The Desistance Series – Angela’s Story

When one daughter identified as trans and the other as non-binary

Across the Western world, parents are watching their children struggle with questions about gender identity in ways that would have been almost unimaginable a generation ago. Many of these stories unfold slowly and often in secret inside ordinary families who are unsure how to respond and simply trying to do the right thing.

The Desistance Series brings together conversations with parents whose children once identified as transgender but later moved away from that identity. These are long-form discussions about what actually happened inside their families – the confusion, the influence of schools and therapists, the role of social media, and the strain placed on relationships.

Some children move through this period quickly. For others it lasts years.

Angela’s story may be more familiar than many people realise. At different points, both of her daughters came to believe they were transgender. Both later desisted.

The story began with the older daughter. In 2018 she was attending a private girls’ school where transgender issues had already entered the social world of the students. One of her friends had transitioned in sixth grade. The idea was present in conversations and in the culture of the school.

Angela and her husband were attentive parents. They delayed giving their daughter a phone until seventh grade. Life at home was stable. The stresses she experienced seemed like the ordinary pressures of adolescence.

When Covid arrived, things changed.

The older daughter began struggling. She started cutting, although the injuries appeared superficial and seemed to be more scratches than wounds. The school referred her to a therapist they recommended. Angela now believes that this therapist, an LGBTQ+ affirmative clinician, groomed her daughter and steered conversations towards gender identity. The therapist told Angela that they were “talking a lot about gender” but Angela saw nothing major to be worried about.

During lockdown both daughters were struggling at the same time. They were eleven and thirteen. The sisters became deeply involved in one another’s emotional world, passing notes back and forth and developing a kind of shared narrative.

The older daughter began to say she was non-binary. She changed her name and asked to be referred to using they/them pronouns.

At first Angela and her husband assumed this was part of the cultural scene among teenagers. Many of their daughter’s friends were describing themselves as gay, pansexual, or something similar. The parents tried to accommodate the nickname their daughter had chosen but they did not treat it very seriously.

The younger daughter had always been something of a tomboy. From third grade onwards she preferred boyish clothes and had little interest in dresses. When she moved to a new school for middle school, an elite co-ed private school, she decided to present herself as a boy. Angela did not initially realise that this was happening.

Although her daughter wore very boyish clothes, the parents did not think much of this. The realisation that something much bigger was going on came suddenly in 2021 when the school called about a seventh-grade trip and asked Angela which boy her son wanted to share a room with.

Angela was shocked. She had not known her daughter was being seen as a boy at school.

The parents allowed her to share a room with two boys on this trip, unsure what the right response should be. Looking back, Angela says that if she had understood what was going on she would never have allowed the trip to happen.

Around the same time the younger daughter also began asking her father to play baseball with her, in a bid to show how “boyish” she was.

Meanwhile the older daughter asked for a binder for her breasts. Angela refused, explaining that binders could cause medical problems. However, one of her daughter’s friends later gave her a binder. The daughter then asked for trans tape, but when Angela said she would research it, the interest seemed to fade.

Tensions in the household increased. The older daughter discovered that Angela had a private Twitter account where she had been discussing gender issues. The daughter never confronted her directly but wrote about it in her diary. Angela later read the diary and deleted the Twitter account, but the daughter had already saved screenshots. After that, both mother and daughter became wary of each other. The atmosphere in the home grew strained, with everyone walking on eggshells.

Using they/them pronouns proved difficult for Angela and her husband. The nickname felt easier, but the sisters monitored their language closely and reprimanded their parents whenever they got it wrong.

Angela found herself doing extensive research and became clear about one thing – there would be no medical intervention.

The sisters remained closely aligned during this period. The younger daughter said she felt like a boy, though she also loved her long hair. In response, the older sister suggested that perhaps she was “gender fluid.”

The schools were trying to be supportive but seemed unsure how to handle the situation. Angela felt they were completely out of their depth.

The younger daughter began seeing a therapist who Angela describes as excellent. At school everyone referred to her as a boy and this continued until ninth grade. Then something shifted. She decided she wanted to leave the school where everyone knew her as male. As soon as she moved schools and entered an environment where she was not known in that way, the male persona disappeared almost overnight and she returned to presenting as a girl.

Today, like many other desisters, the younger daughter speaks about that time in a casual way. She refers to it simply as “the time when I had short hair.” She has rewritten history, treating it as though it were never that big a deal, though to her parents it certainly felt like one at the time.

The older daughter is now nineteen. She still identifies as non-binary and is away at college. Their relationship remains complicated. The period when they were reading each other’s private writings left a lasting tension between them.

The experience lasted five years. It placed enormous strain on the family and on Angela’s marriage. For long stretches the emotional atmosphere in the household was tense. Angela was reading everything she could about gender issues and often found herself cast as the bad cop to her husband’s good cop. The entire family felt the pressure.

She also watched what happened to other students from the school – several girls from that environment have since gone on to medically transition. Looking back, the older daughter now says that getting a smartphone in seventh grade was probably a mistake.

Angela’s family eventually moved through the crisis, though not without cost. Her story reflects how complicated and destabilising these situations can become inside an ordinary family.

Stories like Angela’s show how these experiences unfold over time. What begins as a change of name or pronouns can expand into a full family crisis involving schools, therapists, peers, and online communities. Many parents describe feeling unprepared for the speed and intensity of these developments.

Watch the full conversation with Angela here: