This is just sad. The mother is pressuring her child to have some sort of exotic gender and sexuality in order to get back at her conservative family and ex-husband. Why on earth is she obsessing about a 7 year old having crushes? It sounds like she has been sexualizing her child intentionally. When my daughters were 7, they just wanted to play with their toys and run around outside with their friends. Having crushes and wondering about their sexual orientation was completely not on their (or anyone’s) radar.
When my eldest daughter was 7, her best friend was black (we are white). My daughter cried because she wanted to wear her hair in the cute Afro-puff style her friend did, but it didn’t work with her silky straight hair. And she wanted the black American Girl doll because it looked like her friend - did this mean she was transracial?
This woman seems mentally ill. She’ll be horribly disappointed if her daughter turns out to just be a lesbian or (even worse) a heterosexual girl.
What a fascinating, deeply disturbing piece. Thank you for showing in gruesome detail exactly how the cult operates on the individual level—the inexorable progression from skepticism to acceptance as groupthink overwhelms. This is how it happens. Thank you.
Her daughter is being a normal 7 year old. First of all why is this mom obsessed over "crushes" at SEVEN years old? Second its completely normal at this age for them to suddenly start liking something that someone they like to spend time with does. Its medical malpractice for a pediatrician to not correct this mother of this normal behavior. This mother will end up destroying this little girls life so she can feel good about herself. If there are a lot of mothers like this the gender movement will destroy itself in a decade, but it will do a lot of damage... not good for this generation
The grooming of parents is part of the process. This mother was groomed to impose an external doctrine onto her daughter. Imagine this happening on a larger scale across the continent. Because it is.
If "children know who they are" and the child thinks she might be black, then I hope that Facebook group is willing to stand up for their principles and denouce transracephobia.
I can't believe that liking the color blue translates to gender nonconforming for a girl, what a backtrack this is. I remember toy companies, candy makers, ad agencies, what have you were protested for this pink&blue bullshit by feminists. Back to square one, what a load of crap.
Perspective from someone (age 21) who's come out the other side: in 2013, summer after seventh grade, I voraciously read lots of feminist and sexually progressive content online. One thing that struck me was how "trans women," which a young mind upon seeing the facts would interpret as "men living as women," were literally called she rather than he. I wanted to learn transgender etiquette, the right way to accommodate this minority. Soon I learned the concept of "genderqueer," "genderfluid," etc - which introduced me to the idea that being a man/boy or woman/girl isn't necessarily about what you're born as, but what you feel you are.
If a "trans woman" is just as much of a "woman" as a "cis woman" because they both have female minds, that raised the question: am I a girl? Do I feel like one?
At first, I thought, maybe I'm genderfluid, both a boy and a girl. I couldn't wrap my mind around whatever the "something else" or "neither" was supposed to "feel" like; I had no frame of reference. I just felt like looking at the fellow girls in school and my more socially adept sisters and representations of women in the media, I could never really click and feel like one of them. It seemed like they had a shared etiquette I couldn't grasp and general social preferences and attitudes I couldn't relate to. I was the gross unruly sister. I seemed to click better with boys, more intellectual, more crude, more goofy. So I received what seemed like an enlightening revelation that would tie it all together: I'm actually a boy! They diagnosed me with Asperger's in fifth grade, but my real diagnosis is that I'm weird because I'm supposed to be a boy!
This would mean transition was the solution, the way to show the world the real me, according to all the aspirational stories I read on blogs and Tumblrs. I picked boy names that resonated with me, felt so much more like me than my great grandmother's name I had. I was a Felix, a Julian, a Nelson, a Leo - the archetypical gross goofy nerdy little brother, a trope you'd never see a female equivalent of. I wrote a timeline of what I'd do when I had graduated and gone to college, the hair and the wardrobe and...the medical steps I was told were a part.
I'd never before had a problem with my body being female, just that it wasn't attractive in the right ways. (I'd already gotten into the pro-ED subculture, developed an early fascination with makeup, and fixated on my boobs not growing big enough to the point of even stuffing my bra!) But I figured physical transition was part of the package that would build my new life as a man, that once I'd see a male body, I'd know I was home. And wouldn't it be a relief to feel free from the pressure of comparing myself to other girls? I didn't care to be a super handsome man; male beauty standards really didn't affect me the way female beauty standards did. Just being a normal looking man would be enough. Even aside from the pressure of beauty standards, I liked having fun with materialistic feminine things, from nail polish to dresses to makeup looks to girly decorations. I didn't like that I'd have to give a lot of it up (although I thought, "Hey, I'm just an effeminate gay man, and if you accept them as men, why not me?"), but I was willing to do it to be accepted as a man someday.
The thought was *someday.* There was no way I thought I would be doing it in my youth. I never told any of my peers; I never thought they needed to know. My parents had very different responses to this plan.
My dad - who would become a Trump voter who enjoys Jordan Peterson and Tucker Carlson - flatly told me, "You're not a boy." If I were actually a boy, I'd like boy things that he knew I didn't like, and I wouldn't be into the very feminine things I like. He told me it was a phase. There are people who have real problems, so don't cry over it. He berated me. He did not make me feel understood and cared for.
My mom - who would be a vocal progressive supporting all the social causes du jour - privately told me she was concerned. This seemed like a very new development, and I was at a time when my hormones were surging and I wasn't fully developed. She asked, "Would you rather have a boyfriend or a girlfriend?" I said, "Boyfriend [always knew I was bi with a preference for males], but that has nothing to do with this." She understood, but I think she was trying to figure out who I really was in case I was living closeted and felt like I had nobody who'd accept me. She said it was too soon to make any changes, but she would emotionally and financially support my transition if this continued as an adult.
I don't think she even knew at the time that kids could transition. It wasn't mainstream. This was back when FtM and "trans*" were the common lingo, and really only in LGBT-focused spaces, not mainstream news; who remembers? She just responded in the way that any open-minded pro-LGBT person who wants the best for her kids would - fine with the outcome, as long as it was actually the right one. I wonder what she would've felt like she had to do to be a good mom if this had happened today.
I doggedly continued to think of myself as secretly one of the boys, forced to grow up as a girl. It imposed a lot of mental strain on me, growing up as a girl, seeing how I was different from the boys, but still having to mentally categorize myself as a boy and anticipate a future where I'd grow up to be a man. I wrestled with the question of am I really a boy? am I not a girl? what am I?, which is either dead simple if you classify people by their sex or meaningless if you don't. I was giving myself a problem I could've lived in blissful ignorance of. In February of eighth grade, I was like, nah, I'm not a boy. I still totally support trans people but I'm just not one. Maybe I was genderqueer or genderfluid, but I wouldn't physically transition.
Then, freshman year of high school, shortly after I'd privately come out to some online friends as non-binary, I stumbled upon radfem Tumblrs. Their answer to "what is a woman" was simple: someone of the female sex. Duh, why did I think there was any other definition, of "feeling like a woman," whatever that meant? Why was I so quick to accept that trans women were literally "women," a nebulous construct in someone's head that supposedly all "women" share, just to be polite?
I delved deeper, and the discussion of TIFs really resonated with me. Why did I ever think I didn't feel like a girl and instead felt like a boy, when I've never been in the head of anyone but myself? My sex affected how I grew up, and I wasn't alone in the alienated feelings I felt that made me want to dis-identify as female - it was all the more reason my sex was relevant in discussing the sex-based issues I shared with other women.
So there's my story. I'm glad today to be living free from sexual dysfunction and health issues that would've been caused by early transition, free from worries that I'm being perceived as the sex I am and need to change my appearance more, free from the feeling that even if it's stressful, I'd have to keep living as a man because otherwise the costs would be sunken and I'd be "proving them right." But it seems like many girls today won't be able to say the same thing when they're my age.
wow. it's always sad to read these stories, and worse that they are a dime a dozen these days.
also, the irony of this woman accusing her ex-husband of being the abusive narcissist is not lost on me. one could argue what "abusive" means and perhaps it isn't the best word, but narcissism seems to be a common denominator with most of these trans parents. it's telling to see all the celebrities with trans-identifying children now. no doubt that was an issue in this person's marriage and contributed to that husband being an ex.
one thing the article glossed over is the fact that the child did NOT actually experience same-sex attraction. in the post the mother clearly stated the daughter NEVER EVEN MET the girl she was supposedly attracted to, but she was just another player on roblox (a game played over the internet, where the players are represented by gender-ambiguous blocky avatars reminiscent 8-bit video game graphics.) sure the girl was "attracted" (to use the word loosely and not in a sexual fashion) to another child's in-game personality, but that does NOT constitute same-sex attraction. we should all know attraction isn't always based purely on the physical, but it's an undeniable component. particularly you you have to acknowledge "sex" (based on physical appearance) in order to identify whether or not one is same-sex attracted, and you cannot do that in this scenario.
There is an eerie parallel in these events. As I understand it, young girls are being seduced and bullied via the Internet into an unrealistic worldview (Abigail Shrier). Subsequently, parents ("mostly mothers") are being seduced and bullied via the Internet into the same unrealistic worldview. As a Biological Psychologist, it's of interest to me that we grant so much power to the anonymous voices that we read online. It seems to me that we should be able to simply ignore them. It's a fascinating dilemma.
As a specialist in Endocrinology AND Gender Dysphoria, I can tell that the person who wrote this article has no idea what they're talking about. For one thing, I caught the part about the child having early puberty. This would be treated with a puberty blocker, such as Lupron, for any child whether cisgender or transgender. So mom is right. Two birds, one stone. Putting a pause on puberty has absolutely no adverse side effects, (except of course pain at the injection site, as Lupron is an every 3 month injection). When the treatment is stopped, the child will go through their body's natural puberty, so there is no harm whatsoever in delaying puberty for a few years. We do it for cisgender kids every day whose parents aren't ready for them to start going through that process. Also, how terrible to infiltrate these private groups where parents are asking for help and cherry pick one example that would fit your anti-trans agenda. Transgender children do have a 40% increased risk of suicide, so it isn't part of some indoctrination to tell parents that affirming them is the best thing they can do. It is life-saving. And there is nothing irreversible that is done to minors like this article implies. One last thing. Gender affirming therapist- that just means a therapist who will call the kid by their chosen name and pronouns. Otherwise they do all the same things a regular therapist would do such as listening, helping work through trauma, helping with introspection, growing as a person, etc. The article says "gender affirming therapist" like it's some scary thing when all it means is they won't turn away a trans/non-binary patient.
Over 150 comments, and you included how many? I wonder if maybe there's more to this story? Also, did you bother to ask whether the books of diversity included Bibles? Or traditional children's books? Or did you just insert what diversity meant based on your own views?
Also, I wonder why you're plastering a kids medical issues on the internet. Something about this "article" feels off. Also all the parts you DIDNT highlight add so much to this.... I wonder what else you didn't include.
This is a great article. This is what journalism is supposed to be: finding stories that are meaningful about the world and telling them.
Reading this woman's posts is like watching a slow speed train wreck. As an observer, you can see the train hurtling toward the cliff, but everyone on board is completely oblivious. What makes this story so powerful is that at the beginning, she sounds like a totally typical, suburban, slightly progressive parent. Within 60-90 days she's been sucked into facilitating the mutilation of her child. If it can happen to her, we all need to be on our guard.
This is just sad. The mother is pressuring her child to have some sort of exotic gender and sexuality in order to get back at her conservative family and ex-husband. Why on earth is she obsessing about a 7 year old having crushes? It sounds like she has been sexualizing her child intentionally. When my daughters were 7, they just wanted to play with their toys and run around outside with their friends. Having crushes and wondering about their sexual orientation was completely not on their (or anyone’s) radar.
When my eldest daughter was 7, her best friend was black (we are white). My daughter cried because she wanted to wear her hair in the cute Afro-puff style her friend did, but it didn’t work with her silky straight hair. And she wanted the black American Girl doll because it looked like her friend - did this mean she was transracial?
This woman seems mentally ill. She’ll be horribly disappointed if her daughter turns out to just be a lesbian or (even worse) a heterosexual girl.
What a fascinating, deeply disturbing piece. Thank you for showing in gruesome detail exactly how the cult operates on the individual level—the inexorable progression from skepticism to acceptance as groupthink overwhelms. This is how it happens. Thank you.
Her daughter is being a normal 7 year old. First of all why is this mom obsessed over "crushes" at SEVEN years old? Second its completely normal at this age for them to suddenly start liking something that someone they like to spend time with does. Its medical malpractice for a pediatrician to not correct this mother of this normal behavior. This mother will end up destroying this little girls life so she can feel good about herself. If there are a lot of mothers like this the gender movement will destroy itself in a decade, but it will do a lot of damage... not good for this generation
The grooming of parents is part of the process. This mother was groomed to impose an external doctrine onto her daughter. Imagine this happening on a larger scale across the continent. Because it is.
If "children know who they are" and the child thinks she might be black, then I hope that Facebook group is willing to stand up for their principles and denouce transracephobia.
Mass Formation Psychosis. Indoctrination (in school and, as you say, TikTok). By the way, TikTok is owned by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party).
I can't believe that liking the color blue translates to gender nonconforming for a girl, what a backtrack this is. I remember toy companies, candy makers, ad agencies, what have you were protested for this pink&blue bullshit by feminists. Back to square one, what a load of crap.
There is a mental illness called munchhausen by proxy: https://www.webmd.com/mental-health/munchausen-by-proxy.
That might be going on here and intervention might be necessary.
My parody radar is activated. There’s a touch of the Titania McGrath going on here. It’s the interest in breasts that tips it for me.
Perspective from someone (age 21) who's come out the other side: in 2013, summer after seventh grade, I voraciously read lots of feminist and sexually progressive content online. One thing that struck me was how "trans women," which a young mind upon seeing the facts would interpret as "men living as women," were literally called she rather than he. I wanted to learn transgender etiquette, the right way to accommodate this minority. Soon I learned the concept of "genderqueer," "genderfluid," etc - which introduced me to the idea that being a man/boy or woman/girl isn't necessarily about what you're born as, but what you feel you are.
If a "trans woman" is just as much of a "woman" as a "cis woman" because they both have female minds, that raised the question: am I a girl? Do I feel like one?
At first, I thought, maybe I'm genderfluid, both a boy and a girl. I couldn't wrap my mind around whatever the "something else" or "neither" was supposed to "feel" like; I had no frame of reference. I just felt like looking at the fellow girls in school and my more socially adept sisters and representations of women in the media, I could never really click and feel like one of them. It seemed like they had a shared etiquette I couldn't grasp and general social preferences and attitudes I couldn't relate to. I was the gross unruly sister. I seemed to click better with boys, more intellectual, more crude, more goofy. So I received what seemed like an enlightening revelation that would tie it all together: I'm actually a boy! They diagnosed me with Asperger's in fifth grade, but my real diagnosis is that I'm weird because I'm supposed to be a boy!
This would mean transition was the solution, the way to show the world the real me, according to all the aspirational stories I read on blogs and Tumblrs. I picked boy names that resonated with me, felt so much more like me than my great grandmother's name I had. I was a Felix, a Julian, a Nelson, a Leo - the archetypical gross goofy nerdy little brother, a trope you'd never see a female equivalent of. I wrote a timeline of what I'd do when I had graduated and gone to college, the hair and the wardrobe and...the medical steps I was told were a part.
I'd never before had a problem with my body being female, just that it wasn't attractive in the right ways. (I'd already gotten into the pro-ED subculture, developed an early fascination with makeup, and fixated on my boobs not growing big enough to the point of even stuffing my bra!) But I figured physical transition was part of the package that would build my new life as a man, that once I'd see a male body, I'd know I was home. And wouldn't it be a relief to feel free from the pressure of comparing myself to other girls? I didn't care to be a super handsome man; male beauty standards really didn't affect me the way female beauty standards did. Just being a normal looking man would be enough. Even aside from the pressure of beauty standards, I liked having fun with materialistic feminine things, from nail polish to dresses to makeup looks to girly decorations. I didn't like that I'd have to give a lot of it up (although I thought, "Hey, I'm just an effeminate gay man, and if you accept them as men, why not me?"), but I was willing to do it to be accepted as a man someday.
The thought was *someday.* There was no way I thought I would be doing it in my youth. I never told any of my peers; I never thought they needed to know. My parents had very different responses to this plan.
My dad - who would become a Trump voter who enjoys Jordan Peterson and Tucker Carlson - flatly told me, "You're not a boy." If I were actually a boy, I'd like boy things that he knew I didn't like, and I wouldn't be into the very feminine things I like. He told me it was a phase. There are people who have real problems, so don't cry over it. He berated me. He did not make me feel understood and cared for.
My mom - who would be a vocal progressive supporting all the social causes du jour - privately told me she was concerned. This seemed like a very new development, and I was at a time when my hormones were surging and I wasn't fully developed. She asked, "Would you rather have a boyfriend or a girlfriend?" I said, "Boyfriend [always knew I was bi with a preference for males], but that has nothing to do with this." She understood, but I think she was trying to figure out who I really was in case I was living closeted and felt like I had nobody who'd accept me. She said it was too soon to make any changes, but she would emotionally and financially support my transition if this continued as an adult.
I don't think she even knew at the time that kids could transition. It wasn't mainstream. This was back when FtM and "trans*" were the common lingo, and really only in LGBT-focused spaces, not mainstream news; who remembers? She just responded in the way that any open-minded pro-LGBT person who wants the best for her kids would - fine with the outcome, as long as it was actually the right one. I wonder what she would've felt like she had to do to be a good mom if this had happened today.
I doggedly continued to think of myself as secretly one of the boys, forced to grow up as a girl. It imposed a lot of mental strain on me, growing up as a girl, seeing how I was different from the boys, but still having to mentally categorize myself as a boy and anticipate a future where I'd grow up to be a man. I wrestled with the question of am I really a boy? am I not a girl? what am I?, which is either dead simple if you classify people by their sex or meaningless if you don't. I was giving myself a problem I could've lived in blissful ignorance of. In February of eighth grade, I was like, nah, I'm not a boy. I still totally support trans people but I'm just not one. Maybe I was genderqueer or genderfluid, but I wouldn't physically transition.
Then, freshman year of high school, shortly after I'd privately come out to some online friends as non-binary, I stumbled upon radfem Tumblrs. Their answer to "what is a woman" was simple: someone of the female sex. Duh, why did I think there was any other definition, of "feeling like a woman," whatever that meant? Why was I so quick to accept that trans women were literally "women," a nebulous construct in someone's head that supposedly all "women" share, just to be polite?
I delved deeper, and the discussion of TIFs really resonated with me. Why did I ever think I didn't feel like a girl and instead felt like a boy, when I've never been in the head of anyone but myself? My sex affected how I grew up, and I wasn't alone in the alienated feelings I felt that made me want to dis-identify as female - it was all the more reason my sex was relevant in discussing the sex-based issues I shared with other women.
So there's my story. I'm glad today to be living free from sexual dysfunction and health issues that would've been caused by early transition, free from worries that I'm being perceived as the sex I am and need to change my appearance more, free from the feeling that even if it's stressful, I'd have to keep living as a man because otherwise the costs would be sunken and I'd be "proving them right." But it seems like many girls today won't be able to say the same thing when they're my age.
wow. it's always sad to read these stories, and worse that they are a dime a dozen these days.
also, the irony of this woman accusing her ex-husband of being the abusive narcissist is not lost on me. one could argue what "abusive" means and perhaps it isn't the best word, but narcissism seems to be a common denominator with most of these trans parents. it's telling to see all the celebrities with trans-identifying children now. no doubt that was an issue in this person's marriage and contributed to that husband being an ex.
one thing the article glossed over is the fact that the child did NOT actually experience same-sex attraction. in the post the mother clearly stated the daughter NEVER EVEN MET the girl she was supposedly attracted to, but she was just another player on roblox (a game played over the internet, where the players are represented by gender-ambiguous blocky avatars reminiscent 8-bit video game graphics.) sure the girl was "attracted" (to use the word loosely and not in a sexual fashion) to another child's in-game personality, but that does NOT constitute same-sex attraction. we should all know attraction isn't always based purely on the physical, but it's an undeniable component. particularly you you have to acknowledge "sex" (based on physical appearance) in order to identify whether or not one is same-sex attracted, and you cannot do that in this scenario.
There is an eerie parallel in these events. As I understand it, young girls are being seduced and bullied via the Internet into an unrealistic worldview (Abigail Shrier). Subsequently, parents ("mostly mothers") are being seduced and bullied via the Internet into the same unrealistic worldview. As a Biological Psychologist, it's of interest to me that we grant so much power to the anonymous voices that we read online. It seems to me that we should be able to simply ignore them. It's a fascinating dilemma.
Thank you for a very thought-provoking essay.
everythingisbiology.substack.com
What the difference between "Viewing though a Lens" and "Confirmation Bias"?
As a specialist in Endocrinology AND Gender Dysphoria, I can tell that the person who wrote this article has no idea what they're talking about. For one thing, I caught the part about the child having early puberty. This would be treated with a puberty blocker, such as Lupron, for any child whether cisgender or transgender. So mom is right. Two birds, one stone. Putting a pause on puberty has absolutely no adverse side effects, (except of course pain at the injection site, as Lupron is an every 3 month injection). When the treatment is stopped, the child will go through their body's natural puberty, so there is no harm whatsoever in delaying puberty for a few years. We do it for cisgender kids every day whose parents aren't ready for them to start going through that process. Also, how terrible to infiltrate these private groups where parents are asking for help and cherry pick one example that would fit your anti-trans agenda. Transgender children do have a 40% increased risk of suicide, so it isn't part of some indoctrination to tell parents that affirming them is the best thing they can do. It is life-saving. And there is nothing irreversible that is done to minors like this article implies. One last thing. Gender affirming therapist- that just means a therapist who will call the kid by their chosen name and pronouns. Otherwise they do all the same things a regular therapist would do such as listening, helping work through trauma, helping with introspection, growing as a person, etc. The article says "gender affirming therapist" like it's some scary thing when all it means is they won't turn away a trans/non-binary patient.
Over 150 comments, and you included how many? I wonder if maybe there's more to this story? Also, did you bother to ask whether the books of diversity included Bibles? Or traditional children's books? Or did you just insert what diversity meant based on your own views?
Also, I wonder why you're plastering a kids medical issues on the internet. Something about this "article" feels off. Also all the parts you DIDNT highlight add so much to this.... I wonder what else you didn't include.
This is a great article. This is what journalism is supposed to be: finding stories that are meaningful about the world and telling them.
Reading this woman's posts is like watching a slow speed train wreck. As an observer, you can see the train hurtling toward the cliff, but everyone on board is completely oblivious. What makes this story so powerful is that at the beginning, she sounds like a totally typical, suburban, slightly progressive parent. Within 60-90 days she's been sucked into facilitating the mutilation of her child. If it can happen to her, we all need to be on our guard.