I’m too young for this but in my parent’s generation everyone could tell you exactly where they were when they heard the news that President Kennedy had been shot. The closest approximation for my age might be recalling where I was when I learned of the Challenger explosion or, of course, September 11th.
In the PITT community, we can all remember exactly where we were when we were informed that our child was “born in the wrong body”.
Today, on ROGD Awareness Day, I invite you to share your story. I’ll go first. Feel free to share yours. That is what PITT is for. And, by the way, there is no one else I could share this with nor, despite having some super supportive friends, do I think they’d care for these details.
Let the sharing begin.
When I was informed she was trans…. Hold please while I find the email. Aha, here we go:
“Mom, I can’t come home [from university] for nana’s birthday next week but I have some news to share. I am transitioning and will be starting testosterone to lower my voice and make myself look like a man. T will start now. Next summer I’ll be getting top surgery to have female breast tissue removed. I’m not asking for your permission, I’m telling you. Once you accept this, you can visit me at school to meet the new me.”
And when did I learn about ROGD……
This shocking announcement set my husband and me into a spiral of—depending on the day or even hour—disbelief, incredulity, anger, outrage, despair, rage, and sadness—and this cycle played on repeat. My daughter had never been a tomboy and was not attracted to women. But she was away from home for the first extended period of time, socially awkward and lonely. It also set me off on a binge of research. I looked up every article I could find on the topic. I contacted the author of those articles. I spoke to Dr. Laura, Edwards, Abigail Shrier, and Sasha Ayad. I read Lisa Littman’s study. And then I found a name for what was happening to my 18-year-old daughter—ROGD. And here’s the funny part: I sent the article to her doctors and asked if they were familiar with it and if they had any concerns about her sudden self-diagnosis and the seriousness of the “treatment” plan. If you are on the PITT site, you can guess what happened next.
These memories are painful. It’s hard to revisit the mental distress from that time for both our daughter and for us. It’s humiliating and infuriating to recall how we were treated by her doctors. But maybe ROGD Awareness Day is a good thing because, if you aren’t enraged by an ideology that encourages young people to medicate for life and remove healthy body parts, then you are unaware. And, unfortunately, activists are still deny that ROGD is even a thing, as evidenced by the battle to publish Dr Michael Bailey’s latest ROGD study—and it’s ultimate retraction.
Welcome to PITT.
Thank you for sharing. I have a similar story but I am a grandmother of my granddaughter who at 20 is going on testosterone while being at Uof Cincinnati. In text she wrote that I will have to accept my transition FTM before having communication with her! She blocked me (text and email) and demanded that I get therapy before she would ever consider her reinstating our relationship. I was shocked and now I am grieving my loss, of my grand daughter to a cult.
People have to make their mistakes before they learn they were stupid. It's a universal concept, only some make dumber mistakes than others.