I have been thinking about the plight of families with kids who decide they are transexual. First the parents, think about their dilemma.
They have a child who is disturbed, moody, perhaps has suicidal thoughts, exhibits outbursts of anger and frustration. They wonder what, if anything, they did wrong. Who wants to accept their child has mental illness, a set of conditions we aren't much good at curing, although they can be "managed?"
The LGBTQ+ folks hold out the hope perhaps their child is "nomal" after all, merely a badly misunderstood transgendered individual. Wouldn't that be a 'lifeline' to a 'drowning' parent? The temptation to grab it would be very great.
From the child's point of view, clouded as it is by depression, confusion and a sense of "otherness," wouldn't the idea that we have a way to explain all their painful thoughts and feelings, and to make them better seem like a miracle? It would, thinking "I'm an unhappy boy, perhaps I'd be a happy girl" could seem logical.
So we can understand how people want their child to be "normal" by redefining what "normal" consists of. And why the child might hope trans is their "solution."
That doesn't mean it works; as the Europeans have decided, it doesn't work. The mental illness is still there, in spite of a charade to claim it as a newly understood form of normal.
The fact that some people become delusional doesn't mean we all have to concur with their delusion. What is wrong isn't our definition of "normal," what is wrong is their mentation. Sadly, we aren't very adept at fixing a miswired mind.
Luckily some grow out of their confusion and at least some evidence suggests they can become relatively well-adjusted attracted-to-same-sex individuals - gays and lesbians. Society lets such individuals live and prosper so long as they let us be heterosexual, without recruiting our children.
