‘Still My Daughter, Always My Daughter’: A Mother Navigates the Transgender Movement

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“Why would you ever take a healthy body and make a lifelong medical patient out of it?”

This is the question Amy found herself posing to her teenage daughter, to the medical and scientific communities, and to society as a whole. For a mother who was unable to prevent her daughter’s gender transition, it was more than a question: it was a cry of distress.

Amy, an accountant from Long Island, led a typical life with her husband and two children, a son and a daughter. Then her world was turned upside down. She spoke with The Epoch Times about her ordeal.

An Earthshaking Announcement

In November 2019, Amy’s younger child, Sage, a 19-year-old college sophomore, shocked her parents with the revelation that she identified not as their daughter but as their son.

Even more shocking and perplexing, she now identified as a gay man.

“The world changed,” Amy recalled. As she spoke the simple words, it was clear that she was referring to a monumental change: nothing would ever be the same for her family.

Sage was no longer a minor child, so she had the legal autonomy to chart her own course. Unlike parents of younger children, “the only recourse I had was to ask questions,” Amy said.

Her daughter had been seeing a psychologist since she was a freshman in high school, so one of the first questions Amy asked was whether she had brought up the issue in counseling. Her daughter said she had not been comfortable doing so, so Amy found a therapist who specialized in gender issues.

To Amy’s dismay, after a brief discussion, the therapist began addressing Sage by her chosen male name and pronouns. The therapist assured Amy that her daughter had fully considered her decision, and advised that her best course of action was to support Sage in her chosen path.

‘Just Come In and We’ll Take Care of It’

Just ten days later, Sage shared her plan to start testosterone treatments, arranged via an online appointment with Planned Parenthood.

Viewing her daughter’s crisis as a psychological one, Amy worried about the lifelong implications of the choice. As a parent, she was compelled to consider her child’s long-term future.

In desperation, she reached out to Planned Parenthood, hoping to understand the clinic’s process better. She discovered a system that prescribed testosterone easily and quickly, without a psychological evaluation. “Just come in and we’ll take care of it,” she was told.

Sage had distanced herself from her parents’ advice. Amy knew she needed someone else who could persuade Sage to reconsider hormone therapy. “I reached out to anyone I could that would kind of help slow the process down,” Amy said.

Amy called Sage’s ex-boyfriend. His relationship with Sage had ended because of her gender confusion.

“I called the boyfriend she had broken up with because I knew that he loved her and that they were still talking. Whatever he said, he got her to cancel that [appointment],” Amy recounted. It was a temporary reprieve.

More Questions

Amy’s response to her daughter’s crisis reflected her own inclination to critical thinking.

She questioned Sage about her newfound identity. How could Sage be certain she felt like a man, given that she had no frame of reference as a biological man?

She urged Sage to explore her inner thoughts and emotions rather than resorting to hormones, potentially harming her body and necessitating lifelong medical follow-ups.

She introduced Sage to various methods of self-exploration, suggesting hypnosis, retreats, yoga, hiking, and spa treatments.

To her mother’s dismay, Sage displayed no interest, either ignoring her suggestions or accusing her mother of trying to confuse her.  At times, she reacted vehemently, resorting to verbal abuse and name-calling.

Pain and Helplessness

Amy realized she was further straining her relationship with her daughter. Nonetheless, she felt she would rather risk her children’s displeasure than see them make decisions that would lead to serious health consequences. 

“[It] was very upsetting for me as a parent [that] I can’t control my children, but I need to let them know what I see,” she said.

Her distress was compounded by her husband’s assent to Sage’s gender transition. “My husband was more fragile than myself,” Amy said, and he was afraid of Sage’s suicidal threats. “She’s yelling at us that if she kills herself, it’s going to be our fault.”

Amy said her husband “comes from a different place and needs to be loved.” He needed the security that came from feeling the love of his children, she said. Although understandable, she feels that made him more susceptible to emotional manipulation.

As a result, Amy often found herself blamed by her husband after verbal disputes with Sage. She felt increasingly isolated.

Grieving the Loss of a Child

One day in April 2020, after a series of heated exchanges, Amy made the heart-wrenching decision to ask Sage to leave home, rather than endure her continued verbal abuse.

Sage moved in with a friend, Owen. “Owen” is actually a young woman who has been on testosterone for some time and, like Sage, identifies as a gay man.

Amy was devastated when her daughter left home. She felt emotionally adrift and mourned the loss of her child.

“I’m still crying myself to bed every night. I’m still grieving the loss of a child that has been ripped from me,” she said. In addition, her husband was unsupportive.

“I was very much alone,” she said. “The only people that were supportive of me were my parents.”

Amy’s mother tried to discourage Sage from proceeding with the transition, having witnessed the severe implications of such a decision. Sage’s response was to cut off all communications with her grandmother, blocking her phone number and email.

Amy also sought help within the community, attending family support meetings suggested by a counselor.

The meetings were run by PFLAG, a national organization “dedicated to supporting, educating and advocating for LGBTQ+ people and their families,” according to the organization’s website.

Amy soon concluded that PFLAGs primary interest was to secure government funding based on the number of participating parents, not to genuinely support families navigating difficult situations. After two meetings, she decided that the overwhelming support for gender transition offered by many PFLAG members was not helpful to her.

‘Your Rx Is Ready’

In May 2020, Amy received a pharmacy text notifying her that a prescription was ready. When she realized that “TES” stood for “testosterone,” she decided to intercept the prescription. The result was an angry confrontation with Sage, who was furious.

Sage eventually did begin taking testosterone and legally changed her name to one that fit her male identity. She also began a relationship with Owen, which Amy described as “really bizarre.”

“It’s a lesbian relationship, but they think that they’re two gay males,” Amy said.

Throughout Sage’s seven months with Owen, Amy did her best to maintain a connection with her daughter. “It’s always important to me to let my kids know that I love them,” Amy said. She regularly sent memes or brief messages to Sage and even hand-delivered mail to Owen’s home. Despite her efforts, the relationship continued to be distant. Amy felt profoundly alone.

In November 2020, Sage suddenly decided to return home. When Amy asked why, Sage said that Owen had cheated on her with another woman.

Although they were under the same roof again, Sage and Amy’s relationship was unimproved. Sage didn’t want to be there, but it was obvious to Amy that she had no place else to go. There was a “silent truce in the house for many weeks.”

By April 2021, the strain on Amy and her husband’s relationship had become so severe they began discussing divorce.

‘Still My Daughter’

Sage is now 23, graduated from college last year, and lives with her father. She has been on testosterone for over two years.

Amy described Sage’s physical transformation as striking: “Her body is not the same. Her genitalia has morphed into something else. She binds her breasts. She has facial hair and body hair.”

Nonetheless, Sage is “still my daughter,” Amy said. “She will always be my daughter.”

Amy expressed profound concerns about the permanence of Sage’s choices.

“She doesn’t get her period anymore. She might not ever be able to conceive a child; who knows? And if she cuts off her breast, she would never be able to nurse a child,” Amy said.

Although she knows that Sage may not fully comprehend what she is giving up, she is helpless: “I’m always going to be her mother. [But] it’s her path. It’s her journey. I can’t really do anything about it.”

“[On the other hand], I can do something in my life about it, to educate other people, to talk [to] anyone that says they want to have a conversation. I am willing to have the conversation. [I know] what’s at stake.”

Although Sage has achieved her desired physical transformation, Amy noted that her daughter’s circle of friends has not expanded; nor does she seem happier.  She’s “narrowed the road,” her mother said. “What’s the point here?”

Online Traps

Although Sage’s announcement seemed like a bolt out of the blue, looking back Amy can pinpoint one clear culprit: the internet. Like many teens, during times of doubt and discomfort, Sage would resort to Google for answers, often disappearing down “some rabbit hole.”

“I definitely think that the internet had a large, large influence on her,” Amy said.

Amy voiced concern over the numerous traps waiting for teens online, arguing that the internet, search engines like Google, and the transgender movement collectively pose significant risks to the safety of women and children.

Amy believes that her daughter’s gender confusion and current state of dissatisfaction are intertwined with the insidious spread of pornography in society, facilitated by the internet.

She cited the increasing exposure of young Americans to unhealthy content, with children unwittingly encountering explicit material online. This exposure often leads to addiction, and desensitizes young people to violent, abusive portrayals of women, she stressed.

She wonders whether such influences played a role in Sage’s decision to transition. In a previous relationship, could Sage have been pressured into uncomfortable situations by someone who used pornography? Amy will probably never know.

Amy highlighted the addiction many young people have to their smartphones, the internet, and the digital world, noting how these obsessions can skew perceptions of healthy relationships. She feels that the pursuit of instant gratification through digital media has made many forget how to connect meaningfully with others.

Other Influences

Online influences are just part of the problem, Amy noted. It seemed wherever her daughter turned, there were influences that were aggressively promoting a certain agenda.

She expressed frustration with policies that allow transgender individuals to freely access women’s restrooms, locker rooms, and sports.

She lamented, “Why would you ever give a predator—like a wolf in sheep’s clothing—why would you ever let someone that doesn’t have good intentions into a [women’s] restroom, a girl’s locker room, to play in women’s sports ... Why would you make it easy?”

Amy thinks Sage was indoctrinated in high school, largely through the Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA). Although she questioned her daughter’s involvement in the GSA, she assumed the club was simply designed to foster understanding. She later concluded that it was actually an avenue for explicit content and indoctrination.

A Path to Self-Understanding

Despite the challenges, Amy said that in some ways, her life has improved and she has grown.

For one thing, after about a year of “floundering,” she found a supportive community of “like-minded parents, parents that also questioned.” Today, she facilitates two parent support groups in Long Island and New York City.

The groups, that operate through Parents of Rapid-Onset Gender Dysphoria Kids (PROGDK), meet monthly, providing parents with a platform to share their stories, share their grief, and feel less isolated in their experiences with their children’s transgender issues.

PROGDK is an organization comprised of parents grappling with their children’s sudden, unexpected decisions to identify as the opposite sex, a phenomenon termed rapid-onset gender dysphoria (ROGD) by researchers.

Amy recently participated in “Dead Name.” The indie documentary is not confrontational, sensational, or political, she said. Instead, it provides a deeply personal glimpse into the lives of three parents whose lives were forever altered when their children declared themselves to be transgender.

Amy is also vocal in various protests. She has established herself as an advocate for free speech and openly voices her concerns about the widespread impact of the transgender movement on society.

Scientific Advancement and Social Consequences

Amy says it is crucial to ponder the broader implications of what she calls a “nefarious” social phenomenon.

Why are so many teenagers willingly exchanging their healthy bodies for what she sees as a lifelong illness? She posits that the financial motivations of big pharmaceutical companies, hospitals, and the wider medical industry might be at play.

“There’s only one answer. It’s called ‘money’! So who’s to gain here? Well, big pharma, the medical industry, the hospitals.”

She also questions the long-term effects of large-scale hormone replacement therapy and the surgical modification of human beings, particularly in the context of falling fertility rates and decreasing testosterone levels in men.

“What happens if everyone starts cutting off their body [parts]? Where does it take us as humans?” Amy asked. “[People] are losing their ability to procreate. We’re, in fact, facilitating our own extinction. These are big questions that no one wants to think about.”

Amy believes there are harmful, large-scale phenomena occurring in society that are wholly immoral, with teenage transgenderism being one of them.

“There’s something going on here that is a detriment to mankind, in a very, very big way.”