Maryann’s 15-year-old daughter is currently deep in the grip of a delusion that she is a boy. She, along with some of her friends, has been like that for two years already, but Maryann, a no-nonsense mother from working-class Dublin, has made absolutely clear to her little girl that she was having none of it - no binders, no hormones, no fake names.
She was the second Irish woman I had met who had a daughter in this situation (the other mother’s child desisted, thankfully) and I think her testimony is useful for others who are perhaps under the impression that the ROGD phenomenon is not affecting Irish kids.
Maryann agreed to talk to me because she is starting to feel really desperate. She has lost some of the fear that speaking out would alienate her daughter and make the situation worse (you hear about this ever-present fear often from women in the same situation).
She said something during our interview that I really hadn’t considered before: I assumed that the biggest threat to these girls (and, less obviously, boys) was that as they approach 18, they would be scheming and planning to procure hormones and surgeries for the moment they are beyond the legal guardianship of their parents (they “hit the ground running,” as I’ve heard Stella O’Malley describe it).
And yes, that danger is very real; there is an Irish Facebook group for dysphoric girls and it is full of “trans mascs” and “non-binary” girls arranging for the day they turn 18 and can start shopping for GPs, endocrinologists and psychiatrists who will grant them their diagnoses and T shots.
One of the most popular discussions revolves around plans to fly abroad, most often to Spain, Poland, Greece and Lithuania, to get their breasts removed.
Madrid is home to the most popular (read: cheapest, closest, and least scrupulous) plastic surgeon, Dr Jesus Lago, who will operate on young women without a psychiatric diagnosis. Dr Lago and his “informed consent” grift is such a hit among Irish trans youth that someone even set up a separate Facebook group called “Dr Jesus Lago’s Disciples”, where you can learn all about the procedure and recovery, and check out all the gruesome healing scars and choose which “style” of nipple placement is your fave. You can also find out where to get a decent Air BnB, and all about the public transport and sightseeing options near the clinic.
Dr Lago does a roaring trade among young autistic Irish lesbians. Not dystopian at all.
Irish patients often discuss paying for these procedures with financial help from the cross-border directive, an EU-derived law that allows patients to claim insurance reimbursement for surgical procedures not available at home, whether because they are not carried out or because the waiting list is too long. There are indeed surgeons who will carry out mastectomies on young Irish women convinced they are men, but they seem to require a doctor’s sign-off, according to the members in the Facebook group.
But Maryann’s daughter is only 15, so all of that is a long way off, surely. There are a whole three years left for her to snap back to reality, saving her from Dr Lago’s butchering block - a promising potential luxury that mothers of 17-year-olds don’t have.
Surely, then, there’s nothing immediate to worry about?
But what does it do to a child, during one of the most important stages of her brain and identity development, to be plugged into a deep-set delusion - for years - that she is the opposite sex? To be convinced that she is moving through the world in the incorrect body, and that her parents are evil for not seeing it, for not accepting it, and for not making an effort to help her “fix” nature’s error?
This is what scares Maryann, and it’s what reduces her to tears. What state will her little girl’s mental health be in if and when she crashes? What is happening inside her poor, confused, vulnerable brain? Why is her school, the state, the media, corporations, the entire non-profit sector colluding to mentally torture her - and thousands like her - in this bizarre, unforgivable way?
It’s child abuse.
At a recent conference in Dublin organised by the women’s rights group The Countess, the mother of a desisted girl spoke about the “deprogramming” process her child went through. The girl thought she was a boy for three whole years; it took 18 months, her mother said, to bring her back to reality. She was able to do this by feeding her daughter testimonies from detransitioners, as well as videos by the wonderful Exulansic on the non-airbrushed reality of the graphic nature of “gender affirming care”.
But she also spoke about a phenomenon in cult deprogramming whereby the deprogrammee seems to “float” sporadically back into the delusion, thanks to perhaps a memory or a snippet of a song or other signal that relates to their former beliefs. It sounded terrifying.
Where are all the women’s mag editors?
Not a single parenting magazine, mommy blogger or family lifestyle weekend supplement editor has dared broach the very real phenomenon of the isolated, scared mother of the sudden-onset “trans kid”, who is forced to watch as her beautiful child gets sucked into this pervasive cult of self-deception. The pressure to “affirm” is overwhelming, and any resistance to the constant, state-sponsored propaganda to do so is vilified by polite society.
The non-affirming moms keep quiet about how they feel, for fear that they’ll lose everything: their job, their social circle, and not least, their relationship with their child.
That’s a clue that the ROGD issue in Ireland is probably vastly underestimated. Hopefully the Cass report will burst some bubbles, and more parents will come forward and speak about Ireland’s shameful new child abuse scandal, one that maims the bodies and destroys the minds of children and young people - every single one of whom is perfect exactly the way they are.
The priests of the new cult- the autogynephilic men who require the existence of the “trans child” to legitimise, destigmatise and defetishise their own sexual predilection - will one day be exposed for what they are. As will the new nuns - the pious #BeKind maidens who cane the knuckles of anyone who questions the (frankly, increasingly evil-sounding) “kindness”, “tolerance” and “inclusion” dogmas.
Irish society had just broken free from the perverted, robed patriarchs of the past. Here come the new crop. Can’t wait to watch them all squirm during the public inquiries and tribunals. And I hope people like Maryann will have the strength left to take a front-row seat so that everyone can learn what Ireland’s newest priestly caste has inflicted on women like her.
I’m certainly not the first to compare wrongbodyism to religion. Irish academic Colette Colfer has been pretty prolific at drawing very accurate parallels. But I think the coverup of abuse is one facet that is often forgotten. If you ask a lapsed Catholic like meself about their biggest takeaway from Ireland’s centuries-long capture by the Catholic church, they’ll likely say the hush-hushed abuse scandals stick foremost in their minds. That’s where the trans cult is headed, too. Mark my words.
I met Maryann when I flew to Ireland to document the first homegrown Let Women Speak-style event, called Women Are Speaking (yes it was a shitshow, no we were not permitted by the home-haircut crew to speak - check out some coverage of it under the #WomenAreSpeakingLimerick hashtag). My trip was supported by normies like you who help pay for my flights and hostels. Please donate to fund my jet-setting lifestyle keeping record of the grassroots TERF movement - for your granddaughters’ reading pleasure.
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