Stop Undermining Parents

Photo by Nadine Shaabana on Unsplash

Many parents I talk with say their kids often speak to them with callous or insensitive remarks, and some kids move into verbal abuse. This treatment may ramp up to dismissal and excision from the kid’s life. Estrangement is rampant within the community of parents with trans-identified young adult children. How did we get to the point where some parents who raised their children with love and care are now viewed with such disdain? Who benefits from placing a wedge between parents and their children? No one. It’s a lose-lose situation. And parents have a lot of questions.

Many young adults today also seem unwilling to hear parents’ viewpoints or engage in dialogue and critical thinking about important topics, particularly if there is a difference of opinion. We parents are sometimes locked out of any meaningful discussion or debate with our kids. Our value seems to be rapidly dropping with the younger generation. Again, who is influencing kids with these ideas, and for what reasons? Could it be that some influencers with nefarious intents want to break the parent-child bond so the kid can be more easily manipulated to their ends? Or do we just have a younger generation that has become self-centered, righteous, and disrespectful? Yes, we live in an age of individualism, and kids want autonomy from their parents, but has it gone too far?

Parents carry a library of knowledge. They also carry their parents’ and ancestors’ experiences and wisdom through their stories and histories. Personally, I carefully interviewed my parents and kept genealogy records, photos, and life history information about our family. Preservation of history in my family is important to me. Many parents are finding that their kids are not particularly interested in these archives, memories, and stories. In extreme cases, parents are completely cast away as obsolete, uneducated, and even ignorant.

Some people have said that my voice is no longer progressive or educated in today’s modern world. I agree that keeping up in a quickly changing world of ideas and technology is challenging and takes time and dedication; however, it doesn’t mean that it is out of a parent’s reach or grasp. I find it peculiar to be called uneducated when I have a university degree, have been a lifelong learner, and read voraciously, averaging a book a week since my kids left the nest over a decade ago. Furthermore, I do not isolate myself in one political party because I am repelled by both extremes. I believe I can see more clearly when I socialize and discuss issues with people of both parties, different religions, and so forth. I listen to what each position professes and balance myself by having friends with various belief systems. I study history. I am not inclined to be indoctrinated by extreme ideologies. My eyes are open.

In the sphere of parents overall, sometimes our kids want us in their lives. Some parents have remained in “good standing” and retained value from their kids’ perspectives, and thank goodness for that! They are the lucky ones. But there is also a group of parents who find themselves berated and belittled. Some kids want a scapegoat on which to blame their discontent, angst, or frustration. Sometimes, that scapegoat becomes the parents, and sometimes, the kids who have been influenced by trans ideology believe that all their issues are a result of being born wrong. Parents who resist this notion and believe their children were born right, and seek out non-invasive health care to help their children, become obstacles to the kids’ wishes to medicalize their bodies. Oftentimes, the kid has underlying comorbidities, significant trauma, and stress events that trigger a downward slide in their mental health. To say the situation is complex is an understatement.

Many kids have been told that they must lead, they know best, and their “lived experience” is more important than that of their parents or others. Never mind our decades of “lived experience” as adults and parents. Is it possible that some of the younger generation has come to believe the world revolves around them? And how did that mindset evolve? Parents have many questions but have been told by those who believe in gender ideology that we are not allowed to ask them, and if we ask them, we are labeled as transphobes.

Today, there seems to be a push by some, on the fringe of the majority, to make queer theory mainstream. Many people believe this theory is upstream from the concept of gender ideology and that both are destructive to society, yet both are finding their way into places they do not belong, such as schools. The idea that children must lead with self-diagnosis and/or self-identification, which can only be affirmed and not questioned, and that parents must follow, agreeing to the demands of such identification, is one example of concept flipping within this theory. Rarely does a parent who has read the many renditions of queer theory find it a sound one because it turns all systems and past beliefs upside down and sideways, dismantling everything in society and, in particular, the family and the parent-child relationship. Yet, it seems like the young and those who are not parents themselves find queer theory to be worthy enough to push it on others.

Let me pause for a moment for those who are in a fog about queer theory. You may want to read this book to catch up on the concept: The Queering of the American Child: How a New School Religious Cult Poisons the Minds and Bodies of Normal Kids. Learn more on QueeringBook.com.

Many relationships between parents and their adult children hang by a thread. I see kids encouraging and celebrating parents being dropped from their lives, particularly on social media platforms advocating a “trans” or “queer” agenda. If a parent is non-affirming to their child’s cross-sex identification, the mother or father may be labeled as unsupportive or toxic and relegated to being called the “bio-family,” while a new and “better” family is chosen, often called the “glitter family.” If a parent believes their children were born right, not wrong, and is opposed to cross-sex hormones and body-modifying surgeries to make their child appear like the opposite sex, then they are particularly vilified. This demonization can be a conglomeration of the kids and their peers, teachers/counselors at school, and gender-affirmation doctors/clinics/therapists, as well as some news outlets and influencers on social media platforms. Parents are ganged up on with the goal of breaking their spirits until they affirm and agree with the proposed radical, invasive drug and surgery route that gender ideology, gender medicine, trans activists, and proponents of queer theory say is the only way to save our children.

Then, to add insult to it all, our family history can be rewritten. Our kids can demand that their birth certificate be redone to reflect their wishes that they were born the opposite sex. Kids can also alter their birth certificate to a new name that they picked out instead of the name they were given by their parents. The name parents give to their child, who later becomes a trans-identifying child, is called the deadname and can be eliminated from public records, school records, and thus history. Our experience can be erased, and years in the future, they can say it never happened the way it actually did happen. The strategy of gaslighting is sometimes employed until the kids get what they want and their new chosen reality triumphs.

Word policing demands that we stop using words like girls, boys, women, men, mothers, fathers, sisters, and so forth, which no longer fit a transgender identification or non-binary model. And incorrect pronouns must be used even if they do not reflect natal sex or are misaligned with biological reality. Parents are told we must agree that there is no more biological reality; it is all just a spectrum. Sex was an arbitrary assignment or guess at birth, and gender can change at any time for any reason by anyone throughout life, according to trans activists. Parents are told they must adopt language for whatever stage the child is currently in and be ready to move to another one as it constantly evolves, flows, and reconfigures itself during their gender journey. The new “allowed” word rules are ever-changing and exhausting to keep track of. Have you noticed?

If the parent with a young adult kid in the new age of queer theory and gender ideology is allowed to stay in their kid’s life, they must follow strict rules. They are placed in a compartment of their kid’s life where the kid decides if they can engage with them. If parents are allowed to interact with their kids, boundaries will be clearly spelled out. If parents cross those lines, they can be punished with silent treatment and compartmentalized until they “learn” how to talk and behave in a way that suits the kids, their influencers and cheerleaders, and the trans activists. Thankfully, many parents and others see through this destructive ideology and realize the damage it is doing to families.

But there is more. Some teachers and school counselors who have hitched themselves to social justice causes, such as “trans is the new gay,” think non-affirming parents are unsafe or abusive. Some of these teachers, many of whom are of the younger generation and not parents themselves, are particularly prone to be captured by gender ideology. They grab onto the notion that kids would commit suicide if the educators don’t affirm whatever identity they proclaimed for themselves at that moment. One can understand the original intention of reducing the risk of suicide, but if the kid’s underlying issues and comorbidities are not addressed, might they be at a higher risk of suicide later? Sadly, the concept of our kids killing themselves if teachers did not immediately agree and affirm identities was based on unsubstantiated claims. We are now seeing that because the root cause of a child’s non-binary or cross-sex identification is not being addressed, and safeguards to drastic body modifications have been dropped, kids are spiraling down later, as their issues will follow them into the future, even with a new identity and transformed body. A multitude of detransitioner voices (detransitioners are those who transition back to their natal gender after going trans) are speaking up about what happened to them when adults didn’t help them uncover and treat the true causes of their distress and instead pushed them onto a rushed, irreversible medicalized conveyor belt of drugs and surgeries.

Some teachers now conspire with their students to hide the kids’ new names and cross-sex identification should the child “come out” and say they are “trans.” And if the parent finds out about this new identity and doesn’t like it, some teachers label parents as uneducated, unsafe, toxic, transphobic, and abusive. The list of derogatory names aimed at parents is long and completely inappropriate in most cases. I concede that there are abusive parents in the world, which is terrible. But just because a parent disagrees with gender ideology and doesn’t accept the concept that their child was born wrong does not make them abusive. And if a parent views the removal of healthy body parts and reproductive organs as self-harm, that does not translate to them being bad parents. Those who work in schools need to discern what true abuse is and not place gender-critical parents into the “abusive” category. Instead, they belong in the category of “parents who question because they love their children and care for their well-being.”

Yes, parents are riled up. They now live in an environment where they are demonized for being gender critical and wanting their kids’ bodies left alone. They are not able to see the normalization and glamorization of mastectomies for teens and twenty-something young women as progressive. Should parents be happy that teens and twenty-something girls have easy access to testosterone after being led to believe that it is the magic solution to all their problems and distress? Testosterone is now doled out like candy from clinics with virtually no safeguards in place or questions asked because safeguards are offensive to trans activists. Binders that smash and hurt our girls’ breasts are now in stores and other easily accessible online outlets. Medical care is now driven by activists and ideologists. Parents are not happy with being undermined by so many forces and people while we try to protect our kids from self-harm.

Furthermore, moms are not happy with the slogan, “Transwomen are women.” Mothers know that transwomen have never experienced (and never will experience) female puberty, monthly periods, conceiving a child, carrying a child, or birthing a child. These transwomen degrade moms by embracing the worst female stereotypes that mock and disrespect women. Mothers and biological women are being called menstruators/bleeders/breeders, uterus or ovary havers, birthing bodies, chest feeders, and people with front holes or vagina owners. By identifying as a transwoman, some men are able to enter our sacred spaces, demanding entry into our restrooms, locker rooms, changing rooms, spas, women’s organizations, and women’s sports. Some transwomen rape real women in shelters and prisons that used to be single-sex only. Of course, not all those who present themselves as the opposite sex have nefarious reasons for doing so, but self-ID does provide an opening and opportunity for those with ill intent.

Gender-critical parents are amazed that so many people see what is happening to women and our kids and still find gender ideology and queer theory acceptable as the latest social justice campaigns to hitch themselves to. Or maybe they don’t see what is happening. Another possibility is that there might be people who want to be kind and inclusive and originally had good intentions in supporting trans causes. But the movement got extreme and went out of control, and due to the cost sunk fallacy or a blind spot in seeing the full ramifications of what this movement has evolved into, these early supporters have trouble seeing a way out. So they dig in and stay the course. They avoid any information coming from whistleblowers, investigators, detransitioners, or others who are exposing the inadequacies of the gender medical model and gender industry. They don’t want to hear the stories of those who have suffered because of the gender medicalization, loss of safety/security, and all sorts of injustices.

The affirmation-only model of gender medicine that pushes gender modification surgeries, puberty blockers, and cross-sex hormones on kids is a medical scandal of profound proportions with tragic ramifications. Telling parents to go get some therapy and educate themselves until they see the light of gender ideology/queer theory is offensive to every parent concerned with the lives, health, and futures of their children. We have had enough of this activist-driven model of “care,” which discards not only parents but also the Hippocratic oath of “Do No Harm.”

Now is the time to put on the brakes. Enough evidence, such as the Cass Review and the WPATH files, has been presented. Any further ignoring of what is happening to our kids is an atrocity. It must stop now. Safeguards must be reinstated, and perhaps gender medicine practices need to be placed on hold. It has been suggested that only kids in clinical trials be able to receive puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones and that no gender modification surgeries be allowed on minors under age eighteen.

Will the tide turn toward valuing parents and our library of knowledge and wisdom? Will schools stop overriding or sabotaging parental authority? Will kids want to see the family tree charts and pictures and hear stories of their ancestors? Will learning about history from parents and grandparents remain old-fashioned and outdated, or can elders be reinstated to be seen as valuable once again? If family treasures, histories, and stories are just dated relics of the past without much value in the new world of today, we will lose something precious in the future of our kids.

My Mom and Dad’s libraries are closed. My library will close in the future. Might anyone want to ask me a question about our family before I die? I still have access to the older generation while my memory is sharp. Does anyone want to learn from the past and glean a nugget of wisdom? I hope I live to see the time when more of the younger generation values elders and parents again. Many parents whose kids are swept up in queer theory or gender ideology aren’t feeling love, care, and respect these days, and parents are tired of being demonized.

Gender ideology has treated parents poorly, even going to the extreme of dehumanizing them. Once influencers convince the kids to discard their parents, it is challenging to revive the relationship. When in history have people been dehumanized and discarded? Might history be repeating itself? Are kids doomed to repeat problematic history because they think they know best now? For parents who have lost a kid to gender ideology and medicalization, we have the loss of that child and the loss of support when others, such as school counselors and zealous activists, undermine us and encourage or cheer on the medicalization and severing of the parent-child relationship. Parents hope that the darkness of this movement is exposed to the light so that in the future, other parents don’t lose their kids to gender ideology. And we hope to, once again, be valued before we die.

Thanks to all who are now seeing gender ideology clearly and all the harms it is perpetuating. Some people are standing with grieving parents and saying enough is enough. As parents standing up for our kids, we thank you for your support. This extremism is not good for families, society, or our futures. Please, on behalf of grieving parents, help gender ideology to end soon so perhaps our families can reunite and heal. Thank you for reading a parent’s perspective.

Lisa Shultz advocates for parents’ and women’s rights. She is deeply concerned about the influence of gender ideology and the lack of comprehensive, ethical care for children and vulnerable adults.