Mother's response to Penny Morduant's urgent inquiry into ROGD -

[ToeToToe]

Penny Morduant has ordered an investigation into the 4000% increase in teenage girls seeking gender treatment.

A mother tweeted a response:

"My baby's caught up in that number. As parents we resisted permanent changes and medical paths and opted for no rushed decisions, therapy and to ride puberty out. #watchfulwaiting #rogd"

And, dear god, the pile on she's had from certain twitter TAs. This is the social pressure to transition - being applied to both parents and children.

Some of the replies:

"The changes your child will experience in puberty are permanent. Blockers are only there to bide time. I hope your kid survives your abuse and doesn't off themselves, they deserve better. But when they stop talking to you, you'll deserve it."

"I really hope your kid doesn’t commit suicide as a teenager. I hope they cut you out of their life and bloom into an amazing adult."

"You’re the problem here. Your kid will hate you if they don’t commit Suicide first."

"Because your bigotry about being trans is far more important than your child's wellbeing and happiness. How dare you call your child ' your baby' when you are denying their agency and true self. How about supporting, instead of controlling your child?"

This last one is what gc parents and feminists have been warning about all along, surely? - that this is a form of grooming - parents are accused of "controlling" their child, of "denying agency"?! I thought it was pretty well-established in law and safeguarding that a child does not have the maturity required to make such a decision that could have such a serious impact on the rest of their adult life.

Where has this narrative come from? Why the pressure - aggressive, threatening pressure - for instant positive affirmation of pre-pubescent/pubescent children? - social transition, puberty blockers - an almost inevitable gateway to sex hormones and surgery. A life-long dependence on drugs that we have little knowledge of the long-term affects of, and those side-effects we do know of, are not good.

Honestly, I really hope this investigation blows this stuff wide open.

twitter.com/NAutonomes/status/1041488795835793408 Whole thread here.

I see some of those people are still insisting that puberty blockers don't have permanent effects, whereas we know well that a boy given them is unlikely to have proper male genitals if he decides to change his mind.

Awful.

Parental alienation
Pushing drugs with irreversible, lifelong, multi systemic effects on children, off label, with no prior research, no informed consent and no oversight.
Medicalisation of children and demedicalisation of adults.
Weaponising suicide threats.

Truly awful. That poor parent. I hope they realise they are doing the right thing.

I was amazed to see the investigation be launched. I thought they’d just wave it through...

[https://twitter.com/radfemfatale/status/1039534483098152961]]

Excellent thread on Lupron, which has been included in the responses.

Lupron's so far from a 'safe' way to pause puberty as to be ridiculous.

Poor woman, that twitter stuff is awful. What kind of people try to encourage medical experiments on confused children?? Thank goodness for the strength of love parents have for their children to help them resist the pressure but what a position to find yourself in

I might add, the mother is getting supportive responses from GC feminists as well - and she is clearly fairly knowledgeable and no shrinking violet - but my god, some of the things being said to her.

I saw that thread too, where commenters suggested that puberty blockers were the 'watchful waiting' approach. But host children who go on puberty blockers go on to have hormones too - so it hardly creates a blank canvas for the child to consider options, rather it's a canvas ready-primed for transition.

I am very concerned that there will be many important places that this inquiry just won't be allowed to go.

Stuffing drugs into physically healthy kids, eh?

Lupron, the drug so "harmless" that a significant percentage of patients refuse to take the full course recommended because of horrible side effects and that there's a class action lawsuit filed about.

It is horrendous to see people using the suicide threat. As if it’s not bad enough having your own teenager saying ‘If I can’t do X I’ll kill myself’, now a parent gets all the (physically or mentally) teenage supporters saying it too. Repellant.

I have a colleague whose child had a history of MH issues including self harm, eating disorders and selective mutism. She swears that Tumblr and Twitter (over a six week period) contributed to her daughter now transitioning into a 'gay man'. Said daughter is obsessed with niche accounts telling her that she is 'not alone'. Tragically, she is alone IRL as cannot, unsurprisingly, find any sort of kinship - heartbreaking
Daughter also lied, repeatedly, to doctors in order to support her transition. She alleged my colleague forced upon her feminine stereotypes - nothing could be further from the truth. Colleague was never given the opportunity to respond to this. They no longer have a relationship and, tragically, my colleague no longer has a daughter. The child is fond of randomly texting Mother that she only has a life expectancy of 35 - that old chestnut 🙄 Now if that isn't fetishising - I don't know what is 😕

*I should add that I'm a new poster - been hovering for months

Welcome, mssilversprings.

That must be devastating for your colleague

I had an excellent thread link on the effects of tumblr & the like - I've just tried to link it, and goddamn it, it's gone. Because the user has been suspended from twitter Another gc feminist lost from twitter.

It was basically about her experience of being on tumblr, and how socially awkward/isolated teens would join, and a few weeks later be calling themselves a non-binary trans demi-boi or similar. Social contagion - it's very real.

Some of the responses on that thread are truly awful.
People hoping the child hates her mum or kills herself. It's revolting.

@ToeToToe this doesn't surprise me? My colleague and I work: lecture in FE/HE. What is shocking is that daughter 'transitioned' during first year. She did not attend lectures for four months but was supported by the University's LGBT blah blah during that time. Colleague was completely unaware. So yes, when does 'support' become enabling or grooming, even? Where was the due diligence?

Urgh. How is twitter allowing this actual harmful posting to continue?

@ToeToToe thank you for the welcome 😊

@OlennasWimple they are complicit in Coercive Control IMHO as are some of the leading providers of HE - evidently

I've been pressing the 'squeal' button like a good'un on the 'helpful' anime-iconed responses all night.

I suspect they are mostly spotty young men with no axe to grind but a bandwagon to jump. The wording is all so gleeful and melodramatic. A bit like my teen when I suggest homework needs doing before computer games...

Since when do we take parenting advise from teenagers and strange men with a spanking fetish.

That mum is doing what the Tavistock Clinic advise surely (or used to) watchful and supportive. Medical care should be first do no harm. Not all these children are trans. They'd sacrifice them for their ideology.

And your child will always be your baby. Even when they are grown. It's an expression of love. Clearly not something that little selection of odious fools could ever get their petty little heads around.

That thread needs to be sent to Penny Morduant. Because that, right there, is one of the answers she is seeking.

Why do so many girls transition in their teens?
Because they are affirmed if they do, told they'll die if they don't.
Because from the very first question of 'am I trans?' The only available route is concrete trans affirmation, with punishment and threats directed at every person involved with that child.
Step tentatively once onto the trans escalator, and there is no stepping off.

Penny needs to see what the alternative is to being affirmed as trans. No alternative is allowed.

Those responses are awful. I won’t click on the link because it’ll give me the rage before bed.
If pm want to know what’s causing ROGD, a quick glance at that thread is enough. She won’t see though, and I doubt she’d care if she did.

I don't understand the need to live one's life out on social media. Of course getting abusive tweets is not acceptable but why did this person not send a letter or e-mail direct to Penny Morduant? What is the point of tweeting this?

I know this couple and interestingly enough the dad also posts on Twitter and hasn't come in for anything like the same amount of criticism although he has also tweeted about the success of his daughter no longer thinking that she is trans.

They have been on a devastatingly worrying journey with their lovely daughter and thankfully they are coming out the other end with an unsterilised unmutilated unmedicated child who may now go on to have a normal adulthood.