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Based on the provided comments, this account appears to be authentic. There are no serious red flags suggesting it is a bot or an inauthentic actor.
The user demonstrates a consistent, nuanced, and personal perspective as a concerned parent and pediatrician. The comments show deep personal investment, professional knowledge, and a coherent, evolving narrative over time, which is not typical of bot behavior. The passion and criticism align with genuine concerns found in the detransition community.
About me
I'm a parent and a pediatrician, and this started when my daughter was 12 and said she wanted to be a boy. I worry that we're pushing medical treatments on kids who just don't fit a stereotype, and I see the same troubling patterns in medicine that I've seen before. The system is set up to quickly offer life-altering treatments without asking enough questions first. We are supporting our daughter by showing her she can be any kind of woman without changing her body. Our plan is to help her find peace without irreversible interventions and to let her make her own medical decisions as an adult.
My detransition story
My journey with this started not with me, but with my child. I’m a parent, and this is about my daughter. A little over a year ago, when she was 12, she suddenly announced that she wanted to be a boy. She didn't say she was a boy, but that she wanted to be one. I was thrown into a world I knew nothing about, and when I started looking for information, it was overwhelming. There was so much of it, and a lot of it felt like nonsense.
It struck me how different things are now from when I was young. We had so many androgynous celebrities to look up to—people like kd lang, Boy George, Grace Jones, and Annie Lennox. They showed us you could be a woman and not be a "girly girl." Now, it feels like if a girl isn't ultra-feminine, the immediate conclusion is that she must be a boy. To me, that feels like we're moving backwards into more rigid gender roles, not forwards. It feels like the real conversion therapy is giving hormones to gay kids who just don't fit a stereotype.
I want to change the world to be more accepting of different types of people, not change my child's perfect body. I believe most people spend high school being confused and upset about something that later doesn't seem so important. The pressure to have it all figured out is immense, but it's okay not to.
As a pediatrician, this whole situation worries me deeply on a professional level too. My professional organization, the American Academy of Pediatrics, came out in full support of "affirmative care" without asking doctors like me what we thought. It reminds me of when we saw a huge push to diagnose kids with bipolar disorder and put them on strong antipsychotic medications. It felt like a pre-existing diagnosis was expanded to include way more people, and then expensive, powerful drugs were marketed to treat them. I see the same pattern happening now with gender.
If I refer a child to a gender clinic now, I know they are almost certainly going to be offered puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones very quickly. The blockers are presented as a harmless "pause," but that's not true. Almost every kid who goes on them moves on to full medical transition. We have no medical test, no scan, no psychological evaluation that can reliably tell us which kids will grow up to be trans and which will desist. The number who will desist is much larger, but the system is set up to medicalize them all without asking enough questions.
I fear that in ten to fifteen years, we are going to see a boom of detransitioners because of this "affirmative all the time" approach. Doctors are afraid to voice concerns or offer alternatives for fear of being called bigots. It's not right. Young people should not be guinea pigs. For some doctors, it seems like an interesting puzzle, but this is about real human bodies and real human lives. The complications are real and permanent.
Our current plan is that if my daughter still wants to pursue medical interventions, she can make that decision when she's 18. Until then, we are trying to support her and help her see that she doesn't have to change her body to express who she is. I encourage her to look at gender non-conforming people from the past who lived full lives without medicalizing their discomfort. My deepest hope is that she can find peace without going down a path of irreversible changes.
| Age | Event |
|---|---|
| 12 | My daughter announced she wanted to be a boy. |
| 13 | Current age; no medical interventions. Plan to reassess at 18. |
Top Comments by /u/DrFood1:
You're not an idiot. You're a young person during a very crazy time.
When I was young we had lots of androgynous celebrities (kd lang, Boy George, Grace Jones, Tracy Chapman, Annie Lennox). Now, if you're not a girly girl, well then you must be a boy. It's bullshit.
However, I see this Affirmation All the Time approach that's being taken and it shakes me to my core. How many others like me will go through this process, go through irreversible changes, and come out the other side realising it wasn't for them because of this "Stop the gatekeeping, remove the waiting periods, circumvent the doctors, get HRT the same day" approach? How many doctors feel like they can't voice alternatives to their patients for fear of being labelled a bigot and a bully? I feel like within the next ten to fifteen years we will see a boom of detransitioners. The medical community doesn't know enough about transition and the trans activists certainly don't, either.
Yes! This. So much this. I'm a pediatrician and I'm horrified that my professional organization, the AAP, put out a statement about a year ago saying that affirmative care is the way to go. I'm not worried about being called a bigot, but a lot of my colleagues are. It's frustrating that if you refer a family to the gender clinic, they're not going to get any help, just medical transition, and fast.
I'm in a similar situation, in that my child suddenly announced they wanted to be a boy (not that they were a boy) less than a year ago. You start looking for information and WHOAH, there's too much, and it doesn't hold true, and there's so much nonsense.
I feel like trans is pushing us in a more conservative direction, ironically. Gender roles are rigid and if you don't fit your birth gender then you must be the "opposite" gender. To me, treating a gay kid with hormones is the real conversion therapy.
I want to change the world, not my child's perfect body.
You probably don't want to hear from me, 'cause I'm old, but I would encourage you to take a look at GNC men of the past. David Bowie (back in the 70's), Boy George (in the 80's), Prince (all the damn time).
You don't have to change your perfect body to express yourself. Think past the binary.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g33-W9t2q2Q (David Bowie: the man who sold the world)
The medical community has not given up, at least not all of us! I am a pediatrician. I didn't know much about trans issues until it became personal (I've shared my story previously - I have a daughter who socially transitioned at the age of 12. S/he's 13, the current plan is to start medical interventions when s/he's 18.) I am working to find other doctors who are also worried about how fast this is going. I've found some, we are forming an organization to call for more science, more evidence based medical practices. It's hard, though. My professional organization, the American Academy of Pediatrics, came out for "affirmative care" just about a year ago. They didn't ask me about that!
What this reminds me of is the push to treat "bipolar disease" with second generation antipsychotic meds. Now, there have been people who were truly suffering and they were truly helped by Risperdal or Abilify, but what I saw around the turn of the century was expansion of a pre-existing diagnosis (bipolar) to include a lot more patients (you no longer had to have clear manic/depressive phases) and then marketing a pre-existing and very expensive drug (the second generation antipsychotics) to treat this new large group of patients. It seemed like every rebellious kid was being put on these scary strong meds with loads of side effects but since I was a pediatrician, not a psychiatrist, I just sort of observed it and complained to no effect.
I'm going to try to do more than complain about this new expansion of a pre-existing diagnosis.
Lifting weights is a good idea. Make sure you get some coaching so you don't get injured. You can get a fair amount done without a whole lot of equipment, if it's hard to find a place to start.
There's no rush to start hormones. I think focusing on school is wise.
Wow. Your friends ARE more helpful than that. I think it's worth informing the person who told you the same psychologist could "help you out" that no, in fact that person was no help at all. Worse than no help - actively hurtful.
I'm sorry you got someone too worried about getting in trouble to do her job. When people get defensive, they often become hurtful. Very unprofessional.
I think that's fine. I know there are multiple incidences of trans"women" attacking girls and women in female only spaces, but from the mugshots I've seen, few if any could actually pass as female. When you are in the bathroom, you're in a stall, and I'm assuming that you simply do your business and mind your own business.
We've had transsexuals (I'm reverting to the old term purposefully) among us forever, and if they could pass, they used the women's bathroom. What I get upset about is autogynephilic adult males insisting that the world participate in their crazy-ass LARPing as girly girls. Those dudes can be dangerous. I'm sure some of them are lovely people, but I've met a couple that creeped me out, and I'm a middle aged doctor, not a vulnerable girl.
Thanks so much for writing this, it's given me insight I didn't even know I needed.
What can we do, to help young men (in particular) feel part of community? I can't help but think this isolation is driving some of our mass shootings in the United States.
Yeah, most people spend high school upset about something, obsessing over things that later don't seem so important, or completely confused. Now that I'm old, I can see that the kids who seemed most "with it" and popular in high school mainly ended up having very small and uninteresting lives. They peaked in high school.