I have been writing, but mostly I have been conversing with strangers on the internet. I am optimistic, hoping to win over one person at a time. Here are some of my responses in some perfectly civilized conversations about trans people on Substack:

I understand your position but I still think that the family’s decision to support their child is their own business. You can bring up your child in the way you think is best.

Yes, trans people are pawns in this massive redirect that sets us against each other when we could be united. Trans people exist and always have, as far as I am concerned that is the end of the subject.

I am supremely aware of the nature of big business pharmaceuticals, and I think you can assume that I am and continue this discussion with that knowledge. My family’s experience was an endocrinologist who was very aware that she was practicing in a new field. Our doctor gave a very low dose of testosterone to my son for the first year, so low that he could have changed his mind and been unchanged. She did this to be cautious. We were all cautious.

My son was increasingly happy and once he had top surgery he was incredibly relieved. Since then he has stopped taking any injections. He did not want to be on an injection for the rest of his life. In fact, he is content now and can breathe more easily. Maybe it is you who do not understand how heart broken a trans person is by being forced to live a reality that does not feel right in their body.

May I remind everyone again, trans people exist. Trans people have been thrown into this battle against the pharmaceutical companies like a rabbit in a dog fight. We all know that pharmaceutical companies are profit based businesses. But it is only ‘vaccines’ that are held above all the other drugs – mandated, and free from any legal consequences regarding harm. Some pharmaceuticals are useful to some people. Are you on any prescribed medicine?

The trans reality is mind boggling, I know, and it took me quite some time to get my head around it but it is a real thing. Something is happening in the person’s hormones that is giving them a unexpected message. Something to do with the X and Y’s but it feels real to them.

I don’t care about male and female gender stereotypes. What matters is if the person is honest, strong and principled in their actions.

There has always been some people who felt this way (trans) and even in the 1920’s people had operations to allow themselves to live they way they wanted to. I am also aware that the modern world offers physical/hormonal transformations that can seem extensive and untenable. Would you want to live that way? No? Good, because no one is going to force you to take injections.

Keep in mind, everything we are talking about is an individual choice and not mandated. Hearing about trans people does not make people trans, no more than acknowledging homosexuality make people gay.

It is not great to be trans, as my son will tell you. It is a hard path. He did not choose it for attention or because he was sick in the mind. If you met him you would see that. It is, by the way, quite a big assumption you have made about my child.

I feel like your opinions and emotions are based on information, but not people. I don’t believe you could sit down with my son and walk away thinking he was ‘sick’.

I want to defend my son and all the other trans people but I also feel like I am speaking out of turn. It is not my life experience and sometimes I hesitate to bring up his story. I don’t want to stir up hate.

He was in high school when we realized that he would be much happier without breasts. He was struggling to live. We thought about it long and hard and it occurred to me that even if he was wrong about wanting to be a man, breasts were not essential. So we helped him have the operation and every day he is grateful.

He is strong and a survivor and never gives us one moment of stress. He just wants to live his life. (He has, on his own initiative, stopped taking injections because he did not want them anymore).

And that is why I am drawn to these arguments, because I am defending my child’s right to exist and his right to be left alone. Every time someone on the ‘freedom’ side posts a heartless comment about trans people it hurts him and isolates him further. The ‘liberal left’ discarded him when the vaccine mandates hit, excluding him from art and music and social activities. But on the side of the dissidents, of which I consider myself a proud member, I am constantly hearing hurtful and unkind comments about trans people.

I am truly heart sick about it. Our family lives in a no mans’ land.

Ultimately, we should ignore any notion of taking sides, or the ‘right’ vs the ‘left’. Let’s take it one issue at a time. A trans person’s right to respect and bodily autonomy is the same as a non-vaccinated person.

Yes the the gov’t apparatus is pushing an agenda. Yes, they are happy to see the people get distracted and turn against each other.

We must leave it aside and support each other. Love is the answer.