i think a #1 priority if you are a so called "rogd mom" who is open to reflecting on and changing some of the ways you interact with your daughter(s) is to examine the way you or members of your family speak about weight and dieting. 1/

if a twitter poll is anything to go off of, there is a large proportion of detrans women who have struggled with eating disorders. apart from this poll, we also have anecdotal evidence from detrans women's posts on a variety of different platforms, 2/ https://twitter.com/lacroicsz/status/1212520272508706817?s=20

that weight related body image issues are extremely correlated with adolescent GD. there is also a very prevalent ftm/female nonbinary presence in the "pro-ana" communities online, this i know from personal experience from when i was trans identified and struggling with ED. 3/

now, anyone who knows anything about eating disorders knows that they are not simply caused by beauty standards or societal attitudes, they typically serve a unique emotional/psychological purpose to the individual who is engaging in those behaviors, BUT, if attitudes that 4/

induce body/eating shame in a child or adolescent are common, especially if they are coming from a mother or admired adult female, that young girl has a high risk of being overwhelmed by that shame to the point of developing disordered eating habits or urges. 5/

my own personal story is that my mom runs a weight loss clinic, and negative, shame inducing weight/dieting discussion was a constant throughout my childhood. growing up, my biggest fear was growing up to become obese, and from a very young age i became extremely body-obsessed 6/

and was constantly and compulsively "checking" my body in mirrors, windows, or just pinching/looking at myself, and i developed such an intense fixation on this that i would be kept up at night, sweating and heart pounding, thinking about how i had to lose weight. 7/

it became such an issue by the time i turned 14, that i was very aggressively self injuring and restricting/purging on a daily basis. obsessive weight and body thinking took up the vast percentage of my available mind space, and i felt very suicidal due to the incessant 8/

and agonizing nature of this experience. when i found the idea of gender dysphoria, i related to it for multiple reasons but a big part was the idea that i hated my body (specifically the "fattier" parts that are normally fleshier in women like thighs and butt) because i was 9/

born in the wrong one, not because of any of these deeper more complex reasons that actually led to my ED. the body shame and extreme obsessive thinking, as well as food compulsions that interfered with my daily life, laid the foundation for my development of GD & subsequent 10/

obsessive, compulsive thinking style about my sex and gender. its not my moms *fault* that i developed an eating disorder (or maybe it is, im honestly not sure), but i absolutely would have been saved a lot of pain, illness, and medical harm if she would have understood how 11/

her attitudes towards weight and dieting impacted me as a child and adolescent. my mom is a bit of a special case due to the overt focus on weight in her career and daily life (but to be honest i HAVE seen at least one "rogd mom" who has the same career and i despair) 12/

but even in families where the weight/diet talk is more passive, it can still have a large impact, especially if your daughter is highly perceptive and sensitive.

i know many mothers who have a weight obsession, which ends up influencing their daughters, are that way because 13/

they are struggling with an ED, or ED-type thoughts themselves, and i dont expect a woman who is dealing with this to change over night, but i would like you to consider my perspective as a motivation to heal your own relation to food and body image. 14/

if you are a mother who is weight obsessed, or work in the weight loss/beauty industries, and you are spending all your time freaking out about the trans cult and bathroom laws on twitter, i implore you to reconsider. the path you travel is not a productive one. 15/15

lastly, just because you dont KNOW your daughter struggles with weight or disordered eating, doesnt mean she doesnt. dont invasively try to find out, she will tell you when shes ready if that is the case. i have had an ED for 8 years, been hospitalized, & my parents dont know.