Thank you, thank you, thank you. I have a child who is caught up in this and turns 18 in 6 months. I don't know what will happen, but your writing is a great comfort to me. I at least know that I am not crazy to doubt.
Thank you, Jamie, for your work, your honesty, and for your suggestions. I completely agree - the project is to offer ideas and resources to the Democrats in our lives. The ideas that no one is "born in the wrong body" and that gender non-conformity can be encouraged without medicalization need to be Democrat talking points. I would add Kathleen Stock's "Material Girls" to your list: very accessible overview. A group of us are reading it as a book circle, to get the conversation going. Maybe others are willing to try that?
Thank you, Jamie Reed! Grateful is not a big enough sentiment for what I feel toward what you are doing. I have a vulnerable 15-year old caught up in this contagion. It is beyond anything I ever imagined and heart breaking to watch her miss so many developmental years caught in this confusion. I have no idea where this will go for her. I just want her to develop into a happy, healthy adult with solid critical thinking skill and coping mechanisms. I am so grateful to you and anyone in the trenches who is willing to speak up. I hope more do.
Thank you for taking a stand for truth! Those books you recommend are intriguing. I would add Trans by Helen Joyce, which begins with the history of transgenderism and then carefully looks at various aspects of it. Abigail Shrier's Irreversible Damage is what totally peaked me.
Jamie here: You can see that Abigail Shrier's book is on that shelf also. I was surprised at the reaction to that book in the center and in my friends at the time. Of course I ordered it and read it. I couldn't understand why people 'in the industry' would not want to know what the book actually said. I think as an insider it was not as much as a shock. But getting called 'transphobic' for ordering it or being told that the book itself was 'transphobic" was bizarre. So quick to try to shut down any discussion that is not rah rah cheerleader never sits well with me.
I probably picked up Shrier's book specifically b/c so many tried to bury it. I didn't have 'a horse' in this race but the core of the book spoke to me in a more universal way. this was the start of my review:
"My mother asked me why I'm so obsessed with this topic; what does it have to do with me? The afterword of this book finally made me be able to voice it: all the mothers, so in love with their daughters, confused, worried, walking a tightrope of panic and self-censorship. how can any mother turn off the concern for their child's welfare that was born right alongside that baby? So, with Shrier's last chapter revisiting all those pair bonds, it made me realize that, for me, this is a sympathetic metaphor for the fracture I felt when my own daughter hit her teens and all former traces of her disappeared..."
It a bit odd to me that, "why I'm so obsessed with this topic" is the question I encounter most. It actually perplexed me for some time. I think its part empathy part rationality that drives me into this topic. This movement is both an assault on reason, ie "Sex assigned at birth," and a deep misunderstanding of adolescents. In just a few years there is going to be a tsunami of 27-yea-old (ish) women realizing what they were encouraged to do to their bodies as teens and young adults. Reality will ultimately prevail, but it will be on the backs of a generation of young women.
I would also strongly recommend “Crazy Like Us,” by Ethan Watters. It looks at culture bound syndromes, social contagion, and how the US exports its ideas about mental health and psychology onto other cultures, often to their detriment. Like Suzanne O’Sullivan’s book, it also doesn’t mention gender issues but provides so much insight into what’s going on now.
Thank you. Helpful in the attempt to answer at least one of the big “Why/How?” questions associated with this incomprehensible phenomenon. A few books just got added to my Audible queue.
The transgender movement has conquered America life. In a new short film, Christopher Rufo explains how the movement gained power and connects the dots between its key intellectuals, billionaire benefactor, and large-scale medical experiments in a Detroit ghetto.
I have a beautiful 16yo, gifted and talented, very bright, generally a misfit at school socially, but at 12 'discovered' a tribe, largely online.
Unfortunately she has described this to her paediatrician and now her gp, who have referred her to the local gender clinic., I am quietly and actively working behind the scenes trying to keep her out. And desperately trying to build a bridge for her to speak with me about her side of this. But she is seeking help from them because she has said to me in a rare moment that this has arisen (she doesn't talk to me about it, she has said I am transphobic/a TERF), that she 'doesn't want this'. And I think she is seeking help from an authority figure. Just wants someone to say 'this might be something else, and you just might not be trans.'
If only I could find a professional who could actually help her negotiate this and find her way through it. Or even just explain that this might not be her 'lot', that adolescence will pass. And she will find her identity in smaller groups of other bright sparks in the wider adult world after school or adolescence.
She wants desperately to go to the gender clinic and find some answers so she can breathe a sigh of releif and let this go.
I work in paramedicine within hospitals, so I know what goes on.
I've called the clinic and questioned them many times. The first appointment is a group appointment with other children en masse, as an introductory appointment to what the clinic does.
You've got to be kidding me!
That's deciding before they've even met the child.
And for the child, it's immediate indoctrination. (Complete with a peppy, love bomb of a welcome.)
I just don't know what to do, having kicked the can down the road for a year. (After she was put on a waiting list where she sat, thankfully, for almost 3 years. )
I have bookmarked your article to see if I ought send it to her GP, who I used to trust once apon a time.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. I have a child who is caught up in this and turns 18 in 6 months. I don't know what will happen, but your writing is a great comfort to me. I at least know that I am not crazy to doubt.
Thank you, Jamie, for your work, your honesty, and for your suggestions. I completely agree - the project is to offer ideas and resources to the Democrats in our lives. The ideas that no one is "born in the wrong body" and that gender non-conformity can be encouraged without medicalization need to be Democrat talking points. I would add Kathleen Stock's "Material Girls" to your list: very accessible overview. A group of us are reading it as a book circle, to get the conversation going. Maybe others are willing to try that?
Thank you, Jamie Reed! Grateful is not a big enough sentiment for what I feel toward what you are doing. I have a vulnerable 15-year old caught up in this contagion. It is beyond anything I ever imagined and heart breaking to watch her miss so many developmental years caught in this confusion. I have no idea where this will go for her. I just want her to develop into a happy, healthy adult with solid critical thinking skill and coping mechanisms. I am so grateful to you and anyone in the trenches who is willing to speak up. I hope more do.
Hugs and support to you, mom.
Thank you, you too <3
I’m in the same boat and her little sister, age 12, wants to “copy” :(
Thank you for your courage Jamie
Yes, thank you Jamie.
Thank you for taking a stand for truth! Those books you recommend are intriguing. I would add Trans by Helen Joyce, which begins with the history of transgenderism and then carefully looks at various aspects of it. Abigail Shrier's Irreversible Damage is what totally peaked me.
Jamie here: You can see that Abigail Shrier's book is on that shelf also. I was surprised at the reaction to that book in the center and in my friends at the time. Of course I ordered it and read it. I couldn't understand why people 'in the industry' would not want to know what the book actually said. I think as an insider it was not as much as a shock. But getting called 'transphobic' for ordering it or being told that the book itself was 'transphobic" was bizarre. So quick to try to shut down any discussion that is not rah rah cheerleader never sits well with me.
I probably picked up Shrier's book specifically b/c so many tried to bury it. I didn't have 'a horse' in this race but the core of the book spoke to me in a more universal way. this was the start of my review:
"My mother asked me why I'm so obsessed with this topic; what does it have to do with me? The afterword of this book finally made me be able to voice it: all the mothers, so in love with their daughters, confused, worried, walking a tightrope of panic and self-censorship. how can any mother turn off the concern for their child's welfare that was born right alongside that baby? So, with Shrier's last chapter revisiting all those pair bonds, it made me realize that, for me, this is a sympathetic metaphor for the fracture I felt when my own daughter hit her teens and all former traces of her disappeared..."
It a bit odd to me that, "why I'm so obsessed with this topic" is the question I encounter most. It actually perplexed me for some time. I think its part empathy part rationality that drives me into this topic. This movement is both an assault on reason, ie "Sex assigned at birth," and a deep misunderstanding of adolescents. In just a few years there is going to be a tsunami of 27-yea-old (ish) women realizing what they were encouraged to do to their bodies as teens and young adults. Reality will ultimately prevail, but it will be on the backs of a generation of young women.
I would also strongly recommend “Crazy Like Us,” by Ethan Watters. It looks at culture bound syndromes, social contagion, and how the US exports its ideas about mental health and psychology onto other cultures, often to their detriment. Like Suzanne O’Sullivan’s book, it also doesn’t mention gender issues but provides so much insight into what’s going on now.
Thank you. Helpful in the attempt to answer at least one of the big “Why/How?” questions associated with this incomprehensible phenomenon. A few books just got added to my Audible queue.
The transgender movement has conquered America life. In a new short film, Christopher Rufo explains how the movement gained power and connects the dots between its key intellectuals, billionaire benefactor, and large-scale medical experiments in a Detroit ghetto.
This is the transgender empire:
https://twitter.com/realchrisrufo/status/1679143593238462464
Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters Hardcover – June 30, 2020
by Abigail Shrier
https://www.amazon.com/Irreversible-Damage-Transgender-Seducing-Daughters/dp/1684510317
So, so grateful.
I have a beautiful 16yo, gifted and talented, very bright, generally a misfit at school socially, but at 12 'discovered' a tribe, largely online.
Unfortunately she has described this to her paediatrician and now her gp, who have referred her to the local gender clinic., I am quietly and actively working behind the scenes trying to keep her out. And desperately trying to build a bridge for her to speak with me about her side of this. But she is seeking help from them because she has said to me in a rare moment that this has arisen (she doesn't talk to me about it, she has said I am transphobic/a TERF), that she 'doesn't want this'. And I think she is seeking help from an authority figure. Just wants someone to say 'this might be something else, and you just might not be trans.'
If only I could find a professional who could actually help her negotiate this and find her way through it. Or even just explain that this might not be her 'lot', that adolescence will pass. And she will find her identity in smaller groups of other bright sparks in the wider adult world after school or adolescence.
She wants desperately to go to the gender clinic and find some answers so she can breathe a sigh of releif and let this go.
I work in paramedicine within hospitals, so I know what goes on.
I've called the clinic and questioned them many times. The first appointment is a group appointment with other children en masse, as an introductory appointment to what the clinic does.
You've got to be kidding me!
That's deciding before they've even met the child.
And for the child, it's immediate indoctrination. (Complete with a peppy, love bomb of a welcome.)
I just don't know what to do, having kicked the can down the road for a year. (After she was put on a waiting list where she sat, thankfully, for almost 3 years. )
I have bookmarked your article to see if I ought send it to her GP, who I used to trust once apon a time.
Thank you, Jamie.