You're brave. And that inspires more bravery, in me and others.
Reading your report on this meeting helped me realize that we must be willing and able to bear people hating us and lashing out as we speak up. Some aren't able but will be soon. We know the hatred will point our way, but we also can be sure that children who are swimming in this indoctrination need to know that not everyone agrees, there is dissent, and then they can find out why. At this point it is starting to seem like juvenile adults are driving the bus...the teachers, therapists, "clinicians," activists and the parents who refer to their children as "kiddos."
They are driving the bus smugly, with absolute surety, and, as you point out, unaware of their indoctrination.
But the wheels are coming off with every child, youth and adult who desists and detransistions, and with every brave doctor and whistle-blower who sounds the bell of reasoned truth that gets through to one more person.
As more and more young people grow into realization they were harmed by smug, shallow, criminally-irresppnsible, greedy ghouls who couldn't care less about brutal, off-label drugs and irreversible body modification that leaves them sterile, incontinent, and with no sexual function, there will be hell to pay. Glad you documented this so well...
And btw, what is with that term "kiddo"? I, too, have noticed that this seems to be how gender ideology-drenched parents refer to their children. Do they think it sounds more respectful than "kid" or something?
IMO...It's a way of conveying a sort of buddy-buddy relationship with children. This cohort of parents have been brought up to mistrust parental authority along with other authority. "Kiddo" shows they are hip, kind, and pals with their children. To me it indicates a flattening of family hierarchy (parents care for children, not letting them lead).
And, it also serves to convey they belong to the group of supportive parents.
One of the curious things to me about this cult is that it is the victims (the children) who want it and demand it. They are sold a false idea by their schools and by social media (that transitioning will solve their problems), and then they demand it from their parents. Back in the 1950's, you didn't have people demanding to have lobotomies.
There is one detransitioner (M>F) who has been interviewed on YouTube and is particularly pitiful. He continues to dress as a woman because he had both top and bottom surgery, but he is miserably unhappy and wants his old life back as a man. It is so sad.
On Eliza Mondegreen's Substack, I pointed out that the parents of trans kids are proving to be a particularly stubborn group of pro-trans activists. There are, of course, many parents who are skeptical of what their kids have gotten into, but some parents are so protective of their kids that they go along with whatever their children want, and in the process they become convinced by all aspects of transgender ideology. I think that a lot of those parents are secretly delighted to have a "special" child who needs extra sympathy and attention. In a way, it's like those parents who groom their kids to be performers.
Good point about lobotomies. There was no commercial or social cachet aspect, no in-group victimhood points to be had, no digital media platforms acting as a "super peer."
I see elements of the "special child" attitude at play, as well.
This has been a generation or two in the making. Sometimes I wonder if it also doesn't provide parents an easy diagnosis that will be less challenging than autism, etc. (Referring to parents who promote it.) Maybe they love that easy, one-stop, answer to a child who is prickly, perhaps autistic, perhaps traumatized at the visceral and soul level by early exposure to violent pornography or sexual abuse that mustn't be acknowledged?
I'd be anxious as hell if I were a child these days, too.
What a relief to have a "clinician" wrap everything up with a pink or blue bow and a prescription and some words about "fully reversible?"
Figuratively speaking, "affirming" parents can really dine out on it with other parents who don't have such interesting "designer" children.
What fun to be hip and cool!
I think the secret delight is real in some parents, and they make it extremely difficult for reasonable parents who are not living through their children to establish any credibility with school boards, etc.
So their narcissism affects more than their own children.
Very good points, Lucky. Lots of good insights. We need more people who understand the nuances of what's going on. Most people are totally befuddled by it. I have a gay friend that I correspond with via email, and his response is entirely sympathetic. I described to him all the down sides of the trans cult -- pushing into women's spaces, influencing children, telling people how they must talk, denying science, trying to change the meaning of "gender", shaming everyone who doesn't agree with them, trying to censor an open conversation of the issue -- and his reaction to it all is still sympathy. Because he is gay (as am I), he is sympathetic to anyone who doesn't fit into society because of their inner feelings, so he won't criticize them. Well, I didn't fit into society either, but I didn't abandon my common sense. Despite all his sympathy, he will sometimes grouse to me about other people using what I call Gender Speak.
The befuddlement is real. I see it in action with close friends who suddenly jump on the bandwagon with surety. How great to take care of that confusion and unease with a few (false) stats about suicide rates and "Healthcare." A relief! So their befuddlement is put to rest by believing the well-presented lies.
The abandonment of common sense has to go with it, so the emotional blackmail and sense of social virtue kicks in.
Ultimately, though, the people who make a difference are the people like Carol who stand up to be counted in the halls of decision-making.
I will stand up, too. First, though, am scrubbing my home address off the web, and securing contracts outside of my job so I can afford to lose it.
Sorry for not answering sooner. An advice columnist gave a pro-trans answer to a letter on the Washington Post, and I have been over there arguing. The letter-writer said he/she was nonbinary and wanted to know what to do about co-workers who won't call him/her/it "they" and "them". The columnist said to complain to Human Resources, which I don't think was good advice, as the HR department might then see the nonbinary person as a trouble-maker. But just the fact that there are nonbinary people in the world expecting to be called special pronouns (which makes them narcissists, in my view), and willing to make trouble for co-workers, just steams me.
So, you seem to be saying that you want to devote your time to being an anti-trans activist, and you are anticipating losing your job and, perhaps, having pro-trans people demonstrating at your home. If I'm reading you right, my advice is to use a pen name. Perry James is my nom de plume. Perry is my middle name, and James is my mother's maiden name. There's nothing dishonest about using a pen name, but then, all I do is write about trans stuff; I don't have a public profile beyond what I write. And besides, I'll be dead in ten years anyway. If you use a pen name, your employer may never know about your activities. Indeed, even if you use your real name, your employer may never know.
All good points. One clarification...."Trans" isn't the issue for me. It's gender ideology being plastered over reality via commercial and cult pressures. Adults who transition can fly at it, but gender identity doesn't change sex and no child is born in the wrong body. And yes, non-binary is BS. Just be gender non-conforming. Why ya gotta break the language? So special!
I am girding my loins (not surgically) to have in person conversations with people I know.
Already am using a pen name, like you but feel it only goes so far...
Carol, thank you so much for what you are doing. Most people have no idea what is going on and think any objections to gender ideology in schools are just coming from a bunch of hysterical right wingers who don't want books about gay parents in the school libraries. As if! The kids themselves have grown up with it, so they don't know there is anything strange when the risk assessment survey that the guidance counselor makes them all take asks what sex they were "assigned" at birth and what gender they identify as now. Can you imagine never knowing anything else? Funny how when we criticize the subversion of language we're told it's only words, but if we say biological sex is real we are COMMITTING TRANS GENOCIDE!
I understand now the fierce responses of the school board, she has a trans kid and will or can never ever admit that she may be wrong. She literally would die defending her ideology.
Those are the people who will never let the tiniest bit of doubt in, lest they have to admit that they encouraged their own children to poison and mutilate themselves for nothing.
parents of kids who ID as another gender have a problem: the costs. gender ideology is free at first. but after a while it requires truck loads of pills and sugeries all of which cost a fortune. if their volentary choice to ID as another gender can be deemed a right, then its more likely the government and or health plans will provide theis vanity care for free. but the costs of gender ideology go well beyond pills and surgeries. whats the cost when kids psych issues are worsened and compounded via quack care every gov systematic review on earth found doesnt help and actually causes severe harm, when if they didnt participate in this quack care studys show their issues resolve on their own with puberty?
You are incredibly patient Carol, with these gender losers, cos I would have given up on them some time ago. I dont know if you can fix deluded people, and I would let them all sink. I can understand you trying to rescue humanity, even when they dont want to be rescued, and you must be getting better at having the right answers for them. In New Zealand we have just voted out our woke government, so I am hoping the whole woke ideology will now be discredited and ignored, and schools will go back to normal. The wokies are sounding disturbed and all shook up by getting a Christian PM, but we took the best political option available at the time. We got lucky. I hope you get lucky too.
Carol, below is the letter that I just sent to every member of the school board. (Much of my activism involves writing letters to people.) These people are the lunatic fringe. They are completely brainwashed by a set of bad ideas. I wrote the letter in a way that I thought might reach them.
======================
Dear Ms. Rankin,
I am a gay man in Rhode Island, and I have been following events in the Seattle schools regarding the gender issue. It seems to me that there are some things you may not understand, which is why I am writing. Let me launch right into them:
(To make matters easier, I am going to speak about girls more than boys.)
Gender has become a fad among kids. The fad is occurring for a couple reasons. First, kids are being told (mostly by their schools, but also on social media) that they have a right to choose their gender. That being the case, some of them are naturally deciding to do that.
Here's the problem:
Let's say that a girl thinks she might be gay. All she needs to do to resolve that question is to experiment sexually with another girl. No harm is done. But if a girl thinks she is a boy, figuring out whether or not that is true is a much more complicated process. It involves adopting a new identity, changing her name, possibly taking puberty-blockers, taking testosterone, and ultimately having various surgeries. Now, if the girl has been influenced, that means she isn't really trans. Like homosexuality, being trans is something that comes from within, which is innate. By the time she comes to her senses and halts the process, her body may already be damaged. Both puberty-blockers and testosterone can make permanent changes to a girl's body.
We do need to protect trans kids, but we also need to protect the ones who are transitioning for the wrong reasons. Being trans has become such a huge fad that it is possible that a majority of the kids who are now transitioning are not actually trans. It is because it has become a fad that transgenderism is spreading at an exponential rate among children.
So what's the solution to this problem? First, "affirmative care" is the wrong approach. Girls who have decided they are boys, and boys who have decided they are girls, need to see a therapist who will examine the child's motives. Such a therapist is called a "gate-keeper", but there are no gate-keepers any more. The trans lobby has been so successful at spreading their ideas that most therapists have adopted the "affirmative" model. A girl who has been influenced may go through the entire transitioning process before she realizes she has made a mistake. By then, her voice may have dropped into the baritone range, she may have a beard and body hair that won't stop growing, and she may be infertile -- not to mention the damage done by any operations she had. Social media is full of unhappy young women who are bemoaning the fact that they now sound like men when they speak.
Affirmative care doesn't help children to figure out whether they are being motivated by other issues. Affirmative care just rushes them through the transitioning process.
So you see, parents who object to the spread of transgender ideas in public schools also have the best interests of children at heart. They just see things differently. They are concerned that their children will become collateral damage. They are not "haters".
Society is moving too fast on this issue. We need to slow down. We need to remember that children are not adults. Their brains are not fully developed. Some so-called "trans" children may simply be going through a phase -- if so, they need time to let the phase run its course. Despite what anyone says, the trans life is not an easy one. Trans people require constant medical care. Being trans can also create identity problems. Trans people live their lives as neither fully male nor fully female. Any trans-leaning person who can make peace with his or her natural sex will be better off.
There is one more issue to consider: Does a child have the right to make life-changing decisions on behalf of the adult yet to come? Many people think that children don't have the emotional maturity to do that.
The trans lobby has been very effective at spreading the idea that being a trans child is exquisitely painful, and that children -- even very young children -- must be allowed to transition immediately or they may commit suicide. People who have investigated those claims haven't found them to be credible. Indeed, the available evidence suggests that detransitioners have a higher suicide rate.
Here is the bottom line: Medical transition to the opposite gender is a decision that only an adult can make responsibly.
Schools should not be telling children that they have the right to choose their gender. It puts the idea in their heads, an idea which can cause trouble. Telling a girl that she can become a boy if she wants to may create in her a desire to transition. In other words, by teaching such things, schools are influencing children in risky ways. This is why such issues should be handled by parents, not by schools. Children who are truly transgender will know they are trans without being prompted or influenced -- just as I knew at a young age that I was gay without any influence from anyone. Like being gay, being trans must come from inside.
It is all well and good to /accommodate/ children who are convinced that they are trans, but it is wrong to /encourage/ transgenderism in your students. That is not the proper role of any school.
Absolutely infuriating. What sheer reserves of energy you must have to patiently respond to all this nonsense being thrown at you. I’m exhausted just reading this.
Hi PhDBiologistMom, I'm eager to connect with PhD biologists. Do you happen to live near Seattle? Shoot me an email if you're able to chat a bit, using address for me on About page.
Don't get drawn into defending yourselves. They hurl endless piles of BS just to keep you on the defensive. The more time and energy you consume on defense the less you have for standing up for reality. Go on the attack and STAY on the attack. If you feel you must defend sometimes, make sure you turn the defense around into an attack by the end of it.
This is as much a war of confidence and righteousness as it is a war for reason, morality and reality over insanity.
thanks for sticking up for kids. gender activists provide guidance on how to counter gender critical people and views. they instruct libraries on how to keep porn on the shelves. they instruct school boards on how to deal with people inconveniently point out they are harming kids and promoting regressive misogyny and homophobia.
the way to counter gender cult activists is to pick your battles, get them on record and then use their statements against them by voting them out. we know every gender biz stat, study and claim is a lie. every gov systematic review ever done on earth found gender meds dont help kids. every study ever done to see if kids grow out of gender dysphoria found kids do with puberty, unless given gender meds. thats why countries that have done systematic reviews if gender meds help stopped giving them to kids after their study found it was a scam. they also found that social transformation dosent help kids either.
gender activists play pretending that those who voluntarily ID as another gender are like historically marginalized groups actually harm the groups they claim to help.
Hampson has demonstrated she cannot be reasonable or respect parental rights. Advise you personalize the issue and focus your fire on her in particular.
The parents telling their children that everyone hates them and wants them to stop existing are effectively inflicting Munchausen by Proxy on their children, but with a mental illness. It really feels like child abuse and it's a scandal that schools and doctors go along with it - although I've heard from a psychiatrist that doctors could lose their license if they don't.
I hope you're right about the school board looking back on their behaviour in a few years and feeling shame, but at the moment there's little to make that happen. Well done to you for being brave enough to take a stand against the encroaching madness
I agree. It's a continual marvel...a brutal marvel. Like people have lost their minds, or have not finished development of their executive function. I mean, the absolute dross of the claims, the conflating of sex with gender, the cheering on of extreme body modification as a human right, the advocating for the state to remove children from homes...even their stupid "gender spectrum diagram" with barbie on one end, GI Joe on the other and a bunch of faceless bowling pins in the middle is such obvious garbage you'd think it would have been laughed down immediately...absolutely unreal that it wasn't!
It's more than just ideological capture. It's a very calculated, top down agenda to dismantle gender, parenting and the family as a prerequisite for age of transhumanism (a genderless and infertile population merged with technology, and with reproduction taken care of by artificial wombs and AI taking over the role of parenting). The groundwork for the transhumanism agenda was laid down by feminism.
What we are witnessing today is just a continuation of feminism - an ideology which also claimed gender was a social construct and biology (sexual dimorphism) is the root cause of all personal and social ills and injustices (real or imagined) and should therefore be dispensed with (be careful what you wish for!)
For several generations now normal, healthy young people have gone off to university and come back home for Christmas hating their gender, their biology, their bodies and 'fixing' the problem with black lipstick, short hair, piercings, intentionally subversive clothing, tattoos and a complete obsession with self, identity, language and subverting social conventions.
The only thing which has really changed in recent years is surgery and cross sex hormones have been added to the mix. Apparently artificial wombs are only a decade or two away now. Fertility and birth rates were already dropping like a stone before 2021, but since the 'miracle juice' was rolled out it's completely fallen off a cliff.
A genderless / sterilised population, with women freed from the horrors and burdens of motherhood, is the ultimate in 'gender equality'.... and it's precisely what feminists have been demanding all along.
Hi Plato's Rabbit Cave, I don't agree with your assessment of what feminism is. The word "feminism", like so many words, has been taken over and misused....as part of paving the way to things like trans humanism. I've been a feminist since I disagreed, as a child, with someone telling me, that as a girl, I was not entitled to basic rights. I and other feminists I knew never said sex is a social construct, or that freedom from sexism meant females were the same as males. We always acknowledged and celebrated physical differences. Among the things I've fought for, as a feminist, are i) lengthy paid maternity leaves; ii) better yet, an economic set-up and fair wages that make it possible for families to have a stay-at-home parent, iii) female-only sports categories, and much more. I and other feminists fought to end violence against women, including domestic abuse which was once tolerated as a husband's right. We strove to help girls and women to love and celebrate their bodies, rejecting the self-loathing fostered by advertisements and other forces. Gender Identity Ideology contradicts all of these things feminists like me fought for. There's a reason gender ideologues took over and destroyed feminist organizations as an early priority--to render the word "feminism" useless, turning it into the opposite of what it actually is. As with terms like "woman", "female", "man", and"woman", they understood that depriving people of our language, deprives us of our ability to stand up to their insane agenda.
Maternity leave is one thing that I worry could be swept away in the Great Obfuscation of gender language, where terms are eternally malleable. "Trans women are women, therefore not all women need maternity leave, therefore cis women shouldn't have this unfair advantage," I imagine it going.
I sent a message to this effect to my ex (who may or may not have been the love of my life) who is on the trans train, begging her to think about who she's siding with. She blocked me, of course
You're brave. And that inspires more bravery, in me and others.
Reading your report on this meeting helped me realize that we must be willing and able to bear people hating us and lashing out as we speak up. Some aren't able but will be soon. We know the hatred will point our way, but we also can be sure that children who are swimming in this indoctrination need to know that not everyone agrees, there is dissent, and then they can find out why. At this point it is starting to seem like juvenile adults are driving the bus...the teachers, therapists, "clinicians," activists and the parents who refer to their children as "kiddos."
They are driving the bus smugly, with absolute surety, and, as you point out, unaware of their indoctrination.
But the wheels are coming off with every child, youth and adult who desists and detransistions, and with every brave doctor and whistle-blower who sounds the bell of reasoned truth that gets through to one more person.
As more and more young people grow into realization they were harmed by smug, shallow, criminally-irresppnsible, greedy ghouls who couldn't care less about brutal, off-label drugs and irreversible body modification that leaves them sterile, incontinent, and with no sexual function, there will be hell to pay. Glad you documented this so well...
Thank you for your comment.
And btw, what is with that term "kiddo"? I, too, have noticed that this seems to be how gender ideology-drenched parents refer to their children. Do they think it sounds more respectful than "kid" or something?
IMO...It's a way of conveying a sort of buddy-buddy relationship with children. This cohort of parents have been brought up to mistrust parental authority along with other authority. "Kiddo" shows they are hip, kind, and pals with their children. To me it indicates a flattening of family hierarchy (parents care for children, not letting them lead).
And, it also serves to convey they belong to the group of supportive parents.
One of the curious things to me about this cult is that it is the victims (the children) who want it and demand it. They are sold a false idea by their schools and by social media (that transitioning will solve their problems), and then they demand it from their parents. Back in the 1950's, you didn't have people demanding to have lobotomies.
There is one detransitioner (M>F) who has been interviewed on YouTube and is particularly pitiful. He continues to dress as a woman because he had both top and bottom surgery, but he is miserably unhappy and wants his old life back as a man. It is so sad.
On Eliza Mondegreen's Substack, I pointed out that the parents of trans kids are proving to be a particularly stubborn group of pro-trans activists. There are, of course, many parents who are skeptical of what their kids have gotten into, but some parents are so protective of their kids that they go along with whatever their children want, and in the process they become convinced by all aspects of transgender ideology. I think that a lot of those parents are secretly delighted to have a "special" child who needs extra sympathy and attention. In a way, it's like those parents who groom their kids to be performers.
Good point about lobotomies. There was no commercial or social cachet aspect, no in-group victimhood points to be had, no digital media platforms acting as a "super peer."
I see elements of the "special child" attitude at play, as well.
This has been a generation or two in the making. Sometimes I wonder if it also doesn't provide parents an easy diagnosis that will be less challenging than autism, etc. (Referring to parents who promote it.) Maybe they love that easy, one-stop, answer to a child who is prickly, perhaps autistic, perhaps traumatized at the visceral and soul level by early exposure to violent pornography or sexual abuse that mustn't be acknowledged?
I'd be anxious as hell if I were a child these days, too.
What a relief to have a "clinician" wrap everything up with a pink or blue bow and a prescription and some words about "fully reversible?"
Figuratively speaking, "affirming" parents can really dine out on it with other parents who don't have such interesting "designer" children.
What fun to be hip and cool!
I think the secret delight is real in some parents, and they make it extremely difficult for reasonable parents who are not living through their children to establish any credibility with school boards, etc.
So their narcissism affects more than their own children.
Very good points, Lucky. Lots of good insights. We need more people who understand the nuances of what's going on. Most people are totally befuddled by it. I have a gay friend that I correspond with via email, and his response is entirely sympathetic. I described to him all the down sides of the trans cult -- pushing into women's spaces, influencing children, telling people how they must talk, denying science, trying to change the meaning of "gender", shaming everyone who doesn't agree with them, trying to censor an open conversation of the issue -- and his reaction to it all is still sympathy. Because he is gay (as am I), he is sympathetic to anyone who doesn't fit into society because of their inner feelings, so he won't criticize them. Well, I didn't fit into society either, but I didn't abandon my common sense. Despite all his sympathy, he will sometimes grouse to me about other people using what I call Gender Speak.
The befuddlement is real. I see it in action with close friends who suddenly jump on the bandwagon with surety. How great to take care of that confusion and unease with a few (false) stats about suicide rates and "Healthcare." A relief! So their befuddlement is put to rest by believing the well-presented lies.
The abandonment of common sense has to go with it, so the emotional blackmail and sense of social virtue kicks in.
Ultimately, though, the people who make a difference are the people like Carol who stand up to be counted in the halls of decision-making.
I will stand up, too. First, though, am scrubbing my home address off the web, and securing contracts outside of my job so I can afford to lose it.
Sorry for not answering sooner. An advice columnist gave a pro-trans answer to a letter on the Washington Post, and I have been over there arguing. The letter-writer said he/she was nonbinary and wanted to know what to do about co-workers who won't call him/her/it "they" and "them". The columnist said to complain to Human Resources, which I don't think was good advice, as the HR department might then see the nonbinary person as a trouble-maker. But just the fact that there are nonbinary people in the world expecting to be called special pronouns (which makes them narcissists, in my view), and willing to make trouble for co-workers, just steams me.
So, you seem to be saying that you want to devote your time to being an anti-trans activist, and you are anticipating losing your job and, perhaps, having pro-trans people demonstrating at your home. If I'm reading you right, my advice is to use a pen name. Perry James is my nom de plume. Perry is my middle name, and James is my mother's maiden name. There's nothing dishonest about using a pen name, but then, all I do is write about trans stuff; I don't have a public profile beyond what I write. And besides, I'll be dead in ten years anyway. If you use a pen name, your employer may never know about your activities. Indeed, even if you use your real name, your employer may never know.
All good points. One clarification...."Trans" isn't the issue for me. It's gender ideology being plastered over reality via commercial and cult pressures. Adults who transition can fly at it, but gender identity doesn't change sex and no child is born in the wrong body. And yes, non-binary is BS. Just be gender non-conforming. Why ya gotta break the language? So special!
I am girding my loins (not surgically) to have in person conversations with people I know.
Already am using a pen name, like you but feel it only goes so far...
Carol, thank you so much for what you are doing. Most people have no idea what is going on and think any objections to gender ideology in schools are just coming from a bunch of hysterical right wingers who don't want books about gay parents in the school libraries. As if! The kids themselves have grown up with it, so they don't know there is anything strange when the risk assessment survey that the guidance counselor makes them all take asks what sex they were "assigned" at birth and what gender they identify as now. Can you imagine never knowing anything else? Funny how when we criticize the subversion of language we're told it's only words, but if we say biological sex is real we are COMMITTING TRANS GENOCIDE!
I understand now the fierce responses of the school board, she has a trans kid and will or can never ever admit that she may be wrong. She literally would die defending her ideology.
Those are the people who will never let the tiniest bit of doubt in, lest they have to admit that they encouraged their own children to poison and mutilate themselves for nothing.
parents of kids who ID as another gender have a problem: the costs. gender ideology is free at first. but after a while it requires truck loads of pills and sugeries all of which cost a fortune. if their volentary choice to ID as another gender can be deemed a right, then its more likely the government and or health plans will provide theis vanity care for free. but the costs of gender ideology go well beyond pills and surgeries. whats the cost when kids psych issues are worsened and compounded via quack care every gov systematic review on earth found doesnt help and actually causes severe harm, when if they didnt participate in this quack care studys show their issues resolve on their own with puberty?
You are incredibly patient Carol, with these gender losers, cos I would have given up on them some time ago. I dont know if you can fix deluded people, and I would let them all sink. I can understand you trying to rescue humanity, even when they dont want to be rescued, and you must be getting better at having the right answers for them. In New Zealand we have just voted out our woke government, so I am hoping the whole woke ideology will now be discredited and ignored, and schools will go back to normal. The wokies are sounding disturbed and all shook up by getting a Christian PM, but we took the best political option available at the time. We got lucky. I hope you get lucky too.
Carol, below is the letter that I just sent to every member of the school board. (Much of my activism involves writing letters to people.) These people are the lunatic fringe. They are completely brainwashed by a set of bad ideas. I wrote the letter in a way that I thought might reach them.
======================
Dear Ms. Rankin,
I am a gay man in Rhode Island, and I have been following events in the Seattle schools regarding the gender issue. It seems to me that there are some things you may not understand, which is why I am writing. Let me launch right into them:
(To make matters easier, I am going to speak about girls more than boys.)
Gender has become a fad among kids. The fad is occurring for a couple reasons. First, kids are being told (mostly by their schools, but also on social media) that they have a right to choose their gender. That being the case, some of them are naturally deciding to do that.
Here's the problem:
Let's say that a girl thinks she might be gay. All she needs to do to resolve that question is to experiment sexually with another girl. No harm is done. But if a girl thinks she is a boy, figuring out whether or not that is true is a much more complicated process. It involves adopting a new identity, changing her name, possibly taking puberty-blockers, taking testosterone, and ultimately having various surgeries. Now, if the girl has been influenced, that means she isn't really trans. Like homosexuality, being trans is something that comes from within, which is innate. By the time she comes to her senses and halts the process, her body may already be damaged. Both puberty-blockers and testosterone can make permanent changes to a girl's body.
We do need to protect trans kids, but we also need to protect the ones who are transitioning for the wrong reasons. Being trans has become such a huge fad that it is possible that a majority of the kids who are now transitioning are not actually trans. It is because it has become a fad that transgenderism is spreading at an exponential rate among children.
So what's the solution to this problem? First, "affirmative care" is the wrong approach. Girls who have decided they are boys, and boys who have decided they are girls, need to see a therapist who will examine the child's motives. Such a therapist is called a "gate-keeper", but there are no gate-keepers any more. The trans lobby has been so successful at spreading their ideas that most therapists have adopted the "affirmative" model. A girl who has been influenced may go through the entire transitioning process before she realizes she has made a mistake. By then, her voice may have dropped into the baritone range, she may have a beard and body hair that won't stop growing, and she may be infertile -- not to mention the damage done by any operations she had. Social media is full of unhappy young women who are bemoaning the fact that they now sound like men when they speak.
Affirmative care doesn't help children to figure out whether they are being motivated by other issues. Affirmative care just rushes them through the transitioning process.
So you see, parents who object to the spread of transgender ideas in public schools also have the best interests of children at heart. They just see things differently. They are concerned that their children will become collateral damage. They are not "haters".
Society is moving too fast on this issue. We need to slow down. We need to remember that children are not adults. Their brains are not fully developed. Some so-called "trans" children may simply be going through a phase -- if so, they need time to let the phase run its course. Despite what anyone says, the trans life is not an easy one. Trans people require constant medical care. Being trans can also create identity problems. Trans people live their lives as neither fully male nor fully female. Any trans-leaning person who can make peace with his or her natural sex will be better off.
There is one more issue to consider: Does a child have the right to make life-changing decisions on behalf of the adult yet to come? Many people think that children don't have the emotional maturity to do that.
The trans lobby has been very effective at spreading the idea that being a trans child is exquisitely painful, and that children -- even very young children -- must be allowed to transition immediately or they may commit suicide. People who have investigated those claims haven't found them to be credible. Indeed, the available evidence suggests that detransitioners have a higher suicide rate.
Here is the bottom line: Medical transition to the opposite gender is a decision that only an adult can make responsibly.
Schools should not be telling children that they have the right to choose their gender. It puts the idea in their heads, an idea which can cause trouble. Telling a girl that she can become a boy if she wants to may create in her a desire to transition. In other words, by teaching such things, schools are influencing children in risky ways. This is why such issues should be handled by parents, not by schools. Children who are truly transgender will know they are trans without being prompted or influenced -- just as I knew at a young age that I was gay without any influence from anyone. Like being gay, being trans must come from inside.
It is all well and good to /accommodate/ children who are convinced that they are trans, but it is wrong to /encourage/ transgenderism in your students. That is not the proper role of any school.
Yours truly,
Perry James
Absolutely infuriating. What sheer reserves of energy you must have to patiently respond to all this nonsense being thrown at you. I’m exhausted just reading this.
Hi PhDBiologistMom, I'm eager to connect with PhD biologists. Do you happen to live near Seattle? Shoot me an email if you're able to chat a bit, using address for me on About page.
Way to go!!
Don't get drawn into defending yourselves. They hurl endless piles of BS just to keep you on the defensive. The more time and energy you consume on defense the less you have for standing up for reality. Go on the attack and STAY on the attack. If you feel you must defend sometimes, make sure you turn the defense around into an attack by the end of it.
This is as much a war of confidence and righteousness as it is a war for reason, morality and reality over insanity.
thanks for sticking up for kids. gender activists provide guidance on how to counter gender critical people and views. they instruct libraries on how to keep porn on the shelves. they instruct school boards on how to deal with people inconveniently point out they are harming kids and promoting regressive misogyny and homophobia.
the way to counter gender cult activists is to pick your battles, get them on record and then use their statements against them by voting them out. we know every gender biz stat, study and claim is a lie. every gov systematic review ever done on earth found gender meds dont help kids. every study ever done to see if kids grow out of gender dysphoria found kids do with puberty, unless given gender meds. thats why countries that have done systematic reviews if gender meds help stopped giving them to kids after their study found it was a scam. they also found that social transformation dosent help kids either.
gender activists play pretending that those who voluntarily ID as another gender are like historically marginalized groups actually harm the groups they claim to help.
Hampson has demonstrated she cannot be reasonable or respect parental rights. Advise you personalize the issue and focus your fire on her in particular.
The parents telling their children that everyone hates them and wants them to stop existing are effectively inflicting Munchausen by Proxy on their children, but with a mental illness. It really feels like child abuse and it's a scandal that schools and doctors go along with it - although I've heard from a psychiatrist that doctors could lose their license if they don't.
I hope you're right about the school board looking back on their behaviour in a few years and feeling shame, but at the moment there's little to make that happen. Well done to you for being brave enough to take a stand against the encroaching madness
Look at the flags on the desk of Rankin. That’s all you need to know!
I agree. It's a continual marvel...a brutal marvel. Like people have lost their minds, or have not finished development of their executive function. I mean, the absolute dross of the claims, the conflating of sex with gender, the cheering on of extreme body modification as a human right, the advocating for the state to remove children from homes...even their stupid "gender spectrum diagram" with barbie on one end, GI Joe on the other and a bunch of faceless bowling pins in the middle is such obvious garbage you'd think it would have been laughed down immediately...absolutely unreal that it wasn't!
It is surreal, I agree, but it does make sense.
It's more than just ideological capture. It's a very calculated, top down agenda to dismantle gender, parenting and the family as a prerequisite for age of transhumanism (a genderless and infertile population merged with technology, and with reproduction taken care of by artificial wombs and AI taking over the role of parenting). The groundwork for the transhumanism agenda was laid down by feminism.
What we are witnessing today is just a continuation of feminism - an ideology which also claimed gender was a social construct and biology (sexual dimorphism) is the root cause of all personal and social ills and injustices (real or imagined) and should therefore be dispensed with (be careful what you wish for!)
For several generations now normal, healthy young people have gone off to university and come back home for Christmas hating their gender, their biology, their bodies and 'fixing' the problem with black lipstick, short hair, piercings, intentionally subversive clothing, tattoos and a complete obsession with self, identity, language and subverting social conventions.
The only thing which has really changed in recent years is surgery and cross sex hormones have been added to the mix. Apparently artificial wombs are only a decade or two away now. Fertility and birth rates were already dropping like a stone before 2021, but since the 'miracle juice' was rolled out it's completely fallen off a cliff.
A genderless / sterilised population, with women freed from the horrors and burdens of motherhood, is the ultimate in 'gender equality'.... and it's precisely what feminists have been demanding all along.
Hi Plato's Rabbit Cave, I don't agree with your assessment of what feminism is. The word "feminism", like so many words, has been taken over and misused....as part of paving the way to things like trans humanism. I've been a feminist since I disagreed, as a child, with someone telling me, that as a girl, I was not entitled to basic rights. I and other feminists I knew never said sex is a social construct, or that freedom from sexism meant females were the same as males. We always acknowledged and celebrated physical differences. Among the things I've fought for, as a feminist, are i) lengthy paid maternity leaves; ii) better yet, an economic set-up and fair wages that make it possible for families to have a stay-at-home parent, iii) female-only sports categories, and much more. I and other feminists fought to end violence against women, including domestic abuse which was once tolerated as a husband's right. We strove to help girls and women to love and celebrate their bodies, rejecting the self-loathing fostered by advertisements and other forces. Gender Identity Ideology contradicts all of these things feminists like me fought for. There's a reason gender ideologues took over and destroyed feminist organizations as an early priority--to render the word "feminism" useless, turning it into the opposite of what it actually is. As with terms like "woman", "female", "man", and"woman", they understood that depriving people of our language, deprives us of our ability to stand up to their insane agenda.
Maternity leave is one thing that I worry could be swept away in the Great Obfuscation of gender language, where terms are eternally malleable. "Trans women are women, therefore not all women need maternity leave, therefore cis women shouldn't have this unfair advantage," I imagine it going.
I sent a message to this effect to my ex (who may or may not have been the love of my life) who is on the trans train, begging her to think about who she's siding with. She blocked me, of course