In March 2020, we were told school closures would last 15 days in order to slow the spread of COVID. Like most parents, we went along willingly. We believed we were protecting our children and we trusted that the disruption would be brief.

What none of us could have foreseen was how those “15 days” would stretch into years or how removing children from school, friendships, routines, and embodied daily life would quietly and profoundly affect their mental health and sense of selves.

[... ad for some documentary ...]

Before lockdowns, school gave my child more than academics. It provided structure, peer interaction, adult guidance, and a steady connection to everyday physical reality. When all of that vanished virtually overnight, my daughter, who was already anxious, neurodivergent, and often dysregulated, retreated deeply into the online world. Screens replaced classmates. Online communities replaced real friendships. Conversations about identity replaced ordinary, grounding experiences.

Lockdowns removed many protective factors all at once: school, extracurriculars, peer relationships, and exposure to a range of perspectives. For many children, distress that might once have been buffered by routine and social contact instead intensified in isolation. Online spaces offered certainty and belonging at a time when everything else felt unstable.

For my child, that certainty came in the form of gender identity narratives. Without regular access to real-world anchors, her distress deepened, and her focus on her body became consuming. What might have been a period of exploration instead became something more rigid and difficult to unwind.

[... they forced their child to hide their gender identity ...]

The pandemic is often discussed in broad, public health terms, but the consequences played out in individual homes and in our children’s inner lives.