Neurodivergence is a newer term meant to encompass differences once known as Asperger’s syndrome and/or autism spectrum disorder. The term is somewhat controversial among advocacy groups and autistic individuals. However, the widespread adoption of the term has accomplished what advocates set out to do—destigmatize what they view as simply another human variation. Neurological differences are now thought of more in terms of immutable qualities, like ethnicity or race; the neurodivergent person is another instance of differences in the rich tapestry of humanity rather than a disability or mental disorder.
Here is some great info into autism and “gender” experiences from an autism organisation called Autisme-og Aspergerforeningen. They produced research for a Gender Consultation in Denmark, as did Genspect and other organisations. But no other autism org took part in the consultation even though they were invited to do so in regards to ASD and “trans”. They are the only autism org I have seen enter the debate without trans-ideologically driven drivel, as all the others are captured, like you say. I’ve written about AOA a few times now as they keep producing excellent work about this topic.
It will be helpful for parents of autistic kids to read through to help you articulate your child's experiences:
I notice a lot of comments here talking about vaccines causing autism, but I see no mention of vaccines in this article. Perhaps it was deleted? I will just add my voice here to say vaccines DO NOT cause autism. This has been debunked countless times. Autism is genetic and is passed down via reproduction. (Which makes the sterilising effects of gender affirming care very convenient for autism orgs and public funding to wash their hands of future generations of autistic people “clogging up the services”).
Does neurodiversity also include ADHD? I see many ADHD children (although, to be sure, at a lesser rate than ASD children) going down the trans route, too.
Thank you for your story. I have a beautiful, smart granddaughter who has been diagnosed with autism and you explained “her world” to me. I will share your writing with my daughter as the need to protect her is even more evident now because of the gender-cult offering a solution when in fact it is erasing and destroying these precious autistic children.
Maybe consider STOPPING the constant, nauseating practice of applying LABELS to everyone and everything, everywhere? It's exhausting and frankly puerile.
There is a growing cadre of children who are completely unvaccinated. Has anyone thought to do a study of how many of these children have autism? Sure would be interesting to know. But I don't think that study will ever be done; it would be too revealing.
I don't think you are threatening anyone . . . most people aren't listening to you . . . Hospitalizations and treatment for vaccine preventable illness are way more lucrative that the vaccines . . . Easier to fool a person than to convince him he's been fooled . . . babies and toddlers change very quickly . . . given that babies get shots every two months or so, any change significant change is likely to happen within a short time of getting a vaccine . . . I think doctors are mis-educated in many ways, and a small percentage are straight-up crooks, as in any profession, but to insinuate that they are lying about vaccine safety? That they won't say that vaccines cause autism unless they are extraordinarily honest? That just beggars belief (that you would actually think almost all peds are liars), especially since the doctors don't make huge amounts of money off the vaccines - that's the pharmaceutical industry. Re: your antidepressant - doctors gaslight patients on psych meds all the time - that's not what's causing your symptoms, you just need more! Hell, I had a doctor tell me Benadryl can't cause a racing heart. Weird, that you have a psychiatrist who doesn't gaslight you but you think most pediatricians are crooks. No, people aren't mad at you for threatening to cost the crooks money, people are mad at you for trying to entice other parents not to prevent serious illness in their children. I'm not mad at you, but I'm glad you've exposed more of your thinking process to assist people in evaluating whether they can trust your conclusions.
Doctors make their money off vaccine injuries just as pHarma does. In fact, doctors get bonuses and perks for vaccinating certain percentages of their patient population. Vaccine injuries and deaths are real, not rare.
It's quite possible that exposure to anti-depressants in utero is a more viable cause of this effect. The push to get on anti-depressants started in the early 90s. A friend who took them while pregnant gave birth to a boy with an inverted penis that as a grown male is very small and the cause of much distress. I saw this correlation and have been on the lookout and in Vogue about ten years ago there was an article on the correlation between male babies born with penile deformities to mothers on anti-depressants.
There may be some validity to your thoughts. Not antidepressants but perhaps environmental contaminates. The 90s was when more and more beverages and foods began to be sold in plastic containers. My youngest daughter and I are both neurodivergent. I did not take antidepressants while pregnant with my daughter and my mother didn’t take antidepressants when pregnant with me. What we possibly have in common, if the theory of plastic containers leaching toxins into what we consume could ever be proven, exposure to environmental contaminants while in utero. I was conceived in 1976 when my family lived in military housing on Camp Lejeune in North Carolina. Throughout my mother’s entire pregnancy I was exposed to contaminated drinking water. Out of my 3 children it was my youngest in which I would have consumed the most prepackaged in plastic food and drink since I was working full time as a receptionist as opposed to being home most of the time like I was with my other 2 and therefore not consuming prepackaged food and drink as frequently, if at all.
Interesting. One study says it doubles the odds. Also, maternal autoimmune disease seems to increase risk, and severity. I hadn't heard of the inverted penis problem. Poor kids!
Thank you for sharing, you make a very valid and important point. I would add, though, that this is not just about individual psychology. I know from my own son, that a huge part of the problem is physical too. He doesn't like being touched, he wears loose-fitting clothes, he can't abide the sound of other people eating, and so on. These physical aversions meant he totally freaked out when he hit puberty. The fact that gender ideology seemed to offer a way out, was, in part, because it seemed to offer a way out of all the physical discomfort he was experiencing. The ideas and concepts of gender ideology seem to simply be a justification after the fact. Doesn't make it any less pernicious, but I believe the physical is at least as important as the psychological.
As a clinician treating trans identifying youth I can say without hesitation that “gender dysphoria” and the need to transition is almost always coupled with neurodivergence. This is the case in 100% of my caseload, males and females alike. The main difference is that the boys usually get evaluated and diagnosed at a young age while the girls do not.
That is an interesting observation. Would you say schizophrenia and autism are similar neurodivergences with some overlap? Changing identity used to be a defining characteristic of schizophrenics. Now being transgender is the new schizophrenia with a new name. People uncomfortable with themselves find an escape in many ways. Wanting to avoid puberty is a common desire for those on the autistic spectrum. My brother is just recovering from life threatening neuroleptic syndrome caused by medication for schizophrenia. I think he is really on the autistic spectrum and for the past thirty years has been a “Guinea pig” as doctors tried to make him conform. I love him the way he was, unmedicated. It is evil the way psychiatrists feel pressured to medicate (in case he is dangerous unmedicated). My brother is a very gentle soul.
He went through puberty before transgenderism was popularised. In those days people such as him were put in psychiatric hospitals and heavily medicated. Now they are given cross sex hormones. I wonder which is worse. We live in a less than perfect world.
Wonderful piece, so brilliantly argued and rings so true. I've struggled to mentally articulate these very points as regards my own trans-identified autistic kid and it's vindicating to see them clarified in so cogent an essay. Unfortunately, the way this thing is being framed by the very groups supposed to advocate for our neurodivergent kids, is that an attraction to trans is somehow innate to the condition, part of the insidious 'true selves' argument. For example, I've written multiple times to the National Autistic Society asking them to include, for example, detransitioner accounts on their gender identity page, receiving no acknowledgment of these letters. Well done for bringing this to the light.
The National Autistic Society in the UK started promoting transgenderism more than ten years ago. There was a front page article about an autistic man becoming a woman.
Also the male brain theory of autism might have seemed a reason for girls to think they were “born in the wrong body”.
Yes, Baron-Cohen's theory was taken up by the mainstreaam, and meanwhile autistic girls went under-diagnosed for decades, partly due to better masking skills but probably mainly due to the inherent misogny of the field, in that they were always viewed as some sort of exception to the rule...
Inherent misogyny in the mental health field? Wherein about 73% of the therapists are women and women are more likely to seek and receive treatment even though men are two to four times more likely to commit suicide and also more likely to die of drug overdoses? And the American Psychological Association describes much masculinity as "toxic"? I'm not arguing with your assessment, I'm just curious what you're referring to. I'm not impressed with the state of psychology with regard to its treatment of women or men, but I am more concerned with the state of men's mental health, given the statistics, and, while I'm not sure how many people are actually helped by mental health care, I would hope it helps some people, and I find it more concerning the extent of unmet men's mental health care needs.
When my daughter was eventually diagnosed aged 16, teachers where reluctant to believe her diagnosis as her masking skills were superb. Those same skills are used now to act the part of a man. I could foresee she would be an actress but never imagined her as an actor.
With my daughter it's a similar story, she was only diagnosed at 16 as well and had slipped through the net at school with no one picking up on her difficulties. I think that it's often the case that if a child isn't disruptive or displaying challenging behaviour, the Sencos don't bother to explore the reasons for social isolation/poor academic performance, etc. They often don't even bother to produce an IEP for the child without vocal interventions by parents...
My experience also. My eldest displayed disruptive behaviour, enabling her to be excluded from school aged 5 years. She was given support to enable her to return to mainstream school. The youngest was so quiet nobody noticed her difficulties until she “shut down” and I discovered she had been self harming aged 14
Yet the head teacher of her primary school had written on her school report when she was five that she had mild Aspergers. Going through CAMHS was a nightmare.
Yes, me too, my eldest also got into trouble early on and he was diagnosed aged 7, whereas my youngest is extremely shy and socially anxious, also started self-harming in her early teens at which point finally people realised there may be a problem... CAMHS are an absolute nightmare, totally captured. We ended up going private.
Yes, true and well said too. Our neurodivergent family members are being sterilised because their differences are not valued. This is discrimination and is unjust. Autistic people were institutionalised only a few decades ago. This is no longer popular. Now the treatment offered is gender change and acceptance within society, legally enforced. Insanity has been normalised. As I question this eugenics movement I am excluded from “normal” society.
My son has never been diagnosed. He academically always did very well. He had a select group of friends. As an educator I didn’t feel it was necessary. I saw no benefit to him. I also always believed that we all are unique and many of us have quirks. This makes the world a more interesting place. Never did I think a danger and predictors were waiting for kids just like him.
Helping to make neurodiverse/autistic men and women sterile is discriminatory, full stop. Not only that, by starting the process at younger and younger ages, the likelihood that they will be able to experience adequate sexual function or pleasure as adults, or even be able to form healthy dating relationships, is greatly reduced. Simply put, they are being preyed upon.
Furthermore, as a follow up, I have a teen daughter who has Down Syndrome, and I have battled for her inclusion in a society that thinks it is ok to screen her out before birth. I am well aware of the eugenics movement as I see it happening in her peer group. For every child with DS that we see, there are far more that weren’t given the chance to live.
Parents of neurodiverse children and teens better start fighting hard for their own kiddos before big pharma and big tech grabs them first to aid them in self mutilation and destruction.
I always thought about what would happen if there was a pre-natal screening for ASD; sadly, it is happening after they are born with this transgender agenda. It’s frightening and people have to wake up.
Our neurodiverse kids are cannon fodder in a culture war. They are being sacrificed for an agenda. The people pushing that agenda do not value our kids, do not care about harming them, do not care about sterilizing them. They are expendable.
I spend way too much time going down rabbit holes trying to find the real decision makers in this movement, who is really driving it. It has captured the institutions of the West. There must be someone or some group steering the ship because it happened so fast. It is being forced and enforced.
Basically, in addition to everything else that is so painful about losing a child to this madness, I have become a conspiracy theorist. Although how else do you explain something that is ridiculous on it’s face being accepted unquestioningly by so many powerful and otherwise intelligent people?
Transgender ideology is so irrational and flawed that nobody can be allowed to question it and remain part of public life. It would not stand up to debate so it must not be debated. It does not stand up to the simplest questions so must not be questioned. Matt Walsh’s documentary was brilliant in highlighting that with the simple question “What is a Woman?”
It doesn't take a conspiracy. There are industries that make money off of it (for profit medicine in the US for example) and have reasons to support the current cultural celebration of it. But the actual fanatical activists seem more infected with a social media virus. It's not the ice-water bucket challenge, but it's similar in how it spreads. It didn't take a conspiracy for people to buy tons of Pogs, or literally fight in stores over tickle me Elmo dolls. The judges in the Salem Witch trials were well educated men. What is amazing is this phenomenon has been happening over about 10-15 years, and only in the last 2 years have any main stream media sources had anything resembling fact checking reporting on it. By and large they just repeat the "it's always been this way, people are just feeling safer now" - which is entirely at odds with the "trans genocide is going to happen any day now" paranoia espoused by the same activists.
The way the definitions shift as well are indicative of a hive mind of people trying to one-up and impress each other with just how trans-inclusive they can be. (hence the new "you don't have to transition to be trans, just self ID" commandment.
Social media and armies of activists have replaced the charismatic cult leaders of the past. But even so, the complete capture of institutions, political parties, mainstream media companies, entire governments in service of what can only be described as an ideology is odd. Not allowing anyone to even question that ideology without being cancelled from public life is odd. So many things had to come together coincidentally. Other contentious issues are allowed debate and “agree to disagree” options, but not this one. Sometimes looking at the issue from a macro perspective is a break from dealing with what is happening to my daughter and family.
The "canceling" thing started on Tumblr quite some time ago, where the activists would investigate the history of celebrities and then get outraged over something that happened decades ago. Our legacy media for some reason is overly infatuated with social media mobs like that, and amplifies the postings of maybe 10s of thousands of people/kids/bots far beyond their actual value as a measure of public opinion. (Tumblr, for example is where taking mega-offense to a "microaggression" became a thing for society at large)
Interesting, I remember my husband having to take a training about micro aggressions at the college where he works. It was probably two or three years before the pandemic.
Julie, eloquent in its simplicity. I would say I struggle to understand the capture of millions by such a hoax, but I don’t struggle. I understand, but don’t know how to convince the captured that they ARE the victims of a hoax. The doctors and therapist who have and are violating their oath to do no harm should be criminally prosecuted.
Here is some great info into autism and “gender” experiences from an autism organisation called Autisme-og Aspergerforeningen. They produced research for a Gender Consultation in Denmark, as did Genspect and other organisations. But no other autism org took part in the consultation even though they were invited to do so in regards to ASD and “trans”. They are the only autism org I have seen enter the debate without trans-ideologically driven drivel, as all the others are captured, like you say. I’ve written about AOA a few times now as they keep producing excellent work about this topic.
It will be helpful for parents of autistic kids to read through to help you articulate your child's experiences:
https://neuropoppins.substack.com/p/danish-autism-organisation-takes-a
I notice a lot of comments here talking about vaccines causing autism, but I see no mention of vaccines in this article. Perhaps it was deleted? I will just add my voice here to say vaccines DO NOT cause autism. This has been debunked countless times. Autism is genetic and is passed down via reproduction. (Which makes the sterilising effects of gender affirming care very convenient for autism orgs and public funding to wash their hands of future generations of autistic people “clogging up the services”).
Does neurodiversity also include ADHD? I see many ADHD children (although, to be sure, at a lesser rate than ASD children) going down the trans route, too.
Thank you for your story. I have a beautiful, smart granddaughter who has been diagnosed with autism and you explained “her world” to me. I will share your writing with my daughter as the need to protect her is even more evident now because of the gender-cult offering a solution when in fact it is erasing and destroying these precious autistic children.
Maybe consider STOPPING the constant, nauseating practice of applying LABELS to everyone and everything, everywhere? It's exhausting and frankly puerile.
There is a growing cadre of children who are completely unvaccinated. Has anyone thought to do a study of how many of these children have autism? Sure would be interesting to know. But I don't think that study will ever be done; it would be too revealing.
Dr. Paul Thomas and James Lyons-Weiler PhD did a vaxxed-unvaxxed study. https://ipaknowledge.org/ipak-vaxxed-v-unvaxxed-study.php
Thank you for writing this. I am guessing you are the parent of such a child, for you to get to the heart of this tangle so well.
I don't think you are threatening anyone . . . most people aren't listening to you . . . Hospitalizations and treatment for vaccine preventable illness are way more lucrative that the vaccines . . . Easier to fool a person than to convince him he's been fooled . . . babies and toddlers change very quickly . . . given that babies get shots every two months or so, any change significant change is likely to happen within a short time of getting a vaccine . . . I think doctors are mis-educated in many ways, and a small percentage are straight-up crooks, as in any profession, but to insinuate that they are lying about vaccine safety? That they won't say that vaccines cause autism unless they are extraordinarily honest? That just beggars belief (that you would actually think almost all peds are liars), especially since the doctors don't make huge amounts of money off the vaccines - that's the pharmaceutical industry. Re: your antidepressant - doctors gaslight patients on psych meds all the time - that's not what's causing your symptoms, you just need more! Hell, I had a doctor tell me Benadryl can't cause a racing heart. Weird, that you have a psychiatrist who doesn't gaslight you but you think most pediatricians are crooks. No, people aren't mad at you for threatening to cost the crooks money, people are mad at you for trying to entice other parents not to prevent serious illness in their children. I'm not mad at you, but I'm glad you've exposed more of your thinking process to assist people in evaluating whether they can trust your conclusions.
Doctors make their money off vaccine injuries just as pHarma does. In fact, doctors get bonuses and perks for vaccinating certain percentages of their patient population. Vaccine injuries and deaths are real, not rare.
It's quite possible that exposure to anti-depressants in utero is a more viable cause of this effect. The push to get on anti-depressants started in the early 90s. A friend who took them while pregnant gave birth to a boy with an inverted penis that as a grown male is very small and the cause of much distress. I saw this correlation and have been on the lookout and in Vogue about ten years ago there was an article on the correlation between male babies born with penile deformities to mothers on anti-depressants.
There may be some validity to your thoughts. Not antidepressants but perhaps environmental contaminates. The 90s was when more and more beverages and foods began to be sold in plastic containers. My youngest daughter and I are both neurodivergent. I did not take antidepressants while pregnant with my daughter and my mother didn’t take antidepressants when pregnant with me. What we possibly have in common, if the theory of plastic containers leaching toxins into what we consume could ever be proven, exposure to environmental contaminants while in utero. I was conceived in 1976 when my family lived in military housing on Camp Lejeune in North Carolina. Throughout my mother’s entire pregnancy I was exposed to contaminated drinking water. Out of my 3 children it was my youngest in which I would have consumed the most prepackaged in plastic food and drink since I was working full time as a receptionist as opposed to being home most of the time like I was with my other 2 and therefore not consuming prepackaged food and drink as frequently, if at all.
Right — plastics carry endocrine disrupters
Interesting. One study says it doubles the odds. Also, maternal autoimmune disease seems to increase risk, and severity. I hadn't heard of the inverted penis problem. Poor kids!
Thank you for sharing, you make a very valid and important point. I would add, though, that this is not just about individual psychology. I know from my own son, that a huge part of the problem is physical too. He doesn't like being touched, he wears loose-fitting clothes, he can't abide the sound of other people eating, and so on. These physical aversions meant he totally freaked out when he hit puberty. The fact that gender ideology seemed to offer a way out, was, in part, because it seemed to offer a way out of all the physical discomfort he was experiencing. The ideas and concepts of gender ideology seem to simply be a justification after the fact. Doesn't make it any less pernicious, but I believe the physical is at least as important as the psychological.
As a clinician treating trans identifying youth I can say without hesitation that “gender dysphoria” and the need to transition is almost always coupled with neurodivergence. This is the case in 100% of my caseload, males and females alike. The main difference is that the boys usually get evaluated and diagnosed at a young age while the girls do not.
That is an interesting observation. Would you say schizophrenia and autism are similar neurodivergences with some overlap? Changing identity used to be a defining characteristic of schizophrenics. Now being transgender is the new schizophrenia with a new name. People uncomfortable with themselves find an escape in many ways. Wanting to avoid puberty is a common desire for those on the autistic spectrum. My brother is just recovering from life threatening neuroleptic syndrome caused by medication for schizophrenia. I think he is really on the autistic spectrum and for the past thirty years has been a “Guinea pig” as doctors tried to make him conform. I love him the way he was, unmedicated. It is evil the way psychiatrists feel pressured to medicate (in case he is dangerous unmedicated). My brother is a very gentle soul.
He went through puberty before transgenderism was popularised. In those days people such as him were put in psychiatric hospitals and heavily medicated. Now they are given cross sex hormones. I wonder which is worse. We live in a less than perfect world.
Would you say, then, that this really body dysmorphia?
I would say, whatever it is in the individual case, it’s definitely amplified by social contagion and reified by political and institutional drivers.
BRILLIANTLY WRITTEN!!
Wonderful piece, so brilliantly argued and rings so true. I've struggled to mentally articulate these very points as regards my own trans-identified autistic kid and it's vindicating to see them clarified in so cogent an essay. Unfortunately, the way this thing is being framed by the very groups supposed to advocate for our neurodivergent kids, is that an attraction to trans is somehow innate to the condition, part of the insidious 'true selves' argument. For example, I've written multiple times to the National Autistic Society asking them to include, for example, detransitioner accounts on their gender identity page, receiving no acknowledgment of these letters. Well done for bringing this to the light.
The National Autistic Society in the UK started promoting transgenderism more than ten years ago. There was a front page article about an autistic man becoming a woman.
Also the male brain theory of autism might have seemed a reason for girls to think they were “born in the wrong body”.
Yes, Baron-Cohen's theory was taken up by the mainstreaam, and meanwhile autistic girls went under-diagnosed for decades, partly due to better masking skills but probably mainly due to the inherent misogny of the field, in that they were always viewed as some sort of exception to the rule...
Inherent misogyny in the mental health field? Wherein about 73% of the therapists are women and women are more likely to seek and receive treatment even though men are two to four times more likely to commit suicide and also more likely to die of drug overdoses? And the American Psychological Association describes much masculinity as "toxic"? I'm not arguing with your assessment, I'm just curious what you're referring to. I'm not impressed with the state of psychology with regard to its treatment of women or men, but I am more concerned with the state of men's mental health, given the statistics, and, while I'm not sure how many people are actually helped by mental health care, I would hope it helps some people, and I find it more concerning the extent of unmet men's mental health care needs.
Thank you, Sylvia.
When my daughter was eventually diagnosed aged 16, teachers where reluctant to believe her diagnosis as her masking skills were superb. Those same skills are used now to act the part of a man. I could foresee she would be an actress but never imagined her as an actor.
With my daughter it's a similar story, she was only diagnosed at 16 as well and had slipped through the net at school with no one picking up on her difficulties. I think that it's often the case that if a child isn't disruptive or displaying challenging behaviour, the Sencos don't bother to explore the reasons for social isolation/poor academic performance, etc. They often don't even bother to produce an IEP for the child without vocal interventions by parents...
My experience also. My eldest displayed disruptive behaviour, enabling her to be excluded from school aged 5 years. She was given support to enable her to return to mainstream school. The youngest was so quiet nobody noticed her difficulties until she “shut down” and I discovered she had been self harming aged 14
Yet the head teacher of her primary school had written on her school report when she was five that she had mild Aspergers. Going through CAMHS was a nightmare.
Yes, me too, my eldest also got into trouble early on and he was diagnosed aged 7, whereas my youngest is extremely shy and socially anxious, also started self-harming in her early teens at which point finally people realised there may be a problem... CAMHS are an absolute nightmare, totally captured. We ended up going private.
Yes, true and well said too. Our neurodivergent family members are being sterilised because their differences are not valued. This is discrimination and is unjust. Autistic people were institutionalised only a few decades ago. This is no longer popular. Now the treatment offered is gender change and acceptance within society, legally enforced. Insanity has been normalised. As I question this eugenics movement I am excluded from “normal” society.
My son has never been diagnosed. He academically always did very well. He had a select group of friends. As an educator I didn’t feel it was necessary. I saw no benefit to him. I also always believed that we all are unique and many of us have quirks. This makes the world a more interesting place. Never did I think a danger and predictors were waiting for kids just like him.
Excellent.
Helping to make neurodiverse/autistic men and women sterile is discriminatory, full stop. Not only that, by starting the process at younger and younger ages, the likelihood that they will be able to experience adequate sexual function or pleasure as adults, or even be able to form healthy dating relationships, is greatly reduced. Simply put, they are being preyed upon.
I’m glad you posted this.
Furthermore, as a follow up, I have a teen daughter who has Down Syndrome, and I have battled for her inclusion in a society that thinks it is ok to screen her out before birth. I am well aware of the eugenics movement as I see it happening in her peer group. For every child with DS that we see, there are far more that weren’t given the chance to live.
Parents of neurodiverse children and teens better start fighting hard for their own kiddos before big pharma and big tech grabs them first to aid them in self mutilation and destruction.
I always thought about what would happen if there was a pre-natal screening for ASD; sadly, it is happening after they are born with this transgender agenda. It’s frightening and people have to wake up.
THEY CANT STAND THE TRUTH
Our neurodiverse kids are cannon fodder in a culture war. They are being sacrificed for an agenda. The people pushing that agenda do not value our kids, do not care about harming them, do not care about sterilizing them. They are expendable.
I spend way too much time going down rabbit holes trying to find the real decision makers in this movement, who is really driving it. It has captured the institutions of the West. There must be someone or some group steering the ship because it happened so fast. It is being forced and enforced.
Basically, in addition to everything else that is so painful about losing a child to this madness, I have become a conspiracy theorist. Although how else do you explain something that is ridiculous on it’s face being accepted unquestioningly by so many powerful and otherwise intelligent people?
Transgender ideology is so irrational and flawed that nobody can be allowed to question it and remain part of public life. It would not stand up to debate so it must not be debated. It does not stand up to the simplest questions so must not be questioned. Matt Walsh’s documentary was brilliant in highlighting that with the simple question “What is a Woman?”
It doesn't take a conspiracy. There are industries that make money off of it (for profit medicine in the US for example) and have reasons to support the current cultural celebration of it. But the actual fanatical activists seem more infected with a social media virus. It's not the ice-water bucket challenge, but it's similar in how it spreads. It didn't take a conspiracy for people to buy tons of Pogs, or literally fight in stores over tickle me Elmo dolls. The judges in the Salem Witch trials were well educated men. What is amazing is this phenomenon has been happening over about 10-15 years, and only in the last 2 years have any main stream media sources had anything resembling fact checking reporting on it. By and large they just repeat the "it's always been this way, people are just feeling safer now" - which is entirely at odds with the "trans genocide is going to happen any day now" paranoia espoused by the same activists.
The way the definitions shift as well are indicative of a hive mind of people trying to one-up and impress each other with just how trans-inclusive they can be. (hence the new "you don't have to transition to be trans, just self ID" commandment.
Social media and armies of activists have replaced the charismatic cult leaders of the past. But even so, the complete capture of institutions, political parties, mainstream media companies, entire governments in service of what can only be described as an ideology is odd. Not allowing anyone to even question that ideology without being cancelled from public life is odd. So many things had to come together coincidentally. Other contentious issues are allowed debate and “agree to disagree” options, but not this one. Sometimes looking at the issue from a macro perspective is a break from dealing with what is happening to my daughter and family.
The "canceling" thing started on Tumblr quite some time ago, where the activists would investigate the history of celebrities and then get outraged over something that happened decades ago. Our legacy media for some reason is overly infatuated with social media mobs like that, and amplifies the postings of maybe 10s of thousands of people/kids/bots far beyond their actual value as a measure of public opinion. (Tumblr, for example is where taking mega-offense to a "microaggression" became a thing for society at large)
Interesting, I remember my husband having to take a training about micro aggressions at the college where he works. It was probably two or three years before the pandemic.
Julie, eloquent in its simplicity. I would say I struggle to understand the capture of millions by such a hoax, but I don’t struggle. I understand, but don’t know how to convince the captured that they ARE the victims of a hoax. The doctors and therapist who have and are violating their oath to do no harm should be criminally prosecuted.
They are determined not to be convinced. The ignorance for many is willful. The cognitive dissonance would be too painful.
I believe this may be true of many mental health providers
Even more true for them.