By Pam Curtis
Doctors, stop gaslighting parents about their gender confused children! We know our kids and, it turns out, you don’t always know what you’re doing when it comes to gender ideology interventions.
My son was a happy-go-lucky kid in every way, until high school. Then, suddenly, he became self-conscious and insecure about himself and started discussing this with a friend who felt the same way. They both decided together that being trans was the answer.
When I found out how he was feeling, I strongly suspected my son was questioning his gender because he’s on the autistic spectrum and has ADHD. So, at his pediatrician’s suggestion, we took our son to a gender doctor, thinking a specialist would know how to handle the situation. But sadly, we were sorely mistaken. The gender doctor, instead of probing and assessing the context, doubled down on my son’s insecurities. He validated my son’s unhealthy, distressing thoughts, and reinforced the idea that my son would commit suicide if we did not support this trans identity. To me, this felt like emotional blackmail.
This was a turning point for my son, in a negative way, because what doctors say to children makes a difference and my son was raised to trust the experts. When, after extensive online research, my son clamored for puberty blockers because that seemed like the way to become a girl, his pediatrician advised him that he was too old for puberty blockers and my son dropped it, trusting his doctor. When my son refused to leave the house during COVID and spent a year indoors, my husband called the trusted pediatrician. He told my son he needed exercise to stay healthy and, again trusting his doctor, he began to exercise. When my son purposely lost 20 pounds during his gender distress, his pediatrician stepped in and told him he was 30 pounds under weight and that could cause a host of health problems. Once again, my son listened. He started eating again and has since gained those 30 pounds back. All of this advise helped to keep my son safe and healthy, and he was better off for it.
I used to think it was great that my son trusted his doctors. But, it really backfired when he encountered the gender doctor. Far from keeping my son safe and healthy, AFTER the session with the gender doctor, my son’s mental health declined precipitously. He started having gender dysphoria and depression, which he had never had before. In Greek this is called iatrogenic – illness caused by medical examination or treatment. It’s very clear to me if the gender doctor, instead of affirming, had said that feelings of body disconnect and insecurity are common in adolescence and you’ll grow more comfortable in your body, everything would be different.
Although I too am inclined to trust medical professionals, my gut knew that something was off with the gender doctor’s affirmation approach to my son’s gender confusion. I knew my son and I had observed him changing his identity numerous times throughout his short life. How would the doctor know more about my son after speaking to him for thirty-minutes? It’s not like teens never make up stories to get what they want. If heroin, which leads to feelings of contentment and euphoria, was suddenly available to all teens, if they said they had a feeling that they needed heroin, would this be treated the same way? Of course not. But somehow medical treatment based on a vague and nebulous feeling is accepted and even mandated in the field of gender.
My husband and I now had to decide how to walk back the gender doctor’s trans reinforcement. This doctor harmed my son with words that took my breath away, and these words had tremendous weight with my son. It’s been very difficult to overcome what the so-called expert said, but we’ve been doing it with success. We are improving our relationship with our son so he knows we love him and that we care about his future. We are giving him the space to grow up and to accept his healthy, natural body the way it is, without a medical intervention. My son is no longer gender dysphoric or depressed and is happy and making goals for himself, although he still sees himself as trans. We feel secure in the knowledge that we are doing the right thing, since we know that children who are convinced they are trans change their minds 61 to 98% of the time.
On the other hand, my son’s friend, the one who developed his trans identity at the same time as my son, is now on hormones. Unlike me, his parents believed their doctor unquestioningly. He is now on a path to be a medical patient for life, and there is mounting evidence that his mental health as well as physical health will suffer due to this path he, his parents, and doctors have chosen for him.
Parents, don’t let doctors emotionally black mail you. Get informed. Your kid is fine in his or her body and does not need hormones or puberty blockers to find happiness. Your kid will grow out of their gender questioning period. Look at the detransitioners before you believe a doctor who does not know your child and only benefits from them transitioning.
Don’t let doctors convince you that a child knows themselves better. How can this be true – they are children! How can a child who is too young to vote, rent a car or drink alcohol be capable of informed consent to sterilize themselves and lose their sexual function?
Our lives have been completely changed by one fresh-out-of-med-school doctor telling us, in front of our son, that if we don’t support him by doing this experimental dangerous treatment, he will commit suicide. Had the doctor decided to use “watchful waiting”, which was the standard protocol of doctors for many years, our lives would not have been upended. Doctors are supposed to safe guard children not push their ideology on them.
Doctors, don’t you think it’s odd that every kid that comes into your office has the same identical online-sourced script about why they think they are trans? Do you really think it’s a random coincidence that all these kids are coming to this conclusion simultaneously, like my son and his friend did? Or are you choosing to look the other way? I think it is more what Upton Sinclair said: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it”.
Doctors, stop gaslighting our children and their parents.
Originally published at https://pitt.substack.com/p/doctors-stop-gaslighting-our-gender reproduced by kind permission.
