Thread by @Transgendertrd

#ROGDWEEK2018 is a chance for parents' voices and testimonies to be heard. We will be adding parents' testimonies to this thread, feel free to add your own.

"I am the mother of a now 18 year old who suddenly announced two years ago that she had been born into the wrong body. There had been nothing during her childhood to start alarm bells ringing. I deplore the current media exposure which only ever seems to portray happy outcomes"

"My 14 year old daughter has recently “come out” as transgender. She's never had any signs of this throughout her childhood. She has had a lot of emotional upset in her short life. The school is insisting that they will call her by her chosen male name whether we like it or not"

"Our 14 yr old daughter was seen by a paediatrician for possible ASD. Now she is to be refereed to Tavistock for gender dysphoria. All info seems to lead to a forgone conclusion that she must fully transition ASAP"

"Our daughter has transitioned as an adult (age 21). Growing up she confided in me that she was attracted to women and thought she may be lesbian. A sexual assault happened to her at college, she was diagnosed with PTSD and began therapy. She is now 'male'"

"I had not been aware of the role of trauma in bringing girls to this choice, the difficulty in choosing a lesbian life, the way others (medical, psychological, social, educational, political) and peer forces operate to make the transitioning agenda seem the only answer"

"Our daughter (14) has recently told us she is trans. This came a month or so after telling us she was pansexual, which she said a number of her friends at school also were. She says she has felt this way since she was 8 and she feels like she has been born in the wrong body"

"My 14 yr-old daughter told me she is trans. In the last year she has gone through a stage of mild self-harm, increasing anxiety and emotional issues which seem to coincide with hanging around with at least 2 other girls in her year who have come out as trans"

"It appears that just because teenagers are having feelings of gender confusion, they must automatically be trans and should be supported to socially and medically transition as soon as possible, without looking into the reasons behind their feelings and emotions"

"Our daughter identified as a boy at school for a year before we found out by chance. She was able to change her identity without any discussion with us. She is anxious, quirky, easily led, dyslexic and showed no signs of wanting to be a boy prior to this sudden onset at 15"

"Our daughter is 17 and attends a school where without our knowledge at 15 declared to her teachers she was 'transgender'. She was allowed to self identify as male, change her name and was referred to a local Transgender Charity by the school nurse without our knowledge"

"My 13 yr old daughter just told me she is Trans. This is very sudden but it follows a very difficult year - she's a happy girl who 'walked off a cliff' as soon as she hit puberty - a period of self harm and a recently very close relationship with a F2M trans friend at school"

"I'm a gender critical mother who's daughter has Rapid Onset Dysphoria, after extensive binge watching on the internet. I'm looking for a gender critical therapist, who is aware of this phenomenon, and who can help my daughter navigate her way through this"

"My daughter is 20. 18months ago she suddenly declared herself male. I'm horrified at the thought of her making permanent changes to her body. All I have come across is affirmation & the suggestion I am phobic. Even my GP offered me counselling to come to terms with my new 'son'"

"My daughter is 14 and says she is transgender. My main concern at the moment is I feel my daughter is being groomed by an older girl (trans) who befriended her online. She has had emotional problems, can be highly aggressive and was this year diagnosed with depression and ADHD"

"My 14 year old daughter told us two months ago via the school that she believes she is transgender. My wife and I are obviously shocked but have tried to deal with things calmly as suggested by her pastoral care at her school. What I could really do with is some help & support"

"Hi concerned dad here, my daughter is going in for a double cosmetic mascectomy, not sure when, but soon and, well to put it bluntly, I am terrified for my girl. My empathy goes out to anyone who has been through a fraction of what I've been through these last couple of weeks"

"I'm lost & scared. My child has announced they are transgender. 17 and no reason to think/evidence until now. Sister is a hard line trans activist and a massive influence. Feel like I'm on the edge of a rabbit hole that my child is deeply immersed in"

"Our daughter came out as transgender out of the blue less than a year ago at age 15. This has been an overwhelming & heartbreaking time for us. I'm left- leaning but I'm deeply troubled at how fast all of this is going, and how helpless we as her parents feel in the face of it"

"My daughter is almost 14 and has decided that she is a transgender boy. I'm trying to be supportive, however I feel that outside influence plus some sexual abuse by a boy pushed her to this. I'm at a loss. I know deep in my heart she is just a very angry, hurt and confused girl"

"I am a mother of a 16 year old daughter who believes she is male. I went onto the Mermaids website a while ago and felt intimidated by the fact that most mothers seemed to be quite happy with their child’s transition. I, on the other hand, have felt enormous grief & anxiety"

"I’m a mother of a 16 year old Who is FTM. To be clear, I love and am proud of and adore my firstborn child. I will support them. However I’m also a psychotherapist and I completely think your website finally offers the sort of commonsense view I’ve been hoping to find"

"My 15 year old daughter has struggled with mental health issues and social anxiety and previously came out as lesbian. She told me she was trans, and she'd been sexually assaulted, on the same day. The only way she could explain it was hatred & disgust for her female body parts"

"My daughter identified as trans for 2yrs and deeply desired to medically transition. I said to wait. She no longer wants to transition and thanks me for not allowing it. GD is very real and painful. We found another path to support her"

"I’m mother to a 19yr old son who aged 15, out of the blue, announced he was transgender. He'd been struggling with depression/stress & experienced bullying at school. At 14 he’d told me he was gay. He is ASD & OCD but all his other mental health issues were ignored by CAMHS"

"In the last weeks I believe we have been in parent's hell. We have gone from being devastatingly sad as our 15 year old daughter claimed she's a boy (out-of the-blue) and demanded that we allow hormones, to being really angry that this stuff is allowed to spread"

"My beautiful only daughter who's been away at college for 2 years suddenly "came out" to me as "non-binary". She's wearing male clothing, cut her hair, speaks of wanting to get testosterone & binds her chest. She's attending gay pride & now is a member of the LGBTQ community"

"I'm a Swedish mom with a daughter who believes that her life will be perfect if she can do a FtM transition with hormones and surgically remove her breasts"

My niece has a past of mental health issues. Bullying, trauma, PTSD, anxiety, depression...came out as trans. Gender therapist nothing more than an activist, rushed her on the trans train. My niece went in with script of right things to say. She'd been coached for months online"

"My daughter (13) told us she wanted to be a boy, then said she wanted a binder and started threatening to kill herself. There has never ever been any indication that she wanted to be a boy until now but CAMHS didn't discuss why she was feeling the way she was, how it came about"

"About 2 weeks ago my son (14) told us he wanted to be a girl. This was quite a surprise, because he has never shown feminine tendencies at all. After some gentle questioning we believe he has transferred his anxiety about changes in his body during puberty into gender dysphoria"

"I'm so angry. I feel like all these years of supporting my son with his autism has been disregarded by the medical profession, the NHS itself. So much advice and support put into his health & well being from a baby & now a total disregard of these issues when he says he's trans"

"My 17 year old son suffers from depression and ASD. He said he's transgender, he'd looked at asktransgender online, I could see how this would have him hooked on the idea. He said he remembered wishing he was a girl in year 5 & the therapist said 'so you've been repressing it'"

"My daughter (15) has just come out as trans. Her psychologist said we should call her "him" & use her new male name She came out as bi-sexual at 12, then at 13 as lesbian. She has been literally glued to social media sites which I tried to curb, but she is sneaky about it"

"My daughter (16) was a tomboy, physically very active, never questioned her gender. Then she said she feels she is stuck in the wrong body. She's been diagnosed with depression. There are 3 other girls in her school who are boys now. Fast track referral to the gender clinic"

"We have a 15yr old daughter who for over a year says she is a boy (internet, peer group, out of the blue etc) We are worried if we do nothing and if she hasn't worked it out herself in a couple of years she might decide to alter her body which I am totally against"

"I am hoping to find a therapist for my 15 year old daughter. She's always been non-gender conforming but never called herself a boy. A year ago she came out as lesbian, and about 3 months ago told me she is transgender. The internet played a huge part in the development of this"

"My daughter (12) has long dressed boyishly, lots of male friends, all the usual stuff. But now she says she's 'always felt like a boy' and that's such a difficult statement to question, even though I suspect she is, at least in part, parroting stuff she has seen on the internet"

"I would like to get my daughter (16) into therapy, but am intimidated by the pro-active, enabling, you-say-it-so-it-must-be-so climate. I don’t know where to begin in trying to find a therapist who will not immediately enable and speed her still faster along this road"

"I discovered my daughter had been recieving hundreds of messages online grooming her into becoming a boy, for about 18 months. CAMHS are not interested in this, they don't allow me to question her gender. They are offering her gender support groups and Mermaids family support"

"Just discovered your site. Thank you. Oh my gosh. Thank you!"