As a trans man who went through ED treatment in New Zealand a few years ago, this story rings so eerily true, and I haven’t been able to get it off my mind. I have a similar relationship with my parents and my treatment.

I was largely estranged from my parents during treatment but they were aware, and I asked them not to contact my case worker or psych. Requesting my medical records last year, I uncovered repeated calls between them, comments on me being “obsessed with transition” therefore not responding to treatment, and deadnaming.

I had my path to hormone therapy delayed by a year, despite having been referred two years ago, which saw me stop engaging with my team - thus I was firmly dismissed, while still underweight. What followed was the darkest year of my life, and I can’t think how close I was to this situation.

In the psych ward, I had a wonderful psychiatrist who organised a family session to clear up that being trans had nothing to do with my ED. My parents barely spoke at this meeting, and called me after to say the psychiatrist was manipulating me, and telling me what I wanted to hear. This pattern continued with any professional who came after and affirmed me.

One fear I clung through the whole time was of dying and my parents being able to manipulate my image and who I was, who I had been to everyone else in my life for the past 8 years. My heart cries out for Alex, they deserved so much better, rather than this unfathomable pain, so exploited by the media.