I LOVED your article. The article got better and better as it came to a crashing crescendo of wholly justified disgust and rage at the end. Deluded doctors and "experts" have harmed so many people with their marred and miserable thinking. You might like my article which explains why great minds sometimgs fabricate grotesque ideas such as cross sex hormones at age `14
Here with you in your pain. We have 2 daughters in the cult to different degrees. Both highly sensitive and intelligent and didn’t quite fit in their whole lives. Both parents in pain handling it in different ways. It seems one of them is gradually cutting us off and likely not coming to family Christmas this year. The pain ebbs and flows but was sharp yesterday again with the news of not coming to Christmas. Praying for all of our kids to return and this lie to be relegated to the trash heap of history.
I agree with you and hope that you use your qualifications in philosophy to help tear down "true trans" mythology and up-end the legal system there in Australia.
Maybe you will even end up running for office or running an issue campaign.
The mandatory gender affirming care (GAC) is fraudulent medicine and must be stopped.
Your essay shows us some of the harms of GAC. Tear into gender ideology, and we will all be better off.
"social stigmatization": You've really put your finger on it here.
They're not afraid of the social stigmatization of joining the cult.
They're afraid of the social stigmatization of NOT joining the cult.
Young people passing through the change from childhood to adulthood are hardwired to turn to their peers while learning to survive without their parents. It's a scary world out there. You've got to depend on SOMEONE.
This makes social stigmatization an enormously powerful influence upon people during that change. Online, they're now being groomed to believe that, if they join the cult, *everyone will love them.* Simultaneously, they're shown quite graphically that, if they don't join the cult, *everyone will hate them.*
It's a pretty obvious choice.
Imagine being the only teenager in your entire social group, both online and in the real world, who wants to stand up for reality against the cult. The weaponization of suicidalism--lying about suicidalism in the cult, while trying to instill it in those who resist the cult--is one of the most terrifying tools employed by this sick cult of extreme child harm.
Fortunately, we ARE now seeing young people, as they mature into their brains in their mid-twenties, leaving the cult. But far too many of them, by then, have been groomed into wrecking their bodies and futures, and will need both medical interventions and endless parental support and comfort for the rest of their lives.
I had to pause reading this painfully true article and the comments every so often before continuing, because I could identify with pretty much all of it, and it was like getting stabbed in the heart over and over. I still have tenuous contact with my child through texting, but have no idea how she is doing mentally, emotionally, or even physically. I so much want to help and protect, but I don’t even know what she looks like anymore, and last time we spoke, months ago, I did not recognize her voice at all. Tears are again welling from my eyes as I write this and my throat feels constricted. I persevere in prayer.
I will not “affirm” that she is a man. I will not “affirm” that as my daughter she is dead. I will not “affirm” that it is good for her to reject her female body, irreparably damage her reproductive integrity, and pretend to become a man. But if I did “affirm” these destructive lies (which I simply cannot), I would be putting my need not to be rejected by her above my fatherly commitment to her actual wellbeing. I would be failing her as a father if I so “affirmed” her self-harming and state supported misogyny. I am punished by her and by my government for caring about her actual and real interests, and for not mildly playing along with harmful delusions. I am being punished because I love her.
“To be unable to protect one’s own daughter in something as basic as the physical integrity and safety of her bodily sexuality, is about as de-authorizing and emasculating of a father as can be achieved.”
I am gasping once again after reading such a marvelously written piece and thankful to read the words written by a father when so many of them suffer in silence.
I so often see the pain in the eyes of our son’s loving father. I hear few words but he once described it as a continuous dripping.
Praying for all the fathers, mothers, family members and our dear ones who have been taken captive by this evil. May they break free soon and return to not only their families but seek and come to know their Heavenly Father!
It is alarming (and disgusting!) the way the affirmation floods in from every direction the moment that evil word "trans" is uttered -- most of it under the guise of "kindness".
The young peers who affirm have been brainwashed, but the professionals need to exercise their own critical thinking, instead of blindly supporting the unsupportable and the nonsensical.
I especially blame teachers and therapists old enough to have started their careers before trans-insanity took hold. Surely these teachers have noticed there used to be no kids in their classes who believed themselves to be the opposite sex, and now there are a notable amount?
And the therapists -- don't they wonder why a couple of decades ago, no youth were coming to them asserting they were "born in the wrong body", but suddenly it's common? How can they not know about social contagion, or the suggestible nature of children and youth, or be so clueless about the influencing power of the internet and social media???
I KNOW a saner day is coming. In a few years, there will be a multitude of damaged, unhappy detransitioners too big for the activists to cover up or scoff away.
This entire essay is spot on, but the final two paragraphs summarize my feelings and help to explain what happened to our eldest son perfectly. Every doctor, teacher, family member, or supposed friend who immediately affirmed our adult son's out-of-the-blue trans declaration with no questions asked...everyone who encouraged or enabled his estrangement from his loving family...everyone who failed to seek answers by gently digging into his underlying mental health issues. They truly made everything so much worse! I hold these people accountable for our son's downward spiral and eventual death by suicide. Gender Affirming Care is unconscionable psychological and medical malpractice, indeed.
This is beyond agonizing dear Sadie. The evil irony that GAC is making our children suicidal, in the name of saving them from suicide, is beyond all limits.
Speaking our family's story as we watch our son decline each day: "We are both so damaged, so distraught, so without emotional resilience, all thanks to trans." Amen, brother.
Thank you so much. This is intelligent, thoughtful, insightful and painfully honest . It should be read far and wide - trans ideology is wrecking people and families. It's close to wrecking mine. I choose to fight. I will never affirm never!
Excellent post. The hijacking of my son at college, who sounds similar to your daughter, has been devastating for me as his mother and his father. And no picnic for his older sister. I'm not religious, but the "trans" insanity feels evil. It's mind boggling that this heinous death cult ever propagated. Shame on all those enabling our vulnerable children to diminish themselves physically and mentally and reject the guidance the people who actually care about their well being.
"A suicide-inducing mindset where you reject your actual body is firmly held by these very same therapists to not be a mental illness." This is what I cannot wrap my head around. How is it not obvious to these people that their beliefs are illogical?
In any case, it's depressing to see how widespread this trans ideology has become. We can't solve it by banning gender affirming care in the USA. I wish it were that simple.
"We can't solve it by banning gender affirming care in the USA."
It would be a very good start because it would bring an immediate stop to the physical harm done by doctors and paid for by insurance. Dr. Paul McHugh closed down the first Gender Clinic in the US because he found that long term outcomes were not improved. I believe that clinic was founded by the nefarious Dr. John Money.
I also think that loads of young people would drop the Crazy Identity if there were not the medical aspect to strive for with ever increasing steps to take.
One thing to go after is the fraud promoted by marketing "GAC" as a suicide prevention.
I LOVED your article. The article got better and better as it came to a crashing crescendo of wholly justified disgust and rage at the end. Deluded doctors and "experts" have harmed so many people with their marred and miserable thinking. You might like my article which explains why great minds sometimgs fabricate grotesque ideas such as cross sex hormones at age `14
https://davidgottfried.substack.com/p/the-intellectual-bankruptcy-of-erudite
Here with you in your pain. We have 2 daughters in the cult to different degrees. Both highly sensitive and intelligent and didn’t quite fit in their whole lives. Both parents in pain handling it in different ways. It seems one of them is gradually cutting us off and likely not coming to family Christmas this year. The pain ebbs and flows but was sharp yesterday again with the news of not coming to Christmas. Praying for all of our kids to return and this lie to be relegated to the trash heap of history.
I’m so very sorry that this tragedy has come to your family, as it has come to mine. May your daughter find her way back soon 🙏
good for you!
I agree with you and hope that you use your qualifications in philosophy to help tear down "true trans" mythology and up-end the legal system there in Australia.
Maybe you will even end up running for office or running an issue campaign.
The mandatory gender affirming care (GAC) is fraudulent medicine and must be stopped.
Your essay shows us some of the harms of GAC. Tear into gender ideology, and we will all be better off.
"social stigmatization": You've really put your finger on it here.
They're not afraid of the social stigmatization of joining the cult.
They're afraid of the social stigmatization of NOT joining the cult.
Young people passing through the change from childhood to adulthood are hardwired to turn to their peers while learning to survive without their parents. It's a scary world out there. You've got to depend on SOMEONE.
This makes social stigmatization an enormously powerful influence upon people during that change. Online, they're now being groomed to believe that, if they join the cult, *everyone will love them.* Simultaneously, they're shown quite graphically that, if they don't join the cult, *everyone will hate them.*
It's a pretty obvious choice.
Imagine being the only teenager in your entire social group, both online and in the real world, who wants to stand up for reality against the cult. The weaponization of suicidalism--lying about suicidalism in the cult, while trying to instill it in those who resist the cult--is one of the most terrifying tools employed by this sick cult of extreme child harm.
Fortunately, we ARE now seeing young people, as they mature into their brains in their mid-twenties, leaving the cult. But far too many of them, by then, have been groomed into wrecking their bodies and futures, and will need both medical interventions and endless parental support and comfort for the rest of their lives.
Heartbreaking
So bloody heartbreaking. I hope she comes back. I’m so sorry
I had to pause reading this painfully true article and the comments every so often before continuing, because I could identify with pretty much all of it, and it was like getting stabbed in the heart over and over. I still have tenuous contact with my child through texting, but have no idea how she is doing mentally, emotionally, or even physically. I so much want to help and protect, but I don’t even know what she looks like anymore, and last time we spoke, months ago, I did not recognize her voice at all. Tears are again welling from my eyes as I write this and my throat feels constricted. I persevere in prayer.
All of this.
I will not “affirm” that she is a man. I will not “affirm” that as my daughter she is dead. I will not “affirm” that it is good for her to reject her female body, irreparably damage her reproductive integrity, and pretend to become a man. But if I did “affirm” these destructive lies (which I simply cannot), I would be putting my need not to be rejected by her above my fatherly commitment to her actual wellbeing. I would be failing her as a father if I so “affirmed” her self-harming and state supported misogyny. I am punished by her and by my government for caring about her actual and real interests, and for not mildly playing along with harmful delusions. I am being punished because I love her.
“To be unable to protect one’s own daughter in something as basic as the physical integrity and safety of her bodily sexuality, is about as de-authorizing and emasculating of a father as can be achieved.”
I am gasping once again after reading such a marvelously written piece and thankful to read the words written by a father when so many of them suffer in silence.
I so often see the pain in the eyes of our son’s loving father. I hear few words but he once described it as a continuous dripping.
Praying for all the fathers, mothers, family members and our dear ones who have been taken captive by this evil. May they break free soon and return to not only their families but seek and come to know their Heavenly Father!
It is alarming (and disgusting!) the way the affirmation floods in from every direction the moment that evil word "trans" is uttered -- most of it under the guise of "kindness".
The young peers who affirm have been brainwashed, but the professionals need to exercise their own critical thinking, instead of blindly supporting the unsupportable and the nonsensical.
I especially blame teachers and therapists old enough to have started their careers before trans-insanity took hold. Surely these teachers have noticed there used to be no kids in their classes who believed themselves to be the opposite sex, and now there are a notable amount?
And the therapists -- don't they wonder why a couple of decades ago, no youth were coming to them asserting they were "born in the wrong body", but suddenly it's common? How can they not know about social contagion, or the suggestible nature of children and youth, or be so clueless about the influencing power of the internet and social media???
I KNOW a saner day is coming. In a few years, there will be a multitude of damaged, unhappy detransitioners too big for the activists to cover up or scoff away.
This entire essay is spot on, but the final two paragraphs summarize my feelings and help to explain what happened to our eldest son perfectly. Every doctor, teacher, family member, or supposed friend who immediately affirmed our adult son's out-of-the-blue trans declaration with no questions asked...everyone who encouraged or enabled his estrangement from his loving family...everyone who failed to seek answers by gently digging into his underlying mental health issues. They truly made everything so much worse! I hold these people accountable for our son's downward spiral and eventual death by suicide. Gender Affirming Care is unconscionable psychological and medical malpractice, indeed.
So so sorry.
This is beyond agonizing dear Sadie. The evil irony that GAC is making our children suicidal, in the name of saving them from suicide, is beyond all limits.
I am so sorry to hear of the loss of your son.
Speaking our family's story as we watch our son decline each day: "We are both so damaged, so distraught, so without emotional resilience, all thanks to trans." Amen, brother.
Thank you so much. This is intelligent, thoughtful, insightful and painfully honest . It should be read far and wide - trans ideology is wrecking people and families. It's close to wrecking mine. I choose to fight. I will never affirm never!
Excellent post. The hijacking of my son at college, who sounds similar to your daughter, has been devastating for me as his mother and his father. And no picnic for his older sister. I'm not religious, but the "trans" insanity feels evil. It's mind boggling that this heinous death cult ever propagated. Shame on all those enabling our vulnerable children to diminish themselves physically and mentally and reject the guidance the people who actually care about their well being.
"A suicide-inducing mindset where you reject your actual body is firmly held by these very same therapists to not be a mental illness." This is what I cannot wrap my head around. How is it not obvious to these people that their beliefs are illogical?
In any case, it's depressing to see how widespread this trans ideology has become. We can't solve it by banning gender affirming care in the USA. I wish it were that simple.
"We can't solve it by banning gender affirming care in the USA."
It would be a very good start because it would bring an immediate stop to the physical harm done by doctors and paid for by insurance. Dr. Paul McHugh closed down the first Gender Clinic in the US because he found that long term outcomes were not improved. I believe that clinic was founded by the nefarious Dr. John Money.
I also think that loads of young people would drop the Crazy Identity if there were not the medical aspect to strive for with ever increasing steps to take.
One thing to go after is the fraud promoted by marketing "GAC" as a suicide prevention.