“Please wake up! Please wake up!” I wish I could scream that to my daughter some days.
I am desperate. My 14 year old daughter just told me that she is trans. These past weeks have felt like a hundred years.
Before this happened we went to see a therapist because of her depression. She had been bullied for years, and witnessed my horrible divorce from her abusive father. After two visits with the therapist she told me that she is really a boy.
I couldn’t understand what she was telling me. She had always been a girly girl—princess dresses, long hair, baby dolls, everything—until last summer, when she cut her hair into a pixie cut and started wearing black jeans with t-shirts.
That's around the time when she said found on the internet that the uncomfortable feeling she had about her body was because she was trans.
I went to talk with the therapist and he told me "of course she is depressed! She is in the wrong body!" He was not willing to look deeper into her other issues.
I found another therapist…and another, but they all gave me the same responses. They even told me that I was the one who needed therapy to accept this. They said I had to support her in her transition, and that if I didn't she would commit suicide.
I challenged these therapists to give me facts, statistics to prove that transition would be the best option for my daughter. I asked them to explain how mutilating a perfectly healthy body and bombarding it with hormones would be the only option. I asked them to explain why people who already have depression get worse after going through transition. They could not answer. Two of them told me they didn't have that information. Really?!!
Thankfully the lines of communication are still open with my daughter. At first she wanted to start on hormones and get top surgery right away. I don't know how I managed to deal with this calmly, through days and sleepless nights of research, while listening to her and expressing my concerns about the medical procedures. I told her how I feel about gender stereotypes. I told her that before making life changing decisions she would have to deal with her depression first, that she needs to have a clear mind. She agreed.
I also told her that we would have to research EVERYTHING about it, good and bad, look at every perspective. No luck on that.
I did not agree to call her by her boy name, I asked her to please be patient with me. (I'm trying to buy some time while I find a therapist who is willing to treat her underlying conditions first!)
My daughter told me that last November she had made the announcement at her school and that it was received with open arms by teachers and peers. There are already three trans kids in her school.
She is being applauded and cheered by the school, her peers, my oldest daughter and stupid TUMBLR.
How could this be happening!? How could the world be ok with this? This is child abuse!
I have found amazing people and resources online but no one locally so far. I hope I find someone soon, someone I can take my daughter to talk to. Maybe if she hears it from someone else she will listen because in her world I am on mute.
Sometimes I feel defeated, but I’m never going to give up! I’ll fight with all I have to make sure my daughter doesn’t harm herself like that. She is 15 and time is running out until she doesn’t need my “permission” to make decisions. Just that thought is terrifying.
UPDATE: I found a therapist who said she would work with my daughter on her depression and anxiety, but she said she is not familiar with gender issues, she said that she is going to research more about it and meet with a specialist. I sent her a document full of links and videos from gender critical views. I hope she looks at them. If she doesn’t, I’ll be on my quest to find someone to help my daughter once again.