A mother has admitted regretting letting her four-year-old son socially transition to a girl – and said realizing her mistake was like ‘leaving a cult’.
Rose, who wishes to stay anonymous, raised her two sons as gender neutral with her wife, which was reflected in their clothes, toys and language.
When her four-year-old son said he felt like a girl, the mother encouraged him in his new identity – which she has now admitted was a ‘mistake’ that ‘haunts’ her.
Her concerns rose when her younger son, then three, said he too wanted to transition to a girl, despite being more of a ‘stereotypical boy’.
Rose realised she had ‘led’ her sons to transition and immediately worked hard to reverse the mistake. She said both her sons, now around eight and nine, are living happily as boys and are ‘blossoming and growing’.
A mother has admitted regretting letting her four-year-old son socially transition to a girl (file image)
She described realizing her mistake as being like leaving a ‘cult’ and said she would never go back
At the time, Rose said she was a ‘social justice organizer and facilitator’, who would introduce ‘the concept of intersectionality to progressive organizations, and having people share their pronouns’.
But following her experience she has stopped being an ‘activist’ and instead become a ‘sceptic’.
It comes amid a culture war in the US over transgender rights in schools – where some feel the agenda is introduced 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 the teaching or classroom instruction of gender identity or sexual orientation in children between kindergarten and the sixth grade.
Transgender swimmers are a particularly fraught topic – following U-Penn student Lia Thomas’ success in the sport after she transitioned from male to female.
Rose told the podcast ‘Triggernometry’ that realizing her mistake was like leaving a ‘cult’ – a feeling she also confirmed in writing.
‘I am no longer a true believer,’ she said in an essay penned in August 2022.
‘This experience for me has felt like leaving a cult, a cult that would have me sacrifice my child to the gods of gender ideology, in the name of social justice and collective liberation. I have left this cult, and I am never turning back.’
As the two boys grew up, the parents used ‘he/him’ for their pronouns but did not tell them they were boys.
In Rose’s essay ‘True Believer’, she said this meant she was ‘primed to look for clues’ that her children could be transgender.
When her older son – who had always gravitated more towards women and had an affinity for feminine things – asked if he was a boy or a girl, she told him that he could choose.
She said: ‘I was leading my innocent, sensitive child down a path of lies that were a direct on-ramp to psychological damage and life-long irreversible medical intervention. All in the name of love, acceptance, and liberation.’
Six months later, he came back to her saying he felt like a girl, wanting ‘she/her’ pronouns and to be called sister.
In her essay ‘true believer’ she tells the story of her journey from social justice warrior to sceptic
As a result, his name was changed and he wore girls’ clothes to be socially transitioned (the process by which transgender children can adopt a new gender identity).
The mother said she was praised by her peers and at support groups for the support she had given her child.
She also said she was told by a gender therapist to break contact with anyone who did not use the new identity – something which she finds shocking to look back on.
But alarm bells began to ring when her younger son – who had always been more of a ‘stereotypical boy’ – began to say he also wanted to transition to a girl.
The three-year-old became increasingly insistent that he wanted to be like his older sibling.
The gender therapist immediately said he should be referred to as ‘she’ but the mother began to feel clearly that neither son was transgender and the older was just ‘highly sensitive’.
Her son told her ‘Mama this is your fault – you changed my name.’
‘Our sons weren’t actually trans. It was something else,’ Rose said. ‘I had led my child into it. All I wanted was to go back in time and undo what I had done’.
Just before her son’s eighth birthday she told him that ‘males cannot be females’ – to which he at first was ‘mad and sad’. But the following day she said he felt ‘incredible relief’ at the revelation.
Now, she says her sons are both ‘blossoming and growing’ as boys – but that her mistake will be one that ‘haunts’ her forever.
She said: ‘The grief and the shock of what we did is so deep, so wide, so sharp and penetrating. How could a mother do this to her child? To her children?’
She added that she only realized her former beliefs were part of a ‘system’ now that she is out of it.