The One Way Street

Resources Needed for Desisters and Detransitioners in Schools

My son decided he was “trans” 2 years ago. But since that time, he’s changed his mind. He now knows he’s male and has stopped talking about gender. He is now concentrating on his next journey—college. But there’s a problem: how does he walk back from the trans identification after socially transitioning in school? 

He is still in high school. When he announced he was “trans”, he was celebrated. Turns out, trans is a one way door. You are celebrated as “trans”, but it feels humiliating to take it back once that phase of your life is over, and you want to move on to something new. Violet in The Incredibles could just put her hair back and don some preppy clothes — and voila, she’s transformed from a sullen emo kid to a popular, preppy, confident kid who gets the guy! That doesn’t work with trans. You can’t just cut your hair and change your name back and boom! you’re not trans anymore. That is, sadly, not how social transition works. So, my son continues to use his girl name and to wears his hair long. Maybe he feels he has no choice. Maybe he’s afraid to let anyone besides his parents know that he has accepted his body and is no longer “special” the way the school and his peers clearly wanted him to be. 

There was plenty of help for my kid to become trans. He talked to the school counselor first. This counselor helpfully, in her mind, and secretly (from his parents) changed his name and pronouns. She thought she was safeguarding our son from us, his loving parents. My son has realized that his parents were there for him, always, and now that my son no longer considers himself to be trans, he has not gone back to this counselor for guidance—he came to us, his parents, instead. 

Why are there no resources for him to feel comfortable at school if he no longer identifies as trans? Why the eagerness to “trans” kids, but not to “untrans” them when appropriate? Why is there not a D in LGBTQ for this growing group at schools? It doesn’t make the GSA groups very inclusive without it. Kids have always tried on different identities. Schools are idiotic if they believe that trans is any different. They must see that the overnight 4000 percent increase in trans identifying teens will eventually slow down, and the fad will burn out, as more and more kids change their minds and “trans” loses its rainbow luster.

If you celebrate a child deciding they are trans, shouldn’t you also celebrate them deciding they are not trans and choose to accept their body as they were born? This is something to be celebrated too. Or does that not fit the school’s agenda? No wonder my son is afraid to tell anyone. 

He’s in limbo waiting for college to start. It will be his first chance to remake himself again with his legal name and male pronouns. Far from authenticity, he is forced, for the rest of high school, to live a lie, and to act out a trans identity to hide the truth. Just think about the tragedy of that, and the hypocrisy of all the trans celebrators with their pre-determined conclusions and their self-righteous determinations of the only acceptable outcomes for our kids being “transitioned”. They should all be ashamed.

Shouldn’t these resources for desisters and detransitioners also be at colleges? Why are there signs displaying sayings such as “Are you Trans?” but no signs asking “Are you a detransitioner”? Where is the inclusion here? I can’t believe my son is the only one going through this right now. Scratch that, I know for a fact he’s not. I have met plenty of parents of young people now who once believed they were “born in the wrong body”, but grew up a bit and discovered they were wrong about that. Shouldn’t there be a group for them too? They may be apprehensive to tell anyone, just as it seems my son is. Shouldn’t we be providing an easy path in both directions, if we insist upon an easy path to trans?

It makes me think society is trying to trans all kids or there would be things available for kids who had a change of heart. 

Let’s be honest. What is the real agenda behind transing children, teens and young people? 

Originally published at https://pitt.substack.com/p/the-one-way-street reproduced by kind permission.