A letter to my son’s affirmative therapist 

Dear x,

I see that J is getting worse and worse despite the depression medication and all the therapy sessions with you. He complains of having a lot of anxiety, plus, as you know, he is still on sick leave. The really concerning thing is that, when he started the sessions with you he was fine—he had two jobs and was working on his PhD—and now he is barely surviving and has given up everything. 

I don’t mind you telling him that I wrote to you. Frankly, I’m convinced that this whole “trans thing” is nothing more than a maladaptive coping mechanism to deal with his previously diagnosed depression, and I’m very concerned that you keep pushing him in a direction that seems to be hurting him even more. It is terrible to think that this perfectly healthy boy has come across such unscrupulous health professionals. My son suffers from depression, which is not unusual in the midst of the current global pandemic that, as has been amply documented, has greatly affected the mental health of young people. Now an endocrinologist (whom I am in the process of denouncing even if it is the last thing I do in this life) and you, a psychologist convinced that people can be “born in the wrong body”, instead of treating his mental conditions, push him to change anatomy to conform to gender stereotypes. Neither of you are the least bit curious to explore the traumas that can make a healthy person feel that they can’t be happy without physically hurting themselves.

I know my son much better than you do. I have known him for 24 years, almost 25, I have given birth to him and cared for him. I know he is not a woman and never has been. I don’t doubt that he had dysphoria, because what is depression but superlative dysphoria, and isn’t depersonalization ultimately a symptom of depression? And this idea, is it to leave his boy persona with all his sorrows behind and become someone new who can start from scratch, applauded by his friends and the sick society we live in as a hero? I don’t know if that’s it, I don’t know if he’s gay and having a hard time coming to terms with it, if he’s traumatized by his feminist friends’ view that all men are predators, if he’s watched too much porn, or if he just felt so lonely that he needed to create a partner with his own body. These are all questions that you, as a psychologist, should be curious enough to help clear up, rather than pushing him further and further into irreparable physical and psychological damage to himself. 

I do know that my son had a very traumatic childhood, that his parents’ divorce affected him a lot, that he has missed his father a lot and probably me too. I know that he has suffered a lot in life and has felt very lonely at times. His girlfriend left him before the pandemic, and he had a severe depression diagnosed and untreated. And then came a pandemic that cut short his plans to travel and go back to school when he was just starting to get back on his feet. It’s no surprise that it was then that he came up with this totally sudden and unexplained idea that he was a woman. What was a surprise though, is that it took him five minutes to get wrong sex hormones from the endocrinologist and to find himself an “affirmative therapist” to agree with his self-diagnosis and to push him further into it. If someday he regrets getting on this train you are pushing him on, as is happening to so many already, he will certainly blame you for not questioning his sudden transition and not having the interest to find out what was really wrong with him.

I recommend you to read the detransitioners forum on Reddit, which already has more than 24,000 members and is growing at a rate of 100 per week. So sad and eye opening to read these stories. And also read the new studies that are coming out about the reality of suicide and medical transition and the physical and psychological damage involved, as well as Genspect’s statistics on the truth behind gender “facts” and “science”.

I know my son is an adult, but he is a vulnerable adult, with a previously diagnosed mental illness that you were well aware of when you treated him. Let this serve as a notice that I believe that with your therapy you are harming my son, as shown by the progressive worsening he is suffering. You are not complying with the protocol that recommends not transitioning people who suffer from other prior mental illnesses in the case of my son, and I believe, sooner, rather than later, you will answer for your unethical practices.

Sincerely, 

Originally published at https://pitt.substack.com/p/a-letter-to-my-sons-affirmative-therapist reproduced by kind permission.