Theology in the Raw - S9 Ep900: Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria: Parents’ Perspectives

Episode Date: September 9, 2021

Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria (ROGD) is a psychological term coined by Dr. Lisa Littmann from Brown University in a study published in 2018, and made more popular by the highly publicized book Irreversible Damage by Abigail Schrier.  The words RAPID ONSET describes the quickness by which many teenagers today seem to be experiencing GD—teenagers who had no prior history of Gender Dysphoria. It seems that they come out as “trans” or “nonbinary" seemingly out of nowhere; or at least, in ways that were completely unexpected by their parents. This topic is volatile, contested, heated, controversial, and incredibly important. In this episode, I talk to three different moms whose teenage kids experienced ROGD. In a very vulnerable way, they talk about their experiences as parents and how they had to navigate some very complex conversations with their kids. For an overview of ROGD and another testimony of a girl who experienced it, see this talk I gave with Helena Kerschner at the 2021 Q Ideas conference: https://youtu.be/t884B0V8Xng Theology in the Raw Conference - In Person or OnlineAt the Theology in the Raw conference, we will be challenged to think like exiles about race, sexuality, gender, critical race theory, hell, transgender identities, climate change, creation care, American politics, and what it means to love your democratic or republican neighbor as yourself. Different viewswill be presented. No question is off limits. No political party will be praised. Everyone will bechallenged to think. And Jesus will be upheld as supreme. Faith, Sexuality, and Gender Conference - Live in Boise or Stream Online In the all-day conference, Dr. Preston Sprinkle dives deep into the theological, relational, and ministry-related questions that come up in the LGBTQ conversation. Support Preston Support Preston by going to patreon.comVenmo: @Preston-Sprinkle-1 Connect with Preston Twitter | @PrestonSprinkleInstagram | @preston.sprinkleYoutube | Preston Sprinkle Twitter | @RawTheologyInstagram | @TheologyintheRaw Check out Dr. Sprinkle’s website prestonsprinkle.com If you enjoy the podcast, be sure to leave a review.

Hello, friends. Welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. Registration is open for the first ever Theology in the Raw conference. That is March 31st through April 2nd, 2022. You can attend live here in Boise. There is limited space. So if you do want to come live, then sign up early at PressAndSprinkle.com. You can go to my website, PressAndSprinkle.com and register there. Or if you can't or don't want to come out to the conference and attend it live, you can stream it online. All the information is on my website, Prestonsprinkle.com. We're going to be talking about race. We're going to be talking about politics. We're going to be talking about sexuality, gender, critical race theory, hell,

transgender identities, climate change, creation care, American politics, and what it means to love your Democratic or Republican neighbor as yourself. It is going to be an uncomfortable conference in that there's going to be different views presented. You're going to be challenged to think. We are going to platform ideas that you disagree with, and you're going to have to think through that. And we're going to have an amazing lineup of speakers, Derwin Gray, Thabiti Anyabwali, Edmund Wickham, Jackie Hill Perry, John Tyson, Greg Coles, Sandy Richter, Ed Uzinski, Ellie Bonilla Jr., Tony Scarcella, Chris Date, and several others that I'm still waiting to hear back from. So I'm so excited about this. We're also going to have an after party on Friday night. We're going to have opportunities for you to

engage each other, engage with me and the other speakers. And it's going to be, my goal is that this would be just a Christian conference like no other. We want to break all the rules of what it means to have a Christian conference. So, Prestonsprinkle.com, you can check out the info there. The podcast today is a rather sensitive one. I don't know. Maybe I say that about every single podcast, but we're going to be talking about a very contested, controversial, and volatile topic that goes by the name of rapid onset gender dysphoria. I've got three parents, three different parents on the show. Each one has a child who has gone through what scholars have referred to as rapid onset gender dysphoria.

What is rapid onset gender dysphoria? It's a psychological term coined by Dr. Lisa Littman from Brown University in a study that she published in 2018. She surveyed 250 parents that had teenage kids who came out as trans seemingly out of nowhere. That's kind of the baseline commonality of rapid onset gender dysphoria. Rapid onset describes the quickness by which many teenagers seem to be experiencing either gender dysphoria or simply coming out as trans. In other words, they didn't have any prior history of gender dysphoria growing up. There's been a massive increase in people who would fit this profile. For instance, there's been a 5,000% increase among females, teenage females in the UK who are going to gender

clinics seemingly with dysphoria that most of the time seems to happen out of nowhere. And, you know, going to gender clinics for help to navigate some gender incongruence that they're experiencing. There's also a lot of mental health issues that many of these teens are experiencing. So according to Lisa Littman's survey of 250 parents, 63% of the kids referred to in the study had one or more diagnoses of a psychiatric disorder or neurodevelopmental disability preceding the onset of gender dysphoria. 48% have experienced a traumatic or stressful event prior to their dysphoria. 45% have experienced a traumatic or stressful event prior to their dysphoria. 45% were engaging in self-harm prior to the dysphoria. Okay. So it's not like, well, yeah, it's because they're not accepted by society and that's causing all these things.

These things were accepted before they came out as trans or experienced dysphoria. 15% diagnosed with ADHD, 12% diagnosed with OCD, 12% were on the autism spectrum compared to 2% of the general population. So that's six times higher. So if you have, yeah, anyway, 7% bipolar. clinicians, according to Lippman's study, chose to, only 28%, chose to explore issues of mental health, previous trauma, or any alternative causes of gender dysphoria. That, to me, is really disturbing. And you're going to hear some stories from these mothers that are incredibly disturbing. Now, this whole topic is debated. Some of you listening are ripping your hair out right now that I'm even giving credibility to Lisa Lippman and her study because people think she's toxic and neither did Lee Slitman say, that anybody who identifies as trans is simply part of this kind of rapid onset population. shown that there is a serious level of social contagion that is playing some role in the rise of teens questioning their biological sex. Lisa Lipman gets into this pretty in-depthly. Heavy social media use. Not just social media use. I mean, everybody has heavy social media use, but there are networks and environments on social media that I'm just going to flat out say that they do feel very cultish.

In fact, later on in this episode, one of the moms kept using the term the gender cult, and I had her unpack that. And that revealed some really disturbing things that they've experienced that they have seen online. some really disturbing things that they've experienced that they have seen online. School environments, media outlets, just online, not just social media, but just online stuff. And so that's highly contested. It's highly contested. Some people think that that is not a thing and that that is dismissing trans experiences or trans existence as a whole, if you even mentioned the possibility of social media contagion. But I've spent many, many hours looking into this, talking to people, doing research, looking at studies, talking to people who came in and out of this environment, who are still in it, who mothers, fathers of kids who are in it. I've been online, I've looked at this stuff.

And to me, I think you have to have your head in the sand and be denying basic facts of reality to say that social media is not playing some role, not exclusively, but some role in the lives of some trans identified, especially teenagers in their trans identity. I mean, the three stories you're going to hear, I don't know if you listen to this episode and still think that social media cannot play any role in some trans identities or gender dysphoria that people experienced, then I just, I don't know what else to do. Um, so yeah, so this whole episode is, is, yeah, it's going to be contested. There's things that parents are going to say and do that you may or may not agree with. Um, but I, man, I, I found this episode incredibly engaging, very, I mean, disturbing in some ways.

And I just have a huge heart for parents that are trying to love their kids extremely well and also steer them towards truth and reality. And, yeah, if you're a parent listening, I think you're really going to enjoy this. A parent with a kid who maybe is going through something similar to what these parents are going through, I think you're going to find this episode incredibly helpful, I think, and maybe validating for your own challenges that you faced as a parent. So without further ado, we've had a lot of ado so far. This has been a long intro, but I'm not going to give you the bio of these moms because I don't, It's been a long intro, but I'm not going to give you the bio of these moms because I don't, that they want to remain more anonymous. Okay. So, um, there's no info on them and that's on purpose. So, and I can't put you in touch with them if, if you reach out to me and ask. So,

um, I, yeah. So let's get to know these really, um, important, um, and, uh, important and pertinent and engaging stories with these three monks. All right. Hey, friends, welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. I'm here with three people this time. This is the most people we've had on a Theology in the Raw podcast before. So thank you, Claire, Maria, or Marie and Dee for coming on Theology in the Raw. Claire, why don't you begin by telling us your story? I'm sure it could take several hours to tell it. us your story. I'm sure it could take several hours to tell it. Let's give us the shortened version of your personal journey with this thing often known as rapid onset gender dysphoria. Sure. Hi, thanks for having us. I'm Claire and I have a 17 year old son. And two years ago, he said, I have something to tell you. And he said, I'm trans. And my husband and I were like, what? No. You read something on the internet and he was adamant that he had to have puberty blockers and hormones right away.

He had to have puberty blockers and hormones right away. And we didn't even know what that meant. We had never heard of puberty blockers. We were having to Google it. So we just said, let's take a break. We'll call your doctor. So we called the pediatrician. And the pediatrician thankfully said, you're too old for puberty blockers. And I don't know anything about this.

So let's get you assessed for ADHD because we had been thinking maybe that's what was going on with him. And so we made an appointment to get him assessed for ADHD. And the lady there, I think he has it, but there's a gender expert and an ADHD expert in my same office. So maybe you should have him see him because that's all he's talking about. have him see him because that's all he's talking about. So we did that thinking we'll go in and he'll like discover that he's not trans. He's just really a boy who's confused because he has ADHD. So we went in and the, this man immediately affirmed him that he was trans that if we didn't support him he would commit suicide 44 chance and that he would never change his mind right in front of my son and we we were just taken back we had no idea that this is what was going to happen we thought he would actually

that this is what was going to happen. We thought he would actually assess them or, you know, do some talking to him to, to figure out what was going on, but no, it's just gender doctor. It's just one path. All one size fits all straight towards meta medication. So we decided we weren't going to do that path again. And then we decided we just need to build our relationship with him. And then COVID hit and we, that's what we did. And we went to a psychiatrist who didn't affirm him, but because after he told us, he had seemed fine.

And after he told us, he got really depressed and said he had gender dysphoria. And he was extreme about it. And so we got him on antidepressants. And he slowly got better to the point that he went off the antidepressants. And now he's just sort of back to his old self. He's happy, but he still has this ideology and belief that he's trans, even though there's, he does not have gender dysphoria anymore and he's not depressed, but he is holding on to this belief that he's trans. And there's,

he doesn't look at, you know, like nobody knows anything, but he, he went to school and, um, he emailed the counselor and said he has this new name and wants she, her pronouns and the counselor emailed all his teachers. So when he was in, um, COVID, he had a new name and pronouns. I emailed the counselor, the counselor completely ignored me. And then I didn't want to push back because I was super afraid that they would call, um, social services and have been taken from our house because they can claim that if you're not supportive as a parent, they can say, um, you're harming your child and they'll take them from you.

And so that's what we have to face. That's why you, we were quiet about it. Yeah. Real quick. I, I, when you, the way you describe your son and when he says he's trans that you know the term trans can mean so many different things different people can you are you able to kind of describe what he means by that by that identity well we I asked him, I said, well, what do you mean? And he said, I'm female. And it just was so shocking that I didn't even know what to say. And I said, well, why do you think you're female? And he said, because I like rom-coms and lesbian porn. I was waiting for something else. and lesbian porn. So. I was waiting for something else.

No, that was it. And I'm like, well, but that doesn't mean anything. But he was so adamant that, and I was so shocked. Like, you're not prepared as a parent to know how to deal with this. Because it was the furthest thing from our mind. I mean, my son was an all boy. Like, he was rough and tumble. He only played with boy toys.

He only had boys as friends. He didn't even know the girls' names. Like, he was just oblivious of girls, you know, in elementary. the girls' names. Like he was just oblivious of girls, you know, in elementary and, and, and he, but he, he did struggle in school because he had social skill problems and, you know, we did social skills classes and I got him assessed and they said he had sensory processing disorder and that he was gifted. And that's all they said. They, you know, we, they said he wasn't autistic, which I now believe that maybe he is on the spectrum, but I don't have that diagnosis, but he,

but I think he was fine until he got to high school. And then all of a sudden he felt really uncomfortable because maybe being on the spectrum or something. And he was. So I'm still. He was just struggling making friends. And I think he just decided. That's what's wrong with me.

And he has this friend who doesn't go to the same school, but they were texting at lunch apparently and came to the same conclusion. So they both decided the same weekend to tell their parents and his friend has been on hormones for a year because his parents went to the gender clinic and believed it where we went. And we were like, no, that's my gut says something else. So he's attracted to women. He's not gay, right? He's not gay.

He actually got a girlfriend. He got a girlfriend by saying he was trans. And they thought they were in a lesbian relationship. They have since broken up, which I'm actually glad because she was sort of cheerleading him. Wow. I'm still just hung up on the assessment of, I like rom-coms and lesbian porn. Therefore I'm a female. There's gotta be something like, there has to be something. I mean, I don't know. I, that, that's just bewildering to me. Um, I mean, I mean, I, I,

if I can be, this is theology in Iran and I just, there's probably a ton of straight non-trans guys who struggle with or really enjoy lesbian porn and rom-coms. I mean, I like a good rom-com. It just, it just seems to rely on certain stereotypes of what it means to be male or female. Did you engage in that kind of like, how did you respond when he gave those two kind of criteria for why he would say he's female?

At the time, I didn't because I just was so shocked. And I was just really struggling with depression myself. Like, I just didn't know what to do. There's no playbook for this, you know, as a parent. Yeah. Because it was the furthest thing from my mind. I mean, he loved being a boy. He loved his name and to just like, boom, this is what's going on is,

is a total shock to any parent. We have to get to Dee and Marie because, but I just have one more question with, with, because what often, the question I often see raised is is that well let me let me ask a question and i'll i'll i'll expand on why i'm asking it um did he give have visible signs of experiencing gender dysphoria as a as a child growing up never okay. Until the moment he told us. Okay. He did not have any signs. And then all of a sudden he decided he had gender dysphoria. And he wouldn't look in the mirror.

Yeah. The pushback that I often hear, and I'm sure you faced it as well. That's because, and I'll just word it the way I often hear it. Well, that's because the parents were so oblivious to what their child was really wrestling with. That they, the child kind of kept it hidden all this time. And, you know, if it was a safe environment, the child would have told their parents. But because it wasn't a safe environment, that's why the child didn't talk about what they're really wrestling with. Have you heard that? And how do you respond to that? He has never said that. In fact, he admits he didn't have it in childhood.

Oh, okay. Okay. He just felt, all he said was, I always felt that there was something wrong with me and that I was different. Okay. And this explained it. Okay. Okay. And this explained it. Okay. Okay. So he never felt like he was a girl. He never even was the furthest thing from his mind because he, he just wanted to wrestle and play. You know, he, he wasn't thinking about gender when he was a little kid. Okay. All right, let's go over to Dee.

You want to jump in here? We'd love to hear your story and your experience with this topic. Thank you. Thank you for having us. So I have two children, two daughters that we adopted from China. Our 17-year-old is the one who has this rapid onset or adolescent onset gender dysphoria. We adopted her in China when she was 13 months old. When she was placed in my arms, she weighed only 15 pounds.

She could not hold a bottle and she could not crawl. We learned that the orphanage she was in was probably one of the worst ones in China. We weren't even allowed to see it. When we brought her home, we had her examined by a specialist who said that she was a failure to thrive baby, and we got her just in time. The toddler years and pre-KK were filled with night terrors and some really vivid flashbacks. When she was eight years old, she came to me and told me that she knew she was loved and she loved us, but there was a piece of her heart missing and she needed to know who she is. She did very well academically all through the grammar school, middle school

years, but started becoming socially awkward around eighth grade. And then went from a very small Episcopal school to a very large public high school. And she's doing well academically there as well. But in June of 2019, she started hanging around a girl that was very gender nonconforming. And I had no idea what that meant. I just know that the girl was, you know, covering herself up at the pool with long wakeboarding shorts and these under armor long shirts. And my daughter was wearing a bikini. In fact, her bikini choices, I had to nix half of them. But anyway, by the end of that summer, my daughter was covering herself up. But in June, she came out as bisexual at the dinner table in

front of our then nine year old who wanted to know what that meant. And that's a whole other game. But by August of 2019, she came out as gay. And by the end of August, she declared herself to be trans. She was also suffering from panic attacks and anxiety. So we got her a therapist in September of 2019. panic attacks and anxiety. So we got her a therapist in September of 2019. And on the fourth visit, that therapist demanded that I take this kid to the suicide unit of the local hospital because she was planning on killing herself, which just totally threw me for a loop. I brought her in

there and it turns out she didn't even have a plan that was going to work. She was going to drown in the bathtub without alcohol or drugs. I don't know how you do that. But in any event, they released her and they told me that probably this was all related to her adoptee status and that some things I told them about her, like when she's with one friend, she dresses like that friend. When she's with another friend, she dresses like that friend. And they called it a chameleon complex. And it's just this adoptee trying to find who she is, you know, that piece of that heart missing thing. So we got a second, we fired the first therapist, we got a second therapist in October. And by then my daughter was wearing a binder. And it was a dirty, crappy looking thing. She began to lie to me, she lied about how she got it. She lied to me about basic things like

walking the dogs. And she started this really wonderful child became really contentious towards me. And I just couldn't make sense of it. But it was really it was causing me some concern. Our relationship was just not going well at all. By January of 2020, I realized the therapy wasn't working and I hacked into her phone I needed to know what the heck was going on and I downloaded 300 screenshots between her and this friend that I was just referring to where my daughter was fabricating things about me such as my mom forced me to wear corsets my mom forced me to wear dresses my mom forced me to wear corsets. My mom forced me to wear dresses. My mom forced me to wear pink. My mom forced me to go to the suicide unit. And the friend's reaction was, I can't even say it on air, but there were F-bombs were dropping everywhere. And the friend diagnosed me as a

textbook abusive trauma bond, a gaslighter. My husband needed to leave and take the kids with him. It made the relationship with my daughter even more toxic. I just felt like I had been stabbed in the heart. So then by February, the therapist said, she threw up her hands and said, I just can't do this. And she had been affirming her all along, which I didn't know. So then we hired another one at the end of that month who affirmed her on the first visit. So we fired her.

So then I. Real quick, real quick, D I need you to clarify when you say affirmed her on the first visit. So we fired her. So then I... Real quick, Dee, I need you to clarify when you say affirmed her, because that could sound very positive. Oh, I'm sorry. Affirmed what? It's got a different meaning in our world. It means you're a boy.

And using... Affirmed her... Mail name, mail... Affirmed her identity. Not even identity, because identity is just a word, but affirmed the content of what that identity means to them. Right, male. Affirmed her identity. Not even identity, because identity is just a word, but affirmed the content of what that identity means to them. Right.

So use the male name and all that sort of good stuff. By then, and I have a legal background. And from September 2019 to March 2020, I was on the Internet almost every day trying to figure out what the heck is this? What is going on? And it's like, Google didn't want me to find it. And I finally found Lisa Lippman's study in March, 2020. And I found the term rapid onset gender dysphoria and the light just went on and it was amazing. And then I found Sasha Ayad and I was fortunate to get a consult. My husband and I had a consult with her

and, you know, basically said, yep, this is what you got going on. And here's the kind of person you want to find. And what I had found by then was a psychologist who specialized in body dysmorphia, anorexia. And so I said, I think that's going to be a good fit. And we come to find it really is a good fit in terms of helping this kid cope with her emotional issues. But also, before we got to the psychologist, she was back to the suicide unit because she wanted meds. And they started using her male name. And I went nuts in that facility. And they told me that if they didn't do it, she was going to harm herself or commit suicide or cut or whatever.

And I said, just give me the meds and I'll get her out of here. She by October, she came off the meds. They were causing her to be, well, she was insomniac, lethargic. It was just it wasn't good. So we were able to convince her, you know, why don't you take a break from that? I also had to work on my relationship with her during COVID. And there's a good book that I recommend for parents called Parents Hold On to Your Kids by Gordon Neufeld. And it basically, the premise is kids are becoming very peer oriented. And what that happened is she moved away from her attachment to me and became extremely attached to this kid that I call the immature usurper.

That kid began acting like a mother to her. So that worked. Our relationship has been pretty good. But then beginning of the school year, September 2020, I find out she's telling the teachers and everybody at school to use the male name. And the school didn't tell us, I found out purely by accident. So I sent an email to all the teachers and the guidance counselor asking them not to do it. And they insisted that we come in and have a meeting with them, which my husband and I did. And I explained to them what my daughter's situation was. And by the way, the doctor has diagnosed her with pre-adoption trauma. So all that stuff that happened to that little baby and the night terrors and the

flashbacks, this is all leading up to where we are. Interestingly enough, I also found out from many of the webinars I've attended that the Netherlands reported that the first wave of girls who identified as boys were Chinese adoptees, and they were followed then by girls on the autism spectrum. I called our adoption agency and spoke to our post-placement advisor there, and I asked him whether any other mother with her hair on fire was calling him. And he said, no, but we've had a number of adoptees who have transitioned. So the school sat down with us, they listened to us, and they agreed to a compromise. They would

not use the male name. They would not use the female name. They would use her initials or her last name. And we were fine with that. And she's gotten used to that. And it turns out she's gone to the teachers this semester and said, you know, not she hasn't told them to use the male name. She's using the name that we agreed upon. She's diminutive in size, which really upsets her. She's still socially awkward. The doctor said she has a fear of growing up she can't even talk about college or SATs she's just really it's overwhelming for her um but she's still stuck in the ideology now she's not even five feet tall um she looks young for her age and because she's dressing like a boy she actually can pass for a sixth grade boy.

And so you go to a restaurant and they hand her the kid's menu when they call her young man. And, you know, so the doctor said this is- How old, Dee, real quick, how old is she now? 17. She looks 12. She really does. Okay.

So she's under, yeah, she's under 18. So the, in a sense, when, when, when you told the school not to use her preferred pronouns or whatever name, I mean, she was what, 16 at that time, right? Yes. Yes. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Okay. And the school doesn't have a formal policy like some other schools do. Some other school systems do. Some states do. They have a policy of not telling the parents. And in fact,

the state of New Jersey under the law against discrimination says that parents are not allowed to know. And if they do know, the school has to hire the board attorney to render a legal opinion as to whether the parents are violating their children's civil rights. Let that sit for a while. So, you know, the clock is ticking. As with Claire, the clock is ticking toward 18 when we begin to lose, you know, our authority. And, you know, we're doing all we can to maintain peace in the house and a loving relationship. And I'm hoping that love wins the day here. But this could go on for another year or two. And we're not going to let her go to college. If we believe that she's going to pull

the trigger and, you know, pull up to Planned Parenthood and get her prescription, that's just not going to happen. So we told her that, look, when you're, when you're growing up and you have a great job with a robust insurance plan, and if you feel that this is where you are headed, we'll support you. But we can't do that until you're fully mature. So that, because I have so many parenting questions and I'm not sure if, I think you all know, I'm not sure actually,

but I'm in the middle of creating a resource for parents, Christian parents with LGBT kids. And we have a few videos devoted just to parents of trans kids. And there's several, so there's several questions that I'm wrestling with what kind of advice to give the parents. I mean, one of the big ones is, you know, using pronouns and so on. And, and for me, I think age, age does matter in that conversation is what I'm the feedback I'm getting.

And also just the, what's the base kind of quality relationship that you're, that's, that's already been there. It sounds like so far, um, I mean, Claire and Dee growing up, would you say on a scale of one to 10, how would you describe your relationship with the kids that you're in question? I mean, was it super healthy, good clothes?? Was there always kind of tension? It was a very close mother-daughter relationship. It was very, very close until this kid showed up and dragged my daughter down the rabbit hole.

And we were always close and we're still close. Still close, okay. We had, you know know when he told us we had a little bit of a setback but now um we're very close all right marie why don't you tell your story and then then yeah we'll just get into a free-for-all kind of conversation about this super important topic yes it's super interesting how so many of the themes repeat among the three of us. So I have a 21 year old son who has autism and he has been medicalizing for about eight or nine months, taking hormones. And from the time he was little, like when he was all boy and to the extent,

I mean, he was obsessed with trains, with cars, with wheels, with light switches and, you know, hyperactive would never stop. If I try to put plaid shorts on him, he told me, no, those are girl shorts, plaid. I mean, he told me, no, those are girl shorts. Plaid. I mean, he wanted everything just plain and, you know, very, you know, didn't really have good boundaries. So when he was six, I believe he was six, he got diagnosed with Asperger's, which back then was still, you know, a division between Asperger's and autism. So, but he had had therapies and interventions since he was like three for speech and for

multiple things. By the time he got to middle school, we realized that this kid is really gifted. I mean, all those therapies, I mean, everybody knew he was very bright, but he couldn't perform to the level of his ability until he got to middle school and all the therapies kind of caught him up to where he needed to be. So he started going to honors classes and all the experiments and all the things

that he used to do, he was able to use them in robotics club and engineering. And he always had at least one friend. It was one of the things that I was very intentional about making sure that he at least had one friend, even when he was younger, you know, trying to set up play dates. We're Christian. So he grew up in a Christian home, you know, going to Sunday school, going to youth group. Everybody really loved him at church. They accepted his idiosyncrasies and his quirkiness and all that.

He went to high school and in high school, he found his niche. It was a magnet school for engineers. He went to high school and in high school, he found his niche. It was a magnet school for engineers. That was one of the tracks. And he found like-minded boys, probably most of them on the spectrum too. Actually, almost probably 75% of the kids in the engineering program were on the spectrum. And they were very close, sat at lunch together, played video games, went to each other's houses. So he truly had very positive socialization. He was very close to his dad.

I mean, when he was little, he was super close to me, super close to me. But then when he started, you know, pre-puberty, he started getting close to his dad. They would go to the gym, lift weights together, do boy stuff. My dad, my husband is also an art, so they're both, you know, connected at that level. He was girl crazy. He had to learn boundaries. I mean, in sixth grade, he would bother the girls so much, pulling their ponytails, getting close to them, no sense of personal space. His dad had to pick him up at the office because he couldn't be in the carpool line because he would terrorize the girls. But since he was little, he's been exposed to a lot of trauma because

of, um, health problems that I have had, life-threatening health problems. And when he was 17, I had a catastrophic health event that almost killed me. And he had to go to the hospital to say goodbye to me because they thought I wasn't going to survive the night. And as a result of that, he became extremely depressed in his junior year at 17. And he hunkered down, cut the whole family off, stopped eating meals with the family. I mean, he literally was just in such a profound, profound, profound depression. And I, we were afraid that he might be suicidal. And so I started, you know, rummaging through his stuff and looking for journals. And he had become obsessed, of course, autism. He always had fixations and obsessions. He had become obsessed, um, researching psychology

and he was trying to pathologize himself, you know, and okay, what is wrong with me, you know, and coming up with, you know, I don't know, some weird, um, psychological things, nothing that was gender related at all at this point. It's just so deep depression. He didn't want help. He didn't want medication. He wouldn't see anybody, wouldn't talk to anybody. He did continue hanging out with his friends and, you know, with the youth group boys, which would come to our house every Sunday to hang out and play video games. And then one thing that is a key thing, and I know it's repeated with all three of us, is he was terrified of growing up. He, yes, when he was in his senior year, he started panicking. He didn't want to go to college. It wasn't so much that he didn't want to go to

college. He didn't want to leave high school. When all his friends were excited about moving on, he wanted to hang on to high school. He would have panic attacks, anxiety attacks, and the deepest depression that his high school career was coming to an end. that his high school career was coming to an end. And the point that, because he was in honors classes, all his assignments, pretty much in English, were all related to college, writing college letters and what do I want to do? And he just would not do it.

So he had accommodations because of the autism, you know, 504 planning. They had to accommodate him that he didn't have to write about college um it was just this fear he did not walk his graduation broke my heart but i told him you know what i love you your mental health is more important to me than forcing you to walk graduation you know it was very sad wouldn't take a picture for graduation because like he didn't want to leave high school grow up

so when we got near the end I mean bright kid you know had could have gone to you know I'm not not saying Ivy League but you know really good engineering universities he was a state champion twice he was national um you know skills you say mechatronics and all that you know plays like in third place and i mean he went to this kid went to the kentucky derby twice okay he's had amazing experiences because of his giftedness and his skills yeah all the people who want to do that he did it twice um so we my husband and I sat down and and we basically came up with a plan that said okay you can't sit playing video games all day it's okay if you don't want to go to college you don't have to go to college but you're going to work full-time

or you can go to tech school even though he was four-year material but you know you can go to tech school, even though he was four-year material, but you know, you can go to the tech school, and so either work full-time, tech, and he chose the tech school, and so he went to tech school, you know, he's 18 at this point, fantastic, blew it out of the water, loved it, succeeded, started kind of coming out of his shell um realized that you know it was a good experience for him he was working part-time um you know still you know he's kind of grown up grown out of us so he's just hangs out with his friends it's not really close to the family anymore um and then the following year he says, I want to transfer to the university, the local university. I don't want to leave on campus. I want to commute, and he said, fine. My husband had very serious doubts. I don't think he's mature enough, but reluctantly, we agreed to

letting go to the four-year school, So he was there for about in the fall. Within two months of being there, he starts coming with the lanyards, you know, with the rainbow lanyards and the rainbow buttons and all this stuff. And oh, at 17, by the way, he really liked the girl. That was part of the little T trauma.

He really, really liked this girl and she gave him a wrong phone number and basically blew him off and so he was very sad about that but anyway so you know I was like is he gay like I mean what's going on so I asked him because he was just you know flaunting all of this paraphernalia with, you know, the LGBTQ. And he's like, no, I'm not. Why would you think that about me? He says, I am asexual. I have the sexual interest of a brick wall. But I knew, I knew something was not right. I couldn't put my finger on it. I did believe him that he wasn't gay, but it was like, something is going on. it. I did believe him that he wasn't gay, but it was like something is going on. And this, there were these two girls that he talked about who were like this cheerleaders pushing, pushing,

pushing, but I didn't know what they were pushing. By the end of that semester in December, we really knew something was going on. I couldn't his his hair has started to grow long he started like twisting his eyebrows I'm like okay I know he's gay I just know it I know it you know he started like acting kind of effeminate and crossing his legs and doing all this stuff and but he would deny it the final December one day he, I have to tell you something. We were in the car. But I think you're going to be mad at me. And I said, no, I promise you, I'm not going to be mad, whatever it is that you tell me. And he said, I have gender dysphoria, and I feel like I'm a woman in a man's body. And to my credit, I mean, no, not to my credit. Thank God. I really,

he gave me grace, but I just said, tell me what that means. So I just asked him a lot of questions and I asked him, what, why do you think you're a woman? And he's like, well, because I have always like soft things, like fussy things.ussy things I said yes but that's because you are a sensory seeker and you have autism I remember when you were little you liked to wear those footy you know polar tech pajamas and you know like you were always touching things I said that's sensory processing stuff that there's men who like soft things that doesn't mean you know and he's like oh yeah and I'm I'm a very kind person I said so is your dad you know I mean I said kindness is not exclusive to women only it can also be so that was basically it he was kind and sensitive and he like

saw fuzzy things that's why he was a woman so it was so bizarre so anyway so I said okay what does this mean and he said well if I could push a button and turn into a woman, I would. I said, okay, but you can't push that button. So I said, what does the future look like? And he says, I don't know. I'm super scared. This is super scary. And I don't know what to think. I said, okay. I said, well, you say that you are a Christian, that you're a believer. So I said, would you see a Christian counselor? you're a believer. So I said, would you see a Christian counselor? And he said, okay, he would. So I did my homework and I reached out to several people. I'm familiar with people in the, you know, mental health community, you know, the Christian. And I wanted someone who would see this as a mental illness, you know, but also have underground it all, like your book embodied, you know, but also have underground it all like your book embodied, you know, have the Christian biblical perspective. So I came up with three people, all who, whose approach was going

to be wait and see. And he chose the one who was the sexuality expert and, um, he was a good counselor, but I think he was kind of caught off guard a little bit by, um, you know, how fast things were moving with my son. Um, he said, told us from the beginning, my goal is to keep him safe. Like my goal is to keep him safe from Like my goal is to keep him safe from medicalization. That's my goal is wait and see. And we wanted him to address issues of trauma, autism, you know, the body dysmorphia, bulimia, because it was bulimic, OCD, depression, like all these other things that were a part of it. And he was okay with

addressing all of that. Well, my son refused to engage in anything that was not gender dysphoria and maybe talking about the stress of school. That was it. He would not engage in anything else, would not take medication for the depression, nothing. we had a session um together with him and the counselor when early on because see what these kids do is if you catch them early on like what claire did they're honest with you and they tell you like what's going on the farther they go down this road they change the whole narrative but he was still honest the beginning and he like claire's son said he's just he's always been uncomfortable in his body like he's always it's almost like he's he said it's almost like my arms don't fit right with my body

like it's almost like my head is disconnected from my body it's almost like my head is disconnected from my body. It's almost like my head like floats away from my body. And I've never felt comfortable with my body. I've always hated my body. And when he was younger, he was, you know, chunky. And I was in preterm labor and I had to take some drugs to keep me from having him at 20 weeks. So he was born with hypotonia and still has some hypotonia so like his middle is kind of soft because you know he hypotonia is uh like a muscular weakness um he was very built in his arms and his upper body but like his stomach you know it see to him

all these things were explanation that he was a girl like my stomach is soft i can never get a six-pack yeah you have hypotonia you know it was because of the drugs i had to take oh well maybe they messed me up and and his whole thing from a try to address it from a spiritual perspective you know about his identity you know not being rooted in all these things but his identity being about who he is, how God made him and, you know, being rooted in Christ. He was, I will know God made a mistake. God made a mistake, you know? And so then therefore God's plan for me is that I change because he made a mistake. So I'm all fixed. So anyway, I quickly realized that was the conversation that was not going to go anywhere. So I dropped that, you know, trying to go there. Fast forwarding that he wasn't counseling

for an entire year. The counselor held him off for a, tried to hold him off for a year, somehow convinced him that he needed a year before he could even attempt to get hormones. He started ordering hormones from China, which was extremely dangerous. His counselor had a coronary about it. And then he told the counselor he was going to get hormones that he had found through the internet. He had found a doctor out of state. Probably went out of state because he didn't want the counselor's intervention or our intervention. But this time he's 19. And so he went out of state to an OBGYN.

The counselor had a letter prepared that said, do not give him hormones because of multiple reasons. He's not a good candidate for it. It didn't matter. He walked in that OBGYN's office, very well coached by the internet. And he walked out of there with a prescription for hormones um a i believe possibly lupron because he takes shots um for a testosterone blocker and then he takes uh pills you know estrogen and whatnot but he walked i was saying you're saying he walked in and in that one encounter walked out with a prescription yes even before his blood work was back he had the prescription so wow yeah keep going that's that's wow yeah oh yeah it's mind-blowing it his counselor was flabbergasted like he didn't know that was happening as it clearly it's happening well

because i i just my my my shock is because i do hear people saying oh that's that's not happening that's just it is happening gaslighting from the religious right it's not that's not a thing like it's happening and you know what this was this is the south okay this is the this is a deep south okay that these things are happening. Yeah. And so from our perspective, we had told him we, we had didn't like it, but we had come to accept the performative. So much of this is performative, got to shave, got to do the hair. It's almost like a list that OCD autistic list of things that I have to do today to be a woman. You know,

so we kind of had gotten used to it with the counselor's advice we were ignoring it you know whatever the hair the tweezing the shaving the you know a little bit androgynous clothing we had agreed with the counselor that um he would step out of his room wearing gender neutral clothing. And so all those things we were able to get past. But we had told him, if you do hormones, you cannot live at home. And there were a lot of tears on his part, a lot of begging and pleading for us to let him stay. But we said, stop the hormones. We were like, pause, put the pause button, finish school.

You can do whatever you want when you are, you know, career ready and like detail their daughter, you know, and you are mature, you know, brain matures like a 25 for most people. And no, he couldn't, he couldn't. This is a cult. And for my son, I'm pretty sure that there's a lot of pornography that is feeding this. There's a cult on the internet for him. The girls, once the pandemic hit and he went online this cheerleader sister girls disappeared out of his life but then the internet took it took its place um there's justification pornography there's hypnoporn there's all kinds of that stuff that just feed this thing the psychologist doesn't believe my son really has gender dysphoria. And another thing I wanted to tell you is that my son has always been so uncomfortable in who he is.

He has always dressed up, never about gender. In winter, he wore summer clothes. In summer, he wore winter clothes in summer he wore winter clothes he would go to church dressed up like the penguin you know from batman with a monocle a top black hat you know suit and a cane other times he had this afro and i mean it was like he always dressed up like somebody else. There's all these masks that he puts in. This is his latest obsession, fixation, and his latest mask. But what's so sad and so scary about it is that these greedy doctors and this greedy medical industrial complex are using our kids to make money. And they're ruining them because my son we believe is going to come

out of this space like he's come out of all his other faces he will be damaged because of you know the medicalization we we have a little bit of a transactional relationship we communicate by text i treated we treated like um steven hassan and maria keffler i don't know if you're familiar with this book deceased the trans and detox person have you seen this book no no oh my goodness oh it's excellent excellent this this has to be like a total book for your parent guide. How have I not come across it? Is it getting a child? Partners for Ethical Care.

Have you heard of PEC? Partners for Ethical Care? No. They're the ones that produced it. I thought I knew every organization out there. Yeah, yeah. So it's Deceased Detrans and Detox, Getting Your Child Out of the Gender Cult. So this book, and Stephen Hassan, the cult expert, he recommends that if you have a child who's like in the cold, somewhat estranged from you.

Our son is not so much estranged as he's just distant. We text him weekly whether he responds or not. Every month we buy him a treat. Yeah, that book by Stephen Hassan, Freedom of Mind. I read this book and then Maria Keffler came out with De Sisti Transit Detox. Yeah. So we try to have a bridge, you know, that kind of is called this golden bridge to continue with a connection. We have an understanding that he's never going to be our daughter yeah i mean we respect him

we don't call him by his name we don't say anything we're neutral about that um because you know he hates it so much but we we just can't we can't lie we can't we can't go along with something that is a lie and deceptive. So anyway. I'm curious. What? Why? I'm trying to, it's a genuine question, not an interrogative one. What was the thought process behind when he was 19 saying, if you go on hormones, you're not allowed to live at the home

like what's the well like his other parents are listening like what was the parental kind of motivation there okay i we've always this is consistent uh with the way we've parented, you know, that in our home, you cannot do things that are unsafe. I mean, our home is not the place. I mean, we have dealt with eating disorders and with other things and, you know, with older children. And so we consistently have said, this is a safe place. And if you are doing something that is harmful to your body, okay, you cannot do it here. You can't. And I told him to me, I don't care if this is prescribed by a greedy OBGYN. These are dangerous drugs that are not FDA approved, okay, they are harmful and you are hurting yourself. Honestly, that was the intellectual inconsistent message. But I have to be honest, he was in our

home for about four months from the time he started taking hormones. We're going to let him finish his semester because, you know, he started taking them against the rules and the boundaries to know that we were like, okay, we're not going to kick him on the street, let him finish the semester. But I realized that there was more to it than the danger factor. And you can't do drugs in our home. I can't see my child destroying himself. We have medical, serious medical conditions in our family. I had a hemorrhagic stroke four years ago. We are all in our family thyroid medication. We have autoimmune disease.

We have adrenal issues i mean he is really potentially could kill him and uh so um you know yeah but but yeah it was some parents can do it but yeah we could not we just couldn't do it so it was a combination of the overall health of the family and um just certain house rules of here's what we allow and don't allow in our in our home um and i just i i asked because i could hear another parent saying well man if a if a child is not even a child i mean an adult child, is in this kind of position, say, say they're suicidal or cutting or something. Wouldn't, is it better for them to be outside the home than in the home? You know, like it's only going to be worse outside the home than to

have care around, but I, I don't know. I, it's such a, yeah, but yeah, like, all right. Like we have house rules. Like we wouldn't allow, we don't yeah, like we have house rules. Like we would allow, we don't allow, we will have a drug addict over to our home any day of the week, but they can't bring their crack, right? I mean, but I don't like, that's not the exact same thing,

but we are dealing with kind of- I thought I could live with what happens outside of my home because I tried my best. We talked to him. We asked him to stop. I could not live with this happening in our home. And honestly, you and I, you know, we understand people at the end of the day, you know, where

the rubber meets the road is like, okay, do I trust God to take care of this kid? Or do I not trust God? And I mean, if I really trust that God is who I believe he is, then I had to, you know, let him go. Yeah. And just to all of you, I mean, I can only, as a parent of four kids, I can only imagine just even retelling the stories is not easy. So thank you for being willing to share. Was it D you were going to say something? I was just going to say the impact on the family. So we have a 12 year old as well who is profoundly affected by what she's seeing go on here and talks to me about it every single day.

She has become obsessed with the way her sister is presenting. And also, you know, we used to let her sister drive her to the pool on the golf cart. And the last time she did, my 12-year-old said, I don't want to be seen in public with her. I don't want to be seen with her. So the impact on the family cannot be underestimated. Yeah, that's good. That's super good. I know a lot of parents listening are going to be encouraged by that because I know that's, so it's people outside the home, onlookers, people

have opinions about how parents should navigate this conversation. What they don't have is the perspective of the parent who's trying to manage all different kinds of relationships and the impact. And that's really complex and difficult. I'm curious about just the pronoun question, because all of you have had to wrestle with this. How have you thought through whether to use your child's preferred name or pronoun? And what advice and what's your reasoning for taking the view that you did? Because I've talked to parents that are kind of all over the map on that question. Yeah, I would love to hear your thoughts.

So with our daughter, we are still calling her by the name we gave her. We are using the she, her pronouns. I mean, we are not capitulating. And, you know, because she's not so much a leader as a follower, that I think it's going to be harder for her to dial it back at the end. If even her own family has done this, you know, so we're holding fast right here. And, and I told her, you know,

I have, you know, I said, if you think you're being your authentic self, that's fine. I have to be my authentic self as well. And I cannot call you by a male name or male pronouns or I'm harming myself. Would that change if she's, for instance, 25 or older? Would you say that's a position for life or is it because she's under 18 and 17? No, it's because she's under 25. Let's face it. Like, you know, let's talk biology here from a biological standpoint, the prefrontal cortex and the amygdala are far from being formed right now. And in all likelihood,

she's probably not going to be fully developed until she's about 25 or 26. So after that, if she wants to make this kind of decision, we'll go, we'll support her. We'll support him. Okay. But not now. And we have to protect this child from herself. And the way I look at it is I feel like he's just throwing a tantrum. This wanting hormones and wanting all this is no different than when he was a little kid and he wanted that toy in the store. And you just had to put your foot down. So what we said was, look, you're our child. This is your name.

And this is what we're going to call you in our home. If you want to have other people outside our home call you a different name, that's your choice. But as long as you live in our home this is who you are and he accepted that and we call him by his name and he doesn't flinch he introduced you know like and with other adults he introduces himself as his birthday so it's i just feel like you have to parent because you can't let them take over because that's what's happening they're being given so much power by these affirming doctors and the schools which isn't healthy for them it's not healthy because it's it's you know if you ever read the book coddling of the american mind it's just like you give in to every kid's want what kind of an adult are they going to be if you don't ever push back on anything they want especially when it's you know in your gut

that this isn't what's going on so if you say okay i'm gonna call you this i i know that it's hard to road back and i just i'm curious i'm curious if it would be, if you would have a different view, if, well, for instance, you know, I've got a friend who has early onset gender dysphoria, severe from the time they were three years old, pre-internet. My friend's like in her late forties, their late forties. And so the kind of rapid onset stuff like that, this is almost a completely different scenario. If your child had that kind of like severe early onset gender dysphoria, unlinked to kind of other mental health issues, unlinked to social contagion, maybe it is causing suicide ideation and so on. ideation and so on, would you, would you still, do you think, I mean, it's hard to, you have to put yourself in that. Do you, would you, do you think that you would still have the same approach or would there be maybe a different situation where you would see a parent conceding maybe as an emergency matter measure to someone's preferred pronoun? Well, i can't answer that because it's not my situation but i know in the past um the wait and watch you know 90 percent desisted yeah so buying into that really does

change their their um socially mind and it's harder for them to come out of it. And there's so many people who had that as a kid and they were, you know, they went under therapy and were, it was discussed and they grew up to be a happy adult. They're not even, you know, always gay like Stella O'Malley or Aaron Brewer. You know, they felt that way as a kid and they grew up, they're completely straight, have children and they, they are so thankful that they didn't go that route because they, you know, love being a parent. So I don't see myself doing that because, because the odds are they will desist. Yeah, no, I appreciate that. That's, and I could back that up. I mean,

there's been 16 studies done on children with gender dysphoria. If you add all that up, all the studies with no intervention to wait and see through puberty, it's 61 to 88%. And you got to go on the, you know, different numbers and everything end up desisting, um, with no intervention. And that doesn't even deal with the, most of the studies are done kind of pre the rapid onset phenomenon. Um, and also, Oh, go ahead. Go ahead. Well, let me just say one more thing. Cause I, um, what the main argument for not using the pronouns is using the pronouns is a form of social transitioning. And social transitioning almost always leads to some form of medical transitioning. So what Will Malone and Sasha

and many others have said is that by using a pronoun, and they're primarily talking about like under 18, you're helping cement a path toward medical transitioning. Now, there's a counter argument to that, but that's a serious thing that I think parents should consider. Yeah, I wanted to address a couple things, one that you just brought up, but let me go backwards to the pronouns. I, because our kid is an adult and it became very, very obvious that those who didn't go along with the name and the pronouns were going to be cut off. Like that was it. If you don't address me this way, I mean, even his counselor calls him by his name, the pronoun thing, he doesn't really worry about it because he's talking to him

so you know but there would be no connection in counseling if he didn't but i really researched this a lot and i i paid very close attention to what the detransitioners have said and universally detransitioners have spoken to the fact that, you know, it was like a negative thing for everybody to be affirming and for everybody to be using, to see them as the, you know, the identity that they wanted to portray. And that in some cases that it was helpful that there were people, whether it's parent or other friends or whatever, who didn't go along with it. Because somebody was holding a mirror of reality to their face. Literally, the society as a whole. Now, we live in the deep south. So my son is encountering people who are like, don't talk to me, you know. But universally, okay, Society is so woke and

they're drinking the Kool-Aid. They're going to affirm. I mean, a guy looking like a guy, basically pretending to be a woman goes to a OBGYN and they're supposed to say, any chance that you're pregnant? And this is insanity, this kind of affirmation. So someone has to be the people who are putting a mirror of reality back. Now, we respected our son's wishes. We didn't call him by his first name. We use initials or just said, hey, hey, can you take out the trash when he lived here? Hey, dinner is ready, you know, and he was fine with that. But the other thing I wanted to tell you is that with this cohort of boys, it's backwards. The process is backwards. Most of these nerdy boys want the hormones first before they do social transition. It's so crazy. They're like,

give me the hormones, give me the hormones. It's almost like they think that they have to look the part or start growing some breasts or whatever before they actually dare to go out and show themselves to the world. And there are some that don't even tell anybody. They're just taking the hormones and staying in their rooms on the internet. So it's very, it's so crazy. So you're saying, because you do hear people say like, and I know parents that are in this situation where, you know, their kid is so demanding and it's a black and white, like if you don't abide by kind of my, then I'm gone, you're cut off, I'll run away, I'll do something. I mean, obviously there's some situations that are like that, but would you say in your relationships, all three of you, and also just in general, as you've talked to other people, that that typically isn't the case? That especially with a younger kid, if the relationship has been good and is as good as it can be, that it's not going to just cut off the relationship if you don't abide by their demands kind of with pronouns and stuff? I don't think it matters to a certain degree, but remember these kids are hijacked by a cult and their brains are like hijacked. So some parents have the most loving and wonderful relationship with their kid, but the cult, I mean, once they get to college, they're swallowed up.

I was just going to say that I think every parent knows their kids and knows their boundaries with their kids. So I know mine would never do that, would never leave. But I also know that. that would never leave but i also know that so it gives me the parameters within how to reach him and have them not go too far but not every parent some parents have kids who are like i'm gonna cut you off if you do this my kid would never do that okay and a lot of them bring brain like they're they're they are being brainwashed not just in, but just in general, that if you're in an environment where somebody doesn't affirm everything that you say you are, desire, whatever, then that's a toxic environment. It's going to increase suicidality. You need to cut off all those relationships.

People are being brainwashed in that direction, which is a terrible way to prepare people for the real world as, as, as Caudillian of the American mind has pointed out so well. Um, and so that's, yeah, that's, uh, I do have parents that they'll come to me and say, look, if I don't, they're, they're in a state maybe where if they don't allow for hormones and call them by their chosen name and pronouns, then child services can come and intervene. They're like, what do I do? And I don't know what, or how do I even get through to my kid? How do I get them to see that I still love you, but I am not going to go along with this, but I'm here for you. I love you. It's out of my love for you that I'm doing this. I've got parents saying none of that. It's like a brick wall. None of that can even break through right now. What do I do?

Right. Some parents are losing their children. Some children are saying, and they've been, they've been coached on what to say. Some children are saying, I don't feel safe in my house. My parents won't affirm me and social services show. Some kids have disorders. I know I just spoke to a mom recently whose son is cutting school and said, I will not go to class until you put me on hormones. Has done an end run around the parents by calling the endocrinologist saying, OK, I'm not 18, but can't you? Isn't there another way that you can get me the hormones? Or how about if I talk my dad into it, could you get it to my dad? And it's really painful to watch. And I'm like, Claire, I think I know that my kid's not going to run off and do something like that. But every parent knows their child.

And what advice do you give to those parents that are in that situation? Stand your ground in terms of, you know, like just stand your ground. You know, your child, you know, what you can handle, what you can handle, you know, what you can do, but some parents have done all of that and they lose their child anyway. And that's the tragedy in all of this. It really is. Well, there's the, you know, something called building a golden bridge, you know, make,

create something that's more of an incentive than that. You know, like change the wording, change what you're doing for them, make something more inspiring than that. And it's hard work. can you give an example um yeah well no but you could google how to give a golden bridge like the book um yeah how to have impossible conversations talks about it um and uh you've all done a lot of reading yeah oh my goodness we were getting phd yeah we have phds in this yeah we just need to write the thesis

yeah well we're doing we're doing that we're working on the golden bridge actually our relationship is better now than it was you know when he was in the house um and it's the treats it's like you know giving him his favorite thing texting him you know telling him that we love him and he the beauty of it is he's told his therapist i have never doubted that my mom and dad love me okay I know they love me. I know they love me, but they don't understand me and they don't, you know, they don't accept this and they're trying to make me into someone that I'm not, but I've never doubted their love for me. So, so by, by, by saying you can't live here and take hormones that you said the relationship is actually better now than it was when he was in the house yes because there's not that tension i mean i was going i was walking around with swollen red eyes

from crying and super upset and it was just so awkward and and he's he's a good kid like i mean i also would have never thought he would do this like ever ever he was not rebellious at all he was so such a good kid you know but that's where the cult comes in but he um you know he did his hijack whatever but um he he loves us i mean and he understand we finally at the end as he was leaving one day i said to him what he was saying i feel this way and i feel that way and you guys and i said okay for once think how it feels to us that you are asking us to basically kill and bury our son make him disappear like he doesn't exist. It raised a whole history from when I had you and you were born. I said, can you imagine how we feel? Can you imagine the pain that we're in? You know, can you imagine why we can't let you go? And he said, yeah, I mean, it was like he was stunned

and he was silent for a minute. He says, yes, I can see that. That's, again, a difference between a kid who is, you know, suffering with the distress, which is misdirected, and a kid who's like bought into the trans activism and all that. Now, he was, he started this as a social justice warrior. That's a whole other conversation for another day. You know, don't want to conflate things. But yeah, he still has that warrior part of it but he he heard us yeah that's uh can you explain you've used the phrase gender cult uh i know what you mean by that from an audience what do you what are you describing

there when you say gender cult this can go for any of you. It's a community that separates the child from the parents. It's unusual in that it's developed online, but it has all the hallmarks, which is why I started reading Freedom of Mind by Stephen Hassan, because I actually felt like this was a cult. It controls their behavior. It tells them how to dress. It tells them what to say. It controls the information that they receive. And social media plays a big part of that as well. It feeds them with the algorithms. I've tested it out myself. I created a fake persona on Instagram that created a girl who wants to be a boy. And I'm getting everything shoved down my throat and there's no alternate universe. There's no other way of thinking about this. And so, you know,

the emotional control, all of that, your parents don't love you if they don't affirm you. So they're separating your child from you and you're trying to hold. So wait, you, you have been a spy, you and you're trying to hold so wait you you have been a spy a mole in the cult you created because my next question i did my next question was can can people even listening see this first hand persona i infiltrated my daughter's instagram account she wouldn't let me in she's got a trans account and a normal account and i infiltrated it by creating this persona she let me in. She's got a trans account and a normal account. And I infiltrated it by creating this persona. She let me in within minutes after assuring us, I'm very careful about who I let in. She let me in and started hitting on me. And it was, it was eyeopening. So I see what she's seeing. I see what she's being fed because I'm being fed the same garbage. And yeah. And it's, can you just go, keep going just a little bit further? I mean, what, what,

what is she being fed? People saying. All these, you know, you may want to follow this person. You may want to follow that person. They're all trans handles. They're all trans posters. I haven't seen, I haven't been introduced to one detransitioner Instagram handle. I'm a trans boy.

Did you get, did you get hit by plastic surgeons too or no i got the plastic surgeon i got the gender surgeon too absolutely yeah really i'm getting hit with everything so you know the algorithms are seeking out and trying to feed me it's just like that movie social media you know they're trying to feed me what they think I want, and they're not giving me an alternate point of view. And it's not just, when you say trans accounts, it's not just accounts that happen to be by trans people. It's people trying to evangelize people into a trans identity.

Yeah. Okay. Preston, one of the best tests um of a cult and this has actually been posted on twitter by steven hassan one of the world's foremost expert on cults um when people leave how are they treated and we all know how the transitioners are treated by trans activists in the trans world yeah yeah i mean that tells you right there that cult behavior it's brutal because i did put a little comment on somebody's page on instagram that i you know said well what you know have we thought about the detransitioners and man did they pounce on me what are you talking about it was? It was, it was pretty bad.

It was pretty bad. So this is what I'm concerned about my child when she decides to change her mind, she's going to have to unplug from that particular Instagram account because she'll be vilified and ostracized and, and I don't think she can handle it. And they're told wrong information. They all believe that there are very few detransitioners almost none you know they then they quote these so what we're trying to do is tell parents that don't let your kid on the internet at all because every kid is vulnerable and susceptible to being pulled into this trans ideology.

Okay, I have a really pertinent question. So, like, I 100% agree with you. With our kids, we don't – we're pretty. We watch rated R movies. They can listen to ACDC. And we're pretty for a homeschool family we're among the most edgiest but we don't allow we don't allow social media until they're 18 we just see no i we don't let them um have a crack pipe or a loaded gun

or anything that's highly addictive and destructive so i we don't allow social media but and that's so so it's one thing when they're like 11 12 13 14 and asking we So I, we don't allow social media, but, and that's so, so it's one thing when they're like 11, 12, 13, 14 and asking, we just say, no, we don't allow that. You can't drive my car until you're 16. And even then I might have questions and you can't have. So when it's already kind of a house rule they're growing up in, it's not that difficult. Um, a little more difficult when all their friends are on it, whatever, but, but what do you do with a kid that's already on it? Two, three, four years, this is their lifeline. This is their community. Like I can't imagine taking it away. I just feel like that would backfire if that would solidify their

idea that my parent is toxic and is, is, is destroying me. They don't want me to have my friends. Like, what do you advise the parents that their kid is already knee deep in social media? Or do you intervene and say, sorry, this is cut off? We did a social media contract. Once I hacked into her phone and saw the stuff, including the lesbian porn that that friend was sharing with her, we entered into a social media contract. We require that she provide us with all of her online accounts and her passwords. We limit the amount of time, you know, and the phone cannot be in the bedroom at night. We, you know, said no Tumblr or Reddit. Plus, I ended up replacing our router with something called Orbi, O-R-B-I, which has a Circle Plus

account so I can monitor what my kids are looking at in the house. And I can see in real time, what are they looking at? And I can tell if they spending more than five minutes or less than five minutes. So that way, and I can shut it off if I want to, I can just shut down, but I've been looking at it and so far so good. Although the first day I noticed she was on Tumblr. So I put, I put a total ban on Tumblr. She can no longer access Tumblr. So that went okay. I mean, she didn't...

She reacted okay? Or was it a fight? She didn't complain. She didn't, you know... And she knows what I said to her was, I didn't say, we're monitoring you. I said, this is a very interesting product. I had no idea that it can monitor what we're doing online. And

you know, that sat okay with her. That was fine. What i can't do is put the actual thing on her phone so that i'm tracking her when she's at high school but she's so busy at school she's she's not going to have time to do that kind of thing so it's really what is going on in my house that i want to know about she can't drive and have a car so you know kind of a prisoner of blood here two thoughts on that one one is um we had a circle plus, but our son, the computer major, created through a VPN a separate account. So he passed. Oh, here we were like idiots looking at all this innocent stuff and video games in school, something is seriously wrong he had created an

alternate account and the other thing too is that there are several parents who have gotten their kids to desist by pulling the plug on the internet and having them be outdoors doing outdoor stuff heavy work so yeah it can work using their bodies being in creation getting outside the echo chamber i just want to say that um my son has never been on social media and he did not get a phone until high school he googled it so you there you know you you can say you you know you don't let them have social media, but that's not where they find it. They're finding it at school because it's talked about. The schools come in and teach them that they could be born in the wrong body and stuff like that. So literally, you have to explain to them early on that you your sex is fixed you

you you know like early early so that they can't get caught into this yeah that's what i think you need to do and be and they're smart they can run around any kind of internet. And my son can get internet from me. So we could take away our internet in our home, but he could get it from the street. So I think you have to teach them early on. And watch who their peers are. The difficulty is some parents with younger kids hearing this, they don't sense the urgency because it's not happening to them.

It's usually after it starts happening. And when you start to like, oh my gosh, we need to, and it's sometimes it's not, it's not too late, but it's can be too late. You know,

in light of what you're saying, we're going to have to wrap things up, but I mean, there's so much more we could talk about. Any last, how about this recommendations of if a parent's listening and saying oh my word this is similar to what we're going through um recommendations on websites organizations you've already mentioned a few books and we can put this

in in the show notes um yeah that'd be great first of all i'm glad you're doing something for the parents as well we can't do enough here so i can't wait to see what you come up with. I really, but I highly recommend a newly formed organization called Genspect. That's G-E-N-S-P-E-C-T.org. It's an international alliance of parent and professional groups whose aim is to advocate for parents of gender questioning children and young people. Parents are concerned that their kids are not receiving appropriate treatment and support. Many feel that they're not free to speak out. So Genspect is an advocacy group. And one of the goals is to try to get to mainstream media because mainstream media is really woke right now.

They need to get unwoken. So I highly recommend Genspect. Any others, you guys? ParentsofROGDkids.com for support. They're terrific. Oh, yeah. Marie mentioned earlier Partners for Ethical Care. Yeah.

And the book, The Seized Trance and Detox by Maria Kefler which is published by Partners for Ethical Care yeah well thank you so much again I know this is all very sensitive and not easy so I'm excited for parents to listen to this because again I get emails almost every day from

parents whose stories are eerily identical very similar to yours in so many ways. So thank you so much for being willing to share and coming on the show. Thank you for having us. Thank you so much. Great, thank you.

Thank you.