Hero Mom saves daughter from sex-change pressure

Determined mother exposes fallacy of transgender rules      Photo by Albert Rafael

Theresa's daughter went through a time of wretchedness believing that the answer to her anxiety over the changes occuring in her body at puberty was to become a boy. Theresa stood her ground as the daughter's school followed the "affirm, affirm, affirm" path. By changing school and losing access to social media, Theresa's daughter has regained her balance and is happy she can flourish as a teenage girl.

Whereas the "experts'" response to the daughter's declaration was to affirm every thought the daughter had, Theresa wanted to tread carefully and, particularly, protect all options for her daughter's future. Theresa and her husband were not against transgenderism but they knew their child, who had delighted in all things feminine but also had a history of  anxiety and depression. They wanted the school to continue to treat their daughter as a girl and to support her as she went through a period of counselling to identify exactly why she felt distressed at that time.

Accounts of clashes between protective parents and schools that have succumbed to transgender orthodoxy are very informative about the character of our society, where the right of parents to have the governing responsibility for care of children is clearly downgraded by those whose goal is to redefine the family and to assert that the rights of adults must take precedence, no matter the harm inflicted on the vulnerable.

To scrutinise the rescue of Theresa's daughter is definitely instructive:

Despite their daughter’s protests, Theresa and her husband decided it would be best that she be identified as a girl and by her real name when she returned to school in mid-January. They assumed their local suburban school district about 30 miles west of Milwaukee would support their rights as parents to make this delicate medical decision for their daughter.

They were wrong.

Leaders of her daughter’s middle school told Theresa that while they couldn’t change her daughter’s name and gender in official records, they would refer to her as a boy and by her new chosen name, Leo, if that’s what her daughter wanted. “We’re an advocate for the child and not the parent,” they told her, Theresa recalled. To Theresa, the school-district leaders were usurping her and her husband’s rights as parents. 

Theresa and her husband have sued the school district, as other challenges to school policies that shut parents out from decisions regarding kids’ gender identification at school occur in California, Florida, Maryland, and Virginia. Cases are that schools violated their constitutional rights as parents.

This is the situation:

To progressive trans advocates, not immediately affirming a child’s new gender identity is a form of abuse. Earlier this year, teachers in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, were instructed by “diversity” staffers from a local college to hide their students’ changing gender identities from their parents on the grounds that “parents are not entitled to know,” and that it is “knowledge that must be earned”, according to leaked training documents.

This month, the Wisconsin Supreme Court is slated to hear arguments in a case regarding a Madison Metropolitan School District policy, adopted in 2018, that commits to affirming “each student’s self-designated gender identity” and prohibits staff from letting parents know that their child is using a new name and pronouns at school. To prevent the parents from finding out, staff are instructed to use “the student’s affirmed name and pronouns in the school setting, and their legal name and pronouns with family”, according to the policy.

 Back to the circumstances to Theresa's daughter:

Anxiety and depression had been an issue throughout her daughter’s childhood, and that got worse during the Covid-19 lockdowns when she was isolated at home, stuck in her mind, and with access to too much social media.

“She struggles with self-worth, and feeling like she’s pretty enough, is she thin enough,” Theresa said. “She has struggled with that for some time.”

On the first occasion that her daughter had opened up about wanting to be a boy Theresa had responded with the message that: 

“I think we need to work on you starting to like who you are instead of constantly focusing on changing yourself into something you’re not.”

She continued to press for that basic step when her daughter entered a mental health facility for a few days. She asked the girl's counsellor whether he had looked into whether the eruption of depression and anxiety might explain why she was trying to “create a brand new person”.

“And he was kind of like, essentially, ‘No.’ But he was like, ‘If you don’t do what your daughter wants, if she decides to hurt or kill herself, that’s really going to fall on you guys, because you’re not respecting your child’s choices.’”

Theresa said her husband was willing to call his daughter whatever she wanted if that meant keeping her alive. Theresa put her foot down. Her daughter is a girl, “and until somebody is going to take some time to find out what the hell is going on in her mind, it’s going to stay that way,” she said. “I’m not going to appease her for short-term gain when I feel like there are long-term problems that need to be worked out.”

At home, she said, her daughter was continuing with outpatient virtual therapy and growing angrier. Some nights her daughter just vented, said she was a boy, and called Theresa a “transphobe”. But Theresa said she refused to negotiate.

“I told her, ‘I’m not telling you that you can’t be transgender. I’m not telling you that you can’t be a boy. I’m telling you that you can’t change your name and your gender right now,’” she said.  “You have a lot of underlying issues that need to be addressed before you make the decision that you were born in the wrong body. I understand that all these people around you are appeasing you and giving you want you want, and I’m not doing that, and that makes you angry. But I am your best friend. I am looking out for your best interest.”

Her daughter just seemed to grow angrier.

Therapists were telling the girl that her mother was her biggest opponent to any sex change. Theresa states:

“I was going to be the biggest problem in her life because I do not accept her for who she is now, nor will I ever,” she said. “They discussed her getting on medication to transition to a man because it’s easier when you’re younger. Her anger was fueled by the therapy I was paying for.” 

Theresa took her daughter out of the school that would not comply with her wishes for her daughter. It cited an executive order on transgender issues from President Biden. This was in January 2021. At that time her daughter now identified as a lesbian. Also:

Theresa didn’t send her daughter back to her therapist after her month of outpatient care ended. She took away her daughter’s access to social media. And after a couple of weeks, she said, her daughter’s demeanor began to revert back to where it was before.

 Time is a great healer!

One day, Theresa said, she came home and found her daughter in the kitchen talking with her dad. “She was like, ‘You know, Mom, I’m really sorry. Affirmative care really messed me up. They really made me hate you and Grandma. I know that you love me, and you just want what’s best for me,’” Theresa said. “She’s just a completely different kid.”

Theresa said her daughter now sees a therapist they vetted well. They work well together, and her daughter is doing better. The family bought a new home in another school district, and her daughter is going to school there. She said her daughter no longer identifies as a lesbian or a boy, though she would be free to do so in her new school.

 What a great mom! She went the full forty yards. For the sake of her daughter she studied peer-reviewed research on gender dysphoria and treatment, which made her concerned about the affirmation approach. She would not let the self-identified experts and officials push her from the track she knew was best for her daughter. She knew that it was going to be her and her husband who would have to pick up the pieces if transgender orthdoxy were to be inflicted on their daughter.

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