Indian Mother with an ROGD Daughter Speaks out

During 2020/21 I spoke to several psychiatric/medical professionals while making Dysphoric. At the same time, I was privy to some shocking news. With the rise of gender ideology in India, worried parents are scrabbling their way around India’s booming affirmative care.

Soon after Dysphoric was released, these experts were kind enough to share the film with worried parents who had turned to them for help. Some of these parents were from India, and they were desperately seeking some intervention to support their child without resorting to hormones and surgery. The affluent families could afford to seek therapists abroad, but for the rest, it continues to be a struggle. From what I understand, these parents (of both girls and boys) are merely trying to delay demands for any permanent alterations to the body. Many parents can’t comprehend the ideology in its entirety and are on tenterhooks with their teenage child, struggling to keep up.

It is evident that along with actual garbage, India has imported ideological garbage from the West too. With Judith Butler’s theories being taught to students of social sciences, India has officially bought the doom of gender woo upon itself.

I am in touch with a few Indian mothers whose children have expressed the desire to ‘transition’, and I have interviewed one such mother for my e-zine. Though Ms.Z (shortened to protect her identity) lives in the US, I hope some aspects of her experience will be useful for Indian parents worldwide. I also hope this will encourage parents who live in India to get in touch with me about their children with ROGD. Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria, a term coined by Dr. Lisa Littman is a type of adolescent-onset or late-onset gender dysphoria where the development of gender dysphoria is observed to begin suddenly during or after puberty in an adolescent or young adult who would not have met criteria for gender dysphoria in childhood.

With Judith Butler’s theories being taught to students of social sciences, India has officially bought the doom of gender woo upon itself.

VS: Let’s start from the beginning –

Ms.Z: My daughter was born in 2007. And we moved to the US when she was a month old. I had a very rough pregnancy, not so much physically but it was very stressful. I had to deal with several annoyances from family, in-laws etc. Things didn’t get any better after moving to the US either. Stress continued. And the reason I mention the stress is because I believe this has a role in making kids susceptible to social contagions. My daughter was a very beautiful baby, and still is beautiful; very happy, and outgoing. But we moved a lot during her childhood.

I decided to pursue higher education, because I saw myself not living in that family for too long. The only way to get out would be to pursue higher education and be self reliant. So, I decided to go to school. My daughter was young, of course, she was three year old when I started. So life was not easy for her; she had an extremely stressful childhood. I completed my education in 2015, and decided to move to another state to pursue a better opportunity. And that was another kind of stress for her because between the two states, there was a huge change in terms of weather and other social aspects. Because I moved to a rural community – which I loved every bit of – was not good for my daughter.

She entered puberty at 10; she was a little bit irritable and complained about why girls have to go through periods, but not boys. At that time I just thought of it as a normal, puberty related mood swings. But that kept increasing. She started complaining about abdominal pain, which now I suspect was related to anxiety or depression I could not pick up on at that time. But now, being a mental health professional, I do understand in retrospect, things I didn’t earlier.

She said “Mom, I am trans, I would like to be addressed as he/him, and I have a preferred name.” She was just 13 at that time.

Recently, I went to India because I was exhausted and just wanted to have a little break. I left the kids with my husband while I was gone for six weeks. It was during that time period, she immersed herself on social media sites, which my husband didn’t pay very close attention to and that’s where she was exposed to things. I can’t keep up with all the apps, but Tik Tok, Discord, Snapchat, Reddit and Instagram are the most notorious ones.

So being vulnerable, lonely and wanting some attention, she got exposed to gender ideology through these apps. And that’s where it all went south. I returned from India after a few weeks, and a couple of months later she disclosed to me “Mom, I am trans, I would like to be addressed as he/him, and I have a preferred name.” She was just 13 at that time.

I didn’t know much about transgender, or gender identity at all, except in my clinical experience where I was introduced to it as a trend among teenage girls. More and more girls were saying they had preferred pronouns and names and, and I found that very odd. But when my own child said that, I was really shocked and wanted to get to the bottom of it.

I came across the work of Sasha Ayad and Dr. Littman. Plus, your Dysphoric movie was very enlightening. It became clear to me that there has to be some kind of underlying vulnerabilities or maybe underlying mental health conditions, which in my daughter’s case, if not full blown depression, I would say she was definitely unhappy and has had a lot of stressors. Loneliness, lack of socialisation, having no bonding, and witnessing domestic violence – all these things played a role.

I apologised and told her, “you are my daughter and always will be. I’m so sorry if it’s hurting your feelings, but I will not approve of that.”

VS: Did she make or want to make any changes to her body?

Ms.Z: She told me she would like to socially transition, which would mean changes to clothing and names and such. And not being aware about this at that time, I said, clothing is okay. At her age, I used to wear ‘boys’ clothes’ too. That’s not a big deal.

Though I did not call her by her new name, I felt like I wouldn’t be able to stop her from masquerading in school. So I thought a change of name was okay, but pronouns were a big no. I couldn’t lie to myself. I apologised and told her, “you are my daughter and always will be. I’m so sorry if it’s hurting your feelings, but I will not approve of that.”

I was very compassionate and understanding with her. I showed your movie to her somehow. She watched it and I believe that somewhere planted a little bit of seed in her. She used to occasionally tell me how much she hated her breasts, and mentioned testosterone as well. But after Dysphoric, she has not brought it up as much. I’m very grateful to you.

VS: Did she get along with the Indian community over there?

Ms.Z: No, she was not fitting in with Indian kids. As you can imagine, Indian kids are competitive and driven. Maybe she found it hard to mingle, and probably that’s why she stopped socialising entirely. My marriage has never been okay, and at present, I’m separated from him. I truly believe that our difficult relationship has caused a significant impact on whatever she was going through.

I have decided to move away and keep the kids with me. And this has been a little bit helpful so far. It’s too soon to say anything, but at least it’s peaceful for her so far, away from all the arguments and fights.

VS: Did you take any steps to help her out? Say, restrict phone access and such?

Ms.Z: In the beginning, I was trying to brainstorm how to do it because I wanted her to be able to trust me. I felt like she was losing that with me, and I didn’t want to make matters worse. So it was kind of challenging. But lately, I have this router where you can control exposure, and I try to sort of restrict access that way. It is not the best, but I am being very careful about it. She is still not interested in going back to playing tennis. But I’m gently trying to get her back to any kind of sport activity or some kind of extracurricular activity to get her mind off things.

VS: Ever since this has happened, how has her academic performance been? Is she very distracted?

Ms.Z: She is average, but she wants to do better, I can see that. Her life has been totally up and down for the last couple of years. But she is doing her best.

VS: You did consider moving back to India hoping that things would somehow be not as bad as it is in the US. At least for now. What did she make of your idea?

Ms.Z: She wouldn’t want to move back to India and I didn’t want to force her in order to win her trust. I was trying my best to bring her back to India but she refused and plainly said no. But now she’s told me that she will visit India with me in the future.

VS: Did you get a chance to meet with a therapist about this?

Ms.Z: In our previous city, I did take her to the therapist. But she just kept affirming anything my daughter said. In fact, she was calling her a ‘he’ despite my concerns. There are very few therapists who actually care about the children. For others, it has now become obligatory to follow the affirmation model because their licences are at stake.

Instead of being consumed by ‘gender’ we must consider all the other factors that might be the cause. Unfortunately, we can’t protect our children from every possible stress, but it is good to investigate the underlying factors of this epidemic before doing anything we will regret.

VS: Being so far away from your family, having to take care of your daughter all by yourself, what kind of support did you wish you had?

Ms.Z: If your husband or partner is not supportive, then it becomes very difficult under such circumstances. They say it takes a village to bring up a child, and in my case I really wish I had that kind of help. I wish my marriage issues didn’t affect my daughter this way, but we have all come away from all the violence now. A fresh start for us all. I am having to take care of them by myself even now, but this change will hopefully be good for them.

VS: What will happen if she falls back in on the whole trans thing again. Especially if she turns 18?

Ms.Z: I really wish she wouldn’t. I know, hope is not a strategy, but that’s what I’m relying on. I don’t really have a choice.

VS: What would you like to say to mothers who are in similar circumstances?

Ms.Z: Get as much support as possible because one person can’t do everything alone. We must alleviate the stigma associated with mental illnesses and not be ashamed or tiptoe around it. Parents need to take care of themselves too. And instead of being consumed by ‘gender’ we must consider all the other factors that might be the cause. Unfortunately, we can’t protect our children from every possible stress, but it is good to investigate the underlying factors of this epidemic before doing anything we will regret.

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