Editor’s Note: What is striking about this story is how similar it is to so many of the stories we are hearing from parents when they describe the way their daughter was drawn in to the transgender ideology. It is also very similar to the personal accounts of the young women in the Pique Resilience Project, all of whom identified as transgender for quite some time before desisting.
A year ago, when our teen was 14, she told me she was pansexual. After asking what exactly that was, I was fine with it. I'm liberal, open to different lifestyles. "Whatever floats your boat" has always been my motto, as long as it doesn't hurt anyone. This announcement came shortly after joining the middle school Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) as an "ally". She began to act out more and more (outbursts of anger at home for no reason). Fast forward 3 months and she tells us she is a trans female-to-male (FTM).
WHAT?! How? There had been no signs during childhood at all that this was the case. She was always open to playing with both male and female toys and children, but I wouldn't even classify her as a tomboy. She was too shy, too careful—petulant, almost. All her friends are girls. She's intellectually gifted and from a white, upper-middle class home. She's always been far more fortunate than many of her friends and certainly more than I was as a child (I grew up poor and was verbally and mentally abused by my parents). She's an only child who's never had to share a room, wear hand-me-downs, etc. Yet, she was always grateful. Her father and I are still together and he also came from a privileged background in a very conservative area. His father was in federal law enforcement (higher up) and his mother was a school principal.
I say all this because beginning in middle school, she became VERY political as well. Women's rights, LGBTQ rights, anything for the downtrodden and marginalized. We were thrilled! We marched in women's rallies together, made signs, and chanted. Which leads me to believe she may be misinterpreting her gender dysphoria for rejection of white privilege among several other reasons. In the circle of potential causes and contributing factors, I can point to between 8-10 definite reasons.
There were no signs at all until that day when she came out as pansexual to me one year ago, then transgender FTM nine months ago. And she is ADAMANT about it. Since she's intellectually and verbally gifted, while I struggle to clear the fog from my brain on a daily basis, it's impossible for me to prove any point with her. My husband processes things internally and has done his best to have conversations with her.
We may have had a small breakthrough this week when she realized we were not going to put her on hormones in two months, as her “gender therapist” had told her we would. We had agreed to let her see an endocrinologist after six months of therapy, but the therapist neglected to tell us that this meant instant hormones. So now she's gone from being angry at us to being angry at the therapist for putting her in this situation. This is GOOD, because now we have a chance to try and get her to see a legitimate, non-affirming therapist and perhaps identify the root cause of her gender dysphoria.
I've struggled SO much to find others in similar situations I can talk with about this. I am so thankful to have found this group. I'm alarmed that in our two-block neighborhood, we have at least THREE FTM trans teens that I am aware of. I wonder how many more? One of them was a close friend of my daughter until a couple years ago. This can't possibly be coincidence.
We MUST delve deeper into this phenomenon and find out why our teens are suffering from this. As one psychologist put it, perhaps this is nature's way of culling the human population. He wasn't being glib, and sadly, he may be right. I pray not.