I am mother of a young man who has decided to go down this path of transition. A young man who was never gender non comfirming, has a good job, a stable relationship with his girlfirend. In your essay you say: "I was still in a great deal of pain, and all the people whom I trusted to help me manage this pain simply affirmed my delusion and continued sending me down this path". I dont know who those people were and the situation, but If I am not affirming my son and jumping to joy about his new identity-- he will not talk to me. I see the pain, I see the confusion, I see he does not even understand why this is happening, but unfortunately he is only looking to trust those people who will affirm him. Catch 22 situation. Not sure where this will take him, but for the moment we are now all in Pain and suffering PTS.
This is a beautiful piece. It reminds me of an essay I read a few weeks ago, about how the internet fractures our internal monologue— how even the act of switching between browser windows has a profound effect on our psychology. Incredibly, IIRC, it was written in 1994.
If you were open to it, I’d love to chat with you about your specific online experiences… happy to do so anonymously/respect any privacy boundaries but I’d love to learn more
thank you for sharing this! a lot of this resonates with me, but i'm still making my way through your substack so you may have already addressed this: i think there is a way to use medical transition that doesn't need you to believe that you are actually the opposite sex. in this way it's a solely physical undertaking that doesn't require you to believe anything of yourself except that you want to look and appear in public a certain way.
I read your essay closely, trying to put myself in your place, trying to catch a glimpse of the mental/emotional labyrinth where you were completely lost for a time. Sweet boy. May you come out on the other side, whole and restored.
I am mother of a young man who has decided to go down this path of transition. A young man who was never gender non comfirming, has a good job, a stable relationship with his girlfirend. In your essay you say: "I was still in a great deal of pain, and all the people whom I trusted to help me manage this pain simply affirmed my delusion and continued sending me down this path". I dont know who those people were and the situation, but If I am not affirming my son and jumping to joy about his new identity-- he will not talk to me. I see the pain, I see the confusion, I see he does not even understand why this is happening, but unfortunately he is only looking to trust those people who will affirm him. Catch 22 situation. Not sure where this will take him, but for the moment we are now all in Pain and suffering PTS.
Thank you for sharing this 🙏
Beautiful. Thank you. ❤️
This is a beautiful piece. It reminds me of an essay I read a few weeks ago, about how the internet fractures our internal monologue— how even the act of switching between browser windows has a profound effect on our psychology. Incredibly, IIRC, it was written in 1994.
If you were open to it, I’d love to chat with you about your specific online experiences… happy to do so anonymously/respect any privacy boundaries but I’d love to learn more
thank you for sharing this! a lot of this resonates with me, but i'm still making my way through your substack so you may have already addressed this: i think there is a way to use medical transition that doesn't need you to believe that you are actually the opposite sex. in this way it's a solely physical undertaking that doesn't require you to believe anything of yourself except that you want to look and appear in public a certain way.
I read your essay closely, trying to put myself in your place, trying to catch a glimpse of the mental/emotional labyrinth where you were completely lost for a time. Sweet boy. May you come out on the other side, whole and restored.