Dear Abigail,
I am the mother of an 18-year-old daughter who is about six years into her declaration of transgenderism. (I will spare you the background, but suffice it to say: pandemic, Discord chat rooms, peer group.) All this time, my husband and I have walked the tightrope of maintaining a loving relationship with her while maintaining strict boundaries. We fought with the school relentlessly about her name. We forced her to use her real name when she got a job, telling her it was linked to her bank account and doing otherwise would be too confusing. We told her we would only pay for her music lessons if she used her real name at the studio. We told her that if she wanted to use another name with her friends, that was fine: That’s what nicknames are for. For us, the line we did not want her to cross was asking adults to use another name, because it was not appropriate. (We know she broke this rule, but at least we tried.) And, of course, we prayed. We prayed this would resolve itself before adulthood.
This spring, she graduated high school. She has chosen a gap year at home (with us, imagine?) instead of college. Now, I am not sure what lines we are supposed to hold onto and which we can let go. We have been clear that, for this gap year and possibly beyond, she is welcome to stay home and we will financially support her, just as if she was off at school, as long as she holds down a job and has a plan. So far, she has held up her end of the bargain well: She has two paying jobs, plus a few irons in the fire related to her interest in music. (She plays gigs with a band, and is starting to intern as a student teacher giving lessons.)
Also, we continue to pay out-of-pocket for her “therapist” ($185 every other week). I put that in quotes because the therapist—an intelligent, progressive, married gay woman—intentionally let her license lapse so that she was no longer beholden to the guidelines of her profession, which dictate that therapists must unquestioningly affirm patients’ understandings of themselves. We chose and trust this woman, and if we stop paying for her, our daughter will likely find a harmful therapist, which concerns us.
She’s a good kid—driven, smart, and fierce in her beliefs. However, despite being visibly fine with us calling her by her real name and referring to her as our daughter at home, outside of the house she is increasingly using her other name (and pronouns). She is using it at her job and playing gigs in the area with her band. She is now using it at the music school where we used to pay for her lessons.
My daughter is a very progressive individual, and our family is very conservative. Her father, brother, and I attend Catholic Mass every Sunday. (I attend daily Mass myself.) Her brother is an altar server and attends a Catholic high school. We’re pro-life. We love America, fly a flag, and shoot off fireworks on the Fourth of July. My daughter makes signs in her bedroom, attends protests, and recently joined an anti-war organization. I’m not against her expressing herself (nor am I “pro-war”), but she takes every opportunity to show her disdain for our life choices. For example, during the cyclospora outbreak I was complaining about washing lettuce, and she said, “Well, you voted for this.” (My response was to ask, “I voted for diarrhea?” and laugh it off.) I am sure I should be lecturing her on respecting our views, but she’ll play her trump card, which is that we do not respect her truth as a transgender man. She holds all the cards.
And Abigail, I’m tired (and, frankly, my husband is losing his patience). I’ve spent the last six years fighting the establishment, holding my breath, walking on eggshells. I am still dancing around pronouns and avoiding using the “names” of any of her friends because they are all fake. I have surrendered her soul to the Lord, which has helped tremendously, but how does that translate to my daily life? Is it okay to . . . not care anymore? To just let her dig herself deeper into whatever hole she’s creating? The mom in me says: No, she’s only 18 and still very much a child who needs our help and our attempts to set boundaries. The human in me says: Ugh, go ahead and dig away until you uncover a natural consequence. And the human voice is getting louder. Help!
—Angela
Dear Angela,
Eight years ago, public health researcher Lisa Littman amassed evidence that peer contagion explained the sudden spike in trans identification among teen girls. In 2020, I helped bring her work to a large audience with my book Irreversible Damage. In the years since, the craze has received enormous attention. But one aspect of the phenomenon remains under explored: Why were girls from politically progressive families especially vulnerable to this destructive social contagion?
Maybe it’s because they lived in deep-blue school districts, where teachers, school counselors, and therapists were particularly enthusiastic about liberating girls from their feminine bodies. Maybe their parents felt so obligated to support anything “LGBTQ,” they failed to see the harm posed by “T” (medicalization) until it was too late. Maybe their insecurity over maintaining their progressive bona fides scrambled their defenses.
But there is something else, too. Progressive parents—many of them highly educated—were beholden to fashionable parenting theories that eschewed the thing kids most needed: parental authority. Not cold or unloving parenting. Just “these are my rules, and we’re not debating them” parenting. Conservatives were more comfortable with this sort of authority. Progressives, far less so.
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