16 - Gender Dysphoria: What It's Like For Parents

You're listening to Gender, a wider lens. I'm Stella O'Malley, a psychotherapist in Ireland. And I'm Sasha Ayad, an adolescent therapist in the United States. Since 2016, my practice has been exclusively dedicated to gender questioning teens and families impacted by gender dysphoria. I also work with gender questioning teens. I facilitated support meetings for families and individuals who've

By gender issues. We're curious about the concept of gender and how it's unfolding in the wider culture. Join us as we look at gender through a wider lens.

Hi Stella. Hi Sasha. How are you? Doing great. I'm really happy to be doing this episode today. We're gonna talk about Something that I think is kind of like a an invisible victim group in a way, which is the parents of gender dysphoric kids. And, you know, you and I both um we create a lot of resources and opportunities to give parents advice on how to parent, but we're kind of covering something different today.

Yeah, I think ever since I first kind of got immersed in this world a few years ago, I have been kind of my eye has kind of been Turned towards, I wonder what it's like for the parents of all these children that are part of this extraordinary explosion. And where are they? And as a result of my because I've written a couple of books on parenting already, and I'm very interested in kind of the the dynamic in families.

And so as a result of that, somewhere along the way, um, I was asked by a few parents if I'd run some therapeutic support meetings. And in the end we we started the Gender Dysphoria Support Network. Very much to kind of help families that have been impacted by gender dysphoria, and by and large, it's it's parents who come in, and so there's

But it's great and it's been running since last April and it's still we've hundreds hundreds of parents have come through our meetings, which is great. Um but The the thing I've really noticed from having these meetings, we have two to three a week and more, actually more book now, four a week, um, is this feeling of It's so lonely. It's so lonely and isolating.

To be a parent of a child that you have one version of what's going on and it seems like the whole world is giving you a different version on your child. And I I really think they come they come to these meetings shipwrecked, isolated, traumatised, desolate. And it's it's I think really people who know parents of of trans children or of gender dysphoric children or of children who are gender co questioning, they need to be given some room to kind of process what's going on.

because it's it's being ignored. I think it's been ignored as a concept. That isolation and that loneliness definitely feels true. You know, at this point for me I've been contacted. I try to keep track of um on my website and things. I've been contacted by about fifteen hundred families. And I've consulted with probably around 500 at this point. And there really is a sense of

kind of not knowing who to trust, feeling in a way betrayed by a lot of the professionals that they've met. And it can become really uh an isolating and kind of paranoia inducing almost. type of experience. And so today we we just kind of wanna share what we've learned about these families and how difficult this can be.

And just kind of honor the parenting experience. We know a lot of people are looking for tips, tips, how do I help my kid, how do I help my kid, which we we get it and that's why we've kind of created so much for them. But we really want to just be able to kind of bear witness to what that experience is like for the parent.

Yeah, yeah. And there's different experiences because it seems to be and we've even broken up our meetings between parents of girls and parents of boys, because actually it's a very different experience. And not only that, there's a massive difference between parents of children who were like me, kind of gender non conforming and intensely so from maybe two or three years old. That's one sort of experience which is very, very different to the parent of the O G D child.

Who kind of you know suddenly blasts out at fourteen, having always been girly to say I'm a I'm a boy and I always was. So we start off maybe with Parenting a non-conforming young child, the classic parenting me when I was a kid, the kind of the the kid who for no rhyme or reason, just from the moment they can speak or communicate, suddenly says, I want to be the opposite. And I think that's very unsettling for a lot of parents. Yeah.

Uh it makes me curious, how did your parents handle your childhood? I I was the classic third child, so you could thought the child c third child gets ignored, so I was very much left to it. Um so uh they they didn't they didn't have strong uh they didn't have strong response. It was the eighties and uh it was just rolled on by very little comment was made, uh very much lip service, oh yeah, yeah, yeah. No, whatever, Stella. You are whatever you want to be. And I think that was the best for me.

I think we're I know um I know an awful lot of people these days and there's other parts of my my childhood w which were pretty dreadful but like I think that was actually what I needed. I think it was just the freedom to not be commented about, not to be asked in a serious way, Well Stella, you're five now.

W w do you want to transition? Do you really want to be by I'm glad I didn't have that because I I think It would have given me a power, it would have given me a a choice and things like that that would have derailed me.

And I think parents these days we're so involved and we're so loving and we're so intensely kind of onto every stage, whether they're weaning properly, whether they're walking properly, whether they're talking properly. They see my little boy was slow to talk. Well, my God, I'm an expert on geniuses that were slow to talk.

because of course I had to study it. And so when you've got a child of a gender non conforming in this climate, those parents are are basically asked by society, I would argue, well what are you going to do? What are you doing? For your gender non conforming child. And they write letters, they write to me and to you a lot of them, with long detailed analysis of what they were like with two and three and four and five and these children might be only five and a half.

And their entire gender analysis, i their gender history has been really scrutinized. And the classic, you know, let children be children has been really dumped. Yeah. Y your parents in a way were lucky too because I mean you're saying, I'm lucky that I didn't get that choice and your parents were lucky.

that their neighbors aren't gonna give them some kind of glance of like, why aren't you supporting your gender nonconforming child? Or why haven't you assessed what's wrong with your child? I mean There was a a way in which the adults at that time were able to just kind of let things unfold, see how it goes. And I know that these days there there's definitely a certain type of parent cohort.

that is monitoring and and observing their child very, very closely, very carefully, with lots of love and hopes and expectations and if something seems different. they might be inclined to try and figure out, you know, does my child need anything special? You know, I think these are well intended parents. Is there anything I should be doing? I just want to make sure I don't mess up my child. I hear that a lot.

And so um there is there is a tendency to take a child to a professional and try to figure out what might this child need. And what happens there is really in some ways kind of shocking what what happens with the young kids who turn up at a gender clinic. I guess before before we talk about the gender clinic experience, what do you think it's like for parents when their kind of social network, their friends, their family is pushing them to

You know, what's going on with Stella? You know? What do you think that's like? I think those parents feel on the defensive'cause they feel like you say, there's a there's a general rush to professionalise every experience and to get the professionals in if if something isn't, you know, reaching the milestone. You know what I mean? The developmental cues. And they always I not always, but so many parents say, I fear they'll be bullied. And I fear they'll be bullied almost drives everything.

And so they dash off to where do I go? Is it a playtherist? Is it a gender specialist? Whether it's for speech or for they're not playing quietly or they're playing too quietly or you know what I mean? We're we're we have professionalized kind of all these experiences. Well I don't know if professionalized, we've commodified it anyway, but we certainly We've pathologized. We've pathologized a lot.

Yeah, we have. And so I think that an awful lot of uh parents of of gender nonconforming children feel the pressure to get to the specialist quickly. And Um you have to be quite strong in yourself not to do anything. I've noticed quite a few, not only parents, but aunts and uncles have contacted me about

the gender non-conforming nephew or niece. And it's done out of love and it's concerned and in fairness there's they're lovely, lovely emails. But again, are we doing it right? So there isn't a feeling of let kids be kids. That that concept seems to have gone and it's more like make sure kids are hitting their milestones and acting in a developmentally appropriate and socially develop socially appropriate way or else Can we bring them to somewhere to see if they're okay?

And uh um I I do think an awful lot of these children and statistics would bear me out and research would bear me out that they will be gay. Not all of them, um, but a lot of them will be. And I think it might be interesting if you if you're a very masculine man and if you're you kind of you haven't had much experience of of of being around gay people, you could be unsettled by your very camp little boy.

And you do hear about this and you do hear about a lot of parents who are thrown by it. It's been it's been I know parents have been kind of accused of being homophobic and transing the gay away and there are a lot of stories about that. uh that they'd rather have uh you know a trans child than a gay child. So you do hear of that a lot. I don't I don't see that.

But I do I I do hear of those stories and I've certainly I've heard them on on YouTube. But I think it would be unsettling. I think it would be unsettling for somebody to think that. To think I oh my God, my child is so camping. And I'm a big burly man. Hmm. You know, you you might see the child isn't really fitting in with the other kids and they're maybe not having a successful time socially at school. So those types of distresses will bother any parent.

Um, and you know, I think I think we appreciate really easily how, you know, at least I talk a lot about how when the concept of gender identity enters the culture, it kind of takes the place of so many other ideas. The same is true for parents. Parents are just as susceptible to being swept up by a cultural concept as are younger people.

And when you when you think about the experience of parents who have a gender nonconforming child these days. They might wonder, you know, oh, is this maybe one of those trans children? And I think unless you are a person who has really actively started to look into this idea and started to question the concept of the quote trans child.

I can understand how parents are swept up by that concept. And, you know, I don't want to make it sound as though they arrive at those conclusions on their own because I have heard from a lot of incredibly thoughtful, caring parents. who took their child very reasonably to a psychologist when the child was young and said, you know, we we know that our child's really different. We just want to make sure we're giving them what they need.

And they're referred to the gender clinic. And the kinds of conversations that happen in a gender clinic are so utterly shocking, Stella. I mean, I if if I had not heard these stories corroborated over and over, I wouldn't believe them. Yeah. Because these professionals

speak with absolute insistence and confidence that this child has an innate gender that they were born with, you can't change it, they're not gonna grow out of it. And as a matter of fact, if you don't socially transition this child, This is going to put the child at a huge risk of suicide. And I mean, if you're a parent who already can sense that your child is maybe a little different, maybe they do have needs that are different from other kids.

You already have on your radar that I might need to do something unusual for this child because they're kind of different. Yeah. And so hearing that terrifying, you know, outcome that you're going to make your child suicidal if you don't do this.

You think, Well, to hell with it, of course I'll put my son in a dress. What's the harm? I mean, I just want him to be happy or her, you know, at that point. So there's a lot of um A lot of manipulation that happens in gender clinics and and oftentimes I will get contacted by families maybe a few years into the social transition with one of these young kids.

that when they realized that these clinics are pushing a medicalization very young, that's when they had a light bulb moment and they said, Holy crap, like what are we doing? This place is pushing my child in a certain direction. And I think that's when the absolute terror sets in of like we knew something was weird about this in our gut, but we felt so disoriented, you know, by the whole experience.

And what what it's been sold as is that uh to socially transition your child, i.e. to put your child in the stereotypically um the conventionally opposite sex activities and clothes is the free and liberal thing to do. when it could be argued that it's more free and liberal to just let the child be the name that you gave them, be the pronoun that you gave them, wear what they wish to wear, and um to defy gender expectations.

And instead socially d transitioning the child in a way is not defying, it's going with gender kind of traditions, i.e., if you are a boy and you want to wear a dress, you must be a girl and therefore you should be she, her and change your name. And um I I I think a lot of the the parents out of a a feeling of I'm trying to support my child and this is so strange and difficult cognitively, they become these trans parents who become so intense.

about the entire experience. Their life gets consumed by it. The other children can be a little bit neglected and they just go for completely the the the experience of the trans child, the trans parent. And they've been told by society they're saving the child's life. They've been told by society this is the most serious thing in this child's life, and you really need to kind of get on board and get on board fast. When activated they just let the child just

do what they needed to do. It would have been rocky, but it wouldn't been necessarily this early intervention is is very shaping for the child because it's hard for a child to come back from. And I don't think we have much research on this, but it seems to be I meet the parents too who have socially transitioned their children at a very young age. We're talking four and five.

And to try and come back from that, if you've been half your life up until four you've been he and from four till eight you've been she and then at eight you're trying to come back, you've kind of you you've got a complicated identity. And there's something to be argued with. Let's not focus. This focus on names and pronouns is really disorienting. And bathroom.

The children are really full on about the bathrooms and what bathrooms should they use and should they get separate bathrooms. And once they get the child gets separate bathrooms, I think immediately now we're into territory of fighting for the rights of your child. and uh that the the child's experience is not only pathologized but adultified. That they're kind of they're living an adult life of a political a political life is what they're living.

And it wouldn't it be nicer if we if we taught kids that just, you know, this whole are you a boy or a girl? It's very oppressive for these kids. And I wonder should should we teach the kids to let let kids have short hair? My God, I can't believe I'm saying it. It's so obvious, but yeah, let kids have short hair, let boys have long hair, let boys have dresses.

You know, l let there be a looseness to this a little bit. Um to go back to the parents though, I wonder with parents you've worked with who have socially transitioned their young kids How do you find it's been for them? Cause like I definitely see that they will have like an kinda just to say honestly, an oh shit moment, like oh shit, I think this was been a big mistake.

Uh have you seen that as well? Yeah. Horrifying. A horrifying moment of oh my God, I thought I was doing the right thing by my child. And um it it turns out I remember somebody making this very evocative image of it's like the good doctor in the horror movie takes off his mask and actually he's the monster. And I I I just think it's such a shocking image.

And I can see how you'd feel that you're suddenly in the doctor's office and they're blandly talking about puberty blockers and they're blithely talking about being on tr um medication for the rest of the child's life. and that they won't be able to have children and that their their you know, their sex life is compromised and and the parents are like, Oh, I I I just thought we were just socially transitioning and seeing what will happen.

And uh the the parents feel almost like a slate of hand has happened, that they thought they were being liberal and just letting the kid be who they were, be their true self and it would all come good. And then suddenly they're like, I'm in a medical process here.

And I I didn't realize I was in it. Mm-hmm. Yeah, parents who uh get to that point and contact me often feel Like they start researching, you know, other voices that say, you know, actually childhood transition is serious and it's not something to be flip about. And then what I what I start to see is they will feel really ashamed. How could I have been led down this path? How could I not know that this is not good for my child?

And there's a lot of guilt and a lot of like self kind of flagellation of like, how did I let this happen? And what I try to explain to parents is that There's a slow process of psychological manipulation that has happened to you. And you have been kind of told in subtle and not so subtle ways over and over and over again that a good parent does this, a good parent does that. And so when you become disconnected from your parenting instincts.

That is why you have found yourself here and you you should not blame yourself because this is really subtle. And I have I mean I've talked to enough parents who have been to like these very affirmative kind of support groups for trans kids and they've told me if you ask a question You will have the professional like roll their eyes at you, or step out of the room, or basically disapprove of a parent.

having any questions. And so these kinds of group dynamics are really manipulative. And when you study social psychology, you realize You know, it's quite scary to be told by the authority figure in the room that you've done something bad and that you're a bad parent. And so in just as we recognize that sometimes young teenagers are susceptible to these social influences and ROGD.

Parents are also vulnerable when they are going to these supposed professional settings backed by huge educational institutions and big name doctors. told over and over and over again these messages and they are also influenced by this idea. Yeah, and there's a loss of parental confidence. And when you lose your parental confidence you kind of lose your your

Your sense of yourself, because your entire kind of feeling of control in the family life has been taken. You've given it over to professionals and then suddenly you don't trust the professionals and you're afraid to take it back. And so you seek other professionals. and you go on this intense, kind of crazed, kind of um obsessional information gathering and you try to find the right professional and it's as lonely and as heartbreaking as can be.

generally puberty is is coming fast and you're frightened of puberty and the child has been almost made to feel frightened of t puberty because that's how it's spoken about a lot. As opposed to the child who might have had a difficult puberty because they were gender non conforming, they presented in the opposite sex. They didn't quite know how to handle puberty, so it is difficult and we must you know, we must work on that and do an episode around that.

I really think when when the puberty blockers are kind of the will we or won't we, the child wants them, the child has heard about them, they're driving for them. I've realised that this is medical transition and It's not the pause button that it's kind of been flagged as. That's when the parents b become very panicky. And that's when they find us very often, when they realise P blockers are are are becoming a kind of a

uh the beginning of the medical transition. And then I feel an awful lot of them they like I say before, they've made they make trans their full time job. They're at this stage they can't think of anything else. And very often there it's a PhD level of information and everybody else is just looking on. And so many parents have come to me and say, I changed the school policy. I change the policy around bathrooms. I did this and now I'm absolutely horrified. I wish I didn't.

I made them all I made this bathroom issue so much more serious than actually it needed to be if I could only. But there's more than one type of um parent of a gender dysphoric child. And that that is the very classic child. And they get through puberty or they don't. And if they're like me, they kind of roll all over the place and have a difficult time and they come out.

Generally, I suppose my very strong point around this is if you want to take puberty blockers you're blocking their sexuality. If you block their sexuality, they can't find their sexuality and you've intervened in a way that you'll never know. You'll never know. what how you might have changed the direction of their life because you have blocked their sexuality by letting them have puberty block.

And I wonder if the if the gender clinics were saying that as concisely as you just said it, I don't think many parents would opt for puberty blockers. They're just They're given such a 'Cause it's like a white lie. They're they're told so little about the true ramifications and so it's minimized and it's it's made to seem

like a very palatable, very commonly accepted practice where really we are we are in this like twilight zone of medicine right now. And so it's very hard for parents to actually discern what is and is not reasonable treatment for this child. Yeah. And just just like a little bit about the research, it sh says in and around eighty percent of children who don't have med therapeutic or medical intervention or I should say medical intervention.

Mae'n llawer o'r dysphoriadau ac mae'n llawer o'r dysphoriadau ac mae'n llawer o'r dysphoriadau ac mae'n llawer o'r dysphoriadau ac mae'n llawer o'r dysphoriadau ac mae'n llawer o'r dysphoriadau And um if they take puberty blockers, that eighty percent reduces to naught to five percent. Like it's it's literally that much. It goes goes down that much.

Because if you start puberty blockers, you're massively you're 95% likely to end up Transitioning And so by taking puberty blockers it it it's a massive step and it's being told it's a pause button.

There's huge scenarios going on. But could we move on to parenting, let's say, the the rapid onset gender dysphora kid, the OGD kid, because I do want to give some time to their experience. Because once you're your child imagine you've got the gender dysphoric child and they go on to puberty block'cause now you're the parent of a trans kid and that's the political life I think you're on, really.

Yeah, I mean just to say that, you know, I think we're we're contacted, of course, based on our perspective, most often by parents who have either just recently begun questioning or have always questioned the narrative of childhood transition. So we're seeing a certain kind of group of parents. Yeah. But but there's also the activist parents who are proudly

booking their quote trans kid for media appearances and starting organizations based on their trans child and giving TED talks about gender identity. So there's also a different kind of parent. that is is not like our parents who are reluctantly going along with the medical advice of professionals feeling like something is off, but they go full force activist class.

And they have made their child's transgender quote status their entire identity as a parent. And I mean, there's something really interesting about that that feels troubling to me. Yeah, very much so. It is a whole, like say, a class, a category in itself, the transparent. And uh they're probably the people who most uh target other people and make sure that they they promote this idea of trans children and they are very, I would say, very intense.

about silencing anybody who says, Well, are they trans children or is that an appropriate? I heard Doctor David Bell, the uh governor, the ex governor from the Tavistock say They're not trans children. We can't term it like that. What we need to realise is these are children with gender dysphoria who may or may not one day transition. And to call them trans children is foreclosing.

And it's narrowing their options and it's it's narrowing their identity because they have yet to explore it. And fundamentally they've yet to explore their sexuality. And they will only explore their sexuality if they can go through puberty. And that that will bring them into their natural sexuality, you know?

So then we've got the Oro G D kids. Completely different experience. It couldn't be more different. You're you're rolling along, you've got this child and they're just gender conforming, they're Let's say it's a girl, she's wearing her dresses, she's wear she likes her pink, she might go a bit quiet, she gets into her tech, and then one day, often with a letter left on a pillow or, you know, a in a very kind of and then it all changed.

And they say I'm a boy, I was never a girl, this has always been happening, and uh I now want you to call me by my boy name and he him. And these parents are having the most The kind of like a a shock, a serious shock to their like a seismic kind of divide between the day they they get the announcement and the day that they before. It's it's unbelievable how this happens in the family.

I say huge amount of you are fifteen hundred or however many are those parents, are they? That's right, that's right. And I see such a kind of variety of responses. I think sometimes parents they kind of look at each other and they go, Okay, dear, you know, they think this is just one of those teenage things, you know, declaring your identity. And at first they They don't take it super seriously. And then when the child says, I want to get on testosterone, they go, Whoa, whoa, what? What?

And there's that's when things change. Some other families I think They they think, oh my God, I have a like a transsexual child, and they immediately go into depression mode. And they think this child's life is going to be so hard. I can't imagine this child. changing sex and getting surgeries and sometimes this is before they know that rapid onset is even a thing. You know, they think that this is just some lone wolf odd situation. And they are devastated. Devastated.

And s some parents have this experience where they um they're so pro trans and they're so happy with all the trans kids coming out and it's fine and then it happens to their family and they go, No, no, no, no. No, no, I know this child. Th this child isn't trans because I know them. I I I've I gave birth to them, I've raised them and I know them and th they're quite clearly not trans because I know my child. And uh society says, No, you don't.

And they are left in a r in a whirlwind of what is going on. And generally they go on the internet. and they go very deep into kind of there's a kind of an arc of shock Slight denial and then the internet.

And they research and they research and they re I get the impression they barely sleep for the first few days. Yeah, I totally get that impression. I often tell parents, you know, there's an interesting parallel process happening here. You have a daughter who's obsessed with trans. And you have a mom who's obsessed with ROGD.

Yeah. And I do think that they go down the rabbit hole just like their child did in some way. Now, in fairness, like the reason we started the G D S N the Gender Dysphoria Support Network was very much based on Alcoholics Anonymous, AA. And when that was started in the thirties by Bill, he was an alcoholic and he started AA. And then a couple of years into it, his wife started Alan because she said, as obsessed as the alcoholic is with alcohol,

The partners are as obsessed with the yeah, with the partner's alcoholism. And she realised we we the family get as sick, we get as obsessed with their sickness. Do you follow me? So yeah that that was a well established concept that I knew all about. So Al Anon is a very deep organisation that says we have to let con go control of the the person we love who's alcoholic. Now it's different if it's a child and your child is thirteen.

But it is a very much a parallel that as as as obsessed your child is with ex, you become obsessed with their obsession. Mm-hmm. And it's fair enough. I can see how it happens. What's of course what strikes me is when the these ch these parents kind of stumble into the meetings kind of wide eyed and shocked.

and desolate, almost like they've they've landed into a kind of a from they've been shipwrecked like is how they look. You know, they really do feel they look so isolated. They they seem so lonely. That's the big word that I think. These these parents are incredibly lonely. They've stayed up late at night. They have found a whole world that they didn't know about.

They have found a whole underworld they didn't know about, and their neighbors, their friends, their sisters, their mothers, their fathers don't get it. And they don't understand why this parent who seems so liberal and so loving is suddenly weird about this one thing and it doesn't make sense. And all the parents often say in in the meetings is, yeah, until it happens to your child.

There there's a lot of loneliness because uh for many reasons, I think sometimes there are families who have also been keeping this a complete secret. So you're talking about when they try to share this information with others and people don't get it, right?

Maybe you have a very your child's in a very liberal progressive school and the teachers all think it's great and they're celebrating it and you feel misunderstood and betrayed by the staff there. But but what happens when This is a complete underground secret and the family is just kind of drowning in all this ROG de information and have to put on kind of a a total pretend face. in front of grandparents, aunts and uncles and nobody knows and they they don't wanna share it with anyone.

And they don't want to share it often because they don't want to solidify what they feel is a fake identity. And so it's fair enough in a way that they're trying to manage their child and they're trying to kind of protect their child, but it's a heavy, heavy burden on the siblings and on on the parents and on everybody to keep a secret.

And then there's also like if you parent, especially the boys, these boys often have no interest in social transition. They've no interest in anything. They're just saying, Give me the drugs. I just want to I want to kind of medically transition. And so I've I've met a lot of parents who say, Well, I'd be crazy to tell my my family and friends because they're not making any effort to socially transition. They're just declaring it and they're waiting until they're old enough to get their drugs.

So it's a very complicated place for the parents to be. And what I I find is people want to simplify their complicated position. rather than understand and we do that with all mental illness. If you're the parent of any child who might have any sort of well, not even mental illness, any sort of complicated condition. Mm-hmm. We want to simplify it and say, Oh, oh, w where they bullied or oh oh

Yeah, you know, I I understand that. My sister had that. And they we want to simplify it. We want to kind of packed up and figured out in a sentence or two and some sort of it'll all be grand because we're all very nice here. And sometimes parents are saying, No, uh it's I I'm not sure it'll be fine. Actually I'm very scared and nobody's giving me room.

to being scared and to being questioned and I'm being called transphobic every time I turn around when actually I'm just trying to figure out is my child taking the right route? And I'm not sure they are. Yeah, I mean I think that's that's kind of the interesting thing. Parents who uh talk about their child's gender dysphoria They're greeted or they're met by by others with, Oh, congratulations, that's so great and oh you must be so proud of how brave this child is.

When really, I mean That's such a sort of Such a simplified canned response to anything, to anything. I mean, even if it was something objectively wonderful, like. You know, my daughter got into the finals in so and so sport, it's great. And also guess what? There's a lot of pressure. Yeah. Maybe she's early sleeping. Maybe she's so stressed about the performance. So it's like even with objectively positive things.

These things are very complicated and I I d I do find it probably just very, very difficult for parents. when the adults in their life respond in this celebratory manner, which doesn't really honor the fact that the parents are having a lot of really conflicted questions and feelings about their child. Yeah, there's this cult of positivity that we have to be positive no matter what the decision is, no matter what going on. Great, great, sure it'll all be great. And maybe maybe not.

I do think the parents have to work very hard in proving to themselves that they're not bad for questioning the child's um trans identity. And they ha they kind of they they kind of burst in and they say, I'm liberal, I voted X and I I did this and I marched for LGB and they're you know what I mean? They're saying this very strong, like kind of almost like a shield. Don't call me a biggest.

And uh I I think that must be heart wrenching. Heart wrenching. Especially when they confide in their friends or their family, and the friends of the family just look at them in distaste and say, Are are you transphobic? Why why can't you just accept it?

Um I do think that um it can be tricky waters when you realise that the child has a developing sexuality that the child perhaps isn't admitting. So very often maybe parents might say, I'm sure they're lesbian and I'm sure they don't want to be lesbian. And they said they were lesbian and then they turned around and said they weren't. They were actually trans.

and there's internalized, you know, homophobia going on. And another tricky one is when you think when the parents have figured out there's an extraordinary porn habit. going on that I wasn't aware of and that I've suddenly become aware of since I start tracking my my child's tech. Why am I tracking my child's tech? Because I learnt about it. I learned about how this is so kind of technology induced

all of this. So I think that can be really hard for parents because they're like, How can I tell anybody that my child is, you know, obsessed With with maybe I don't know. porn or my child is actually really a lesbian, but they they don't know they are. Because people just look at them and go, What are you on about? You intrusive, controlling nut job. Like, who are you to discuss this about your child? And then I think, but actually

We never stop thinking about our children when we have them. We never stop thinking, I wonder, will they do this? And I wonder are they that. And we we never stop. And we're kind of forced into thinking about their sexuality once gender comes in because It's closely aligned and so suddenly you're thinking things about your you're wondering things about your children that mostly I think we kind of biologically stay away from.

You're talking about the sexual development, that kind of thing. Yeah. I think it's kind of natural for us to just kind of say, Oh, I just hope they develop off they go. It's not something I should involve myself with. But if there is what the parent feels like is a false gender identity developing, they kind of feel forced into becoming involved in the sexual development that they think is being missed. Mm-hmm. And they are very uncomfortable waters for the parents.

Yeah, I think it can go so many ways. I mean, we just did an episode a couple of weeks back on adolescent development. And what's really difficult I think for parents is that they might have let's say the wisdom of adulthood. and the intimate knowledge as a parent of like what they think is going on for their child. And I mean, of course, sometimes parents are wrong. You know, we've interviewed people whose parents were very

misguided about what they thought was best for their child. So it's not that parents always get it right, but you know, when you do have this sense that I think my child, for example, is gay and has internalized homophobia. And you try really, really hard to show the child that. I mean, there are some parents who are afraid to talk about sexuality and there are some parents who are just trying to tell their child, I think you have internalized homophobia. I think that's why you're dysphoric.

And th the kind of um like desperation that parents feel to prevent a transition that they think doesn't need to happen can be so palpable And it can be really um just this number one driver that parents feel like I have I am responsible for getting my kid out of this confusing place. Precisely because the rest of the world Is shouting transition, transition, transition. So it's just it's so lonely for so many reasons.

And very often the names and the pronouns come in and they come in hard and the parent does not know what to do. And maybe the close family and friends, if the if it's not a secret, if it's a secret There's a whole other thing going on, but if it's not a secret, maybe the family and friends go with the new name, the new pronouns, and the parents are looking like the last standing bigot because they will not change the name and the pronouns, the school changes it.

The friends change it and they're kind of go I'm getting letters addressed to my to my son and and I I haven't actually I I haven't agreed to this and the child is thirteen. And I I don't know what to do and I'm so scared. And there's a feeling of a complete this is out of control. Nobody's in control of this as in I'm the parent and I'm not in control and there's a juggernaut.

The juggernaut has taken off. And I I really think that that never in my life did I think names and pronouns would become such a massive issue. Yeah. Yeah. And it's it's it's Agonizing for the parents when they figure out people have changed their child's name and their child's pronoun. I remember one parent saying, you know, the first word I said to my child was their name. It really mattered. I had picked it. I knew it. I put them in my arms and I said their name.

I know. It's so sad, you know, and the whole the whole way that the rest of the world is kind of going against the parents. I it it makes me remember so many conversations I've had in consultation where You know, parents, just like you mentioned, they start out trying to prove to me that they're not bigots. You know, I pr you know, if this is what's best for my child, I'm a hundred percent happy to be behind them but

I'm just a little nervous or I don't know if this is who she really is or whatever. And then when we start to have the conversation and I start to share You know, the very legitimate reasons to be reserved. Sometimes parents cry because they have not heard another adult validate what they were feeling. And it's so incredibly powerful. um to to have your parental authority

validate it. I mean our our entire society would not operate if we didn't at some level trust that parents know what's best for their children. And parents are generally loving and engaged and

Are willing to go the extra mile for their children, mostly. I see a couple of different reactions in the meetings. Some parents come in and Within a couple of minutes their eyes kind of go very wide and they're looking around and you can see they're kind of having a very emotional experience and they're realizing Oh my God, these parents are are are saying something similar to me. Then there's another type of parent who kind of sits down and says, Well, you'll never guess what's happened to me.

And they talk and then they realise, oh no, actually when other parents talk, they realise, oh Oh, this has happened to everybody. Because they think they're the only person in the world. So there's kind of there's two big responses that I've noticed. But in fairness, there's a whole other I know listeners will be saying, hang on a second, Sasha and Stan are missing something. And I know that they will be saying that they're very much the gender conforming parent.

Who has urged their child to be gender conforming all their life and it hasn't gone well. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Yes. I mean This is this is really uh very, very hard and you know, we were just talking about this with one of our guests. Sometimes a family will have, you know, made jokes about gay people and like made fun of people who aren't conforming in their gender. I mean, they don't use those terms, but you know, if a woman doesn't look feminine they'll make a comment about it or whatever.

And then the kid comes out as trans and after doing a little bit of research the parent says, Well, why can't you just be a lesbian? And it's like, well, you know, she's heard for fourteen years how gross that would be. And so now it's gonna be really hard for you to say, No, I promise we accept that. It's just Yeah. It doesn't ring true either. Yeah, no, it of course doesn't feel authentic when a kid hears that.

Um and I remember I remember one one I forget let me think about it, yeah, it was the child. The child said, My my hairy legs disgust my mother and my mother's bare legs disgust me. This is that's like fair enough. Yeah. Yeah, so I mean, f parents have parents have their own kind of visceral reaction to seeing their child um behaving, dressing, appearing in a way that really is

Maybe not it's not how they would have chosen. And uh this is also part of the parenting task as a as a process, you know, accepting that you're Teenage child is not exactly who you wanted them to be. They are going to be their own person. Now that's not to say that you have to literally believe that your daughter is now your son, but just

that this is an expression of individuation and that's a hard part of being a parent. I don't remember who it was, but I heard a psychologist say, you know, it is the job of the parent to accept the the the loss of their young adult child growing up and leaving them and it's it is a kind of a loss and I think all of this rings true to be part of that parenting process.

Yeah, you bring up a lot there. I think when you're very conventional, to have an unconventional child is very, very frightening. And you feel out of your depth and if your child happens to be very bright or bright and gender nonconforming and perhaps gay. And these are all out of your experience.

It's in fairness to the parents, it's frightening and they just want the child just just don't be because I'm conventional and the one of the reasons I'm conventional is because I'm so frightened of the c unconventional life. And so they're frightened for their children. They're frightened, you know, they're the there's a reason why they are conventional because often they're fearful of unconventionality.

And then there's a whole other type of parent who might have been very involved in their child's life and the child is trying to get away from them and individuate and to to be separate. and the parent is reeling because they're used to the the very enmeshed relationship. And now they're being kind of ripped away, they're being silenced, they're being discarded, and they're thinking, What happened to our lovely thing?'Cause we had a lovely dance.

And that could be a dreadfully uh kind of a reckoning of what happened. I I I you know, I fell in love, I had a baby, I had the hopes and dreams, and it's all gone so dreadfully wrong and I'm so dreadfully disappointed about everything that's happened. And I I don't know where I fit in my dream anymore. It's all wrong.

Yeah, I I think the parents experience is so difficult for some families and it's it's incredible because I've seen that in some families You know, for whatever gifts or talents or or disposition the parents had, going through the ROGD thing, even though it's very difficult, can bring a family closer. And then in other families, this can just rip everybody apart. And I have met parents who question the entire process of having children because they're so heartbroken and distressed.

And really, I mean, feel totally out of control. They feel as though there's nothing within their power to s to help their child. And you know, I wanted to touch on this because I think An almost completely integral part of the parenting experience for gender dysphoria is the process of searching for professional help. At least obviously we're it's a sample bias here, but everyone who contacts us by definition is looking for a professional to help.

And there there's something incredibly uh palpable about the desperation that parents feel. I have sensed that parents are willing to literally see any therapist at any cost as long as they think the therapist is not going to push their child down a path of transition. And it's just a very dangerous place, frankly, um, for a parent to be when they're so desperate for help. And I'm wondering if this is something you see in the parent meetings too.

Yeah. And everybody kind of exchanges kind of information about what therapists and therapists and do they know any therapists and I spend my time like a broken record saying, Well, it's not just therapy Therapy isn't the golden, you know, magic wand and things like that. And they're like, Get out of the way. Do you know any therapists that are free? I'm fully booked. I'm sure you're fully booked. My waiting list is full.

I I get emails every single day seeking my help and I I I I I I it's a l almost it's a big part of my job responding to these emails. And I I think I can see why there's a big rush to find a professional to help. I do I don't think it's necessarily the best thing to do. I think reconnect, reflect. you know, um, watch the tech might be a a a more productive way to go than to try. I know an awful lot of these kids are very distressed. But they're so keen to kind of pathologise themselves

that, you know, while therapy can be helpful, bad therapy is worse than no therapy. And I think it's very important that the the the intensity, even though I can see why you'd seek the p professionals, it mightn't be the the best way to go. Maybe maybe you know, there's some been some people have done some amazing things. I know of one parent who went off on a road trip with their child, which is a beautiful idea. I know another parent who kind of uh climbed uh seven mountain peaks

with their child, you know, o over over a year. You know what I mean? As in they they committed to spending time with the child. out of their c out of their physical context and stuff like that. So yeah, there there there is lots of different ways, but the rush to get the professionals in I don't know. There isn't enough therapists out there.

That's one of the issues. I think it's a big issue. I do think when the child is medicalized, the pair the the family shifts. And uh the parents shift.

And uh we uh we have par we have meetings for parents of medicalized children in the GDSN and it's it's a very different meeting and it's very much you have to kind of come around to some sort of reckoning of where Your family has shifted, maybe to a place you weren't happy with, and maybe that's life, because lots of things happen and lots of children grow up and don't become as you wish. And I I do think we we got into parenting in this generation very much as a choice.

We only do it when we've got enough money and we've got our good job, we've got our nice position, and now we'll have nice kids to to to complete this. And then it doesn't go the way we want it to go. And that's not part of the plan. And I think that's very sad. And it is part of life, isn't it? The wheel keeps turning. Yeah, that's a really interesting question about, you know, why did people have children? Um and, you know, again I think

By definition, people who contact us probably have a certain type of background or a certain type of lifestyle. Um You know, I I think we should definitely do an episode offering you know, maybe a a condensed version of parenting advice that we we share at these other meetings and resources that we have. I want to just touch really quickly on the kind of desperation for therapists and support. I think something interesting happens. Parents in my experience, a lot of parents who contact me

are very intelligent people. They're usually educated. They're usually very good at research. Very good at being resourceful. And they spend so much energy looking for help that I think I I often will say this is actually the time to lean in. And I I wonder very, very much Are these parents who are perhaps incredibly competent in a lot of ways, but feel very nervous that they're not good enough parents?

And being able to own your parental authority and to trust that the connection you have with your child is is the healing element. I think that's really hard for a lot of families. Like I I feel as though a lot of these families are

outsourcing kind of people. Maybe they're like in very successful, powerful jobs themselves and they're used to delegating tasks and hiring someone for this. And I just wonder if these are the types of parents who tr don't trust their own ability to calmly, lovingly, l in the long run, parent their child in a way that is

still boundried. I I I wonder if is that just my impression? D do you sense that as well or what's your I do I do, but I would also add the layer of they feel unmanned or like un you know, they've lost the parental confidence. So, yes, they they they are often outsourcing type of people anyway, because they're used to bringing in the professionals for whatever and they can afford to and they're they're they're successful. So there is that, but there's also a feeling of and I can't trust myself.

I don't know, I've got it wrong. Look, the kid is unhappy. And when your kid is unhappy, I say this as a parent. When your kid is unhappy, you think, I've got it wrong. But did I do it wrong? Yeah. And uh you you you go so quickly to that. And when they're desperately unhappy, you feel desperately unhappy. And this is what what is going on. And when you feel that in the context of a world where it's so heightened, that not only has your child got huge

issues and is up in their bedroom and you can't reach them. But it's in the middle of this extraordinary political crisis where to say one thing makes you an awful bigot and to say another thing makes you part of a club and It's it's so, so very hard for them that I can see where they're just saying, Can somebody please take over and tell me what to do? Tell me when to do it and I will do it'cause I don't know. Yeah.

Yeah. I do want to say that if you do know a parent of a a child who is uh gender questioning. Be gentle with them and kind of take their lead in a way that if they've always been loving and engaged parents. be slow to to say that they've got this one thing wrong. You know, Jackleby on Appleby on Twitter had said it right. He said

Could it be that you know, how could it be that all these kind of left leaning liberal feminists suddenly become bigoted over just one issue? Or could it be that we're missing something? And if you d if the child if the parent has always been like engaged, loving, liberal, connected, and suddenly suddenly seems right wing and transphobic, maybe you're missing something. Yeah.

Or I guess to to be fair to listeners or parents who are on the conservative side, loving, engaged, you know, um uh healthy, caring parents. A lot of times our exactly aligned with the liberal parents about why their concerns are uh what they are. So It's it's kind of amazing. The right wing are terrible and the left wing are brilliant. I just be spent the same rubbish that everybody else is. But no, no, I mean what I hear you saying, Stella, is very relevant because there's this bizarre idea.

that people who have been liberal their whole lives politically have suddenly become bigots. And the chances of that is very, very low. Like what do you mean that all these progressive very left leading parents are actually secretly, you know, homophobic transphobes. Probably not. Yeah, yeah. And then there's a whole other conservative loving ch parent who has conservative values and that's a perfectly fine place to be as well.

And you know, like and then presumably th there's a cohort that we don't meet and that would be the parents of the children who wish to transition and they transition and it seems to be happy families. Well, you know, may it stay fine for them, you know what I mean? That we don't know. whether this could be perfectly happy position to be. What I worry about is the medical burden, the long term medical burden. But I certainly don't profess to have any knowledge of this very fast moving train.

And who knows, w it'll all come out in the twenty thirties, I presume, about how this has gone. Yeah. I guess before we wrap up, you know, if there are parents listening to this or listeners who know parents. We've talked about the loneliness and the isolation. Um We can include a list of I guess parenting resources. um support groups, blogs, websites. Is there anything else that we think um parents can do to connect with with other families?

I don't think so. I think there's a huge amount of out. I think five years ago there wasn't that many. Now there's so much it's actually overwhelming. And that's what most parents seem to say. I'm overwhelmed. There's too much. So what what I would say is rather than overwhelm yourself, try to limit just like you're trying to limit your child's tech, limit your tech and go downstairs and hang out more.

It it it might be you might be better off. I can understand the f well I can understand the feeling of I just want to hide at the computer'cause it's too hard out there. But try to try to come out a little bit because it might be it might be more about that. Thanks for joining us this week on Gender, a wider lens. This podcast is partially sponsored by Rhyme. Rethink Identity Medicine Ethics.

Rhyme is a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the long-term care for gender variant individuals. Visit rethinkime.org to learn more. If you found value in our show, please review us on iTunes and subscribe so you never miss an episode. And you can follow us on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram. Just go to our link tree. That's linktr.eeslash wider lens pod. Our discussions are for educational purposes only and are not intended as a substitute for mental health services.