Like many teens, Ryan developed a fascination with anime in high school. His mom, Connie, encouraged his obsession with the art form, seeing it as a creative outlet for her socially isolated son. Now she blames the hugely popular genre for leading her son down a dark path that ultimately led to gender confusion and destroyed her happy family.
Connie described Ryan as “always just a quiet, compassionate, loving kid.” She was confident in her close relationship with her son: “We’d be driving in the car, even when he was a teenager, and I put my hand out, and he’d hold my hand while we were driving,” she says.
Sadly, her story, like so many, ends with the tragedy of a child lost to transgender ideology.
An Unhealthy Infatuation: From Anime to ‘Brony’
“A real big part of this, is the pornography that these young kids are exposed to,” Connie said. She feels that her son’s foray into what he confessed was “disgusting anime porn” had a detrimental effect on his mental well-being.Ryan developed a deep interest in anime during high school. “He really got into anime,” Connie said. Known for its adventurous storylines and complex characters, anime became a creative outlet for him. “He was a very good artist, and he could draw the characters spot on; he could draw them perfect,” Connie elaborated.
Alongside his love for anime, Ryan took a keen interest in cosplay conventions, dressing up as various anime characters. “I actually encouraged it, you know, because he wasn’t a kid who had a lot of friends; he kind of struggled academically, so he really didn’t have a tribe that he fit in with,” Connie admitted.
Like many parents, Connie was unaware that there are genres within anime that are sexualized and even pornographic. In addition, the genre is rife with gender-fluid or gender-unclear characters, trans characters, cross-dressing, and LGBT themes. Transgender themes are reinforced by anime culture’s fascination with cosplay and role-playing.
Although she didn’t know enough about the dangers of anime to be worried, Connie became concerned when Ryan’s interest shifted toward the “My Little Pony” franchise. “He was a ‘brony,’“ Connie said, ”and we kind of teased him, but we felt it was pretty harmless overall.” Now, she sees this as part of a disturbing pattern.
That was Ryan’s senior year in high school.
College Life Backfires
When Ryan graduated high school, he enrolled in a local community college. However, the experience backfired drastically. Connie described the crowd in which Ryan found himself as “all these people that just had a lot of serious problems mentally.”He became increasingly depressed, his mother said, focusing on the negatives in his life and adopting a victim mentality.
Tragically, Ryan’s emotional turmoil went unnoticed. His parents, preoccupied with their jobs and another teen with emerging demands, missed the signs. “He slipped through the cracks,” Connie admitted with remorse.
‘Mom, I’m Transgender’
The situation reached a head during Mother’s Day weekend after Ryan’s first year of college. Connie recalls the conversation vividly: “He told me ... he was transgender.” Stunned, Connie pressed for an explanation. Ryan’s answer: “Whenever I do anime and role-playing, I really like being a female character.”Perplexed, Connie responded with, “That’s okay.“ She tried to ”probe a little bit,” but Ryan became defensive. He refused to answer any more questions and closed the conversation.
LGBT Studies and a ‘House of Horrors’
In college, Ryan opted to fulfill a women’s studies requirement by enrolling in “an LGBTQ class.” Initially joking that he was one of the few straight men in the class, he quickly befriended a group of girls, all of whom had severe emotional and familial issues, including past hospitalizations and suicide attempts. “That’s who he was hanging around, and then he was getting more and more depressed,” Connie recounted.The class’s ideology deeply influenced Ryan. According to the coursework, gender is a social construct, meaning humans are non-binary by nature. Connie observed, “He just really got swept up in it.”
Ryan and his new friends started frequenting a local gender clinic they’d learned about in the LGBT class. At this clinic, he built a close relationship with a girl who identified as non-binary. However, “she wore dresses and makeup, and the whole thing; she was a girl,“ Connie said. ”They were tied at the hip for a long time.”
Concerned, Connie decided to visit the clinic herself to help her “understand what was happening” with her son. Her first impressions were damning: “When I went to the clinic, it was unbelievable ... it was a house of horrors,” she said. The clinic staff, in her eyes, were not well-equipped to deal with the complexities of gender issues. Ryan’s therapist was a young intern—“barely a teenager herself”— who, after just one meeting, referred him to the hormone clinic on-site.
“All he had to do was sign a piece of paper saying, ‘I understand the side effects of these drugs,’” Connie explained, describing the clinic’s informed consent model for prescribing hormones. Though Ryan assured his mother that he would not undergo surgery, Connie observed that with “every little step, he just became more and more entrenched.”
Ryan was 19 years old at the time.
Connie went on to describe the general atmosphere at the clinic. She recalled a man in his early 40s, “almost in hysterics” about being “misgendered” at a hardware store. “He looks just like a man ... he was mentally ill,” Connie said.
‘He Basically Disappeared’
Faced with a situation that increasingly alarmed her, Connie decided to arrange a professional intervention. She enlisted the help of her therapist’s husband, a psychotherapist, to help diagnose her son. Ryan agreed to go, but insisted on bringing along his “non-binary” female friend to all the sessions, almost as a protective shield, his mother said.Suspecting an underlying learning disability, the psychotherapist recommended additional testing for Ryan.
However, Connie said, “We never even got a diagnosis. My son bolted.” Although the details of the sessions remained confidential due to Ryan’s adult status, the psychotherapist shared his suspicion with Connie: Ryan was not transgender but likely suffering from some form of trauma.
After having invested $1,200 in therapy, Connie felt she was at an impasse. “He basically disappeared,” she lamented. Tensions reached a boiling point at home, where even the simplest requests sparked anger. Finally, following an altercation with Connie, Ryan left home on foot. He later returned to steal the family car.
Connie saw her son only two or three times after that. Eventually, he relocated to a city two states away. The last visit revealed a startling reality: Ryan was living with a transgender woman. Connie observed, “It was very obvious that the transgender female was male, just with long hair, and it was also obvious to me that my son wasn’t necessarily considering this person as a romantic partner. The guy was putting his arm around my son, but my son wasn’t reciprocating the affection.”
Connie could only speculate that the relationship was more opportunistic than romantic, possibly because Ryan’s partner had a stable, well-paying job as a software engineer.
Desperate Attempts, Silent Echoes
“It’s been the heartbreak of my life; I nearly took my own life over it. It has almost killed me,” Connie confided, wiping away tears. It’s been four years since she last had a meaningful interaction with Ryan. Ryan has changed not only his name but also his gender marker.“I was heartbroken,” said Connie. When she expressed how heartbroken his grandfather would be, Ryan severed ties with her, citing emotional stress.
In her desperation to maintain a connection, Connie went as far as to try using Ryan’s preferred name and pronouns. She penned heartfelt letters of apology, acknowledging her perceived failures as a mother. All her attempts fell on deaf ears.
“Before I was so afraid of alienating him further, I was willing to do anything to have a relationship with him. Now, after three years, I’ve already lost the most important thing, my beloved child,” she reflected. “I have nothing else to lose.”
The emotional upheaval plunged Connie into a harrowing depression.
A Call to Awareness: ‘The Truth Will Come Out’
Motivated by her painful experiences, Connie cautions other parents about recent legislation like California’s AB 665, which would empower minors to make life-altering medical decisions without parental consent.Citing experts, the California legislation, which was passed in early September, allows children as young as 12 to get mental health counseling or place themselves in a group home—or both—without parental consent. In testimony against the bill, a counselor said, “It is apparent that one result of this bill will be the removal of trans-identified children from the family home.”
“A child could not buy a pack of cigarettes, but they can consent to have their breasts removed without parental consent?” Connie questioned, her voice tinged with disbelief.
She has been criticized by some long-term friends who claim they understand her son better than she does and have suggested that she just “needed to accept and get on board with it, or rightly lose her relationship with him.”
However, Connie insisted that “to go along with it” was like nails on a chalkboard to her. “I have known my son his whole life. If I believed this was truly who he is, I would wholeheartedly support him. I am not transphobic, homophobic, or any other label that has been hurled at me.”
“It’s all going to come out. I know that the truth is going to come out. It’s just a matter of how much damage to these kids is going to be done.”
