Your voice is needed- ASAP
NPR On Point
NPR On Point is a nationally broadcasted radio show that is produced by WBUR and hosted by Meghan Chakrabarti.
This week, possibly as early as tomorrow, they will be hosting an episode that will cover pediatric gender medicine.
They released a request for the public to call in and provide a response to this question:
“Are you the parent of a trans or gender diverse young person? Are you able to find the information you need to make the right choice for you and your family? What questions are you navigating?”
Here are the instructions:
Call 1-617-353-0683. You will be leaving a voice mail. So practice ahead of time what you want to say. Keep it short but on point.
Do not record on speakerphone.
You need to give your first and last name and the number that you are calling from.
On the voice mail say you are responding to the prompt on pediatric gender medicine.
You can also record a voice memo and email the voice memo to onpoint@wbur.org
You can also send additional information to onpoint@wbur.org if you have a longer family story to tell or additional information that you want to share.
As always, please drop a line in the comments if you are able to complete the action alert.
Please sent tips for future action alerts to LGBTcouragecoaltion@gmail.com
This is what I want to say, but I feel like I need my daughter to be okay with me putting it out there publicly:
I am the parent of a child who, as of a few weeks ago, identified as transgender. This identification lasted for over 3 years, from the age of 12 to 15. The primary questions I was navigating were: why is she suddenly concerned with her gender when she’s never been gender non-conforming? Has she been hiding it all this time? Is she caught up in a social movement? Did she have some kind of trauma that we don’t know about? We were familiar with trans identified kids (friends and neighbors) but it just didn’t seem to fit for her; I felt 99% sure about this. But the question that was always in the back of my mind was: are my instincts wrong about this?
So, the answer to your question about whether I was able to find the information I needed: is Yes, and No.
No, I could not find information from doctors, therapists, schools, healthcare organizations, or the media that allowed for any alternative beyond no-questions-asked-affirmation. That just didn’t seem right to me: How do you get answers to the important questions without dialog? How can we come to an understanding before taking medical steps?
But, my answer is also Yes, because, by 2022, I found information online that offered an alternative viewpoint. I saw a chart about the skyrocketing number of teen girls questioning their gender, I found Lisa Littman’s work on ROGD kids, and I wound up on sites like 4th Wave Now and, most importantly, on the Podcast: Gender: A Wider Lens. It was the work of these two women, in particular, Sasha Ayad and Stella O’Malley, that helped me hold on to my instincts and to gently explore the topic of gender with my daughter when nobody else would.
Eventually, my daughter asked me if she could go to therapy to “solve this gender thing”. I really believe that something in her had already shifted by the time she asked, and that she was ready to do some work on her identity in a more holistic way. I found a therapist through an organization called Therapy First, whose member therapists agree to practice ethical therapy that neither aims to change someone’s gender identity, nor to blindly affirm it.
I can’t go into her reasons why she went down the gender road and then returned, but I can say that, in our case there were two main factors that brought her back to herself: one was simply time, and the other was us (her parents) maintaining a close, loving relationship with her, while also laying down firm boundaries– which was only possible because I had access to viewpoints on gender distress that are not currently ‘fashionable’, and which have been suppressed for years.
Unable to use my name openly at this point in time (for my daughter's sake), I opted to send an email explaining our situation instead of leaving a voicemail. I hope they may consider using some of the information from those of us who cannot, at this time, stand publicly. I also hope that it won't be long before my daughter and I can stand side-by-side and fight this together!