When her biological daughter Alex* came out as transgender at the age of 12, Anna* offered her support instantly — but she also had concerns. The New York City-based mom knew her child also suffered from autism, severe depression and self-harm, and hoped that any psychologist exploring a transition with her child would consider all those conditions as part of the treatment.
Instead, she says her child was offered puberty blockers after a 10-minute evaluation at “the best possible clinic” for transgender care in New York. “My child’s autism was completely overlooked,” Anna told The Post.
“There was no real exploration as to what does it mean to be trans,” Anna said. “What does she mean she feels like a boy? Why do you think you’re not a girl? Tell me more. How does that feel? How do you know? And what does that mean to you? There was no exploration of that.”
Quoting Keira Bell from the U.K. who is suing the now shuttered Gender Identity Service called Tavistock for failing to properly address the root causes of her mental health conditions:
One young patient, Keira Bell, a biological female who medically transitioned to a male at GIDS, went so far as to sue the clinic, writing in a post, “The consequences of what happened to me have been profound: possible infertility, loss of my breasts and inability to breastfeed, atrophied genitals, a permanently changed voice, facial hair. When I was seen at the Tavistock clinic, I had so many issues that it was comforting to think I really had only one that needed solving: I was a male in a female body. But it was the job of the professionals to consider all my co-morbidities, not just to affirm my naïve hope that everything could be solved with hormones and surgery.”
This is the current end to the ongoing saga of an “agender” mom and her three austistic children she seems intent on guiding into transgender identities.
While this is only one case study, this is by no means rare. Every day, countless parents arrive in these private Facebook Groups seeking guidance from strangers. As we have reported elsewhere, these groups act as indoctrination centers for scared and confused parents—mostly mothers—looking for help and advice for their equally confused children who have succumbed to gender ideology. But instead of help, Group members guilt trip and shame parents into fast-tracking their children to hormones and surgeries.
We hope that by bringing these stories to light, we can help the public better understand the cult-like nature of these groups, and the true extent of the harm being brought upon vulnerable children in the name of “Social Justice” and “acceptance.”
An ‘economic’ motivation may be at the bottom of this. If so, how awful is that?
“Portrait of a girl and boy (c.1900s)” by pellethepoet is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
A clinical psychologist tells a story of a little girl named Joanna who was allowed to transition at the age of 4 to a ‘boy’ named Joseph.
Except that Joseph is a boy with a secret. Before transition, Joanna was a girl who sometimes wanted to be a boy, and this was out in the open, everyone could talk about it. Now Joseph is treated as a boy, but there’s something different about him and lots of people don’t know this. He knows it, his parents know it, but people aren’t allowed to mention it or ask him how he feels about it. If they do, they’re transphobic.
Joseph has a choice and neither of his options are good. Either he pretends there’s nothing different even though he can see there is in the boys’ toilet every day, or he gets increasingly distressed about the fact that everyone is telling him he is a boy, he lives in the world as a boy – but he doesn’t actually have the body of a boy. Usually this is too much for him to deal with and so he blocks it out. He disconnects from his body.
Joseph is in a really difficult position. The different facts in his life don’t add up. The adults in his life are telling him that he is a boy, but he can see that he doesn’t have the body of other boys. He will often completely refuse to talk about this. This is interpreted as a sign of his gender dysphoria – he won’t even look at or acknowledge his genitals. His parents will say that they can’t mention it, as he’ll get so upset.
Sometimes his parents will tell him stories about how when he grows up he will be able to have surgery and acquire a penis, and because he is a child he believes them utterly, and dreams of the day that he will no longer have to deal with the dissonance between what his family and friends tell him that he is, and the body he knows he has. The dissonance that was set up by his social transition.
But this strategy has an expiration date.
Joseph grows up and for several happy years there are no apparent problems. His parents get heavily involved in the trans community and feel very connected and affirmed in their decision. Joseph loves his short hair and football boots. He’s ‘one of the gang’. Then he gets to age 10, and his breasts start to grow.
He’s spent the last six years being told he is a boy. There has been no preparation at all in his childhood for the fact of his biological femaleness. No identifying with female role models, no conversations about what puberty means for girls. That has been something to be denied and ignored, or not talked about at all. And now his breasts start to grow.
This is a tender and vulnerable time for all young girls, but for those who have been told they are boys it can be devastating. Social transition has worked for Joseph due to the fact that pre-pubescent boys are very similar to pre-pubescent girls, but now things are going to change. Joseph’s distress becomes intense. They hate their bodies, they hate themselves, they can’t bear the idea of periods and curves. They start to talk about self-harm, of cutting themselves, because they just can’t bear how strong their feelings are.
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Social transition works so well in the short term, but in the long term there is no way it won’t cause worse distress. Because a childhood isn’t reversible, and this child has spent theirs being told they are of the opposite sex. The time they could have had getting used to their biological reality, they have spent hiding it. They could have been learning that they can express themselves in any way that they want, whether they are female or male – but instead they have been learning to deny the biological reality of their body.
We need to tell them that they can dream of being everything they want to be, express themselves however they want, but we know they can’t change their sex. We have to tell them this, even if they find it distressing. We need to be able to hold that distress and listen, whilst holding onto reality. For our only other option is to betray our children’s trust in us, and the consequences of that will be lifelong.
