Gender Blog by Darlene Tando, LCSW

This is in response to the Executive Order from the White House on 1/29/25, targeting teachers honoring the authentic gender identity of their students.

The order talks about “indoctrination” and “gender ideology”. The fear-mongering and gaslighting used in this order involves the notion that many adults (teachers and medical professionals) are intent on changing cisgender children into transgender children. This simply cannot be done. Gender identity is inherent within all of us. Similarly, no one can make a transgender child cisgender. Which is why it is so imperative to listen, honor, and affirm. Additionally, the use of the term “gender ideology” implies that the understanding/knowledge of gender is moving beyond traditional beliefs about designated sex determining gender, and the gender binary. Why yes, yes it is. Understanding of gender is always evolving and it has been growing more and more evident with time that traditional beliefs about gender are limiting, inaccurate, and outdated.

Indoctrination implies something is being forced to be accepted “uncritically”. From where I stand, affirming transgender youth has always been looked at with a critical eye. However, anyone or any organization doing this work with transgender youth agree that following the youth’s lead when it comes to their asserted gender identity is best practice. Those who listen to and support transgender youth telling them who they are do so in response to the gender identity shared with them, they do not initiate or create this in the child.

Is it best to affirm them and tell them any way they are is OK? Yes. That is not indoctrination. That is affirmation. Is it best for others around them to listen to them, affirm them, and honor their authentic gender identity? Yes. That is not indoctrination. That is allyship. That is affirmation in action.

Oh, and students cannot learn math when their identities are being ignored.

The order references teachers “facilitating social transition”. This gives the impression that the teachers are driving the decisions. What happens in reality is that transgender youth sometimes ask to be referred to at school by their chosen name and pronouns that reflect their authentic gender, sometimes before they are ready to be (or before it is safe to be) “out” at home. This is only a partial aspect of social transition and not a complete social transition (in all settings). It is done at the student’s request. Doing so (without the threat of forced disclosure) is honoring a youth’s identity, dignity, and right to feel safe at school. Social transition, and the order of settings in which this is achieved, is individualized and should be driven by the youth themselves.

The Administration again undermines itself by including blatantly false information in this order. It implies that teachers are also facilitating medical transition without parental consent. This cannot be done. Parental consent has to be given for any medical gender-affirming intervention. Parents often DO consent to this because they see the pain dysphoria causes, and the relief medical interventions provide.

The executive order lists that teachers are not allowed to sexually exploit minors directly before stating they should not be “practicing medicine” or “facilitating social transition”. This is purposeful. If the implication is that affirming a youth’s gender comes anywhere near sexually exploiting a student, teachers will be less willing and less equipped to stand up for what is right by affirming the youth’s asserted gender identity. There is nothing sexual about honoring one’s gender identity. We all have one, and having that honored is a basic human right.

As I was writing this blog post, a friend sent me a screenshot of a post from the California Department of Education. It thrilled and relieved me; I hope it does to you as well.

“President Trump signed an executive order today that does nothing but require the Secretary of Education to determine what federal education funds can legally be rescinded as a penalty for teaching curricula that President Trump finds objectionable.

We can give the Trump Administration that answer right now: nothing. Is it against federal law for the White House to dictate what educators can and cannot teach by threatening to defund essential public services for students. School curriculum should not vacillate back and forth depending on the occupant of the White House, which is why federal law already prohibits the federal government from leveraging grants to mandate specific instructional content in schools.“

In solidarity!

Hello to my blog readers, new and old: I have not written a blog post for almost 5 years. I chose to stop writing regular blogs in an attempt to center Trans voices. However, all of us need to stand up and have a voice right now for the transgender community. We will persist in doing the right thing, in the face of rampant adversity, transphobia, and misinformation. I stand with all of you.

The White House released an Executive Order on 1/28/25 that was geared to undermine the practice of medically affirming transgender youth in our country. Those who understand gender dysphoria read the order in disbelief, floored by how what is actually a life-saving, euphoria-inducing, affirming process be reduced to something implied to be negative and harmful. To those reading the order who don’t know a lot about transgender youth or gender dysphoria, fear-mongering was in full force with sensationalistic words like “chemical and surgical mutilation”. I would imagine most folks reading the order, no matter how involved with or informed about transgender youth, are against the mutilation of children. When presented like that, in creates a fear-based, resistant view of important gender-affirming interventions. This is purposeful.

The reality of gender affirming care for youth is this: medication is used to intervene with a process that causes distressing and often times life-threatening dysphoria. Hormones, which everyone has, are later used to allow one’s body to change in a way that feels right to them. There is extreme relief inherent in the process of blocking an unwanted puberty and then initiating a wanted one. If one undergoes surgery to change their bodies in a way that more accurately represents who they are, this is essentially the antithesis to mutilation. Youth who cannot access gender-affirming interventions are more at risk of actually mutilating their own bodies. Gender affirming care simply does not fall into this category. Parents who sign on off on these interventions do so because it has become clear it is the right, and necessary, thing to do for their child’s quality of life and mental health. It is an act of love. No order implying otherwise can undermine this reality.

A crucial, affirming process was misrepresented and coated in lies to instill fear and resistance in the general population, and to justify transphobia rampant in this administration. However, those of us in the know realize how dangerous and devastating this rhetoric is to transgender youth, and to the community at large.

The fear/myth of trans regret is an overstated narrative used to scare people away from believing and supporting trans identities, and is weaponized to undermine crucial and life-saving gender affirmation (social, hormonal, and medical). In the recent Executive Order, The White House indicated that many children transition against their will and later live to regret any changes that came from gender affirming interventions. This simply isn’t true. Multiple large-scale studies have recently shown that an overwhelming majority of those who seek gender-affirming care are satisfied with the outcomes and persist in their asserted, authentic gender identity.

While there may be a handful of folks in power in the current administration who are strongly uninformed and opposed to affirming transgender children, multiple respectable and long-standing organizations are in agreement with and support the idea of affirming children when they express a different gender identity than their designated sex at birth.

The American Medical Association (AMA), American Psychological Association (APA), American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), Endocrine Society, World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) and National Institutes of Health (NIH) are some but not all of the major organizations that support gender-affirming care as a best practice.  

 Recent studies:

JAMAPediatrics | Original Investigation: March 2024: findings indicate that a small proportion of patients, and a very small proportion of those who initiated medical gender-affirming treatment, reidentified with their birth-registered sex during the study period.

Trans Youth Project [Kristina R. Olson & Selin Gülgöz]: May 2022: Young children who transition to a new gender with social changes are likely to continue identifying as that gender five years later. The study found that 2.5 percent of the group had reverted to identifying as the gender they were assigned at birth.

Gender GP: Detransition Facts and Statistics 2022: On average, 97% of people who are transgender are happy with their decision to transition. Only ~3% of trans people experience some form of regret, but may not detransition. Only 5% of people who detransitioned (0.4% of all trans people) did so because they felt the transition was not right for them.

American Journal of Surgery, April 2024: regret following gender affirming surgery is remarkably low, below 1%, compared to various elective surgeries and important life decisions.

In any trans individual’s journey (youth or otherwise), there can be changes and course corrections along the way. Gender is often an evolving aspect of self that deserves exploration and support of wherever the person is on their path. Current best practice is to believe and affirm one’s asserted gender identity, at every age.

The recent executive order undermines itself by using language that has been denounced by organizations who are actually informed about gender dysphoria. “Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria” (ROGD) is not a recognized medical or psychological diagnosis because it is not based on sound scientific research or established clinical criteria. The term was coined in 2016 by a researcher named Lisa Littman, but her study and the concept it introduced have been heavily criticized for methodological flaws, misinterpretation of data, and lack of peer-reviewed support.

From Wikipedia:

“Rapid-onset gender dysphoria (ROGD) is a controversial, scientifically unsupported hypothesis which claims that some adolescents identify as transgender and experience gender dysphoria due to peer influence and social contagion, particularly those assigned female at birth. ROGD is not recognized as a valid mental health diagnosis by any major professional association. The APA, WPATH and 60 other medical professional organizations have called for its elimination from clinical settings due to a lack of reputable scientific evidence for the concept, major methodological issues in existing research, and its stigmatization of gender-affirming care for transgender youth.”

It is certainly scary to see those in power making such uninformed statements, and making rules that threaten the safety and well-being of the transgender youth, and those who love them, in our country. We are witnessing a national gaslighting, presenting a false, alternate reality as facts. Know that no matter how many orders are distributed, the truth cannot be erased. Trans people have always existed and will always exist; to embrace and affirm them will always be the way.