“And she said I’m going to have to refer to social services for unintentional emotional abuse for not affirming –  just for not using ‘he/him’.”

“The social worker is standing at the foot of our stairs with our daughter next to us and she points her finger at each of us and says, “This. Is. A. Boy!”

These are the words of some of the many parents I interviewed for my new podcast series, Julie in Genderland, which looks primarily at the effect of the imposition on parents who are desperately trying to safeguard their children.

Many of these parents have daughters who are on the autistic spectrum and same-sex attracted, and have been led down the path of gender transition.

“I’m afraid if you don’t let her transition, she’s going to end up killing herself.”

All the renowned experts and whistleblowers I spoke to — including journalist Hannah Barnes, whose groundbreaking expose “Time to Think: The Inside Story of the Collapse of the Tavistock’s Gender Service for Children” has won multiple awards, Dr David Bell, who in 2018 wrote a controversial report about the activities of GIDS, and Dr Az Hakeem, who spoke out in 2004 against what he calls “the disgrace of modern-day gay conversion therapy” (in transing gay and lesbian youth). 

So many of my interviewees told a similar tale: schools, social services, health professionals, and trans lobby groups are banging the same drum, telling confused, disturbed and vulnerable children that all their problems can be solved by identifying as the opposite sex. In reality, as I discovered from parents, the consequences of leading kids down the ‘sex change’ path can be disastrous. 

I have been embroiled in what has become known as the gender war for 20 years, but what keeps me awake at night is not the frustration of being picketed, deplatformed and maligned by these ideologues; it’s the stories of the survivors — the young people put on a medical pathway — and the hell they have endured. Their voices are representative of every young person who has been seriously failed by each and every institution that has signed up to the Stonewall line that even a two-year-old can have a “gender identity”. 

Over the course of nine episodes, I interview a number of parents: mums and dads who have been ignored — and even threatened with the removal of their children unless they affirmed them as being the opposite sex. 

Several parents were told that unless they agreed to their child fully transitioning, they could end up with a dead child. The fact that there is no evidence to back up these claims of heightened risk of suicide did not stop this threat from being waved in front of them, alongside accusations of bigotry, transphobia, and ignorance.

Some of the more harrowing stories were about social work and CAMHS (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services) interventions. 

David and Louise’s teenage daughter Aurora said she was really a boy. The couple were told by a posse of professionals that they should affirm her delusion. For four years, they lived in anguish as their daughter’s serious underlying mental health problems went largely unaddressed.

“From the age of about 12 or 13, she’d ask me, “Dad, would you still love me if I was a boy?… We used to say of course we’d still love you, but you’re not, you’re a girl.” And then one day she said, “I want to be called this certain name, this boy’s name at school. And the school have agreed, and they’ve already started calling me it.”

“And then we found out that she’d been using the boys’ toilets as well,” adds Louise. “All of this was done behind our backs.”

“A social worker came out and spoke to us and said, “I’ve just spoken to your daughter. And if you want my advice, I think you need to let her do what she wants to do. Her mental health is so bad because she needs to transition. And I’m afraid if you don’t let her transition, she’s going to end up killing herself.”

The social worker was young, progressive, and on-trend. A meeting of about 20 people from different agencies was called at the school, although CAMHS did not attend. 

“Everybody sat around this table insisted that the best way forward for our daughter was for her to transition and everybody start affirming her. And we went along with it because we thought this must be what’s wrong with her. And to be honest, we were at our wits end. Obviously, we didn’t want to lose our daughter. And it’s the same thing that I’ve heard over and over again. Would you rather have a live son or a dead daughter?”

For these parents, it was a chance encounter with a curious doctor that led to a change of mind.

“When this neurosurgeon said this to her about being bullied, is that why you want to become a boy? And she said, yeah. It was like, oh my God, all of a sudden in my head I was thinking, ‘What have to my daughter’?”

This is just one of many couples whose lives have been thrown into turmoil by the abject failure of pretty much every democratic institution to stand up to this ideology and the lies it tells.

Gemma’s son decided he was really a woman trapped in the wrong body. 

“Even before my husband was dying I was talking to the hospital chaplain and explaining, I’m so worried about my son.” But to her alarm, “they started doing the pronouns… they just suggested sending him to a place where they literally affirm on the spot. So I just thought now you’re all part of that cult and ideology. I can’t even go to you for bereavement counselling.”

Sarah’s daughter is autistic, has OCD, and was being badly bullied at school. She developed body dysmorphia whilst going through puberty, as many girls do.  

The parents called the team that had assessed her as being autistic, asking if they could help: “The psychiatrist said, ‘Most of the young people presenting with autism claim to be trans as well.’ So that was no help at all. He just said, “It’s common, deal with it.” 

A referral was made to Gender Identity Services, although it went nowhere because of the long waiting list. Sarah was told to consult the Mermaids’ website – which told the usual horror story of “Your child is going to kill themselves if you don’t affirm them”. 

Many parents told me what we already know from detransitioners – courageous women who were so stigmatised for being lesbians that they thought identifying as a straight man would solve their problems. 

Aurora is now 18 and has decided she is no longer transgender. She recognises what happened to her: 

“I’ve just been groomed and abused,” she tells me, her voice deep from the effects of six months of testosterone, prescribed to her by a private gender clinic. “But life’s really good now, I’ve got a really lovely girlfriend, and she looks after me.”

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Julie in Genderland can be found on all the usual platforms. 

All names have been changed to protect the identity of the children involved