Part 3 in 4-part series, ‘Mutilation or Healthcare?’

by Alison Despathy

Parents with children struggling with gender dysphoria often feel helpless with nowhere to turn. Messaging on this is often cruel and decisive- if you do not support your child’s decision and feelings, you are an unsupportive and uninformed parent. Your legitimate concerns and pain are your own problem. Many parents and youth are counseled through this process with the pretense that this a scientifically proven reality when in fact, it is anything but scientific and has not been comprehensively researched to determine possible causative factors of this devastating dilemma.

One Vermont Mother, who wishes to remain anonymous in order to protect the privacy of her child, painfully shared that, 

“Our 20-year-old daughter admitted to us that she had started taking testosterone 3 weeks prior. Now she is 21 and has been taking testosterone for five months. She found a health clinic in Burlington and has a nurse who has coached her to inject herself with testosterone in the leg, once a week on Sundays. 

How could this possibly be allowed?

An entire body of medical professionals and educators are leading our daughter to believe that she can become a man. Who is looking out for our daughter’s brain that is not even fully developed, her prefrontal cortex has yet to fully form! At the age of 21, she is having testosterone put into her body on a weekly basis… What is happening to her body and brain? Under the guise of helping her, with her suffering, she is naively trusting medical professionals to solve her problems. As a parent who has bore witness to her daughter’s life and unfolding, I find that the option society is offering her at her young age is short-sighted and does not hold her future and current situation in a complete light. 

Our daughter has been seeing a “gender affirming” therapist of her choosing for the past year; this therapist herself identifies as trans, and we find ourselves in a dilemma whereas our daughter rightfully wants to individuate and feel empowered, she is being coached in choices that are short-sighted and undermine her long-term health and well-being.

We encouraged our daughter and cast our net wide throughout New England seeking a therapist who has been working with gender dysphoria long before this social and political wave. Although our daughter never expressed concerns of gender dysphoria growing up, and only in high school, Covid lockdown and the social traumas that ensued for a young growing teen, did she start to ‘identify as trans.’ The ship was out of the harbor for her parents, with few rights in this state, we had no say in the phenomenon that was taking over our daughter. 

After finding out that our daughter was taking weekly testosterone injections, after receiving free online coupons, we asked our daughter if the ‘healthcare provider’ had taken any baseline hormone levels or did any blood work prior to receiving the testosterone. We were told no. 

How could this be possible, how could this be prescribed without precursory study of this young person’s vitals? They are taking advantage of our young adult’s naivete.

My daughter is taking testosterone; she is not transitioning. She will never be a man and I believe it’s vital that we all hold her in this truth and encourage her to look beneath the surface for all that is going on: there is anxiety, there is hurt, there is an attempt to make right what doesn’t feel right on the inside, there is an attempt to make right what feels wrong in society. Her being is vast; identity is a lifetime exploration that is realized as you live out fulfilling work and contribute to society. The health risks that are before my daughter in this experiment are daunting. 

The medical professionals who are leading her to believe otherwise have forgotten what it is to be a teenager and young adult. Offering young people these dangerous and detrimental prescriptions and medical choices, that go against a being’s natural unfolding, is a crime and irresponsible. Words cannot describe my pain to witness this destruction of a precious life. 

Where is the medical professional who can see my daughter and her pain and confusion and care for her from that place… not just give her a drug or offer to cut her breasts off?

We are in the midst of this painful struggle, and I feel like we don’t have support or expertise in this state when it comes to professional help. As her parents, her family, we will always be there for her but I pray that she discovers soon that life is not what you look like on the outside but what you find on the inside to share with those outside of you.”

The situation at the Vermont State House this past legislative session, in which trans activists shut down a scheduled presentation by a person sharing their heartbreaking story on gender ‘transitioning’ and then their attempt to detransition, was an affront to free speech. After this undemocratic ordeal, Outright Vermont was immediately invited into the House Healthcare Committee to testify on the trans agenda in youth and ‘gender affirming care’. However, those hosting the educational event on detransitioning–that was shut down– were never offered the opportunity to share their story or offer insight. 

Regardless of where one lands on this polarizing issue, this decision by the Vermont House Healthcare Committee Chair to not allow a detransitioner to speak was not only disrespectful but blatantly flies in the face of freedom of speech and the democratic process. It also forgoes a key role of the legislature which is to hear from all perspectives and parties on an issue in order to be best informed when creating policy. This was a failure of the current leadership, especially for our youth and this controversial issue of ‘gender affirming care’ which involves experimentation with prescription medications and mutilating surgical procedures on our youth.