Thread by @sterling_penny

I have two responses to this. I have no idea how long it will take me to express them.
The first is to the folks who do this, parent-to-parent:
How dare you? How dare you put your own views, fears & beliefs above the welfare of your child? You're not protecting or helping them.

https://twitter.com/MavenOfMayhem/status/1424710278546137088

You are torturing them, because their reality makes you uncomfortable.
Too bad.
The absolute worst thing you can do as a parent is to make parenting about yourself. Nothing involved with raising a child should be about you.

If you have a gender diverse child it's your responsibility to educate yourself about gender diversity. Which means listening to EVERYBODY about this issue, not just to the few who will validate and amplify your fears.
It also means listening to--and believing--your child.

Do you do that? CAN you do that? Can you believe your child when they tell you who they are is not who you want them to be? Why not? Why would you think your child is lying to you or "delusional" or under some sort of outside influence when they tell you this?

Even if you DO think this, why not take them to professionals who will listen to them in a judgement-free way to help them work out who the best possible version of themself will be? Is it because you're pissed off that YOUR dream for THEIR wedding will be ruined? Really?

Here's something you don't seem to recognize: If you're the biological parent of this child, you literally made them this way. It's your genes in combination of your parenting partner that made your child this way.

They had no more control over their gender and sexuality than they did over their hair and eye color. Do you think THOSE things are a delusion as well?
What are you thinking now? Is it:
"Well there's this girl in England who regrets transitioning."
So. The fuck. What.

Are you looking for 100% lock-it-in certainty for every decision you make for your child?
Sometimes decisions made with the best of intentions and with the best information possible are the wrong ones. Was the decision made in good faith?
Then you did the best you could.

Yes, sometimes people detransition. Adults and children both do this. But this happens with far less regularity than when gender diverse people get to live a life that fits them far better than the one they were trying to live before.

What about the kids who get locked in to this false life that their parents try to force on them? How many of them live happy, fulfilled lives this way? How many of them die too soon? Do you know the statistics on that? Does anyone? Or is this something you don't want to know?

The amount of harm you're doing to your children by this is incalculable, and will affect them for the rest of their lives. Which leads me to the second thing I want to talk about.
You think that isolating your child from these influences will help them? I got news for you.

There's no influences that are "transing" your child. They're just seeing what sort of life they COULD be leading, rather than the lie they've been living for your benefit.
Here's how I know:
Because I was 8 when I realized I was transgender. Only I wasn't "transgender"...

Because that word in its current meaning was still more than a decade away from being used even by the very few people who were studying folks with gender diversity.
I was 8 in 1967. In a very small, very wealthy, very mainstream town in the middle of nowhere.

I was transgender before transgender was a word. And there was no one else in my world--in the whole wide world, as far as I knew--who was like me. And the only reason I didn't know I was transgender until I was 8 is because it took me that long to figure it out.

But everything about me pointed to the fact that I was transgender, except no one knew that this was a thing.
The only thing I ever saw about this was men in dresses for comedic effect. Laughed and ridiculed for pretending to be what I knew I was.

I lived in hell for 50 years. Half a century of pretending I was something I wasn't, where even my moments of joy were tainted. Where I was constantly overcompensating & being an absolute abusive asshole because I was afraid that even the slightest bit of softness would turn me.

I was right about that, by the way. As I tried to move away from the abuse & toxic masculinity, I ended up with a deep existential crisis that led me to sit with a calendar and plot out the day I was going to kill myself.

Thank God I realized that I didn't want to die. I just didn't want to live a lie any more.
Is this what you want? Is that the sort of life you think is best for your child?

I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy,& certainly not for someone I brought into the world.
If you have a child who is somehow brave enough to tell you they may not be who you think they are, BELIEVE THEM.
And for God's (and their, and your) sake, don't make this about you.
/end