I am sorry to have been quiet but I have been busy writing legal briefs in support of various cases on appeal across the nation on the subject of secret school transitions. Let me share with you some personal accounts the underscore the devastating results when schools deceive parents about their child’s gender confusion. These stories show the flexibility of a trans-identity, and that parents do not abuse or abandon their gender dysphoric children. Just these three stories show an obvious pattern.
a. Sue Y, Mother of Detransitioned Female
Sue Y[1] and her now adult daughter, G, live in California. When G started puberty at age 12, her entire demeanor changed. G started to dress in dark and oversized clothes, her personality went from pleasant to agitated, and she became suicidal. Amidst these changes, G told her mom she was transgender.
Sue promptly took G to a Kaiser’s gender clinic. Outside of her mother’s presence, a clinician told G about hormonal treatments and surgeries she could have “to make her authentic.” Afterwards, the clinic told Sue she had to choose whether to have “a dead daughter or a live son.” No alternative treatment options were offered.
Terrified, Sue followed the gender clinic’s advice and placed her daughter on puberty blockers. Sue directed G’s school to cooperate with G’s social transition, which it did. For two and a half years, Sue was fully committed to G’s social and medical transition. But G’s “authentic” self failed to emerge. Instead, G’s mental health deteriorated. G began cutting herself, became suicidal and borderline anorexic, and was in and out of psychiatric hospitals. After an out-of-state psychiatrist advised that G’s distress was due to other mental health issues, Sue stopped the puberty blockers and affirming her transgender identity.
Sue then contacted G’s public school instructing the staff to cease all counseling and stop referring to her daughter as a boy. The school counselor was furious, and refused to follow Sue’s and the psychiatrist’s directives, and called Child Protective Services (“CPS”). No formal charges were made against Sue. Sue removed G from the school and, some six years later, G is now a well-adjusted adult woman who embraces her female sex.
b. Lydia M., Mother of a Formerly Trans-identified Female
Lydia, who is mixed race, lives in Santa Clarita, California. Lydia’s daughter’s friend introduced T to transgenderism. T, who was never uncomfortable in her female body, decompensated. She started self-harming, cut her hair, changed her clothing to oversized male shirts and cargo pants. T’s public high school solidified her transgender identity with lessons about transgenderism, while requesting and using T’s desired male name and pronouns. Lydia found out, accidentally, that the school was referring to T as a boy.
Lydia demanded that the teachers stop socially transitioning her child. The teachers did not, while assuring Lydia that they would. The principal even met with T to inform her that her transgender identity would be their secret.
T fell deeper into the new identity, and started wearing a breast compression binder. T’s mood darkened to the point where Lydia was afraid of her. T acquired an explosive temper, started telling lies to her friends that her parents abuse her, and adopted an eating disorder. Lydia did not give up on T, nor did she affirm T knowing the danger of surrendering to her daughter’s maladaptive identity.
Lydia engaged legal counsel, confronted the school, used FERPA and public records requests to discover that the school continued to undermine her. Shockingly, the superintendent and assistant superintendent were conspiring together on how they would hide the school’s social transition of T.
Despite the horrible vitriol T spewed at Lydia, Lydia reminded T that she would always love her. Lydia credits a summer trip that removed T from outside influences, as the step that returned T to her authentic self.
T, now a senior, has completely dropped her trans-identity, stopped wearing a binder, grew out her hair, wears stereotypically feminine clothing, and make-up. T’s sweet demeanor has returned, and most touching of all, T re-started her “Love you Mommy’s” notes that T gives her mom expressing her love. These notes had stopped abruptly when T was in her transgender phase. Lydia believes that had she not learned of the school’s socially transitioning of T that gave her the opportunity to intervene, her daughter’s mental health issues would have worsened.
c. Lisa Mullins, Mother of a Formerly Trans-identified Daughter
Lisa is a former art teacher. Her daughter M struggled in middle school as she gained significant weight due to a medical condition. M is a creative and bemoaned sports, pushing her out of the “cool” group. Her confidence waned as she entered high school, which she started during the COVID-19 lockdowns. M lost all interactions with peers. Her best friend’s family was in complete lockdown.
M turned to the internet, where she readily fell into the transgender world, watching Anime (which has gender bending themes), YouTube and TikTok. M changed markedly, wearing cartoon-like make-up, shaving her eye brows, and changing her bedroom décor to witchcraft imagery. She also started to cut herself. Lisa grew worried. Lisa listened in on some classes and was alarmed with the overt sexual perversion she heard, well beyond what her 14-year-old needed to know about sex. Health class included questions about whether her daughter would be comfortable masturbating in a room with another person or engaging in anal sex. M had never been kissed. Lisa also heard classes espousing gender ideology.
When the schools finally re-opened, M refused to go because of her anxiety. M cut herself so deeply it required an emergency room visit. M was treated by a psychiatrist, diagnosed with depression and anxiety, and medicated.
Lisa then discovered that M had changed her name and pronouns at school, using the plural, “they/them” flipping her name between male to female, even a Greek’s god name. The school adopted every name change and pronouns without question as M and her entire friend group circulated through non-binary and transgender identities.
Lisa met with the principal, teachers and spoke at the school board, demanding that the school stop treating her daughter as a boy. The school would sometimes agree, but it never actually followed Lisa’s directives. Lisa toured the school photographing how the Wellness Center enticed students with an “Explore Me” – box filled with “trans” tape that is used to crush females’ breast, create a fake penis bulge, or tape a males’ penis up to create a smooth crotch area. Free breast binders were also available. See photograph.
Lisa never affirmed M, nor stopped battling the school. The school informed Lisa that M, a minor, controlled her name and pronouns at school. But even after M emailed her teachers to use her real name, teachers still used M’s false names as did the school counselor. Lisa believes that the school’s obstinance was purposeful to demonstrate its power over “bigots and transphobes” like Lisa. CPS came to Lisa’s home; no charges were filed. Lisa suspects that the school called CPS.
M is now an adult in college, having shed her transgender identities. She stopped cutting, dressing as a man and wearing cartoonish make-up, but the stain of the public school’s aberrant behavior was too much for Lisa to bear. She moved her family out of California a month ago.
d. Aurora Regino, Mother of a Formerly Trans-Identified Female
Aurora had a 12-year-old daughter, A.S. A.S. had some traumatic events in her life. Her father was in a debilitating car accident that rendered him brain-damaged. In 5th grade, her beloved grandfather passed away, Aurora was battling breast cancer, and A.S. started puberty early.
A.S., feeling distressed at the changes to both her home life and body, turned to her school counselor for solace. The school counselor had encouraged students in A.S.’s class to explore their identities and consider whether they felt like they were not the gender associated with their sex. The school counselor had told students that this feeling was normal and that students should embrace the feeling if they had it.
The school counselor invited A.S. and a small group of other girls around her age to an arts and crafts group. After one of the girl’s group meetings, A.S. told the school counselor she felt like a boy. The counselor sprang into action. She asked A.S. if she had a boy’s name she wanted the teachers to use. A.S. felt pressured by the school counselor and said she did.
A.S.’s teachers, clandestinely, started to refer to her as a boy, with a boy’s name and male pronouns. The girl’s group, which started as an arts-and-crafts club, became a club for indoctrination. The school counselor began discussing gender and sexuality in depth with the 12-year-old girls. Without permission from Aurora, A.S. was meeting with the school counselor and being further coached into her transgender belief. The school counselor also told A.S. about binding her breasts and “top surgery.”
A.S. told the counselor that she wanted her mom to know about what was going on. The counselor encouraged her to keep it a secret. Finally, A.S. told her grandmother, and she in turn told Aurora.
The school did its best to try to evade Aurora’s inquires, telling her—falsely—that it was required by law to keep its actions secret from her. Aurora filed suit.
A.S. is no longer at the offending school, and is slowly returning to her true-self, a happy, feminine girl who loves her mom and family, although not without long-lasting impact.
[1] Some pseudonyms are used to protect their families from the animus often directed at parents or childrenwho resist the push to pursue a “gender transition.”
