There is no such thing as a child who needs to be medicalized because their personality is linked with a culture bound regressive gender stereotype.
I strongly encourage you to listen to this four minute testimony given by Jamie Reed, mother of five, lesbian, leftist, and formerly married to a trans man. She is a whistleblower who wrote a strong critique of what was happening at the gender clinic where she worked, and how quickly and permanently young people are being harmed. A former believer of pediatric transition, she now testifies against this experimental treatment on young people. https://x.com/jamiewhistle/status/1884284812502216747?s=46&t=9T7qsS_O4nqXrhIuNjY1AA
I too have a deep and long history of knowing and being friends with people who transitioned as adults. I now know several who were transitioned as adolescents. None of their stories are happy ones. Here is the one closest to my heart.
I am the mother of a desisted 20 year old son. At age 16 and coming out of the pandemic year of learning, my son decided that he had been "born in the wrong body" and that he was a trans girl. This came out of seemingly nowhere. However, it became quickly apparent that "trans" was an identity group that he had connected with on-line during the peak of his pubescent anxiety and identity formation. He had been an insecure middle schooler and high schooler and to suddenly become a "girl" gave him an explanation of the tumultuous feelings he suffered through the uncomfortable stage of puberty.
This sudden development of gender dysphoria, body dysmorphia, and the feeling of having been "born wrong" is very common among early adolescents and teens today, as you must know and unwittingly teach through the use of the educational materials shared here. The term that many parents and detransitioners use is "Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria," or ROGD, and it completely takes over a young person's life, often alienating them from their old friends, their family members, and their old interests. In many ways it is comparable to anorexia, cutting, drug use, or even membership in a cult. My son's personality and interests changed almost overnight, and he became insistent that he could only be happy if he took puberty blockers and cross sex hormones. My story is common to all of the parents who have witnessed this sudden psychological change. While the largest recent increase in trans identification happens to adolescent females, there is a significant rise in the number of young adolescent males who also suddenly develop a trans identity.
Parents, gay and lesbian teachers and leaders, and detransitioners are all extremely concerned with the polarization around this issue and the inability to apply logic, scientific evidence, and nuance in our discussions with policy makers, politicians, school boards, teachers, doctors, and mental health therapists. We have found that there is an institutional capture that has silenced our voices and our stories, along with the growing body of evidence that affirming trans medicalization, including social transition alone, is harmful to long term mental and physical health. Most of the detransitioners and desisters, including my son, have diagnosed mental health comorbidities, may be neurodiverse, may have been sexually exploited or harmed, or may just be struggling with accepting themselves as same sex attracted. However, the curriculum in our schools currently overemphasizes the idea that our children should develop a gender identity that aligns with one's interests or personality and have no bearing on the natal sex of the child. In this way, schools are teaching very regressive stereotypes of gender roles that claim that boys who play with dolls may actually be "girls inside", and that girls that play with trucks and cars are really "boys inside". The effect of such extreme stereotyping of gender roles in prescribed curriculum is playing a pivotal and detrimental role in our neurodiverse and proto gay young people who receive the information as if something is wrong with their bodies which can only be 'fixed' through gender affirmation and medical transition.
Please know that the so called bans on such medical treatments happening in the UK, the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, France, and many Western countries are due to the lack of evidence showing psychological benefits, while certainly producing longterm health risks and shortened lifespans. We should no more tinker with the pubertal stage of development than offer as “medical treatments” the practices of FGM, foot binding, breast ironing, or cutting off the developmental milestones of walking or talking in toddlerhood. Such practices are culture bound human rights abuses, as is trans medicalization of children who cannot consent to losing the ability to have orgasms, fertility, or consent to early onset osteoporosis, menopause, liver issues, cancers, cognitive impairment, urinary tract issues, pain, and neural issues.
I am including a number of articles and resources here for you to peruse. If you are interested in listening to local detransitioners, parents, teachers, and members of the LGB Alliance and Democrats for an Informed Approach to Gender, we invite you to a listening session in which we share our stories to create a better understanding of this social and medical phenomenon that is happening to our children.
I am unable to post links here, but here are a number of resources you can look up:
Democrats for an Informed Approach to Gender
Society for Evidence Based Gender Medicine
Parents of Desisters
ROGD Boys
No Way Back: The Reality of Gender Affirming Care Documentary following the lives of 6 detransitioners
I thought I was saving trans kids, now I am blowing the whistle: Jamie Reed’s testimony on what is actually happening at Gender Care clinics in the U.S. (queer woman married to a transman)
“When it comes to trans youth, we’re in danger of losing our way” by Erica E. Anderson, Ph.D, former president of the United States Professional Association for Transgender Health
‘Gender-Affirming Care Is Dangerous. I Know Because I Helped Pioneer It.' Riittakerttu Kaltiala, article from October 30, 2023, The Free Press
More people regret having children than regret having transitioned. Those regret stories are truly very rare. And thank you for a wonderful piece today.
It’s OK to be a transition person, but it’s not OK to hide it and lie about it with someone you are flirting with and or in a relationship with. It’s extremely dangerous to the other person psyche.
There is no such thing as a child who needs to be medicalized because their personality is linked with a culture bound regressive gender stereotype.
I strongly encourage you to listen to this four minute testimony given by Jamie Reed, mother of five, lesbian, leftist, and formerly married to a trans man. She is a whistleblower who wrote a strong critique of what was happening at the gender clinic where she worked, and how quickly and permanently young people are being harmed. A former believer of pediatric transition, she now testifies against this experimental treatment on young people. https://x.com/jamiewhistle/status/1884284812502216747?s=46&t=9T7qsS_O4nqXrhIuNjY1AA
I too have a deep and long history of knowing and being friends with people who transitioned as adults. I now know several who were transitioned as adolescents. None of their stories are happy ones. Here is the one closest to my heart.
I am the mother of a desisted 20 year old son. At age 16 and coming out of the pandemic year of learning, my son decided that he had been "born in the wrong body" and that he was a trans girl. This came out of seemingly nowhere. However, it became quickly apparent that "trans" was an identity group that he had connected with on-line during the peak of his pubescent anxiety and identity formation. He had been an insecure middle schooler and high schooler and to suddenly become a "girl" gave him an explanation of the tumultuous feelings he suffered through the uncomfortable stage of puberty.
This sudden development of gender dysphoria, body dysmorphia, and the feeling of having been "born wrong" is very common among early adolescents and teens today, as you must know and unwittingly teach through the use of the educational materials shared here. The term that many parents and detransitioners use is "Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria," or ROGD, and it completely takes over a young person's life, often alienating them from their old friends, their family members, and their old interests. In many ways it is comparable to anorexia, cutting, drug use, or even membership in a cult. My son's personality and interests changed almost overnight, and he became insistent that he could only be happy if he took puberty blockers and cross sex hormones. My story is common to all of the parents who have witnessed this sudden psychological change. While the largest recent increase in trans identification happens to adolescent females, there is a significant rise in the number of young adolescent males who also suddenly develop a trans identity.
Parents, gay and lesbian teachers and leaders, and detransitioners are all extremely concerned with the polarization around this issue and the inability to apply logic, scientific evidence, and nuance in our discussions with policy makers, politicians, school boards, teachers, doctors, and mental health therapists. We have found that there is an institutional capture that has silenced our voices and our stories, along with the growing body of evidence that affirming trans medicalization, including social transition alone, is harmful to long term mental and physical health. Most of the detransitioners and desisters, including my son, have diagnosed mental health comorbidities, may be neurodiverse, may have been sexually exploited or harmed, or may just be struggling with accepting themselves as same sex attracted. However, the curriculum in our schools currently overemphasizes the idea that our children should develop a gender identity that aligns with one's interests or personality and have no bearing on the natal sex of the child. In this way, schools are teaching very regressive stereotypes of gender roles that claim that boys who play with dolls may actually be "girls inside", and that girls that play with trucks and cars are really "boys inside". The effect of such extreme stereotyping of gender roles in prescribed curriculum is playing a pivotal and detrimental role in our neurodiverse and proto gay young people who receive the information as if something is wrong with their bodies which can only be 'fixed' through gender affirmation and medical transition.
Please know that the so called bans on such medical treatments happening in the UK, the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, France, and many Western countries are due to the lack of evidence showing psychological benefits, while certainly producing longterm health risks and shortened lifespans. We should no more tinker with the pubertal stage of development than offer as “medical treatments” the practices of FGM, foot binding, breast ironing, or cutting off the developmental milestones of walking or talking in toddlerhood. Such practices are culture bound human rights abuses, as is trans medicalization of children who cannot consent to losing the ability to have orgasms, fertility, or consent to early onset osteoporosis, menopause, liver issues, cancers, cognitive impairment, urinary tract issues, pain, and neural issues.
I am including a number of articles and resources here for you to peruse. If you are interested in listening to local detransitioners, parents, teachers, and members of the LGB Alliance and Democrats for an Informed Approach to Gender, we invite you to a listening session in which we share our stories to create a better understanding of this social and medical phenomenon that is happening to our children.
I am unable to post links here, but here are a number of resources you can look up:
Democrats for an Informed Approach to Gender
Society for Evidence Based Gender Medicine
Parents of Desisters
ROGD Boys
No Way Back: The Reality of Gender Affirming Care Documentary following the lives of 6 detransitioners
I thought I was saving trans kids, now I am blowing the whistle: Jamie Reed’s testimony on what is actually happening at Gender Care clinics in the U.S. (queer woman married to a transman)
“When it comes to trans youth, we’re in danger of losing our way” by Erica E. Anderson, Ph.D, former president of the United States Professional Association for Transgender Health
‘Gender-Affirming Care Is Dangerous. I Know Because I Helped Pioneer It.' Riittakerttu Kaltiala, article from October 30, 2023, The Free Press
More people regret having children than regret having transitioned. Those regret stories are truly very rare. And thank you for a wonderful piece today.
This was/is such a very sad story, when it occurred. Thanks for the article and remembering her.
It’s OK to be a transition person, but it’s not OK to hide it and lie about it with someone you are flirting with and or in a relationship with. It’s extremely dangerous to the other person psyche.
I wish you had been my high school teacher. Levelheadedness and logic. Great post!
Thanks, Cindy!