It was right around the time the Ocotillo flowers blossomed 7 years ago that you announced you were non-binary. Two years later you were calling yourself trans, convinced you weren’t female and never had been. I mark time by these unhappy events. 7 years ago. 5 years ago. Then the worst day of all: the day 4 years ago when you left us for good.
Thank you very much to the author. I have read this countless times now. The last paragraph is devastating. But this is how my family’s story ends as well.
Beautifully written, superbly eloquent and succinct with its presentation. The allegory gets your point across without any effort on the part of the learner. Thank you.
Made me realize something about my own past too which was unrelated to the topic, that was cool.
Very powerful and just heartbreaking. I truly hope that your daughter returns to you one day so that you, the people who love her most and know her best, can heal.
I am sorry to hear about your daughter. They are right when they say that if you do not accept her as she wants to be, you will lose her. She will die for you, as she left without a trace. This is evil. There is nothing you can do and with that they, the wolves have power over you. That is what they want.
They don't care about your daughter, just their false ideology.
For her, there is no way back. It's like a cult that now the whole nation seems to have accepted.
My condolences.
Now, having said that, let's examine where your personal journey started. The heroes journey is a metaphor. It is a way to tell stories. They tell stories too. You are a better writer. Your article is excellent. In schools students should not just read the pornographic woke literature that speaks about post-modern ideals. You should be read too. I am going to show your article to my 17 year old daughter. She may recognize some of what you describe and I think many young people will feel for you, when they get to consume the perspective of the other side.
I wish you all the best and I hope for God's sake, that the story of your family will find closure.
Thank you for this story that gives words and images to the pain so many of us our feeling. We feel the pain in our stomachs, and moms, also in our breasts, the things your daughters (mine is a son) so despise. They probably don't know that when they were infants, they cried and our breasts would ache and fill so that we would feed them. As we nursed them, we were flooded with feelings of love, protectiveness and gratitude, just as nature intended. I know there have been times when breastfeeding was out of fashion and moms and babies still bonded just fine, but it breaks my heart that these girls will never experience this particular kind of closeness. They will literally have numbness instead. Why isn't this taught in sex ed instead of gender identity? How has our society come to hate nature?
Thank you for sharing such painful, powerful, personal testimony to the sheer evil of the Gender Cult.
Those in positions of authority and power who have advanced this madness while facilitating its victimization of families and children have never been right.about anything. So maybe they're also wrong in their blithe certitude that Hell does not exist. If it does, they've earned a one-way ticket.
I hope it's not out of place to mention a huge and still unfolding development on this front. After some high drama at Twitter, its owner, Elon Musk, greenlighted the free showing on his platform of my son Matt's landmark documentary, What Is A Woman, which exposes the Gender Cult and the fake "experts" promoting it. The movie also highlights some personal stories of victims, to include a Dad in Canada whose experience mirrors some of those reported here.
In fact, Elon used his personal Twitter feed to recommend the film to parents and link to the Daily Wire's site where it's available for free all this weekend. The response has been insane: over 120 million views worldwide and still climbing fast.
I'd like to think this may be a sign that the tide is turning. However, the bad guys still have so much power and control. They still run the media. They still run the government. They still run the culture. But who knows. Anything is possible. The overwhelming and ongoing public response to this documentary suggests that people by the tens of millions know they're being lied to.
Why do we continue allowing our kids to be indoctrinated into this cult. We need to be strong and remove the poison apple …the cell phone and internet. Technology brings on this curse and perpetuates it. We can do this parents. Remove the phone and I swear it can be different. It is not too late to be a firm but caring parent by saying NO.
This is definitely true, but for those of us who still have younger kids, this is essential. Take them out of public school, take away their phones, take away unrestricted internet use. The fate of our kids is worth the sacrifice.
Agreed and understood. For those who still have kids at home or are paying for the kids cellphone this is the time to end this addictive, indoctrinating device.
Since the males who are no longer intact will need hormones forever, whoever controls the supply of hormones will control the mutilati. Sounds like sci fi.
Thank you for this painful and all too familiar account of a family's disintegration. We all know the feelings of devastation, but try to "keep the porch light on" -- for the day when she turns back to you. I believe all those years of bedtime stories, walks in nature, karaoke, and family love are still lodged somewhere inside their brains. As they mature, I think there is still a chance they will come to their senses -- albeit with damaged bodies.
Gosh. What a powerful piece . Thank you . Eloquent and heart breaking and a powerful metaphor. You’ve remained strong, and your hearth is still burning for her return . Sending much love and may God bless you with reserves of strength.
Wow! So sad and beautifully written. Who lied to you? Be very careful with social media but even more so your children's schooling. All day, five days a week with people lying to your children. My son just started a community college course. Horrific brainwashing and grey, blurry, confusing stories brought to you by none other than the NIH and CDC to help convince your child that the lies are truth..why shouldn't they believe the CDC, right? If you are not having discussions with your children to OFFSET this brainwashing you will end up with a child you do not recognize anymore. I am considering switching to GCU for the remainder of his classes. Yes, it is that bad...he is showing me what they are trying to do by bombarding him with lies to convince him what he sees isn't the truth and what they tell him is. BEWARE!!!
In reading all of your stories, I am reminded of what my therapist says to me " but do you want them back the way they are now?" Because that's the situation. Can you love your daughter if she's your son? Because maybe you can't. And you have to be okay with that. Maybe the sum of all your hopes and dreams is too great. Maybe this old friend in a new body is too strange, too unfamiliar to embrace right away. Maybe with time. But maybe not. You have to be willing to try and put the grieving behind you. If I had been lucky enough to have a daughter, I know I would be crying. But I know she would probably have my sense of humor & we would find our way back to each other. It's like a divorce. You think you'll never forgive, but you do.
I think what your therapist meant by "but do you want [them] back the way [they] are now?" in this context is in regards to changes that a child has made and is a good question actually. My answer would really depend on the current state of her interpersonal skills and maturity really. Is it ok for me to have feelings now too? Or are we still in the "only her feelings matter" phase? Many of these kids/young adults are so self absorbed and obsessed with their gender that they are truly huge emotional vampires. If they outgrow the strong narcissistic tendencies and become normal human beings again or are at least making attempts at progress... then Yes would be my answer.
We can hold different beliefs and opinions and still treat each other with compassion, civility, and respect. I don't adhere to the tenants of gender identity religion. I would not demean her beliefs - nor would I become a convert or practice that faith. Conversely, I will not expect her to convert or practice my faith.
I will not go out of my way to cause her pain or harm, however I will not participate in revisionist history either. There have been minor attempts at that... but there's zero chance that a child who was extremely imaginative and talked non stop from 2 - 12 was hiding any secrets... (no sorry - you actually never said "I am a boy" "I feel like a boy" or even "I wonder what being a boy is like" you had zero interest in gender/GI and you were uber comfortable in your body - to the point that unless I insisted you put clothes on you would've been naked 24/7.)
I will ALWAYS love my daughter... and i enjoyed her as a person until the dark moody trans hate the world phase... but if she consistently and persistently is a raging a$$hole and makes herself and everyone else miserable... as an adult??? I am not into that type of dynamic.
Edit: PS she's 17 now and again, we enjoy each other's company. I do hope for continuing peace and joy and laughter in our relationship. The trans ideology is still there - but much more relaxed and diminished after 3 years. Hopefully she doesn't regress to being obsessed with it... but I've made my peace with that possibility.
@Ciaos the tragedy happens around 30 or whenever they realize they've wasted their life on trans identity issues instead of learning a trade or profession & their peers have moved on. The narcissism on the trans subs is mind-blowing. They all think they're saints & natal women are evil. And the trans men! Sheesh! So sexist & hateful. I get why parents are angry. I'm angry, too. But anger doesn't solve anything. Once a woman has medicalized the damage is done. She needs support. Hopefully her parents can give it to her. Damage from T is permanent.😪
Some of us are not given the opportunity. It is full compliance, no questions asked, or immediately no contact. No opportunity for conversation, discussion, just a demand and if there’s a slip by the parent they are exiled. That’s my situation. I’ve never been unkind, and said that I am always happy to share life with others who believe differently. I was not given that opportunity. Maybe if my daughter had been younger, still in the home we could have had conversations and she could see that I would never be unkind, and that my concern is loving not hateful.
My situation was similar to yours justmom. Never given the opportunity, just cut off. It was such a messy time with me recuperating from cancer surgery and him making demands and,honestly, acting crazy and like someone I didn’t know. Then he was gone. Horrible, horrible grief. Deborah I dearly hope you understand that grief. I am not angry. I am deeply, deeply bereaved.
I’m so sorry Gretchen. It is such grief. My friend who lost a teenage daughter in a car accident a decade ago told me just last week that she believes her situation is more bearable than ours because there is closure. She doesn’t have to keep wondering if the child will ever return, extending the grief forever. My daughter told me not to look for her, and moved to a different state. I do have an idea of which state, only by accident, but I am trying to move through the stages of grief to acceptance and learn to live again. Praying for you and all of the PITT families.
Death would be simpler. He lives 20 minutes from me and I haven’t seen or heard from him in over a year. I am not ‘allowed’ to contact him even in ways that would seem benign to most. I miss him deeply.
Cutting off anyone who might have questions clearly indicates they are not sure of themselves, that’s why they are pulled in, then told not to question it or allow anyone else to question. A person who is confident they are doing the right thing is willing to have conversation, discussion with their most important loved ones.
That's as far as I go as well. I believe she believes, but I don't... and have never affirmed. And we've gotten to the point where we can have conversations about GI topics without it being hostile.
I know how these things work. Her compassion and suggestibility made her vulnerable to the ideas, as did being a normal adolescent girl.... but the ideas have no substance. I planted the seeds of reason and have done the best I could to restore her faith in my love for her, even as a "terf" Lol
She thought (bc she was led to believe) that I hated her and that she would die (somehow) before she was out of school. And yet... time has told a different story. She'll remember that.
I didn't throw out the internet but I did enforce limits - like no internet privacy or nighttime access - for healthy habits and safety reasons of course ;)
RE: "Can you love your daughter if she's your son?"
This poster's daughter will never be her "son" , only a mutilated daughter caught up in a poisonous cult of psychic and physical harm. Ideally, estrangement will not occur, but parents and everyone cannot feed the delusion of sex change - if they do, this perpetuates this sickness stealing vulnerable young people.
Have you spent any time lurking on the sites that encourage kids to solve their problems by sex change? Or really read the letters? The children are rejecting the parents. Most of us expect a teenager to rebel. Most of us would be patient through cross dressing. What gets parents angry is the mental virus that causes their child to self harm. This is not the TRA "left handed" metaphor. It's a social media fed mania.
I more than understand. I'm dealing with the other end of it. I also read the trans subs on Reddit. It's mind-blowing, perplexing, disgusting, and, ultimately, deeply sad, for everyone. But, ultimately, it comes back to: can you love them the way they are right now? It's a divorce. I feel so bad for the girls. Some of them will pass, but not many. And what they're giving up for nothing. Sigh.
Thank you very much to the author. I have read this countless times now. The last paragraph is devastating. But this is how my family’s story ends as well.
I can feel your heartbreak. I am so sorry for your loss. Sending you and your entire family love <3
Beautifully written, superbly eloquent and succinct with its presentation. The allegory gets your point across without any effort on the part of the learner. Thank you.
Made me realize something about my own past too which was unrelated to the topic, that was cool.
Very powerful and just heartbreaking. I truly hope that your daughter returns to you one day so that you, the people who love her most and know her best, can heal.
heartbreaking!
This hurts.
Hello,
I am sorry to hear about your daughter. They are right when they say that if you do not accept her as she wants to be, you will lose her. She will die for you, as she left without a trace. This is evil. There is nothing you can do and with that they, the wolves have power over you. That is what they want.
They don't care about your daughter, just their false ideology.
For her, there is no way back. It's like a cult that now the whole nation seems to have accepted.
My condolences.
Now, having said that, let's examine where your personal journey started. The heroes journey is a metaphor. It is a way to tell stories. They tell stories too. You are a better writer. Your article is excellent. In schools students should not just read the pornographic woke literature that speaks about post-modern ideals. You should be read too. I am going to show your article to my 17 year old daughter. She may recognize some of what you describe and I think many young people will feel for you, when they get to consume the perspective of the other side.
I wish you all the best and I hope for God's sake, that the story of your family will find closure.
Thank you for this story that gives words and images to the pain so many of us our feeling. We feel the pain in our stomachs, and moms, also in our breasts, the things your daughters (mine is a son) so despise. They probably don't know that when they were infants, they cried and our breasts would ache and fill so that we would feed them. As we nursed them, we were flooded with feelings of love, protectiveness and gratitude, just as nature intended. I know there have been times when breastfeeding was out of fashion and moms and babies still bonded just fine, but it breaks my heart that these girls will never experience this particular kind of closeness. They will literally have numbness instead. Why isn't this taught in sex ed instead of gender identity? How has our society come to hate nature?
Thank you for sharing such painful, powerful, personal testimony to the sheer evil of the Gender Cult.
Those in positions of authority and power who have advanced this madness while facilitating its victimization of families and children have never been right.about anything. So maybe they're also wrong in their blithe certitude that Hell does not exist. If it does, they've earned a one-way ticket.
I hope it's not out of place to mention a huge and still unfolding development on this front. After some high drama at Twitter, its owner, Elon Musk, greenlighted the free showing on his platform of my son Matt's landmark documentary, What Is A Woman, which exposes the Gender Cult and the fake "experts" promoting it. The movie also highlights some personal stories of victims, to include a Dad in Canada whose experience mirrors some of those reported here.
In fact, Elon used his personal Twitter feed to recommend the film to parents and link to the Daily Wire's site where it's available for free all this weekend. The response has been insane: over 120 million views worldwide and still climbing fast.
I'd like to think this may be a sign that the tide is turning. However, the bad guys still have so much power and control. They still run the media. They still run the government. They still run the culture. But who knows. Anything is possible. The overwhelming and ongoing public response to this documentary suggests that people by the tens of millions know they're being lied to.
Why do we continue allowing our kids to be indoctrinated into this cult. We need to be strong and remove the poison apple …the cell phone and internet. Technology brings on this curse and perpetuates it. We can do this parents. Remove the phone and I swear it can be different. It is not too late to be a firm but caring parent by saying NO.
Remember that many of us have ‘kids’ who are older and go away to college and we don’t have the ability to control what they do and don’t do online.
This is definitely true, but for those of us who still have younger kids, this is essential. Take them out of public school, take away their phones, take away unrestricted internet use. The fate of our kids is worth the sacrifice.
Agreed and understood. For those who still have kids at home or are paying for the kids cellphone this is the time to end this addictive, indoctrinating device.
Since the males who are no longer intact will need hormones forever, whoever controls the supply of hormones will control the mutilati. Sounds like sci fi.
Thank you for this painful and all too familiar account of a family's disintegration. We all know the feelings of devastation, but try to "keep the porch light on" -- for the day when she turns back to you. I believe all those years of bedtime stories, walks in nature, karaoke, and family love are still lodged somewhere inside their brains. As they mature, I think there is still a chance they will come to their senses -- albeit with damaged bodies.
Gosh. What a powerful piece . Thank you . Eloquent and heart breaking and a powerful metaphor. You’ve remained strong, and your hearth is still burning for her return . Sending much love and may God bless you with reserves of strength.
Just an FYI for parents from Genspect tomorrow. https://stellaomalley.substack.com/p/reminder-zoom-webinar-what-parents?
Wow! So sad and beautifully written. Who lied to you? Be very careful with social media but even more so your children's schooling. All day, five days a week with people lying to your children. My son just started a community college course. Horrific brainwashing and grey, blurry, confusing stories brought to you by none other than the NIH and CDC to help convince your child that the lies are truth..why shouldn't they believe the CDC, right? If you are not having discussions with your children to OFFSET this brainwashing you will end up with a child you do not recognize anymore. I am considering switching to GCU for the remainder of his classes. Yes, it is that bad...he is showing me what they are trying to do by bombarding him with lies to convince him what he sees isn't the truth and what they tell him is. BEWARE!!!
In reading all of your stories, I am reminded of what my therapist says to me " but do you want them back the way they are now?" Because that's the situation. Can you love your daughter if she's your son? Because maybe you can't. And you have to be okay with that. Maybe the sum of all your hopes and dreams is too great. Maybe this old friend in a new body is too strange, too unfamiliar to embrace right away. Maybe with time. But maybe not. You have to be willing to try and put the grieving behind you. If I had been lucky enough to have a daughter, I know I would be crying. But I know she would probably have my sense of humor & we would find our way back to each other. It's like a divorce. You think you'll never forgive, but you do.
I think what your therapist meant by "but do you want [them] back the way [they] are now?" in this context is in regards to changes that a child has made and is a good question actually. My answer would really depend on the current state of her interpersonal skills and maturity really. Is it ok for me to have feelings now too? Or are we still in the "only her feelings matter" phase? Many of these kids/young adults are so self absorbed and obsessed with their gender that they are truly huge emotional vampires. If they outgrow the strong narcissistic tendencies and become normal human beings again or are at least making attempts at progress... then Yes would be my answer.
We can hold different beliefs and opinions and still treat each other with compassion, civility, and respect. I don't adhere to the tenants of gender identity religion. I would not demean her beliefs - nor would I become a convert or practice that faith. Conversely, I will not expect her to convert or practice my faith.
I will not go out of my way to cause her pain or harm, however I will not participate in revisionist history either. There have been minor attempts at that... but there's zero chance that a child who was extremely imaginative and talked non stop from 2 - 12 was hiding any secrets... (no sorry - you actually never said "I am a boy" "I feel like a boy" or even "I wonder what being a boy is like" you had zero interest in gender/GI and you were uber comfortable in your body - to the point that unless I insisted you put clothes on you would've been naked 24/7.)
I will ALWAYS love my daughter... and i enjoyed her as a person until the dark moody trans hate the world phase... but if she consistently and persistently is a raging a$$hole and makes herself and everyone else miserable... as an adult??? I am not into that type of dynamic.
Edit: PS she's 17 now and again, we enjoy each other's company. I do hope for continuing peace and joy and laughter in our relationship. The trans ideology is still there - but much more relaxed and diminished after 3 years. Hopefully she doesn't regress to being obsessed with it... but I've made my peace with that possibility.
@Ciaos the tragedy happens around 30 or whenever they realize they've wasted their life on trans identity issues instead of learning a trade or profession & their peers have moved on. The narcissism on the trans subs is mind-blowing. They all think they're saints & natal women are evil. And the trans men! Sheesh! So sexist & hateful. I get why parents are angry. I'm angry, too. But anger doesn't solve anything. Once a woman has medicalized the damage is done. She needs support. Hopefully her parents can give it to her. Damage from T is permanent.😪
Some of us are not given the opportunity. It is full compliance, no questions asked, or immediately no contact. No opportunity for conversation, discussion, just a demand and if there’s a slip by the parent they are exiled. That’s my situation. I’ve never been unkind, and said that I am always happy to share life with others who believe differently. I was not given that opportunity. Maybe if my daughter had been younger, still in the home we could have had conversations and she could see that I would never be unkind, and that my concern is loving not hateful.
My situation was similar to yours justmom. Never given the opportunity, just cut off. It was such a messy time with me recuperating from cancer surgery and him making demands and,honestly, acting crazy and like someone I didn’t know. Then he was gone. Horrible, horrible grief. Deborah I dearly hope you understand that grief. I am not angry. I am deeply, deeply bereaved.
I’m so sorry Gretchen. It is such grief. My friend who lost a teenage daughter in a car accident a decade ago told me just last week that she believes her situation is more bearable than ours because there is closure. She doesn’t have to keep wondering if the child will ever return, extending the grief forever. My daughter told me not to look for her, and moved to a different state. I do have an idea of which state, only by accident, but I am trying to move through the stages of grief to acceptance and learn to live again. Praying for you and all of the PITT families.
@Gretchen, I hear you. It's like a death.
Death would be simpler. He lives 20 minutes from me and I haven’t seen or heard from him in over a year. I am not ‘allowed’ to contact him even in ways that would seem benign to most. I miss him deeply.
I'm sorry to hear this. It sounds like she wasn't sure of herself. This ideology can be hateful.
Cutting off anyone who might have questions clearly indicates they are not sure of themselves, that’s why they are pulled in, then told not to question it or allow anyone else to question. A person who is confident they are doing the right thing is willing to have conversation, discussion with their most important loved ones.
If my kids suddenly decided that eating tide pods was a good idea because they saw it on social media, I'd toss the tide pods.
As for the trans craze, I'll believe they believe it. I refuse to alter my own memories, and my photos to correspond to their new found beliefs.
That's as far as I go as well. I believe she believes, but I don't... and have never affirmed. And we've gotten to the point where we can have conversations about GI topics without it being hostile.
I know how these things work. Her compassion and suggestibility made her vulnerable to the ideas, as did being a normal adolescent girl.... but the ideas have no substance. I planted the seeds of reason and have done the best I could to restore her faith in my love for her, even as a "terf" Lol
She thought (bc she was led to believe) that I hated her and that she would die (somehow) before she was out of school. And yet... time has told a different story. She'll remember that.
I didn't throw out the internet but I did enforce limits - like no internet privacy or nighttime access - for healthy habits and safety reasons of course ;)
No nighttime access. Yes! A simple thing!
RE: "Can you love your daughter if she's your son?"
This poster's daughter will never be her "son" , only a mutilated daughter caught up in a poisonous cult of psychic and physical harm. Ideally, estrangement will not occur, but parents and everyone cannot feed the delusion of sex change - if they do, this perpetuates this sickness stealing vulnerable young people.
What a harsh judgment on a confused soul.
Have you spent any time lurking on the sites that encourage kids to solve their problems by sex change? Or really read the letters? The children are rejecting the parents. Most of us expect a teenager to rebel. Most of us would be patient through cross dressing. What gets parents angry is the mental virus that causes their child to self harm. This is not the TRA "left handed" metaphor. It's a social media fed mania.
I more than understand. I'm dealing with the other end of it. I also read the trans subs on Reddit. It's mind-blowing, perplexing, disgusting, and, ultimately, deeply sad, for everyone. But, ultimately, it comes back to: can you love them the way they are right now? It's a divorce. I feel so bad for the girls. Some of them will pass, but not many. And what they're giving up for nothing. Sigh.