all 45 comments

[–]ChunkeeguyTeam T*RF Fuck Yeah 29 insightful - 1 fun29 insightful - 0 fun30 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Sadly this sort of tough love is being portrayed as child abuse by the LGBTIQQAAXYZWTF lobby and the woketards cheering them on

[–]reluctant_commenter 11 insightful - 1 fun11 insightful - 0 fun12 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Many of the actions this parent took to protect her child aren't abusive at all, like finding her a mental health professional who isn't trans-affirming. The far left would call this abusive, which is ridiculous.

But this parent also repeatedly "forced [her] daughter to listen to specific podcasts on the subject while driving her to school." Really? That is authoritarian, over-controlling parenting, and it's an action that's likely to breed resentment in the child. And who's to say that's really going to convince the child to not medically transition, once they're 18 and out of the house...?

I think there's some good in this article but there's some bad, too, and it's worth acknowledging both.

[–]xanditAGAB (Assigned Gay at Birth) 19 insightful - 1 fun19 insightful - 0 fun20 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Now that's a screenshot that needs to be passed around.

[–]jim_steak 19 insightful - 1 fun19 insightful - 0 fun20 insightful - 1 fun -  (11 children)

Assuming this is true, where is the mom's self reflection on her role in this? Nowhere in her "solution" for her daughter's gender dysphoria does she try talking to her daughter and understanding what she's going through - instead it's all about control. Nowhere does she consider why her daughter has such a negative relationship with her body, or why she might be suicidal. Why is her happy, loving daughter getting sucked into sexually inappropriate spaces, threatening suicide, and wanting to transition, and more importantly, why doesn't she feel comfortable going to her mom with these issues? The mom assumes her daughter is "authentically feminine", but it doesn't seem like the daughter actually has a choice at all.

I don't think transitioning is a good solution for the daughter's underlying issues, but the mom's reaction seems abusive to me, and I have to wonder where the underlying problems actually originated.

[–]GreykittymommaMagical lady 💜 20 insightful - 1 fun20 insightful - 0 fun21 insightful - 1 fun -  (6 children)

So you've never seen these groomers blame parents for all the totally normal feelings teens have and turn the kids into little shits?

I do think some of this seems extreme but if you want to reflect on parental roles do it with your own kids. Just because it wasn't stated in this article doesn't mean the mom didn't consider that.

Clearly the problems came from social media and the losers she goes to school with. It isn't always mommy and daddy's fault.

[–][deleted] 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Yes many youths today are over-invested into social media and pop culture. This is very short term typical hardcore conservative parenting that never works out in the end because the kid will just eventually rebel. She literally cut her off from her friends, hobbies and any social interaction has to be approved by her. You think that is going to endear love?

The thing is all of these people do have real issues. People over overly using the concept of being trans to deal with maybe feeling they don't fit into an ideal, they dislike their body, they feel insecure about their position in society, feel no one will like them, need an escape and goes on and on. The mom has just basically cut out the coping mechanism but hasn't actually dealt with the issue.

It's the same as every other issue within society the opioidid epidemic, violence within our society, alcoholism etc take your pick. Though yes media is the reason why people get into bad behaviors, cults or addictive substances. There is no social underlying reasons. Sorry this is lazy parenting and when the government is involved it's just lazy fear mongering policy making.

The only thing I can agree is kids shouldn't have access to social media but cutting her from her hobbies and friends is way too far. Even then I think in this world especially grappled by CoVid there probably need to be services safe for teens and kids to interact because some people just have trouble fitting in at school and need a place socially where they can blow off steam. They just shouldn't be exposed to twitter and all the idiots on there.

[–]Chipit[S] 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

This is very short term typical hardcore conservative parenting that never works out in the end because the kid will just eventually rebel.

[citation needed]

I think selection bias is in effect here. As in, the only ones you ever heard from are the ones who did that.

The rest, who had a positive parental intervention to remove them from a path of villainy, you never hear from again.

[–][deleted] 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

[Citation needed] this works.

As someone who grew up in that culture, knew others from Muslim families, Conservative Christian ones and seeing all those Catholic/Protestant kids whining about their past online I think I am solid in this opinion. You can call it selection bias but I know this if my parents did such a thing to me it would just endear ire. You don't just rip away everything you like, ban people outside of the family that you care about in the name some vague cause you don't understand especially since the parent likely was overly hands off before then.

The mentality this mom has is literally no different than the Conservative right panics of the 80s and 90s and you know what they got out of that? A complete erosion of whatever social power they had. You can't act like a dictator now when your culture isn't dominant. Unless she plans to keep her home as a total NEET she is going to likely go get some form of higher education or trade and be exposed to all of this again. She likely is already is at school. You need to have a firm grounding in your beliefs not Mom controlling everything you do up to the age of 18. You have to make a conscious choice regarding what you believe.

Plus it's kinda weird to post this kind of post on this subreddit when the mom could have an issue with her kid even experimenting with the same sex too just saying (is it she doens't believe in pansexuality or she doesn't want her daughter kissing girls). This isn't just a trans issue.

Tons of other people are able to engage in what this girl is and not want to inject tons of life changing hormones so what actually is the problem here? Some deep seeded that isn't going to be addressed and the kid probably is going to rebel once she gets some actual freedom.

It's not a positive intervention. She was a dumb hands off parent before this and now she is just acting like a dictator two extremes that aren't providing actual guidance nor building of any sort of relationship with her child. If she actually gives a shit what she does after she leaves home then both approaches are pretty bad.

[–]jim_steak 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

The article is recommending parenting techniques to rescue kids from transgenderism, so you have to reflect on her parenting to respond to the article. The things she's advocating for are based on controlling her daughter's behavior rather than trying to understand what's causing the behavior, and she doesn't seem very empathetic to her daughter's point of view (at one point she literally compares her to a drug addict).

I think what the daughter saw on social media and in school affected how she expressed her feelings, but I think the underlying feelings of depression, discomfort with her body, and suicidality came from someplace else.

[–]GreykittymommaMagical lady 💜 14 insightful - 1 fun14 insightful - 0 fun15 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

So would you rather a parent be too hard on the kid potentially or let her cut her tits off and sew her vagina up? That is what these morons are doing now.

Not under my roof is the correct response of any sane parent and hell yes cut ties with some little pervert that sent a masterbation video AKA kiddie porn. Have you met these losers? They are addicted to internet porn and are insanely self absorbed.

Anyway, in a few years this kid can move out and pay for his/her own bullshit and start grooming high schoolers too.

I would say the same thing to little girls wearing tons of makeup and acting slutty online I would end that instantly for my child's safety.

The mom doesn't parent how you would, get over it. It isn't your kid. She is saying what she did and that it worked for her (temporarily possibly)

[–]reluctant_commenter 9 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 0 fun10 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Completely agree. I can't remember which LGB-friendly therapist I heard say this, but it seems like there's a common trend among detransitioned girls/women of having an abusive family situation and poor relationships with their parents, especially the mothers-- yet when the mothers are asked, they say they had a great relationship with their daughters. This article reminded me of that trend.

[–]Chipit[S] 5 insightful - 3 fun5 insightful - 2 fun6 insightful - 3 fun -  (1 child)

When caring about your daughter is child abuse.

Isn't there a Nietzsche quote about this?

[–]reluctant_commenter 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

When caring about your daughter is child abuse.

Lol. That is such a distorted interpretation of what I said.

I never said the parent didn't care. It is possible for a parent to care about their child and still act in abusive ways towards their child. The feeling of caring itself is not abusive, but some of this parent's actions are, in fact, abusive.

Here are two examples of abusive behaviors that the parent in this article engaged in:

1 - Isolated her daughter from all the daughter's peers. -- The mother denies her child any autonomy or freedom in choosing her friends, cutting her off from almost all of them while not opening up any new avenues for the child to make friends with other kids who aren't so into gender identity theory.

Quote:

I went nuclear. I took the phone and stripped it of all social media—YouTube, Instagram, Discord, Reddit, Pinterest, Twitter. I even blocked her ability to get to the internet. I deleted all of her contacts and changed her phone number.

What I'm wondering: If I were this child, would this convince me that I need to change my ways? Or would I re-contact all those friends who I got cut off from, once I turned 18 and left the house?

2 - Forced her daughter to consume the media that the parent thinks is right. -- This isn't any better than forcing your child to sit in the car and listen to fundamentalist Christian teachings or crackpot conspiracy theories. The parent is using the fact that she is the child's primary caregiver as leverage to force her child, a teen in the process of developing into her own person, to do something she wants. Even if the thing the parent's forcing her to do is the right thing, the behavior itself is coercive and founded on the power of threat. And threat is no basis for a caring relationship, regardless of whether the person making the threats actually does feel caring on the inside!

Quote:

I forced my daughter to listen to specific podcasts on the subject while driving her to school.

What I'm wondering: If I were this child, would I feel that my parent cares about me as they force me to consume media that they think is important, against my protests?


Above all... let me ask... Are these long-term solutions, that the parent has implemented? I think not.

[–]PatsyStoneMaverique 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I had this same reaction, and a similar reaction to another opinion piece that was linked recently from the gender critical parent of a trans child.

This woman seems passive aggressive and seems to stereotype her daughter. I'd feel trapped in my body too.

[–]JoeyJoeJoe 17 insightful - 1 fun17 insightful - 0 fun18 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Genuine compassion wouldn't involve feeding delusions at all. More people need to realise that.

[–]iamonlyoneman 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

"So ban everything but the affirmative model in professional medical settings then? Okay!" -Canada

[–][deleted] 16 insightful - 1 fun16 insightful - 0 fun17 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Going to be honest what she is suggesting is not a long term solution. I highly doubt just basically closing their kid off from past hobbies, former friends and the internet is just turning her kid back into whatever Mom imagines her to be.

There is sure a disturbing problem of kids being overly involved on social media, that tribalistic associations and pop culture are over influencing kids identity. The solution though isn't to act like some hardcore Baptist family and shut them out from the world.

I know people like that who as soon as they got freedom from their family what do you think they did? They went off to engage in plenty of hedonistic behaviors because cutting off from that doesn't institute a sense of control just denial.

As someone who did end up in many of those subcultures it's just kinda juvenile to blame behavioral problems on some sort of easy to identity person or product. I didn't have any of those issues so what actually is the problem here? They lack a proper understanding of what is real and what isn't. I always had a pretty good disconnect from the internet and firm grounding of reality.

Your kid has issues they need guidance beyond I am just going to cut them off from any dangerous influence. I won't be shocked if her kid runs off and cuts contact if you pursue parenting that way. You have to actually parent and not just let your kids go off willy nilly but there is a difference between that and acting like a dictator.

I mean we are on a subreddit for being LGB. Some of these like thinking one might be pan as much as I think that term specifically is redundant what is wrong with that? She probably is just some dumb straight girl who wants to be different but ultimately who are you guys endorsing here lol. There isn't anything wrong with a dumb girl figuring out who she is attracted to.

[–]SkepticalHPSSuper Straight 9 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 0 fun10 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Yeah the mom sounds….extremely conservative, and not in a good way. I was big into anime at this girl’s age and the worst we did was be really dorky. The internet nowadays is a very different beast though and I wouldn’t let a kid on social media and such without supervision, but completely cutting her off instead of guiding her and helping her engage in these hobbies in healthy ways is just gonna make her rebel hardcore once she’s out of mom’s view.

[–][deleted] 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Pretty much. Kids aren't dumb if you are able to rationalize to them why you have restrictions or why their life choices could be harmful even if they don't agree with you outright it will nag at their consciousness. There is always a deep seed issue at the core of many of these communication break downs in families.

[–]reluctant_commenter 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Going to be honest what she is suggesting is not a long term solution. I highly doubt just basically closing their kid off from past hobbies, former friends and the internet is just turning her kid back into whatever Mom imagines her to be.

Yeah that's exactly what I thought. I hate to be negative but that does seem like a realistic possibility.

As someone who did end up in many of those subcultures it's just kinda juvenile to blame behavioral problems on some sort of easy to identity person or product. I didn't have any of those issues so what actually is the problem here? They lack a proper understanding of what is real and what isn't.

I agree. I mentioned something similar in my main comment to the article. I'm not sure the author is able to clearly distinguish between what changes in her daughter's behavior may be benign and what changes may be really harmful.

[–][deleted] 15 insightful - 1 fun15 insightful - 0 fun16 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Parents really need to be keeping their kids off the internet and social media in particular. Nothing good comes from it. It's better for the kid to spend hours playing video games than hours on social media.

[–]Q-Continuum-kin 13 insightful - 1 fun13 insightful - 0 fun14 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Where was that published?

The one thing i always find most disturbing is the language and labeling issue where the person says the daughter started identifying as "polyamerous". That might be fine in a certain circumstance but after looking for an age, all of this happened prior to 9th grade which means all the identifying came in middle or elementary school.

No matter the circumstance, that is far too young to be polyamerous. Polyamory does not require sexual activity but it's heavily implied by these labels. Most adults will never be able to emotionally handle real polyamory nevermind a child.

[–]Chipit[S] 10 insightful - 3 fun10 insightful - 2 fun11 insightful - 3 fun -  (0 children)

It's just humans doing what humans do: trying for a higher status within the group. These anime and social media sites make it out like everyone is a sexual freak and being normal is not only boring but abnormal. It's not surprising this is having an effect. I used to find this fascinating, like when the !Xhosa destroyed all their cattle or there was a laughing sickness in Tanzania. I don't find it fascinating any more.

[–]reluctant_commenter 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Where was that published?

A mod stickied a source, in case you haven't seen it already.

[–]reluctant_commenter 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (7 children)

But this isn’t a cautionary tale. It’s a warning.

What? That's literally what a cautionary tale is. I hate to nitpick lol, but seriously.

She came home with a whole new language. She and all her girlfriends discussed their labels—polyamorous, lesbian, pansexual. None of the five girls chose “basic,” their term for a straight girl.

These girls were taught homophobic drivel. "Being gay is different and special!" Liberals' benevolent homophobia only harms LGB people. And harms these (probably mostly straight, by the odds) kids by pressuring them to hide their real sexual orientations, apparently.

Also.. the article is decent overall, but it is pretty vague and lacks logical reasoning at many points where it might've benefitted from it. Like this, for example:

She came home with a whole new language. She and all her girlfriends discussed their labels—polyamorous, lesbian, pansexual. None of the five girls chose “basic,” their term for a straight girl.

Now, I was worried.

Ok, fine, but can you please explain more clearly why you are worried? I think many parents would be reasonably worried about this because they'd recognize the social contagion factor at play. But without such explanation, this sort of language is sometimes indicative of fearmongering.

Also... this parent sounds extremely controlling. If her proposed solutions really worked for her, then great, but honestly, I don't think it'd work with most gender dysphoric teens to just force them to listen to GC podcasts on the way to school... that doesn't sound like an effective way to build a relationship of mutual respect. I hate to be cynical but I kinda wonder if the kid just kept up her hobbies but remained way more secretive about them. IDK. We had a similar post that sparked great discussion a few weeks back and several of us agreed that the mother's response in that essay also seemed unreasonable.


edit:

I wanted to add some notes from another comment I made about how, exactly, the parent is acting in an "extremely controlling" manner, and in my opinion, abusively. I am not saying that this parent doesn't care about her daughter, or that she is a bad person; rather, I'm saying that some of the specific actions she's taken to deal with this situation are harmful actions.

Here are two examples of abusive behaviors that the parent in this article engaged in:

1 - Isolated her daughter from all the daughter's peers. -- The mother denies her child any autonomy or freedom in choosing her friends, cutting her off from almost all of them while not opening up any new avenues for the child to make friends with other kids who aren't so into gender identity theory.

Quote:

I went nuclear. I took the phone and stripped it of all social media—YouTube, Instagram, Discord, Reddit, Pinterest, Twitter. I even blocked her ability to get to the internet. I deleted all of her contacts and changed her phone number.

What I'm wondering: If I were this child, would this convince me that I need to change my ways? Or would I re-contact all those friends who I got cut off from, once I turned 18 and left the house? ...And then maybe resume my plans to medically transition?

2 - Forced her daughter to consume the media that the parent thinks is right. -- This isn't any better than forcing your child to sit in the car and listen to fundamentalist Christian teachings or crackpot conspiracy theories. The parent is using the fact that she is the child's primary caregiver as leverage to force her child, a teen in the process of developing into her own person, to do something she wants. Even if the thing the parent's forcing her to do is the right thing, the behavior itself is coercive and founded on the power of threat. And threat is no basis for a caring relationship, regardless of whether the person making the threats actually does feel caring on the inside!

Quote:

I forced my daughter to listen to specific podcasts on the subject while driving her to school.

What I'm wondering: If I were this child, would I feel that my parent cares about me as they force me to consume media that they think is important, against my protests?

Above all... let me ask... Are these long-term solutions, that the parent has implemented? I think not.

[–]yousaythosethingsFind and Replace "gatekeeping" with "having boundaries" 10 insightful - 1 fun10 insightful - 0 fun11 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

I’m with you on your take. I respect that it is difficult to have a child caught up in the gender trend but there are a lot of red and yellow flags in this mom’s write-up. Despite the title, the mom doesn’t seem to have learned all that much. This is not the perspective of someone who wants to understand and empathize with her child or who was curious about the underlying pain the child was undergoing that caused her to latch on to a gender solution. Somehow I don’t think if her daughter ended up desisting and coming out as a butch lesbian or a particularly masculine straight girl, she would have considered that a success.

My daughter is finally returning to her authentic self — A beautiful, artsy, kind, and loving daughter.

It’s hard to pin down exactly what irks me here, and it’s not just this sentence, but this sentence in the context of the rest of the article. It seems that she’s defining the girl’s “authentic self” as an obedient daughter.

[–]PatsyStoneMaverique 10 insightful - 1 fun10 insightful - 0 fun11 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

It seems that she’s defining the girl’s “authentic self” as an obedient daughter.

She's dictating her daughter's personality to her. She seems to mostly ignore her daughter and to have little empathy for her. Her daughter is going to rebel against her. Guaranteed.

[–]yousaythosethingsFind and Replace "gatekeeping" with "having boundaries" 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Yes, this definitely reads as the mother prescribing to her daughter the way she ought to be to please her. There is so much disdain in here. Yes, gender nonsense is ridiculous and makes no sense to those of us who have taken the time to follow it to its logical conclusions, but her child is steeped in it, trying to develop a sense of belonging, and give some meaning to her life. This wasn't written to be educational to anyone, but to shame her daughter and gloat about it. She doesn't seem to care that she actually learned next to nothing about her daughter, and yes this will obviously result in further rebellion out of the mother's sight.

[–]PatsyStoneMaverique 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Yeah, and for what it's worth I do detect an undercurrent of homophobia in the mother. Another instance of reading too much into tone, but "artsy" bothered me.

Poor girl, she's going to have problems for years.

[–]Finnegan7921 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Controlling parents do not let things get that out of hand. If anything, the mother wasn't controlling enough.

[–][deleted] 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Now her response is to act like a dictator that is bad parenting.

[–]reluctant_commenter 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Okay, I disagree with this for several reasons.

  1. I think it's unfair to suggest that this mother "let things get out of hand" when gender identity ideology is everywhere. It's super popular among the younger generations, and in many social contexts, teens/young adults are socially excluded and shamed for not participating in it. Those are some powerful forces pressuring this woman's daughter to get deep into gender identity beliefs, and broadly speaking, that kind of societal pressure on teenagers near impossible for parents to prevent. No matter how controlling the mother is, her daughter will still know that gender identity is "cool" among her peers and will be pressured to participate in it... a parent can't erase that powerful social pressure just by being acting more controlling.

  2. Being controlling is counterproductive for at least one glaringly huge reason: the child's gonna turn 18 and then the parent can't control anymore... what then? If the parent's obsessive controlling was the only thing preventing the child from medically transitioning-- then the child is just going to go transition when they're 18! That's still bad. Sure, they won't be harming their body as much as if they transitioned at, say, 12 or 14 years old, but medical transition still has serious health risks even for adults who transition.

[–]WildwoodFlower 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

I think one of the keys here is that the mom was mostly going at this alone. Ideally, this kid should have been in therapy and the therapist would have uncovered what was really going on. The therapist also would have helped the mother work through her own anxiety and feelings and put the brakes on the mom when she was overcontrolling. But from the sound of it, it took a long time to find a good therapist, and even then this person was out of state.

[–]Chipit[S] 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

The therapist would just have encouraged the girl.

[–]WildwoodFlower 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

That's why I said "good therapist". It's sad-- and dangerous-- that parents have to treat their own kids' mental illnesses at home because most therapists are either on board the trans train or else they're afraid to say anything that could get them in trouble. And no, I am not supporting any form of conversion therapy here. I am absolutely against those barbaric old-school practices where effeminate boys were punished for playing with dolls, or where teenagers were sent to pray-away-the-gay camp. Girls like the ones described in this article need to explore why they hate themselves, why they have difficulty making friends in the real world, why they are drawn to the sick and twisted corners of the internet, and how they can learn to cope. Some of them probably need antidepressants, but none of them should be on T.

[–]iamonlyoneman 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

These days, the therapist would have the girl on testosterone in a single visit. Therapy is no substitute for solid parenting.

[–]iamonlyoneman 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

gg mom.

[–]HereStill 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I know you all want to celebrate this but the actions described here are horrid. I'd be horrified if someone told me they did this to their child, especially since it seems that part of the issue for her was "emo-goth vampirism" as an aesthetic choice. Nowhere does she say she tried to help her child with the root issues that led to feeling dysphoric. Maybe it's my bleeding leftist heart or having been raised by a mother who understood only obedience like this one, but I'm sure all this kid is learning is what to tell her therapist later on in life.

This sort of behavior also ties perfectly into the running narrative that any parent against their transition is pure evil and just wants to control them.

[–]Chipit[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

A strong mother who takes action when her daughter is threatened is to be admired.

the root issues that led to feeling dysphoric.

She did! She cut her off from the online programming.

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

🥺 parent of the year man