Father of deceased trans-identifying son breaks down, recalls pressure to affirm boy's gender confusion
BURKE, Va. — Bill Mahoney wept as he remembered his late son, Sean, who became convinced he was the opposite sex and died in 2021 after obtaining a prescription for cross-sex hormones that exacerbated his cancer.
The father now advocates against so-called “gender-affirming care" and speaks about the battle he was forced to fight against medical professionals and his son’s university that pressured Mahoney to affirm his son's sudden gender dysphoria.
Mahoney was among the speakers at The Christian Post’s “Unmasking Gender Ideology” event held on Oct. 6. His story is also in the documentary “Dead Name,” which features the testimonies of parents whose children identified as trans.
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“I do not want another parent to go through what I went through,” the father said through tears.
Mahoney’s son battled cancer and suffered illnesses throughout most of his life. At age 2, doctors diagnosed Sean as having a rare form of cancer that resulted in the amputation of one of his legs. Before his death, Sean attended the Rochester Institute of Technology and had hoped to become a mechanical engineer.
Sean’s father knew his son had endured many challenges; however, Mahoney never expected Sean to announce during his freshman year that he identified as trans.
When Mahoney asked why he wanted to identify as female, Sean replied that he didn't like his body. The girls he was living with in an off-campus apartment drew pictures of him as a woman, and Mahoney realized his son’s roommates appeared to have influenced him. Mahoney later met with administrators at his son’s college, but they only pressured him to accept his son’s self-proclaimed gender identity.
“They had their whole Psychology Department,” Sean’s father told attendees at CP’s event. “They had six or seven people against me describing what you had to do and what good parents do.”
“The hospital was the same thing. They have a psychiatrist who does the consultation with the oncology patients, and they interviewed Sean and me for 20 minutes,” Mahoney recalled. “They talked to Sean for 20 minutes and then came back and concluded, yes, he's definitely transgender, and I'm an abusive, unsupportive parent.”
After conducting his own research, Mahoney found other patient groups that put him in touch with Dr. Michael Laidlaw. The endocrinologist provided Mahoney with questions to ask medical professionals, which helped prevent his son from being prescribed potentially fatal cross-sex hormones, but only for a time.
One of Mahoney’s concerns was that opposite-sex hormones could result in his cancer-stricken son’s death; the father was horrified that doctors found no ethical or medical reasons not to proceed with prescribing experimental drugs that could prove fatal to Sean.
Due to COVID-19 restrictions, Mahoney’s contact with his son was restricted, and in early 2021, a police officer arrived at the house. The officer informed him that his "daughter" had died.
“I thought he had the wrong house because I didn’t have a daughter, and I followed up further, and I realized they were talking about Sean,” Mahoney said. “I couldn't understand what happened. I called oncology; they were shocked. They said, ‘No, that couldn’t happen. There was nothing that was wrong.’”
After looking at his son’s medical results, Mahoney noticed that Sean experienced a significant weight gain before his death, going from 115 pounds to 126 pounds within a two-week period. At Sean's funeral, Mahoney said he didn’t recognize his son, leading him to suspect that unauthorized hormone treatments contributed to his death.
Mahoney also learned at the funeral that several relatives, including his late wife’s sister, had gone behind his back and urged Sean to identify as female. Those family members refused to participate in the funeral, and to this day, they still refuse to speak with Mahoney.
“It was like an episode of “The Twilight Zone,’” he said. “How could your own family?”
“Because none of them, they would never discuss,” the father continued. “It was always, ‘Well, this is just the way you're supposed to do it, and this is what our doctor says, and this is what the school says, and all these others. So they must be right. And you're an accountant. What do you know?’”
Another speaker at CP’s event, Dr. Susan Ashton-Lazaroae, provided a medical perspective on the risks of allowing gender-confused youth to take irreversible puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, or undergo body-mutilating surgeries. The North Virginia medical doctor declared there are “reams of” data to support the claim that the “medical affirmation pathway” is harmful, citing reports like the Cass Review.
The report, commissioned by the U.K.'s National Health Services in 2020, recommended "extreme caution" for prescribing cross-sex hormones to minors. According to the review, the quality of studies claiming puberty blockers are “beneficial” for children exhibiting gender dysphoria is “poor.”
Additionally, the report encouraged the NHS to adopt an entirely different service model when it comes to treating children with gender dysphoria. The model proposed in the report involves the creation of multiple designated specialist services designed to meet the "wider needs" of youth suffering confusion about their sex.
Based on the Cass Review and other studies, Ashton-Lazaroae asserted that the United States’ position on helping gender-confused children is out of date. The doctor also warned that many medical professionals are not providing parents with informed consent before initiating such procedures.
For example, medical professionals might tell parents that allowing their child to socially transition — referring to them by using the wrong pronouns, allowing them to dress like the opposite sex or use an opposite-sex restroom — is “harmless.” On the contrary, as Ashton-Lazaroae noted, permitting a child to socially transition “crystallizes” the opposite-sex identity in his or her mind.
She also criticized medical professionals who tell parents that puberty blockers are “reversible,” stating that the drugs can negatively impact bone health and cognitive development.
“And it's certainly not truthful to say that" blockers are reversible, she reiterated. "Puberty is, of course, a very complex biological process that propels our children into adulthood. It's not ethical, and it's not true, and it's not informed consent to try to tell parents that [puberty] is a disease.”
“It's not informed consent to tell parents that we can put your kids on cross-sex hormones and fulfill their dream of living as the opposite sex, knowing the long-term risks include cancer, hypertension, cardiac disease, type 2 diabetes, strokes, blood clots, and possibly sterility, especially if cross-sex hormones are preceded by puberty blockers.”
Samantha Kamman is a reporter for The Christian Post. She can be reached at: [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter: @Samantha_Kamman
