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You Must Be Some Kind of Therapist is a podcast for seekers, dreamers, and questioners that intimately explores the human experience. Your host, Stephanie Winn, distills years of wisdom gained from her practice as a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. She invites guests from a broad variety of disciplines and many walks of life, including researchers, writers, artists, healers, advocates, inventive outliers, and creative geniuses. Together, they investigate, illuminate, and inspire transformation - in the self, relationships, and society. Curious about many things, Stephanie’s uniquely interdisciplinary psychological lens tackles challenging social issues while encouraging personal and relational wellness. Join this journey through the inner wilderness.
Swell AI Transcript: 109. Solo For Parents FINAL.mp3
Stephanie Winn: Today's episode is for the parents and those who care about them, the therapists and other helpers like me, who are concerned about the gender craze and want to know what they can do to help families and parents who are worried about losing their kids.
SPEAKER_00: You must be some kind of therapist.
Stephanie Winn: I don't love recording episodes by myself. I do find it harder to stay on track than when I'm talking with a conversational partner. But I think the message that I have to share is important for my audience, especially when I look at which episodes get which kind of downloads. I think those numbers point me towards something. They point me towards that a lot of people listening to this podcast are worried about their kids. And these people seek me out all the time for consultation. which is now pretty much the main thing I do. Over the last few years, it's become more and more that way until I recently stopped providing counseling altogether due to a number of reasons, as discussed in a recent episode. We don't need to get into that. But given that the main thing I do now is consult with parents who are worried about the gender craze, And given that that seems to be what people are listening to this podcast for help with, I figured I'd make an episode just for you guys. So bear with me. It's only something like my third time recording a solo episode. But today I'm going to talk about how I help parents like you, or perhaps parents like the ones that you are concerned about. And this is going to be in no particular order. Part of how I outlined this episode is I just went back and looked at the sharecast messages that I've left for my coaching clients and members of my locals community. These are messages I've left after doing consultations with parents with tips and advice that are specific to the situations that ROGD parents find themselves in. So, without further ado, I'm going to kind of go through the list of things that I jotted down based on reviewing my own messages that I've created for people like you. Now, I want to start off by saying that I've worked with people from all walks of life in this situation. I do think that this crisis disproportionately affects white middle class families in America. And in previous episodes, I've talked about how a lot of the social justice narratives that are popular in our time are contributing to that dynamic because there's an incentive to identify into a so-called oppressed group for young people right now. But that being said, I've worked with people of all ethnicities, I've worked with immigrants from different countries, people of all major world religions. people of all political leanings, and people of all family structures, whether the parents themselves are gay or straight, married, divorced, remarried, blended, widowed. This issue affects a lot of people. I've affected people who are happy to pay my rate and people who really struggled to pay my rate but felt that it was necessary to get the help that they needed for their family. What type of help are we talking about? We're not talking about therapy. We're talking about consultation. So I don't provide a mental health service when I'm talking to parents. I'm not diagnosing or treating a mental health condition, and I'm not the person that they should lean on during a personal crisis. What I'm doing is offering my knowledge that I've accumulated from 10 years of having been a therapist, including, I would say, eight of those years having worked with trans-identified people and people with gender dysphoria. and from studying this issue pretty intensively and talking with families like yours. So consultation isn't therapy. It's really meant to be advice, guidance, education that is specific to your situation, but also informed by my general knowledge of the subject. So how do I do these consultations? Well, first of all, I want to know about the parent, their family, their child. It typically takes a few meetings, a few hours, maybe over the course of weeks, for me to get a sense of who their child is through their description of their kid's personality and character, dating back a ways, the various factors leading up to the crisis, how long it's been, all that kind of stuff. I want to get to the point where I have a good sort of mental map of who this young person is that we're worried about. I also want to know what the parents' views on this are. I've had parents who were worried about working with me, worried that I was going to be coming from some kind of ideological place, whether that's religious or political. I do offer transparency about my views. I'm really open-minded. and middle of the road and actually not very opinionated on a lot of issues when it comes to things like politics and religion. I am very clear, however, that my personal view is that nobody's born in the wrong body. The whole thing is completely made up and that it's driven by money-hungry sociopaths, transhumanist, Frankensteinian, Orwellian agenda. I think it's coming from a really dark place, and there's a lot of reason to believe that. If you look at the history of John Money, Harry Benjamin, the experiments on children, the ideology behind this stuff. Of course, I also think that there's something to the idea that, yeah, there's something in the water. I talked about this on a previous episode with Heather Hying that we know that there are endocrine-disrupting chemicals in the environment. And I wouldn't be surprised if the fact that there's atrazine in the water, which is turning frogs gay, if that also means that some people feel less masculine or feminine. We know about the impact of plastics on the environment, lowering sperm count, testosterone count. We know about the rise in endocrine disorders like PCOS and endometriosis. So is there something happening on a biochemical level? I wouldn't be surprised if there is. But does that mean that someone was born in the wrong body and then what you should do is further disrupt their endocrine system? Absolutely not. I don't think that's the best outcome for anyone. And I don't believe that the role of a doctor or a therapist should be redefined to just give the patient what they want, even if it means long-term damage to the body. I do believe in the principle of doing no harm. So I am transparent first and foremost with my consulting clients because I want them to know what they're getting into. They don't have to share the same beliefs as me. I do work with parents who believe in the true trans idea, the idea that, oh, some people are truly trans or truly born in the wrong body. They're truly happier this way. Now, there's no evidence to support this belief, but parents might have this belief. It's just not my child. And I'm like, OK, we don't need to get into that. I'm here to help you with your concerns about your child. And why am I doing this? Why am I taking this risk of being accused of all kinds of things, having threats made against my career and all that kind of stuff? Because I'm worried about the long-term health consequences of trans-identified people. It's not coming from a place of hate. It's coming from a place of care. That being said, in the initial stages of working with consulting, I do put my views on the table as much as needed for parents or whoever is considering consulting with me to make a decision that is educated and informed about whether I'm the right person to help them. And so we might start off with some of that stuff if they feel like going forward. If some parents are ready to jump right in, they've already come to the conclusion on their own that the gender stuff is indeed a cult. Some might be wondering if it's a cult and might want help understanding the cult dynamics that are at play. Moving on, then we talk about matters of teenage development and attachment and understanding teenage behavior and language in terms of their involvement in the cult. and the developmental stages that they're in, as well as what it signifies about their attachment relationships to their family. So I teach parents to hear what their kids are saying differently, especially if parents are coming into this not very informed and they haven't spent a lot of time on the ROG parent forums or read a lot of the books or listened to a lot of the podcasts already. Some parents are coming in really bewildered because their kids are saying the strangest things or doing the strangest things you know the idea of the trans masc non-binary femme like you know they're making up all these terms and there are girls claiming to be boys but wearing fishnets and eyeliner And parents are just like, this doesn't make any sense, you know? And so first of all, I'm just like grounding them with knowledge about this is actually a very common behavior. It is part of the social contagious, not something your teen just came up with on her own. So just kind of orienting them to what's popular trending on social media and in social circles. And training parents to hear what your kids are saying differently as a reflection of their need for group membership and as part of their developmental needs for attachment and separation from their parents. Kids are maybe attempting to express a feeling. We don't know how deep that feeling really runs, how much their words are truly a reflection of how they feel. or how much they're a reflection of how they want to think and feel because that's how their friends are thinking and feeling. There's a lot of things that could be going on there is the point. Another thing I find important to establish early on with ROGD parents is the importance of being strategic. Now, this might be a sticking point for some people. Worst case scenario, you hear this as a recommendation to be manipulative. And I have had that reaction. from one family. The parents didn't seem to understand what I was trying to express about the need to be strategic. And they said, well, how is that any different from being manipulative? Well, the word manipulative carries a lot of connotations, most of them negative. The meaning, if you look at the root word manipulative, I know a lot of us speak Spanish. I speak poquito espanol myself, and I know manos, las manos, the hands in Spanish. The Latin root here in money, manipulate is hands. What do we do with our hands? We mold, we shape, we weave, we sew, we make the world reflect our desires through the power of our hands to manipulate, right? So much of human civilization and invention, you could think of as a form of manipulating our environment. So where we draw the line, I'm sorry to get so like, philosophical about it, but where do we draw the line between thinking of something as being manipulative versus thinking of it as being strategic? I don't like to think of this as manipulative. I like to think of it as you have a very important mission. The stakes are high. It's like You know, I've called it a marathon, not a sprint, but I've also called it a tightrope walk. I think the most accurate phrase is probably it is a tightrope marathon. It is 26.2 miles on a freaking tightrope. People trying to get your kid out of the gender cult. It is not an easy process for some families. It is. And if that's you, that's great. One of the things we do is we look at the strengths and weaknesses, what your kid situation indicates to me about how easy it might be to get them out. But for a lot of It's going to be really hard. I'm very clear. I don't make any guarantees. I can't promise that we're going to be successful, but this is a really tough process. The stakes are incredibly high because you're taking headstrong, impulsive young people who are being groomed by a cult and a corporate agenda that knows exactly how to play to their psychological weaknesses and hook them in. and seldom on the idea of permanent, life-altering body modification. Even suicide risk, yes, is on the line. That's right. I would say the narratives about suicide that the trans agenda is pushing are actually the opposite of the truth. We know that suicide risk goes up the more someone continues with these hormones and surgeries. There's a lot of evidence pointing that way. So, and I can break that down another time. I can back up everything I say here. So yeah, we're talking about increased risk of suicide if your kid goes through with especially major surgeries to the genitals. With that much on the line, do you want to think about it as being manipulative or do you want to think about it as being strategic? I recommend thinking of it as being strategic, you know, like if your kid was in a burning building, you might want to run in and save them. And that might be the right thing to do. On the other hand, it might be absolutely imperative that in order for you to successfully get your kid out of that burning building, you map the best route. Because it could be that the way you want to run in means that you don't have a safe way out. And it could be that if you take a moment to get strategic and figure out where the staircases and the exits are and where the fire is and is not in that building, that's how you're going to get your kid out of that building alive. So we do talk about the importance of being strategic. With that in mind, we have to take into consideration the psychology of the cult, the psychology of your child, and the meaning of their behavior. And then we think about your actions in terms of not being impulsive, but being strategic. There are times that acting on impulse will save you. There are also times that you will ruin your one opportunity and shoot yourself in the foot. So here are some ways that I sometimes advise people to do things that they find counterintuitive. Whether you're a longtime or first-time listener of the podcast, Odds are you're just as concerned as I am about the gender ideology crisis that's affecting today's youth. What you may not be as aware of is another insidious practice occurring in med school classrooms, practitioners' offices, and hospitals alike. The discriminatory practices that focus on race instead of qualifications of healthcare providers. These universities, associations, and sometimes even states are breaking federal laws in their racially discriminatory practices. And one group is holding them accountable. Do no harm. Do No Harm's membership-based organization is fighting so that patients get the best quality service and so that today's med students succeed as tomorrow's medical providers.
SPEAKER_00: If you're a medical provider, I encourage you to join Do No Harm today. Learn more and sign up at donoharmmedicine.org slash sometherapist. That's donoharmmedicine.org slash sometherapist.
Stephanie Winn: One is, I generally, now your situation may vary, it does vary from one family to another, but I generally advise against sharing too much information. This is a problem that a lot of families get themselves into. They, especially families that are earnest, that are educated, where both the parents and the children are intellectually on the more gifted side, It becomes a battle of the wits, a battle of logic and sending articles and books and podcasts back and forth and you're trying to hit your kid over the head with information. Stop. If that's what you're doing, stop. And talk to me, okay? We need to help you plan a better strategy. Because unless your kid is really, truly, truly open to having their mind changed on this subject, Every time you send them information, they are going to get more entrenched and double down their strategies for blocking out your information. Whether that's ad hominem attacks, you know, saying, oh, well, this isn't relevant because it was written by so-and-so, who we all know is a transphobic right-wing bigot, or this organization is disreputable because of this, or yeah, but this, yeah, but that. One tactic after another to dismiss what you're saying. and close off their eyes and ears, la la la la la, I can't hear you, I can't hear you. Okay? You don't want to get into that with them. What you're looking for is an opening. So don't be foolish and create a closure when you're needing to work on creating an opening. The most important thing is your relationship with the kid, and a lot of that is illogical. So you have to learn to discover the logic of the patterns hidden in your kid's behavior. So that's one thing, not hitting your kid over the head with information. And, you know, and that includes strategies that I work on in details with families, things like, you know, what happens if your kid asks for information or says they're open to information about why you're so opposed to this stuff? Well, you know, saying things like, well, I I don't know. I feel hesitant because on the one hand, I hear you saying this and it makes me feel hopeful that maybe we can have a dialogue. On the other hand, I know what happened the last three times I shared information and I'm starting to think that that's not working for us and that you don't really want to hear what I have to say on this. So that's one example of a suggested communication that might be appropriate in some situations. All right. So not sharing too much information, looking for openings. One thing that's important to remember about the stage that your kids are in, and this is not true for every family, but it seems true for a lot of the families I talk to, especially if your kids are late teens, early 20s, especially if they're bright or gifted or autistic, if they have an ego about being smart, if they're a high achiever, any of this kind of stuff, The last thing you want to do is put yourself in a position where you seem like you're trying to make your kid feel dumb. They have a fragile ego that they're building in – They're sort of like scaffolding the development of a personality. They don't have a fully formed personality yet. They certainly don't have confidence and competence to genuinely navigate the world as a full-fledged adult human being. So, the sort of structures that they've built in the meanwhile are kind of flimsy, and so that means that they're going to be arrogant and prideful about their opinions. They have a strong sense of justice, and there's a naivete to that. But they want to feel like the smartest person in the room. And many of these teens have a narrative about themselves that whether or not they've ever consciously articulated it, they certainly believe, I am not the kind of person that gets duped or fooled or manipulated or tricked, especially not by some big corporate agenda. I'm not a fool, right? That's a narrative that your kid probably has about him or herself. So what do you think is the utility of trying to convince your kid that they have just had the wool pulled over their eyes, and this is all a corporate agenda trying to manipulate their teenage pride. You're probably not going to be successful in convincing them of that. So how do you work around this while opening their eyes? Well, you want them to discover their own cognitive dissonance, the ways their own beliefs don't add up, the way their beliefs don't match their values. And we can get into some of that later if I remember to. And part of how you do this, you might think of it at times as playing dumb, but putting your kid in a position where you're treating them as though they're really knowledgeable on this subject. And this doesn't work for every family. Here's the people it works for, the people whose kids have this particular defense of I'm really smart, nobody could fool me. And you have to be well-educated on the subject. So you need to know a lot. about the harms of gender medicine, you need to be really well informed on this topic in order for your playing dumb strategy to work. It might sound counterintuitive, but what I mean is you pretend that your kid knows everything you know and more. That's right, you pretend that your kid knows everything you know and more and that you know they're really smart and that somehow it all adds up to them and it's just, you know, it's just for the life of you. You cannot figure out this piece that doesn't add up. You're like, well, you know all this stuff about the harms of gender medicine and yet your kid wants to go through with this thing and how could such a bright person want to do that? They must know something you don't. That's the role I want you to take on if you're going to use this strategy in working with your headstrong child, not the role of trying to convince them that someone has fooled them. They don't want to be convinced that someone has fooled them. Put them in the position of being the smart one who's really well-educated on this issue. Make sure you know a whole lot about this issue, and then put them in the position where you're acting like, of course they must know about this, that, and the other. And when it comes to the medical harms, of course, you should be well-educated on the long term. You know, osteoporosis, osteopenia, heart attack, Alzheimer's, dementia, chronic pain, infertility, sexual dysfunction, urinary tract infections. Of course, you need to be well-informed about all that stuff. Okay. But to whatever extent you do talk about the medical harms, make sure that you are first presencing the ones that have a more immediate, tangible impact. Because remember how invincible you felt when you were your kid's age? Remember how you would never get old or sick? You could never be vulnerable or feeble, right? Things that happen to old people are happening to someone else, not you. Your time horizon just isn't that big, and you have that impulsivity and that, I want it now, and I'm going to live forever. So don't try to talk to your 18-year-old about how she's four times more likely to have a heart attack at age 50 if she starts testosterone today, okay? 50 doesn't exist to her. What is palpable to people is pain and humiliation. Um, so for females, for example, um, you know, this is just one example, but testosterone may stop her periods. Um, and that might sound really appealing cause maybe she hates her periods and maybe she hates the pain and discomfort that come along with them. However, her pelvic pain is going to be way worse overall from testosterone. both from the ramifications of what she'll endure if and when she stops testosterone. Think about the vaginal atrophy, the clitoral enlargement, and how her clitoris is going to be. I know it's not pleasant to think about this stuff, but her clitoris is going to be enlarged from testosterone rubbing against things, and it's painful, and it's chafing. Penetration, whether that's with a partner or a tampon, You know, these things only get more painful with vaginal atrophy. After several years on testosterone, a hysterectomy may be medically necessary because of the decay of her vaginal tissues, her reproductive system, I mean. You know, similar things with your teenage boy who's considering going on estrogen or who has started it or your college-age son who's on estrogen. Don't talk to him about osteoporosis. That's a thing that happens to old people, and he will never grow old. You know what's going to happen to him a lot sooner, though? His penis will shrivel up, and he'll stop getting erections as easily, and his nipples will become super sensitive to chafing. Those are the things that are going to happen sooner that are more painful and embarrassing, not to mention urinary, bladder, urogenital issues, things like that. And this is not by any means an exhaustive list. I'm just asking you to think a little bit more carefully about which medical consequences mean anything to your kids and which don't. And then combining this with the playing dumb approach to work with rather than against your teenager's stubborn ego about their intellect, you're putting yourself in a position where you're imagining, okay, I know that my kid, if they go on these drugs or as they are now on these drugs or whatever, I know they're going to be experiencing all these painful, embarrassing side effects. And yet they still want to do it. Gosh, what am I missing? You know, you're putting you're putting yourself in the one down position here. All right. That's just one one sort of piece of the overall puzzle. Another angle that I incorporate into my work with a lot of parents is the hostage negotiation toolkit offered by Chris Voss. His book, Never Split the Difference, is on my recommended reading list for ROGD parents for a reason. By the way, that reading list is at sometherapist.com bookshop. It's the second section down. The first section is books written by people who have been on my show and the second section is my recommended reading for ROGD parents. Now, Chris Voss doesn't say a word about this issue, and as a public figure who makes a lot of money by being very popular, I doubt that he's going to come out as a gender critic anytime soon. However, his communication techniques are really valuable for RGD parents. because you are kind of being held hostage. I mean, how else would you put it? Your kid is threatening themselves, and they've basically taken themselves hostage to manipulate you into doing their bidding. And this can make you feel trapped. So you need people with expertise in hostage negotiation. That's why I recommended this book. One of Chris Voss's common phrases that he uses is really simple. It's, how am I supposed to do that? He uses this in hostage and business negotiation. In other words, when someone puts you in a double bind, and this always happens in RHD families, as I dig an inch or two deep into the situation, I always discover that there are double bind situations your kid has put you in. In other words, you're trapped between a rock and a hard place. If you do this, this happens. But if you do that, that happens. Either way, you're screwed. When you're in a double bind, one of the best things you can do is simply become aware that you're in a double bind and state that. So this phrase, how am I supposed to do that, sort of puts the double bind back on the person who's put you in it. So for example, in a hostage negotiation situation, Chris Voss might use this if someone has asked him to, you know, come up with $15 million by tomorrow or the hostage dies. Well, how am I supposed to do that? Right? Well, similarly, your kid is putting you in a position where they're asking you to erase all of your memories and convince yourself that you have a son and not a daughter. How am I supposed to do that? or your kid is asking you to send them into an environment that you think is unsafe based on everything you know. How am I supposed to do that? I love sleep. Sound sleep is a crucial foundation of good mental and physical health, from mood and concentration to metabolism and cellular repair. And I sleep very well thanks to my 8 Sleep Pod Pro Cover. My side of the bed is programmed to be warm when I get in and cool down to a neutral temperature in the middle of the night so I don't wake up overheated like I used to. How would you customize your bed temperature? Visit 8sleep.com and use promo code SUMTHERAPIST to take up to $200 off your purchase. Even if they're already running another sale, this code will get you an additional $50 off. 8Sleep currently ships not only within the USA, but also to Canada, the UK, select countries in the European Union, and Australia. Thanks for considering purchases that support the show. Another technique I use with parents is what I call strategic apologizing. So this is partly to absorb the blows of the fact that you're Kid is probably doing stuff to push you away. They're probably mad at you about some stuff. And when you apologize, you sort of absorb some of that blow. But what I want you to remember is to apologize for things you've done wrong from your own perspective and not apologize for things that you haven't done wrong from your own perspective. They're going to think you've done things wrong from their perspective. their worldview and their values are different from yours, and you don't have to agree with that. So I never recommend apologizing for so-called misgendering, for example. And your son or daughter will try to correct you, oftentimes in a very angry and brusque demeanor. And why would you apologize if you haven't done something wrong? You don't truly believe that your daughter is your son or that your son's girlfriend is his boyfriend, for example. So why would you walk on eggshells and apologize for that? But what I do recommend is framing the issue as an apology for what you can take responsibility for. Here's an example. You will probably need to exercise some restrictions on your kids' access to technology, social media, smartphones, and the like. If you want to talk to me about the details of what that needs to look like in your family, feel free to schedule a consultation. There's an appendix in Miriam Grossman's book, Lost in Transnation, that goes over monitoring software. But strategic apologizing is a good tool in a situation where you have to take away something. And so here's what I mean. As your kids get older, they're expecting more and more freedoms. If you've instilled the right messaging, hopefully they're also expecting that responsibilities come with those freedoms and that those freedoms and responsibilities are earned not to be taken for granted. But in any case, let's say you gave your kid a smartphone when she was 13, and now she's 15, and she's in a cult, and she's very unhealthy psychologically and physically, and your relationship has fallen to crap, and she's staying up till 3 AM on whatever Discord, Tumblr, Snapchat, you name it, TikTok. you taking away her phone or limiting access to certain apps or limiting access to technology at certain times is going to feel like a step backwards for her and she's going to be mad about it. So do you apologize for taking away her phone? No, you don't apologize for taking away her phone because you're not doing anything wrong. You're doing your parental duty. But here's what you can't apologize for. I'm sorry that it's going to feel to you like I'm taking something away and I understand how this is upsetting to you because fill in the blank, give her credit now for anything she is doing well, any way that she has earned more freedom and responsibility. Don't give her credit if there's nothing to give her credit for, but try to say something positive. I understand it feels like I'm taking something away, and I am sorry for that feeling. But moreover, I'm sorry that I made a mistake as a parent in giving you access to this technology in the first place. I didn't know. I didn't realize. then what I know now about how addictive these platforms are, about how anyone can reach you. This is basically like me when I was growing up, if my parents would have just let me drive all over the city without any kind of curfew, without knowing who I was hanging out with. My parents never would have done that. They needed to know who I was spending time with. So I didn't realize when I handed you the metaphorical keys of the smartphone, I didn't realize who all would have access to you. I didn't realize how addictive this stuff is for your developing brain. And I know that you're smart and that you are going to tell me this, that, and the other about yada, yada. But I'm just realizing now, and I'm sorry I didn't realize sooner, that I have to protect you more. I should have protected you more all along. So I'm sorry that now it feels like I'm taking something away, but really I shouldn't have given it to you in the first place. I should have been more careful to begin with. So that's an example of strategic apologizing. You're framing the issue in terms of what you did wrong as a parent according to your own parenting values, not according to what your kid wants from you. Another thing I sometimes work with parents on understanding is the influence of porn and porn-adjacent media like OnlyFans as well as social media. and beauty image and body standard stuff on your son or daughter. I want to separate these issues a little bit and talk about how they might affect your daughter versus how they affect your son. For girls, They've almost certainly been exposed to a lot of objectification that is making them feel like it's unsafe to be female, like they don't want to be seen objectified or harassed. And that being female means a certain thing to them. So oftentimes there's a cognitive dissonance here. I promised earlier that I'd try to come back around to cognitive dissonance. This is one example of a place where girls have cognitive dissonance and lack the psychological maturity to work through it. an ideal way, but you can ultimately help them develop that maturity. It's going to take time though. So what I mean here is that a girl on the one hand might hold justice oriented views. She might in theory reject beauty standards or reject how women have been objectified. She might have some feminist views. On the other hand, by saying, I'm not a girl. She is colluding with her own oppression from a feminist standpoint. Right. She's she's throwing out the baby with the bathwater. She's rejecting herself. And from one vantage point, this is a form of internalizing, which is actually a very female thing to do. So in psychology, we have internalizing disorders and externalizing disorders. Internalizing would be things like anorexia, bulimia, cutting anxiety, depression, rumination. OCD, self-criticism, those are all like inward directed aggression, whereas externalizing would be like criminal behavior, harm to others, offensive behavior, things like that. Acting out, acting in versus acting out is one way to think about it in sort of rough terms. So it's typical for girls to internalize more and boys to externalize more when they're in distress. So isn't it interesting that girls internalize and sort of collude with their own oppression by on the one hand thinking, yeah, this is messed up that women are treated this way in society. And on the other hand, opting out of being a girl rather than standing with girls and women and taking a stand that there's no right or wrong way to be a girl and girls don't deserve to be treated this way. So this is a conflict that a lot of girls have that they're not conscious that they have. I don't recommend trying to force them to become aware of it, but I do recommend Strategies for dialoguing with your daughter that help her become more aware of what's going on opening those lines of communication And if you need help with your daughter, schedule a meeting with me. We can talk about strategies to use in your particular case. Now, the influence of porn on boys, um, is different. Um, now we're talking mostly about straight people here. Um, just because most people are heterosexual, even though the LGBTQIA plus narrative wants you to believe that there's like equal likelihood that you could have any sexual orientation. The fact is most people are straight. Most boys are attracted to girls and you know, we've talked a little bit here about autogynephilia and things like that but if you have a boy who thinks he's a girl and if especially if he prior to this seems to be showing indicators that he was indeed straight or maybe bi But you know if he showed signs that he was attracted to girls And now he's identifying as a girl. Chances are he's probably watching a lot of porn and he has gone down the trans hypnosis porn rabbit hole. And you need to educate yourself about that. And I don't want to say more about that right now because that could be really derailing and disturbing. But what I will say is that boys' brains get sort of cross-wired. So the way that porn addiction works, you know, if you think about any other type of addiction, you need more intensity or frequency of the drug of choice to achieve that same high. So how it works with porn is, yes, the frequency can increase as the addiction unfolds, But so too can the intensity. And what makes something intense is the emotions that it stimulates. So vanilla porn becomes boring pretty quickly to people who are in the porn addiction cycle. And then it starts getting into kinkier and weirder stuff. And what that kinkier and weirder stuff does is it sparks emotions that you would never want wired with your sexuality. Think of sexual release creates a dopamine release and dopamine hardwires behavior. So if you're watching stuff that sparks anger, rage, humiliation, disgust, shame, terror, Emotions like that, do you really want those emotions in the bedroom? Most healthy people don't feel like that has a place in a healthy, loving sexual relationship. But unfortunately, boys, including many without any previous sexual experiences with real girls, are watching stuff that is cross-wiring those emotions with their sexuality. And so let's say they're watching violent, disturbing stuff, but they're also immersed in the social justice culture that says, you know, there's this oppressed and oppressor narrative and all that kind of stuff. Again, here we have major cognitive dissonance and major internal conflict between these parts of them that want and value very different things and how their behavior doesn't add up with it. So what do they do? They become the oppressed rather than the oppressor. So they're watching really disturbing stuff that humiliates and objectifies women, but they don't want to feel the shame of being the oppressor, so they identify with the woman. Do you hear what I'm saying? There's a lot more we could get into here. I'm just kind of giving you the brief overview. If you're a parent of a teenage or 20-something boy who thinks he's a girl, I can almost guarantee you he's probably watching porn. It's probably really weird stuff. It's doing really weird stuff to his brain. And he's in some really weird forums where he's getting some really weird messages about sexuality. Um, so that's something to be aware of, not necessarily to talk to your son about right away. Moving on in terms of communication strategies. Um, I talk about listening without agreeing. So this is where, you know, you might borrow some tools from therapeutic communication, using reflective listening, expressing that, like, I just really want to understand your perspective. Let me see if I am understanding this correctly, then rephrasing what they're saying, like, So, from your perspective, it's like this or it's like that, right? So, that's a way of sort of carrying a boundary where you're opening those lines of communication and expressing a desire to understand your kid's perspective, but you're also not taking it on. You're not agreeing or disagreeing. Another common dynamic in ROGD families is splitting and triangulation. These are sort of primitive defense mechanisms, not surprising that they come up with immature people who are still developing. So we see ways this plays out with mom and dad, for instance. So some common dynamics might be a girl having a really contentious relationship with her mom and putting a lot of pressure on her mom to affirm her identity. Meanwhile, she's still daddy's little girl. She hasn't come out as trans, so to speak, to her dad. She doesn't want conflict with her dad. So that's a form of splitting and triangulation. I've seen families where the kid wants one parent to keep a secret from another parent. There's a lot of ways that this can play out. Again, consult with me for insight into your unique situation. When your kids are really fired up about an issue, It can be important to remember, as I was saying earlier, that this could be indicative of their belonging to a group. That could be part of the emotional energy that's fueling how passionately they feel about the sort of half-baked or wacky opinion that they're expressing. Again, you don't want to try to make them feel stupid. One potentially good question to ask, especially if they're fired up about anything related to their friend group or what their friends think, is just to say something like, what do your friends think about this? Or you seem really passionate about this issue. Is this something your friends are talking about a lot? I wonder if other people in your circle have strong opinions on this. So you're not shaming them. for being susceptible to peer pressure, nor are you even directly pointing out that peer pressure plays a role here or groupthink. Again, that would just provoke their defenses. But you're just kind of gently opening the door to them having insight about how their strong opinions might have something to do with their friends who they feel strongly about. Another thing that can be important to reflect on as an ROGD parent is who are your child's male and female role models? you know, especially same-sex role models. This can be relevant to explore for a number of reasons. So, for example, if you're a mom and your relationship with your husband or your daughter's father hasn't been very supportive, if your daughter has seen you, let's say, get kind of walked all over, well, that in combination with some of the ways that she's seen women be treated in porn or in the media, could be fueling some of your daughter's internalized misogyny, so to speak. If your son has an absent father and he's being told in school that men are the worst because of the social justice narrative, Does he have any male role models who he respects, and how is he interacting with them? This is something that can be important to reflect on, and then potentially look at where there might be some gaps that you could fill in through strengthening relationships with cousins, aunts, uncles, neighbors, members of your faith community, or extracurriculars. All right, so I haven't covered everything. How could I possibly cover everything? This is what I spend all day every day talking to people about. And we really get into the particulars of your situation with consulting services. But this is just sort of a brief overview of some of the concepts that I address with the families that come to me out of concern for their kids. So if you found this helpful and you feel like you could use some one-on-one coaching, mentoring, consulting, please feel free to reach out. I recently reduced my workload. I'm currently not seeing therapy patients at all for a number of reasons I discussed in a recent episode, which does leave me with room to do consulting for families like you. Whether or not I am the right person to work with you, I definitely recommend working with a coach or consultant or mentor who has experience with this issue. Oftentimes when families come to me, I feel like our first stuff is damage control because the parents did something that that is, you know, only human and and that if If you're a naive observer, if you're new to this topic, you wouldn't necessarily see anything wrong, so to speak, with what they've done, but they've made some missteps relative to what the best strategies are for this tightrope marathon. I've met families who shared too much information with their kids and pushed them away, or just parents who were not necessarily thinking strategically. Um, and, uh, I've also worked with families where they had a few sessions with me and then they thought, well, there's nothing much going on kids away at college. We'll, we'll talk to you later. And then they come back several months later and they were like, we actually should have been working with you all along. Now we've gotten ourselves into hot water and you predicted it, Stephanie, what do we do now? Um, so, uh, you know, not trying to oversell my services or pressure anyone, but I definitely do recommend. Considering investing in some proper support, this could be one of the hardest things I'll ever go through as a family. And like I said earlier, the stakes are really high. So whether you want to work with me or Gabs Clark, who I interviewed in a previous episode, or other parent coaches, mentors, people who have gone through it themselves, Definitely work with someone who has unique expertise in this issue, good communication skills, and is a strategic thinker, and get that support until you are significantly through the woods. I highly recommend it. Someone you love is on the line, and they need your help, and you can indeed help them. This is a cry for help, but you have to move very carefully. Good luck. And if you want to know more about my consulting services, go ahead and go to stephaniewynn.com and you can book a meeting with me there. All right, take care. I hope you enjoyed this episode of You Must Be Some Kind of Therapist podcast. To check out my book recommendations, articles, wellness products, guest episodes on other podcasts, consulting services, and lots more, visit SomeTherapist.com or follow me on Twitter or Instagram at SomeTherapist. If you'd like to go deeper, join my community at somekindoftherapist.locals.com. Members can dialogue with other listeners, post questions for upcoming podcast guests to respond to, or ask questions for me to respond to in exclusive members-only Q&A live streams. To learn more about the gender crisis, watch our film, No Way Back, The Reality of Gender-Affirming Care, at nowaybackfilm.com. Special thanks to Joey Pecoraro for our theme song, Half Awake. If you appreciate this podcast and want more people to find it, kindly take a moment to rate, review, like, comment, and share on your platforms of choice. Of course, just because I am some therapist doesn't mean I'm your therapist. This podcast is not a substitute for medical advice. If you need help, ask your doctor or browse your local therapists online. And whatever you do next, please take care of yourself. Eat well, sleep well, move your body, get outside, and tell someone you love them. You're worth it.