Young kids are so easily led astray. A few days before I started kindergarten back in the 1950s, my parents told me the name on my birth certificate was actually Renee and asked whether I wanted to be known by that name at school. I'd never heard the name Renee before. And because it was so new, I said "yes" without ever thinking of what it would be like to be called "Renee" by everyone at school.
Long story short, it was the worst decision of my young life. I grew to hate, and I mean hate, being called Renee. Just before I entered first grade, I had my parents change my school name back to Nancy, the name I had always been called at home. But some kids continued to call me Renee all through elementary school, sometimes just to annoy me.
But that was just my name, not my sex. So I can only begin to imagine how embarrassing and humiliating it would be for a child to come to his or her senses and have to publicly detransition back to their real sex.
It is not necessarily a "pipeline" like the drug dealer hanging outside of the school; it is much more sophisticated and a few degrees separated. It has to do with men like my former husband, father of my sons, going out cross-dressing. He did this exactly when our older son was the age (3 and a half) when his father started beating him with a belt. I know he never dealt with that in therapy, because I asked and begged him to, to save our marriage. No. He went to a "sexologist" who said if you have this thought in your head since childhood (I'm born in the wrong body) you must be transsexual. No need to talk like Freud about the past. She encouraged him to secretly cross-dress and called it "true life test" (despite the fact he was going to gay bars, hardly true life for thinking you are female and seeking male attention as a heterosexual) to then "get the letter" to take to a surgeon. The fact that my ex-husband's ideology caused my erasure as mother of our sons is, for the "mainstream media" just a detail. "It's so rare." Nope. Not. KC Miller, detransitioner who is now excoriated on twitter, can attest.
Ute Heggen, author, In the Curated Woods, True Tales from a Grass Widow (iuniverse, 2022)
This video explores the "trans" mass psychosis. Warning: this video is disturbing and the images of young people who have had "gender affirming surgeries" are graphic. The doctors performing these surgeries are despicable. The discussions with detransitioners who have been permanently altered are heartbreaking.
Not mentioned here is WPATH's recent resurrection of a very real phenomenon - the eunuch. They say that being a eunuch is a valid gender, and well they might, as that is what they are creating when children transition into sterile sexless golems.
Never mind the ancient associations of eunuch-hood, be they singing like a prepubescent choirboy, guarding the sultan's harem, or removing distractions from a dedicated Chinese bureaucrat, there is a more sinister side to this that even the non-paranoid might consider.
In a world in which certain vulnerable children do not enter puberty and retain their nearly sexless bodies until they are past the age of consent at 16, you might foresee certain safeguarding issues. This is paradise for paedophiles.
I'm not so paranoid as to think WPATH deliberately envisaged this, but I don't believe they considered it at all as an unwanted outcome. One that will be exploited, tragically. This must be resisted.
100% agree with you, this whole thing is darker than even most critics comprehend. I think WPATH knows exactly what it's inviting with the eunuch chapter. They reference 'the eunuch archive' as a great source about half a dozen times in their 'Standards of Care'. That site has literally hundreds of erotic' stories involving children being tortured, raped, and castrated.
Sexual Identity poltics is clearly used to fill the religious void. Lots of books explore this at this point so you aren't exactly breaking a mold. Not every lesbian or gay male subscribes to the official LGBTQ flag so saying LGBT is the religion misses the mark.
Smelling a RAT, in 2015 I attended a Gender workshop at the university where I teach. The workshop was imposed by "Horace," who, we'd been told via departmental email, "identifies as male" and that "outward appearances do not determine a person's gender." Henceforth I would enter the department on the lookout for a dyke who called herself "Horace."
Lo and behold, "Horace" turned out to be a gigantic black woman with gigantic breasts, dressed in a frothy pink confection, arms full of tinkling bracelets, with raspberry ballet flats to complete the outfit.
At the workshop, Horace and "his" elves -- compliant little women in perky knit caps with faces on them -- handed out "pronoun power" bracelets and other swag designed to get us on board. I will never forget the charade of being told that the new forward way to be was to ask people their pronouns at the start of every class because "gender is fluid and can change from day to day." IMAGINE OCCUPYING YOUR MIND WITH THAT BULLHORN -- NOT TO MENTION TEN MINUTES OF CLASS TIME.
And then the circus of useful idiots supplying said pronouns, much to narcissistic Horace's control-freak satisfaction.
Well, I refused. "What you see is what you get," was my response. And, frankly, being coerced into telling people that I'm female, rather than allowing them to see it for themselves is distressing to me. I will not participate in this "triggering" activity.
My mental health comes first.
In the meantime, our "MAN" "Horace" had to stomp out of the room with the vapors when "he" heard the word "queer."
The fact of adults recruiting minors is so true. It will take some time to sink in, as this was the canard thrown at homosexuals in the past.
I highlighted points from the Michael Biggs paper at medical publisher, taylor and francis online today on my blog. A link to the full article, debunking the "Dutch Protocols" is in my post. This variety of shoddy research, where N = 70, oops, someone died on the operating table (literally the case in two of the Dutch studies cited) so now N = 69. They don't tell the surgeons to mention to patients/families that 2 out of less than 140 subjects died after surgery. They let it be a footnote, you know, he might have killed himself, anyway so . . .
What a wonderfully succinct summary of the current gender ideology. Sadly, some of my fellow pediatricians have bought into this ideology and defend their stance on "caring". However, pediatricians of all people should understand that responding to a child's every whim and articulated desire is child abuse and/or terrible parenting. Children have always needed adult direction and discipline. Yes, it should be kind and thoughtful but it also needs to be informed by accumulated wisdom. We are witnessing the greatest medical malfeasance by some pediatricians of recent memory. Physicians complain of interference in medical care, just as they defend abortion as a decision between a woman and her doctor. This is a deeply misinformed view of the deep issues involved in medical care.
I've read some of Marcuse's work, in particular "repressinve tollerance" and "essay on liberation", and also some other books on the subject of neo-Marxism. The neo-Marxists consider Western society to be extremely obscene and corrupt. Western society must be overturned, they say. Marcuse also says plainly that he cannot know what the truly free society that will come after the revolution look like. But he, and others, are convinced that it must be good - since people will awake from their "false consciousness" and finally be free.
They are sure that step 1 - destroy current, Western, capitalist, prosperous society - is essential. Step 2 - build the perfect free society - that will just somehow happen, but first - we must take care of step 1.
Once you understand this - you see that there is no mysterious end game. The chaos *is* the end game. Step 1 is the end game. Step 2 is far away in a future not yet known.
Since this has permeated academia and in particular education - there's no master mind. And you actually don't need a master mind for this - just a group of like minded people cooperating in destroying the system. They sort of privatized the revolution - that's probably why it's so efficient.
Of course, practically speaking, many people use this opportunity to make money and try to gain power for themselves - this is on par with any revolution - where the goal is to replace the bastards in power with your own bastards.
Yes, you got that right. At least that's my opinion after having obsessed over trying to understand it for the last 2 years.
I think it explains the general feeling of "what the hell is going on" that many people have. Things are changing fast, in a generally undefined direction, which gives a feeling of unraveling.
Destroying the system is the "philosophy" that drives all of this - because the system is perceived to be terribly evil, therefore the good people must destroy it - that's also especially appealing to the young, who are naive and don't know that almost inevitably, revolutions end badly for those who fought for them [notable exception is the American revolution, but that's the exception that proves the rule].
They also have the sense that fascism is just around the corner, so they must be ready to fight it before the fascists take over - that actually happened in Europe in the old days, and influenced the intellectuals that formed the beginnings of the neo-Marxist movement.
There's no master plan of what will happen afterwards, or even when the destruction will be considered to be complete.
Of course various individuals have their own plans. Some make money, e.g. from selling DEI training, or taking public funding (e.g. BLM leaders). Some look for power, e.g. the Squad.
The plan is sold as neomarxist identity politics all the way down. Power IS the ultimate objective of those who win however and they will cede their priors when they have it.
Take a look at YouTube channel, Isle of Ex, for more details on the damage to vocal chords from any wrong sex hormones and her excellent take down of the Jon Stewart brand of interview. Leslie Rutledge let us down. Know your facts. Osteoporosis, liver failure, brain fog, lower IQ, kidney failure and you are a groomer now, based on the reaction Instagrams to heart-wrenching KC Miller video (female detransitioner). It is a cult. That BS proves it.
"If this sounds similar to the regressive and oppressive system that women’s and other human rights groups fought for decades to overcome, that’s because it is. But it’s actually much worse, since it also promotes the idea that a “mismatch” between one’s sex and “gender identity” can be medically “corrected” with hormones and surgeries."
Oh, Colin, stop making sense (please forgive the sarcasm, I was momentarily overcome.)
The harm being done to children and adolescents is rapidly accelerating beyond ignorance, or even wickedness, it has ensconced itself firmly within the category known as "evil."
I remember how androgyny was looked down upon and derided, back in the day.
Indeed, any deviation from stereotypical "alpha" characteristics and accomplishments resulted in calumny and censure. This was true for both boys and girls, men and women alike. The resulting sense of shame and defeat created an awful lot of damaged people. The evolutionary reason for such societal approbation was that all of life is a competition for finite resources, but humans are noted for a propensity toward shallow thinking.
What was missing was awareness of the categorical distinction between skills and attributes.
A great deal of progress was made during the seventies and eighties, but the progressiveness of days now past, has been replaced with a reactionary impulse that can best be described as Kafkaesque Orwellianism.
In the sixties, Dad worked so many hours that it was Mom who taught us how to use hammer and saw. She was very good at carpentry. Her preference for tool-using did not make her "gender" uncertain; she was all woman.
Dad cried at weddings. He was not in doubt about his masculinity for doing so, however much that sentimentality flew in the face of the male stereotypes of those days.
The tomboys that climbed trees with us? We eventually learned to despise the societal norms that attempted to make us regard our feminine friends as unsuitable wives, merely because they did not primp. They were our friends, and as we developed into young adults, their honest physical presence, devoid of stage makeup and just as God made them, was presented as "not feminine" and thus unattractive from the standpoint of suitable mate.
Corporate advertising and Hollywood representations made it all infinitely worse.
Things were getting better for a while, and many of us believed that thoughtful awareness would grow and the improvements made toward self-acceptance would continue and accelerate.
But that's not what has happened. Boy, were we naive.
Now, they poison you, sterilize you and amputate healthy parts of your body for failing to internalize stereotypical norms about your inherent attributes.
Thus, the pivot away from progress and embracing of reactionary ideologies.
It's well past a quarter-to-wicked; we have arrived at half-past-evil, rapidly advancing toward the zero-dark-thirty of monstrous.
Bodily dysmorphia is part of growing up for a statistically significant number of individuals, always has been. Self-acceptance was the welcome antidote. now, self-mutilation is the "solution" offered by our "mental health" industry.
And make no mistake; industry is precisely what it has become, with all of the incentive distortions that accompany such an evolution. The comparison holds true; how else can we explain how a small cadre of agitators have succeeded in disempowering that growing legion of increasingly helpful therapists, marginalizing and silencing them? The model of hostile takeover by opportunistic commercial looters describes it well enough.
Strip away the denial of self-interested incentive, and the nuts-and-bolts of how reactionary forces have commandeered our trusted institutions becomes clear.
Radical ideology is the "why," financial incentivization is the "how."
Link below to the 6 major published studies debunking previous foundation of "affirmation, informed consent" from Dr. Stephen B. Levine, Leor Sapir & Julie Mason, Michael Biggs, Jay Greene, et al.
Children (and vulnerable, emotionally unstable adults) are encouraged to enter a "post-baptismal state" of renewal by "changing your sex." The euphoria might last 2 years, or the patient may die on the operating table, or the reality of incontinence, bone demineralization, liver failure and excessive time on "passing" finally catches up, regret sets in. It's not a tattoo. It's your urinary tract. Don't mess with the plumbing. Links to the original studies at pubmed and other medical sites included:
"Since adults typically make difficult converts, gender activists are increasingly turning their focus to children."
The claim that adults make difficult converts is hard to square with the extent to which gender activists have managed to bend major institutions (staffed by adults) in Western societies toward their ideology. It seems to me that the ideology has captured (to varying degrees) educational institutions, scientific institutions, media organisations, political parties, think thanks, charities, public bodies, major corporations and police forces across the liberal democratic world. How does one explain the success the gender activists have had in capturing these institutions if adults are difficult to convert?
"This is effective because asking a child about their pronouns mentally separates the terms “he/him” (as referring to men and boys) and “she/her” (as referring to girls and women) from one’s biological sex and instead roots it in “gender identity.”"
This gets to the heart of the belief system - the redefinition of man/boy vs woman/girl as terms denoting one's sex to terms denoting (a major aspect of) one's identity. As you imply, disconnecting pronouns from biological sex is a first step towards getting someone to buy into this view of gender identity, hence pushing it with kids - though of course they also push it with adults.
Also, by re-framing man/woman as a matter of internally felt identity rather than sex, the terms become subjective rather than objective and those who identify as women will likely feel their identity is under attack if others misgender them or question their claim to be a woman. Given that gender activists explicitly push the idea that it is transphobic to question or deny someone's gender identity, you then have a basis for generating outrage/anger towards those who question these beliefs/this view of what it means to be a man/woman/neither.
Note that other aspects of our identities are not something we *unilaterally* determine solely for ourselves in the way gender activists suggest is the case for gender identity - e.g. claiming to be Scottish does not mean others are obliged to regard you as Scottish on the basis of your word alone or to vilify those who have the temerity to be skeptical about or to question your claim.
However apparently I could claim to be a woman and the gender activists say everyone should just accept that claim on the basis of my word alone (for that is what self-id entails), as it is presumed to reflect some inner innate sense of being female. At the same time, denying my claimed gender identity would be considered transphobic, and only anti-trans bigots/TERFs would do so deliberately.
I’m sorry but if I ever found out a teacher was doing this to my kid, said teacher would be getting a kick to the groin and a punch to the face for grooming my kid.
You should add the Irish group 'Not all gays,' to the above list. They are a group of LGB young people who are standing up against the 'transing,' of everything.
Great article, thanks! The hyperlink to the Sapir article about the myth of suicide is excellent. As that threat drives so much fear, it's important for parents to dive deeper. Here's another article detailing the issues with the studies of suicidality with gender distressed kids to date: https://can-sg.org/frequently-asked-questions/are-children-and-young-people-with-gender-dysphoria-at-higher-risk-of-suicide/
More on the many dangers of social transition from Stats for Gender, a sister site to Genspect: https://www.statsforgender.org/social-transition/
Young kids are so easily led astray. A few days before I started kindergarten back in the 1950s, my parents told me the name on my birth certificate was actually Renee and asked whether I wanted to be known by that name at school. I'd never heard the name Renee before. And because it was so new, I said "yes" without ever thinking of what it would be like to be called "Renee" by everyone at school.
Long story short, it was the worst decision of my young life. I grew to hate, and I mean hate, being called Renee. Just before I entered first grade, I had my parents change my school name back to Nancy, the name I had always been called at home. But some kids continued to call me Renee all through elementary school, sometimes just to annoy me.
But that was just my name, not my sex. So I can only begin to imagine how embarrassing and humiliating it would be for a child to come to his or her senses and have to publicly detransition back to their real sex.
Visual aids would probably help here; I hear the term "pipeline" thrown around, but we're really talking about something closer to a sales funnel https://res.cloudinary.com/monday-blogs/w_789,c_fit/fl_lossy,f_auto,q_auto/wp-blog/2021/03/sales-funnel-stages.png
It is not necessarily a "pipeline" like the drug dealer hanging outside of the school; it is much more sophisticated and a few degrees separated. It has to do with men like my former husband, father of my sons, going out cross-dressing. He did this exactly when our older son was the age (3 and a half) when his father started beating him with a belt. I know he never dealt with that in therapy, because I asked and begged him to, to save our marriage. No. He went to a "sexologist" who said if you have this thought in your head since childhood (I'm born in the wrong body) you must be transsexual. No need to talk like Freud about the past. She encouraged him to secretly cross-dress and called it "true life test" (despite the fact he was going to gay bars, hardly true life for thinking you are female and seeking male attention as a heterosexual) to then "get the letter" to take to a surgeon. The fact that my ex-husband's ideology caused my erasure as mother of our sons is, for the "mainstream media" just a detail. "It's so rare." Nope. Not. KC Miller, detransitioner who is now excoriated on twitter, can attest.
Ute Heggen, author, In the Curated Woods, True Tales from a Grass Widow (iuniverse, 2022)
Wow. Good analogy. Thanks for that.
This video explores the "trans" mass psychosis. Warning: this video is disturbing and the images of young people who have had "gender affirming surgeries" are graphic. The doctors performing these surgeries are despicable. The discussions with detransitioners who have been permanently altered are heartbreaking.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBInNGgdF2M
Damn.
Not mentioned here is WPATH's recent resurrection of a very real phenomenon - the eunuch. They say that being a eunuch is a valid gender, and well they might, as that is what they are creating when children transition into sterile sexless golems.
Never mind the ancient associations of eunuch-hood, be they singing like a prepubescent choirboy, guarding the sultan's harem, or removing distractions from a dedicated Chinese bureaucrat, there is a more sinister side to this that even the non-paranoid might consider.
In a world in which certain vulnerable children do not enter puberty and retain their nearly sexless bodies until they are past the age of consent at 16, you might foresee certain safeguarding issues. This is paradise for paedophiles.
I'm not so paranoid as to think WPATH deliberately envisaged this, but I don't believe they considered it at all as an unwanted outcome. One that will be exploited, tragically. This must be resisted.
100% agree with you, this whole thing is darker than even most critics comprehend. I think WPATH knows exactly what it's inviting with the eunuch chapter. They reference 'the eunuch archive' as a great source about half a dozen times in their 'Standards of Care'. That site has literally hundreds of erotic' stories involving children being tortured, raped, and castrated.
LGBT is a non-theistic replacement religion; change my mind.
Sexual Identity poltics is clearly used to fill the religious void. Lots of books explore this at this point so you aren't exactly breaking a mold. Not every lesbian or gay male subscribes to the official LGBTQ flag so saying LGBT is the religion misses the mark.
I would compare that case to the "spiritual but not religious" crowd.
Smelling a RAT, in 2015 I attended a Gender workshop at the university where I teach. The workshop was imposed by "Horace," who, we'd been told via departmental email, "identifies as male" and that "outward appearances do not determine a person's gender." Henceforth I would enter the department on the lookout for a dyke who called herself "Horace."
Lo and behold, "Horace" turned out to be a gigantic black woman with gigantic breasts, dressed in a frothy pink confection, arms full of tinkling bracelets, with raspberry ballet flats to complete the outfit.
At the workshop, Horace and "his" elves -- compliant little women in perky knit caps with faces on them -- handed out "pronoun power" bracelets and other swag designed to get us on board. I will never forget the charade of being told that the new forward way to be was to ask people their pronouns at the start of every class because "gender is fluid and can change from day to day." IMAGINE OCCUPYING YOUR MIND WITH THAT BULLHORN -- NOT TO MENTION TEN MINUTES OF CLASS TIME.
And then the circus of useful idiots supplying said pronouns, much to narcissistic Horace's control-freak satisfaction.
Well, I refused. "What you see is what you get," was my response. And, frankly, being coerced into telling people that I'm female, rather than allowing them to see it for themselves is distressing to me. I will not participate in this "triggering" activity.
My mental health comes first.
In the meantime, our "MAN" "Horace" had to stomp out of the room with the vapors when "he" heard the word "queer."
It was quite a performance.
The fact of adults recruiting minors is so true. It will take some time to sink in, as this was the canard thrown at homosexuals in the past.
I highlighted points from the Michael Biggs paper at medical publisher, taylor and francis online today on my blog. A link to the full article, debunking the "Dutch Protocols" is in my post. This variety of shoddy research, where N = 70, oops, someone died on the operating table (literally the case in two of the Dutch studies cited) so now N = 69. They don't tell the surgeons to mention to patients/families that 2 out of less than 140 subjects died after surgery. They let it be a footnote, you know, he might have killed himself, anyway so . . .
https://wordpress.com/post/uteheggengrasswidow.wordpress.com/4857
Ute Heggen, author, In the Curated Woods, True Tales from a Grass Widow (iuniverse, 2022)
very extensive
What a wonderfully succinct summary of the current gender ideology. Sadly, some of my fellow pediatricians have bought into this ideology and defend their stance on "caring". However, pediatricians of all people should understand that responding to a child's every whim and articulated desire is child abuse and/or terrible parenting. Children have always needed adult direction and discipline. Yes, it should be kind and thoughtful but it also needs to be informed by accumulated wisdom. We are witnessing the greatest medical malfeasance by some pediatricians of recent memory. Physicians complain of interference in medical care, just as they defend abortion as a decision between a woman and her doctor. This is a deeply misinformed view of the deep issues involved in medical care.
Very clearly and effectively written. The thing that I can never get to in all of this is "why." What is the end game here?
I've read some of Marcuse's work, in particular "repressinve tollerance" and "essay on liberation", and also some other books on the subject of neo-Marxism. The neo-Marxists consider Western society to be extremely obscene and corrupt. Western society must be overturned, they say. Marcuse also says plainly that he cannot know what the truly free society that will come after the revolution look like. But he, and others, are convinced that it must be good - since people will awake from their "false consciousness" and finally be free.
They are sure that step 1 - destroy current, Western, capitalist, prosperous society - is essential. Step 2 - build the perfect free society - that will just somehow happen, but first - we must take care of step 1.
Once you understand this - you see that there is no mysterious end game. The chaos *is* the end game. Step 1 is the end game. Step 2 is far away in a future not yet known.
Since this has permeated academia and in particular education - there's no master mind. And you actually don't need a master mind for this - just a group of like minded people cooperating in destroying the system. They sort of privatized the revolution - that's probably why it's so efficient.
Of course, practically speaking, many people use this opportunity to make money and try to gain power for themselves - this is on par with any revolution - where the goal is to replace the bastards in power with your own bastards.
So the idea is that this current chaos is meant to destroy the system. But there's no real plan once the system is destroyed. Do I have that right?
Yes, you got that right. At least that's my opinion after having obsessed over trying to understand it for the last 2 years.
I think it explains the general feeling of "what the hell is going on" that many people have. Things are changing fast, in a generally undefined direction, which gives a feeling of unraveling.
Destroying the system is the "philosophy" that drives all of this - because the system is perceived to be terribly evil, therefore the good people must destroy it - that's also especially appealing to the young, who are naive and don't know that almost inevitably, revolutions end badly for those who fought for them [notable exception is the American revolution, but that's the exception that proves the rule].
They also have the sense that fascism is just around the corner, so they must be ready to fight it before the fascists take over - that actually happened in Europe in the old days, and influenced the intellectuals that formed the beginnings of the neo-Marxist movement.
There's no master plan of what will happen afterwards, or even when the destruction will be considered to be complete.
Of course various individuals have their own plans. Some make money, e.g. from selling DEI training, or taking public funding (e.g. BLM leaders). Some look for power, e.g. the Squad.
The plan is sold as neomarxist identity politics all the way down. Power IS the ultimate objective of those who win however and they will cede their priors when they have it.
Take a look at YouTube channel, Isle of Ex, for more details on the damage to vocal chords from any wrong sex hormones and her excellent take down of the Jon Stewart brand of interview. Leslie Rutledge let us down. Know your facts. Osteoporosis, liver failure, brain fog, lower IQ, kidney failure and you are a groomer now, based on the reaction Instagrams to heart-wrenching KC Miller video (female detransitioner). It is a cult. That BS proves it.
"If this sounds similar to the regressive and oppressive system that women’s and other human rights groups fought for decades to overcome, that’s because it is. But it’s actually much worse, since it also promotes the idea that a “mismatch” between one’s sex and “gender identity” can be medically “corrected” with hormones and surgeries."
Oh, Colin, stop making sense (please forgive the sarcasm, I was momentarily overcome.)
The harm being done to children and adolescents is rapidly accelerating beyond ignorance, or even wickedness, it has ensconced itself firmly within the category known as "evil."
I remember how androgyny was looked down upon and derided, back in the day.
Indeed, any deviation from stereotypical "alpha" characteristics and accomplishments resulted in calumny and censure. This was true for both boys and girls, men and women alike. The resulting sense of shame and defeat created an awful lot of damaged people. The evolutionary reason for such societal approbation was that all of life is a competition for finite resources, but humans are noted for a propensity toward shallow thinking.
What was missing was awareness of the categorical distinction between skills and attributes.
A great deal of progress was made during the seventies and eighties, but the progressiveness of days now past, has been replaced with a reactionary impulse that can best be described as Kafkaesque Orwellianism.
In the sixties, Dad worked so many hours that it was Mom who taught us how to use hammer and saw. She was very good at carpentry. Her preference for tool-using did not make her "gender" uncertain; she was all woman.
Dad cried at weddings. He was not in doubt about his masculinity for doing so, however much that sentimentality flew in the face of the male stereotypes of those days.
The tomboys that climbed trees with us? We eventually learned to despise the societal norms that attempted to make us regard our feminine friends as unsuitable wives, merely because they did not primp. They were our friends, and as we developed into young adults, their honest physical presence, devoid of stage makeup and just as God made them, was presented as "not feminine" and thus unattractive from the standpoint of suitable mate.
Corporate advertising and Hollywood representations made it all infinitely worse.
Things were getting better for a while, and many of us believed that thoughtful awareness would grow and the improvements made toward self-acceptance would continue and accelerate.
But that's not what has happened. Boy, were we naive.
Now, they poison you, sterilize you and amputate healthy parts of your body for failing to internalize stereotypical norms about your inherent attributes.
Thus, the pivot away from progress and embracing of reactionary ideologies.
It's well past a quarter-to-wicked; we have arrived at half-past-evil, rapidly advancing toward the zero-dark-thirty of monstrous.
Bodily dysmorphia is part of growing up for a statistically significant number of individuals, always has been. Self-acceptance was the welcome antidote. now, self-mutilation is the "solution" offered by our "mental health" industry.
And make no mistake; industry is precisely what it has become, with all of the incentive distortions that accompany such an evolution. The comparison holds true; how else can we explain how a small cadre of agitators have succeeded in disempowering that growing legion of increasingly helpful therapists, marginalizing and silencing them? The model of hostile takeover by opportunistic commercial looters describes it well enough.
Strip away the denial of self-interested incentive, and the nuts-and-bolts of how reactionary forces have commandeered our trusted institutions becomes clear.
Radical ideology is the "why," financial incentivization is the "how."
Link below to the 6 major published studies debunking previous foundation of "affirmation, informed consent" from Dr. Stephen B. Levine, Leor Sapir & Julie Mason, Michael Biggs, Jay Greene, et al.
Children (and vulnerable, emotionally unstable adults) are encouraged to enter a "post-baptismal state" of renewal by "changing your sex." The euphoria might last 2 years, or the patient may die on the operating table, or the reality of incontinence, bone demineralization, liver failure and excessive time on "passing" finally catches up, regret sets in. It's not a tattoo. It's your urinary tract. Don't mess with the plumbing. Links to the original studies at pubmed and other medical sites included:
https://uteheggengrasswidow.wordpress.com/2022/10/15/jon-stewart-read-these-6-references-compendium-of-critiques-concur-affirmation-huge-flaws-no-valid-data/
A few comments in no particular order:
"Since adults typically make difficult converts, gender activists are increasingly turning their focus to children."
The claim that adults make difficult converts is hard to square with the extent to which gender activists have managed to bend major institutions (staffed by adults) in Western societies toward their ideology. It seems to me that the ideology has captured (to varying degrees) educational institutions, scientific institutions, media organisations, political parties, think thanks, charities, public bodies, major corporations and police forces across the liberal democratic world. How does one explain the success the gender activists have had in capturing these institutions if adults are difficult to convert?
"This is effective because asking a child about their pronouns mentally separates the terms “he/him” (as referring to men and boys) and “she/her” (as referring to girls and women) from one’s biological sex and instead roots it in “gender identity.”"
This gets to the heart of the belief system - the redefinition of man/boy vs woman/girl as terms denoting one's sex to terms denoting (a major aspect of) one's identity. As you imply, disconnecting pronouns from biological sex is a first step towards getting someone to buy into this view of gender identity, hence pushing it with kids - though of course they also push it with adults.
Also, by re-framing man/woman as a matter of internally felt identity rather than sex, the terms become subjective rather than objective and those who identify as women will likely feel their identity is under attack if others misgender them or question their claim to be a woman. Given that gender activists explicitly push the idea that it is transphobic to question or deny someone's gender identity, you then have a basis for generating outrage/anger towards those who question these beliefs/this view of what it means to be a man/woman/neither.
Note that other aspects of our identities are not something we *unilaterally* determine solely for ourselves in the way gender activists suggest is the case for gender identity - e.g. claiming to be Scottish does not mean others are obliged to regard you as Scottish on the basis of your word alone or to vilify those who have the temerity to be skeptical about or to question your claim.
However apparently I could claim to be a woman and the gender activists say everyone should just accept that claim on the basis of my word alone (for that is what self-id entails), as it is presumed to reflect some inner innate sense of being female. At the same time, denying my claimed gender identity would be considered transphobic, and only anti-trans bigots/TERFs would do so deliberately.
I’m sorry but if I ever found out a teacher was doing this to my kid, said teacher would be getting a kick to the groin and a punch to the face for grooming my kid.
You should add the Irish group 'Not all gays,' to the above list. They are a group of LGB young people who are standing up against the 'transing,' of everything.