So, for the past four years, I've been living in fear of people outside of professionals, educators, and the closest of family and friends (the family and friends have been uniformly supportive) while trying to cope with my transidentifying daughter. It has been isolating and painful and I've spoken about her mental health issues and our difficulties getting her treatment without mentioning the trans piece, because of the social climate.

I am politically moderate and independent, but I live in a VERY liberal part of the country and a large number of acquaintances and people in my social circle are very liberal and have posted things on FB and made known their position on the type of people they think don't want to transition their kids or teens or who have issues with allowing anyone to identify as women and all the attendant things we often discuss here. Which is transphobes and bigots and people like that should be the first against the wall, what with their language exactly the same as violence. The opprobrium is rather frightening.

Anyway, long story short, I have THREE daughters and this weekend discovered that my youngest is toying with trans-identifying. And now, as someone who was trying to help my other daughter deal with deeper and more important issues and buy her time for her brain to mature (and who, as a very young legal adult, seems to not be focused on the trans stuff, thankfully), I find myself dealing with this all over.

And, as I was talking to a staff nurse at the psych hospital, how is it that something (teen girls who think they're boys) which was almost completely unheard of when my children were born is suddenly so prevalent that 2/3 of my kids have started thinking this way as teens? How can that be a real, organic thing?
And, while this just solidifies my position that this is socially contagious and a coping strategy for hopelessness and questioning and searching, it also makes me tired.

And I reached out to a couple of people who knew the story about my older daughter and I filled them in on the trans piece. And both of these people assured me that, while they are not (thankfully!) dealing with this issue, they have seen the rise of it as they find it confusing and they think I'm doing a good thing in protecting my kids.

I think it was good I talked to women, and I think it's good I took the risk. They are both good, decent humans and it was good to realize that there are good people who are not immersed in this, but who do see it and who aren't convinced that this is something which should be growing in prevalence. Anyway, so this isn't all about me, has anyone else taken the risk -- mentioned their feelings about pediatric/adolescent transidentifying? Discussed that the transactivist agenda is using kids and teens to propel their control over women and women's spaces?