This story was also recorded for The Witness Podcast Episode 20
My daughter was a female for the first 20 years of her life. But after a socially difficult first year at college, she and three of her male college friends decided her social anxiety and depression must be because she was actually a man. She socially came out at college, where she wore a binder and changed her name and pronouns. She socially came out at her summer job, where she worked with children. But she did not socially come out to her parents and siblings until nearly 2 years later, during her senior year of college, when she was a legal adult and we had no legal right or recourse to help her.
By the time her parents were blindsided with her proclamation, she had experienced two years of people affirming her and celebrating her. Friends, counselors, college officials, professors, employers. All of them provided her with a safe space where she could freely express herself without her parent’s knowledge. When asked, she admitted that we, her parents, were the only people who questioned her choice, who pushed back at her new self. Not one other individual thought to suggest that she needed treatment for anxiety and depression instead of changing her body to match her mind.
She graduated college, moved 1000 miles away, and informed us that if we contacted her without using her new name, she would return our mail unopened. If we showed up in person, she would call the police on us for harassment.
My daughter is a precocious, intelligent girl who I suspect has high-functioning autism. She won a prestigious scholarship that financially supported her through high school and college. She graduated from a highly ranked college with a double major, a minor, and a nearly perfect GPA. She had a promising future.
She abandoned her family, her pre-college friends, and her home. She legally changed her name and started testosterone. Her uncle and grandfather died within six months of each other. But since she no longer wanted to be saddled with the people who loved her most in the world, all she could spare was an “I’m sorry for your loss.”
I once saw a video where a person stated they saw no trouble with trans people because they were not hurting anyone. That is a lie. They devastate their parents, they traumatize their siblings, and they destroy their bodies. They may not hurt the average bystander, but there are many casualties in their quest to question biology.
You don’t give an alcoholic alcohol. You don’t give a drug addict drugs. You don’t starve an anorexic because she won’t eat. In no other case do you make the body match the mind. You heal the mind to accept the body.
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