necessary, to prepare children for the harmful influences in the world such as religion.
Many people think they should let kids grow up and decide for themselves.
This is utterly stupid, as my parents explained. Religion is organized to manipulate, influence, and capture, grab and steal the minds of people from the youngest age, from birth onward. It is completely irresponsible for any parent or adult in a child's life to leave a vulnerable child or adult unprepared for this theft of mind and attempts of lies and manipulation by religions.
Children are so often talked down to, and not assumed to be intelligent. Kids are far more intelligent and capable of thinking than they are given credit for. They just need things to be explained to them broken down into baby steps, so they can learn and understand each detail. And then receive lots of repetition and reinforcement to provide context and reminders in a world that is constantly going to be vomiting up religious arguments and manipulations at them. This applies as much today to groups that dishonestly call themselves "spiritual, not religious." The delusions and denial is persist. That is how much religion grabs hold of people's minds, and won't let go.
My parents explained the difference between the meaning of the word "theory" as used in science (theory of evolution, theory of gravity, big bang theory, etc.) versus as used in the general lexicon.
They taught us how sexist it was to claim that an all-knowing invisible man in the sky created and controlled everything, how delusional amd tempting it was to believe we could talk to him and that, as our imaginary friend, he would answer each of us individually, how all of that was made up in people's minds -- those conversations with "god," etc. They talked about how delusional, gullible, and manipulated all of our neighbors were to believe all those religious lies.
They talked about how inaccurate it was to claim that the world was made in 7 days, that a woman could be made from a man's rib, etc. They went point by point through every nonsensical thing on the first page of the bible. Gradually. They joked and laughed at the absurdity and stupidity of it all.
They taught us how religions manipulate people, with pomp and circumstance, robes, religions using solemnity and taking their nonsense with the utmost seriousness, emotionally manipulating with music, art, stained glass, soaring cathedrals to inspire awe and intimidation, rituals to get people to obey and turn off their minds, and create life-long, deeply ingrained emotional attachment to rituals starting at a young age that make it difficult for people to ever break free.
By the time I was in kindergarten, none of my peers could have persuaded me to believe any religious anything, or persuade me to attend one of their religious services. I was bullet-proof against religion and vehemently anti-ritual of any kind.
I was well-versed in and fearless about critical thinking. I had no difficulty speaking up against religion, and explaining the problems with it. By first grade.
Every child should get this kind of training before kindergarten. It's protection for one's mind.
Including, now, about sexism, and about the cult of biophobia (the irrational fear of nature, including of one's own biological sex.)
Toddlers are being exposed to the cult of biophobia on Sesame Street. And in preschool. And no doubt, in daycare before that. And in foster care.
Kids need to be proactively taught about their bodies, and this irrational, dangerous, anti-nature, unscientific cult just as my parents taught my brother and me about the dangers, irrationality, emotional and psychological manipulations, and sneakiness of religions, well before kindergarten. If kids are in daycare, preschool, foster care, or being raised by anyone else, their family or household need to be teaching them about the cult of biophobia from the earliest moments on: how to recognize it, critique it, debunk it, and talk back to it persuasively.
Yes kids can learn this and do this before kindergarten. It's the responsibility of the adults in their lives to teach them how to do so. Not wait fearfully for their kids to fall prey. We must innoculate them against the mind control methods and lies that will be used on them, by this and potentially any other trend. We must quiz kids to be sure that kids can confidently talk back to every talking point biophobes make. ("What would you say to a teacher or principal who tells you 'It's polite to use preferred pronouns?" "Preferred pronouns are lies about someone's body, because someone might feel alone and upset if they were told the truth. But it is unkind and unethical to lie to people. It is not kind or respectful to ask someone to lie, just because that's what someone wants to hear. I don't believe in lying to anyone, including myself. I don't want to gaslight myself or anyone else.")
Every child by kindergarten should know well what the physical differences are between girls and boys. They should know what the words sexism, discrimination, and peer pressure mean.
They should know that "preferred pronouns" is a deceptive mind control technique ("force people to say something they don't believe, until their mind caves in and starts 'believing' or accepting it, to go along"). Etc.
Kids can learn this stuff, and be protected intellectually from it, if only the adults in their lives will slowly and steadily explain it. Start anywhere with this topic, whatever comes to mind.
Best wishes as you hopefully innoculate your grandsons, and teach their parents how to do so with you.
Then it will be possible to look to their futures with a fair amount of confidence that they will be able to successfully recognize and navigate this.
Really enjoyed this story not only for the happy ending but the way she desisted almost secretly at first. I will be on the lookout for such signs. We have also mostly used the ignore and redirect method. It makes all of us a litter saner. Very happy for you!
Congratulations! Your story is our family's story as well (minus the COVID-era pregnancy.)
I tell all parents of trans-ID'd kids to do exactly as you have done: don't affirm, use nicknames/avoid sexed pronouns, and get them active outdoors, emphasizing the benefits of self-care for bodies of all kinds: good food, exercise, fresh air, and good times with people we love.
TBH I think it's critical that your family, like mine, is intact/not divided by divorce and stepparents. The leveraging of a trans-ID'd kid by parents who have different opinions seems to dig the kids in, rather than helping them out of the cult. I have nothing but sympathy for these families of course--it seems inevitable that divorce would only make dealing with a trans-ID'd child more difficult.
Glad to hear your daughter was brought back at least in part by a normal peer relationship. Children that struggle with peer relationships are usually not so lucky. They can find acceptance these days in the trans cult. I remember the 70s when other cults (Moonies, JWs, Hari Krishna’s...) would attract the same sort of personalities. But as destructive as those cults can be, they don’t promote medical alterations to be a member.
I think it was France, given the need for an attestation ( I used to live in France and still in contact with French friends). But the school I think was American or international, given that the writer does not seem to speak much French.
However , the madness seems well embedded in France, did you see the remembrance wall for shaken dead babies, defaced because one of the artists had once uttered an anti trans statement? They are hounding a government minister who dares to disagree, as well.
I would be interested to know what the laws and attitudes are in different countries. It seems that Sweden and Finland have stopped medicalising children and The Netherlands is taking a more cautious approach. Also, in England, there has been a review into such practices after someone blew a whistle about the Tavistock Clinic in London. I don't know about other countries.
I read something the other day that in Ukraine, trannie natal males are not being allowed to pass out of the country as female, but are being required to serve in the defense just like other males.
So thrilled your story has a happy ending! I’m also so pleased that when this began for your daughter, there was already the plentiful amount of information out there letting you know that an affirmation only approach is not the only one available when your child comes to you announcing a trans identity. Best wishes for a smooth road ahead!!
The Gummy Bear Cult seems an accurate name. Brightly colored sticky "sweet" identical teenagers molding themselves to match their peers--afraid to be themselves, afraid to grow up.
I’m happy your daughter is moving back towards feminine dress. I hope she is sorting out the confusion and watching healthier role models on social media.
My stepdaughter continues to pretend that she is a trans person and we agreed to call her the boy name over a year ago. She has never been boyish and seemed to get the idea because people thought she was a boy when she had short hair as a child and then again at 12 when her biomom allowed her to severely cut her long hair into a boy cut.
She idolizes her older brother and hates her breasts. She binds them - her biomom bought binders for her. It surprises me because her biomom has always been fairly conservative like her ex and I.
All of her friend circle are on this LGBTQRSP spectrum and her closest friends identify as boys. She is allowed access to her electronics 100% of the day and night at her biomom’s house. We allow it part time and never in her bedroom.
Her dad knows he should speak with her about all of this gender confusion instead of relying on her mother to do so. Since her mother spends so much time on the internet ignoring her children I can’t imagine she is doing anything but worsening the situation by simply ignoring her daughter.
I have tried to be close to my stepdaughter and we were when she was 11, but her biomom seems to hate that we had a relationship and everything I’ve done since she began puberty has been twisted into something negative between mother and daughter. So I can’t be the one that speaks to her about her gender issues. Whatever I say will be mangled and make the situation worse. On the other hand, her dad is afraid to say anything since his daughter spends so little time at our house (every other weekend).
I suppose my biggest regret is that I agreed to call my stepdaughter the boy name. Only her brother refuses, saying he won’t do it until she legally changes it. He was smarter than all of us.
Have any of you reverted to calling your child by their natural name? It seems like that’s the correct choice even if it infuriates her. I’d love advice. She is 15 and has been confused for a couple of years now. Going into the tenth grade in the autumn. I want to help but don’t know how.
Thank you.
Show her some videos by Exulansic. Resist using the boy name.
To all the Dear Mothers and Fathers,
Who are experiencing this constant battle with the Cult of Transgender within their families. My heart goes out to each of you, it is certainly an enormous challenge you face, particularly when this behaviour is promoted throughout the schooling system, online grooming and now even Summer Schools.
We live in Western Australia and remember two American friends of ours who decided to live in this state for a few years. When they returned to the USA their daughter Annie became involved as a ten leader in Summer Schools, teaching children to ski and absolutely loving her experience. During that time there was not a hint of this Cult behaviour including grooming occurring, it all seemed to be a positive experience. So it has been so sad to hear of one you mother's negative experience.
As well as being a mother of six (thankfully well before this Cult behaviour emerged, I did a degree in Multidisciplinary Science including five years of Human Biology, developmental psychology, anthropology and sociology and would like to share with you some of the positive aspects of allowing for normal healthy development. Which I can see from your stories you are aiming to achieve.
Currently I have two of my family members experiencing ill health so my time is limited. However as soon as possible I will provide this information that hopefully may be of some help.
Bless you all, you have been most courageous during the extremely difficult challenges you face particularly when your children also face mental health issues that cloud their judgement to be more objective.
Joan
Thanks for mentioning Bardbury's classic story, 'The Veldt.' In it, two harried (and somewhat bullied) parents outfit a room of their house with an extremely realistic form of virtual reality. The children become more and more sullen and demanding that they be allowed to spend much or most of their time in the room, and the parents are clearly panicked and losing control.
It's a fine and famous tale. Until today I did not see how it can be an apt metaphor for what some families struggling with the whole trans identity trend are going through. Thanks for making me see it anew; I plan to read it again tonight.
P.S. I was greatly privileged to get to spend time with Bradbury on four fantastic occasions in his later life. He was an ebullient man with a capacious mind and imagination, and I wept the day he died at age 92 in 2012. RIP Ray!
I have a ton of SF books. I just was looking in a box, and VOILA!! 20 Bradbury books, or so. I am desperately downsizing on the many thousands of books.
Send them to me! I love nothing more than a big box of old SF paperbacks (which, as a kid, epitomized the wonder of exploring new worlds with imagination alone).
Bradbury is known as an SF writer, but in a sense, he doesn't quite fit that definition. He was a nostalgist, a romantic, a poet, and a keen observer of raw human emotion who often (but far from always) set his vividly evocative tales on other worlds or in prospective futures, whether nightmarish or hopeful. He conveyed mood and intensity with language alone, inspiring me to become a writer myself.
Nothing transports me back to my own "golden age of science fiction" (maybe 12-15) than a box of battered paperbacks.... lucky you!
How hysterical!! In grad school, I remember having a long discussion with a friend who contended that Bradbury's SF Opus (Martian Chronicles, etc) made him an SF writer. My contention was, like your notion, that he was more than a simple SF writer. "Something wicked this way comes" is a combination of thriller/horror/SF, for instance. And then there are his Illinois prairie stories.
The Green Town stories, definitively not SF — though kinda sorta fantasy of the lightest sort, if one squints — are among Bradbury's most evocative tales.
You are lucky that you found out so early - my daughter was over 18 and legally changed her sex in Australia. It is all much harder to reverse. I am so glad that your daughter is enjoying being herself, instead of being taught self hate.
Like the author I have known many lovely people in my life and have not cared about whether they were gay or straight. Thinking about all the obsession with Identity and things like "The Gummy Bear Cult" and the colorful jelly beans that were once presented to another child of mine (without my prior knowledge) to explain the ever expanding rainbow identities - I have concluded that we should retire all rainbow and rainbow related flags. I don't know how to get there... Maybe these flags were helpful in the 1970s. But, it's unnecessary and even toxic now. Do I need to think about sexuality every time I buy a cup of coffee? Is this having a positive effect on children? NO. On anybody? Currently it is working for pedophiles and intact adult men who insist they are lesbians like our US Assistant Health Secretary. See "Minor Attracted People" (MAPs) "Johns Hopkins U. hires academic who wants to ‘destigmatize’ pedophilia" https://www.thecollegefix.com/johns-hopkins-u-hires-academic-who-wants-to-destigmatize-pedophilia/ " She will be a postdoctoral fellow at the Johns Hopkins’ Moore Center for Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse!
Maybe we could take back the month of June - and all the twelve months could be for straight and gay people, some of whom might have a parade if they want. We've gone from "Gay Pride month" to "in your face invented nonsense" all the darn time. It strikes me that this has happened in part because of pretty widespread acceptance of actual homosexuality. Activists, fetished people, and mentally ill people have taken over "the movement". So, how about we all agree to remove those flags from public places permanently?
Yes, at this point, I am getting more and more leery of ALL the alphabetters, including L, G, B. The whole perversion agenda is not healthy. I don't care about how popular this idea is. I also have a daughter that is somewhere in the A and L terrain.
What is going on is that the alphabet folks have cultivated a false and pernicious thing that makes this false self-concept attractive.
The alphabet agenda puts people into an unhealthy life situation. Say whatever you like, but normal sexual situations create life-long and stable relationships. Yes, these happen in the L and G groups, but there is a lot less stability. Why is that? Mostly it is due to the FACT that a stable M-F pair often have children, and then the children go on to form stable M-F pairs, who have grandchildren. This is a stable situation.
Those in the alphabet self-identification sometimes talk about a "rainbow" family which is replacing a real family. So, when you are in jail, do you call your "rainbow" mom or your actual mom?
Finally, I am increasingly resentful of the cultural appropriation of the rainbow flag by the alphabet folks. It's my color sphere as well. The alphabet folks do not own the rainbow.
I just wrote a post like this too. Mine was more harsh. Lol I'm just tired of the whole group.
The "rainbow family" is no family but the opposite.
I can understand where you are coming from. I believe that a bunch of people are naturally homosexual. But, in the schools that have 1/4 of the students identify as "trans" (unhealthy fantasy) there are often something like 1/2 the girls identifying as lesbian which cannot be right. And, I really think there should not be any Identity groups of any kind in K - 12 schools. Save it for college. As I said earlier, I think the rainbow flag ought to be retired from public places and put out in private residences where people want it and at an annual parade for those who like that. It's gotten so overloaded and aggressive. My sympathies for the gay man who loved it in 1985.
I am in the process of creating a new flag - the NORMAL flag. We normal people get a flag too.
I am tired of the notion that everything is normal. No, gay is not normal. No, trannie, queer, bi is not normal. Normal is one thing only - heterosexual.
In my UU church, I very deliberately use the word "normal" for a lot of stuff. People will not use that word now. They avoid it. I will use it for normal families - male-female heterosexual couples.
I'd love to see it when you have created it! You're right. 👏🏻
First, let me just say that IMHO, that gummy cult sounds abso HORRIFYING. Also, I do understand where you are coming from, however I respectfully disagree on one thing. YES, flush the 3-colour flag (& the 6,000 other nonsensical ones, or not 🤷🏻♀️), and the 24/365 shoving of sexuality down our throats literally everywhere we go and everywhere we look. 👍👏👏👏👏👏 That said, the LGB (actual) rainbow flag 🏳️🌈 MUST NOT be sacrificed nor altered to include “uninvited guests”, most especially not any parasitic squatters nor predatory populations. Nooooo! I do not claim to speak for the entire LGB community, ever, yet I can assure you that the other letters of alphabet attached themselves to “LGBs” coattails (even the seemingly harmless “Questioning” ppl -the “Q’s”) and slid in under the radar, appropriating the LGBs’ very long, hard fought battles as their own. 😠 The ‘rest of alphabet’, *NOT* the L, the G & B’s, left the back door wide open for the T’s & MAPs and imaginary ‘liquid’ shapeshifter peoples and the endless parade of mind blowing gaslighting terminology that is CONSTANTLY manipulatively used to announce: “I’m special! RESPECT me or I will hurt you!” by multiple lovelies, online & IRL.
Rainbows are innocent and have never committed any prosecutable crimes (that I am aware of). Rainbows are quite enjoyable, and children only see them as pretty colors…while most adults usually see them as an interesting phenomena, yes? Rainbow flags are NOT the toxic entity that you’ve been utterly deceived into rejecting (although I DO understand why you would think this needs to be flushed, and DO SAFEGUARD ALL CHILDREN, ALWAYS!). IMHO, it is the tri-colour flag and all of it’s cousins who are the toxicity and MUST be removed to either exist on their own or whatever. No lesbian should EVER be pressured into even entertaining the appallingly absurd concept of obligatory sex with men (nor ANYONE, EVER!, For any reason) esp not to prove the sincerity of their dedication to a cult they never, ever agreed to join. Likewise, homosexual men must never be pressured into obligatory sex with either females (who believe they are men) nor males (who believe they are women), nor anyone or anything, ever. Period. Additionally, obviously, heterosexual/bisexual/asexual, etc. people must never be pressured into having sex w/ any of the before-mentioned. It’s all VERY ‘rapey’ (rapist mentality) behavior to EVER pressure ANYONE into “mandatory” (“omg, if you do not acknowledge/ auto-respect/ have sex w/ us = you are violent Nazis who want us to die AND/OR you are ACTIVELY a trying to kill us”) sexual engagement with others. 🤡 These people need to be vociferously identified as predators. IMO, the T people have an outright homophobic agenda that is too deep to delve into in a paragraph or two. Mind you, the “transing” of children is a nothing simple… it is backed by a multi, multi, multi TRILLION dollar pharmaceutical industry of cha-Ching! $$$$$ Getting toddlers and kids hooked on a LIFETIME of pharmaceuticals and horrific irreversible body mutilation surgeries-for-cash is a Mengelesque-level of evil worthy of your personal investigation. So…please DO stay aware of all predatory behaviors, pls recognize the “TQIA+” & “MAP” people’s invasion of the LGB as parasitic & predatory, & also understand the L and/or not the B’ womens’ need for same- sex separation from the other letters. Thank you for your kind consideration of these thoughts & suggestions! 🙂
That flag is tainted. Sorry. The lgb let it happen. The vast majority of them still seem to be on the agenda of the radicals. I know there are some who are against the radical agenda. Not enough are. 🤷🏻♀️ The whole group and their actions have completely turned me off lf them all.
LGBT have been bullied and manipulated by biophobes/TRAs (trans rights activists) just like huge numbers of arraight people have. So while it upsets me that LGBs have accepted and are promoting or supporting biophobes, so are huge swaths of straight people, who have also been manipulated and bullied into doing so.
They definitely have too. It isn't straight ppls flag or group though.
Hi, I agree with about 99.9 percent of what you say and can sympathize with the rest. However, given that "every fetishist and his brother" is currently running with the rainbow flag (instead of just gay men) including at schools and in government, I think it would be good to move it to private spaces for a time at least. We need a break from identity and from sexualization on everyone's mind. I can sit in a coffee shop and sip my drink surrounded by LG and not LG people without flags which have become overloaded. I totally agree about the tri-flag being in need of burning. Sadly, in this day and age children see rainbows and think of things like "pan sexuality" and "demi" this and that which most of their parents have not heard about. It is worked into regular classroom lessons. And our president and our US Assistant Health Secretary want to "trans" children and they discuss it at town halls under the rainbow flag. One could fly it from one's apartment and at the annual parade. Thank you for understanding. - LM
I completely agree. The original (“Gilbert Baker Rainbow Flag”) 🏳️🌈 needs to be preserved in a lucite display in some museum, somewhere, is basically what I was trying to say. The rainbow symbol has been perma hijacked, weaponized & is dead & buried. If the plethora of flags/ symbols & constant stream of declarations of sexualities/preferences/fetishes, etc. were to self immolate, that’d be super fine with me. 👍 PRIORITY: The transing of children and other vulnerables must be stopped.
I completely agree. As a lesbian, ever since the rainbow flag came out in the 1980s, I have never been willing to have a rainbow anything. It represents gay (male) culture overtaking lesbian feminist culture and trying to put us all under the gay (men's) culture. In the 1970s and early 1980s, lesbian feminists and gays had two distinct cultures and communities. It was only upon gays bullying, guilt-tripping, and manipulating lesbians into doing AIDS volunteering, which some of us never fell for, that lesbian feminists, unfortunately, started agreeing to be subsumed to gays under the woman-hating rainbow. We were literally told that we were "literally killing gays" to maintain our own separate community and culture. The rainbow is a symbol of anti-lesbian feminism, and misogyny. Please don't buy or sport anything rainbow if you want to support lesbians and lesbian feminism.
Also, everyone, please never use the word "gay" in reference to lesbians. It erases and subsumes lesbians to gays, and centers men and their experiences,, in the same way that using the word "man" does to women ("family of man", "mankind", "postman," etc.) Always say "lesbian," or "lesbian and gay," etc.
And finally, let's ditch saying "LGBT." Just ditch it from our vocabularies. It's not one big homogenous group. That has just been a marketing ploy from gays and biophobes (cross-sex identified people.)
We need to reclaim language that reflects the politics women want to see in the world, not what sexist men have promoted.
How like an old school lesbian to tell other people what they can and cannot say. Ironic in this context in particular.
Exactly. Lol That kind of nonsense is exactly why we are here. That kind of person pushed us here.
"We were literally told that we were "literally killing gays" to maintain our own separate community and culture."
In the 21st century that has morphed into all of us being told that if we do not buy into Gender Identity Theory it "denies the existence" of people - & not to agree with delusion "literally kills people".
Yes, exactly! So much of what is being foisted upon us by the Cult of Biophobia has been borrowed and amplified from manipulations used by gays on the public and on lesbian feminists back in the 1980s and 1990s.
Everyone should read the free online 1987 article, "The Overhauling of Straight America," by neuropsychologost Marshall Kirk and social marketing and advertising executive Hunter Madsen.
It is chilling, how their advice to gays to curb homophobia, has been used to the max by biophobes (cross-sex activists).
Also, please check out the reviews on Amazon and elsewhere of their book, "After the Ball," by the same authors. The book now costs $900 (!), but apparently can be found by library super search. I need to get this book!. Some of the reviewers say the authors admit in the book that some of what they are recommending are brainwashing techniques.
I need to write a blog post of all the brainwashing techniques and emotional manipulations encapsulated in just the "Preferred Pronouns Etiquette Lesson," alone! It is perhaps the most effective single brainwashing technique ever invented.
Cult expert Margaret Singer, in her book, "Cults in Our Midst," wrote that people who have been through cults and who have been exposed to their coordinated brainwashing campaigns, are getting ever-better at figuring out how to manipulate people deceptively. Then here comes the cult of biophobia, which is focused on using to the max every known deceptive manipulation technique. Such as continually co-opting our langauge.
For example, "They're just being their true selves: being who they are." In reference to people who are pretending to be who they aren't.
Even more manipulative, "Why not just let people be who they are?" As if we're being guilty of meanness or being meddlesome when we're being asked to lie to and gaslight ourselves and others.
I like to reply back, "Being who they are, or being who they aren't?"
Very interesting - and chilling! Margaret Singer is one of the first people I found and started reading online 5 years ago when our family fell into Gender Hell. I hadn't realized that there were people coming out of cults and then turning around and manipulating other people. Yes, the teens are thoroughly confused/gaslit and think they are being their "authentic selves". I often think GI is similar to NXIVM and wonder how we can get to the point where it is the Sunday night docu-miniseries. Right now I am reading Kathleen Stock's "Material Girls, Why Reality Matters for Feminism."
Oh, so glad to meet you as mutual readers of Margaret Singer!
Thank you. I didn't know some of that. Although I personally have no objection to "mankind" I will say "lesbian and gay". I have already rejected anything past "LGB" and the rainbow (a lovely thing from nature that has been made trashy). And, yes, thank you for reminding me to use "biophobes' for the fetished, mentally disordered, and cult indoctrinated. We need to reclaim reclaim language that reflects reality!
And may I encourage you to reconsider use of "mankind." It centers maleness, while erasing women.
Shouldn't it be "humankind"?
Would you be equally comfortable if the term usually used was "womankind" for both men and women?
Would it be accurate and fair to refer to all humans as "womankind"?
How have we come to accept "mankind" as acceptable for all humans? And why do we continue to use it and to persist as such?
It is that kind of rhetoric that has gotten us here. Feminist nonsense.
How is it nonsense? Ending sexism is a good thing. Itbis conservatives beliefs in sexism that got us here. Biophonia is rooted in conservatives belief in and promotion of sexism/misogyny.
No, feminists who feminized society and have boys running from themselves and women afraid to be women is why we are here. It is the policing of the language like your post that has gotten us here. It sounds no different than the trans cult doing the same with their ideology.
Well, I see "mankind" as the word that has long been in use as opposed to language that people want to force through. This is being done in very negative ways, for instance in Merriam-Webster: https://thepostmillennial.com/dictionary-definition-of-female-now-includes-males-who-identify-as-opposite-sex?utm_campaign=64487
Not that "humankind" is bad.
And, I observe the two sexes long described as Men and WoMen, not Men and Wo-. But then I also think we need for feminists like R.K. Rowling and social conservatives like Matt Walsh to fight for the same end - in defense of Reality and against biophobia and normalization of MAPs. I sure do not want to get into a "thing" over mankind v. humankind :) I was never a "political person" but this mama is hopping mad about GI and wants to see it end/be recognized widely for the sick cult it is. I was an "Independent" most of my life but have thrown in with the Rs. Even so, I am frustrated with Republicans and conservative media like the NY Post or Fox that will refer to men as "she". That is literally crazy and harmful to society. - LM
Yes and thank you.
Homophobia goes hand in hand with misogyny and male aggression. You made yourself this way.
😂 I'm a woman, but that was cute.
No, lgbt aggression and force has made me this way.
“Cute”? You can just stop with your bs. Your being a woman (or claiming to be a woman) has zero to do with the fact that you declared yourself a homophobe & stated “I wish they'd all go back in the closet.” Your antagonism and DARVOing Lesbians and Gays for what MRAs (Mens Rights Activists) have done is indicative of a closed mind and more. Too bad you’ve swallowed the bait of the multi, multi trillion dollar industrial machine of 1000% unnecessary medical mutilation of children/ vulnerables & pharmaceutical pushing-for-profit, that thrives on creating divisiveness and blatant homophobia. Misogyny, male aggression and homophobia have historically always gone hand in hand. Support one of them and you’ve joined the very cult of which you whine about.
The vast majority of all lgb are going along with it and are just as militant as the trans ppl.
I've swallowed what? I'm against trans nonsense. I am against lgb now (I wasn't always, as I stated clearly) because the vast majority of them are helping it. There is no "support" for them and nothing in my comment indicates that to be the case. How absurd. My comment is solely about the behavior of lgbt themselves and the throat full of it that we get bombed with 24/7 as a result of lgbt militancy and that is why you could probably call me a homophobe now. Idc about your opinion. You're only making me not feel bad about it anymore and showing me that I'm right.
As a lesbian, im sick of seeing rainbows everywhere. In the LGBT colors, at least.
I'm also sick of people referring to us as LGBT, even when it is solely a T issue, or gay (men's) issue.
But I would also ask everyone to step back and start noticing how much heterosexuality and heterosexuals are represented everywhere. Everywhere. Constantly! Name one tv show that doesn't have heteros in it. Name one in which hets don't dominate it. Ditto movies, books, plays, music videos, news programs, etc. Instead of counting up lesbians and gays, count up hets. Or a het : lesbian/gay ratio. Supposedly, lesbians and gays are 10%of the population (1 in 10). Even if we're just 5%, (1 in 20), count up in a night of tv watching, count up the hets relative to the number of lesbians and gays. See what you come up with. I'll be curious. (I don't own a tv.)
How weird that there would be so much normalcy...
You not owning a tv makes sense that you don't see the over representation of gay in tv today. Just today I was watching Wheel of Time. 4 gay ppl, so far. There are not 40 characters in it. That is todays tv. That is todays books. That is todays everything. It is over represented. They do it just to pander.
Praying for your daughter to gain the strength and courage she needs to continue her life’s journey as the female she was born to be. Stay focused and keep her close to your heart. I am hoping for a fabulous outcome for all of you!
Wow, what an incredibly stressful time for you all. I have 3 grandsons who will no doubt get caught up in this insanity. I'm really afraid for them.
It's wise of you to recognize they'll be exposed to and pressured intensely by this cult.
I urge you and everyone in a child's life to prepare kids or grandkids well before the onslaught, so that they are protected intellectually from mind control regarding this and any issue, by teaching them how to think critically in general, and to teach them how to specifically debunk this and other cults.
Here is an analogy:
My atheist parents knew that my older brother and I would be exposed to religion and peer pressure (orchestrated in the background by religions, by the way they talk to their flock) to be religious, as soon as we went to school and were around other kids raised with religion. This was in the 1960s, when almost no one was atheist in American suburbia.
My parents were rightfully frightened we kids would start becoming religious from the influence and peer pressure of other kids at school. They didn't want us to be the delusional, illogocal, scientifically misinformed, manipulated, uncritical robots that they had been pressured to be when they were growing up, by their respective religious upbringings, only to discover they'd been lied to and emotionally and psychologically abused by their religions and religious families, teachers, and priests teaching them a bunch of nonsense. Without their realizing they were manipulated robots.
So before my brother and I entered kindergarten, every night at the dinner table, starting around age 3-4 ( I heard it starting around age 2, as my brother was 3 years older than me), they taught us about the irrationality, danger, and insanity of religion, and how religions manipulate, lie, and attack and dissuade critical thinking.
My parent's explanations were broken down into child-size baby steps of information and reasoning, so it was a slow, patient, steady, nightly process at dinner.
They taught us how irrational and unscientific it was to believe that there was an invisible man in the sky that created the universe, and taught us how the universe was actually created ("big bang" theory).
Of course, for example, to explain "invisible" to a 3 year old takes weeks and months to fully explain. But children that young can indeed learn the big concepts my parents taught us.
It is not only possible, but necessary, to prepare children for the harmful influences in the world such as religion.
Many people think they should let kids grow up and decide for themselves.
This is utterly stupid, as my parents explained. Religion is organized to manipulate, influence, and capture, grab and steal the minds of people from the youngest age, from birth onward. It is completely irresponsible for any parent or adult in a child's life to leave a vulnerable child or adult unprepared for this theft of mind and attempts of lies and manipulation by religions.
Children are so often talked down to, and not assumed to be intelligent. Kids are far more intelligent and capable of thinking than they are given credit for. They just need things to be explained to them broken down into baby steps, so they can learn and understand each detail. And then receive lots of repetition and reinforcement to provide context and reminders in a world that is constantly going to be vomiting up religious arguments and manipulations at them. This applies as much today to groups that dishonestly call themselves "spiritual, not religious." The delusions and denial is persist. That is how much religion grabs hold of people's minds, and won't let go.
My parents explained the difference between the meaning of the word "theory" as used in science (theory of evolution, theory of gravity, big bang theory, etc.) versus as used in the general lexicon.
They taught us how sexist it was to claim that an all-knowing invisible man in the sky created and controlled everything, how delusional amd tempting it was to believe we could talk to him and that, as our imaginary friend, he would answer each of us individually, how all of that was made up in people's minds -- those conversations with "god," etc. They talked about how delusional, gullible, and manipulated all of our neighbors were to believe all those religious lies.
They talked about how inaccurate it was to claim that the world was made in 7 days, that a woman could be made from a man's rib, etc. They went point by point through every nonsensical thing on the first page of the bible. Gradually. They joked and laughed at the absurdity and stupidity of it all.
They taught us how religions manipulate people, with pomp and circumstance, robes, religions using solemnity and taking their nonsense with the utmost seriousness, emotionally manipulating with music, art, stained glass, soaring cathedrals to inspire awe and intimidation, rituals to get people to obey and turn off their minds, and create life-long, deeply ingrained emotional attachment to rituals starting at a young age that make it difficult for people to ever break free.
By the time I was in kindergarten, none of my peers could have persuaded me to believe any religious anything, or persuade me to attend one of their religious services. I was bullet-proof against religion and vehemently anti-ritual of any kind.
I was well-versed in and fearless about critical thinking. I had no difficulty speaking up against religion, and explaining the problems with it. By first grade.
Every child should get this kind of training before kindergarten. It's protection for one's mind.
Including, now, about sexism, and about the cult of biophobia (the irrational fear of nature, including of one's own biological sex.)
Toddlers are being exposed to the cult of biophobia on Sesame Street. And in preschool. And no doubt, in daycare before that. And in foster care.
Kids need to be proactively taught about their bodies, and this irrational, dangerous, anti-nature, unscientific cult just as my parents taught my brother and me about the dangers, irrationality, emotional and psychological manipulations, and sneakiness of religions, well before kindergarten. If kids are in daycare, preschool, foster care, or being raised by anyone else, their family or household need to be teaching them about the cult of biophobia from the earliest moments on: how to recognize it, critique it, debunk it, and talk back to it persuasively.
Yes kids can learn this and do this before kindergarten. It's the responsibility of the adults in their lives to teach them how to do so. Not wait fearfully for their kids to fall prey. We must innoculate them against the mind control methods and lies that will be used on them, by this and potentially any other trend. We must quiz kids to be sure that kids can confidently talk back to every talking point biophobes make. ("What would you say to a teacher or principal who tells you 'It's polite to use preferred pronouns?" "Preferred pronouns are lies about someone's body, because someone might feel alone and upset if they were told the truth. But it is unkind and unethical to lie to people. It is not kind or respectful to ask someone to lie, just because that's what someone wants to hear. I don't believe in lying to anyone, including myself. I don't want to gaslight myself or anyone else.")
Every child by kindergarten should know well what the physical differences are between girls and boys. They should know what the words sexism, discrimination, and peer pressure mean.
They should know that "preferred pronouns" is a deceptive mind control technique ("force people to say something they don't believe, until their mind caves in and starts 'believing' or accepting it, to go along"). Etc.
Kids can learn this stuff, and be protected intellectually from it, if only the adults in their lives will slowly and steadily explain it. Start anywhere with this topic, whatever comes to mind.
Best wishes as you hopefully innoculate your grandsons, and teach their parents how to do so with you.
Then it will be possible to look to their futures with a fair amount of confidence that they will be able to successfully recognize and navigate this.
Thank you for sharing your story...it's far too familiar and I'm hoping and working toward a similar ending!
Really enjoyed this story not only for the happy ending but the way she desisted almost secretly at first. I will be on the lookout for such signs. We have also mostly used the ignore and redirect method. It makes all of us a litter saner. Very happy for you!
Congratulations! Your story is our family's story as well (minus the COVID-era pregnancy.)
I tell all parents of trans-ID'd kids to do exactly as you have done: don't affirm, use nicknames/avoid sexed pronouns, and get them active outdoors, emphasizing the benefits of self-care for bodies of all kinds: good food, exercise, fresh air, and good times with people we love.
TBH I think it's critical that your family, like mine, is intact/not divided by divorce and stepparents. The leveraging of a trans-ID'd kid by parents who have different opinions seems to dig the kids in, rather than helping them out of the cult. I have nothing but sympathy for these families of course--it seems inevitable that divorce would only make dealing with a trans-ID'd child more difficult.
Glad to hear your daughter was brought back at least in part by a normal peer relationship. Children that struggle with peer relationships are usually not so lucky. They can find acceptance these days in the trans cult. I remember the 70s when other cults (Moonies, JWs, Hari Krishna’s...) would attract the same sort of personalities. But as destructive as those cults can be, they don’t promote medical alterations to be a member.
If you live today in a foreign country which is not the UK or USA, what country is it? What is the trans environment there?
I think it was France, given the need for an attestation ( I used to live in France and still in contact with French friends). But the school I think was American or international, given that the writer does not seem to speak much French.
However , the madness seems well embedded in France, did you see the remembrance wall for shaken dead babies, defaced because one of the artists had once uttered an anti trans statement? They are hounding a government minister who dares to disagree, as well.
I am a USA expat living in Western Europe and I can tell you that this madness is in many European countries, not just the English speaking world.
I would be interested to know what the laws and attitudes are in different countries. It seems that Sweden and Finland have stopped medicalising children and The Netherlands is taking a more cautious approach. Also, in England, there has been a review into such practices after someone blew a whistle about the Tavistock Clinic in London. I don't know about other countries.
There are some reports about news from other countries in the Society for Evidence Based Gender Medicine (SEGM) news section, https://segm.org/news
I read something the other day that in Ukraine, trannie natal males are not being allowed to pass out of the country as female, but are being required to serve in the defense just like other males.
So thrilled your story has a happy ending! I’m also so pleased that when this began for your daughter, there was already the plentiful amount of information out there letting you know that an affirmation only approach is not the only one available when your child comes to you announcing a trans identity. Best wishes for a smooth road ahead!!
Make it stop
Well done. This is what intentional, relational parenting looks like. So happy for you.
The Gummy Bear Cult seems an accurate name. Brightly colored sticky "sweet" identical teenagers molding themselves to match their peers--afraid to be themselves, afraid to grow up.
Peter Pan - "I don't want to grow up". Many of them have that androgenous "Peter Pan" look.