Trans to Tradwife Pipeline

A Journey of Supporting and Challenging Exploration

When my daughter came home one day and told me she wanted to go by her gender-neutral middle name and use they/them pronouns I wasn’t surprised. After all, I gave her the middle name Kiran for that very purpose. I’ve always thought girls with names like “Sam” and “Gates” are cool. I wanted her to have that option. 

The request for they/them pronouns didn’t sit well with me though. I had been watching interviews with Benjamin Boyce and was well-versed in what was going on with gender ideology. I wasn’t too surprised that she had fallen in with that crowd. She is nerdy and socially awkward like I was in middle school. I was goth so I figured she’d find a similar counterculture. I could relate but was still concerned.

My first thought was “Thank God we had that transsexual roommate in Boulder (an elderly trans woman who was genuinely trying to pass and had an old-school view of transsexualism), so she can’t say I’m transphobic.” My next thought was “Thank god I showed her that horrifying Benjamin Boyce interview with a detransitioner before she got recruited.” I was a little surprised that she was still persuaded despite that, but I understand it’s pervasive and peer pressure can do a lot. 

My next thought was “What am I going to do about the pronouns?” I came up with an answer pretty quickly. I told her “I’m on the spectrum. Expecting me to use they/them pronouns consistently would be ableist.” She agreed. I’ve been using she/her pronouns ever since without protest. 

I talked to her about my concerns and brought up the detrans interview we had watched. She agreed that she has skepticism about medicalization and it’s just that she feels non-binary. I told her I think it’s just a phase of puberty (peter pan syndrome). She can be androgynous all she wants, but her feelings might change. 

We got on the same page and we have continued to talk about it. She listens when I bring up issues with gender ideology from the podcasts I listen to. She’s been thinking it through and looking up information herself and seems to have a nuanced perspective, though she still identifies as non-binary and goes along with it with her friends.

To my utter bewilderment, her father, who nursed his older gay brother through dying of AIDS in the early 90’s and has been a pillar of the local gay community as the house DJ at the gay bar, refused to even use her middle name as well as they/them pronouns. I still don’t know why, it’s probably his narcissism more than ideology, but it has added to the feeling that she can’t force people to do what she wants.

I’ve been using her middle name and convinced my family to do the same. I have no problem with it, but I refused to even let her ask them to use they/them pronouns. Basically, I explained, “I would use they/them if we were around a bunch of people who were using it consistently, but I wouldn’t try to impose it on people who think it’s nonsense.” She accepted it.

I was proud of her when she went to an LGBTQ+ friendly summer camp last summer and she reported that, when they asked for pronouns she said, “You can call me whatever you see me as.” I was concerned about letting her go to the camp but by then I could tell that she was taking a critical view of gender ideology. She had been complaining that some of her friends were taking it too far and had a pathetic victim mentality that was getting on her nerves. 

I actually sent her to camp hoping that the kids and counselors would be so over-the-top that they would drive her nuts and she would decide she wants out of the cult. She reported that the camp wasn’t too ideological though, it was mostly the kids of gay parents with a few gay and trans-identifying kids who just wanted to have fun.

Now here’s the weird part of the story. A few months ago (she’s 15 now) she started wearing long skirts and growing her hair out. She rides her bike to school, so wearing a long skirt is a bit of a challenge, but she does it anyway. Then she started researching different religions (I’m agnostic so she’s never been exposed to any). She went to the Buddhist monastery with her father several times and came back with a Japa Mala bag. Then she started waking up at 5:30 in the morning, before me, and chanting for an hour while counting Mala beads. Then she started chanting for an hour before bed every night. Then I caught her listening to gurus on YouTube and reading the Bhagavad Gita. 

She got some Tilak powder and started putting it on her forehead every single day. She’s gone vegetarian (I’m keto and very skeptical of vegetarianism so I’m making her supplement heavily). Then we started going to a hippie Kirtan group. That’s not good enough for her though so she’s contacted the university Hindu student group to ask them if there are any more serious Krishna worshiping groups in the area. She wants to go out, in public, with the Mridanga drum she got for Christmas and sing Hare Krishna on the street. Ok Kiran, cool.

Now she’s learning to crochet. She’s talking about how much of a problem it is that people don’t want to have kids anymore and that feminism makes women think they have to work. She refuses to eat junk food and cooks her own food to take to school. She complains about her friends eating nothing but garbage and how it’s affecting their health. She tries to give them advice but they don’t change their behavior. She’s feeling ostracized because she’s the only kid at school who seems to give a damn about anything.

So, I’m watching my daughter become more religiously conservative than me, though she still has far-left friends at school. I’m supporting her without affirming any of these identities because I think she is very much in flux. I’m confident she’ll turn out alright in the end if I’m just honest and there for her. However, if she starts singing Hare Krishna 24/7 we’re going to have a problem.