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Recently, I asked for help and allowed myself to accept it to help save gender-confused kids. Thank you all for the donations allowing me to take 60 days off work to concentrate 100% on what is for me a soul mission.
Senator Kathleen Kauth reached out to me a little over two weeks ago after I allowed myself to be listed as an expert witness to help politicians pass bills that would ban childhood medical transition. Even though I was involved in the first bill introduced four years ago, I have been reluctant to do so.
Why?
Well, I promised to NEVER say no to anyone who reaches out to me regarding childhood medical transition. I highlighted the reason why in my Newsweek article 'We Need Balance When It Comes To Gender Dysphoric Kids. I Would Know.’
This commitment has made me a tattered soul while working full time, raising three kids, and still suffering recurrent infections from gender-affirming care. To date, I have responded to every email that I’ve received, asking for support, whether from a politician, a terrified parent, a distressed transgender person, or a detrans person. I do not allow myself to let anyone go unanswered or unnoticed.
(If I missed anyone, it is not my intention. Please reach out again.)
Last year was hard for me for many reasons. While I come across as strong, committed, and someone people can fall into knowing I will do everything I can to ensure you don't hit the ground, I have many weaknesses and flaws. I have too often allowed myself to hit the floor, not doing for myself what I require of others. Last year was filled with both beauty and terror, as I came to understand this fact. Even though I have had noteworthy success in business sales, if I try to use my strategic talents personally. I lose my gifts, void of helping myself when no one else benefits.
I am a protector; perhaps it’s my maternal instinct, but I have always been the one who sticks up for others, for the underdog, and people who are in need of help. I have found my strength in safeguarding others. Sometimes, sticking up for others, means I get the tar beat out of me emotionally. I have no problem standing up to bullies who harm others. Yet doing the same for myself has been a corner I have been unable to see around. If I strategize personal success without tying it to what another wants? I lose the powerhouse trait of a triumphant strategist. Realizing others can trust me, yet I should never allow myself to do so, has been a shocking revelation.
It has been almost eight months since the documentary "What is a woman" was released. During this time, I have been approached by many with opportunities for myself that I self-sabotaged. Pure success for myself is unknown, and while I jump at every chance to help others, I do not do the same when the concession is solely for me.
My height of success in business sales was AFTER my children were born; every opportunity was taken because I believe my children deserve the world a victorious parent, and I constructed that person to guarantee my children know they are worth it. I was prosperous before I had children but after my children? My success was an astronomical, unchartered territory with numbers. The company I worked for, a national company with hundreds of thousands of employees, became concerned with my numbers, believing the numbers I was boarding with deals were not humanly possible and launched a three-month investigation. The investigation was unbeknownst to me. Every deal I had in the prior year was thoroughly investigated to ensure I wasn't cheating. I had several complaints filed against me by competing sales executives who were royally resentful that my numbers reflected an enormous increase in quota and were convinced I was cheating. After three months, I was told about the investigation. They were astounded that they didn't find one transgression and conceded that every inquiry into sales always turned up a punishable violation in some way. They found none in me, and my career entered an autoboom of speed, blasting past career barriers. But, as it always has been, my success was in protecting others. The conquests I spawned benefited me, but the catalyst was for my children; they were and still are everything to me!
One of the gifts everyone wants, yet no one has, is understanding a person's motivation and knowing what drives them. The pure why of a decision by another is unknown, and quite often, not even the person making the decisions. Curiosity, to understand, is a human trait that can never be 100% fulfilled, but that doesn't stop us from trying. Next time you are on social media, count how many tweets you see about the author tearing down or lifting someone they have never met. Tons of posts by people convinced they know the motivation of others, the core level of virtue or evil within. Go further and read the replies. You will discover that the posts tearing someone down will have responses echoing the sediment, fueling others to add to it, a dog pile of bullies. Then look for the posts lifting people. The first thing you will notice is that there are few. Another discovery will be when you read the responses as they correct the author's interpretation of goodness for another, realigning them that they are wrong. The person they praised is a horrible human. Then watch as the dog pile commences. Finding goodness is something we must consciously realize and force ourselves to see beyond our knee-jerk reaction to negative.
2023 will be a changing year for me as I reflect on my reactions to the accomplishments of 2022. After the documentary “What is a Woman?” was released, I was bombarded with communications and opportunities. Looking back, I took all the opportunities that helped save others and turned from opportunities that tipped to my benefit. Helping others is a noble cause, but it turns into resentment when you help others without tending to yourself. If I couple in guilt that I felt with any benefit forced on me to help others, I realized I was creating a more enraged person than I already was.
Life doesn't come without hurt and wounds; some have more trials and tribulations than others. But I firmly believe that wounded people are the most influential leaders. Empathy for others and understanding how, why and what causes hurt with is the most effective way to right wrongs.
Inspiring leaders must encompass many things to help others reach their potential to drive change. My life has been filled with many wounds, battling a sequence of circumstances out of my power and a lack of guidance to comprehend. I have always known this. What is new to me is how fortunate I am to have lived the life I have. The wallowing of life or the embracing of life is a choice. While some circumstances are out of our control, how we react and interpret them is our own.
You would discover sincerity if you were inside my head and heard my reflections and emotions about the medicalization of gender-confused kids. I believe most would be astonished to know how terrified I am for these kids, comprehending what drives most, what you encounter and the earthquake of emotions that come from altering everything you are to fit in. Then discovering that it made you conform less, that you were so desperate to be accepted and to have to deal with the actual reality that you didn't matter in the first place, used as a pawn to drive a bottom line. Knowing and processing that people not only abused you but had no consideration for a catastrophic journey. Some people benefit from medical transition, but the low numbers would astound people, and the butchery would make people physically ill if they knew 100% of the truth. When you come to the end of transition, you are faced with answering the ultimate question:
Did it help? Do you fit? Are you accepted? Do you feel whole, and ultimately, was it worth it?
When the answers are all negative, you are coerced to concentrate on the why. It is at this time that transgender people are the most suicidal, and it's the reason why the only long-term studies found that suicidal ideation is the highest 7-10 years after beginning medical transition, not before—forced to face the realities of why is brain breaking.
Personal insight is a challenging labor, and when you are vandalized and depleted from being the world's punching bag, it can create a toxic mixture. But it can also be a glow of virtue if you do the drudgery. 2023 is about embracing the blessing of emotional and physical pain as an opportunity, accepting rearranging the pain and releasing it to the world as a therapeutic agent.
The world is so convoluted, yet so simple. The essential component of an antidote for any poison starts with minuscule amounts of the poison's properties rearranged and ingested in tiny increments. To cure, recover and deflect poison, we must consume it once again, yet differently. This is also a metaphor for emotional recovery—all the components of healing circle to simplicity. Emotional healing is not complex; the simplicity of recovery starts with walking back to the misery yet taking an untried road, a new journey. This time, the ending is at a different location where healing is accomplished.
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Best to you as always, Scott/Kellie. Make sure you take time for yourself in between these hearings. I think you would make a great psychotherapist for gender-confused kids/teens/adolescents (and even for regular people struggling with emotional pain). Have you ever thought of going back to school, even part-time and beginning a new career? Clearly, you are beyond busy now, but maybe one day?