Written by Kathy Clubb
August 29th 2023
As more and more adults express their regret for undergoing gender transformation surgery, mainstream news outlets are finally beginning to wake up and ring the alarm bells. An article which appeared in a June edition of The Australian (unfortunately behind a paywall) may have marked a shift in the media’s previously wholehearted support of all things ‘trans’: a heartbroken mother gave her account of the havoc wreaked on her family by gender ideology and its proponents. Writing under the pseudonym, “Jane”, the mother recounted the story of her daughter who had begun to identify as a male at the age of 17. The case exemplifies two of the major failures of medical professionals when making a diagnosis of gender dysphoria: to acknowledge the phenomenon of social contagion and to take into account a patient’s existing vulnerabilities. It also shows how the establishment cooperates unilaterally to affirm a child’s assumed gender and how it is unyielding in its mistreatment of those parents deemed to be non-compliant.
In The Australian article, “Jane” explained how her daughter had been happy and stable “She used to walk with me every morning when I walked our dogs and go to the gym with me as well. She enjoyed shopping with me and choosing her own clothes. We would go and have our nails painted together. We would go to plays and concerts together. We had such a close and loving relationship. She is very smart and always did really well in school growing up, but she was bullied at school when she was younger. As a result of the bullying and the lack of support from the school, we moved her to a new school when she was 13 years old. That went well for the first two years, and she had a stable friendship group of really lovely girls.”
“Around the time she turned 15, she switched friendship groups. The new group had a girl who “did not identify as a girl” and that was my first introduction to gender ideology. I felt the new friends had a very negative influence on our daughter. Around the time she changed friendship groups, our daughter started experiencing mental health problems. For three years, these mental health problems continued. We moved through both the public system (called the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service) and private mental health systems in our efforts to find help for our daughter.”
“We collected diagnoses of anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder and possible borderline personality disorder. We took our daughter to more than 70 medical appointments related to her mental health in that three-year period. We focused on diet, exercise, love, support and psychotherapy. But our daughter’s mental health eventually became much worse.”
After that, “Jane’s” daughter began to suffer from various mental health issues for which medical specialists seemed to have no solution. “Jane’s” daughter began self-harming, binge-eating and was eventually admitted to a mental health ward. After four weeks, the girl returned home in an even worse state; she began lying, smoking marijuana, and verbally and emotionally abusing members of her family.
“Jane” later discovered that her daughter had been accessing ‘trans’ websites during this time. Finally, “Jane” found that her daughter had begun publicly identifying as a male with the full support of her school; despite “Jane” being in regular contact with the school due to her daughter’s mental health problems, no one made her aware of her own daughter’s fledgling gender transition.
In her article, “Jane” mentioned the way in which she and her husband were treated for simply questioning their daughter’s new-found gender dysphoria. The educational and medical establishment gave them abysmal treatment, in contrast to the unbridled support shown to their child who wanted to transition. “Jane” continued:
After an all-night admission that my husband accompanied her with, I went to the hospital to visit her the following day. When I asked to see our daughter, I was told that I had a son. Already above her bed was the male name…… My scepticism was dismissed by the staff of the mental health ward. As parents who did not immediately affirm our child’s declaration of transgender, we were shamed and bullied by the medical professionals in that hospital ward. All of our voiced concerns were swept aside, and we were put down by hospital staff in front of our daughter, accused of being bigoted, not inclusive, and transphobic.
“Jane” also chronicled the way in which medical professionals completely dismissed her concerns about the sudden increase in the number of girls identifying as boys at her daughter’s school. She mentioned her experience of the social contagion element of gender dysphoria in this way, “There was a cluster of girls in our daughter’s drama group who declared they were transgender. Three young women, all in the same drama class, suddenly becoming transgender? Surely that alone should raise red flags with any credible medical practitioner.“
As well as being subject to insults and ridicule from medical professionals, “Jane” and her husband were also emotionally blackmailed for trying to stop their daughter’s gender transition: “We were also told that we must accept that we now had a son or she would kill herself. They said, “Would you rather have a live son or a dead daughter?””
This kind of manipulation is commonly being experienced by parents of gender-questioning children. One child’s doctor, concerned about the harms of transgender ideology, refers to the threat of suicide as a tenet of transgender care. He says this principle teaches that “the repercussion of nonintervention is a higher likelihood of that individual committing suicide”.” The physician, who remains anonymous due to the threat of being ostracised, also reveals the real reason why transgender children are at greater risk of taking their own lives:
“…. when you “affirm” these individuals’ gender identity, what you are doing is affirming their hatred for themselves. You have these children who are going through confusing times, difficult times; when you affirm their belief system, what you’re doing is telling them: “You hate yourself at this moment and I will affirm that.”…..We’re affirming that they should try to destroy themselves.”
As shown above, “Jane’s” daughter was exhibiting serious mental health issues for a length of time before she began to reconsider her biological gender, and additionally, “Jane” wrote that her daughter was eventually diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum. It appears likely that those underlying causes made the young girl vulnerable to the suggestion that she was ‘born in the wrong body.’
Professor Patrick Parkinson has been expressing his concern about gender-affirmation for some years, and has become a leading proponent of caution rather than uncritical acceptance of gender transitioning treatments among children. He says that most young people these days who question their gender are girls, many of whom are either suffering from mental health problems or are on the autism spectrum. Both of these conditions make it impossible for patients to consent to life-changing medical treatments. Dr Parkinson also highlights the social contagion element found among gender dysphoria cases. He says this “is fuelled by unscientific ideas taught to children in schools and by YouTube and TikTok videos. Almost all secondary schools, and even some primary schools, have children who identify as a gender other than their natal sex…..Whole groups of friends now identify as trans or non-binary. ”
At one point “Jane’s” daughter showed signs of returning to living as her biological gender, but the change was short-lived. She soon began binding her breasts again and then, to “Jane’s” horror, planned to use her parents’ private health insurance to have her breasts removed. When “Jane” confronted the plastic surgeon to ask whether he was “cutting the breasts off young women 10 years ago”, she wrote that he “sheepishly replied, “No,” and said that no other parents had objected – a statement which beggars belief.
“Jane” ended her story with the encouraging, although somewhat tragic update that her daughter now regrets transitioning to a male and has returned to living as a female. Such is the fate of many young people who are fast-tracked through the transitioning process only to find, years later, that they have made a terrible mistake.
Unfortunately for other families, a motion by One Nation to investigate the use of puberty blockers and gender reassignment for under 18’s has just been voted down in Federal Parliament, indicating that there is still much work to be done. Many ‘conservative’ politicians still aren’t aware of the dangers or of the transitory nature of gender questioning among today’s children and are lending support to the more progressive factions.
While it’s good to see mainstream news outlets publishing articles like “Jane’s” story and others, most outlets don’t have the appetite for articles like this one on botched ‘trans’ surgery, so it’s clear that there is still an unwillingness by the media and the establishment to question the status quo. Meanwhile, young people are desperate for their fundamental mental health problems to be addressed; they deserve more than to be offered an irreversible solution to what in most cases is merely a temporary problem. Hopefully, stories like the testimony of “Jane” will embolden more commentators and medical professionals to expose the destructive reality of gender ideology.
