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'The Lies Our Therapist Told Me': One Parent Speaks Out About Her Family's Struggle with So-Called Transgender Experts

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One parent is speaking out about her daughter's experiences with a gender therapist and the many layers of manipulation she had to confront through misinformation about transgender medical practices.

In an interview with The Christian Post, the parent, only identified by the pseudonym of Doreen Smith, has a daughter who started believing she was a boy four years ago. 

Smith's daughter, Michelle, announced that she was a boy when she was 14 after seeing a presentation about transgenderism at her Philadelphia-area high school.

Thinking it was just a phase her daughter was going through, both she and her daughter's therapist at the time avoided the issue. However, it only got worse. After seeking the help of "so-called experts," Smith became supportive of her daughter's male transgender identity.

She told the website she contacted ten different therapists who, like the online resources she had reviewed, all told her she needed to start calling her daughter by her new masculine name, Mike, in addition to speaking with her using her preferred male pronouns.

"I outwardly told people that this was my son. I went in public with her identifying her as my son. I purchased my daughter a breast binder. And I allowed her to make all of the changes I was coerced into making because I was told she was at high risk of suicide if she didn't do these things," she told The Christian Post.

Later Smith and her husband realized they had been misled by the therapist. 

"We were blindsided at how quickly this all happened. And the therapist pushed this every step of the way. He was planning for the next step, and the next step, and the next step," she said.

The couple went along with the therapist's recommendations until they were threatened by the medical professional. He told them unless they agreed to put her daughter on puberty blockers she would wind up in a mental hospital.

"That was my wake-up moment," Smith said.

This led her to the internet to search for answers. She found thoughtful voices willing to scrutinize transgender medicalization and the underlying ideology such as 4thwavenow. These perspectives made much more sense to her than anything the therapist or other gender clinicians had said or written, according to the CP

"And that's when I said: 'Oh my God, what have I done?'" Smith recalled.

Confronting the therapist, he dismissed her questions about puberty-blocking drugs and gave her assurances that they had been thoroughly tested and were a safe way to "explore gender."

Smith calls trangenderism a form of brainwashing as schools, popular television programs and other authoritative sources in a young person's life seem to encourage a new understanding of a transgender person's new life.

"When a child has been affirmed for years and years ... when they're celebrated at school as special for being 'transgender'... when authority figures treat them like they are the opposite sex and use their male name and pronouns without hesitation ... when they've had experts tell them they should medically transition ... and everything on the internet tells them this is true, how could anyone reach a child who has been victimized by such deep, cult-like indoctrination? How could a parent possibly undo this?" Smith asked.

"The only thing I can do right now is love her with all my heart," she continued. "Everything I say to her I say in love. I'm the only person in this world who's willing to accept her wrath of rejection by speaking that truth in love because everybody else will tell her what she wants to hear."

Smith hopes one day that her daughter will realize her mistake.

"I'm the only one who cares and I just pray that my love for her can transcend all of this enormous garbage that is being thrust at her at every direction. And I worry it's not enough and that it's going to take a lot of time for her to get to this place of maturity where she has already made some of these changes out of her own autonomy, her own pocket, and then she's going to come back to realizing that it was a mistake," she told the CP.

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About The Author

Steve Warren is a senior multimedia producer for CBN News. Warren has worked in the news departments of television stations and cable networks across the country. In addition, he also worked as a producer-director in television production and on-air promotion. A Civil War historian, he authored the book The Second Battle of Cabin Creek: Brilliant Victory. It was the companion book to the television documentary titled Last Raid at Cabin Creek currently streaming on Amazon Prime. He holds an M.A. in Journalism from the University of Oklahoma and a B.A. in Communication from the University of