Once upon a time, there was a special child. For purposes of picking a pronoun, this child will be a boy, but it could just as easily be a girl. This child was very loud, very whiny and very demanding. This child indicated that he really did not like any of the school’s rules, because they made him feel uncomfortable. He was upset and demanded change. His parents backed him up. His doctor backed him up. The media was on the boy’s side when he complained about the school’s rules and how they made him feel. Both the boy and his parents told the school that he would drop out of school altogether if the rules were not changed to meet his desires. Notably, this child did not have any observable or measurable disabilities. He wasn’t dyslexic, he wasn’t blind or deaf, he didn’t have any neurological problems at all.
Good insights. It gave me flashbacks to my many years as a high school special education teacher. Many of my students never realized that they weren't special after they reached adulthood, and they met bad ends.
ESSENTIAL LISTENING: On October 25, 2021, Megyn Kelly interviewed Lisa Littman, MD. Littman's groundbreaking research into the phenomenon of adolescents' transitioning despite no prior history of gender dysphoria led to her coining the term "Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria." They discuss Littman's original research, her just-published research on Detransitioners, and much more. I just listened to it. It's an expansive and informative conversation. Highly recommended!
What makes this scenario all the more pernicious is that the idea of being trans is often implanted by teachers in the minds of young children who otherwise would simply go through their day enjoying whatever “gender non-conforming” activity they were involved with at the moment.
I am very uncomfortable with kids being told to think about their gender all the time, as if it matters when they are 3 or 5 or 7 or 9 for anything they should be doing in school. Or in math class in high school for that matter.
Absolutely. Gender is an aspect of biological sex. This fact of life has taken care of itself for the past 500 million years, if we leave the kids alone. And if every once in awhile one of our kids turns out to be trans, we'll deal with it at puberty, once most of them have figured it out for themselves. Without gender ideology insinuating itself into every nook and cranny of our consciousness, it would hardly ever come up. It has no place in the schools.
Gender is not an aspect of biological sex. Gender was exclusively a grammatical category until some years ago, applied only to words, but then a doctor started using it to people as well, in cases of dysphoria.
Gender for people are expectations according to their sex. But those expectations are social, and they change in time within a specific culture and are not the same in different cultures. For instance, in Indonesia, both men and women wear sarongs and it's perfectly fine, and in Scotland traditional kilt is only worn by men, even though is very similar to what we call a skirt, which is a piece of "women's clothing" and no one bats an eyelid because it is an accepted behaviour within that context.
Gender is just a bunch of stereotypes. Let's get rid of it.
I find it disturbing that the “foot in the door” in many cases is that a child doesn’t fit a stereotypical model of gender identity. Human rights advocates of the past 70+ years have worked hard to free people from stereotypes. Now gender fluidity advocates are working hard to reinstate old stereotypes of gender identity on the emotionally vulnerable, and reinforce it in flesh and bone by mutilating them, surgically and chemically.
Yes, we have no way of defining masculine or feminine except by.....looking at men and women and cultural stereotypes. So a boy with stereotypical feminine style for his culture is ....one way of being a boy.
Let’s remember that “masculine” and “feminine” are modifiers, and not equivalent to “man” or “woman”. The words get used loosely and that makes out easier for issues to be clouded.
Good insights. It gave me flashbacks to my many years as a high school special education teacher. Many of my students never realized that they weren't special after they reached adulthood, and they met bad ends.
ESSENTIAL LISTENING: On October 25, 2021, Megyn Kelly interviewed Lisa Littman, MD. Littman's groundbreaking research into the phenomenon of adolescents' transitioning despite no prior history of gender dysphoria led to her coining the term "Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria." They discuss Littman's original research, her just-published research on Detransitioners, and much more. I just listened to it. It's an expansive and informative conversation. Highly recommended!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hq8ryFVy_LM - or any podcast app. Episode #188.
What makes this scenario all the more pernicious is that the idea of being trans is often implanted by teachers in the minds of young children who otherwise would simply go through their day enjoying whatever “gender non-conforming” activity they were involved with at the moment.
I am very uncomfortable with kids being told to think about their gender all the time, as if it matters when they are 3 or 5 or 7 or 9 for anything they should be doing in school. Or in math class in high school for that matter.
Absolutely. Gender is an aspect of biological sex. This fact of life has taken care of itself for the past 500 million years, if we leave the kids alone. And if every once in awhile one of our kids turns out to be trans, we'll deal with it at puberty, once most of them have figured it out for themselves. Without gender ideology insinuating itself into every nook and cranny of our consciousness, it would hardly ever come up. It has no place in the schools.
Gender is not an aspect of biological sex. Gender was exclusively a grammatical category until some years ago, applied only to words, but then a doctor started using it to people as well, in cases of dysphoria.
Gender for people are expectations according to their sex. But those expectations are social, and they change in time within a specific culture and are not the same in different cultures. For instance, in Indonesia, both men and women wear sarongs and it's perfectly fine, and in Scotland traditional kilt is only worn by men, even though is very similar to what we call a skirt, which is a piece of "women's clothing" and no one bats an eyelid because it is an accepted behaviour within that context.
Gender is just a bunch of stereotypes. Let's get rid of it.
I find it disturbing that the “foot in the door” in many cases is that a child doesn’t fit a stereotypical model of gender identity. Human rights advocates of the past 70+ years have worked hard to free people from stereotypes. Now gender fluidity advocates are working hard to reinstate old stereotypes of gender identity on the emotionally vulnerable, and reinforce it in flesh and bone by mutilating them, surgically and chemically.
Yes, we have no way of defining masculine or feminine except by.....looking at men and women and cultural stereotypes. So a boy with stereotypical feminine style for his culture is ....one way of being a boy.
Let’s remember that “masculine” and “feminine” are modifiers, and not equivalent to “man” or “woman”. The words get used loosely and that makes out easier for issues to be clouded.