A concerned parent writes at UnHerd about her daughter's capture by gender ideology:
When I saw her phone and computer, I occasionally glimpsed online threads of kids who were identifying as trans. A lot of them were boys or young men. These were full of self-congratulatory stories of so many months on cross-sex hormones along with sexualised selfies. She showed me videos uploaded by adult trans people. They explained their personal journeys as straightforward, beautiful, attractive.
It seems that a trans identity is offered to kids these days as a way out of their confusion and misery. All of us, or at least everyone that I have been close to, can remember our adolescence as difficult years. Feeling unacceptable, substandard, not cool enough. We struggled, were unhappy, but eventually found our way through. In my case it was through academic success, for my sister, sport. A close friend turned to music. What we did not have were people whispering to us in our bedrooms that our gender identity was the problem and changing it the solution.
For our child, not being a girl had never been a possibility. All that dressing up and dancing around, the playing with make up and the hilarious results — she enjoyed it all.
But after several months of following influencers and other distressed kids online, a formal statement of a trans identity came in the form of a nicely put-together document sent by email, complete with illustrations. She placed herself somewhere between the middle and the boy end of a continuous line. The language was not hers. It was full of Americanised terminology, and was clearly copied across from materials helpfully provided by someone else....
I tried explaining to my child that I had a different point of view, that I believe in both biological reality and women’s sex-based rights, and just didn’t see how all this had appeared pretty much from nowhere. It did not go well. We as parents were classed as “cis transphobes” whose views were irrelevant, outdated and just wrong.
Who to turn to for advice? If you're new to the debate, then you'll likely end up being pushed deeper into the swamp.
I contacted organisations that profess expertise on the subject. But the trouble is, they nearly all point in one direction. You find Mermaids, the UK trans charity, on the first search. I called them to discuss binders and whether they were safe. That conversation was all about affirming my daughter’s decision and advising that the potential harm of not doing so was much greater than any drawbacks in doing so. They suggested getting on the waiting list for NHS gender services straight away “as there is a long waiting list”....
The school is not much help. In fact, the school is part of the problem. If my daughter is self-harming or tells them she is very low, they will call me and tell me to access the community mental health services or A&E. They pass the buck. They’re not keen to dive any deeper even though, if anything, they have encouraged the trans identification, whether through fear, or well-meaning and sincere belief. Some staff have used the “born in the wrong body” phrase, which in the context of troubled teenagers is rather like playing with matches in a parched field. They had me in for a meeting, two against one, and essentially informed me that the name and pronouns would be changed across the school by edict. It was all very smiley, but my views on whether this was a good idea were not sought.
The school brings in organisations to talk about trans identities in a positive way, but notably offers no differing points of view. I have tried to express concern about the approach but have gained little traction. In reality, the school seems to contain other perspectives, with some staff clearly not on board with the full agenda, although apparently afraid to say so....
What is particularly baffling is why a mental difficulty that suddenly arises in adolescence is treated as a newly revealed truth, rather than a problem to be worked through and overcome. Many of these girls are struggling mentally, and indeed some are diagnosed with autism. If my child had an eating disorder, I do not think I would be encouraged to order diet books and seek gastric surgery. Youth has always found ways to challenge the aged. Is this, perhaps, a young-versus-old frontier, and a new way to challenge sex-based roles and expectations? And yet it has taken on a certain kind of holiness....
Well yes, that's one way of putting it. Basically we're dealing here with a cult - a cult that's been extraordinarily successful. It'll pass, no doubt, but in the meantime countless young lives are being ruined.
Many are building their careers on this issue, both in the medical profession and in the burgeoning diversity industry. But for those of us who are not paying attention, it is time to wake up. For those involved from schools, clinics, support service I ask that, before diving in with affirmation, social transition and medical intervention, you just consider asking parents whether the questioning child has ever in the past shown discomfort with their sex. Ask them if the child was troubled and unhappy beforehand. Ask them if the child has been deep in an online rabbit-hole.
School-leaders, ask yourselves why you have an annual month of excitement about the sex and gender diversity alphabet and precious little else the rest of the year on other issues like physical and mental disability. For those making and implementing policy, ask yourselves whether you are being told the full story by the diversity industry, and why the voices of concerned parents and detransitioners are being widely ignored. For parents with young children, especially girls, do not assume that your child will not be affected.
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