And therapists, if you don't know where to start (a lot is understood that you don't know yet), the information for clinicians at https://genspect.org/guidance/ is a really good place.
They're all good. Also the essays, and book by Susan Evans and Marcus Evans, which has composite case studies. And and and....
Thank you for this essay and thank you to all the therapists who are looking into this, researching it, supporting young people struggling with this by exploring, as therapy does!
I am not a professional academic. I'm a mother. I sometimes reflect about how lame/cowed our academics are even as I understand they fear for their jobs. Maybe the entire academic system, K - University ought to be shut down and restarted :) My own Ivy League alma mater actively promotes pronouns/GI and claims that no one objects.
Alma mater on Wiki: "The phrase is variously translated as "nourishing mother", "nursing mother", or "fostering mother", suggesting that a school provides intellectual nourishment to her students."
Yeah, right. Now, please define "woman". They are morally and intellectually bankrupt, IMO.
And the federal government wants universal pre-k. Then, they can tell the 3-4 year olds they get to choose their sex.
The fact that we are unable - or unwilling - to see that this recent and tremendous rise in trans/nonbinary identity is happening largely in a group that is historically known to be suffering with self esteem and body image issues (adolescent girls) and that rather than work through this we go along with affirming that there is something wrong with their bodies absolutely blows my mind. I was admitted multiple times to an eating disorder unit as a young teen. The parallels are undeniable. Our bodies are changing. We are not comfortable with all that we are being ushered into, both physically and mentally. An eating disorder is a way to prolong childhood - shrink the breasts, stop or at least reduce the frequency of menses. Opt out of all that nonsense dating and adult business. This is not true of ALL women with an eating disorder but it is a very common theme. Bonus - for those who lose enough weight you get to bask in the envy disguised as concern from your peers, and the actual concern from adults.
I remember spending endless therapy sessions discussing how we were more than a number on the scale, how to deal with unhealthy thoughts, how all bodies were different and no one was perfect, how society's expectations of women were unreasoable and unrealistic. By and large we were female - I remember one boy my age (young teen), one adult male (who seemed ancient but was probably about my age now, mid-40s), and one transwoman who was not on the unit for long due to being very disruptive and unstable - otherwise we were all female, most of us 12-18ish, a few women in their 20s. We were a vulnerable group largely due to our age and sex. I remember learning about nutrition and exercise and trying to achieve a focus on health and nurturing and loving your body instead of destroying it - all the while working on whatever other underlying issues we had. There was almost always SOME other underlying issue.
Never once was it proposed that we be sent for liposuction or weight loss surgery (I'm not even sure that existed then but if it did, it would not have been proposed) - the focus was never on drasticaly altering the body in some way to achieve happiness because it was known that the issue was deeper than what we weighed. We might be encouraged to try a new hair style or outfit or make-up, things that were working *with* the body that we had and trying to feel good. We would be encouraged to think of and find things about ourselves aside from appearance that made us feel proud and confident.
In the case of gender dysphoria, not only do we fail to get to the bottom of what is actually troubling these young ladies (and increasingly young white men, I think for different reasons) but we are actively discouraged from doing so! I slashed open my arms with a razor blade over and over and over, over my akwardness and depression and my failure to fit in and my hatred of my body - and yet it was repeatedly drilled into my head that my weight was only a symptom. Parents today, at the slightest sign of dysphoria, at the first regurgitation of the lines learned on the internet sure to take a child down the transition pathline, are warned that their child will harm themself if *not* allowed to change their body!
How did we get to this point? Have we forgotten our own puberties, and how hard they were? How did we become so eager to show our acceptance for the "lgbtqia++" community that we are willing to throw the mental health of adolescents and young adults in general under the bus?
One thing I have found curious is Dr. Rachel Levine, when she was still known as Richard, was the director of an eating disorder clinic. An eating disorder clinic! This person was in charge of helping adolescent girls to see past their physical bodies and to learn to love and value themselves beyond their appearance. I can only imagine how it would have felt to be a patient there, to go through such a program, and then see the director make such a sweeping and hippocritical decision to drastically alter their body in the name of self love. At least in Dr. Levine's case there was no sacrifice of future fertility - that being all in the past - this has to have been a heck of a mental ride for any of the girls who had gone through the program.
I almost feel as though even the experts are thinking "Oooh at last we have an EASY solution to the age old dilemma of adolescent ennui!" and for no other reason than that they are going along with it... but the fallout is so terrible.
I was going to share your essay, until I came across the phrase, "marvelous transwoman."
That phrase is an oxymoron, a contradiction in terms, and highly offensive to those of us who are battling this normalization of body dissociation for corporate profit which is severely harming children like your own.
1) No man who walks around in womanface and calls himself a female name, let alone a man who teaches schoolchildren while in womanface using a female name, should be described as "marvelous" or any other positive adjective. He is a groomer, grooming children (and gullible parents like yourself) to accept -- and then go out and promote the acceptance -- of men and women LARPing (live action role playing) as the opposite sex, of the normalization of autogynephila in public places, of the erosion of our right to speak and hear the truth in public discourse, and the very concept of what a "woman" is. He and the people who platform him are either knowingly or unknowingly engaging in grooming behavior, make no mistake. He is clearly a classic narcissist, putting his desire to act out his sexual fantasies on the public stage above everything else, including the feelings of his own three children, who were minors when he began doing it. Doesn't that bother you at all? How could that be considered "marvelous"?
2) There is no such thing as a "trans woman." These males are not a subset of women, they are a subset of men. When you use female language for males, or male language for females, you confuse children who are in the very process of learning about the world, about what women and men are, and how to navigate the world safely. Don't you see that this fake, made-up language contributed to the harm of your own child, and to the harm of all the children of the parents who contribute to and read this blog?
3) There is no such thing as "trans" anything -- "trans" is a corporate fiction, a fake made-up concept being used as an ad campaign to sell drugs and surgeries to children like yours, and to vulnerable adults. Why are we acting like there is a new category of human all of a sudden that we have to acknowledge, like a "Z" chromosome has suddenly been discovered? Who -- or WHAT -- does it serve to support this corporate fiction, to refer to anyone as "trans"? Is this helping your child or anyone else's child not fall into the grips of an unrealistic fantasy when you perpetuate the concept that this fantasy is a real thing?
Why in the world would you give unclear, confusing information to kids or anyone else? Again, who, or what, does this muddying of language serve? Does it serve kids and vulnerable adults? Can a man somehow be some sort of woman, or vice versa? Are you saying that boys have a pathway to "stunning and brave" womanhood, or that girls have a pathway to "strong and brave" manhood?
I say not, and I would question why you would want to promote this idea with fake terms and unclear language that obfuscates reality. The fact that Hayton acknowledges that he is a man does not earn him the honorary title of "woman." If you had a son who wanted to go down the same path as Hayton, would you like others to support his delusion and promote it to others by referring to your son as a "marvelous trans woman"? Or refer to your daughter as a "marvelous trans man"? It seems unwise to affirm someone else's delusion when you do not want your own child's delusion affirmed.
Yes, I could have written this. So infuriated by the ways we were coaxed by doctors, psychologists, social workers, and psychiatrists to affirm. Nurses suggesting binders, doctors using preferred pronouns, kids going into the ER with one name and out with another.
Dr Ramani YouTube channel offers help to those who are dealing with narcissists. The Center for Mind/Body, Dr. James Gordon, offers courses in mind/body healing. The cross-sex lobby/cult is shattering families. I post on these issues at uteheggengrasswidow.wordpress.com
As I write in my blog, uteheggengrasswidow.wordpress.com, it appears from detransitioners' testimonies, that their mental health becomes worse with the jump to affirmation. It may be that they are not actually natural narcissists, and this does not fit. "Transition" is life-long, never finished, when those choices have been made. The first step in deprogramming, as detransitioners related, is raged. They might be raging at "being misgendered". If they are supposedly stepping into their "authentic self" why the rage? For teens, who have the confusion of puberty, they are unable to clearly identify the source of their rage and often target parents. I recommend Dr. Ramani YouTube channel, for parents to learning coping with narcissism, and the book, Transforming Trauma, by Dr. James Gordon of The Center for Mind/Body, cmbm. Both of these entities are offering courses remotely. Do not let the cross-sex lobby shatter your family.
Excellent piece. Thank you. And my heart goes out to your child and your family. May health be restored and loving, effective, sane help be obtained.
And therapists, if you don't know where to start (a lot is understood that you don't know yet), the information for clinicians at https://genspect.org/guidance/ is a really good place.
They're all good. Also the essays, and book by Susan Evans and Marcus Evans, which has composite case studies. And and and....
Thank you for this essay and thank you to all the therapists who are looking into this, researching it, supporting young people struggling with this by exploring, as therapy does!
I am not a professional academic. I'm a mother. I sometimes reflect about how lame/cowed our academics are even as I understand they fear for their jobs. Maybe the entire academic system, K - University ought to be shut down and restarted :) My own Ivy League alma mater actively promotes pronouns/GI and claims that no one objects.
Alma mater on Wiki: "The phrase is variously translated as "nourishing mother", "nursing mother", or "fostering mother", suggesting that a school provides intellectual nourishment to her students."
Yeah, right. Now, please define "woman". They are morally and intellectually bankrupt, IMO.
And the federal government wants universal pre-k. Then, they can tell the 3-4 year olds they get to choose their sex.
The fact that we are unable - or unwilling - to see that this recent and tremendous rise in trans/nonbinary identity is happening largely in a group that is historically known to be suffering with self esteem and body image issues (adolescent girls) and that rather than work through this we go along with affirming that there is something wrong with their bodies absolutely blows my mind. I was admitted multiple times to an eating disorder unit as a young teen. The parallels are undeniable. Our bodies are changing. We are not comfortable with all that we are being ushered into, both physically and mentally. An eating disorder is a way to prolong childhood - shrink the breasts, stop or at least reduce the frequency of menses. Opt out of all that nonsense dating and adult business. This is not true of ALL women with an eating disorder but it is a very common theme. Bonus - for those who lose enough weight you get to bask in the envy disguised as concern from your peers, and the actual concern from adults.
I remember spending endless therapy sessions discussing how we were more than a number on the scale, how to deal with unhealthy thoughts, how all bodies were different and no one was perfect, how society's expectations of women were unreasoable and unrealistic. By and large we were female - I remember one boy my age (young teen), one adult male (who seemed ancient but was probably about my age now, mid-40s), and one transwoman who was not on the unit for long due to being very disruptive and unstable - otherwise we were all female, most of us 12-18ish, a few women in their 20s. We were a vulnerable group largely due to our age and sex. I remember learning about nutrition and exercise and trying to achieve a focus on health and nurturing and loving your body instead of destroying it - all the while working on whatever other underlying issues we had. There was almost always SOME other underlying issue.
Never once was it proposed that we be sent for liposuction or weight loss surgery (I'm not even sure that existed then but if it did, it would not have been proposed) - the focus was never on drasticaly altering the body in some way to achieve happiness because it was known that the issue was deeper than what we weighed. We might be encouraged to try a new hair style or outfit or make-up, things that were working *with* the body that we had and trying to feel good. We would be encouraged to think of and find things about ourselves aside from appearance that made us feel proud and confident.
In the case of gender dysphoria, not only do we fail to get to the bottom of what is actually troubling these young ladies (and increasingly young white men, I think for different reasons) but we are actively discouraged from doing so! I slashed open my arms with a razor blade over and over and over, over my akwardness and depression and my failure to fit in and my hatred of my body - and yet it was repeatedly drilled into my head that my weight was only a symptom. Parents today, at the slightest sign of dysphoria, at the first regurgitation of the lines learned on the internet sure to take a child down the transition pathline, are warned that their child will harm themself if *not* allowed to change their body!
How did we get to this point? Have we forgotten our own puberties, and how hard they were? How did we become so eager to show our acceptance for the "lgbtqia++" community that we are willing to throw the mental health of adolescents and young adults in general under the bus?
One thing I have found curious is Dr. Rachel Levine, when she was still known as Richard, was the director of an eating disorder clinic. An eating disorder clinic! This person was in charge of helping adolescent girls to see past their physical bodies and to learn to love and value themselves beyond their appearance. I can only imagine how it would have felt to be a patient there, to go through such a program, and then see the director make such a sweeping and hippocritical decision to drastically alter their body in the name of self love. At least in Dr. Levine's case there was no sacrifice of future fertility - that being all in the past - this has to have been a heck of a mental ride for any of the girls who had gone through the program.
I almost feel as though even the experts are thinking "Oooh at last we have an EASY solution to the age old dilemma of adolescent ennui!" and for no other reason than that they are going along with it... but the fallout is so terrible.
I was going to share your essay, until I came across the phrase, "marvelous transwoman."
That phrase is an oxymoron, a contradiction in terms, and highly offensive to those of us who are battling this normalization of body dissociation for corporate profit which is severely harming children like your own.
1) No man who walks around in womanface and calls himself a female name, let alone a man who teaches schoolchildren while in womanface using a female name, should be described as "marvelous" or any other positive adjective. He is a groomer, grooming children (and gullible parents like yourself) to accept -- and then go out and promote the acceptance -- of men and women LARPing (live action role playing) as the opposite sex, of the normalization of autogynephila in public places, of the erosion of our right to speak and hear the truth in public discourse, and the very concept of what a "woman" is. He and the people who platform him are either knowingly or unknowingly engaging in grooming behavior, make no mistake. He is clearly a classic narcissist, putting his desire to act out his sexual fantasies on the public stage above everything else, including the feelings of his own three children, who were minors when he began doing it. Doesn't that bother you at all? How could that be considered "marvelous"?
2) There is no such thing as a "trans woman." These males are not a subset of women, they are a subset of men. When you use female language for males, or male language for females, you confuse children who are in the very process of learning about the world, about what women and men are, and how to navigate the world safely. Don't you see that this fake, made-up language contributed to the harm of your own child, and to the harm of all the children of the parents who contribute to and read this blog?
3) There is no such thing as "trans" anything -- "trans" is a corporate fiction, a fake made-up concept being used as an ad campaign to sell drugs and surgeries to children like yours, and to vulnerable adults. Why are we acting like there is a new category of human all of a sudden that we have to acknowledge, like a "Z" chromosome has suddenly been discovered? Who -- or WHAT -- does it serve to support this corporate fiction, to refer to anyone as "trans"? Is this helping your child or anyone else's child not fall into the grips of an unrealistic fantasy when you perpetuate the concept that this fantasy is a real thing?
Why in the world would you give unclear, confusing information to kids or anyone else? Again, who, or what, does this muddying of language serve? Does it serve kids and vulnerable adults? Can a man somehow be some sort of woman, or vice versa? Are you saying that boys have a pathway to "stunning and brave" womanhood, or that girls have a pathway to "strong and brave" manhood?
I say not, and I would question why you would want to promote this idea with fake terms and unclear language that obfuscates reality. The fact that Hayton acknowledges that he is a man does not earn him the honorary title of "woman." If you had a son who wanted to go down the same path as Hayton, would you like others to support his delusion and promote it to others by referring to your son as a "marvelous trans woman"? Or refer to your daughter as a "marvelous trans man"? It seems unwise to affirm someone else's delusion when you do not want your own child's delusion affirmed.
Yes, I could have written this. So infuriated by the ways we were coaxed by doctors, psychologists, social workers, and psychiatrists to affirm. Nurses suggesting binders, doctors using preferred pronouns, kids going into the ER with one name and out with another.
Dr Ramani YouTube channel offers help to those who are dealing with narcissists. The Center for Mind/Body, Dr. James Gordon, offers courses in mind/body healing. The cross-sex lobby/cult is shattering families. I post on these issues at uteheggengrasswidow.wordpress.com
As I write in my blog, uteheggengrasswidow.wordpress.com, it appears from detransitioners' testimonies, that their mental health becomes worse with the jump to affirmation. It may be that they are not actually natural narcissists, and this does not fit. "Transition" is life-long, never finished, when those choices have been made. The first step in deprogramming, as detransitioners related, is raged. They might be raging at "being misgendered". If they are supposedly stepping into their "authentic self" why the rage? For teens, who have the confusion of puberty, they are unable to clearly identify the source of their rage and often target parents. I recommend Dr. Ramani YouTube channel, for parents to learning coping with narcissism, and the book, Transforming Trauma, by Dr. James Gordon of The Center for Mind/Body, cmbm. Both of these entities are offering courses remotely. Do not let the cross-sex lobby shatter your family.