This testimony is from a member of Our Duty who tells how her daughter’s school facilitated and encouraged gender transition despite the root cause of the girl’s gender identity coming from peer coercion.
Two years ago my daughter asked me to buy her a binder. This was totally out of the blue but I had an inkling something was upsetting my daughter, she seemed very anxious at the time. She was spending a lot of time online and WhatsApping her school friends in her bedroom and I noticed her change in mood every time she spoke with them. I looked through her messages and was shocked to see there was a lot of pressure being put on my daughter to ask me to purchase a binder for her. One of her friends had recently come out to her parents as lesbian, she was often posting a lot of LGBT info on the WhatsApp group between the three of them. They all seemed to be trying to “decide” between themselves what my daughter was in terms of being part of the LGBT community. It was during those messages that they decided that my daughter was a trans boy.
Also during this time my daughter got her diagnosis for ASD. It took around over 2 years to get the diagnosis. My daughter was really struggling with social difficulties, self esteem, puberty and school. She got her first period at 12 and it really distressed her as they were so heavy. I got her tablets for the doctors to help with this but she still struggled. She didn’t like her body changing. She started self harming. I saw cuts on her shoulders where she used scissors to try and stop the mental pain she was going through. Never at any point did she say she was a boy. In fact she was very feminine with her long blond hair, cute animal tops and into My Little Pony and stuffed animals.
Other parents from a self harm group I went to expressed to me that my daughter may have Autism as many of their children did. I decided to take her to the doctors and that’s when the process began. When my daughter got the diagnosis she couldn’t accept it. She was angry and called herself “brain dead”. This was really distressing to see her mental health declining. We got virtually no support as it was unfortunate timing as the covid virus was spreading.
During the summer in 2020 with home schooling she was doing all her work online. She was also on her phone a lot too. I started taking the phone off her during lessons. This was making her agitated as she wanted the phone with her the whole time. Also, she was starting to wear 2 bras at night, I’m assuming this was to stop her breasts growing. Where did she hear about doing that? I had to hide all the bras and give her a fresh one each day. I didn’t want her to cause any damage to herself.
I was surprised when I got a message from one of her school friends. In the message she said that my daughter is a transgender boy and we use he/him pronouns and we feel you should do the same. I was shocked, upset and angry. How could anyone else know our daughter as we do. They had been pushing her to tell us. I looked at my daughter’s messages and they were trying to get her to tell all the teachers to use her “new name and pronouns “ and they also said they wanted to tell their parents and friends who would be “cool with it”. We tried to talk to our daughter about this but she was reluctant to talk. She didn’t even want to talk face to face initially. Anyway we did talk. We asked her why she wants to be a boy and she said “to be more confident “, that’s all she could say and pointed to the areas she didn’t like (breast and vagina). We explained that she is is very young (15 at the time) and we would talk to her again when she is a bit older. I couldn’t find a face to face therapist because of lockdown, I was desperate to help my daughter. We were offered a referral to CAMHS but decided to decline as I had heard that the service just affirmed the issue and I want to safeguard my daughter from further harm. We found an online therapist so we had a zoom chat but it didn’t end well as my daughter was keeping up a pretence to be a boy and I subsequently found out she was chatting to her friends during the session and they were being forceful in their messages “TELL HER YOUR TRANSGENDER “. In other messages they sent they told her she would feel better once she starts taking “T” and that someone will love her “no matter what surgeries she has”. They even offered to buy her a binder so she can “strut her stuff” in it and were saying her old name is now her ‘deadname”. This is frightening for any parent to read and we were really concerned for my daughter’s safety.
I was at the point where I really wanted to go round to these kids houses and tell the parents but was advised that the school should intervene. I informed the school what had been happening and showed them all the screenshots of the coercion. The school’s head of year denied it was bullying said she had a “lovely chat” with the girls and have spoken with the parents. By this point my daughter knew we had seen the messages, we explained we had to intervene because of her declining mental health, she was moody, withdrawn and angry especially at me her mum who is trying to help her. We are now locked out of her phone.
Through all this confusion I was trying to find answers why she was feeling this way and I heard about ROGD online. I found a group on Facebook for gender questioning kids, a very supportive group for parents (there are some groups who insist that you affirm your child’s identity). The group started with a few parents and now has well over 1,000 in just a few months. All from different countries, mostly USA but growing fast in the UK. I have learnt that there are many other parents going through almost identical stories of their kids wanting to be trans almost out of the blue. They are eerily similar. A lot of the kids were on chat rooms in apps such as Discord and TikTok. These vulnerable kids and young adults being groomed into the trans community on these apps. One of the parents sent me a screenshot of someone chatting to her daughter it read “ ur mom sucks so f…..king much, I hate her, ur doing well …..im proud of you, you are enough, ur mom needs therapy, I believe in u, go get it” My daughter was a heavy Discord user as she likes gaming, im almost certain she was receiving these messages too as I could see she was using trans chat groups. After we learnt about these sites we put a block on them at home. She wasn’t happy but we had to do it for her safety. What we can’t unblock is the friendship she has with the school friends. My daughter is at college now but she still gets messages from them. They won’t leave her alone and they are often mean to her. Because of my daughter’s vulnerability she would rather have bad friends than no friends. These girls are stopping her from moving on and being her true self. I have heard that trans activists don’t like it when people want to return to their true selves, maybe my daughter is worried about this?
Recently, I have found out that another pupil at the school who was in my daughter’s year was also being pressured and bullied into being trans, he also has autism.
My daughter is seeing a clinical psychologist now. During a family session we asked where she first heard of transgender issues and she said school. I am now wondering what is being taught with regards to gender ideology at that school?
During my daughters transition from school to college I had a suspicion that the girls were still pushing her to be trans by encouraging her to tell her new college she is a non binary and use they/them pronouns. My daughter said to us she wanted to do this but I know it was the girls talking to her. I discouraged my daughter from doing this as I said it would bring unwanted attention and possibly affect any future friendship groups she makes. I want my daughter to be safe. Thankfully my daughter hasn’t done this but I do still worry about the pressure these girls have and still are putting on her. They also know she has autism but it hasn’t stopped them.
My daughter is still having therapy, she seems happier now and is on any anxiety medication. I still worry for her mental health alas her first lesson in psychology was gender studies and she was writing stuff on her papers about wanting surgery etc. This makes me so sad as she has been led to believe that this will be the answer to all her difficulties. She is a non comforting female with autism. We don’t use different pronouns or any new names, just a shortened version of her name. She does not protest about this and as far as we know no one at college uses any other names or pronouns.
We have no issues with our daughters sexuality whether she is straight, lesbian or bi. She is probably straight as she has thought she was a gay boy. The pressure on these children is immense to be someone other than themselves. We still have a long way to go and as she starts to make new friends we hope she can be her true self and happy again. I want everyone who reads this to know this is a social contagion and it must stop. Vulnerable kids are being targeted and the situation seems to be escalating. We have to protect our kids from harm. They need explorative mental health and schools being questioned about their teaching methods. We have recently found out that my daughter’s school have posters in the toilets and corridors that say “if you are a girl it’s ok to be a boy and vice versa and a number to text. Also an organisation has been coming to the school to talk to the pupils about different genders and pronouns. Also Internet sites such as Discord and Ticktok (there are many others) need to be exposed for the harm and distress they are causing young peoples mental mental health.
Mother of a daughter
