R.O.G.D. is not a clinical term. It’s a political one, designed to undermine the validity of these young people’s transitions.

The term originated a few years ago on three blogs with a history of promoting anti-trans propaganda. There has been only one study on it, in the journal PLOS One. But the study isn’t about the children in question; it’s about their parents, who were recruited for the study by ads placed in the conservative blogs that had invented the concept of R.O.G.D. in the first place.

A child’s transition can indeed seem heartbreaking for parents at first. I understand that because I am a parent who, in experiencing it, felt as if my heart was breaking. And we, trans people, need to understand that too. It was heartbreaking for my own mother, even though she told me love would prevail, and it was heartbreaking for me, in spite of — or because of — the fact that I am trans myself.

What was my problem, you ask? Above all, I did not want my child’s life to be hard, in the way that my own life has been hard.

But if you want your children’s life to be hard, the quickest way to that end is to tell them that their deepest sense of self is nothing but a fad, and that you know them better than they know themselves.

I’ve noticed something fascinating since my child came out, and it reflects the difference between generations over what being trans means. When I began to share my truth, almost 20 years ago, I spent a couple of years going around to people apologizing, begging for understanding, begging, at times, for forgiveness.

But my daughter’s generation is different. She has never apologized for who she is. Since she came out, her friends have reacted with joy and happiness for her, even — dare I say it? — indifference. Their sense is that being trans is just one more way of being human, and surely no source of shame.