DAY ONE

I'm starting this blog to record the journey of a parent from day one forward once they're informed their child is transgender. I've had no warning signs of the desire to be transgender out of my daughter. She's had a lot of health issues she developed since she was very young. But during none of these times, has she shown any signs of being male or of desiring to be trans male. She told me she thought she was bisexual when she was 12 years old. I let her know I was fine with whoever she was with, as long as it wasn't an abusive relationship. Her father has been very distant from her since I left him when she was only a few months old. We started opening up the lines of communication again when she was about six years old. But he's never really had any contact with her, not even a Christmas or Birthday card has he sent her once during her life. She's now 32 years old and lives with me because she's totally disabled. I'm an astrologer, and I "saw" her father's death in the stars. I sent an email to see if he'd answer, and he didn't. After a few months passed, and no answer, I went online to discover he had in fact died a few months ago. I broke the news to my daughter on a Monday. On Thursday, she left the house to go to a "doctor's appointment", but refused to tell me where she was going when she left. She assured me she'd tell me when she got back. When she got back, she told me she'd been a gender affirmation doctor and felt she was a trans male. To say I was shocked would be an understatement because again, I've seen no warning signs of this. Of course I can't help but see the timing of her father's death must have something to do with this announcement. I also can't help but wonder if this isn't because her father favored her brother. A few years after we divorced, he got another woman pregnant and had a son. He never would have told me I don't think, but I saw this in the stars also and confronted him. I asked him if the baby was a girl or boy. He was pretty shocked I knew, and told me it was a boy. He had been diagnosed as bipolar, and he would have these violent episodes that scared me for my life and that of my daughter. That's why we left. I was told by a mutual friend he'd got himself on medication, and into therapy, and was now "okay". So I agreed to let him meet his daughte when she was about six years old. He was living in California at that time and I was in Vegas remarried. I invited him to come spend the weekend in the guest room and spend some time meeting his daughter. He appeared and seemed quite shocked at how much older and fatter I'd gotten, as I felt the same about him. I remembered how much the shocked registered on his face however. He then proceeded to basically hide the whole weekend in the guest room. I couldn't seem to get him to come out of there with a crow bar. It struck me that he didn't come to see her, but to see me. He certainly was ignoring her now he realized I didn't look the same as I did during the marriage. The last night of his visit, he wanted to go to Target. He proceeded to pick out many gifts to bring home to her brother, but nothing for her. I finally pulled him over and suggested he also include her in this because I could see she was getting upset by what he was doing right in front of her. It was actually very blatent at how he was picking out a bracelet for her brother, while she's standing there at the counter with him and he's acting like she's not even there. That's when I pulled him over and said I'd pay for a necklace for her but to please pick something out to include her. He got her one thing while a bag of stuff for the boy. I moved down to California for a while when we learned she had a brain tumor to get medical treatment. He wouldn't come see her. He'd call and tell her about how he'd taken her brother to Magic Mountain, or to the premiere of the Batman movie, or all about how he'd taken her brother to some event - all completely not realizing it seemed this was an event he hadn't invited her to join along and they're now all in the same city. It got to the point where it was abusive and damaging. She'd hang up the phone and cry. Then she'd tell me how he'd gone on about something he'd taken her brother to do or see, and now he's just telling her all about it without acknowledging he hadn't included her. At the same time, he's not taking her ANYWHERE. So it was like "see how I'm not including you". It was really mean and when she started crying after these calls, I started pulling away from them. Now in the same city, he agreed to come for Thanksgiving our first year there, but then spent the day making excuses about not coming. I'd invite him to go somewhere with her, and he'd say we had to include the boy, but then make excuses why it wouldn't work. The cherry on the sundae was when I had to go back to Vegas for one day, and he wanted to come along. I suggested he spend the day with my daughter while I was gone. Instead he wanted to go with me. I thought maybe he wanted to talk to me about her future being as she's disabled. We spent the trip politely, and him basically talking about the weather. He didn't really talk about anything. So I'm not sure what the trip was about, but to spend the day with me, and not her, again was abusive I felt towards her. About a year before his death, he had a heart attack. He called my daughter and they spoke. I asked him to please make sure if he got sick again to make sure his girlfriend or friends or whoever would be able to reach out to her to let her know. He promised he would. I always made sure he had all of our phone numbers when we'd move or change numbers. I'm easily found on the internet. We have mutual friends. But despite this, we were not called when he went back into the hospital. If not for my astrology, I STILL wouldn't know he had died. He was in ICU for some time I understand, and there was a memorial for him after he died even. No one called us. No one went to look for us. No one tried to call any mutual friends to find us. The girlfriend just had him cremated, and his remains sent to his family in Puerto Rico. When I found news of his death online, I went online and found the girlfriend. I asked her to please contact us to let us know where his remains were and to give me information on the life insurance he'd claimed he was going to leave us when he died. I only got an email. But his son was involved in the death - not her. So I can't help but wonder if this sudden announcement of wanting to be a man has something to do with her father favoring the boy clearly over her being a girl. I"m sorry, but it's a question in my mind because of the timing. My daughter has fibormyalgia, she's had a broken back, and she also has a mass on her brain. She also had a 26 pound tumor on her left ovary at one time. This tumor was pumping her body with massive female hormones, so she had basically hormonal psychosis for a few years. All the doctors told me she was bipolar like her father, but I kept insisting it wasn't the same. It wasn't. When the accident happened and they gave her a full body x-ray, that's when they found the tumor. Once it was removed, the hallucinations and mood swings she'd had back then disappeared overnight. But now she had the pain from the broken back. When it healed, she was still in pain. This is when we discovered she probably had traumatic induced fibromyalgia. I understand cell can break off and migrate, and we think that's what hit her brain. This mass is on the pain center of her brain, and supposedly why she's in constant pain. She's been unable to finish high school. She won't work, she won't go to school, she won't cook or clean and basically she stays in her room 24/7 because "she's in too much pain" to do anything around the house even to help me out. So she's currently on a medication for her fibromyalgia, and also she's in pain management (opiate medications). The thing is she's been neglecting her health even because of the pain, she says anyway. She needs her bad teeth removed badly for years now but won't go to the dentist. She needs physical therapy, but won't go. She needs to go see the neurologist, but won't go. I gave up making medical appointments for her because she'd just not go, time after time, just refuse to go. So she is in her room 24/7 and on her pain meds, and only leaves her room once a month to renew her pain medication prescription. I have to literally cook for her or she won't eat. I have to bring in a maid because she won't even put trash into a trash can - but instead just lets it fall anywhere. She's also suffered from hoarding syndrome. I thought I worked her out of that, but when the cat died a few months ago, that returned in force. When her hormones were off, she'd try suicide many times. If I turned my back on her for a minute back then, she'd try suicide. She was cutting. So she's got a full psychiatric history of cutting and suicide attempts. Granted, they stopped when she had the tumor removed, but she still has a medical history of this. Now you can imagine my shock when she tells me she's "going to the doctor" a few days ago. She claimed she was going to her primary to get some blood work done she's been refusing to do since 2018. I was just thrilled to see her do something she's NEVER DONE BEFORE. Which is she won't leave her room to go ANYWHERE unless I give her a week's notice to prepare. I then have to make the appointment for her, because she won't call anyone. I have to arrange the transportation. She won't take paratransit because it's "too painful". She won't make the appointment or call because she's got "social anxiety". I can't get her to go ANYWHERE because she says she's in "too much pain". So I was just impressed as hell when I saw her call the doctor, call the Uber, and get up and go to the doctor's office all on her own. Not only the doctor's office, but also to go get blood work done. I was THINKING that maybe the work I was doing with her on her diet, trying to make her have a stable home, that she's not stressed out so she can heal - I'm thinking she must be getting better when she did this. When she came home, she tells me she didn't go to the primary doctor, that she lied to me about where she was. She told me this was a gender doctor, and they're going to put her on testosterone because she wants to be a male. Now I thought they'd want to see her medical records before giving her a prescription. I thought they'd wnat to talk to her other doctors before putting her on anything, especially to check for any interactions they might have with her current medications. I thought they'd have to at least wait until her blood test results came back. But no. Before they got the results, before they saw any of her other medical records - they prescribed this woman testosterone that she has to inject with a needle. Her father was a recovering addict, and they gave her a needle? I was more shocked by the news this doctor actually gave her a prescription without seeing ONE MEDICAL RECORD or even her blood work RESULTS than I was anything. We got her results the next day. She's anemic, low in D3 (she never goes out in the sun or eats green vegatables), and iron and she needed fish oil it said. All of which explains to me her pain, and why she's fatigued. Did the doctor tell her to see how she felt on the supplements before giving her testosterone? Nope. My daughter then told me the reason why she won't leave her room is because she "doesn't want anyone to see her as a female". My daughter is overweight. She's about 290 pounds. In my life I've gone up and down many times with my weight. I KNOW people treat me differently when I'm fat than they do when I"m thin. I KNOW people stare at me and judge me when I"m out in public and fat. I pointed out to her that maybe she was uncomfortable with going out BECAUSE OF HER WEIGHT. I suggested we get her to the gym and get some weight off of her first and see if that changes anything, but nope - she now had this prescription for testosterone and she was going to take it come hell or high water. The day comes for her to go pick up the script. I was fine pretty much UNTIL she comes strolling out of her room and just starts to book an Uber ON MY DEBIT CARD to go pick up this medication. She doesn't ask me for the money. She doesn't care about my opinion. She doesn't care she lives with me. It was like I was just her ATM. So as she's getting herself breakfast, I suggested that we wait on this because I needed to talk to an SSI attorney and see if this diagnosis could affect her disability status. Which it can by the way. She's on temporary disability right now for fibromyalgia. IF she changes her diagnosis to gender dysphoria, that's a permanent condition, and one that will affect her health coverage. So I asked her to sit down and talk to me about this because as her caretaker, I need to investigate if this hormone will interact with her other medications. I need to consult her other doctors and see what they think about this. I want to read up on the side effects. Mostly, she's not been examined since she had the 26 pound tumor removed. The tumor may have grown back. We need to see if it has before she starts taking hormones. So as I'm asking her to sit down and talk to me before just running off to grab this medication - she snaps at me "I"m going and there's nothing you can say to me to change my mind". Then she said "It's my body mom and I can do what I want with it." That's when I SNAPPED. Oh really? I went OFF. I said "get there how?" She was like what? I said "get there how?" I reminded her the money for her Uber was MY MONEY and if I didn't CONSENT TO HER USING MY MONEY, then I'd like to know how she was going to go get this script. NOW I had her attention. I told her this was my house, my money, my life, I"m her caretaker, and if she wants to play this "this is my body" game, then she can get out into her own apartment, get her own money, and then she can do WHATEVER SHE WANTS TO DO IN HER OWN HOME. I went off on her soooo badly she had to calm me down. I told her that she's in my house, using my money, with me dedicating my WHOLE LIFE TO HER CARE, and if she wants to then pull this "it's my body" game on me and think she can just do whatever the hell she wants to do ON MY MONEY IN MY HOUSE and then play this "I can do what I want", I just told her I will be happy to drive her to a hotel, pay for a week's stay and then she can do WHATEVER THE HELL SHE WANTS. Okay now the games began. She starts crying. She yelled at the dog. A friend I was talking to suggested I take the opiates away from her because she might pull the suicide route next to prove her point and get her way. Which considering her past attempts, I wouldn't put past her. I was now dealing with a junkie - period. I've been around people acting like this and they're junkies. She's telling me these hormones are going to "fix her and make her be able to cope with life" and I'm sorry, but that's addict talk. The self centeredness, the inability to see I'm a person, to see beyond her feelings, all of this are straight up addict thinking. Even the idea some magic "drug is going to fix her" is addict thinking. I can see my daughter has been brainwashed - period. She starts pulling the "but you don't understand" and claiming I'm "transphobic". I used to be a prostitute, a madam, and an addict. I've slept with literally 1000's of men. I have a VERY sexual past. I've very open about my past as a sex worker, so for her to act like I'm some Bible Belt church lady, just convinced me even more she's just not rational right now. I reminded her of this - how on earth can she even THINK I'm like "all the other parents" she's accusing me of being like? But this is where I can see I'm talking to someone who has just straight up been brainwashed. I knew a woman who had lived with me for a few years who was going to be a trans male. She's since changed everything, and now drives a bus for a church, has had a daughter, and has converted back to being straight. I offered to have my daughter talk to her because she would understand this issue and also maybe gender confusion. Nope - she "wouldn't understand". She kept referring to her "friends in her trans group". That's when I realized I needed to pull the plug on the internet. HOWEVER, I work from home, so I can't just pull it overnight. She asked me if she could just "pick up the medication but not take it". I'm not bargaining with her. I TRIED talking to her that just taking this medication could endanger her pain management, it could endanger her SSI, and I can see she's literally like a junkie - she's just not hearing me and the ONLY thing on her mind is getting that drug. This is NOT someone who wants to be a male. This is a junkie wanting her drug. I made some calls to some other parents I knew and I was shocked to hear from ALL OF THEM they're kids are also going through this. It's like some virus that's attacking all of the young people in the country from what I heard. Being a victim of the "sexual revolution" that was fueled by the pharmeceutical companies pushing birth control pills and procedures, I thought my daughter would recognize this. But I guess not. But after these calls I made up my mind to see an attorney and have her declared mentally incompetent. If she can't go to the dentist to have teeth so badly broken and rotting she's having to take antibiotics because they got infected - if she will go get these hormones but not get her teeth treated - then she's a danger to herself as far as I'm concerned. I will support my daughter in whoever she is. But I will not co-sign insanity.