Thank you for speaking out. My grandchild started talking about GD identity issues when puberty started and had been in therapy due to issues that were manifesting and very concerning from the age of 10. My son eventually got custody but about the age of 16 my grandchild basically had a meltdown and was no longer able to attend public school and had to be placed in a therapeutic residential treatment school environment. All they want to focus on for therapy was GD. My son held out and refused to allow HRT for his own daughter before she turned 18 but once 18, my Grandchild made the decision to switch gender. I have always believed that the underlying trauma and mental health issues due to her birth mother‘s actual diagnosis of Munchausen by proxy was the real issue and GD was a symptom of it, but the horse is out of the barn now. I completely agree with what amounts to brainwashing kids in puberty and before. Heck when I was 11 I would’ve preferred to be a boy myself. I was a tomboy then. But I wasn’t allowed to play sports. They didn’t even have girls sports at my school back then. Anyway We need to teach kids that it’s OK to not know exactly who you are when you’re in puberty and to learn to love and accept ourselves, the way, we are as a primary therapeutic focus !

That said there are a whole lot of kids now who DO identify as Trans. My grandchild is one of them. It tore my heart apart, but the only way to continue to be a part of his life and supportive influence (or Lighthouse on the stormy shore as it were), was to learn how to speak to him in his chosen gender role and support his choices moving forward. He’s in his 20s now and wants to go forward with surgery and continuing HRT. The conundrum for me is yes I agree with everything about influencing, children in puberty and even earlier childhood. But once people have reached the age of legal consent, they do have the freedom to determine what they are going to do with their bodies, and I believe we need to not vilify them— political agendas aside. we have to find a way to care for these wounded people! They are not particularly evil in and of themselves, but they’ve been traumatized by others and are doing the best they can to survive. They’ve been caught in the crossfires of a system that created them (somewhat like Frankenstein‘s monster if you will) but they are not inhuman and we need to find a way to care for them. Removing their sources of stable treatment is not going to help. I think laws need to be made about the age of consent and so forth and I totally agree with that and the political agenda of LGBTQ influence is something to look at as far as how it is influenced things too far in the extreme. But in terms of supporting gay and lesbian, and all the other shades of confusion, we need to remember that they are people, and in a climate of persecution and bigotry, and so forth, they have reacted in a dramatic way to try to protect themselves as a community due to the hate that has been spewed against them. It’s another form of racism except in this case it doesn’t matter what the color of an LGBTQ person‘s skin is if they identify in that community, they are a target.

I agree wholeheartedly the therapeutic profession needs to come back to true North and start healing people and especially CHILDREN from within before these extreme measures are considered. But as the grandmother of a now trans person, I am concerned for their well-being and their ability to live safely in this climate of bigotry. How do we overcome this? They are people who have suffered greatly. They need love too. They’re not deviant. They’re hurting but they are also beautiful, intelligent souls with love and talent to give. How can they then contribute to the world ? Let’s find a way to accept people and create a better system to help children who are the victims of dysfunction, which is rampant in our society. Pointing the finger and blaming, doesn’t solve the problem. We need to proceed to dialogue with compassion and respect in spite of the differences of opinion (religious and political beliefs ) that we have with each other. I’m doing my best to walk this balance beam.