You’re Beautiful Just the Way You Are

Before We Change a Child’s Identity, We Need to Heal Their Wounds

(An “Honest Conversations for a Culture Worth Saving” Essay)

At Rise & Rekindle, we believe courage and compassion have to share the same table. That means having the hard conversations — not to win arguments, but to light a way forward. This is one of those conversations.

I grew up in a house where being in your own body didn’t feel safe. My biological father suffered from bipolar disorder, and during manic episodes, he didn’t realize his own strength. At over 6'4" and 300-plus pounds, that meant a lot of accidental bruises, emotional scars, and constant fear — especially for a kid. My mom eventually got us out, but the man she remarried brought his own kind of damage: emotional, mental, and sexual abuse that shattered any sense of safety I had left.

By the time I was 12, I felt like I’d already lived a lifetime. I was done being a kid. I didn’t have the luxury of “finding myself” — I was just trying to survive myself.

So when I see this explosion of new identities — non-binary, genderfluid, demi-whatever — I have to wonder: are we really witnessing identity, or are we watching unprocessed pain dressed up in more acceptable terms? Is this self-expression, or self-escape?

Don’t get me wrong — I believe gender dysphoria is real. I believe some people genuinely feel misaligned with their bodies and take that seriously. But that’s not what this cultural moment feels like. It feels less like a private journey and more like a public trend, one where unresolved trauma is rebranded as self-discovery — and instead of helping kids unpack what’s really going on, we’re rushing to affirm whatever label they land on that week.

There was a time, not that long ago, when parents told their kids, “You’re beautiful just the way you are.” Then it was, “You can grow up to be anything you want.” And now? It can feel like the message has become, “You can be a cat if you feel like it.”

That shift isn’t just a joke — it’s a warning.

We were raised to believe we could do anything. Be anything. That courage mattered more than comfort. That the harder path was worth taking. And even when tragedy struck, we didn’t run from it — we watched, we learned, we grew stronger.

That was the message I absorbed from the world around me. That’s the message today’s kids are missing.

I say all this not out of judgment — but out of concern. I know what it feels like to want to disappear, to not recognize yourself, to crave control over something — anything — when life feels unbearable. I also know what it’s like when that craving for control is really just pain in disguise. By the time I was twelve, I didn’t want to explore my identity — I wanted to escape it. And I would’ve grabbed at anything that gave me even a sliver of belonging. That’s why I’m not angry at these kids. I’m just worried that instead of helping them heal, we’re handing them a mask and calling it progress.

It’s like giving them a broken mirror and calling it a window. It might help them avoid their reflection, but it won’t help them see clearly — or move forward. And when adults cheer them on instead of gently asking what’s really underneath the label, we’re not supporting them — we’re abandoning them to a deeper kind of confusion.

We want our kids to feel seen and loved. But love without boundaries isn’t love — it’s passivity. And blind affirmation isn’t support — it’s surrender. Sometimes the kindest thing we can do is look past the mask and say, “I love you too much to let you get lost in something that might not be the whole truth.”

That’s why this conversation matters to me. Because I look at these kids and I don’t see rebellion or identity politics — I see kids trying to survive something. I see pain. Confusion. Isolation. And I see a culture that’s offering them labels instead of healing.

I’m not the only one asking these questions.

In her book Irreversible Damage, journalist Abigail Shrier explores the dramatic rise of teenage girls identifying as trans and how it coincides with social media exposure, peer influence, and unresolved mental health issues. She argues that for many of these girls, transitioning may become a way to cope with unresolved trauma, rather than a reflection of true gender identity.

You don’t have to agree with everything in her book to see the pattern she’s pointing to. When a generation of kids is in visible distress, and the only socially acceptable response is blind affirmation, we should be asking why.

When a child comes forward saying they feel “different,” our first response used to be, “Let’s talk. What’s going on?” Now it’s, “Let’s change your name, your pronouns, maybe even your body.” There’s no pause. No curiosity. Just affirmation on autopilot.

But identity should never be a shortcut around pain — it should be a path through it. A path walked with support, reflection, and truth — not hashtags and hormone clinics.

I didn’t realize how much of my trauma I was still carrying until I hit a wall at 38.

On the outside: stable marriage, great kids, a decent job. But inside? I felt fractured — like I was just going through the motions of adulthood without ever really feeling whole.

That’s when I finally allowed myself to unravel — and underneath it all, I found grief I hadn’t even acknowledged. The kind you bury so deep, you convince yourself it’s gone. But it’s never gone.

I picked up a book around that time — The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk — and it was like someone finally turned on the light in a room I didn’t even know I’d been living in. Trauma doesn’t just disappear. It lives in your body. It shapes how you respond to stress, to love, to identity.

That period of my life cracked me wide open. I was staring down 40, looking at a life that checked all the boxes — but still didn’t feel like mine. I was a good mom, a loving wife, a steady worker. But I had dreams I hadn’t touched. Thoughts I’d never said out loud. And relationships with my kids that, deep down, I knew weren’t where I wanted them to be.

That’s what led me here. Writing, for me, isn’t about going viral or trying to change the world overnight. It’s about leaving something real behind. Something my kids might read someday and say, “Okay, now I get her. Even when I didn’t agree — I get her.”

And if this generation needs anything, it’s parents who are brave enough to be misunderstood in the short term to build trust in the long run.

We’ve stopped asking the deeper questions. We don’t say, “What happened to you?” anymore — we just say, “Who do you want to be?”

We’re afraid to challenge anything that sounds like self-expression, even if that expression is clearly a reaction to something painful or unresolved. And that’s not love. That’s not growth. That’s just putting new labels on old wounds.

And this isn’t just something I’ve noticed anecdotally — it’s starting to show up in the data.

A recent UK study on youth gender transitions found that many teens are identifying as trans not due to lifelong gender dysphoria, but because of peer pressure, social contagion, and unresolved trauma. The UK’s National Health Service has now begun shifting away from the affirmation-only model because of cases just like this.

Several detransitioners — teenagers who underwent permanent medical changes and later regretted them — are finally speaking out. “We’ve been vindicated,” one said in a recent New York Post article. Their pain isn’t hypothetical. It’s real. And it’s proof that asking hard questions before permanent changes isn’t cruelty — it’s compassion.

Take Mel Jefferies, for example. She spent more than a decade identifying as “Mason,” only to realize that transitioning wasn’t who she was—it was a way to escape trauma. She says, “I spent a decade going down the wrong path… I didn’t necessarily want to be a man, I just wanted to escape the reality of who I was.”

Stories like Mel’s show the danger of moving too fast — but there are also stories that show what happens when the decision comes after years of healing and reflection.

Take Shaye Scott, for example. She transitioned later in life — after raising a family, leaving a strict religious environment, and doing the emotional work necessary to understand herself. Her transition wasn’t about avoidance — it was about authenticity. Today, she and her wife are planning a vow renewal that represents their deeper connection and alignment.

These contrasting stories — one marked by regret, the other by resolution — highlight what’s at stake when we rush life-altering decisions without giving healing a chance to do its work.

These examples aren’t about shaming anyone — they’re about showing what’s possible when we put healing before decisions, especially for our kids.

Most parents aren’t trying to get it wrong. I believe that. They love their kids. But they’re being fed a narrative that says if they don’t affirm, they’re dangerous. If they don’t agree, they’re bigots.

And that is simply not true.

Take it from me — it took me until my 40s to find my voice. To stop hiding behind the survival skills I developed as a child. To stop keeping the peace at the expense of my own truth.

I don’t want that for my kids. I don’t want that for anyone’s kids. Because the longer we let pain wear the mask of identity, the harder it becomes to peel it off. And while adults have decades to wrestle with that mask, children don’t. That’s why the timing matters as much as the choice itself. Not every child will make it through that confusion unscarred.

So if this piece makes you squirm — good. Let it. Because squirming usually means something real is being touched.

Let it sink in that maybe, just maybe, we’re confusing love with fear. That in trying so hard not to hurt our kids, we’re handing them something far more dangerous: a lifetime of pretending they’re okay, when what they really need is someone to say, “I see you. I’m not afraid of your pain. And I’m not going anywhere.”

That’s what I wish someone had said to me when I was twelve, trying to survive in a world that didn’t feel safe.

And maybe it’s time we said it again.

Not as a catchphrase.
Not as a compromise.
But as a promise:
You’re beautiful just the way you are.
Right here. Right now. As you are.