Thread by @TheMicheaB

So I want to discuss the topic of #ROGD that is being mentioned in #ROGDWEEEK2018.

I realized I was trans when I was around 8-10 years old. Until puberty hit, I was able to justify the difference between my body and my brother's body as us just being born different. 1/

But when puberty hit, it was like everything about myself betrayed who I was. I was growing breasts, I started my period, I started looking more feminine.

Up until my first period, I was able to justify and deal with being trans. When it happened, dysphoria hit with it. 2/

I didn't have any of the signs or symptoms listed today for childhood gender dysphoria, so by the thoughts in #ROGD I would have had rapid onset. It didn't matter that I knew I was trans for a year or more before my first period, my GD was "rapid" and started with puberty. 3/

I never came out to my parents though, not because I feared their reactions, but because I lived during the AIDS scare and it was around 1990-1992 when I realized I was trans. Trans people were still listed with pedophiles in the DSM at this time. 4/

Because I had no safe way to figure out my gender as I grew older, or any way to rationalize my body and how it differed from what people deemed male, I internalized my dysphoria.

TW: Abuse, self harm, suicide
5/

I started cutting myself. I would stab myself with sharp objects, I tried to kill myself multiple times, many of the attempts only I know about. I never spoke with anyone about them for fear of being treated as even more mentally ill than I already was.
6/

There was no way to treat a teenager with gender dysphoria back then because it didn't exist. The DSM at the time treated trans people like some sort of sexually sick person, and treated trans masc people like confused women crossdressers who had daddy issues.
7/

I couldn't get the help I needed.
There were no resources to help me understand what was going on.
So....I forced it down. I tried to pretend to be what everyone said I was.

This made it worse. MUCH WORSE.
8/

I developed severe psychological issues that to this day I'm still struggling with. I started to disassociate and people realized this and used it to abuse me in school.
9/

I was mocked, bullied, and abused by my peers because I tried my best to come to terms with my gender during my high school years. I wore more masc clothing and acted more masc, but this made things worse.
10/

I was sexually abused by my own classmates because "I wanted to be a man."

Let that sink in.

I was raped by my female peers in the girl's locker room. I wasn't raped by my male peers, but my female peers who decided to teach me a lesson.

11/

By the time I reached adulthood I'd become a master at repressing myself. I had so many mental grey areas that I'm still scared to try to work things out so I can remember what happened.
12/

But because of how my dysphoria hit, if it occurred today, I would be classified by these people as having #ROGD or I would be told I'm just part of the #ftmSurge going on. I would be invalidated because I didn't "suffer" they way they think I should.
13/

Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria is junk science, based on an unpublished paper that should be thrown in the trash due to how they went about getting their information. Those of us who realized we were trans in our teens learned how to stealth really quick.
14/

We learned how to hide who we really were if we didn't feel it was safe. The same goes for trans kids today. They aren't "suddenly" becoming dysphoric due to the internet or some other ridiculous claim.
15/

To the parents of trans kids who are looking at #ROGD or #ROGDWEEK2018 for information, I want to tell you something important.
Your kids wait before they tell you they're trans. It's not a sudden thing. They wait until they think it's safe to tell you.
16/

Don't let what happened to me and to many of the other trans people my age who were forced to wait to come out until it was safe (in my case until I was 32). Your kids need to know that you will love them regardless of their gender.
17/

Kids have enough to deal with these days without fearing that their parents won't love them if they come out to them. Instead of sitting there trying to figure out if they have some sort of condition that doesn't exist (#ROGD isn't an actual diagnosis)...
18/

...try listening to your kids. Your kid isn't confused, they're not being turned trans by the school or by the medical field, they're not deciding to become trans due to reading stuff on the internet.
19/

What your kids need when they come out to you is acceptance. If you don't know what to do after they come out, talk with your GP/PCP, talk with other parents of trans kids, but most of all, listen to your kids and help them during this time.
20/

Please, don't do what my generation and the generations before me did to trans kids.

Don't keep them in the closet because you read sensationalized pseudoscience being backed by "doctors" (look at what happened with vaccines from just this sort of thing!)

21/

If it turns out your kid wasn't actually trans, then there is no harm done from you being accepting and giving them a safe setting to figure things out.
But if it turns out they are and you shut them down by claiming they have #ROGD-I pray they don't go the way many of us did.22/

If you've made it this far, thank you. If you would like more information on #ROGD and #ROGDWEEK2018 then please check out the following posts I've made regarding gender, trans issues, and what science understands currently.
23/end

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This is an 8 part article, but all of them are connected/linked for easier reading.
illuminatusdesign.com/2018/04/23/bre…