Caringissharing

This is a topic that hits home for me. My daughter and a group of her friends “came out” as transgender at school in the 8th grade. I was not informed of this by her school, a concerned parent informed me that my daughter along with her friends were going by male names and pronouns at school. Previous to this sudden change, my daughter was into makeup, hair, and fashion. Within a months time, she now wanted to cut her hair short and dress in masculine clothing and ditch everything that she considered feminine. When I confronted her about her new identity she informed me that she had been cutting herself, had depression, and had been inducing herself to vomit since she came out. Had this concerned parent not notified me, I would be in the dark to all of these underlying issues she was having. I had to pull her from public school and this friend group as they were all also cutting themselves and some were even making suicidal comments online. Long story short, I did a ton of research on this topic and have found that there are no solid grounds on affirming gender requests and that most kids will grow out of this. I did find a counselor for my daughter that agreed and did not focus on her requests to be a male but on her underlying issues as mentioned above and her self confidence. My daughter never did request that her counselor or her family call her by these pronouns and her new name. Now that about six months have gone by, my daughter is now thriving and living as her true self, which is a beautiful young lady who is confident in herself and participates in many extracurriculars and sports. She now tells me that she felt that all of her friends had pressured her into being transgender and that she had been following transgender teens online who also convinced her that because she had low self esteem and did not like her body that she was indeed transgender. So while many think that it’s out of respect to call a child by their preferred pronouns, think of the impact that this situation has on the mental health of the child and the devastation that this has on a family. Parents have the right to be informed before this social transition takes place. After all, a child needs permission to go on a field trip or to have sex education but a school can change your child’s name and gender without permission! People are fine with transgender ideology until it hits home and it is your child who is suffering.

I know this post is old… Did you complete the program? I am starting this fall. I am curious to see if this program gives one the ability to work full time.