“Psychiatrists in Argentina cruelly tell you: ‘better to have a live trans son than a dead daughter'”

It has happened in recent days with two “unprecedented” cases in the South American country, he says in transoceanic conversations with ABC Marianellaone of the founders of the group of family members (the majority, mothers, and girls in 91% of the cases) that addresses DGIR (rapid onset or accelerated gender dysphoria) as a disorder of their children. Temporary disorder, compared to the irreversibility of undergoing genital extraction. The first, a professor’s complaint against the University of Buenos Aires for ideological persecution, due to the UBA’s imposition of referring to its students with the gender with which they identify. It is a copy of the case of Peter Vampling in Virginia (USA), who after seven years of fighting in the courts, they have ended up agreeing with the French teacher who opposed calling a student masculine, claiming “religious reasons.” Secondly, a mother is litigating against a school that depends on the National University of Mar de Plata that first sued her for refusing to sign a grade book that only included her daughter’s male name. The minor had been in transition for two years and then gave up, but in between there is an attempt to remove the mother from guardianship and the transfer of the young woman to a center only for male inmates. They are the first lawsuits against a law – 26,743 – enacted with hardly any debate in the country and Manada is behind them.

The key to the Argentine norm, according to the Manada families, is this: the “perceived gender” by a minor is the criterion that applies in all instances. At school you must be summoned with the name you have freely chosen. Also in medical consultation and other services. «The law allows synthetic hormone treatments and genital surgeries from the age of 18 and to minors, through the authorization of a judge or accompanied by ‘an emotional reference’ who is not completely clear who it is. From the age of 13 you can begin sexual consultations and at 16, even without parental consent, begin permanent sterilizations,” they detail. But… where is the parents’ criteria? «They call us transphobic and ignorant if you don’t jump through the hoops», remarks Marianella, who tells her story: «At 16, my daughter Kiara wrote a letter that said ‘mom, I feel like a man’ and I literally felt that the earth was opening under my feet due to confusion. What does it mean to ‘feel like a man’? “His response was that he wanted to cut his hair, dress like a cute Korean boy, and be called Erik.”

Over time, Marianella discovered that her daughter had suffered an episode of bullying at the age of 13 in the school bathroom, by another girl two years older. And that in a pandemic “when, deluded, we believed that she was at home safe, surfing the internet, we had left her at the mercy of a monster, ‘queer’ indoctrination,” he adds. Changing her sexuality was the way Kiara found to rebel against this abuse. His 57-year-old mother “‘googled’ until dawn to find out what to do.” and found Amanda, which put her in contact with other parents. «In the first interview with the psychiatrist he told us: ‘congratulations, you have a trans child. There is no reason for drama, ‘A living trans son is better than a dead daughter’. “I had never heard anything so cruel.”

«Grieve your daughter and welcome the son you never had. What do you prefer, trans son or dead daughter? The system is designed so that we parents lose the battle before starting it,” Patricia replies when she heard the same words from professionals “aligned with gender policies.”

According to Manada, the country has suffered “twenty years of progressivism”, the norm was made “from the shadows”, it has been installed, applied and has barely been questioned. Until now. “We didn’t realize what was happening until we experienced it firsthand.” The group is organizing so that “politics closes the Pandora’s box it opened”, the law is modified and the gender perspective is prohibited in schools. The change of Government raised some expectations. Since Javier Milei president of the country, the public budget linked to the “enormous promotion of hormonal treatments and surgical interventions” has been cut, they detail in Manada. It’s been a year since They see a desire for change, “but the laws remain in force”they object. «The times of politics do not go hand in hand with the urgency of these cases. We are committed to drafting a new bill that reviews the health circuit, safeguards minors and that the State pays for the detransition processes,” says Marianella.

The United Kingdom, Norway, Sweden and Finland rectified their trans regulations and Manada wants Argentina to follow that path. Since its founding in 2023, this group integrates families from 18 countries. Without public funding, it advises families, offers free legal assistance and accompanies mothers and fathers who contact them distressed by a situation they do not control.

Victims of a sect

Marianella’s daughter is 18 years old today and is happy being a woman. Kiara gave up on becoming someone “invented at the cost of getting sick,” but “The road to rescue this sect” is long, his mother assures. In the pandemonium of adolescence, “our children are victims of an ideology that led them to believe that they were born with flaws and ‘queer’ goodness can fix them.” “Who pulls the strings of this insane movement?” asks Patricia.

Marianella contrasts that the all-powerful ‘trans lobby’ leaves huge benefits to clinics and pharmaceutical companies supplying hormones around the world, while they suffer escraches and public attacks and the rejection of their own children.