This has been a riveting and thoughtful podcast. I really appreciated the latest episode wherein Natalie and Noah provided their perspectives. It is exactly the sort of thoughtful discussions we should be having about this issue. I found the interview with Noah especially heartbreaking for me. Noah is such an intelligent, thoughtful youn…
This has been a riveting and thoughtful podcast. I really appreciated the latest episode wherein Natalie and Noah provided their perspectives. It is exactly the sort of thoughtful discussions we should be having about this issue.
I found the interview with Noah especially heartbreaking for me. Noah is such an intelligent, thoughtful young person and I really, truly empathize with how deeply unhappy he felt and I think is is very brave of anyone to bare their emotions in that way. I really do. One thing that stuck me deeply was his repeated messaging that he decided with a team of doctors that medical transition was right for him. He put a lot of stock and faith in the fact that these are trusted medical professionals who are experts and they said this was right for him. It also felt like medicalization was sort of always the end goal, and it left me wondering what if it was not even an option?
My 16 year old child is so intelligent, and often I am amazed by her insight. She can seem wise beyond her years, and in the same conversation, she can say something with such certainty and it makes me think to myself "oh-you just do not have the life experience to know how much that thought will change or how shaky that ground is". We all had that. I remember very clearly the times in my life as a teen or young adult when I thought "this is my calling!" or "this is my person!" or "This is the answer!"....until it wasn't. And I look back on some of those mistakes as a 48 year old and think "oh, you believed that at the time because this was going on with you, or your head was in this weird place, or you were hurting so much from this...". The difference is, none of those things for me meant irreversible damage to my body or my mind.
When I hear Noah, 3 months post-mastectomy, at age 16, seeming so sure that he found the solution, it just grips my heart. Because I know deep in my soul how much we all change and how much I would have deeply regretted cementing my identity at age 16.
This has been a riveting and thoughtful podcast. I really appreciated the latest episode wherein Natalie and Noah provided their perspectives. It is exactly the sort of thoughtful discussions we should be having about this issue.
I found the interview with Noah especially heartbreaking for me. Noah is such an intelligent, thoughtful young person and I really, truly empathize with how deeply unhappy he felt and I think is is very brave of anyone to bare their emotions in that way. I really do. One thing that stuck me deeply was his repeated messaging that he decided with a team of doctors that medical transition was right for him. He put a lot of stock and faith in the fact that these are trusted medical professionals who are experts and they said this was right for him. It also felt like medicalization was sort of always the end goal, and it left me wondering what if it was not even an option?
My 16 year old child is so intelligent, and often I am amazed by her insight. She can seem wise beyond her years, and in the same conversation, she can say something with such certainty and it makes me think to myself "oh-you just do not have the life experience to know how much that thought will change or how shaky that ground is". We all had that. I remember very clearly the times in my life as a teen or young adult when I thought "this is my calling!" or "this is my person!" or "This is the answer!"....until it wasn't. And I look back on some of those mistakes as a 48 year old and think "oh, you believed that at the time because this was going on with you, or your head was in this weird place, or you were hurting so much from this...". The difference is, none of those things for me meant irreversible damage to my body or my mind.
When I hear Noah, 3 months post-mastectomy, at age 16, seeming so sure that he found the solution, it just grips my heart. Because I know deep in my soul how much we all change and how much I would have deeply regretted cementing my identity at age 16.