ROGD Parent Support

[iamright17]

This is a new thread for parents who are experiencing the phenomenon of Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria in their tweens/ teens/ young adults.

Sadly we are being watched and our words taken out of context so please be careful what you say.

I want the UK and beyond to listen to parents. Even if it is deemed as anecdotal for now, it is important for someone to acknowledge our perspective. The trans narrative is trying to undermine our credibility.

My personal opinion is that it is very important to speak to the school to find out their position on affirmation and push back if needed. It’s a lot more complex than toilets and changing rooms. Having trusted adults around you referring to you as “he/him” etc and validating the belief that you are the opposite sex, can make future desistence very difficult. IMO, (and from speaking to detransitioners and non affirming psychologists/therapists) it can box a child into an identity and there is the risk of a long term psychological impact from having adults reinforce your belief.

There’s also the concern that the school will be try to be “helpful” and “supportive” by guiding the child towards “support” groups like Mermaids. In our case, the Year Head told me he had contacted LGBT Youth Scotland for guidance on how the school could provide additional support for our daughter- done behind our back.

I need to contact the school and find out the answer to all these questions.
It's a never ending list of things to think about and I can't stop thinking about it all the time. :(
I'm hoping it will become less stressful in time.

It’s been better for us since the school were told to back off. DsD has the grace to accept this may be a phase, even though it doesn’t feel like a phase’.

I’m hoping that the Oxford court case will result in schools examining their complicity in this.

safeschoolsallianceuk.net/legal-action/

Our big concern is how much time is being taken up by all this self reflection on gender and sexuality and how it will affect school work. DsD is a late summer baby anyway and it seems like all these sexuality concepts have been introduced before she had a chance to develop proper sexual desire for an actual person. These things really aren’t so complicated when they are real rather than theoretical!

Regarding activity - we took her rock climbing this holiday for the first time. She was very good at it. Looking for more physically challenging but not necessarily competitive options (but it’s a bit complicated to arrange while family activity due to little sister’s health).

FloralFestiveBunting this advice is so good.

"in terms of what we as parents can do to offset these techniques is, first and foremost, love unconditionally. Always an open door and listening ear. Be your child's strongest advocate.
But as has already been mentioned, don't fall for the drama. Part of the conditioning is the belief that their group is under very special persecution, and there is a constant adversarial undercurrent.
So, state your rules, but don't get drawn into slanging matches ..."

"You are much better off drawing you child's attention to the huge wide sphere of real life that will, hopefully, eventually make the obsessive internet-driven world of mastectomy scars, cutesy terms for experimental medical interventions and endless eggshell treading to make sure the most current terms are used for fear of cancellation, look like the pointless, empty shadow boxing it really is."

And I think that in the current climate that book (that someone may write) could get published. Maybe under a sydonum. I think enough people are now coming forward to say hang on tgis is an unprecedented phenomenon and it needs to be looked at more closely.

DuMondeB

Happy new year to you and everyone here.

"The attention seeking behaviour seems to have been suppressed at home and instead been expressed in school (DsD didn’t ‘come out’ personally, instead a teacher emailed the news along with a link to the local LGBT support group)."

I'd be very wary of support groups, depends if it is on line, in person or for the kids only. I know someone whose child had a very negative experience of someone they met through a support group. I know you cannot be wary of every one! I did encourage my young person to go to one, they went once and were not interested. I'd not recommend stopping kids mixing with others in safe environments but I would be wary. Especially about one to one with people they don't know. It's just common sense. Having things in common may build a false sense of security! Like you know them well. When really you do not.

"... told the school to back the fuck off and stop filling DsD’s head with nonsense about changing into a boy. She is still getting it from peers and popular culture of course (sodding CBBC!) but we are doing all we can to minimise influence." Well done. Sadly in our case it is not coming from school bit from young person themselves. The school have actually been very supportive and open and mostly been helpful.

"DsD’s hatred of her maturing body" yes, very sad. Our young person has this too. For us the attention seeking is looking different, acting different etc. Which is fine; but then not being happy being in the spotlight!

DuMondeB I am sorry for your younger child's medical issues. This must all be incredibly stressful.

Thanks! Littlest is doing remarkably well - luckily we are practically on the doorstep of a world class children’s hospital with an expert on her rare condition on permanent staff. We’ve seen the NHS at its very best...

Which makes the situation with DsD even weirder! We are used to trusting health care professionals and support groups - yet we clearly cannot in this climate.

The detransitioners event was particularly eye opening. 7 young women (plus Charlie, hosting) who have been badly let down by the current system, both in the UK and elsewhere in Europe.

I have been told that there are still some quietly critical staff at Tavistock and Portman (although those who were open about their croquet have moved on) and if you get one of those they will happily explore all issues via talking therapy. However, some staff are full on TRAs, so it’s pot luck as to who you get.

We’re just avoiding all doctors and all LGBT groups at present. It’s bloody everywhere though, DsD managed to get a pride flag at comic con :/

"The detransitioners event was particularly eye opening. 7 young women (plus Charlie, hosting) who have been badly let down by the current system, both in the UK and elsewhere in Europe."

Have you or others written about tgis anywhere? Will there be another event. I think politicians and members of NHS services for gender should all be sent to these events or asked to watch footage of them. So they know what is going on.

The videos are up but the sound quality is bad. Perhaps when the kids go back to school I will write something about the event from a ROGD parent perspective?
I’ve posted little bits here and there but possibly on thread that have been deleted/sunk without attention.

It was incredibly moving. I am full of admiration for the young women who spoke (and the HCPs on the first panel, who are speaking out at enormous career risk).

DuMondeB have you seen the Swedish detransition documentary?

The trans train and teenage girls.

Swedish documtary with English subtitles.

<a class="break-all" href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=m.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DoDV-ZL6-Gu0&ved=2ahUKEwiYxvno9eTmAhUSHMAKHbZ-ALkQFjAAegQIAhAB&usg=AOvVaw3Qg7eMxEXp88MQLxlWOO2E" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=m.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DoDV-ZL6-Gu0&ved=2ahUKEwiYxvno9eTmAhUSHMAKHbZ-ALkQFjAAegQIAhAB&usg=AOvVaw3Qg7eMxEXp88MQLxlWOO2E

Has anyone read anything by Hacsi Horvath?

Hacsi is great! I follow him on Twitter- loads of good information plus rebutting dodgy articles/research.

Anyone got an scientific info on the theory one's body and brain develop at different times on vitro?

The idea we develop a male or female brain at a different point in time to a male or female body.

I know their are structural differences in the size of the brain. I'm not saying I believe one's brain has a 'gender identitty' but rather that there are size distinctions that can be observed. Is this the case?

As predicted DD is now bugging me about using her 'chosen pronouns'. Bugging = screaming/swearing at me and relentlessly going on about it.
I've told her we won't do this as it will just reinforce her thoughts that she can be male.
She has asked if we will call her they/ them instead. I'd rather not at this stage because I think once we've given in to that, he/him will be next.
We've agreed to call her by her chosen name, but only because it's an abbreviation we used anyhow and as she points out, it's a name used by both sexes.
Any comments?

How do you deal with her other asd fixations if she has any? This is just that with fashionable knobs on I think.

Normally they aren't so objectional and we just 'smile and wave'.
This is all so emotional and it's made worse during the holiday season when we are all stuck at home together.
When she's back at school and has other things to thinks about, perhaps it'll be easier.

I think a gender neutral nickname is about as far as we’d go too.

No male or special pronouns - both because we aren’t affirming (although we do accept the distress is real) and because the inevitable slip ups will provide a stick to beat us with (and likely accusations that we are only pretending to be supportive anyway).

Luckily for us a slight variant of DsD’s name is male in many European countries (an accent denotes it as decidedly female in her mum’s country of origin, but it’s an obscure enough difference to not stand out in the U.K.)

We are following the ‘delay all requests’ advice as recommended by Sasha Ayad and Lisa Marchiano (along with a hard no for anything with the potential to cause irreversible changes/physical harm).

Clothes from the boys section are fine though, always have been in our household (more fabric and better pockets mean I buy lots of my own basics from the men’s section anyway).

I have bookmarked the Swedish documentary to watch when school goes back on Monday, thank you!

Poly it would appear to me that your daughter is demanding any pronoun change. When you said no to he it was can you say they. I wonder is this because she has a group of friends who are all doing the same thing and she feels pressured to belong. The hysterics would be a red flag to me. Who is she talking too? Who is encouraging this?

@iamright17 she has trans friends at school and online. I'm going to express my concern at the school influence when I talk to the HOY but the online lot are harder to deal with.
I've dialed down her Data allowance and we've shut off the WiFI at various times during the day and all night but I don't dare remove access altogether. We are looking at ways we can screen what she's doing though.

There seems to be an element of fear that she needs this sorted before returning to school after the holidays. Could she be getting bullied? She definitely seems to be worried about returning to school giving her sudden announcement and subsequent bartering. Are the trans friends new friends and was she not in a group of friends before? So many questions to ask but it seems this is not gender dysphoria but an attempt at belonging. The screen time is really important and at her age I would monitor it as much as possible. If she is on any social media you could ask to be on it as her friend. If she panics it might mean something dodgy is going on that she is hiding!!!

School refusal has always been a problem after every holiday. It's part of her anxiety, unfortunately.
The trans friends have been around for a bit but they definitely have more influence on her than they used to.
Sadly we have no way of monitoring her internet usage as she bypassed all our parental controls a couple of years ago. We have allowed her to have slightly restricted acess as we can use it get her to comply with most things- like going to school.
With hindsight we've made a lot of mistakes but we have two older daughters that we didn't have these sort of problems with.

Can I ask if spouses/partners are supportive? My DH is against the medicalisation of children and has agreed to not affirm/support social transition at home or at school (formally with teachers), but he doesn’t seem to think DD wanting to be a boy is much of a big deal/issue at all, really. He believes TWAW and is starting to drive me a bit bonkers.

@rodgmum I don't know if DH is that convinced or he's just trying to stop me from having a breakdown.
He has this annoying habit of playing the devil's advocate.