18 Comments
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Guavette's avatar

Thanks for this episode. I appreciate this doctor mom's commonsense clarity and her specific pain and disbelief that OTHER DOCTORS are doing this to her children. Two things: 1. The daughter may have waited to be on testosterone (anabolic steroids) because taking it during swim season would have been illegal doping under the NCAA. 2. Swimming can make females feel very bulky and more male in presentation (neck, shoulders, upper arms, lats, quads all get much bigger). I am a female swimmer and experienced "rightness" in men's clothes when I was at my biggest and fittest.

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Hazel-rah's avatar

Interviewing tip: when there's several different kids and a complex timeline, make sure it's always clear which kid, what year and what age they were at the time of the event being related.

You have to constantly monitor and clarify that as an interviewer to avoid confusing the listener.

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Jenny Poyer Ackerman's avatar

Noted, thanks!

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J.J.H.'s avatar

I have dreams! They are usually having to do with my daughter’s name and being able to call her that after so many years of not being able to.

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Julia's avatar

Thank you!

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Jenny Poyer Ackerman's avatar

Thanks for sharing that. ❤️

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Hippiesq's avatar

I related 100% to things like - I don't care how you cut your hair, what clothes you wear, whether you're gay. That's all fine, and doesn't change your sex! What a warped, upside regressive world we live in when a young man tells his mother "You should have known I was really a girl when I grew my hair long." You are definitely not alone in thinking and feeling everything you think and feel in response to this insanity.

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Julia's avatar

Thank you! I have listened to you in the past-so nice to hear a voice of reason!

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Lisa's avatar

This interview saddened me. I'm always sad, unless I'm furious, and then I'm actually furiously sad or sadly furious. For most of your conversation, I identified with this mom's ability to talk calmly and intelligently about this nightmare. Then, in the last minutes, I identified with the sadness I heard in her voice about the dreams of her children appearing freed from the delusion. I, too, have versions of that dream, and somehow even as I'm dreaming them, I'm sad because I know the actual nightmare is not really over yet, asleep or awake.

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Not a chicken's avatar

So incredibly sad that parents are forced into compliance and affirm a fantasy or face estrangement. Cults operate like this as well. There are doctors that are against this and have left the "industry" because of this ideology. Most doctors in my family's case. Kids are told that if they exhibit suicide ideation, this the first step to get access to a gender clinic because the social workers help them. It's very ingrained in the Children's hospitals who do act as incubators. Girls are very empathetic by nature and if their friend is in the hospital, naturally, they want to help them with their mental distress and try to help them by being an "ally" first, then "allyship" turns into being trans themselves. The schools support it, the gender clinics support it and treat parents like the enemy for questioning it or trying to stop their child from harming themselves. Parents are damned if they do and damned if they don't. It's a heavy cross - we parents have broken smiles and there's no help for us mentally but to find our own people to cope and muddle through it. The folks at Segm.org might have someone you can interview - basically the activists have captured the medical communities that have always been trusted (like the AMA for example) who don't represent the majority of doctors and purposely ignore those that have tried to change the Affirmation only policy - Dr. Julia Mason would be a good starting point.

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Jenny Poyer Ackerman's avatar

Yes, Dr Mason is a hero of mine; I’ve written about her and would love to do an interview. SEGM is a hall of heroes starting with Dr Will Malone, a peds endo who was the first MD I ever saw resist and interrogate the ideology back in the early days. I’d also like to hear more about your background so feel free to email me at jen.poyerack@gmail.com

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Cassandra anonymous's avatar

Kudos to this mom walking a very very fine line, and maintaining a loving relationship with her son. The damage to her kids’ health and psychosocial functioning and the loss of her relationship with her daughter is very tragic and regrettable. Grateful for her revealing the ways that families (and parent-child dyads) can find different balances in this, eye opening for me—not just affirm or fight.

As suprising as this is to me, I ‘m just now seeing that this inflexible demand to be seen as “really” a girl or a boy, a man or a woman, is the crux, so the perversion of language, like the guest quotes the dr. “Oh yes, oh yes, you are!” So the abuse of truth goes before the abuse of power.

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Julia's avatar

Thank you!!

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Cassandra anonymous's avatar

Identity is neither immutable nor wholly internal. It is fluid, especially in childhood adolescence and youth and developed in relationship with others, family and community. So in some ways this trans disaster is one if the side effects of end stage radical liberal individualism.

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Suzanne's avatar

Thank you for this episode, and for all you do. Yes, I have awful and too much experience of the gender ideological capture of inpatient and outpatient adolescent mental health programs, including DBT counseling, in the Bay Area, from the years 2017-2020.

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Jenny Poyer Ackerman's avatar

Please reach out if you have more to say about your experience. I’m intrigued and also gratified by your comments. Thank you. 🙏 My email:

jen.poyerack@gmail.com

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A mom's avatar

Similar situation here, though only one child TI (for 6 years). Love this conversation for two reasons: as someone in a profession who feels she should have known better, it is comforting to hear from a doctor parent. It’s just highlights for me that there is nothing we could have done to prevent this storm. Also, about a year ago I had the most incredible dream. In the dream, my child was simply behaving and dressing more normatively. The dream was better than any high I’ve ever experienced. I guess it shows that there is still some hope buried in me…

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Suzanne's avatar

Agreed. And, I've had - I have - that dream a lot.

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