Preface

This is a book for parents, and it is explicitly pro-parent. We are three psychotherapists, two of whom are mothers, who have each consulted with hundreds of parents over the course of our careers. Recently, parents have been getting a remarkably bad rap, especially when it comes to hot-button cultural issues such as gender. We recognise that there are some truly terrible parents in the world. It is difficult to be a therapist and not be aware of this fact, as many come into treatment to deal with childhood experiences that have left them traumatised or struggling. And yet the vast majority of mothers and fathers are good parents who love their children and sincerely want what is best for them. In general, parents or carers know their children better than anyone else – better than doctors, teachers, therapists or sports coaches. Parents also love their children more than anyone else. There is usually no one on the planet who is more invested in seeing their children thrive than them. When something goes wrong in children’s lives, it will be their parents who show up and do the potentially painful work of helping them put the pieces back together. When something goes well, no one is more thrilled, happy and proud than the parents. If you are a carer or an extended family member looking after a child, you will also feel highly invested in their well-being and want to guide them to make the right choices, especially if the child has a history of trauma.

When children are small, parents are generally the best authority on their children. Parents have a sense of the child’s history, challenges and struggles. As children grow to independence, they will become the experts on themselves, but this takes time, and it is helpful to have scaffolding and guidance from someone who knows them well. When doctors, therapists, schools or other institutions intervene between a child and their parent, the result is usually not optimal, except in extreme (and thankfully unusual) conditions.

The first rule of this book, then, is that parents must trust their own instincts – that deep, inner knowing we often have about a situation. By ‘instincts’, we distinguish between impulsively reacting to an emotional trigger and taking into account the small, insistent voice that tells us what is right for us. Much of what is being promulgated about kids and gender invites parents to ignore or silence this instinctual knowing. We are told that our female-bodied child is a boy, and that we have never realised it before. We are asked to surrender our authority to others, including strangers on the internet who may be no older than our child. And we are ridiculed or demonised for not abandoning what we know about our child and about reality itself.

You are the world’s leading expert on your children, and you likely know more about them than anyone else. You certainly know more about your child than the three of us do! In the following pages, we’ve gathered advice and information based on the most current research, as well as our own experience with gender-questioning young people and their families. This may not all be a perfect fit for your family or your child. Take what feels right, but don’t let anything here supersede your instincts about what you or your child need.

The debate around the social and medical transitioning of children is evolving quickly. New research adds to our knowledge almost weekly. After spending several years working with gender-questioning young people and their families, talking to academics and researchers, and familiarising ourselves with all aspects of the debate, we believe that socially and medically transitioning a child is not advised, given the current knowledge about risks and benefits. As things stand, the medical transition of adolescents is, at best, experimental.

Medical transition damages the body. Taking cross-sex hormones comes with risks both known and unknown. If a natal (biological) female transitions in adolescence or young adulthood, she may be looking at taking testosterone for many decades. Transgender surgeries destroy healthy tissue and biological functioning. Whatever one thinks of cosmetic surgery, and we are certainly concerned about any such surgeries being performed on young people, transgender surgeries – sometim