There's a moving account by a mother in an article written by Debbie Hayton Powerful, scary, heartbreaking, terrifying. The world needs to hear more real life stories like this. It's worse than conversion therapy... AIBU to think the 12yo is effectively in a 'conversion environment'?
link to article
here's some of the script:
“She always wore T-shirts and shorts; she didn’t like to wear dresses and skirts after the age of six,” said Jennifer. “She was very active playing outdoors with cars and trucks, and dug holes. She wasn’t stereotypically masculine; she was just an ordinary androgynous kid. When she was seven, she had her hair cut short and some people mistook her for a boy. We thought that was cute and funny, just fine.”
But by the time her daughter was 11, very different messages were circulating at school. “Earnest progressive people were talking about gender identity and she started to apply that notion to herself.”
The pressure from school had been insidious. “They had a trans student and a non-binary teaching assistant. Because of the adult who also went by they/them, they had to have a pronoun circle every time a visitor came into the classroom. No wonder she wanted to choose something more interesting than she/her.
“I don’t think this would have happened without this intense focus on gender identity every single day.” 😩😭😤😡
“Whenever she was thinking about being trans she got a completely different personality. Instead of being carefree, she was miserable. She shrank in on herself; she was scared to talk to people, and she didn’t want to go places in case she was misgendered. She got a haunted look on her face and told me that I didn’t understand her. It was like night and day – when she wasn’t thinking about gender, she was a normal kid.”
The contrast to Jennifer’s own childhood was staggering, “Where were all these trans kids who were not allowed to be their true selves when I was in school in the 1980s? There were no suicides in my high school. We have to question why this is suddenly happening.”
her daughter desisted as the world was locking down earlier this year in response to Covid-19. The response to the pandemic removed her from day-to-day contact with other trans-identified children, and it also gave mother and child the space to have a frank conversation, initiated by Jennifer, that finally broke the transgender spell.
"She is mentally healthier – more authentic in herself and less afraid of others’ perceptions.”
Related thread:
The effect of lockdown on transitioning teen girls
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3952739-The-effect-of-lockdown-on-transitioning-teen-girls
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Feminism: Sex & gender discussions
12yo daughter’s friends, teachers, trans teaching assistant pushed her to gender identity and trans - conversion environment?
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FindTheTruth · 06/10/2020 15:37
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