With ROGD Awareness Day coming up this Friday, the 16th of August. I thought it was important to highlight how the avoidance of discomfort can play a key role in this issue.
This was an extremely difficult piece to read, as a parent of an RODG child 5 years into this nightmare. With my ever growing awareness of the mistakes I made, and opportunities neglected or missed, sometimes it just boils down to getting through one more day without punching the wall in despair. That's where I'm at today. Hoping for a better tomorrow.
I added this to the piece, thanks for your feedback:
The thing is that avoidance seems like the perefectly logical response to ROGD. I totally understand why parents are lulled into this dynamic - everything you say can and will be taken down and used as evidence against you and so saying little seems like the best option. In addition, there is often a whole system of forces against parents - therapists, teachers, friends and relations - who are very keen to hammer parents for any perceived “wrongthink” in relation to gender identity. Nonetheless, as it is becoming clear that avoidance is a significant issue, it would be remiss of me not to point out the dangers of this, all the while acknowledging that it is extremely difficult to confront this issue.
I agree with every word of the writing, but it is hard to know when to push. We are three years into our younger daughter identifying as male gender and it is heartbreaking. We have since come to learn of the other disorders that are taking place, such as ADHD, anxiety, depression and an IQ that is off the charts three standard deviations from the mean. It has been on my mind for months that it may be time to push as we are in a better headspace, but it is going to be a challenge to say the least as I have never met a more rigid thinker.
I think addressing rigid thinking might be a good place to start? You could read up about it first and then tell your child? For instance, rigid thinking is bad for our mental health and typically leads to greater unhappiness. There is a good deal more well being found in flexible thinking. You might offer to help her escape the prison of rigid thinking without necessarily speaking directly about gender?
Thank you, Stella. As I've taken in so much of your work over the years, our approach has been to address these other issues rather than going head-on into gender. I appreciate what you do and all your support.
I have been a master avoider on many topics, but ROGD with my daughter caused me to go deeper into avoidance and feel constant panic for the lack of parental authority I felt. That constant double-bind of you are damned if you do and damned if you don’t left me powerless. It wasn’t until I heard someone say, likely on your podcast, that they could not live with themselves if they allow their child to be harmed. It finally gave me the courage to start talking with the guidance of my daughter’s therapist and a lot of relistening to you and Sasha, I finally found my voice and my confidence on this topic. We are 3.5 years in, so it’s much later than I’d have liked, but I’m hopeful that we are being heard. Thank you, as always, for your tireless efforts. You are making a difference for so many.
We just moved across the country and enrolled our kid in a private school. Less than a week she’s joined the GSA club. It’s my fault for not asking if it was active. I’ve put the school on notice I do not want mental health topics or medicalization discussed. They’ve assured me it’s age appropriate and all in a positive light. In light of being proactive I am not staying silent anymore. This is all consuming and tiresome however.
What is the opposite of avoidance when the merest wisp of questioning anything to do with your daughter's trans identity results in her storming out of the room and threatening to estrange herself, again? Yes, she has us paralyzed into inaction.
Yes this is really common, anorexics often do the same. Being aware of the paralysis might help, and perhaps speaking with someone about how you feel paralysed and what you would like to say could order your thoughts. It might also be helpful to write down in order of priority what you would like to say and put a date on each for when you believe you should have it said?
This is exactly what happened in my family with my daughter and we are currently 2 years so far of no contact - 100% her choice. My heart hurts and as a mother I ache for her. I also now understand the mistakes that both my husband and I made while raising her and helping her to finish growing up. Avoidance was a huge part of it. We had another factor involved as well which was a man in his 30s that was coaching/grooming her since she was 13. Horrible situation that our entire family has been traumatized by.
I added this paragraph, following your comment, thank you so much.
Some parents find it helpful to write down their worries by order of priority. Perhaps the binder is the biggest issue; after that maybe it is the issue of pronouns; the affirming therapist by be another item on the list. Each case is different and you may need a different approach for each issue but putting them in order of importance is a good start. Also when you confront the issue you might choose to go slowly or rip off the bandaid, this is up to you to decide. Few things need to be done urgently and most issues benefit from thoughtful analysis. Do remember: you are the world expert of your child and it is most important to follow your own instinct.
thanks a lot for this article. To be honest, I am little bit confused, since I thought that watchful waiting was the best we parents could do. When possible, we avoided talking about the elephant in the room for obvious reasons. Sometimes, we did not have any other options but to talk about binders, pronouns, new name... and every time we did was awful because she did not accept our opinion.
Honestly, I do no know what to do and when. Today, for instance, she asked if she could wear her sport bra XS (too sizes smaller than she really needs), I said no because it is summer and too hot outside to wear such bra. Our agreement was she can wear it only when she goes to school. I would have liked to say more about it but I decided not to stop and let it go. Thanks a lot for your help and good work!
Watchful waiting can be useful in certain contexts, but to be honest, in this environment, the benefits of watchful waiting is pretty limited. Prior to the trans phenomenon watchful waiting was typically the perfect response as the child would ultimately come to a reckoning with their own body. These days it is not so helpful as there are far too many influencers around and the child will not have the opportunity to face themselves - they will instead be led down the rabbit hole. You might find it helpful to assess each decision - eg not adding to the point about the sports bra today - and evaluate over time whether an extra comment might have been helpful or unhelpful.
It is context specific, sometimes a comment helps, sometimes it doesn't. None of this is easy and it is exhausting. I recommend that parents consult the Directory of Therapists on www.beyondtrans.org and find a therapist to work with you , almost like a coach, so that you can properly evaluate which is the best approach from week to week.
Good advise. It was hard to read. 2 1/2 year in. Had a conversation with my son about estrogen a few weeks ago. He is going off to college and I discovered about a month ago that he will be using his chosen female name. He did not trans socially in HS and has not taken hormones. Thought we might be heading out of it. I was wrong. He is online only trans up til now. Anyway the conversation did not go great. The only thing that concerned him was the possibility of loosing the ability to organism with cross sex hormones. He thought I was in correct about that. The innocent heart murmur he was born with, cancer and dementia risk didn’t really phase him. I told him I felt the cons outweighed any pros he disagreed with that also. Love my son, but don’t see that I can do anything more. Just love him.
Wow this article is eye opening for me. Iv read it about 5 times, there is so much in it. But I never realised I was avoiding , however I totally am for an easier life. Iv an 11 year old boy who is fixated on feminine clothing. He says he likes being a boy but likes girl clothing. He is fixated on certain parts of their clothes and hair and style. I am trying to support him ( or what I was thinking is support ) while also protecting him as he is getting into a tricky stage. But maybe it’s avoidance.
I would like to face what I am avoiding. Is it conversations? More boundaries ? Am I rubber stamping this idea that he d be better as a girl by allowing him to shop in the girls section. I am thinking that I place a boundary in that he can choose his clothes as long as it’s in the boys section and face and support the distress of that.
Also his hair is very long and will not cut it and will only get it cut in ladies hair dressers. Do I place another boundary to have his hair cut and in the barbers. I know this is very complex and individual.
It’s very hard to know. It would be great if you had someone trusted to speak with to analyse whether you think you’re avoiding or actually supporting- that would help to clarify matters for you.
So, if it's a cult and the cult is winning--are we just enabling by standing by for as long as we can? My son is older and disowned me, but he still talks to my parents. He is on hormones and the cult is winning, so do we all just walk away even though it's the worst thought in my head? He has autism and can't see more than one side to all of this. My daughter who is 21 can't deal with his drama anymore, and she's healthy and thriving so I can't walk away from her to pursue a battle I feel is fruitless. Ideas? Mostly just heartbroken over here.
It's utterly exhausting. Advice has gone from avoid things that upset the kid in order to not get a blow-up reaction, lest you cement their resolve and lay down neural pathways, to don't avoid and do face blow-ups because that's all you have in the end, in a world where literally e-v-e-r-y-o-n-e reinforces politely or enthusiastically a child's self delusion. I've never liked chess but all this insanity puts me on a board every blessed day.
I avoided for 2 years as I struggled with the dissonance between how I felt and how I was supposed to feel, and our daughter seemed more and more unhealthy. After I got honest with her and the rest of the family, our relationships and her health have improved somewhat.
This is a really difficult read for me but also brilliantly well timed as just two weeks ago I finally realised this isn’t going to go away without us pushing it out of the door. 2.5 years for us. We never agreed to the pronouns - although our daughter persuaded all her friends to and the CAMHS therapists who were supposed to be treating her for an eating disorder but decided to dabble in this too (something I can never forgive them for) - everything else we avoided discussing (the hair, clothes etc) and I silently grieved and seethed inside when a couple of friends’ parents referred to her as he. Finally, a couple of weeks ago I mentally went WTA? Have been doing lots of reading and a week ago me and her dad sat her down and told her, ‘You can believe this ideology,’ at which point she rolled her eyes and we continued, ‘but you can never take away our reality.’ We’re probably still doing it all wrong but at least I know I’m doing all I can to let her know I hate it, I’m not going to pretend anymore, and I’m doing all I can to protect her from harm. She’s currently barely speaking to me but I plough on as all teenagers get furious with their parents at some point. We have continued with the name she chose as she (we think inadvertently) chose a name that could be for either and the only person I’ve ever seen with the name in real life is a woman.
Some things I find really hard because I actually agree with her - like going to the barbers because it’s so much cheaper; and buying men’s toiletries because they don’t have flowery scent. But it’s so horrible that she makes such a point of choosing these things to be like a boy.
And because of her hair, and clothes, and flat chest people often mistake her for a boy and that’s where I’ve avoided too but now I won’t - steeling myself for the journey ahead.
Thank you Stella for all you do - It was an interview you did on the podcast This Isn’t Working that finally jolted me out of my terrified stupor.
There’s so much here. I think for the last couple of years the discussion has been around the ROGD kids and how they ended up down the rabbit hole. It’s seems we’ve moved onto the parents.
I’m not sure not avoiding could have worked at the beginning? For my child the idea of the hateful trans haters was very strong. And for us the parents we had baggage of our own, some we knew about and some we didn’t know how that was effecting us and our parenting.
We needed to heal ourselves in order to not avoid so that we could have tough conversations without personally getting triggered and having it backfire.
We also needed a reset conversation with our child. We had taken ownership of things and apologized before for our mistakes. But when you’re not healed yourself even though you try I think the sincerity of it is somehow lost.
Luckily we could never bring ourselves to use the new name and pronouns. And we’re able to firmly say no to hormones. Because we actually never ever wanted children and changed our minds and used that argument.
Unfortunately healing oneself and repairing relationships takes time. 3 years for us. And now it’s time for me not to avoid, yet now I’m working with 3 plus years of indoctrination. Also learning about this trans world took time. It’s a lot of mental work to have conversations with a RODG kid. It’s like another full time job.
Also many people not in this including my other child told me they’ll just grow out of it. 🤦🏼♀️
I’m thankful for the message they won’t. It’s helpful to hear form detransitioners and other parents what worked and what didn’t.
Stella its easy to agree with the perils of avoidance. Just hard to know what else to do, and when. For instance, is ignoring / getting trans out of the centre of family life avoidance or resisting the capture? Ie, if everything is about trans then trans wins. While there will be no one right answer, I often don’t know what my goals or strategy is. So revert to ‘just stay connected’ with minor acts of passive resistance. What I have not seen is a bullet point summary of what I am trying to aim for with our trans child – other than the obvious of getting this poison out of our child’s life and our family life. Any suggestions???
This was an extremely difficult piece to read, as a parent of an RODG child 5 years into this nightmare. With my ever growing awareness of the mistakes I made, and opportunities neglected or missed, sometimes it just boils down to getting through one more day without punching the wall in despair. That's where I'm at today. Hoping for a better tomorrow.
I added this to the piece, thanks for your feedback:
The thing is that avoidance seems like the perefectly logical response to ROGD. I totally understand why parents are lulled into this dynamic - everything you say can and will be taken down and used as evidence against you and so saying little seems like the best option. In addition, there is often a whole system of forces against parents - therapists, teachers, friends and relations - who are very keen to hammer parents for any perceived “wrongthink” in relation to gender identity. Nonetheless, as it is becoming clear that avoidance is a significant issue, it would be remiss of me not to point out the dangers of this, all the while acknowledging that it is extremely difficult to confront this issue.
I'm so sorry, it is so very difficult on parents. I wish I could help more. i think I'll add in a bit about the unfairness of it all
Thank you, Stella. Touched by your responsiveness. With appreciation.
🙏💐
I agree with every word of the writing, but it is hard to know when to push. We are three years into our younger daughter identifying as male gender and it is heartbreaking. We have since come to learn of the other disorders that are taking place, such as ADHD, anxiety, depression and an IQ that is off the charts three standard deviations from the mean. It has been on my mind for months that it may be time to push as we are in a better headspace, but it is going to be a challenge to say the least as I have never met a more rigid thinker.
I think addressing rigid thinking might be a good place to start? You could read up about it first and then tell your child? For instance, rigid thinking is bad for our mental health and typically leads to greater unhappiness. There is a good deal more well being found in flexible thinking. You might offer to help her escape the prison of rigid thinking without necessarily speaking directly about gender?
Thank you, Stella. As I've taken in so much of your work over the years, our approach has been to address these other issues rather than going head-on into gender. I appreciate what you do and all your support.
I have been a master avoider on many topics, but ROGD with my daughter caused me to go deeper into avoidance and feel constant panic for the lack of parental authority I felt. That constant double-bind of you are damned if you do and damned if you don’t left me powerless. It wasn’t until I heard someone say, likely on your podcast, that they could not live with themselves if they allow their child to be harmed. It finally gave me the courage to start talking with the guidance of my daughter’s therapist and a lot of relistening to you and Sasha, I finally found my voice and my confidence on this topic. We are 3.5 years in, so it’s much later than I’d have liked, but I’m hopeful that we are being heard. Thank you, as always, for your tireless efforts. You are making a difference for so many.
We just moved across the country and enrolled our kid in a private school. Less than a week she’s joined the GSA club. It’s my fault for not asking if it was active. I’ve put the school on notice I do not want mental health topics or medicalization discussed. They’ve assured me it’s age appropriate and all in a positive light. In light of being proactive I am not staying silent anymore. This is all consuming and tiresome however.
What is the opposite of avoidance when the merest wisp of questioning anything to do with your daughter's trans identity results in her storming out of the room and threatening to estrange herself, again? Yes, she has us paralyzed into inaction.
Yes this is really common, anorexics often do the same. Being aware of the paralysis might help, and perhaps speaking with someone about how you feel paralysed and what you would like to say could order your thoughts. It might also be helpful to write down in order of priority what you would like to say and put a date on each for when you believe you should have it said?
This is exactly what happened in my family with my daughter and we are currently 2 years so far of no contact - 100% her choice. My heart hurts and as a mother I ache for her. I also now understand the mistakes that both my husband and I made while raising her and helping her to finish growing up. Avoidance was a huge part of it. We had another factor involved as well which was a man in his 30s that was coaching/grooming her since she was 13. Horrible situation that our entire family has been traumatized by.
I’m so sorry. I hope you’re looking after yourself xxxx
So sorry, Wendy.
Same for me. Difficult to read but necessary, Six years in.
Stella, how do we stop avoiding though? Am I just supposed to tell her now she ought to use her birth name? Not wear her binder out today?
Are there baby steps we can take?
I added this paragraph, following your comment, thank you so much.
Some parents find it helpful to write down their worries by order of priority. Perhaps the binder is the biggest issue; after that maybe it is the issue of pronouns; the affirming therapist by be another item on the list. Each case is different and you may need a different approach for each issue but putting them in order of importance is a good start. Also when you confront the issue you might choose to go slowly or rip off the bandaid, this is up to you to decide. Few things need to be done urgently and most issues benefit from thoughtful analysis. Do remember: you are the world expert of your child and it is most important to follow your own instinct.
hi I'll follow up with more thoughts about this, thanks for your question
Hi Stella,
thanks a lot for this article. To be honest, I am little bit confused, since I thought that watchful waiting was the best we parents could do. When possible, we avoided talking about the elephant in the room for obvious reasons. Sometimes, we did not have any other options but to talk about binders, pronouns, new name... and every time we did was awful because she did not accept our opinion.
Honestly, I do no know what to do and when. Today, for instance, she asked if she could wear her sport bra XS (too sizes smaller than she really needs), I said no because it is summer and too hot outside to wear such bra. Our agreement was she can wear it only when she goes to school. I would have liked to say more about it but I decided not to stop and let it go. Thanks a lot for your help and good work!
Watchful waiting can be useful in certain contexts, but to be honest, in this environment, the benefits of watchful waiting is pretty limited. Prior to the trans phenomenon watchful waiting was typically the perfect response as the child would ultimately come to a reckoning with their own body. These days it is not so helpful as there are far too many influencers around and the child will not have the opportunity to face themselves - they will instead be led down the rabbit hole. You might find it helpful to assess each decision - eg not adding to the point about the sports bra today - and evaluate over time whether an extra comment might have been helpful or unhelpful.
It is context specific, sometimes a comment helps, sometimes it doesn't. None of this is easy and it is exhausting. I recommend that parents consult the Directory of Therapists on www.beyondtrans.org and find a therapist to work with you , almost like a coach, so that you can properly evaluate which is the best approach from week to week.
Thanks, Stella!
Good advise. It was hard to read. 2 1/2 year in. Had a conversation with my son about estrogen a few weeks ago. He is going off to college and I discovered about a month ago that he will be using his chosen female name. He did not trans socially in HS and has not taken hormones. Thought we might be heading out of it. I was wrong. He is online only trans up til now. Anyway the conversation did not go great. The only thing that concerned him was the possibility of loosing the ability to organism with cross sex hormones. He thought I was in correct about that. The innocent heart murmur he was born with, cancer and dementia risk didn’t really phase him. I told him I felt the cons outweighed any pros he disagreed with that also. Love my son, but don’t see that I can do anything more. Just love him.
Yes loving your son is always best. It’s just so difficult on everyone.
Wow this article is eye opening for me. Iv read it about 5 times, there is so much in it. But I never realised I was avoiding , however I totally am for an easier life. Iv an 11 year old boy who is fixated on feminine clothing. He says he likes being a boy but likes girl clothing. He is fixated on certain parts of their clothes and hair and style. I am trying to support him ( or what I was thinking is support ) while also protecting him as he is getting into a tricky stage. But maybe it’s avoidance.
I would like to face what I am avoiding. Is it conversations? More boundaries ? Am I rubber stamping this idea that he d be better as a girl by allowing him to shop in the girls section. I am thinking that I place a boundary in that he can choose his clothes as long as it’s in the boys section and face and support the distress of that.
Also his hair is very long and will not cut it and will only get it cut in ladies hair dressers. Do I place another boundary to have his hair cut and in the barbers. I know this is very complex and individual.
Thank you so much for this insight.
It’s very hard to know. It would be great if you had someone trusted to speak with to analyse whether you think you’re avoiding or actually supporting- that would help to clarify matters for you.
So, if it's a cult and the cult is winning--are we just enabling by standing by for as long as we can? My son is older and disowned me, but he still talks to my parents. He is on hormones and the cult is winning, so do we all just walk away even though it's the worst thought in my head? He has autism and can't see more than one side to all of this. My daughter who is 21 can't deal with his drama anymore, and she's healthy and thriving so I can't walk away from her to pursue a battle I feel is fruitless. Ideas? Mostly just heartbroken over here.
It's utterly exhausting. Advice has gone from avoid things that upset the kid in order to not get a blow-up reaction, lest you cement their resolve and lay down neural pathways, to don't avoid and do face blow-ups because that's all you have in the end, in a world where literally e-v-e-r-y-o-n-e reinforces politely or enthusiastically a child's self delusion. I've never liked chess but all this insanity puts me on a board every blessed day.
And...as I reply to myself(!), how do you square avoidance with non-confrontation of a culty-brainwashed kid?
I avoided for 2 years as I struggled with the dissonance between how I felt and how I was supposed to feel, and our daughter seemed more and more unhealthy. After I got honest with her and the rest of the family, our relationships and her health have improved somewhat.
This is a really difficult read for me but also brilliantly well timed as just two weeks ago I finally realised this isn’t going to go away without us pushing it out of the door. 2.5 years for us. We never agreed to the pronouns - although our daughter persuaded all her friends to and the CAMHS therapists who were supposed to be treating her for an eating disorder but decided to dabble in this too (something I can never forgive them for) - everything else we avoided discussing (the hair, clothes etc) and I silently grieved and seethed inside when a couple of friends’ parents referred to her as he. Finally, a couple of weeks ago I mentally went WTA? Have been doing lots of reading and a week ago me and her dad sat her down and told her, ‘You can believe this ideology,’ at which point she rolled her eyes and we continued, ‘but you can never take away our reality.’ We’re probably still doing it all wrong but at least I know I’m doing all I can to let her know I hate it, I’m not going to pretend anymore, and I’m doing all I can to protect her from harm. She’s currently barely speaking to me but I plough on as all teenagers get furious with their parents at some point. We have continued with the name she chose as she (we think inadvertently) chose a name that could be for either and the only person I’ve ever seen with the name in real life is a woman.
Some things I find really hard because I actually agree with her - like going to the barbers because it’s so much cheaper; and buying men’s toiletries because they don’t have flowery scent. But it’s so horrible that she makes such a point of choosing these things to be like a boy.
And because of her hair, and clothes, and flat chest people often mistake her for a boy and that’s where I’ve avoided too but now I won’t - steeling myself for the journey ahead.
Thank you Stella for all you do - It was an interview you did on the podcast This Isn’t Working that finally jolted me out of my terrified stupor.
There’s so much here. I think for the last couple of years the discussion has been around the ROGD kids and how they ended up down the rabbit hole. It’s seems we’ve moved onto the parents.
I’m not sure not avoiding could have worked at the beginning? For my child the idea of the hateful trans haters was very strong. And for us the parents we had baggage of our own, some we knew about and some we didn’t know how that was effecting us and our parenting.
We needed to heal ourselves in order to not avoid so that we could have tough conversations without personally getting triggered and having it backfire.
We also needed a reset conversation with our child. We had taken ownership of things and apologized before for our mistakes. But when you’re not healed yourself even though you try I think the sincerity of it is somehow lost.
Luckily we could never bring ourselves to use the new name and pronouns. And we’re able to firmly say no to hormones. Because we actually never ever wanted children and changed our minds and used that argument.
Unfortunately healing oneself and repairing relationships takes time. 3 years for us. And now it’s time for me not to avoid, yet now I’m working with 3 plus years of indoctrination. Also learning about this trans world took time. It’s a lot of mental work to have conversations with a RODG kid. It’s like another full time job.
Also many people not in this including my other child told me they’ll just grow out of it. 🤦🏼♀️
I’m thankful for the message they won’t. It’s helpful to hear form detransitioners and other parents what worked and what didn’t.
Stella its easy to agree with the perils of avoidance. Just hard to know what else to do, and when. For instance, is ignoring / getting trans out of the centre of family life avoidance or resisting the capture? Ie, if everything is about trans then trans wins. While there will be no one right answer, I often don’t know what my goals or strategy is. So revert to ‘just stay connected’ with minor acts of passive resistance. What I have not seen is a bullet point summary of what I am trying to aim for with our trans child – other than the obvious of getting this poison out of our child’s life and our family life. Any suggestions???
And thanks for all you do.