Elijah
Background: Father of a 'trans identifying' child. Ethnicity: White Jewish.
Elijah says his daughter never expressed any concern about her sex until the start of puberty.
As she started secondary school, she became more distressed about her body changing with puberty. This was coupled with a degree of social exclusion at school. Seeing other children come out as trans at her school and spending a large amount of time on Reddit she came to the conclusion that she was trans.
Elijah does not support medical interventions for children as he believes that they are not evidence based and could be harmful.
More about me...
When Elijah’s daughter approached him about being trans and wanting to change her name, he felt skeptical partly because she was young.
Elijah had heard that there is a link between autism and gender dysphoria and thought that his child may be autistic. He got support from child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) who concluded that his child was on the autistic spectrum.
Elijah’s feels that his child’s gender identity is due to autism, anxiety and social contagion*. He also thinks that it’s partly due to teachers and pupils affirming the new identity giving his daughter a previously unknown kudos and ‘celebrity’. But he sees social media as having had the biggest influence.
Elijah refers to his daughter by her birth name and does not use new pronouns. He does not believe that his child is old enough to make what he describes as a “momentous decision”. He says he tries to be compassionate and understand his child’s perspective but feels that he has to be firm while she is a child. In his view, it is important to “wait and see” what their child decides when she is older and can process their thoughts in a more adult way. He is okay, however, with her dressing and styling her hair in a masculine way.
Elijah thinks medical transitioning doesn’t help young trans people and sees it as ‘an endless process with no end goal that results in being a lifelong patient with associated mental and physical distress.’
Elijah’s child is currently on a waiting list for a gender identity service and has been for seven or eight months. He is not keen for the appointment to go ahead as his views of the service are negative and he doesn’t think hormone blockers are safe.
He hopes that his child can settle down to be ‘comfortable in her own skin’ and also explore her sexuality and not fixate on ‘gender’ so that she does not feel she needs to seek a medical transition.
At the time of the interview, he hoped that he could find a health professional that can adopt a cautious exploratory approach to understand the underlying reasons a child would come to the conclusion their body was wrong. He planned to avoid any therapist who unquestionably affirms this belief.
A suitable therapist was found, and Elijah says his daughter has been very happy by her own choice to continue seeing them and the initial results have been positive.
Elijah says to other parents of trans identifying children to try and keep their mind occupied by going out and doing physical activities with them. He says to try to keep them off negative social media but also acknowledges this is not always possible. He also said a parent support group (Bayswater Support) was a vital source of help.
By doing this with his own child, Elijah believes he has ‘seen a difference in their mental health when doing something positive and physical, outside away from screens "telling children to hate their bodies.’
Elijah says that since he spoke to us, his daughter has stopped requesting an immediate medical pathway. She has told him she is glad he did not agree to early requests for medication and acknowledged that would have been wrong at that time. She has not ruled it out in the future.
She still goes by a different name at school and dresses in a ‘unisex’ way.
*The link between autism and gender diversity and the existence of social contagion/‘rapid-onset gender dysphoria’ remain contested in terms of research evidence. For example,
see:
Turban, J. L., & van Schalkwyk, G. I. (2018). “Gender dysphoria” and autism spectrum disorder: Is the link real? Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 57(1).
Restar, A.J. (2020) Methodological Critique of Littman’s (2018) Parental-Respondents Accounts of “Rapid-Onset Gender Dysphoria”. Arch Sex Behav 49.
Elijah added this final message:
“You may think reading above I am a horrible abusive parent denying my child’s wish to live as her authentic self and causing her unnecessary distress and she will simply do it all anyway when she leaves home - this may be true.
Hurrying a child into a medical pathway that causes irreversible mental and physical harm may cause much more distress in the long term - this may also be true”.
Turban et al paper was critiqued by many other scholars who work in autism and gender dysphoria, who came together to write two critiques of it.
In this one, the authors "are concerned that perpetuating misunderstanding about the co-occurrence places individuals at risk”. Strang et al (2018) Revisiting the Link: Evidence of the Rates of Autism in Studies of Gender Diverse Individuals J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry. 2018 Nov;57(11):885-887.
In the other, the authors asked for “a nuanced approach…[to] help avoid creating a new area with polarized opinions, this time regarding a potential GD-ASD link. this seems counterproductive and not contributing to better care for those who need it.” van der Miesen AIR, Cohen-Kettenis PT, de Vries ALC. Is There a Link Between Gender Dysphoria and Autism Spectrum Disorder? J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry. 2018 Nov;57(11):884-885
Papers that describe the association of ASD and gender dysphoria:
Emily Patel, 'Understanding gender identity development in gender variant birth-assigned female adolescents with autism spectrum conditions' (University College London, 2019)
Nabbijohn et al, ‘Gender Variance and the Autism Spectrum: An Examination of Children ages 6-12 Years’, Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, vol 49, pp. 1570-1585 (2019)
Russell et al, ‘A Longitudinal Study of Features Associated with Autism Spectrum in Clinic Referred, Gender Diverse Adolescents Accessing Puberty Suppression Treatment’, Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, vol 51, pp. 2068-2076 (2021)
Elijah talks about CAMHS being ‘massively inundated.’ His daughter ‘passed through there quite quickly.’
Elijah talks about CAMHS being ‘massively inundated.’ His daughter ‘passed through there quite quickly.’
CAMHS, I feel for CAMHS, ‘cos here we have a service which is massively, massively inundated. My daughter passed through there quite quickly. I think they just wanted, I think CAMHS, from their point of view is there no issue of suicide is there harm, is there danger here if there’s not, we have to concentrate on those. I understand where they’re coming from. The people there were perfectly nice, helpful and friendly. But when CAMHS found out my daughter was actually seeing an expert in the field, privately. I mean I’m in a fortunate position where I can do that – just popped out straight away at the other side of CAMHS and she’s on the waiting list now for [Gender Identity Development Services] and we’ll see what happens there.
When you say that she was popped out, was it?
Discharged.
Okay. And did they make it clear that it was because she was in a private?
No, they said it was a mixture of no particular danger and in private, yeah. Yeah.
Elijah worries hormone blockers are unsafe and feels they might lead to sex hormones and surgery.
Elijah worries hormone blockers are unsafe and feels they might lead to sex hormones and surgery.
Four or five visits, before you can start getting chemicals.
And this is your concern, do you think this would happen to your daughter?
That’s a, well, the [Gender Identity Development Service] themselves say it only 50% of kids do. But that’s slightly misleading, ‘cos they bounce some other kids into the adult services where the records are different, at this moment in time. So that’s a misleading statistic they give.
So when you say that there, the service was using, not using proper science why do you say that?
Puberty blockers. Are they safe? They are not. We’ve got damage to the brain, reduces IQ. Bone density issues. Height issues. It’s not safe. It’s off label. It’s an off label use of a drug with scant evidence to back it up, that’s Lupron. Not a good drug. I’d rather my daughter did not take Lupron. It’s not good for her. Lupron also leads into the medication. You start taking the Lupron, you are on a one way path into cross sex hormones and surgery.
For Elijah deciding on surgery was a ‘momentous’ decision for a 13 year old. He was against those under 18 choosing pills and surgery.
For Elijah deciding on surgery was a ‘momentous’ decision for a 13 year old. He was against those under 18 choosing pills and surgery.
We’re quite firm on this, because from our point of view, as parents, we need to stay firm a troubled 13 year old cannot make momentous decisions about which go into a life of medicalisation and surgery. So we need to stay firm and compassionate, but firm in this.
Should someone under 18 be able to choose pills and surgery, I’m against that, if I’m honest with you. I don’t think up, if you can vote at 18, I think you can make decisions with your body at that point. You’re teenagers when you’re a stew of raging hormones and confusion to make a long term decision that could sterilise you, remove healthy tissue, I don’t think’s healthy and I’m against it.
Elijah spoke about his child’s name change at school and how he and his wife do not support their child’s wish to change their name.
Elijah spoke about his child’s name change at school and how he and his wife do not support their child’s wish to change their name.
So, some arrangements were made. Where it is at the moment, some teachers, she’s got a new, she’s got a name as such at school now. She goes by a nickname with her friends and teachers. It’s not a, yeah, I won’t go into too much detail, because it will be identifying. But she has a nickname which she uses at school. Some teachers use it and some teachers don’t. It seems to be a split between the arts and the sciences who uses it and who doesn’t. And that’s fine as her friends go. We call her naturally by her proper name at home. And we don’t use any pronouns, new pronouns. We’re quite firm on this, because from our point of view, as parents, we need to stay firm a troubled 13 year old cannot make momentous decisions about which go into a life of medicalisation and surgery. So we need to stay firm and compassionate, but firm in this. We don’t want to feed into this. Unfortunately, some elements of the school refer to my daughter as he and make a point of doing so. The health service, when speaking to some healthcare professionals they’ll make a point of saying, he. I don’t believe this is the correct approach.
Elijah worried debate around trans issues could be co-opted by right wing and populist forces.
Elijah worried debate around trans issues could be co-opted by right wing and populist forces.
I have a concern that what is very real, genuine and necessary debate around trans issues is gonna get high jacked by a populist cause. So you have populism in America and the likes of Trump and the American right. And then here you have, it’s been bubbling under for a while, but I don’t want this particular issue—I want this issue to be debated between liberal people of both points of view and discussed and looked at the scientific evidence, come to a conclusion. I don’t want this issue high jacked by right wing nutters who are using it as a populous cause to drum up support for their political, political side. That is my concern.