The other day I made the mistake of reading the social media comments section on a news article about parents suing a school for socially transitioning their daughter without their knowledge.
Children ARE "the property" of their parents in the legal sense that we are empowered to make decisions on their behalf until they are legal adults.
This is just normal, ordinary common sense practiced throughout the entire world. I was raised by an anthropology professor, and I have never in my life heard of a society in which children did not have to obey their parents.
Do kids get mad about it? Of course! We all did. Do they still have to suck it up and accept it? OF COURSE. That's how humans are civilized out of the extreme narcissism with which we are all born.
Thank you for this article. It continues to amaze me how our global societies have been hacked into thinking anyone can simply change their sex because they want to look the part or because they simply declare it. I came across a strategy called The Overton Window. I believe this is how it got us (https://sketchplanations.com/the-overton-window). We need to crash this window and move to the other side. We must continue sharing and spreading the words of wisdom and reality.
The supreme irony of a gender-affirmation proponent lamenting MY inability to accept my son as he is, when most days I feel like the ONLY person in the world who was (and still is and always will be) willing to accept him AS. HE. IS. Without modification. Without a lifetime of mind-and-body-altering, health-destroying, bank-breaking cross-sex hormones and terrifying irreversible surgeries. Without resort to a fantasy persona he invented and everyone else is expected to play along with. Without selective outdated gender stereotypes usurping biological sex in the sudden reversal and complete reinvention of his so-called identity. You've never even met my son. Spare me your tears.
“In reality, gender dysphoria used to be a very rare condition where the tried-and-true treatment was to simply allow children go through puberty and, once they reached maturity, the vast majority would no longer experience extreme discomfort with their sex. Many of these children grow up to simply be gay/lesbian/bi.”
Rupert Everett said once that he wanted to be a girl until he was around fifteen. Fifteen-ish years later, he was one of the most prominent openly gay actors in the world.
“There must be a good reason why the child hid that information from the parents (i.e. they must be "bad" or abusive parents).”
One of my cousins didn’t come out as gay to his parents until he was in his late twenties and in a serious relationship. His parents are the nicest people, and he wouldn’t tell you anything different. Sexuality and gender stuff can just be *awkward* to tell parents, even in the best of circumstances - especially, I think, if people haven’t seen their parents interact with LGBT people very much.
It ASTOUNDS me how many minions the trans community has posting pro-trans and anti-parent comments online all over the world. Am I a conspiracy theorist to wonder if there are people posting from places like China to try to make America weaker by encouraging the mutilation of our children?
Clearly, calmly, and gently written. I'm impressed by your restraint.
This is one I will send to people who usually won't read anything other than the point of view of bio-phobes (people who have an irrational fear of nature, including of their own biological sex.)
I continue to be dismayed and disheartened at ALL of the people who are thrilled to throw the reality of the body out the window in favor of how one feels about their gender.
I was working in community mental health when the change first hit during the Obama Administration and it hit with full force. We were issued edicts from the State (Washington) Mental Health Division about what we could and could not do regarding gender issues, could and could not say to anyone including clients and that we were to affirm and not question gender - at all. The APA and AMA seemed to have jumped on board instantly as well. It was baffling as to how a radical change like that was possible so quickly.
Nothing happens fast in the bureaucracy. At the time I was a supervisor and also a psychiatric crisis outreach worker. We dealt with suicidality day in and day out; investigating suicide threats and acts were our bread and butter. Of note was that the emotionally charged push to fully affirm someone's stated gender was always supported with "would you rather have a dead daughter or a living son" (change the sex accordingly) with the inference meaning that kids were poised to kill themselves if they were not embraced and supported as the gender they claimed. Which none of us in the emergency psychiatric outreach field had EVER encountered in our investigations - and in none of our state-wide conferences was the risk of misgendering or gender dysphoria as a risk factor even brought up. EVER.
Plus the subject of gender despondency or confusion never came up when a respondent was asked about why they felt like dying. EVER. It was not a thing. So... I knew that threat was a spurious ruse that sadly seems to have been stamped permanently on many people's psyches. So, here we are.
We're now at risk if we dare to use the word "mother" in the wrong company; we're left to shrink away when someone mentions "chest feeding" or we feel pressured to agree when told that men can have babies and we run the risk of being attacked if we question men being allowed to compete in women's sports, sleep alongside women in crisis beds and jails and break their jaws when boxing.
In the meantime the, yes liberal (lifelong Democrat here), media talks about a "person's" rights to an abortion as if men have them too. I've heard people argue that men can and do menstruate - and any expression of concern about removing the breasts of young girls is almost a hate crime. I don't know what "radical right" laws proposed prohibiting medicalization of gender on teens involve - but it would be nice if some news outlet would explore exactly what concerns some people and why... But that's not going to happen.
This is the craziest era and most taboo subject imaginable. I had figured this too shall pass; but I do not know when or what will be left in its wake other than a lot of iatrogenic trauma inflicted on people who just didn't know how to ask the right questions about their future health as a result of the medical "affirmation" they are so graciously offered. How can this be?
Unfortunately, I gave up reading your comment because that wall of text literally hurt my eyes to read.
Next time, would you please double-hit the return key every couple of sentences, to make separate paragraphs? I'd like to be able to read your comments.
I can relate to much of this, and continue to try and wrap my mind around how unhinged and disconnected from reality our culture (and governments) have become, in a relatively short period of time. The comments shared in this article by the author are an accurate reflection of the lunacy we see just about every time we look at various social media.
The piece below is something you might find interesting:
How Caring People Become Cheerleaders for Hurting Children
If you saw the IOC media guidelines, you see the assault on language. - One of the issues is with the "charity" Mermaids in the UK, one woman who was part of it castrated her gay son - probably to "trans the gay away" and so the "charity went full into the affirmation mode, so her misery can have company.
"Gender Identity Disorders in infancy, childhood and adolescence are complex and have varied causes: In the majority of cases, the eventual outcome will be homosexuality or bisexuality, but often there will be a heterosexual outcome as some gender issues can be caused by a bereavement, a dysfunctional family life, or (rarely) by abuse. Only a small proportion of cases will result in a transexual outcome.
Excellent points. I also appreciate that your are a liberal family, and state your absence of religion. Those two things right there are of the most importance when discussing with the left. As believers and leaning right we are the ones that are yelled and screamed at the majority of time because our "religion" and political beliefs are "anti trans". As a parent of an adult child that transitioned, this cannot be farther from the truth. The first and foremost concern of ours is our child, grown or not, has a healthy, fulfilling life. While they may think they are by transitioning to something they are not, mentally trapped into this brainwashed belief, the opposite is true. In my case, my adult child turned into something he never was, angry, mean and nothing like the young man he was growing up or was as a young adult. It's sad, it's devastating, heartbreaking, everything horrible imaginable. It IS killing the family as we all know it. It has to stop.
Thank you for your great thoughts. I agree with everything you said.
Some said that they would pull their child out of the school." On the one hand, I agree with the author that we need to prepare our kids to “make wise decisions with bad information”. On the other, I am afraid that often the immature mind of even a highly intelligent kid/teen is no match to constant bombarding by bad information and emotional manipulation that happens at school. If my kid is healthy, she can be in a school or another crowded place, and even if she gets a cold, she will probably just build up her immunity in the long run. However, if my kid is immunocompromised by a serious disease, I should try to keep her away from such places. Sometimes I feel like our kids who fall for gender ideology are “immunocompromised” and need extra protection from the mind viruses. I am really not sure what the right strategyis and would love to hear what others think.
“often the immature mind of even a highly intelligent kid/teen is no match to constant bombarding by bad information and emotional manipulation that happens at school.”
Comments sections on this topic in pop social media range from superficially uninformed to brutally ignorant. These low-octane thinkers fancy themselves “straight shooters.”
Your sample responses are a good way to teach not only better information, but also more productive ways of discussion. Though you are unlikely to persuade these rash individuals right away, you will plant a seed and edify other comment readers.
Very powerful rebuttal. These folks have foolishly bought into the idea that the "child should lead" and seem to have forgotten that the child is cognitivly and emotionally unable to lead.
I don't know if it's the "child should lead" as much as "the child knows how he/she feels". Everything is about feelings these days! Everyone is claiming Trauma and PTSD from perceived wrongs against them. It ALL leads back to pop psychology that is running rampant on the internet and social media. I have never witnessed more "oppressed/marginalized" people in my life!
I was part of gay community in the 90s and knew a couple people who transitioned. It was increasing even then but among older butch lesbians. In 2016, I decided to look into why Trump was such a hero the rural working class. In my dabbling in right wing political info online I ran into the trans issue. It was clear to me being "trans" was being unnaturally glorified in main stream media but I didn't even look into the dustup about bathrooms in high schools. That seemed so ludicrious to me that I didn't believe it possible that teenagers would be transitioning. Now it is clear that unscrupulous actors are promoting thus for children using the language of gay rights movement. I like to remind folks "trans" is a verb not a noun. Transition is an action taken. It is incorrectly being promoted as a noun- something you inherently are.
Exactly right. You might be interested in this piece, part of an excellent 4 part series on Carol Dansereau's Substack. It nails how the Trans agenda hitchhiked onto the struggles of LGB, and how they continue to do so, deliberately misleading many people.
Carol's series is extremely useful in understanding how this harmful, divisive, and childhood-wrecking ideology has gained the traction it has.
I hope every parent on here will get a chance to take a look at each part of this series. The link to the first piece, and the table of contents is here:
The bathroom thing is insane. Despite trans activists insisting it never happens, there are multiple reports of rapes, and we all know that rapes are under-reported as a category of crime.
I don't know about rapes, but there are plenty of photos of creepy men dressed like women taking selfies from the women's bathroom. I don't shop a lot but when I do, there are always men in the dressing rooms......not because they are "trans", but because these are fathers/husbands standing guard of their wives and daughters because of creepy trans identified men that are sometimes in there. I live in a very ethnically diverse area with many Muslim, Asian, Indian people that don't allow other men to see women's bodies or hair. It's quite uncomfortable for women...but I understand "why" these fathers/husbands do it.
There's a .pdf at the Utah state legislature that lists a bunch of them (from when they passed the bathroom bill, that I can pull up on my phone but not getting a link to it on the computer. The argument is that they pose no danger, but that's plainly not the truth.
I believe you.....I just don't go looking for the news stories....or they hide the news stories? I live in MD and the Loudon Co, VA issue only got a little traction here because it involved the School Board and Superintendent lying about it. The only way I knew about Sage's story is from this stack....I saw the pictures looking for her everywhere (I live near the school she was placed in), but she was just a "missing person". I see enough creepy where I live without having to go searching for it online in other states.
Frequently the news ignores the stories or pretends it's females raping females. The UK has made victims say "her penis" under oath at trial in rape cases.
Children ARE "the property" of their parents in the legal sense that we are empowered to make decisions on their behalf until they are legal adults.
This is just normal, ordinary common sense practiced throughout the entire world. I was raised by an anthropology professor, and I have never in my life heard of a society in which children did not have to obey their parents.
Do kids get mad about it? Of course! We all did. Do they still have to suck it up and accept it? OF COURSE. That's how humans are civilized out of the extreme narcissism with which we are all born.
Thank you for this article. It continues to amaze me how our global societies have been hacked into thinking anyone can simply change their sex because they want to look the part or because they simply declare it. I came across a strategy called The Overton Window. I believe this is how it got us (https://sketchplanations.com/the-overton-window). We need to crash this window and move to the other side. We must continue sharing and spreading the words of wisdom and reality.
The supreme irony of a gender-affirmation proponent lamenting MY inability to accept my son as he is, when most days I feel like the ONLY person in the world who was (and still is and always will be) willing to accept him AS. HE. IS. Without modification. Without a lifetime of mind-and-body-altering, health-destroying, bank-breaking cross-sex hormones and terrifying irreversible surgeries. Without resort to a fantasy persona he invented and everyone else is expected to play along with. Without selective outdated gender stereotypes usurping biological sex in the sudden reversal and complete reinvention of his so-called identity. You've never even met my son. Spare me your tears.
“In reality, gender dysphoria used to be a very rare condition where the tried-and-true treatment was to simply allow children go through puberty and, once they reached maturity, the vast majority would no longer experience extreme discomfort with their sex. Many of these children grow up to simply be gay/lesbian/bi.”
Rupert Everett said once that he wanted to be a girl until he was around fifteen. Fifteen-ish years later, he was one of the most prominent openly gay actors in the world.
“There must be a good reason why the child hid that information from the parents (i.e. they must be "bad" or abusive parents).”
One of my cousins didn’t come out as gay to his parents until he was in his late twenties and in a serious relationship. His parents are the nicest people, and he wouldn’t tell you anything different. Sexuality and gender stuff can just be *awkward* to tell parents, even in the best of circumstances - especially, I think, if people haven’t seen their parents interact with LGBT people very much.
It ASTOUNDS me how many minions the trans community has posting pro-trans and anti-parent comments online all over the world. Am I a conspiracy theorist to wonder if there are people posting from places like China to try to make America weaker by encouraging the mutilation of our children?
Clearly, calmly, and gently written. I'm impressed by your restraint.
This is one I will send to people who usually won't read anything other than the point of view of bio-phobes (people who have an irrational fear of nature, including of their own biological sex.)
Thank you!
I continue to be dismayed and disheartened at ALL of the people who are thrilled to throw the reality of the body out the window in favor of how one feels about their gender.
I was working in community mental health when the change first hit during the Obama Administration and it hit with full force. We were issued edicts from the State (Washington) Mental Health Division about what we could and could not do regarding gender issues, could and could not say to anyone including clients and that we were to affirm and not question gender - at all. The APA and AMA seemed to have jumped on board instantly as well. It was baffling as to how a radical change like that was possible so quickly.
Nothing happens fast in the bureaucracy. At the time I was a supervisor and also a psychiatric crisis outreach worker. We dealt with suicidality day in and day out; investigating suicide threats and acts were our bread and butter. Of note was that the emotionally charged push to fully affirm someone's stated gender was always supported with "would you rather have a dead daughter or a living son" (change the sex accordingly) with the inference meaning that kids were poised to kill themselves if they were not embraced and supported as the gender they claimed. Which none of us in the emergency psychiatric outreach field had EVER encountered in our investigations - and in none of our state-wide conferences was the risk of misgendering or gender dysphoria as a risk factor even brought up. EVER.
Plus the subject of gender despondency or confusion never came up when a respondent was asked about why they felt like dying. EVER. It was not a thing. So... I knew that threat was a spurious ruse that sadly seems to have been stamped permanently on many people's psyches. So, here we are.
We're now at risk if we dare to use the word "mother" in the wrong company; we're left to shrink away when someone mentions "chest feeding" or we feel pressured to agree when told that men can have babies and we run the risk of being attacked if we question men being allowed to compete in women's sports, sleep alongside women in crisis beds and jails and break their jaws when boxing.
In the meantime the, yes liberal (lifelong Democrat here), media talks about a "person's" rights to an abortion as if men have them too. I've heard people argue that men can and do menstruate - and any expression of concern about removing the breasts of young girls is almost a hate crime. I don't know what "radical right" laws proposed prohibiting medicalization of gender on teens involve - but it would be nice if some news outlet would explore exactly what concerns some people and why... But that's not going to happen.
This is the craziest era and most taboo subject imaginable. I had figured this too shall pass; but I do not know when or what will be left in its wake other than a lot of iatrogenic trauma inflicted on people who just didn't know how to ask the right questions about their future health as a result of the medical "affirmation" they are so graciously offered. How can this be?
Unfortunately, I gave up reading your comment because that wall of text literally hurt my eyes to read.
Next time, would you please double-hit the return key every couple of sentences, to make separate paragraphs? I'd like to be able to read your comments.
Thank you for your amazing comment from the trenches, Sandarah.
I can relate to much of this, and continue to try and wrap my mind around how unhinged and disconnected from reality our culture (and governments) have become, in a relatively short period of time. The comments shared in this article by the author are an accurate reflection of the lunacy we see just about every time we look at various social media.
The piece below is something you might find interesting:
How Caring People Become Cheerleaders for Hurting Children
https://caroldansereau.substack.com/p/hitchhikers-guide-part-iii-hitchhiking
If you saw the IOC media guidelines, you see the assault on language. - One of the issues is with the "charity" Mermaids in the UK, one woman who was part of it castrated her gay son - probably to "trans the gay away" and so the "charity went full into the affirmation mode, so her misery can have company.
Look at what they were saying some 20 years ago.
https://x.com/BevJacksonAuth/status/1829209845238571100
"Gender Identity Disorders in infancy, childhood and adolescence are complex and have varied causes: In the majority of cases, the eventual outcome will be homosexuality or bisexuality, but often there will be a heterosexual outcome as some gender issues can be caused by a bereavement, a dysfunctional family life, or (rarely) by abuse. Only a small proportion of cases will result in a transexual outcome.
Well said ,the author. Keep fighting xx
Excellent points. I also appreciate that your are a liberal family, and state your absence of religion. Those two things right there are of the most importance when discussing with the left. As believers and leaning right we are the ones that are yelled and screamed at the majority of time because our "religion" and political beliefs are "anti trans". As a parent of an adult child that transitioned, this cannot be farther from the truth. The first and foremost concern of ours is our child, grown or not, has a healthy, fulfilling life. While they may think they are by transitioning to something they are not, mentally trapped into this brainwashed belief, the opposite is true. In my case, my adult child turned into something he never was, angry, mean and nothing like the young man he was growing up or was as a young adult. It's sad, it's devastating, heartbreaking, everything horrible imaginable. It IS killing the family as we all know it. It has to stop.
Thank you for your great thoughts. I agree with everything you said.
Very well-written. Thank you.
Some said that they would pull their child out of the school." On the one hand, I agree with the author that we need to prepare our kids to “make wise decisions with bad information”. On the other, I am afraid that often the immature mind of even a highly intelligent kid/teen is no match to constant bombarding by bad information and emotional manipulation that happens at school. If my kid is healthy, she can be in a school or another crowded place, and even if she gets a cold, she will probably just build up her immunity in the long run. However, if my kid is immunocompromised by a serious disease, I should try to keep her away from such places. Sometimes I feel like our kids who fall for gender ideology are “immunocompromised” and need extra protection from the mind viruses. I am really not sure what the right strategyis and would love to hear what others think.
“often the immature mind of even a highly intelligent kid/teen is no match to constant bombarding by bad information and emotional manipulation that happens at school.”
Exactly. And this bombardment is sneaky, too.
"We do believe sexual attraction is an innate characteristic". Studies on twins show that postnatal environment is more determinative than prenatal factors for sexual orientation: https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/part-one-sexual-orientation-sexuality-and-gender.
Homosexuality facilitates gender dysphoria, because lacking attraction to opposite sex there is no strong motivator to be gender conform.
Comments sections on this topic in pop social media range from superficially uninformed to brutally ignorant. These low-octane thinkers fancy themselves “straight shooters.”
Your sample responses are a good way to teach not only better information, but also more productive ways of discussion. Though you are unlikely to persuade these rash individuals right away, you will plant a seed and edify other comment readers.
Very powerful rebuttal. These folks have foolishly bought into the idea that the "child should lead" and seem to have forgotten that the child is cognitivly and emotionally unable to lead.
I don't know if it's the "child should lead" as much as "the child knows how he/she feels". Everything is about feelings these days! Everyone is claiming Trauma and PTSD from perceived wrongs against them. It ALL leads back to pop psychology that is running rampant on the internet and social media. I have never witnessed more "oppressed/marginalized" people in my life!
"The parents should be shot."
Today's just-be- kind, sweetness and light, empathy and compassion movement encapsulated perfectly.
I was part of gay community in the 90s and knew a couple people who transitioned. It was increasing even then but among older butch lesbians. In 2016, I decided to look into why Trump was such a hero the rural working class. In my dabbling in right wing political info online I ran into the trans issue. It was clear to me being "trans" was being unnaturally glorified in main stream media but I didn't even look into the dustup about bathrooms in high schools. That seemed so ludicrious to me that I didn't believe it possible that teenagers would be transitioning. Now it is clear that unscrupulous actors are promoting thus for children using the language of gay rights movement. I like to remind folks "trans" is a verb not a noun. Transition is an action taken. It is incorrectly being promoted as a noun- something you inherently are.
Exactly right. You might be interested in this piece, part of an excellent 4 part series on Carol Dansereau's Substack. It nails how the Trans agenda hitchhiked onto the struggles of LGB, and how they continue to do so, deliberately misleading many people.
https://caroldansereau.substack.com/p/hitchhikers-guide-part-ii-hitchhiking
Carol's series is extremely useful in understanding how this harmful, divisive, and childhood-wrecking ideology has gained the traction it has.
I hope every parent on here will get a chance to take a look at each part of this series. The link to the first piece, and the table of contents is here:
https://caroldansereau.substack.com/p/hitchhikers-guide-to-the-transgender
The bathroom thing is insane. Despite trans activists insisting it never happens, there are multiple reports of rapes, and we all know that rapes are under-reported as a category of crime.
I don't know about rapes, but there are plenty of photos of creepy men dressed like women taking selfies from the women's bathroom. I don't shop a lot but when I do, there are always men in the dressing rooms......not because they are "trans", but because these are fathers/husbands standing guard of their wives and daughters because of creepy trans identified men that are sometimes in there. I live in a very ethnically diverse area with many Muslim, Asian, Indian people that don't allow other men to see women's bodies or hair. It's quite uncomfortable for women...but I understand "why" these fathers/husbands do it.
it happens:
https://www.dailywire.com/news/picture-of-loudoun-rapist-raises-questions-about-superintendents-statement
https://nypost.com/2023/06/01/oklahoma-parent-files-suit-after-daughter-was-beaten-by-trans-student/
https://thepostmillennial.com/exclusive-female-student-alleges-she-was-raped-in-trans-inclusive-bathroom-at-new-mexico-middle-school
https://www.foxnews.com/us/transgender-wyoming-woman-convicted-of-sexually-assaulting-10-year-old-girl-in-bathroom?msockid=269ed1468be96516136bc29e8a0764d9
There's a .pdf at the Utah state legislature that lists a bunch of them (from when they passed the bathroom bill, that I can pull up on my phone but not getting a link to it on the computer. The argument is that they pose no danger, but that's plainly not the truth.
I believe you.....I just don't go looking for the news stories....or they hide the news stories? I live in MD and the Loudon Co, VA issue only got a little traction here because it involved the School Board and Superintendent lying about it. The only way I knew about Sage's story is from this stack....I saw the pictures looking for her everywhere (I live near the school she was placed in), but she was just a "missing person". I see enough creepy where I live without having to go searching for it online in other states.
Frequently the news ignores the stories or pretends it's females raping females. The UK has made victims say "her penis" under oath at trial in rape cases.