If you are new to the crazy world of gender, you’ve heard that trans is something you just know. So, if your kid comes out as “trans”, that’s who they are, who they’ve always been. You just somehow missed the obvious. And now that you are aware you have a trans kid, your job is to help them “become” the sex that they are inside through social changes (pronouns, clothing choices), drugs (hormones) to halt their development and develop alternate secondary sex characteristics to the extent possible, restrictive garments that hide their secondary sex characteristics (binders), and cosmetic surgeries.
This is the Myth of Permanence. Similar to the Suicide Myth (affirm your child’s trans identity or they will kill themselves), which says you must affirm a trans identified person or they will kill themselves, with the Myth of Permanence, you must instantly medicalize people who proclaim they are trans because if one says they are trans, it’s because it’s an irrefutable, immutable fact about you that cannot change. Along with the Suicide Myth, the Myth of Permanence is used to bully parents into actions they feel are against the best long term interests of their children.
If you believe in this ideological dogma, it is wrong to do anything except enable social and medical transition immediately and fully because, to do otherwise, would cause certain, immediate and extreme harm to the trans identified person. The Myth of Permanence has thrown a lot of good people into logical tailspins trying to do the correct thing, in
the absence of physical/biological evidence that trans is an actual state of being, and not just a metaphysical or religious concept.
However, the Myth of Permanence has been clearly disproved both in long term studies, through parent experiences, and by detransitioners and desisters that felt certain they were “trans” and then later changed their minds.
If Trans-ness was permanent, none of this would be possible. But yet, it is.
Originally published at https://pitt.substack.com/p/the-myth-of-trans-permanence reproduced by kind permission.
