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(15-Jul-2019, 05:39 PM)Kking72 Wrote: (20-Oct-2017, 12:43 AM)natsblog30 Wrote: This is so valuable when there are so few resources for parents grappling with these issues, so much that is written in the media and online takes such a completely non-critical look at these issues and we need more thorough questioning of the principles behind this great rush towards transgenderism. My daughter is nearly 16 and for the last 2 years has gone from being a happy girl to being so depressed and consumed with adopting a male identity, after being strongly influenced by school friends and stuff she watched on the internet. She is convinced she hates her girl body and is really a boy however she has never been so unhappy and confused and I watch on with huge anxiety hoping she will reconcile with who she really is and get back to being her happy self again. I know how I felt myself, growing up and feeling uncomfortable with my adolescent body and shy and awkward. She is very sensitive and has been very much the same as I was approaching puberty, but the difference now is that young girls can ask google "why do I hate my breasts and my girl body?" and the answer comes back very swiftly and surely "because you have gender dysphoria and you will never be happy being a girl! you are really a boy in a girls body! Embrace the real you! Tell your parents to call you male pronouns and if they refuse tell them you are at risk of suicide if they don't support you!!!". Girls aren't getting the chance to slowly grow into their new bodies and gradually find their identity as a young woman who can doing anything a boy can do! My daughter has always been very feminine and confident but now she is so anxious living under a cloud of uncertainty about her future. She is binding her breasts and wearing boys clothes and doesn't want to go out anymore, she just wants to be on the internet and assume her male identity online. My beautiful girl has been brainwashed and I am gently trying to entice her off the internet and shower her with love and patience so she keeps trusting in my instincts and gives herself a chance at being a girl.
It makes me so sad to see the trend amongst young women to join the transgender cult and its definitely a huge blow for feminism. The medical world is being swept along before proper research has been done to determine the far reaching consequences of the hormone treatments on physical and mental health. Mutilating surgeryies are being done and its some sort of crazy social experiment that only us in the 1st world areas can afford to indulge in.
Hello All,
It's crazy reading all these entries because I agree with you all and I'm a 46 year FTM (Female to Male) that has been through all the hormones and all the surgeries. It seems like in the last three years; this has become a wild wild west in the mental and medical arena. Transitioning is no joke, and I mean no JOKE, it's hard, and it's butchers your body.
If I can give any advice to parents with kids that say, "I'm transgender," listen and comfort. I guarantee if you push against it, they will figure out how to get hormones, start demanding the different pronouns and make decisions that will have lasting effects for their lives.
My sister recently went through a phase with my niece. My niece starting dressing in black, listening to hardcore music and wearing the dark black makeup and my sister didn't know what to do. She first started nagging and telling her that she couldn't listen to the music or wear the makeup, but she soon discovered her daughter was doing precisely what she told her not to do. My sister was at her whits end, here was this athletic young woman that was getting good grades and doing so well to a Goth, depressed child.
One afternoon I got a call from my sister, and she told me that she decided since she couldn't get her daughter to listen to her, she would join in. That day when her daughter was at school, she dyed her hair jet black, did her makeup goth, did her makeup with dark black eyeliner, went to the beauty shop got all black nail polish, tore holes in her jeans and shirts, I mean she invested, really invested. She told me that since she couldn't convince her daughter how stupid she looked, she was going to show her how stupid it looked. That afternoon she went and picked up her daughter, as usual, drove the carpool home, took her to soccer practice and jumped into the role telling her daughter how right she was that "Goth" was cool. Her daughter begged her to stop and that my sister was embarrassing her, and it opened a dialog that helped my niece realize how foolish she was being. Being a teenager is about rebelling and finding yourself, and this transgender boom is nothing to sneeze at, this is life-changing and forever with hormone therapy.
It didn't take long for her daughter to see how silly she was being, and they laugh about it to this day. My niece is now 24, and it's a great family story.
Now, I realize this is not the same thing, and some of you guys do have transgender kids and transitioning would be the best for them. But, some of you, well, maybe most of you have kids that are confused. Some might be gay or lesbian and don't understand where they fit in. Some might have feminine or masculine tendencies and be straight but feel the pressure of this god awful society that likes to put men and woman in these super stringent categories of what qualifies them as men and women. Some are confused, some maybe have little crushed on the same-sex kids and be confused as to what to do with the feelings and what those feelings do to them as individuals.
Did you know that most people, men, and women have same-sex experiences in their youth? Hell, I am not attracted to men at all, but if Brad Pitt came on to me I might go down that road, he's a stud...Does that make me a gay man? No it makes me human, and these boxes that we try to put people in are dangerous. That is what is going on with probably a lot of your kids. Explain that their feelings are not unique, and if they give it time without radical change, they will figure out where they belong and who they are...BUT, for now, where they are at that or at this moment is a KID, they are a kids and it doesn't matter if you are gay, straight, transgender, fluid, blue, yellow or enjoy scuba diving they are first and foremost a kid. They don't know who the hell they are; no one does as a child.
Human beings don't have fully developed brains until they are 25 until then they can't see around corners. Give them an analogy of a toddler being left alone around a swimming pool. Chances are they will go in the water and drown; they don't know that they will drown they just see this refreshing pool that looks like fun. Now, compare a toddler to a 14-year old that has not learned how to swim, would the 14-year-old jump in a 20-foot pool? No! Why? Because they know they will drown. Explain that to them without judgment and then lovingly explain to them the consequences of transitioning. Transitioning is brutal and permanent and not something that anyone under 18 should be allowed to decide on in my opinion.
You have to protect your kids from this WILD WILD WEST in transitioning right now; you have to. Love them, listen to them, align with them, explore with them, let them express what they are feeling. Let them dress how they want, call them whatever pronoun that floats there boat at the time, but DON'T let them butcher their bodies or change their chemistry unless and until they understand the consequences and children cannot do that..CHILDREN cannot decide that..PERIOD! I have three kids, and that is what I would say to my children as a transgender person.
(31-Dec-2017, 04:17 AM)DangerFox Wrote: I’m very glad I found this place.
My daughter first brought up wanting to be male the first day of summer after 7th grade…so…2015. She had never expressed anything like this in her short 12 years. In fact, she hadn’t really said much about anything ever; and out of the blue, she sends her father and me a text saying that she’s felt this way for a “long time” and she didn’t want us to talk to her about it. Uhhh…Nope. Not gonna happen.
So, I countered with “it is unfair to drop this on us when you haven’t spoken to us about ANYTHING for 2 years.” So we took a step back and she started therapy.
Tonight I brought it up again because things kinda got back to a “normal” life and I was scared of the answer…well, she says she identifies as male, her friends call her by her preferred name, but she doesn’t want to do surgery or testosterone while she’s in high school. She does want to change her name before graduation.
This isn’t about me, of course. If she’s really transgender, then fine. I love my kid no matter what.
But I don’t think she’s trans and I can’t figure a way to broach my skepticism with her.
I told her tonight, “I just want you to do well in school so you can get out of this state…and I want you to be happy. That’s it.”
We’ve got a lot of work to do on this journey…and I’m trying to get passed my hurt feelings.
Anyway…I need a community that won’t vilify me for my position with my child.
Thanks for reading.
Why are your feelings hurt? What do you need to get over? This is about your child and helping her understand something that our society has made quite confusing. This is what I asked myself when I was reading this. Thank you for this.
Also, good on your sister. Reminded me of this guy:
https://metro.co.uk/2016/11/15/this-dad-...s-6259002/
I hope that folks over in your corner can help us poor ROGD parents, because right now we feel seriously back-footed institutionally. It's awful that if someone says they're a specialist in helping kids with gender issues we feel we have to run the other direction, because they all want to put us on a slippery slope to medicalization of what may be a temporary, psychological problem.
There are a lot of, especially, little gay and lesbian kids out there who have to be shut off from the institutions that should help them - places like the Trevor Project, etc., because the transgender ideology is so insistent and potentially so harmful to children. If the kids call up for help, but say "I feel like I'm really the other sex," they'll get shunted over to that slippery transgender slope and it's the end of any help they could have being little gay and lesbian kids.
Father to gifted 17 y/o Aspie, fully desisted from ROGD and recovered from depression.
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I am so grateful for your post and your thoughts. I hope you keep posting here and sharing your insights with us.
14 yo daughter | depression, anxiety, gifted | currently non-binary
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Hi, I'm new to the forum and obviously don't have the time to read each post, even though I wish I did. Over the summer, our 14-year-old daughter informed her father and me that she is biologically supposed to be a boy. Her appearance has changed dramatically and she is talking about binding her chest, etc. Her father and I are divorced, but we are on the same page as far as supporting her and loving her and helping her figure out who she is really meant to be. We don't have the answers. We do know that, prior to this summer, she never gave one indication that she thought she was male. We are in the process of finding a therapist who will not automatically "affirm" that she is male, but will help her work through this and other issues she's had, including cutting. She is already 5'10," went through puberty early and has had a lot of medical issues associated with being female. We want her to grow into the healthy, happy, creative, amazing child we know she is. We just are lost. So, any recommendations you can give for boarding schools (after a great deal of therapy, of course) that would support our views in helping her discover who she really is, would be appreciated.
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(29-Jul-2019, 09:54 PM)jthornto Wrote: Hi, I'm new to the forum and obviously don't have the time to read each post, even though I wish I did. Over the summer, our 14-year-old daughter informed her father and me that she is biologically supposed to be a boy. Her appearance has changed dramatically and she is talking about binding her chest, etc. Her father and I are divorced, but we are on the same page as far as supporting her and loving her and helping her figure out who she is really meant to be. We don't have the answers. We do know that, prior to this summer, she never gave one indication that she thought she was male. We are in the process of finding a therapist who will not automatically "affirm" that she is male, but will help her work through this and other issues she's had, including cutting. She is already 5'10," went through puberty early and has had a lot of medical issues associated with being female. We want her to grow into the healthy, happy, creative, amazing child we know she is. We just are lost. So, any recommendations you can give for boarding schools (after a great deal of therapy, of course) that would support our views in helping her discover who she really is, would be appreciated.
Hello and welcome. Your membership has been activated. If you would like to post in your question in our members-only area, it will be seen by more members and you will likely get a better response.
Best wishes.
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Hello everyone.
As a mother, reading through all these posts makes me feel that I am not alone. My daughter is 16 and now that I think back since she was in middle school "came out as PAN" to us. She is saying and doing all the same things I am currently reading from other parents, things like: not being happy in her body, cut her hair short, telling us to use the right pronouns, wearing baggy clothing, binding her breasts, talking about starting hormones and eventually getting upper surgery etc. She has been through a lot since she and I moved here to America when she was only 5 and I feel that she is certainly confused about her gender and is at that painful age. It is certainly a very trying time for her and us (parents including step-dad), but I think that the culture of the internet is indeed a big factor for her current situation.
I hope to learn more here for the sake my daughter. I love her very much. There are times that it is so hard to do and so hard to understand her.
I have not started any sort of psychotherapy for her although she wants it. She believes that it will cure her of everything. I might be open now to it because I feel that I need more help.
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(30-Jul-2019, 01:03 PM)JM_211 Wrote: Hello everyone.
As a mother, reading through all these posts makes me feel that I am not alone. My daughter is 16 and now that I think back since she was in middle school "came out as PAN" to us. She is saying and doing all the same things I am currently reading from other parents, things like: not being happy in her body, cut her hair short, telling us to use the right pronouns, wearing baggy clothing, binding her breasts, talking about starting hormones and eventually getting upper surgery etc. She has been through a lot since she and I moved here to America when she was only 5 and I feel that she is certainly confused about her gender and is at that painful age. It is certainly a very trying time for her and us (parents including step-dad), but I think that the culture of the internet is indeed a big factor for her current situation.
I hope to learn more here for the sake my daughter. I love her very much. There are times that it is so hard to do and so hard to understand her.
I have not started any sort of psychotherapy for her although she wants it. She believes that it will cure her of everything. I might be open now to it because I feel that I need more help.
Hi JM-211, welcome to the forum. Your story sounds very familiar, your daughter sounds very much like many of the stories on this board. You are definitely not alone.
Your account has been activated, so please join us in the members-only area.
It seems many teens and tweens are turning to a transgender identity as a means of coping with anxiety, trauma, stress, social troubles, sexual assault or harassment, impending adulthood, OCD, ADHD, homosexuality, distasteful sex stereotypes, black-and-white thinking (autism) and a host of other challenges. Like your daughter, they often believe transitioning will cure them of all their troubles. This is obviously very oversimplified, short-sighted thinking, not surprising for a teen but incredibly surprising and troubling that a trained adult psychotherapist would agree with a child that transition is the answer to a child's troubles.
For you and for anyone else reading who might not yet be a member, be very wary of gender counselors or gender specialists, as they typically do zero digging to determine what is going on with a kid or teen who says they are trans. Instead, gender counselors typically take the child at their word and recommend immediate social transition followed quickly by medical transition. Many general therapists take this approach as well, but gender specialists are almost guaranteed to. Interview/vet psychotherapists carefully before your daughter meets with them, to find one who is willing to dig into her troubles and thoughts and feelings before putting any sort of trans label on her. It is very difficult to find such a therapist but you might just get lucky.
I am new to this forum. I read the article parents trust your gut night gender therapist and I would love to find out what the parent did or how that’s parent supported their child to get their child to realize that it was just a phase.
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[quote pid='31157' dateline='1564774959']
I am new to this forum. I read the article parents trust your gut night gender therapist and I would love to find out what the parent did or how that’s parent supported their child to get their child to realize that it was just a phase.
[/quote]
Hello, guest, and welcome.
Please register as a member and you will have access to our members-only forum, which has much more information than this public portion of the forum. To register, click on the word "register" in the black bar at the top of the page. For your privacy, choose a user name which does not reveal any information about you.
You will also need an email address to register. Your email address will never be shown on the forum, but you may choose to use an anonymous email, if you prefer.
All memberships are manually activated by a moderator, so once you join, it may take a few hours or overnight before your account is activated and you have access to the full forum.
As far as the "listening to your gut" article on 4thwavenow, it has been awhile since I have read that article, so I'm not entirely familiar with the story. In general, the approach taken by most parents on this forum, is rather than immediately affirm the child as trans, to instead work on the child's issues other than their trans identity. Many of our kids are dealing with issues such as depression, anxiety, ADHD, OCD, PTSD, autism/Aspergers, homosexuality, trauma from bullying, sexual assault or a death or divorce in the family. Many of them also seem to be thoroughly influenced and indoctrinated by online communities which glorify mental illness and transgenderism, and have little tolerance for those who do not 100% play by the "rules" of transgender ideology.
We also typically encourage our kids to slow things down as far as transition goes, stay busy, get in touch with the arts and nature, appreciate and use their bodies physically, limit time online, avoid certain online sites, socialize with people face-to-face rather than online, contribute to their home and family life, etc. We love and support our kids in every way possible other than telling them we believe they are the opposite sex, can become the opposite sex, should have been born be the opposite sex, have the wrong body, etc. We acknowledge their feelings of dysphoria but let them know their fantasies of "everything will be great once I transition" are unrealistic. We encourage them to wait until at least age 25 (when the human brain typically has fully matured) before undergoing any permanent body modifications.
We encourage psychotherapy to work on these issues when possible. I say "when possible" because it is extremely difficult to find a therapist who will not immediately affirm the child as trans complete with recommending a new name, new pronouns, and very quickly after social transition, medical transition. Gender therapists are just about guaranteed to put a child on a fast-track to transition, so the general advice is to stay as far away as gender therapists as possible.
Some of our kids have psychiatrists who use medication to help them with their anxiety, ADHD, OCD, depression and other issues, with varying levels of success.
Time also sometimes helps; some of our kids who suddenly claimed to be trans as teens or tweens have outgrown the desire to be the opposite sex after a few years, with some taking more time than others.
Every case is different and there are many, many variables and levels of success.
I encourage you to join the forum as what I have written here is very, very abbreviated. There is much, much more information in the members-only area.
Best wishes. Hope to see you "inside."
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Hey all, my daughter said to me that she is male, she is 14 now and told me last year.I initially told her I heard her and did not mention it again. Till recently Ibhad to take away all her gadgets and she had a total breakdown and said she was lonely and had no friends. I see now that their is a problem her friends live in her phone. I have her choosen name which is male and was trying to use it but I don't believe she is male at all. I tried to affirm her but I need to learn how to help her. She said she has felt this way since she was 11. She has a boy cut now, dresses in baggy clothes. I am going to take her to gp but need to find a cousellor in this country whom is not affirming. I need support other than my spouse whom is on the same page as me. She is gifted, academically and is a stunner... I am desperate for any guidance.
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Hi Looking in the Tunnel,
Your account has been activated. Please join us in the members-only area where you will likely receive a larger response to your questions.
Welcome. You are not alone.
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