ROGD Boys Exist! with Lydia | Episode 200

Many families face distinct challenges rooted in the intersection of social expectations, emotional needs, and emerging gender identity beliefs. Boys, unlike their female counterparts, often struggle with expressing vulnerability or gentleness, leading some to seek alternative paths to connection, such as through gender identity beliefs. For many deeply sensitive boys, adopting a female identity offers them access to intimacy and belonging, particularly within female friend groups, where tenderness and acceptance are more easily found.

In this episode, Lydia reflects on her family’s experiences around her son’s ROGD and how her own upbringing in a high-control religious environment shaped her understanding of the complex control tactics at play. She shares insights into the profile of boys drawn to gender identity beliefs, often marked by intelligence, black-and-white thinking, and an affinity for structured systems. Lydia emphasizes the dissonance between scientific reasoning and oversimplified views of gender transformation, revealing how cultural narratives amplify this confusion. She also highlights the nuanced complexities of sexuality and identity, and cautions against reducing AGP to a simplistic conclusion, framing it instead as a complex experience rooted in integration and shame. Finally, she stresses the importance of recognizing the diversity of families affected by gender dysphoria and challenges the misconception that parenting style alone dictates a child’s experiences and outcomes.

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[threeraven]

This whole suicide scare is like, " oh yeah thanks for reminding me, I hadn't thought of that option". Telling kids it's either transition or suicide is child abuse.😡

[AndyJarman]

I hadn't realised how important Sasha and Stella had become as touchstones into this nightmare world. So sad these conversations are coming to an end.

[amyc]

I know these interviews are coming to an end, but I am profoundly grateful that this conversation was posted. Thank you, Sasha, Stella, and Lydia. I have not known where exactly to turn, but there is so much that resonated for me listening to Lydia's experience. Then I just went and read the boy profile from her website, and I can't stop crying. It 100% fits my son...except he is now a 30 year old man who just came out last year after a series of literally debilitating  losses (including his health) that took away his autonomy and forced him to move back home with his dad and I. It was a very traumatic setback after struggling his whole life with being different and trying to fit in. My heart is broken, and it feels so isolating for us all.

[patavinity]

She keeps emphasizing how intelligent her son is but... he took an online survey that told him he's female and he simply believed it? I was certainly far more skeptical at that age. She's confident he's not autistic but there's something wrong if he's that easily swayed.

[ytehrani]

An amazingly truthful mother. To have to say how her son is now not only a victim, but also a threat to girls, must be a frightening thing to come to terms with.

[erinbeckley]

I'm female and discovered I'm straight even though I thought I was bisexual. I've realized through my life experience that men are highly emotional and sensitive in a way that we are programmed to believe they are not.

[yme-vt]

I spent 5 years trying to figure out how I ended up as one of the ones that made a mistake and this lady has all the answers already.

[paulajames]

Good conversation. We did not allow my son to have social media until 17 yrs and he immediately bought into the ideology and he is now taking estrogen. I even talked to him about trans issues for 2 years prior. He was educated and still the contagion affected him.

[catherinerobilliard]

I was for a moment there in that locked bedroom, both fearing, and fearing for, a beloved son that had suddenly turned into a stranger.

[TheAuthenticityProject]

I've dealt with this stuff my entire life. I'm a 36 year old man now, but as a child I was very sensitive, emotionally, passive, gentle, kind and always good at school. I had a natural tendency towards imagination that I believe got increased because of my alcoholic, dysfunctional family. I preferred girls energy and temperament bc they were soft, kinder, less competitive and sure of themselves and got to talk instead of striking out in baseball at recess everyday.

The only 2 men I really knew grewing up were my father (who was an alcoholic war veteran w a huge temper, no patience and an absolute certainty he was right about everything - I feel this word is overused now, but he's a narcissist) and then GOD. God was a might man in the sky who created everything and judged you for EVERYTHING. Then there was the social depiction of men that was painted for me. The world Class athlete who was tough, strong, athletic and a leader. Then there's the suit that's clean cut, hyper intelligent, makes money and never struggles with women. And of course the men in my town, who were blue collar, worked rly hard for the town or driving oil trucks and drank budweiser and screamed at the TV every night about the state of the nation. They loved football, fishing, drinking and "being a man."

I felt that I was never going to be any of those characters and could NOT see how it would be possible for me to grow up like that. My mother was kind but also very dysfunctional. She was uncertain of everything, extremely obsessive compulsive, anxious, worried, a hoarder and alcoholic. Altho I didn't aspire to be her, I certainly felt far more comfortable with her around and always waited for my dad to leave so I could be alone w her bc then I felt like I could be myself and talk.

I repressed myself and true character my entire life. I grew my muscles as big as I could, dated as many women as I could, wrestled, fought, lifted weights, and acted like an ass when I was drunk.

Imagining myself as a woman very young allowed me to be my mom or the girls at school who didn't have all these terrible blueprints placed on them. It allowed me to be in touch with the feminine parts of me, as well as the terribly perceived "weak" parts of myself.

I already had tremendous identity issues from being adopted and so this "girl" version of me felt like another identity inside. It scared me that this could possibly be the "real" me... Which by the way, in some ways was true, but not for the reasons the trans community speaks.

They talk as if what's actually happening is I am a woman trapped inside my male biology. What I believe is happening is this identity is where all my innate qualities can exist without judgments of lack of masculinity, being gay, beta, sissy or not man enough. I grew up with a subconscious feeling that I was never going to be a "real" man.

If I was growing up today in the same circumstances, I would be like this woman's and so many others sons who have been taken by this ideology. It's so hard to feel like you don't have a solution to a life ending issue when you're young. Fantasy and imagination were the only escapes I had that I could use anytime, anywhere. It allowed me to avoid masculinity and the lack thereof.

Being grown today and having gone thru way too much in my life I realize, I just needed the world to let me know there wasn't a damn thing off or wrong about me. I believe I didn't get my first look at men who were teachers, counselors, mediators, spiritual seekers, gentlemen, intellectuals, professional nerds and entertainers until way later in my 20s and by then this story inside me had already developed and been reinforced too strongly.

The internet, social media, Redditt, modern medicines, pharma, therapists and the overarching trans story is what's taking these people's kids away.

This woman described autogynephila and the rest of her story in the perfect way. She's the closest one I've ever heard describe and articulate the complexity of this issue and the little boys it affects. She knows that it develops thru a lot of different scenarios and isn't just simply "because." Both trans and autogynephila or auto- heterosexuality are lazy and it's scary that these certainties dominate the narrative. The idea that a woman is trapped in my male body discreddits the entire development of a child, as well as the idea that my sexuality is simply inverted and there's nothing more to see here. Both theories are definitely on to something, but they fall off the cliff with a little bit of critical thinking, introspection, research and finding the common denominators between the kids this affects.

I'm sorry this is destroying so many of us and our ideas of ourselves. Today I dont try to "be a man" anymore simply because I just am one. Everyday I try and be more honest and vulnerable about who and what I am. I love philosophy, psychology, stand up comedy, stroytelling and many other things that I did not know were possible to pursue when I was young. I'm doing the best I can to help those struggling w this and take it all one day at a time.

I will most likely always have this sexual complexity, but it does not need to ruin me and my loved ones. Some days I can even have a laugh about it, which let's me know I've come a long way.

Good luck to all of you dealing w this. I promise if u can continue to love urself as best as possible and surround urself with ppl that love u for who you are, you've got a chance to have a good life.

[jm]

"Persecution is how you know you are right" - how utterly scary...

[ankavoskuilen]

I think getting into puberty is much more scary than when I grew up more than 55 years ago, and even then it was no picknick.
Everything is so sexualized nowadays, revealing clothes, behaviours, much more gender stereotyping etc. And don't forget that a lot of kids see from an early age s-explicit material, which didn't used to be the case. They think: I have to be and act like that? Please,

[MJ-bnhz]

Lydia brought so much insight into not only ROGD boys but a generation or two of so many “lost” kids

Social contagion
Peer influence which even kids with watchful parents cannot avoid
Role of trauma including SA
A teenagers ability to lie and manipulate with ease with little understanding of the damage they are inflicting on others including their parents
The role of shame - an incredibly powerful emotion

It is so important that professionals start to thoroughly understand the teenage/ young adult brain and the need to protect them from undue influence - including from other peers (social contagion)

[tomgreene]

If a child wanted all their teeth out what would a parent do ?

[tonyhoffman]

There are so many more boys who experience this but are never documented because they seek out hormones outside of the medical and therapeutic field

[karakara-zxur]

What a sad story. Thank u for sharing your personal story. Clearly this lovely guest is a very intelligent, loving mother which demonstrates this can happen to anyone's child.

[squeakel]

Great discussion. I do think it's important to note how under diagnosed autism is for kids who are on the higher functioning end of the spectrum. My daughter is very clearly on the spectrum but, because she does well in school and makes friends, etc., it was very hard to get a diagnosis. A highly intelligent child with very rigid, black-and-white thinking screams autism to me. MOST of the "ROGD" boys I know fall into this category and only half of them have an official diagnosis (that I'm aware of.) It's not uncommon for adults in their 20s-30s and beyond to get a diagnosis for autism that was previously overlooked.

[KHouse]

Thank you or this post!! I think it's exceptionally interesting and important. Lydia is a real truth seeking badass and her vulnerability in sharing her own story is truly commendable.

[steviegwhizz]

I've battled with this since around age 7, over 45 years. I think I would fit in to the gifted / sensitive bracket but always tried to hide it. It seems it is easier for girls to express masculine traits in society, as in "tomboys", than it is for boys to express feminine traits and there never was an opposite to tomboys back in the 1970s. I have recently found "femboys" as a developing trend and that seems to be more of an opposite of tomboy and seems to fit ok.
I think there have and will always be masculine girls and feminine boys, "tomboys" and "femboys".
What annoys me is the medicalisation and politicisation of a vulnerable group of people and this whole thing being used as a political and social tool of manipulation to limit free speech and divide people.
Great talk, many thanks.

[Toastie]

Thank you for talking about young men/boys like this. So many people will automatically assume that any boy doing this must always have AGP and that alone. It’s a more complex issue than that.