ROGD Parent Support

After the Maya Forstata case, I'm really struggling to come to terms with the idea that my view of my relatives gender identity (that I don't share, as I still consciously and completely see them as their born sex, not a vague "they" sex) will lead to me being fired, or worse.

Thankyou Iamright17!

Which is the way forward? Although not a parent, I've been talking with a friend who is a parent and a teacher of children, who is desperately worried about what they might be going to be expected to uphold, teach and do when faced with a child with ROGD.

He was trying to work his way through how to respond:

Allowing and enabling a troubled mind to take a path that will ultimately damage a perfectly healthy body with surgery & drugs?

Or helping a troubled mind to heal and reconcile with the reality of the whole healthy body?

We agreed the second is the obvious route - yet we've seen it condemned as "conversion therapy". He can't discuss it at work.

Thanks LangCleg

A new website and forum for parents of gender questioning kids who are wary of the affirmative approach. I know one of the women involved and so can vouch for it.

www.bayswatersupport.org.uk/

Hope it's of interest.

Thanks Hope

Thank you Hope. Much appreciated.

There is a question from a primary school teacher on the video in the following thread that might be of interest to ROGD parents.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3750528-Refreshing-insightful-discussion-Unwoke-Douglas-Murray-and-Titania-McGrath?watched=1&msgid=91891557#91891557

In other news, DsD has admitted that ‘this might be a phase, although it doesn’t feel like a phase’ so that’s good. Sadly her one and only social media account has a nickname referencing gender confusion.
We’re trying to keep it all low key and non combative as possible, while delaying all requests, not affirming, not refusing (ie ‘let’s decide about this request next summer, let me learn more about why/how in the meantime’)

This follows the advice given online by Lisa Marchiano and Sasha Ayad online. Wish we could access a similar therapist locally.

The next OurDuty Parental Support Meeting is in London on 18th January.

It is good to meet other parents in person. That feeling that you are not alone helps. There is also the opportunity to do something to reverse this trend, which can also be therapeutic.

It's really great to hear that children/teens are able to receive therapeutic options where you live Janes. It's essential that young people are given the chance to talk and explore and open up other possibilities about why they are having such distressing feelings.

Helping a child to understand themselves better, and come to terms with intense emotions about the relationship between their minds and bodies, is the very least we owe our children.

We are starting to see a generation of young women, often same sex attracted, who are being rendered infertile.

My own daughter doesn't seem to care about this - and from the start of her self-diagnosis was casually saying that she could adopt instead. The idea of adoption seems to enmeshed in queer theory culture.

This, and the surgical removal of their breasts, is what being trans means for so many young women.

It's born of a desperate need to 'prove' their new identify; to fit in and be accepted by their gender queer 'community'; to show that they are at the cutting edge of competitive queer coolness going the extra mile to be 'self determiners', or whatever similar phrase they have proudly tattooed on.

Any chance to talk and explore feelings before they're in too deep, and able to take independent action, has just got to be the way forward.

That's a really unfortunate loop.

Yes I do. I think GPs see “gender + children = way too complicated, needs specialist clinic”. And the clinics are automatically affirming. I don’t know where they get their CPD on this, I suspect directly from the clinic who say “refer to us”.

So do you think it's a GP referral problem ? They see GD and think 'clinic' and not 'paediatrician' ?

I wonder where GP's in AU are getting their professional development on this topic.

It’s much less to see a general paediatrician privately and a child would be assessed properly, but I agree it’s not free. The paediatric gender clinic is publicly funded at the local children’s hospital.

This is massive concern for me too in Aus. The gender clinics receive referrals directly from GPs. These children aren’t undergoing general paediatric assessment of their development and profile. I worry that as soon as they set foot in a gender clinic they’re already on a path they can’t step off.

I don't know how the gender clinics are funded, and what parents pay to access them. I do know that seeing a psychiatrist privately, before the family safety net kicks in, is going to price some families out. I think our first appt was something like $600 - but it was a proper intake interview with physical health, developmental history notes etc taken. Not everyone can get their hands on that cash.

And not everyone knows that you can access therapeutic support for gender dsyphoric children and teens outside of the clinics.

What I've noticed is that the dysphoric kids who get hived off to the gender clinics are receiving really different treatment to the kids who are getting psychiatric and psychological care outside the clinics.

This is massive concern for me too in Aus. The gender clinics receive referrals directly from GPs. These children aren’t undergoing general paediatric assessment of their development and profile. I worry that as soon as they set foot in a gender clinic they’re already on a path they can’t step off.

Apologies to all for replying to the poster I should have ignored.

Trans activists are so wildly and inappropriately homophobic themselves, that I think people using the argument above are really floundering. People in glass houses, and all that.