Really accept the fact that she wants to be non by our that she is c. Screwed up that she is non binary conservative girl. The one thing that i always tell them. That's how my daughter wants to be referred to as they or them. It's really hard for me to struggle. Because it's not like normal english language. I respect their decision. Is it their decision though. See hard. it's a hard struggle. You have to accept it. You have to take them as they are. You have to have them support whichever path. They're going to go through. Our son was assigned female at birth and he came out to us when he was a sophomore in high school. About fifteen at first coming out as gay and then coming out as trans wrapping our heads around that very quickly. We came home one day and his head was bald after having long blonde hair so that was a bit of a moment for dead and he cried but not in front of our son as a parent. We will do whatever it takes to keep our child safe for some that includes agreeing to surgical intervention and hormone replacement therapies. Even if you believe that your child might not be old enough to make this sometimes permanent decision on their own. Meaning you've got to bring in a team of individuals to help assess the child and figure out what is in their best interest. There's no instruction booklet to help you get through this and to say these. Things are complicated. Would be an understatement. We've had primary care. Physician appointments gender doctor appointments for testosterone. Not he injects himself so we don't have to do that but then there's making sure he's not pregnant so there's birth control tests and then there's acne because of the tea and he's a teenager and there's acne medication and more birth control tests and more appointments and you just have to really trust your teenager to share information. But how do they make decisions. You know there's a chance. He may not be able to have kids if for some reason he ever wanted to use his own eggs so mental health appointment psychiatric nurse practitioner appointments for meds. Finding therapists was very hard for trans kids under the age of eighteen is a little easier. Now that he's older in august of two thousand eighteen researchers from brown university school public health published an article about a trend called rapid onset. Gender dis fauria. In other words this was a study about the idea or the growing concern that young people more specifically female were suddenly or quickly kind of during or after puberty deciding that they were transgender. The study suggested that social media and the influence of girls friends was playing a major role in what appeared to be a sudden surge in the number of girls who are identifying as non binary or transgender males. That idea is highly controversial. Many critics the article and the the research was scientifically unsound in that it was motivated by anti transgender beliefs. In fact there was such an outcry of criticism about that article and that research that the journal initiated a formal review process that eventually led to the article being republished in the original article the author lisa littman allied t. m. a. n. Md of brown university suggested that there was this growing concern that young people were suddenly and rapidly developing gender. Just for you. Even though they had no symptoms of gender dysphoric during childhood the author simply described that there were lots of parents reporting that this often happened after their daughters became part of a friend group or after compulsively watching videos youtube videos or reading about gender identity and just being kind of inundated with this idea of gender gis fauria as a type of adolescent late onset. Gender fauria where the development gender just for you. There are no signs of it when they were younger. Many people criticise lisa lippman. As suggesting that gender does fauria was simply social contagion in much the same way. Anorexia can catch on in front groups or smoking or drinking or other habits or identities that are influenced by our social and or peer groups. This theory is also the basis of the book. Irreversible damage the transgender craze seducing our daughters by abigail shearer. This book was pulled by many bookstores but eventually the controversy created a bestseller. I think it's really important to note that many other scientists including the world professional association of transgender health found lots of problems with way. These studies were conducted and the preponderance of other factors. It might lead a young person to never talk to their parents about what they're feeling or to have their experience heightened as a begin to enter into puberty nonetheless this episode is not to validate or to invalidate parents who are seeking to understand if in fact their child is truly struggling with gender dis fauria or if by chance their child is going through a difficult time and has found a group or a social media community or a transgender individual. Who when they explain what it is. They're going through what it is. They feel this person may then diagnose themselves as transgender or non binary and seventeen year old stepdaughter her whole life. She has been a super girly super traditional. I guess you can say little girl about three and a half years ago. She decided to cut off all of her hair. Kind transitioned into more.