Trans: The Family Destroyer

On occasional Fridays, the PITT editors are republishing posts from the past. This is from June 3, 2021

There is a trans mental health crisis, but not the one you think. 

The emerging crisis is the mental health of parents who find themselves fighting against the tide to protect their children. 

I have spent the last year swept up in the madness that is gender ideology. Throughout my year in trans I have come into contact with dozens of struggling parents that are also swept up in this madness. Most people somehow think that trans is an immutable state of being. It is not. 

I’m happy to report that my child’s big pronouncement of trans has faded into the background, and he’s back to being his old happy, healthy, nonconformist self. Thank God. This only happened because I refused to be pressured into the affirmative approach. When parents stay grounded to reality and don’t affirm, generally the kid grows out of it. Undoubtably this is the best outcome — for kids to grow up feeling comfortable with their natural bodies, avoiding a lifetime of medicalization and mental health struggles. For some reason though, our society doesn’t currently see it this way. The fact that often people “desist” (stop feeling trans) is carefully obscured by media and activists, because it calls the whole system into question. 

My child’s successful navigation out of his identity challenge was only possible because of the extraordinary parents and mental health clinicians that are working together behind the scenes to support other parents and to protect our kids. What they are doing comes at an huge cost to sanity and mental health. 

I have yet to meet a family where one or both parents hasn’t had a complete mental collapse following their child’s announcement. Many have contemplated suicide, some seriously. Many parents, moms especially, have had to seek out mental health therapy and anti-depression or anti-anxiety drugs to cope with daily life in a world where there is a physical threat to their child AND all of society, seemingly, is aligned against them. I am one of those parents that needed to Xanax myself into oblivion for a period of weeks just to cope with daily life. Strife between parents is also common, breaking down marriages and sibling relationships. 

Why are the parents losing it? Because in this movement our confused kids, having been indoctrinated in the false belief that they can literally become the other sex and magically fix all of their problems, will seek out and easily obtain drugs that will chemically castrate them, break down their bones, and degrade their brain function. They can do this without any gatekeeping, without our permission, and without any real mental health screening or therapy. 

The family unit is under siege, as parents wrangle with life or death decisions for their children, with no evidence-based information available, and tons of public pressure. Children are given a parent-ectomy; told to reject their loving parents and to trust outsiders that do not have their long-term best interests in mind. Some of these children are seriously mentally ill, with other conditions that may be the root causes of their trans identity feelings, but they cannot get real mental health help — only a shove toward hormones and surgery. It’s appalling. 

This mental health crisis for parents is real and immediate. It’s time that we, as a society, take a step back to decide — is the activist agenda of normalizing cross sex hormones (with known harmful effects) and body modifications to defend the lifestyle and protect “treatment” options for a few, worth harming thousands of individuals and many hundreds of American families? 

No, it is not. The sacred bonds family are at stake, along with the mental and physical health of our children. Parents are starting to fight back against the biggest threat to children’s mental and physical health that we’ve ever encountered. We are rising up to put a stop to indoctrination in our schools, and to defend our parental rights. Parents pushed back against big tobacco, driving under the influence, Juul and eCigs. We can do it again. But not without some help and support for us first.