Sasha Ayad's Newsletter, August 2024
How to quiet the mind, ROGD Awareness Day, a conversation with Joshua Coleman, The Anxious Generation, and more...
What’s on my mind…
You can either watch or read this section. The video is embedded below, followed by a text version.
Quieting the mind: taking an exit ramp off the digital superhighway
“Falling down a rabbit-hole.” I’ve said this phrase countless times to describe what it feels like to get pulled into the world of gender.
Other expressions like “falling down the well” and “being sucked into a vortex” also feel apt.
They all conjure a feeling of being in a dark, distant place from which it becomes ever harder to escape, or come up for air. Ah, there’s another image—one of drowning or being pulled down by an ocean current.
The belief systems of gender identity and queer theory epitomize this feeling with their convoluted redefinition of words, their mind-bending denial of reality, and the way they draw many people deeper and deeper into a web of contradictory claims.
For example:
Gender identity is a felt sense of gender, not necessarily related to biological categories of male and female, and it can be fluid and change day to day. Yet, medical interventions, which change the body in concrete and permanent ways, should be fully and easily accessed by anyone seeking to realize their embodiment goals (even if those goals might change at a future date).
Wow! It’s enough to give anyone a headache, and to disconnect us from reality.
But aside from the claims and ideology itself, I have been feeling overwhelmed by something entirely different, and in fact, even bigger, and more pervasive than this.
And that is the force and pull of digital technology. And maybe more than that, it’s the way I feel when I’m always consuming, reading, listening, and absorbing information, seemingly with no breaks, no respite. It’s constant and it’s never-ending. There is always something new to read, social media posts to check and respond to, and information I want to consume. Some of it is intriguing and valuable, and other pieces of information operate as tasks that need to be checked off a list. But the point is that almost every moment of my waking hours is filled with a sheer volume and scope of brain activity that simply cannot be sustainable. It feels like my mind is careening down a fast-speed digital information highway and I can’t slow down or find the off-ramp. I doubt our bodies, minds, or spirits have evolved to consume and process such a massive volume of information. Additionally, the complex nature of the information itself places a severe burden on our cognitive and emotional processing power.
Is anyone else experiencing this?
Every so often, this feeling of dread, overwhelm, and profound distractibility moves from the invisible, from my baseline way of operating, and comes to the surface, calling itself to my attention. It feels like my hunger for mental stimulation is insatiable, and yet I become aware that it’s also deeply destructive. In these moments I notice, often with horror, how out-of-control my mind feels. I can barely hear myself think above the digital content noise. But then again, I don’t really want to hear myself think either. What I actually want to experience, what I crave, is mental stillness, quiet, and emptiness.
I suspect many of us feel this way but don’t know how to get off this fast moving sidewalk. And I can’t even begin to imagine how fragmented and overwhelmed adolescents are feeling when growing up on devices is all they know.
Here are some things that I’m not always great at doing, but have made a big difference when I practice them diligently:
morning meditations
yin yoga
mindful breath work
being outdoors in nature with no distractions (especially listening to bird calls)
leaving my phone behind when going out or turning off phone apps in the early mornings and weekends
consciously reducing the number of things I choose to read, listen to, watch, or engage with
I’m interested to hear from others, because I know I can’t be the only one…
What practices have you added to your life—and what behaviors have you reduced—that help you achieve this stillness of mind?
What’s on my radar…
Aug 16—ROGD Awareness Day
In the mid 2010s, physician and researcher, Dr. Lisa Littman got curious about something remarkable that she was seeing in her community: adolescents, mostly girls, with no history of gender-related distress, were developing gender dysphoria and seeking to change their identity. She sought out to research this phenomenon and she began with a study of parental reports. In her findings, she described that trans identification was often happening in peer clusters, and usually after a period in which the adolescent “fell down an online rabbit-hole” (my words not hers) of trans influencers and gender identity theories. Upon questioning their identity, many of these young people’s personalities changed (for the worse), sometimes their mental health deteriorated, and many of them sought a radical transformation and medical interventions with a sense of urgency that shocked and worried their parents. In her pivotal 2018 paper, Dr. Littman first used the term Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria, and the impact of this new descriptor was truly astonishing: ROGD became a lifeline for some and a blasphemous word for others. While parents, therapists, and even some young dysphoric people recognized in Littman’s research exactly what they were experiencing, other groups and individuals immediately demonized and attacked her work. Clearly, ROGD offered a powerful conceptual framework, and a new way to understand the massive numbers of non-binary, trans, and gender queer youth which emerged, seemingly out of nowhere, in the mid 2010s. While I often warn that labels and categories can become runaway narratives and that we must be cautious about how we use them, I still believe it was important to begin describing the surge in trans identification that started spiking in 2015.
ROGD Awareness day is August 16th, and Genspect is hosting a one-day in person event in Chicago featuring Dr. Littman, as well as several other presenters to discuss the impact of ROGD on schools and in education. What roles do schools play in the proliferation and or management of this phenomenon? How can parents prepare their children to thrive in school next year and in years to come?
If you’re in the North Shore area you can explore these questions and many others at the event. If you can’t attend live, the event will also be recorded for viewing at a later date. Info and tickets here.
What’s new in my Parent Membership Group on SubscribeStar…
Topic Video: Preventing and Healing Estrangement
I was joined by a special guest for my Topic Video this month. Joshua Coleman is a psychologist who specializes in adult estrangement. He recently joined me and Stella on GWL and he generously agreed to speak further for an in depth discussion. I wanted to talk to Josh about families on the brink of estrangement, whose relationships with their children might have become strained by the pressure of gender dogmatism or a rush to medicalize. The declaration of a transgender identity is a recognized “flashpoint” for estrangement that became much more common in Joshua’s work with parents in the last decade or so. He even wrote about the topic several years ago in Chapter 6 of his book, The Rules of Estrangement. For anyone who has read it, you’ll know he took a pretty explicit “affirming” stance, and I asked him if his views have evolved or changed since the publication of his book. Spoiler alert: they have!
In our discussion, we also contrast his “Amends Letter” with my “Reset Conversation,” both of which are meant to lower a child’s defensiveness and re-establish a connection. I wanted to ask Josh an important question, too: what next? Once a parent is back in contact with her child, or once the relationship has become strengthened, how should parents keep the momentum going and avoid falling back into unhelpful communication patterns? Ultimately, parents want to help their child think more critically about things like transition and medicalization, but how can they ever get there when it feels like they are walking on eggshells now?
Special Bonus: Josh agreed to do a few role play scenarios with me to offer parents some concrete language and ideas for communicating effectively with an adult child.
Here are the two vignettes we role played together:
Young adult male, 20 years old, Jason - 2nd year university. Still in touch with parents, though becoming more distant. He’s struggling with several mental health issues and has become more and more isolated, spending a lot of time alone, online in his dorm room, and he’s starting to struggle academically for the first time in his life. Every time parents try to bring up gender or share their concerns about the medicalization he wants to pursue, Jason pulls away from them. Jason is now making an ultimatum: “if you don’t accept me and support my medical decisions, I can’t keep you in my life.”
Young adult female, 18 years old, Cassie - senior in HS with some learning difficulties. She’s been living a double life in which she puts on a masculine persona at school, while at home mom and dad see glimmers of her “authentic” self shine through: she’s passionate about art, creativity, fashion, etc. They’ve observed that Cassie gets moody and depressed on Sunday nights, as the weekend comes to a close. Before school starts on Monday mornings, she hides herself in baggy clothing and noticeably strains to lower her voice. Gender has been an incredibly heated topic for Cassie’s family, but recently her parents have focused on spending more quality time together, improving their relationship, and they had a “reset conversation” which significantly eased tensions at home. Cassie was receptive, but still acts a bit guarded and suspicious when discussions of gender come up. She is nervous that her parents are trying to prove that she doesn’t know who she really is and that they’re hoping to talk her out of being trans.
Don’t forget that you can always view short clips of Topic Videos and other educational videos on my YouTube Channel.
July Live Q+A
This Month’s Questions (abbreviated):
My daughter wants to stop binding but is still very uncomfortable. How do I help her?
My daughter has mostly desisted while our family went overseas. How do we adjust and help her maintain her progress as we return to life in the US?
My trans-identified daughter has a male boyfriend. Should I point out that she doesn't need to change her body to find love?
My daughter wants to tell her sibling and extended family that she's trans. What do we do?
My staunchly trans-identified daughter has surprised us by talking about feminism and double standards. The walls of defensiveness are coming down. How do we keep the momentum going?
Parenting a trans-identified daughter can feel exhausting and make it hard to connect. Is this normal?
It feels like we take two steps forward and one step back with our daughter's rigidity around trans. How can we be truthful without blowing up the progress we've made?
To watch the Topic Video with Josh or hear the Live Q+A conversations, you can join either tier of my Parent Membership Group here.
What’s on my nightstand…
The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness by Jonathan Haidt.
Finally! This book has been on my radar for a few months, and as always, Jon Haidt delivers. He is incredibly good at making scientific findings accessible and delivering information in an organized, clear manner. And what a compelling case he makes!
Haidt seeks to explain how an internet-based childhood (as opposed to a play-based childhood) negatively impacts the way children learn, play, grow up healthy, build relationships, and find their identity. He also explains how The Great Rewiring of Childhood led directly to the adolescent mental health crisis we’re swimming in today. The Anxious Generation is the perfect companion to Abigail Shrier’s Bad Therapy, which I discussed in my May newsletter. Between these two books, I think the authors cover much of the explanations for why and how teens became so distressed in the last decade.
Here are a few fascinating points from Haidt’s new book:
Boys who engage in excessive gaming can have a total personality change: depression, anger, rage, etc. This can function like a full-blown addiction.
A seemingly minor upgrade, the front-facing camera ushered in a new age of selfies. This proved particularly explosive when the image-based social media site, Instagram was bought by Facebook and likes and shares were introduced.
Haidt calls the period between 2012-2015 The Great Rewiring of Childhood: “activity, and even sleep patterns were fundamentally recast, for adolescents, over the course of just five years.”
In previous generations, youth who engaged in political activism tended to become more energized and happy, believing they are making a positive difference. Today’s political activism, on the other hand, tends to make young people more depressed, lonely, angry, and isolated. It seems to be worse for their mental health.
Adequate sleep is crucial for children and teens, and the encroachment of screens in bedrooms and endless scrolling or gaming severely impacts the adolescent’s ability to properly rest.
We are embodied creatures, and online socializing and play behaviors simply do not teach children how to manage their bodies in the physical world.
When teens seek validation, they don’t only imitate others, but they imitate others who seem to be socially successful. This means that scrolling through Insta or TikTok and absorbing norms from big influencers can rapidly and quite potently remold a teen’s identity.
It appears that ADHD (and the ability to focus in general) may actually be exacerbated and made worse by a phone-based childhood.
Yeah, that’s a lot of bad news. But do not despair!
One of my favorite things about this book, and much of Jon Haidt’s work, including the bestseller, The Coddling of the American Mind, which he co-wrote with Greg Lukianoff, is that he lays out several practical strategies for parents, teachers, and others who want to change the culture and solve this collective action problem (if no kids are using phones at school, it’s a lot easier to enforce these rules with your own child). He proposes ideas for families, schools, tech companies, governments, and local communities.
For more information about the book, to view the data as diagrams and graphs, and to join community projects seeking to bringing back the play-based childhoods and improve adolescent wellbeing, visit The Anxious Generation website here.
What’s on our podcast…
Yet another fantastic guest lineup on Gender: A Wider Lens. From Breaking News, to the impacts of this ideology on art and comedy, and from some refreshingly honest (if harrowing) medical information to a mother’s life beyond estrangement, we sure covered a wide range of topics over the four weeks.
Special Episode - Breaking news: The Latest WPATH Scandal with Lisa Selin Davis: The latest WPATH controversy undermines the integrity of guideline creation and exposes collaboration among federal authorities, advocacy groups, and academic institutions to suppress evidence-based research. Lisa joins us to help unwind the complex thread. Click here to watch.
Arielle Isaac Norman Knows More Than Dave Chappelle: comedian Arielle Isaac Norman comes to GWL as an equal opportunity offender! She brings a refreshing critique of identity, comedy, and societal norms. We talk pronouns, the impact of Trump's 2016 win, and what it means to be “politically non-binary.” As a “queer community” insider, Arielle has some of the most well-informed and hilarious takes on all things gender. Click here to watch.
Why Are Trans Activists Rewriting History? with N3VLYNNN: A true creative, N3VLYNNN (pronounced Nevline) is a dancer, writer, and thinker whose work revolves around sex-based reality, and reality-based history! She sits down with us to talk about the trans movement’s impact on black lesbians, corrects the record about civil rights activist Pauli Murray, and, in the bonus content, she shares her thoughts on pop artist Janelle Monae’s foray into a nonbinary identity and a music video displaying a female dancer’s trans mastectomy scars. Click here to watch.
The Porn to Trans Pipeline with Forrest: We talk to Forrest about his transition and detransition experience, and how a curiosity for erotic cartoons led to a full-scale porn addiction and sent him down a path of unhealthy behaviors. Unfortunately, these includ surgeries that he quickly regretted. Click here to watch.
What Really Happens to a Female Body on Testosterone: We are joined by physiotherapist Elaine Miller for a deeply informative discussion about the interaction between hormones and the systems of the female body. This honest, yet compassionate conversation is truly a must-listen for anyone working with trans-identified females that want to begin taking testosterone. Click here to watch.
Funding Lawsuits for Detransitioners: Lynn Chadwick is a mother who walked through the pain of estrangement and found a way to channel her grief into something productive and sought out a surprising and fulfilling life for herself. Lynn’s organization, Themis, provides funding for detransitioner lawsuits, while her personal story stands as a beacon of hope and healing for parents lost in the struggle. Click here to watch.
I am available for one-on-one parent consultations. You can learn more about what these sessions entail, plus view my availability on my Substack.
Often I am booked quite far in advance, but if you are a Founding Member of this Substack, you will get priority booking.
In the meantime…
Here’s one thing to try…
Get your teen back from the screen obsession.
If you have a child or teen who is still living at home, now is the time to get a handle on parental controls and implement some rules around screen time. But rather than engaging in a massive power struggle, try approaching this in a way that rekindles your connection.
Sometimes the avatars, TikTok influencers, and YouTubers on your child’s phone represent what I call “competing attachments.” Your relationship, if it has suffered or fragmented recently, must be repaired. But when teens are attempting to get their relational needs met online, it can be much harder for parents to build connection or bond with their child.
Take a few cues from this excellent article. Psychotherapist Neil Brown responds to a frazzled mom who is stuck in the cell-phone-power-struggle with her 14 year old daughter. Rather than encouraging her to rapidly SWAT-Team the situation and lock everything down, he invites her to call a family meeting where everyone comes, phone-free. What if she explains that she actually really misses her family? She misses the fun they used to have together, even doing little mundane tasks like folding laundry while watching Netflix, or making a meal together. He also encourages her to take responsibility for times when she (and dad) were glued to their own phones, email accounts, and work tasks instead of connecting over dinner. He suggests making a plea based on love and relationship, rather than control and micromanagement. I might also suggest sharing how disconnected and frazzled the phones make her feel and pointing out that they’re not healthy for anyone, especially teens who are still growing and developing. From this warm and loving tone, mom can begin suggesting all-family screen-free times or zones around the house. Plus, if she create rules that everyone has to abide by, her teen won’t feel singled-out or punished.
For more technical help, check out Common Sense Media to learn digital safety measures, or look into alternative phones like Bark or teen-friendly “dumb phones.” You can even replace your younger teen’s or pre-teen’s phone with a smart watch which only has limited features and capabilities. When you restrict, be sure to substitute that time with fun, engaging, and relationship-oriented activities when possible.