14 Comments

Head counselor at my son's school asked me, "what is social transitioning?" This was in a meeting 7 months after a counselor assisted my son in changing his name/pronouns without contacting us parents. These people are more highly qualified to guide a struggling teen than the parents? What a dangerous mess

Expand full comment

I finally sent a letter through the form. I hope it gets read by someone at ASCA. Now I'm worried it won't. I included a brief paragraph of my own experience with my daughter (14 & immersed in this trans social contagion for the last year) up near the top so that hopefully it doesn't get dismissed as JUST a form letter. But I didn't have the time or mental capacity at this moment in my life to read through the ethical standards draft and address specifics sections and language.

Oh and homeschooling is better, but no guarantee. We homeschool but my daughter is experiencing the social contagion through the internet and from the kids and adult leaders of the extra activities that we let her do to try to enrich her life (like horse riding and theater.) It's everywhere and it is so pervasive. At the barn where she rides, several girls became trans. On the first day of her theater class through Parks and Rec they were asked to go around and give their names and pronouns. What ever happened to "tell us your hobbies or things you like to do"...what ever happened to letting kids be kids? So the next day she shaved off all her hair; and a week later she told me she would rather have a supportive mother, and that when I tell her I love her it is just empty words.

Expand full comment
Apr 11, 2022·edited Apr 11, 2022

This is so well said. Great article! Parents need to get their kids out of these indoctrination camps, by any means necessary. Homeschool ppl.

Expand full comment

I must rant here, for a moment.

But first...thank you for bringing this to our attention. You're absolutely right in my opinion, that school counselors have no business doing these things, and the wording of your letter smartly reminds them they can face legal repercussions. I personally can't wait for the #mychildtoo lawsuits and criminal proceedings to begin. These authorities are creating illnesses (mental and physical) in normal, otherwise healthy children and teens, and are in clear violation of the Hippocratic Oath.

I was reading through the Glossary of Terms at the end of the Ethical Standards Draft, and it gives you the big picture of the ideology behind their "Ethics." It's more of the same postmodernist nonsense being aggressively and systemically imposed on our society, and throughout "Western Civilization." It's the CRT and race identity politics being used to shred the fabric of our relatively tolerant and naturally inclusive society; the gender identity agenda separating young people from their natural, spontaneous and truly genuine selves, sending them down a path of self-destruction; the subjugation of normal, loving, caring parents to the dictates of a captured army of "experts"--whose marching orders are to "affirm, or else"; it's the actual racism embraced by anointed academic experts who are busy lowering academic standards instead of aspiring to elevate the individuals by building life skills and capabilities, regardless of color or creed. In short, it's the destruction and oppression of the smallest minority of all--the individual, to bring about a hideous collectivist society. This isn't progress, it's the return to the sorry state of tyranny most of mankind has suffered under.

So seeing all this (which I know many of you do), it's easy to feel defeated. It's easy to think that it's pointless to say anything to these people, if they're already bought off. What they're doing is so widespread and so suddenly powerful. What it is NOT, though, is organic. It is not a grassroots movement--any of this. This is a cultural revolution being foisted upon free nations, in a top-down manner, by people who do not understand that people must be free, if they are to thrive. They are destroying our history, our cohesiveness as a country, our beloved families, our precious children. Pecking at these people on local, regional and national levels, holding them accountable for the damage they doing, exposing their malfeasance and corruption so others can stand against it--these do effect change. But I think getting to the bottom of what's driving their philosophy and policies, will go a long way towards making us capable of intellectually dismantling this postmodernist machine and bringing back reason and true justice. Our kids should live in a world where they are not prey to a sick ideology, but rather, have the chance to live the happy, healthy lives that they deserve.

Again, thank you very much for your letter.

Expand full comment

👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 Yes. Spot on!

Expand full comment

Thanks for the heads up. It's important to click on the link and read the proposed "Ethics." The instructions asked for the specific section being addressed. I haven't made it past A.2 on Confidentiality:

c. Recognize that informed consent requires competence, voluntariness and knowledge on students’ part to understand the limits of confidentiality and, therefore, can be difficult

to obtain from students of certain developmental levels and special-needs populations. The school counselor should make attempts to gain assent appropriate to the individual student (e.g., in the student’s preferred language) prior to disclosure.

d. Are aware that even though attempts are made to obtain informed consent, it is not always possible. When needed, school counselors make decisions on students’ behalf that promote students’ welfare.

How can children, adolescents, and teen give "informed consent" about anything? In today's climate, I can see how counselors would believe keeping gender identity conversations from parents would promote the student's welfare.

Side issue. Do you as a parent know what the district policy of your district on counseling, confidentiality, etc? The laws of your state on parental rights?

God bless you all as you stand in the gap for your children.

Expand full comment

How can children, adolescents, and teens give "informed consent" about anything? The answer is that they can't. So-called gender experts wave the Informed Consent paperwork around as evidence that they're respectful of a child's wishes. It's a disingenuous "cover your ass" strategy, because, let's face it, every adult on the planet understands that adolescence is where you go to behave irrationally, try on new identities, and make new mistakes every day of the week.

Informed Consent implies that a person is capable of understanding not only the risks and ramifications of medical treatments, but also their own motivations, needs and priorities. Children lack the capacity for either. In other words, they don't know themselves. And if you don't know yourself...you're not informed.

Informed Consent vis-a-vis the transitioning of children would be a sick joke if it weren't such a shining example of unmitigated medical malpractice.

Expand full comment

Done. Thank you for sharing.

Expand full comment

The form is requesting "specific language changes" be submitted referencing specific sections of the draft. Has anyone created a response comment that includes these specifics? I'm concerned that any comments that don't follow these instructions will be disregarded. Do we have any school counselors we've built relationships with that could suggest the language changes the form is requesting? I'm happy to submit a general comment from a parent's perspective and will hope that if they get enough of them, they'll go back to the drawing board. Just thinking that if we could follow the form's instructions, we'd be more effective--and the most efficient way to do that would be to have qualified professionals write up a comment that we could then share and boost. Make sense?

Expand full comment

I just submitted the following in response to section A1.b, which includes the words "foster and affirm... identity," but it's only the first mention of gender identity. I didn't attempt to catch them all. Here's what I wrote:

This sentence is overly broad and invites confusion. If a student describes herself as lazy, or fat, must this identity be affirmed, and thereby concretized, by the counselor? One assumes not. Here and in several other paragraphs, the identity requiring affirmation will be taken to mean "gender identity." In cases where a student's "gender identity" differs from his or her sex, this will cause the counselor to engage in a therapeutic practice that has not been properly tested or researched. As the mother of a child who was badly served by well-meaning adults who affirmed her as a boy due to district policy that was inclusive and well-intentioned but naive to the gravity of gender-identity affirmation; I urge you not to mandate "affirmation" as described here. The directives as written are very likely to do harm and expose school districts and personnel to legal action. They credit research that is inconclusive and characterized by peer review as being of poor quality. Those responsible for updating these guidelines will be expected to know this, and to wait for reliable data before issuing improper instructions.

Expand full comment
Apr 5, 2022·edited Apr 5, 2022

They also affirm because what matter most are test scores. Just as teachers are being compelled to design curricula to align with standardized tests, so, too, are counselors having to keep students stable and academically engaged to ensure performance. Kids who present as trans are often the brightest and produce high scores. Let’s not forget that suburban real estate prices track with school ranking. The counselors’ primary mandate is to make sure these kids hold it together at school for the duration of their attendance. I hate to sound so cynical but it doesn’t make sense in any other way.

Expand full comment

Thank you for putting this together! Social transition needs to be considered a therapeutic/ medical intervention and school counsellors should not be advocating for treatments. Social transition is often thought of as benign but it puts kids on a path to medicalization, especially in states that have therapy bans and medicalization is the only treatment available for kids struggling with their identity.

Expand full comment

Hi Erin. I'd love to connect with you. If you wouldn't mind reaching out to me at stoicmom@substack.com?

Expand full comment