Spring break 2016

Our little family of four (our oldest had already flown the coop back in June 2014) took a whirlwind spring break trip starting with a brief visit to our nation’s capitol in Washington, DC.

In the middle we had a 2-½ day consultation with Dr. Mark Yarhouse, the author of the book, Understanding Gender Dysphoria,  and his team at Regent University in Virginia Beach, VA.

We concluded with visits to colleges of interest to both twins and a couple days visiting nearby family before returning for the remainder of the twins’ junior year.

It was a sandwich trip with really tasty “bread” on the outside of the sandwich. Washington, DC, was a great experience – too brief to do it justice, but worth every minute of the two short days we were there. The highlight was the time spent walking in Arlington National Cemetery on a hazy, March morning.

The college visits were a lot of fun and began the decision-making for future plans, each twin having unique and memorable experiences as part of the process. And the culmination with family was relaxing and included much good conversation, game playing, delicious food, some hiking, and gorgeous views of mountains.

The “meat” of the sandwich, our consultation with Dr. Yarhouse, was probably nutritious but not very flavorful or filling. We had all agreed it would be good to see him, because he is both a man of faith and of science.

I so loved reading his book and seeing YouTube videos of him speaking, so I was really looking forward to him using his integrated approach in the evaluation and results session. But the whole process and experience was disappointing and discouraging.

We spent the majority of two days in interview sessions with Dr. Yarhouse and his assistant, answering lots of questions about our family history and dynamic, and our child’s personality and experience. They met with each of us individually for several hours. I think they spoke with my husband and me together as well.

Maybe it was because it was a more clinical environment, and psychologists like to remain disconnected emotionally from their clients, but I felt hopeless and discouraged almost the whole time we were there. They were kind enough to us, provided for our needs for beverages and tissues, and seemed sympathetic to our pain, but they didn’t seem positive or encouraging in their demeanor or their speech.

The two days concluded with a feedback session for the three from our family plus the two member team. The team indicated that they don’t know what causes gender dysphoria, that people who experience it don’t “get over it,” and that most of those in that position participate in some transitional type expressions and interventions (dress and hairstyle on the minimalist end, social transition in the middle, and full surgical and hormonal transition on the far end).

Because of Dr. Yarhouse’s faith and that in his book he speaks of encouraging the least invasive interventions possible, I thought he might offer some hope of ways to mitigate dysphoria and use the faith community and personal faith as supports for finding less invasive, more affirming options as an individual and as a family.

None of that happened. He noted the great love expressed between us as a family in our interactions and interviews, but he didn’t offer any options or suggestions or advice other than it was up to our child to decide how they wanted to approach things. (Our twins were 16 at the time.) It would be up to us how we would respond to their choice.

As a parent, I felt powerless to offer my child other options. But I didn’t feel good about leaving it entirely in my child’s hands. How could a child grasp the enormity of a decision like this? Are they getting the best input from the best sources to feed their thinking? And I didn’t feel good that the faith community in conjunction with the medical and psychological community hadn’t (and still haven’t) come up with a holistic approach.

Fortunately that was the middle of our trip, and even in the midst of the discouragement, we still managed to have fun together. We walked on the boardwalk along the Atlantic Ocean, ate dinner at a beachside seafood restaurant, and enjoyed our stay at the hotel in Virginia Beach.

Being able to move on to our college visits and time with family gave us more opportunities for fun and time to reflect.

Though I was disappointed by what was provided to us in the evaluation and results (because I felt like the professionals were not giving us sufficient guidance and support), I was and am continually reminded how important love is in our family. We struggled the day we flew out of Virginia, each of us in our own pain. I can’t say the love flowed overtly in those moments, but it was there as an undercurrent, not letting us off the hook of figuring out how to walk this road together – never giving up.

Love goes a long ways. The apostle Peter in his first letter to followers of Jesus in the first century says, “Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.”

(Just a note about the word sin. We commonly think it refers to our evil and wrong actions, but the word sin was actually shouted in archery when someone shot their arrow and it was going to entirely miss the target, kind of like shouting “fore” when you drive a golf ball. So I see sins here referring to falling short which we all do even when we’re at our best.)

So we come back to love. I don’t always have enough faith, and I can be a little short on hope, but in Paul’s treatise on love in First Corinthians he states, “And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.”