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a mother has accepted regretting letting her four-year-old son socially transition into a girl, saying realizing her mistake was like “leaving a cult.”
Rose, who wishes to remain anonymous, raised their two children gender neutral with his wife, which was reflected in their clothing, toys and language.
When her four-year-old son said he felt like a girl, the mother encouraged him in his new identity, which he now admitted was a “mistake” that “haunts” her.
His concerns increased when his youngest son, then three, said he too wanted to transition to a girl, despite being more of a “stereotypical boy.”
Rose realized that she had “driven” her children into transition and immediately worked hard to reverse the mistake. She said her two children, now around eight and nine years old, are living happily as children and are “blossoming and growing.”
A mother has admitted she regrets letting her four-year-old son socially transition into a girl (file image)
She described realizing her mistake as leaving a ‘cult’ and said she would never return in an essay called ‘True Believer’ (photo is excerpt)
At the time, Rose said she was a “social justice organizer and facilitator,” who would introduce “the concept of intersectionality into progressive organizations and having people share their pronouns.”
But after her experience she has stopped being an ‘activist’ to become a ‘skeptic’.
It comes amid a US culture war over transgender rights in schools, where some feel the agenda is being presented to children too young, while others believe young people have the right to express who they feel they are.
In Florida, the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill prevents teaching or classroom instruction about gender identity or sexual orientation to children in kindergarten through sixth grade.
Transgender swimmers are a particularly tense topic, after U-Penn student Lia Thomas’ success in the sport after transitioning from male to female.
Prior to his transition, Thomas was ranked 500 and 600 in the country in the men’s division.
Rose told the ‘Triggernometry’ podcast that realizing her mistake was like leaving a ‘cult’, a sentiment she also confirmed in writing.
“I’m not a true believer anymore,” she said in an essay written in August 2022.
“This experience for me has been like leaving a cult, a cult that would make me sacrifice my son to the gods of gender ideology, in the name of social justice and collective liberation. I’ve left this cult, and I’m never going back.’
As the two boys grew older, the parents used ‘he/he’ as a pronoun but did not tell them that they were boys.
In Rose’s ‘True Believer’ essay, she said this meant she was ‘prepared to look for clues’ that her children might be transgender.
When her eldest son, who had always gravitated more towards women and had an affinity for things girly, asked her if it was a boy or a girl, she told him he could choose.
She said: ‘I was leading my innocent and sensitive son down a path of lies that were a shortcut to lifelong psychological damage and irreversible medical intervention. All in the name of love, acceptance and liberation.
Six months later, he came back to her saying that he felt like a girl, that he wanted the pronouns ‘she/his’ and to be called sister.
Speaking anonymously on the Triggernometry podcast (pictured), Rose said she realized she had brought her son into transition.
In her essay ‘True Believer’, she tells the story of her journey from social justice warrior to skeptic.
Transgender swimmers are a particularly tense topic, following U-Penn student Lia Thomas (pictured)’s success in the sport after she transitioned from male to female.
As a result, he changed his name and wore girl’s clothes to socially transition (the process by which transgender children can adopt a new gender identity).
The mother said her peers and support groups praised her for the support she had given her son.
She also said that a gender therapist told her to break contact with anyone not using the new identity, something she finds shocking to remember.
But alarm bells began to ring when her youngest son, who had always been more of a “stereotypical boy,” began saying that he, too, wanted to transition to a girl.
The three-year-old boy was more and more insistent that he wanted to be like his big brother.
The gender therapist immediately said that she should refer to him as ‘she’, but the mother began to feel strongly that neither of her children were transgender and that the older one was simply ‘too sensitive’.
Her son told her: ‘Mom, this is your fault, you changed my name.’
Our children were not actually trans. It was something else,’ Rose said. She had taken my son to it. All he wanted was to go back in time and undo what he had done.’
Just before her son’s eighth birthday, she told him that “men can’t be women”, to which he was initially “angry and sad”. But the next day, she said he was “incredibly relieved” by the revelation.
Now, she says her children are “blossoming and growing” as children, but her mistake will be one that will “haunt” her forever.
She said: ‘The pain and shock of what we did is so deep, so wide, so sharp and piercing. How could a mother do this to her son? To her children?
He added that he only realized his previous beliefs were part of a “system” now that he’s out of it.