Gareth Amaya Price refused to surrender his son, Simon, to an aggressive gender-affirming system, enduring hostility and even Simon’s hatred to protect him from irreversible harm. What outsiders labeled as “unaffirming” was Gareth’s line in the sand—one he knew he couldn’t cross. As he put it, “When your child says, ‘I’m really a girl inside,’ and you know it’s inconsistent with everything you know about him, you have to act.”

For years, that stance came at a cost. Simon now admits their relationship was “destroyed… decimated might be the right word,” and adults around him insisted, “Oh, he’s unaffirming, so that means he doesn’t really love you.” 

Gareth bore that weight anyway. “The hate of your child is a heavy burden to bear,” he told IW Features, “but sometimes you have to, because you’re doing it for the love of your child as he will be for years and decades to go forward.”

In the end, Simon came to understand what his father had protected him from. “I never went to the gender clinic because my dad never let me,” he said. “I hated him for it, but I’m very lucky he didn’t let me go.” Today, he recognizes that his father’s refusal is the reason he’s alive, healthy, and whole.

Watch part one in Simon and Gareth Amaya Price’s Identity Crisis story, “Breaking Free From the Transgender Contagion,” on IW Features.