How does it feel when your teenager suddenly declares to you that they think they are ‘trans’? That they were born in the wrong body, and they want to change sex?
It’s now five years since my daughter first told me, at the age of 15, that she wanted to be referred to by the male pronouns ‘he’ and ‘him’ and be called by a boy’s name. And I can tell you, it’s hell.
I lie awake most nights worrying about when, if, or how this will ever end.
At first I was completely blindsided because, growing up, she had always been such a girly-girl. So girly, in fact, that she chose to go to an all-girls secondary school at 11 – but then it was as if a switch suddenly flicked.
First came a short haircut and then the demand for a boy’s name (she has used five different ones over the years) and pronouns, which my husband and I refuse to use.
The signs came thick and fast after that. Boys’ clothes. A binder was delivered home – a compression garment worn like a bra which is designed to completely flatten the breasts. I came across it when it arrived in the post, and it’s not a healthy item of clothing, that’s for sure.
As a parent you try to dig deeper, asking why? My daughter told me she hated her female body, wanted to take testosterone and, at some future point, remove her breasts – a double mastectomy, euphemistically termed ‘top surgery’ by the trans community.
She also said she wanted to remove her womb, a prospect I find terrifying.
The anonymous woman describes her daughter’s desire to transition to a man as ‘hell’ and that she ‘lies awake most nights worrying about when, if, or how this will ever end’
I’ve had horrifying mental images of my daughter with a beard and scars across her chest where her breasts used to be. My GP prescribed me an antidepressant for the first time in my life when this all started.
At 14, my daughter had auditioned and obtained a place at a performing arts school to study acting.
She loved it there for the first six months and remained steadfastly female that whole time.
The ‘switch’ that flicked things, we believe, was the first Covid-19 lockdown in 2020 – confined to her room and Zoom classes, instead of attending exciting acting classes, she found ‘Transland’. She was a lone kid at home, with her elder sister away at university.
Suddenly our house – rather than being a place of refuge – became a battlefront. There have been massive, screaming arguments as I have tried to reason with my daughter that transitioning isn’t something she should be contemplating at such a young age.
My daughter has punched me, stolen money from me and told me to ‘f*** off’ so many times I have lost count.
She ran away at one point and told our older daughter that I had ‘thrown her out on the street’. Not true.
But I can’t stand back and say nothing. When I looked up the side-effects of the hormones my daughter told me she intended to take to start medical transition in the future – in her case, testosterone – I found she would grow facial hair, her voice would deepen, she could get terrible acne and male-pattern baldness. Not to mention painful thinning of the vaginal walls (atrophy).
Most changes are not reversible, even if the person stops taking the hormones, and many proceed to surgery – which, of course, is completely irreversible.
We did arrange for our daughter to see a therapist to help her explore why she suddenly hated her female body. She was also diagnosed, at the age of 17, with inattentive attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). (This is a form of ADHD characterised by a lack of attention and focus, rather than hyperactivity.)
A large proportion of young people claiming a trans-identity are neurodiverse with ADHD or autism diagnoses, a fact highlighted in the Cass Report – the independent review into gender identity services for children in the UK.
Some are same-sex attracted and confused about this. I don’t know or care what my child’s sexuality is, but I believe her ADHD has contributed to her confusion about her sex.
I have shared stories of de-transitioners with my daughter – young people who medically transitioned and/or had surgery before changing their minds and now struggle with the repercussions of what they have done to their bodies, while being abandoned by the same medical profession that was so eager to transition them in the first place. But she does not listen.
And the name thing. She now refers to the name I gave her at birth as her ‘deadname’, yet another trans term I’ve had to learn.
The school instituted changes to my daughter’s name and pronouns without our consent, or even informing us, when she was just 15. They seemed to think social transitioning – swapping pronouns and clothes – was a bit of a joke.
One teacher even told me they once had a student whose chest binder was so tight that she passed out. The teacher laughed while relating that… I didn’t find that particularly funny.
The school persisted with calling our daughter ‘he’ and whatever boy name she was currently using, despite our protests. For this, I reported them to Ofsted. I also avoided families from the school who thought it was ‘cool’ to call her ‘he’ and the latest boy name.
My child has stopped arguing with us about names and male pronouns. She knows we won’t budge and has never asked my mum (her nanna – who sadly died recently), my dad nor any of our extended family to call her anything other than her real name.
However, she has cajoled her older sister, who’s in her mid-20s, so that we use a family nickname for her instead when we’re together. My eldest refers to her sister as her ‘sibling’.
The use of testosterone as a woman can lead to facial hair, a deeper voice, terrible acne and male-pattern baldness (STOCK IMAGE)
At first, I pleaded with her to help her younger sister see sense, but then I realised it wasn’t a responsibility I could place on her shoulders.
Now she does a great job of walking a tightrope between both sides on this topic.
My friends have been mostly sympathetic, but of course they don’t really understand how it feels to have a child who is considering life-ruining consequences. It can be a very lonely journey.
Thankfully, I found an online support group of other heartbroken parents from all over the world who, like me, don’t believe the answer to this is medicalisation and surgery.
I have heard stories of young people threatening their parents that they will commit suicide and/or will estrange themselves if they are not allowed to ‘medicalise’ (medically transition).
Infinitely worse, other parents had been told by therapists and medics who are ‘captured’ by this whole phenomenon that unless they let their child transition, they risk losing them.
Many parents in the US and Australia tell me they are terrified of being labelled ‘transphobic’ by family and friends if they don’t agree to medical transition for their child.
Aged 17, our daughter developed panic attacks and depression – if she did want to be viewed as a boy, it certainly wasn’t making her happy.
She suddenly begged to leave her performing arts school and so changed institutions again, miraculously securing one A-level, but then spent the next year in her bedroom. Masquerading as a boy just seemed to make her sad and depressed.
This was the summer she turned the ‘dreaded 18’ – something many parents of teens with gender dysphoria fear as, legally, they are then adults and can access hormones and surgery.
My daughter ordered testosterone after one ‘consultation’ with a private doctor online. I know because I found it in her bedroom, dispensed by a pharmacist miles away from where we live and mailed to our home.
I had been on the look-out for it for months, searching her room every day while she walked the dog.
When she realised I had found it and thrown it away she came screaming into our bedroom first thing in the morning, yelling at me at the top of her voice, and then proceeded to kick all the dining room chairs over before storming out of the house. This was one of the lowest points in my five years of this living hell.
It was when she returned later that day that I decided to invoke a crystal-clear boundary.
I told her quietly and calmly that she was not allowed to take testosterone while living under our roof and financially dependent on us.
She needed to be a proper adult – working and paying for her own upkeep and bills – before making such a life-altering decision as pursuing medical transition. To my amazement, she said; ‘OK, I understand.’ That was exactly one year ago.
Last September, at 19, she decided to go to university. She had enough UCAS points (having also amassed some at the performing arts school) to scrape in on a foundation year.
I was nervous but again told her that if there was any sign that she was trying to transition while at university, we would withdraw all financial support. ‘Ok, ok, ok, I hear you,’ she snapped.
And so we are in a holding pattern for the next few years. She is registered at university in her birth name but she’s still going by some preferred name there, still wears the binder and still has short hair.
But she is much happier, out in the real world. She has friends. Our relationship has improved. I FaceTime her, text her and tell her ‘I love you’. She says the same back.
I am hoping that the seeds of doubt I have tried to plant in her brain will grow a little bigger every year she matures.
My husband is on the same page as me, but tells me not to worry, saying: ‘It’s just a phase.’ Ultimately, only time will tell if he’s right.
But she can never tell me I didn’t try to stop or slow her down, and I can live with that.
For help and support for detransitioners, visit beyondtrans.org. For parents, visit genderdysphoriasupportnetwork.com and genspect.org for more information.
