Back in the late-1980s, when I decided to admit publicly that I was a homosexual, the whole so-called “coming-out” process was inherently fraught with danger: at the time, gay men were collectively seen as perverted hosts of a deadly incurable disease; at best, they should be quarantined in their own neighborhoods; conversely, others, typically incredibly annoying liberals, saw us as completely emasculated and withering little martyrs to an invisible cause. At home, the guys who told their parents were most often tossed out on the street - forced to head towards San Francisco or West Hollywood; the majority - just decided to remain closeted until turning 18 or until moving out. Now, fast-forward to 2014, a 14 year-old boy with a rather severe form of gender identity disorder feels comfortable enough with his parents to express his thoughts to his mother. He wants to go through transition surgery. As a Christian, her reactions are understandably centered upon a religious point of view. And, he begins psychological therapy.
In my opinion, these parents did everything right: they didn’t throw the kid out, allowed him to live at home, and got him into therapy. For, they had reason to be concerned, for, according to the CDC: males in the United States are more likely to take their own life at nearly four times the rate of females and represent 79% of all U.S. suicides. Men who have sex with men (MSM) are at even greater risk for suicide attempts, especially before the age of 25; in addition, the pro-gay Trevor Project found that LGB youth are 4 times more likely to attempt suicide as their straight peers; suicide attempts by LGB youth and questioning youth are 4 to 6 times more likely to result in injury, poisoning, or overdose that requires treatment from a doctor or nurse, compared to their straight peers; nearly half of young transgender people have seriously thought about taking their lives, and one quarter report having made a suicide attempt. Furthermore, what parents would be considered good or conscientious for giving their child everything they wanted; would it be more responsible to do as the mother of this young man did, and advise him that it was “a phase.” Credence should be given to such testimonies as Alan Finch, a resident of Australia who decided when he was 19 to transition from male to female, and in his 20s had genital surgery. But then, at age 36, Finch told the “Guardian” newspaper in 2004:
“. . . transsexualism was invented by psychiatrists. . . .You fundamentally can’t change sex … the surgery doesn’t alter you genetically. It’s genital mutilation. My ‘vagina’ was just the bag of my scrotum. It’s like a pouch, like a kangaroo. What’s scary is you still feel like you have a penis when you’re sexually aroused. It’s like phantom limb syndrome. It’s all been a terrible misadventure. I’ve never been a woman, just Alan . . . the analogy I use about giving surgery to someone desperate to change sex is it’s a bit like offering liposuction to an anorexic.”
In addition, a study conducted by The Institute of the Health of Women and Children, Goteborg University, and The Department of Psychiatry, Sahlgrenska University Hospital, Goteborg, Sweden, found that 10-30% regret transitioning. And, while the gay controlled media has been quick to condemn the mourning parents as Christian fundamentalists, bigots, and monsters, the boy himself placed most of the blame for his suicide on depression and a perceived lack of acceptance from peers. In an internet posted suicide note, the young man wrote:
“At the end of the school year, my parents finally came around and gave me my phone and let me back on social media. I was excited, I finally had my friends back. They were extremely excited to see me and talk to me, but only at first. Eventually they realized they didn’t actually give a s**t about me, and I felt even lonelier than I did before. The only friends I thought I had only liked me because they saw me five times a week.
After a summer of having almost no friends plus the weight of having to think about college, save money for moving out, keep my grades up, go to church each week and feel like s**t because everyone there is against everything I live for, I have decided I’ve had enough. I’m never going to transition successfully, even when I move out. I’m never going to be happy with the way I look or sound. I’m never going to have enough friends to satisfy me. I’m never going to have enough love to satisfy me. I’m never going to find a man who loves me. I’m never going to be happy. Either I live the rest of my life as a lonely man who wishes he were a woman or I live my life as a lonelier woman who hates herself. There’s no winning. There’s no way out. I’m sad enough already, I don’t need my life to get any worse. People say “it gets better” but that isn’t true in my case. It gets worse. Each day I get worse.”
The most telling line from this extremely tragic letter is this: “I’m never going to have enough love to satisfy me.” As every gay man has felt the exact same way: burdened by an overwhelming sense of loneliness and isolation - we restlessly and often voraciously seek out what we perceive as love - anywhere we can find it. This usually takes place among the bathhouses, bars, sex-clubs, internet chat rooms, and dangerous dark ally ways of major urban areas; among other lost souls - who have been raised on the false dream of pornography - we confuse sex with love; one partner follows another; disease inevitably pops-up; and, after a string of usually meaningless encounters, that unsurprisingly fail to deliver the resolution we so desperately long to discover, we find ourselves back where we started: alone and scared. In a fit of heartbreaking inspiration, this young man saw his future before him - and, it was not the beautiful image he had imagined; in a spat of mockery, he lashed out at the pop-gay media blitz of “It Gets Better,” that has even co-opted President Obama, as he ended with: “People say ‘it gets better’ but that isn’t true in my case. It gets worse. Each day I get worse.”
.”
In my opinion, these parents did everything right: they didn’t throw the kid out, allowed him to live at home, and got him into therapy. For, they had reason to be concerned, for, according to the CDC: males in the United States are more likely to take their own life at nearly four times the rate of females and represent 79% of all U.S. suicides. Men who have sex with men (MSM) are at even greater risk for suicide attempts, especially before the age of 25; in addition, the pro-gay Trevor Project found that LGB youth are 4 times more likely to attempt suicide as their straight peers; suicide attempts by LGB youth and questioning youth are 4 to 6 times more likely to result in injury, poisoning, or overdose that requires treatment from a doctor or nurse, compared to their straight peers; nearly half of young transgender people have seriously thought about taking their lives, and one quarter report having made a suicide attempt. Furthermore, what parents would be considered good or conscientious for giving their child everything they wanted; would it be more responsible to do as the mother of this young man did, and advise him that it was “a phase.” Credence should be given to such testimonies as Alan Finch, a resident of Australia who decided when he was 19 to transition from male to female, and in his 20s had genital surgery. But then, at age 36, Finch told the “Guardian” newspaper in 2004:
“. . . transsexualism was invented by psychiatrists. . . .You fundamentally can’t change sex … the surgery doesn’t alter you genetically. It’s genital mutilation. My ‘vagina’ was just the bag of my scrotum. It’s like a pouch, like a kangaroo. What’s scary is you still feel like you have a penis when you’re sexually aroused. It’s like phantom limb syndrome. It’s all been a terrible misadventure. I’ve never been a woman, just Alan . . . the analogy I use about giving surgery to someone desperate to change sex is it’s a bit like offering liposuction to an anorexic.”
In addition, a study conducted by The Institute of the Health of Women and Children, Goteborg University, and The Department of Psychiatry, Sahlgrenska University Hospital, Goteborg, Sweden, found that 10-30% regret transitioning. And, while the gay controlled media has been quick to condemn the mourning parents as Christian fundamentalists, bigots, and monsters, the boy himself placed most of the blame for his suicide on depression and a perceived lack of acceptance from peers. In an internet posted suicide note, the young man wrote:
“At the end of the school year, my parents finally came around and gave me my phone and let me back on social media. I was excited, I finally had my friends back. They were extremely excited to see me and talk to me, but only at first. Eventually they realized they didn’t actually give a s**t about me, and I felt even lonelier than I did before. The only friends I thought I had only liked me because they saw me five times a week.
After a summer of having almost no friends plus the weight of having to think about college, save money for moving out, keep my grades up, go to church each week and feel like s**t because everyone there is against everything I live for, I have decided I’ve had enough. I’m never going to transition successfully, even when I move out. I’m never going to be happy with the way I look or sound. I’m never going to have enough friends to satisfy me. I’m never going to have enough love to satisfy me. I’m never going to find a man who loves me. I’m never going to be happy. Either I live the rest of my life as a lonely man who wishes he were a woman or I live my life as a lonelier woman who hates herself. There’s no winning. There’s no way out. I’m sad enough already, I don’t need my life to get any worse. People say “it gets better” but that isn’t true in my case. It gets worse. Each day I get worse.”
The most telling line from this extremely tragic letter is this: “I’m never going to have enough love to satisfy me.” As every gay man has felt the exact same way: burdened by an overwhelming sense of loneliness and isolation - we restlessly and often voraciously seek out what we perceive as love - anywhere we can find it. This usually takes place among the bathhouses, bars, sex-clubs, internet chat rooms, and dangerous dark ally ways of major urban areas; among other lost souls - who have been raised on the false dream of pornography - we confuse sex with love; one partner follows another; disease inevitably pops-up; and, after a string of usually meaningless encounters, that unsurprisingly fail to deliver the resolution we so desperately long to discover, we find ourselves back where we started: alone and scared. In a fit of heartbreaking inspiration, this young man saw his future before him - and, it was not the beautiful image he had imagined; in a spat of mockery, he lashed out at the pop-gay media blitz of “It Gets Better,” that has even co-opted President Obama, as he ended with: “People say ‘it gets better’ but that isn’t true in my case. It gets worse. Each day I get worse.”
.”