35 Comments

This is the scariest thing I have ever read. Thanks so much for doing this work. I have a 12 YO daughter that is great, confident, and doesn't have any issues right now. But, I know I read these stories that other girls were fine and one day, then they are bullied, or just lack confidence and get sucked in......and I now I at least feel informed. I am older mom, I grew up in the 80's, this was not even remotely on the radar of being an issue. I really cannot believe how/what/why this is occurring. But I blame Pharma and our lawmakers for NOT protecting our children. This needs to stop.

Expand full comment

“They were trying to create a customer for their gender clinic . . . and they seemed to absolutely want to push us in that direction,”

The cynic in me absolutely thinks that big pharma is pushing this on purpose to create new clients. Post-op trans people have to spend thousands of dollars a month on healthcare.

Expand full comment

This and meds in general for depression, ADHD. pain. A friend of mine years ago, daughter was doing drugs more casually but typical teenage stuff. They grounded her...she , threatened suicide, they immediately took her to a clinic/hospital to be evaluated. They took her in, "evaluated" her, placed her on several pills and sent her home. This was their answer. More pills but RX instead of street drugs. Luckily, my friend, took her to rehab....for 4 weeks and got her clean and turned out she didn't need any medication whatsoever. They had some other tough years but it really opened my eyes to what an industry this has all turned into. FYI.....I work in Clinical research industry (indirectly, not a clinical person or researcher) and really had no idea this is how this is all going because unless it actually impacts you directly...you would never know. And NO ONE really reports this. But how many parents go to these state run hospitals, or other dr's and think they are being given good advice or helping their child. Just reading this essay, it just really, truly upsetting. Our lawmakers have sold us out to Pharma. And the beast just keeps growing.....

Expand full comment

I thoroughly agree. I have three kids who are all quite smart, and I've had multiple "therapists" trying to push them into ADHD medication. For the crime of being slightly awkward in their younger years, which they all grew out of! My parents recently told me that they were pressured to put me on ADHD meds as well.

I'm grateful for the genius of western medicine, but much of it has definitely turned into a racket.

Expand full comment

I'm not entirely sure. I think it goes deeper than that, but I feel like a tinhat for saying it.

I mean, does it strike anyone else as weird that pedophilia and associated things like blocking puberty in kids is suddenly all over the fucking place? That we had a major globe-girdling billionaire pedophile ring busted a few years after Hillary Clinton was accused by most of the people implicated of running one from a pizza joint? (Accuse the other side of that of which you are guilty, part 4 million.)

That suddenly well-known billionaires are flinging the word "pedo" around like insults at one another where people can hear them? That we're hearing about trans male pedophiles buddying up with tech billionaires? That Bill Gates was attending parties thrown by Epstein? That Prince Andrew got caught on fucking kids?

Holy shit, it's everywhere now. I am convinced that it's all over the place because these billionaires are being blackmailed to step aside for it. I'm convinced that's why you're not allowed to question trans dogma in Twitter, for example. Those people provided fuckable kids to Dorsey, I am convinced of it.

The communications pathways of the entire world, thanks to the boom of big tech, are under the control of people whose greatest secret -- that they will do anything to keep hidden -- is that they have been trafficking kids. Seriously, show me a billionaire and I'll show you a kid-raper who will bend the knee to ANYONE to keep a bunch of photographs hidden.

This is why we're hearing about all of this. This is why suddenly the whole world is about keeping children frozen in pre-pubescence, why the high level management of Reddit and Twitter all have ugly men in cheap wigs on their boards, and why you can't talk about the dangers of transing kids on those platforms without risking being shut down. This is why Matt Gaetz is suddenly scared shitless, along with most of his colleagues. This is why -- again -- Hillary Clinton was the one who was accused of it before it all broke, to shut down any reasonable accusations that would be made later on. This is why Melinda Gates is divorcing her husband -- she knew he'd fucked adults before, but he's a billionaire. He fucked kids, too. This is why Elon Musk threw the slur "pedo" around -- because in the billionaire circles he runs in, that's nothing more than a funny locker-room accusation to make, and he forgot for a second that he wasn't supposed to say it beyond those circles.

Sorry, this was a seriously long comment, but I stand behind all of it even though it makes me sound like a tinhat. This is where this trans garbage is coming from -- blackmailed kid-raping billionaires who control the communications pathways of the entire planet. It goes WELL BEYOND mere pharma.

Expand full comment

These are very interesting connections you’re making. Doesn’t Epstein’s “suicide” reek to high heaven? And the extraordinary lack of interest in the shady circumstances of his death in the mainstream media? And the “confession” of Epstein’s guards that they falsified the records concerning their whereabouts when they were supposed to be preventing Epstein from killing himself? And how they’ve conveniently been granted immunity from having to testify about that time period? Cover-up complete. Too many famous and powerful friends of Epstein, i.e., pedophiles, to protect.

Another hypothesis regarding the enthusiastic support of transism on the left is that it’s a huge source of donations for Democratic candidates. The Human Rights Campaign in particular has been highlighting transism as a fundraising tool for Dems for many years.

Expand full comment

What was on the radar in the 80s was anorexia and cutting. This is just the latest incarnation of self-destruction marketed to girls, only now it gets them applause. Starve yourself of slice your body up, and the world recognizes it as bad. Use the right woke lingo to insist your body is wrong, and surgeons will do the g/d cutting for you.

Amputating the breasts from young girls with dysphoria is like performing liopsuction on an anorexic. Doctors who do it should be struck off and in fucking jail for the rest of their lives, and people who defend it should be condemned.

Expand full comment

Related, though not exactly: Many therapists are a threat to even young adults' relationships with their families. There is a vast therapeutic trend to simply destroy intergenerational, family relationships and easily tens of thousands of young people, with vague accusations of abuse, now estrange themselves from loving parents. Therapists are guiding these estrangements, often helping young, adult children write letters, permanently cutting parents out of their lives.

Expand full comment

I have heard this too.

Expand full comment

It's a terrifying piece, but it needs to be read far and wide. You are invaluable Abigail!

Expand full comment

Thank you!

Expand full comment

Excellent work, as always, AS!

Expand full comment

Thank you!

Expand full comment

Thank you for advocating for confused teenage girls.

I just listened to your interview with Jordan Peterson. At 16:45 you ask “Where are the women in their 30's, 40's, 50's and 60's who were denied the opportunity to come out as transgender? They should be coming out too but they're not.”

About that: Thank God I was a teenager in the 1970's rather than today! If this had been something available then, I would have gone this route and it would have been a big mistake! What I needed was healing and self acceptance- healing from sexual traumas from my female vulnerability (there's this drive to obliterate that which made/makes me vulnerable), and self acceptance of aspects of myself that were not typically female (math geek).

I see this movement as deeply anti-woman- encouraging teenage girls to eliminate their femininity as a route to peace. Genital mutilation is indeed irreversible harm.

Erikson's stages of development Stage 5 Psychosocial Crisis/Task for teens is "Identity vs Confusion- Teenagers work at refining a sense of self by testing roles and then integrating them to form a single identity, or they become confused about who they are." The culture is pushing girls to embrace the confusion rather than navigate the surging hormones into a powerful and joyful female identity.

Expand full comment

Any advice for finding a good therapist?

Expand full comment

Yes. For an adolescent?

Expand full comment

Yes for an adolescent, it is very difficult to find one that acknowledges this :(

Expand full comment

Yes please, also thank you for your research into this, I’m reading your book now.

Expand full comment

Good Will Hunting -- library card and a few hours a night reading.

Expand full comment

Funny to come across this today because I recently resigned my position as director of a youth shelter in part due to these exact issues. As an insider in the field I can confirm Abigail’s reporting here 100%.

Expand full comment

Have you considered trying to get interviewed so your side of this hour story can be told? I think having been a director of one of these clinics your voice would be more likely to be listened to.

Expand full comment

As always, the truth is worse. Grace Lavery (a UC Berkeley professor) has actually called for the book ('Irreversible Damage') to be burned (safely of course). See https://www.rt.com/usa/506758-uc-berkeley-lavery-book-burning-trans/ for an image of Grace Lavery calling for the book to be (safely) burned.

Expand full comment

This is very important for parents and teachers as well as anyone who says they care about our kids. I know this is in the US context, but I am concerned that it will go the same way here in the UK. As a teacher of kids with SEN I was disturbed when I heard the numbers a few years ago because in 15 years teaching some very complex kids,I have never met a child that wanted to be another gender. I am also a parent of two girls aged 24 and 21 and a son aged 10. I'm an aunt to several others kids and also never heard it from them or any kid in the community, even when I was a child. I grew up and had most of my experience in "difficult" or "troubled" neighbourhoods and schools. I met gay children but never trans kids. I just couldn't understand where they all came from all of a sudden. Seeing your interview with Jordan Peterson today I totally understand now. I don;t have a huge audience (which prbaby helps given the censorship going on) but I plan to cover it in my podcast in coming weeks after listening to your interview and talk on Youtube. What else can we as parents, teachers and citizens do to raise more awareness of this?

Expand full comment

Abigail I would like to get in contact with you. Regarding the gender confusion. I want to share something with you I have come across. How do I get in contact?

Expand full comment

Thank you for doing this piece Abigail, very difficult to read but more people need to understand what is at stake here and how quickly people we should be able to trust, medical practitioners, are willing to press the 'I believe button" and send them off to gender affirmation therapy.

Expand full comment

Can you advise about laws in Indiana please?

Expand full comment

I'm sorry, I haven't looked into the law in Indiana.

Expand full comment

Where are the FGM warriors? Why isn’t anyone fighting against mutilation of American children and arresting the surgeons?

In the flip side, and sick side...do you think that social justice warriors think they are really saving these children from their parents? I believe they have unresolved childhood trauma that they are trying to resolve by “ saving” future children from the rejection they experienced. So many of them!!!

Expand full comment

Hi all, I was reading through these stories yesterday and can't remember where I saw a comment suggesting that the teenager girls discussed here have Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). The reasoning seemed to be that the young girls had a fragile or changing sense of self, so they might have BPD. I understand the reasoning there but it really is not appropriate for teenagers, especially young teenagers. Kids this age have an unsure sense of self by definition. During adolescence, teenagers experiment with different identities. That's normal in our culture and also why swift gender transitions can be so dangerous. The child involved may simply be exploring an identity that she will later discard.

Expand full comment

It's not easy for men, either. When we're told that it's abnormal to express emotion, we tend to believe it. When our churches tell us we have to enter marriage completely "pure" (virgin), who is there to say, "Hogwash"?

They talk as if there were NO forgiveness of sexual sin. The only advice they give us is, "Don't do it before marriage", and that simply isn't enough.

Expand full comment

Now would be a good time for parents to learn about the theft of their sons and daughters, their property, by means of birth certificates and things like marriages. It's like registering a vehicle with the state, you are relinquishing ownership by doing so. By getting married (legally, outside of common law), you are giving the state majority ownership of your sons and daughters.

This is a touchy subject, especially for anyone unfamiliar with the notion that their living sons and daughters could be considered property, but it's fact.

All of these statutes and fake laws ONLY apply to wards of the state, or persons. Had any of these parents decided to go without a birth certificate and social security numbers for their sons and daughters, the state would never be able to do anything with their property.

Christopher James, and Alphonse Faggiolo have a wealth of information on the subject.

Anyone can find them on YouTube or telegram. My son will be born without a birth certificate in a few months.

Expand full comment