145 - Things ROGD Parents Need to Hear (even if they don’t want to)
Gender: A Wider Lens
Sasha Ayad and Stella O'Malley
4.6 • 961 Ratings
🗓️ 8 December 2023
⏱️ 63 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Order Our Book – When Kids Say They’re Trans: A Guide for Thoughtful Parents
https://whenkidssaytheyretrans.com/
Support the Show & Access Exclusive Content
https://www.patreon.com/WiderLensPod
Join the conversation on YouTube
As therapists working almost exclusively with gender-questioning youth, Sasha and Stella share a little bit about the challenging experience of straddling between understanding the child's experiences and supporting parents who often grapple with goals conflicting with those of the child. This episode aims to provide valuable insights for parents navigating the complexities of supporting gender-diverse children with the goal of exploring some critical considerations that can sometimes be difficult for parents to embrace. They caution against oversimplified narratives, especially for parents who may have adopted a singular explanation for their child's trans identity, and they stress the importance of broadening perspectives, encouraging parents to consider multiple angles, including family dynamics. While exploring these key ideas, Sasha & Stella underscore the need for a middle ground, where parents provide warmth, connection, and engagement while remaining cautious about external influences, reminding parents that solutions lie in embracing complexity rather than adopting extreme and narrow approaches.
- Excessive tech restrictions and controlling behavior without warmth can be counterproductive in dealing with ROGD
- Be flexible and open to embracing radical changes in parenting strategies
- Avoid the assumption that sharing extensive medical information about gender dysphoria will necessarily be helpful
- Seek a wider understanding, thoughtfully embrace the possibility it might not be ROGD
- Parents cannot dictate or control the therapeutic decisions made by their child’s therapist
- Seek and pursue a measured and supportive approach, be cautious about rushing or hastily implementing various interventions to “fix” the situation
- Parents need to manage their own distress before attempting to effectively help their child, prioritizing self-care is a must
- Avoid and recognize the unhelpful nature of engaging in confrontations (specifically online) with kids, detransitions, or activists
- Reassess roles and emotions when considering long-term transition strategies, reflecting on the possibility that (in some cases) transitioning may be a viable long-term experience
If you liked this episode, more episodes you might find interesting:
Episode 2 - Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria
https://gender-a-wider-lens.captivate.fm/episode/rapid-onset-gender-dysphoria
Episode 4 - Why Do People Seek a New Identity?
https://gender-a-wider-lens.captivate.fm/episode/why-do-people-seek-a-new-identity
Episode 44 - Multiple Meanings of Gender Dysphoria: A Conversation with Aaron Terrell
This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.widerlenspod.com/subscribe
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hi, I'm Stella O'Malley, a psychotherapist in Ireland. |
| 0:05.0 | And I'm Sasha Ayyad, an adolescent therapist in the United States. |
| 0:09.0 | Through in-depth interviews, personal stories, and psychological exploration, we probe the gender landscape within contemporary culture. |
| 0:18.0 | And we consider the implications of prioritizing personal identity over other aspects of the self. |
| 0:25.0 | This is the thinking person's take on gender. |
| 0:28.0 | Join us as we look at gender from a wider lens. |
| 0:34.0 | Hi. |
| 0:35.0 | Well, hello. |
| 0:37.0 | Good to see you. |
| 0:38.0 | Good to see you as well. |
| 0:40.0 | I think this is going to be, I hope this is going to be a very helpful episode. We have our book out and I hope everybody's |
| 0:47.8 | flocking to their local bookshefts to buy it or to order it online and we want this episode to kind of really help you know the parents who have gender diverse children. |
| 1:01.0 | Yeah, you know as we were kind of thinking about this, the first thing that |
| 1:06.7 | really came to mind is that we are you and I and the therapists in this world and |
| 1:12.4 | the cultural commentators like all of these and the |
| 1:13.3 | cultural commentators like all of these people but particularly the |
| 1:16.3 | therapist were in a very odd position. |
| 1:19.5 | Our primary client population is young people who are experimenting with their gender or exploring a new identity. |
| 1:28.0 | And on the other hand, we also try to serve as advocates for their parents who often have conflicting |
| 1:36.7 | goals with their children because these parents have been treated very very |
| 1:41.4 | badly by doctors, therapists, schools, etc. So we're kind of, I mean I'll speak for myself, I feel often like I'm straddling the line between trying to really |
| 1:51.7 | understand what these young people are experiencing, |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Sasha Ayad and Stella O'Malley, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Sasha Ayad and Stella O'Malley and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.