RE: The assault on children's minds
I completely agree with you @shawnamawna. I don't think people are trying to make anyone be transgender, but rather allowing them to be if they are. Which is totally valid. It is hard to understand something you have never experienced, and if a person is cis gender and has never in their life questioned their own gender, it must be hard to understand that someone else could ever feel differently. I know many transgender people who are absolutely incredible, they are kind, intelligent, generous, sane, balanced, excellent contributors to society, and have been through absolute hell in just trying to be able to be themselves. As far as Ria, I feel sorry for the pain and struggle they have gone through on their journey, but it is not fair to base claims on extreme cases when arguing an entire segment of society's mental stability. I agree, if there were more acceptance of a gender spectrum rather than just male or female, life would be easier on a lot of people. I'm not a parent so I don't tell people what to do with their kids, I just hope parents love their children and don't force them to be anything they are not, or try to prevent them from being who they are.
I don't have a problem with transgender adults and I am sure the people you talk about are very nice, as individuals. What bothers me is this deliberate attempt to impose transgender ideology on children, ever younger children. We're no longer talking about teenagers, but pre-schoolers. They don't understand sex, they don't care about sex, they don't need to be taught about sex. Of any kind.
And it is not just my opinion as a mother. There are lots of experts who say that referring young children to 'gender clinics' is an abuse. In 2014, in the US there were 24 gender clinics. Today, there are 215 pediatric residency programs training future pediatricians in a "transition-affirming protocol and treating gender-dysphoric children". The transition-affirming protocol tells parents to treat their children as the gender they desire, and to place them on puberty blockers around age 11 or 12 if they are gender dysphoric. Let us also keep in mind that what they now call gender dysphoria was until recently a gender disorder, included as such in the American Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.
With so many gender specialists we can only imagine how many children will be sent to these clinics and parents won't have any right to refuse. (See the Charlie Gard posts on my blog about parental rights).
One other thing, one generation ago ADHD was unheard of and now there are millions of kids and adults on mind-altering drugs. Why? Because there were drugs to be sold and doctors willing to prescribe them.
https://www.lifesitenews.com/opinion/pediatrician-transgender-ideology-has-created-widespread-child-abuse
Ah I just saw your comment here, @ladyrebecca. I think that potential overuse puberty blockers are troubling. My understanding is that kids have to be in therapy for several years preceding the use of those blockers showing consistent symptoms of being transgender.
What you are saying about transgender ideology--I think I understand. I haven't experienced it in my community, although this is a very liberal town and there is lots of space for different life and gender experiences. I love the tradition in other cultures of waiting for children to announce their own gender rather than assign them one based on anatomy. But since we aren't set up for that around here, I think it would be difficult to achieve. I guess I'm saying I don't think genitals equal gender, but I also don't think we need to tell kids they are or aren't one gender or another. We should let them tell us which we generally fail at because our cultural gender system is rigid.
It's such a tough call. The medical opinion as published by John's Hopkins is that transgender is a disease of the mind. This is confusing to me because most cultures recognize other genders going back as far as we can see. It imposes a rigid system on those who do not experience gender in binary. In fact, I disagree that, even if it's classified as a disease, it is something that needs to be corrected (make a kid with a penis think they are male, etc). But I also don't believe being queer is a disease or choice in any other aspect of queerness.
I don't know what choice I would make for my child. What a difficult situation to be in. But I can't imagine any parent making a medication-based decision lightly, let alone one in which a person is stopping a physical transition. I would be so afraid!
I love this conversation. It is so important to have dialogue on these issues to tease out our own clarities.
Ah I just saw your comment here, @ladyrebecca. I think that potential overuse puberty blockers are troubling. My understanding is that kids have to be in therapy for several years preceding the use of those blockers showing consistent symptoms of being transgender.
What you are saying about transgender ideology--I think I understand. I haven't experienced it in my community, although this is a very liberal town and there is lots of space for different life and gender experiences. I love the tradition in other cultures of waiting for children to announce their own gender rather than assign them one based on anatomy. But since we aren't set up for that around here, I think it would be difficult to achieve. I guess I'm saying I don't think genitals equal gender, but I also don't think we need to tell kids they are or aren't one gender or another. We should let them tell us which we generally fail at because our cultural gender system is rigid.
It's such a tough call. The medical opinion as published by John's Hopkins is that transgender is a disease of the mind. This is confusing to me because most cultures recognize other genders going back as far as we can see. It imposes a rigid system on those who do not experience gender in binary. In fact, I disagree that, even if it's classified as a disease, it is something that needs to be corrected (make a kid with a penis think they are male, etc). But I also don't believe being queer is a disease or choice in any other aspect of queerness.
I don't know what choice I would make for my child. What a difficult situation to be in. But I can't imagine any parent making a medication-based decision lightly, let alone one in which a person is stopping a physical transition. I would be so afraid!
I love this conversation. It is so important to have dialogue on these issues to tease out our own clarities.
I think it's hard to find the balance when we first start reacting. Personally, my childhood experience was gender fluid. I moved back and forth between feeling "male" and feeling "female" and I still do, although I identify as female. My parents did not allow for me to have any other experience. They told me it was religiously wrong. They believed, despite multiple cultures and examples to the contrary, that there are only two genders. I was told, "Boys are boys and girls are girls." I wish we could have looked beyond that binary. It caused me a lot of deep pain that turned into anxiety and self-loathing.
Knowing that makes me hope we can continue to make room for the kids that need to the room to discover how their gender is or isn't related to their bodies, as well as room for the cis kids who find pleasure in being part of the binary. In short, kids are beautiful. Let's meet them where they are and celebrate. <3