In the United States, a sharp rise in the number of children identifying as transgender has alarmed some parents. As these numbers rapidly grow, three mothers share the warning signs of transgender indoctrination.
The Child Transgender Numbers Explosion
A study conducted by the American Academy of Pediatrics released in May 2020 showed nearly 10 percent of high school students in just one school district identified as gender-diverse. That 10 percent figure is far higher than past estimates, such as a 2017 government survey of U.S. high school students, in which only 1.8 percent said they identified as transgender. While some studies suggest the higher rate of suicide and attempted suicide among transgender children is related to non-affirmation, other research shows that the higher rate of suicide and attempted suicide among adolescents with gender dysphoria is more related to their know history of other psychiatric diagnoses and self-reported emotional and behavioral problems. While the study called The Trevor Projectâwidely cited by those who push the affirmation-only approach to avoid self-harmâdoes show that a significant number of transgender youth admit the heavy use of drugs and alcohol, the study did not explore or provide any statistics regarding the preexistence of other psychiatric diagnoses or self-reported emotional and behavioral problems among the participants.
The Social/Mental VulnerabilitiesÂ
While each of the three families in this story come from different backgrounds and live in different states, each of their newly self-identified transgender children have some things very much in common. They are all in the same age group, they are all socially awkward, and all have been diagnosed with some form of social or psychological disorder.
Vera Lindner of Los Angeles, California, told The Epoch Times âthe trans bomb was dropped,â into her world a year ago when her daughter was 14 years old. Her daughter, now 15, had been diagnosed with Aspergerâs Syndrome and Attention Deficit Disorder. She suffers from depression, anxiety, insulin resistance, and obesity. Her daughter was also diagnosed with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS).
Dee, of Clover, South Carolina has a 17-year-old daughter who was indoctrinated at the age of 15. Her daughter has been diagnosed with pre-adoption trauma.
A concerned mom in Augusta, Georgia, who is a single parent, spoke to The Epoch Times under the condition of anonymity using the pseudonym Mary. She said her son made his transgender announcement in November 2020. While not formally diagnosed with any specific disorder, she âhad him tested when he was younger for being on the [autism] spectrum and he fell in the gray zone.â
âThey could not say yes or no,â Mary added. âHe has always been a bit socially awkward and quirky.â
How it Began
Another commonality is the way each child was drawn down the transgender path. It all began with online connections who introduced them to the transgender world through various social media groups.
The trans-transformation of Veraâs daughter started when she began identifying as a lesbian and started watching a lot of YouTube videos like âWhat do lesbians look like?â and âWho is the âmost lesbianâ from among this line-up?â Then came the âunrequited love for a butch-lesbian girl who was the first one to self-identify as a âtrans-boy.ââ
âThis individual was the ring-leader, very aggressive,â Vera explained. âAlso, very tech-savvy.â The âtrans-boyâ set up multiple Discord groups for the group her daughter had been introduced to, with channels such as âvent,â âgeneral,â âart,â âLGBTâ and specifically, âNSFWâ where they were posting male nudes and pornography for each other to watch.
According to the Urban Dictionary, âNSFWâ is âinternet slangâ for âNot Safe For Workâ or âNot Safe For Wifeâ and is âused for a fandom of some sort when people want to discuss and share the sexual and porno side of the fandom.â
âAt the same time,â Vera added, âthey all got into TikTok and Instagram and started watching trans-related contentâvile, stupid narcissistic young adults posting rotten material on these platforms.â
The subject matter of these posts centered around such things as, âyou are trans if youâŠ,â âyou have been playing a role of a girl all along but you are not a girl,â and posed questions like âdo you feel like a girl?â
For Deeâs daughter, everything started when âa friend who had decided she was trans a year before took her down the proverbial hole and taught her what to wearâ and exposed her to lesbian pornography.
Through the social media platforms Instagram, Tumblr, Reddit, Pinterest, YouTube, and TikTok, her daughter watched videos about âtrans-menâ and âhow to get testosterone.â
As with Veraâs and Deeâs daughters, Maryâs son spent hours on social media sites consuming hard-core, graphic pornography sent to him by his new, online trans peer group that evades parental controls by classifying the content âcartoons.â
The Drastic Transformation
By the time Veraâs daughter was in eighth grade she âwas so hyper-fixated on LGBT that she was incapable of speaking about anything else besides LGBTâ and she âcycled through orientations of lesbian, pan, queer, until finally she dropped the trans bomb shortly after turning 14.â Soon after, she âcut her hair, started wearing boysâ clothes, bought menâs underwearâ and âdemanded a binder.â She also wanted to get a âsupplement from Amazon for increasing testosterone,â which she refused to purchase for her, and to see a âgender doctor,â which she refused to take her to.
Where Deeâs daughter had once been a âhappy, seemingly well-adjusted and mature,â child who âexcelled academically, she quickly became âdisobedient, contentious, contemptuous and untruthful.â
Where she once appeared as a normal teen-aged girl, she now âpresents as a boy wearing dark colors, hoodies, and occasionally wears a binderâ and she has âCut off her beautiful hair and tries to pass with a man bun.â
Mary said she was shocked at her sonâs trans declaration as there was âno prior behavior that would indicate any of this.â
As with Veraâs daughter, Maryâs son became âobsessed with talking about trans issues.â She said âall talks revolved around it,â and âhe demanded puberty blockers and hormone replacement therapy.â
Mary said the transformation of her son started after he âfound friends who were also declaring non-binary and transgender status and they began providing him with âtheir old girl clothes.â He quickly went from âcautiouslyâ wearing a skirt to âfull-on cross-dressingâ and he âbecame noticeably irritable and rude,â a characteristic she said was âextremely out of characterâ for her son. During one manic episode, she said her son began screaming at her to look at him to recognize that he is âa girl now.â
âIt was very disturbing and frightening,â she said.
The Fight to Reclaim Their Children
Because her daughter was âgoing through a mental breakdown upon dropping the trans bomb,â Vera and her husband decided not to take away her electronic devices. To mitigate the destructive influence of social media, they did purge her accounts of all transgendered contacts. They also stopped sending their daughter to her therapist, who had started âcasually talking about testosterone and encouraging transition.â
Her daughterâs PCOS is being managed with meds and she has a daily regimen of light exercise. She has started tenth grade in a charter school and is making new friends. Still, the therapy that has had the most positive impact on her daughter has been volunteering on family farms.
âShe adores animals,â Vera said, âso we adopted two kittens in addition to the dog we brought with us. Being around animals and kind people has helped her rebuild her self-esteem. We also go for walks daily. Her depression is much better, definitely in remission. So is the eating disorder. Here, she is connecting with real humans and hearing their real-life stories.â
For Deeâbecause âthereâs too much being shared at high school at lunch and during breaksââparental monitoring of her social media accounts, a summer job, increased volunteer work to get her off social media, and new social circles has had only marginal improvements on her daughterâs behavior. But she isnât giving up.
Fearful and overwhelmed by the sudden changes in her son, the decision was made by Mary to send her son to stay with his father. During those next three weeks, she began to dig into his online history and many changes have been made. Since her sonâs return from his fatherâs home, she has taken away his electronic devices and has three layers of parental control on his phone. She uses Circle and Bark apps to monitor the phoneâs screen-time and frequently checks with her internet provider for controls they provide. Despite her efforts, she said her son still manages to find âa lot of gender-bending in obscure corners of the internet.â
âHis attitude is slightly better,â she said. âI have taken him to a new therapist that is not affirming. I am not sure how much that has helped so far though. The previous therapist was terrible and made things go from bad to violent with the blind affirmation model.
Their Greatest Fears
Vera fears that her daughter will be taken by Child Protective Services because she is ânot affirming,â She also fears that her daughter will be influenced by her friends to take hormones or worse, to have irrevocable surgeries. âShe has made tremendous progress in healing her mental illnesses and I donât want her to slip back,â Vera said.
Dee also fears that her daughter will âmedicalize and embark on a course of surgery that will cause irreparable damage to her body.â
âAnd I fear she will latch onto her âglitterâ family and become estranged from us,â she confessed.
Mary in Georgia also fears that her son âwill begin medicalization when he turns 18â and that âhe will ruin his body and his life in search for happiness that is promised to himâ but âwill only result in his ruination mentally and physically.â
âHe will become a forever patient of the pharmaceutical and medical industry and dwindle his dating pool down to nothing and he will be alone,â she grieved.
Whoâs to Blame?
Although a self-described âlifelongâ liberal Democrat, Vera blames former President Barack Obama âwho got bought with the millionaire transvestitesâ moneyâ and the liberals âwho parrot trans slogansâ and âallowed this ideology to infiltrate so deeply the American society and families.â
She blames the âfriends who draggedâ her daughter into the trans world, and the school lockdowns that left home-bound, isolated children âhanging on their phones all day long to be immersed into this cult.â
âAnd I blame myself,â she confessed, âfor not doing deep reading on this whole trans-thing years ago. I immersed myself only after she dropped on us the trans-bomb, unexpectedly.â
Dee also blames âthe friend who draggedâ her daughter into this, âand social media, which uses algorithms to shove the trans-agenda into her online world.â She also blames her daughterâs three therapists, âall of whom affirmed her and treated her like a special unicorn.â
Primarily, Mary blames the tech industry.
âThey know the danger this technology poses to our mental health and the influence it has especially on young vulnerable people,â she said. âI blame them for not having stronger walls against pornography when kids can easily click an âover 18â button.â
She also blames the pharmaceutical and medical industry who âblindly affirm this and push drugs and surgeries on kidsâ and therapists who use suicide statistics to pressure them into affirming their childâs irrational decisions yet give no thought to the idea that the child may deeply regret those choices and âtake their life after the transition.â
New Paths Require Wise Feet
âTo all despondent parents who just got blindsided by this,â two mothers offer some advice.
Vera: âRead as much literature as possible, both affirmative and also trans-critical. Be familiar with the propaganda and lies so you can rebuff them. Nothing substitutes for knowledge and information.â
Mary: âCut off electronics/online activity, be vigilant about parental controls and monitoring. Be cautious and not confrontational and keep communication lines open and encourage critical thinking. Â Give them as much love as possible but also be firm as the parent. Get them outdoors and back in nature and into the world like through volunteering, extracurricular activities, if theyâre old enough getting a job.â