I spent the weekend at the Montreal Book Fair signing the novel I just published.
On Sunday evening I received an email from a lady who said: “I didn’t dare speak to you in the salon.”
Then she tells me her story.
Exploration
Your daughter is 14 years old. A year and a half ago, she said to her mother, “I’m a boy now.”
The announcement comes a few months after her best friend announced to her own parents.
Suddenly, the mother said, I was “transphobic” if I got my first name wrong.
The school changed her name and gender without consulting her.
The mother is transgender and non-binary. She is by no means a stubborn reactionary.
Your daughter had a difficult time in high school: heartbreak, bad influences, self-harm, bullying, depression.
However, the confusion remained.
The mother: “You want a penis, take off your breasts?”
The girl: “Wow, no, but hair on my chin maybe.”
Several parents around him have children who say they want a “transition.”
The mother gets closer to these parents, reads about the topic, and learns more about this increasingly documented effect of social contagion and imitation.
Her daughter, she says, suffered from fairly frequent ailments during her teenage years and believes she has found a quick “solution”.
She then joins networks that encourage her to quickly “catch on” in this direction.
The mother meets a social worker who begins to present her arguments: you don’t respect your daughter’s “feelings.”
Puberty blockers, says the social worker, have no consequences.
Absolutely wrong. That is why they are extremely controversial and cause strong reservations among those who value health more than ideology.
You have to let them go on a journey of discovery, says the social worker.
But we do exactly the opposite: instead of exploring, we decide quickly, we encourage, we ease the transition without questioning the discomfort of being that is still there.
Her daughter said to her, “Mom, you don’t accept me.” But it’s the young girl who doesn’t accept herself. The mother is just trying to understand.
Research
It’s not just the prospect of irreversible surgical procedures that frightens the mother.
It is about entering a system in the form of a corridor in which children and “experts” repeat a scenario, a protocol, words and phrases that they have learned in advance, in order to ease the transition and eliminate any questioning and caution disqualify.
We either shut up or applaud. Otherwise we are transphobic, reactionary, we are pushing them to commit suicide.
The complete opposite of exploration and openness.
Let’s listen to these parents, understand these children better, do more scientific research, and curb ideological enthusiasm.
What is happening is serious.
