You wrote, "Today I am speaking out. I am doing so knowing how toxic the public conversation is around this highly contentious issue—and the ways that my testimony might be misused. I am doing so knowing that I am putting myself at serious personal and professional risk."
From the bottom of our hearts, thank you. Thank you for taking the risk to write this. What's happening now is insane and surely one of the lowest points our culture has ever stooped to.
I think that what you've just said will make a difference.
I don't see good trends in many areas in the US, be it DIE (yes I reversed two letters because it's more consistent with the outcome of putting demographic status over merit), ESG (a push based on bad science), surrendering self determination to international organizations (loss of self determination), "education", "science", and censorship. I looked at relocating, but the insanity is still spreading and other places have their own issues. If I had school age children, I would educate at home, or pool resources with like-minded people to develop a (monitored) tutor system. Opting out of many areas seems to be the only option left.
At least relocate to the most conservative state that is practical for you to move to. "Circle the wagons" with people who share your values.
The lies of the woke tyrants cannot be made more clear than this brave author made clear. And the woke's lies pervade every aspect of our lives.
Will Bari Weiss and the other partially red-pilled "liberals" finally support leaders who understand this and have the courage to fight with those of us who see no alternative but to fight in every sane and practical way to save our once great nation. Will they support Ron DeSantis, Sen Josh Hawley? Or will they equivocate?
No. Progressives here and elsewhere will not deviate from the ingrained voting patterns that lead to such disasters. Otherwise, it would've happened long ago. Suicidal self-hatred is the very core of their raison d'ètre. I have no doubt whatsoever that the author of this piece will never support any candidate that is not explicitly vetted by the Democratic Party, and their record of catastrophic social policies.
These pieces always remind of the old B-movie trope "Stop me before I kill again!" LOL
Even the best private schools in the country have been infiltrated, along with the religious school. This Critical Pedagogy stuff began being taught in the Education Colleges in the '90s. It's soaked through the entire pedagogy of thought in education. Wanna have your head explode? Go research 'whole word theory"...They've stopped teaching phonics as an act of 'restorative justice'. They are okay with failing to serve all but the 'under-privileged' - who they fail as well of course. Kids are learning phonics outside of school now, smart parents make sure they do. They don't really 'learn' anything anymore the way my generation thinks about learning. Rather, they are given things 'to know' and ways to navigate knowing. Imbued with hard core Marcusian Crit Theory madness.
We moved to Costa Rica to protect my daughters, aged 12 and 15 from this bullshit. Their private school in Colorado, Colorado Academy, had several girls convinced they were boys.
Funny, I was looking around purple states for a non-woke high school and actually looked (on-line) at Colorado Academy. We left the hot bed of Manhattan and yep, this stuff is being introduced at child’s new (non-NYC) independent K-8 school.
Where's the new school? Colorado Academy teaches gender ideology as early as Kindergarten. We are in the process of undoing all the ideological training. We paid a ton of money to have our kids' minds totally poisoned.
Have you taken the phone away? Or at the very least, put monitors on it? Ditto on their computers? Ensured they aren't on harmful Social media apps, like Tiktok?
If you're not using one, it doesn't matter what school your kid goes to, they will get indoctrinated.
I'd ensure they go nowhere near TikTok or Discord.
It's horrifying, isn't it? I actually had to write everything down because it was so surreal that I would doubt my recollection for the rest of my life if I hadn't.
A friend of mine that pulled her kids out of private school said the funniest, albeit tragic, statement: "Well, you can get it for free or you can pay for it."
Here's how it is working between the "health professionals," schools, legislators and your children in many states. We are from Colorado so here's the CO example:
1. Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment ("CDPHE") contracts with The University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Center (“Anschutz”) to survey kids about their mental health issues.
2. In 2021, Healthy Kids Colorado Survey was given to more than 106,000 students, in grades 6-12 attending 340 schools in 51 different counties in Colorado. www.coloradokids.org
3. Question #3 of the Survey asks kids to state their gender identity. Questions 4 and 5 ask questions specifically about transgenderism.
4. Questions are "aggregated and anonymized" by Anschutz to populate CDPHE's public data dashboard. In other words, CDPHE can't tell me which schools were surveyed. Schools have no duty to tell parents any information about kids social transitioning in school.
5. CRS 12-245-2035, codified in 2019, allows "youth who are 12 and over to have legal access to outpatient psychotherapy services that might otherwise be unavailable without the consent of or notification to the youth's parent or legal guardian."
6. HB 23-1003, currently about to become law, creates a Mental Health Assessment program, administered by CDPHE that specifies that "students 12 and over may consent to participate in a mental health questionnaire (presumably the same one as above), administered by a Qualified Provider who can direct additional treatment of the student without the parent's consent. Presumably all the referrals are for “specialists” at Anschutz.
11. Sex-reassignment surgery was valued at $1.9B for 2021 and “and is expected to expand at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 11.23% from 2022 to 2030.”
I totally support what you are doing. You are only a very small minority of people with the ability to do such a radical move. What's more, it will lead to people like yourself being the leaders of what is left after these feral monsters get done torching the world with their sickness of mind. It seems the two ends of the economic spectrum, those who can escape entirely such as you, and those far below me on the spectrum, too rooted in reality to be indocrinated, will be those left standing. Praise God. It now just all depends on how much damage the Wokies can do in the meantime.
I’ve considered leaving again. I can hardly believe I’m saying that. But In truth the remedy is to stand up and fight this. Truth wins it’s just taking more time than it should.
Making me sick every day Mc and to think this gets Federal $$$$ we are in the twilight zone, it can’t last forever. Travistock in England has already closed down. We got to hammer away at this mad administration to stop this and stop it now!!
Kind of a boring letter, but skipping ahead to the parent testimonials will give you a very good sense of what is being done in expensive private schools. I have several pages full of horror stories told to me by parents.
It is going to take every single one of us to stop this madness. As I type this, Colorado (D) legislators are trying to codify 12 year-olds access to mental health counseling (i.e., gender confusion and ideology) in schools, over the parents' objections. The school then refers the child to a gender-affirming specialist/counselor. Because it's gender affirming and not gender-critical or gender-questioning, it's a one-way ticket to puberty blockers and "top surgery" (the current euphemism for traumatic, elective radical mastectomies in minors.)
EXACTLY THIS. Many times with this madness (Ukraine comes to mind) we are unable to do much as oftentimes these politicians say they will bring change but then they don't. In this case though speaking out can change things. This took hold by means of social contagion, and it will be the only way out.
It is worth it, there a lot of people out there that know this is all wrong, we just have to find our own way forward collectively, we can vote this nonsense out of power and we must!!!
It was really hard pulling two very happy kids out of a school with their friends that they had known for years. My husband and I fought about it daily for about a year. But, believing the transgender craze to be a contagion based on Abigail Shiver's book, we figured we had to get out. He was so pissed that the school was turning our beautiful young students/girls into anxious wanna-be boys. Here's the letter that I wrote to the Board begging them to calm the hell down with gender ideology. The school was hiring gender ideology experts to teach kids about how many different genders there were to choose from. I told the Principal at a meeting that it was emotionally inappropriate for elementary and middle-school kids and he disagreed, saying it was appropriate as early as Kindergarten. I have so many horror stories. Still trying to sort it all out and live a calm life in Costa Rica.
This may be the absolute lowest point our cutlure has ever reached...lynching, gay-bashing, immigrant-bashing, slavery, et al--despicable all, but none of them seem quite as despicable as the institutionalized gender mutilation of children. Literally doing Satan's work. And our current president is applauding it.
Yes, I think the argument can be made that the institutionalized gender mutilation of children, supported at the highest levels, politically and culturally, is the single most despicable thing that has ever happened in US history. At least in the cases of slavery and lynching, you had broad opposition to what was occurring. Try wrapping your mind around that idea. It might be it is you who is the one who is "tripping."
And this is the scariest part, seemingly kind people cannot grasp how dystopian this all is. They just can’t see the consequences of this. Like it’s no big deal. It’s actually societal collapse level stuff when you drill down and we are being prevented from speaking about it by the ruling class and the mainstream.
Um, slavery wasn't supported at the highest levels of government? Um, police in the South didn't look away when black people got lynched - much less picnic beneath their bodies? Um, we didn't have to fight a long and bloody civil war to end slavery? How broad was that opposition again?
And, um, there isn't broad opposition to medical intervention for trans kids? When's the last time you watched the most popular news station in America?
Yes, I think you're tripping. This bugs you in some... what? religious way? It's just icky? I dunno. Yes, some kids are getting medical interventions they shouldn't be and that's tragic. And the current system of care is bad and certainly not suited to the numbers of trans-presenting youth and needs to be changed, but it ain't the horrifying crisis you think it is. Check out my post on top if you want news about real crises.
Whatever. I just want you to feel better! Come on down and meet my kid. He's great! He's doing hella better than my evangelical cousin's kids - lol. (Btw, she got a boob job - so much for loving the body God gave you.)
It bugs me in an anti gay, anti woman anti mental health and anti human flourishing kind of way. It would take ages to dissect all those angles. Simply put, the exponential degree to which kids are seeking medical transition is being co-opted by an activist class that has zero interest for their long term well-being but are very willing to make them patients of a capitalist medical system that makes them patients for life.
Yes, we did have a "long and bloody civil war" to end slavery...that's kind of my point. The opposition to slavery began during the time of the Revolution and gained strength more or less continually until a war was fought to end it, and in the face the fact that slavery was enormously profitable. I'm just hoping we can go through a similar process with pediatric gender mutilation surgery,but that it won't take nearly as long to be successful. Never forget: their were far more "white people" who, to varying degrees, opposed slavery as compared to the relatively few in the Southern states who could afford to own one.
As for lynching: true, the Southern sheriff often looked the other way when a lynching occurred, if he wasn't involved himself. But that was not always the case--lyniching was still a crime, even if often unpunished. Can't say that about the fad for Pediatric Gender Mutilation surgery--its'fully legal, and you risk your career to speak out about it. You see my point.
And by the way: figures on the NAACP homepage suggest that roughly 4,800 people (of all races) were lynched between 1882-1968....figures from 2020 alone show that nearly 10,000 African Americans were murdered, in the vast majority of cases, by other blacks. That concerns me far far more than does lynching, which has largely been ended. How about you?
So, the craze for Pediatric Gender Mutilation surgery "ain't the horrifying crisis" that Jamie Reed and I think it is...guess we'll just have to agree to disagree on that. History will judge us both on that.
I will choose ignore the rude and insulting tone of your remarks. It does not speak well, either of you or your positions.
Per your short bio on your profile......you might be a "liberal living in a liberal bubble", but you have an odd way of "engaging with other viewpoints". Smug to the core.
If thinking that equating a small number of teens getting medical interventions to which they've consented - rightly or wrongly, and however damaging to them - to slavery (rape, beatings, murder, selling children away from their parents, etc), Jim Crow, lynching, and Nazi experimentation on Jews (and anyone else they thought inferior) is abhorrent and ignorant or, charitably, just bats*** crazy, yes, I'm smug. I'm sorry my tone rubbed you the wrong way, but I really find this view - and the doubling down on it - shocking and disgusting.
And, dude, I just came on here to agree with the author! With the caveat that I didn't think passing laws banning the procedure across the board is the right way to go. I thought there might be discussion of different ways to ensure all kids' safety and well-being. Given The Free Press says it's *about* debate, I didn't expect this to be 100% unified chorus of hysteria and hyperbole and disrespect for the one mother of a trans kid who bothered to show up. But y'all - not me - have made it perfectly clear other people's stories and experiences and opinions are not welcome. This obviously isn't the type of place I thought it was, with a mix of opinions. Sorry I interrupted the circle jerk.
Yes, because slave owners and lynchers are not seen as paragons of society and upheld as those who should be listened to and heeded, such as doctors. That’s what makes this so heinous, even among the most heinous of evils.
Right. No slave-owning president was ever seen as a paragon of society. No wealthy plantation owner ever enjoyed the respect of his community. No paragons of Southern society ever picnicked under the charred body of a lynched man. I'm sorry, but you are in a state of hysteria. It's messing with your judgement. I really believe that.
I am by no means minimizing the horrors of lynching, just pointing out that both slavery and lynching were actively opposed by large segments of society...not encouraged and celebrated as a Good Thing, as is pediatric genital mutilation.
By the way: few captured runaway slaves would be lynched. They were valuable property and usually were hunted down for a reward.
Naw. Some days this is as good as I get, I swear :-)
To this point, though, pediatric mutilation is not universally celebrated. It's actively opposed by large segments of society, not just by conservatives, but by liberals like myself. Given the evidence I've seen so far, I would ban surgical reassignments and puberty blockers for anyone under 18. Adults can decide for themselves to go under the knife; children aren't mature enough to understand the finality of those decisions.
I see only a small---though noisy---segment of society celebrating reassignment surgery and puberty blockers as a Good Thing. Fortunately.
I do understand that captured runaways would mostly not be lynched, though a few were by racist mobs. Mostly they'd be whipped and starved half to death after return by slave catchers. But you do understand my point--lynched black people are dead and cannot be changed back from that particular "reassignment," so I'd argue that chattel slavery and lynching are indeed worse horrors than gender reassignment surgery.
Though we have an easy way out of that terrible comparison--block reassignment surgery and drugs for anyone under 18.
I do hear your points, Shane, and mostly agree, though I'm inclined to push the age of consent for "gender reassignment surgery" (not the term I would use) to age 25. Scientists seem to think that is only about then that the brain is fully developed and thus capable of making an "adult"decision on such a momentous question, i.e., "what gender am I?"
Again, not minimizing the horrors of lynching, and your point re: the fact that it results in death does carry a lot of weight. But as I noted in another comment, to me, there are multiople levels of evil in the world, and to me the one marked "crimes against chidlren" is the worst. At least the suffering of the poor lynched slave ended quickly. The gender mutilated child may be facing decades of pain and suffering. We shall see how this plays out in time, I suppose.
Sorry for the "you're better than that" jibe. It's an old Obama favorite line that has long bugged me. But it's snide, and I'm going to stop using it.
No worries on "you're better than that." I was a too clever by half with my reply to you, for which I apologize, and I appreciate your graciousness here.
We agree completely that crimes against children are among the most repellent. Kids cannot consent to anything and they can't generally fight back against bigger and stronger targets. Adults who target children should slide themselves into vats of boiling sewage and spare us their pathologies. Crimes against the defenseless--whether slaves or children--are the mark of cowards and should be fought by normal people at every turn.
I do abhor all those evils, and said so. But maybe "evil" is like Dante's notion of Hell, there are multiple "circles," or levels, of it...and for me, the one marked "crimes against children" is the worst. How about you?
You certainly did, and recognizing these evils is vital. Of our current crop of evils, totally agree with the transgenderization of children being the worst. Weighed against historical evils, I think we will have to see how quickly we end this particular circle to judge. Slavery continues today around the world and includes crimes against children. This is in our own country as well, courtesy of our southern "border". For those caught in any evil against children, speaking out continues to be the only way to fight it.
I just had a thought. We have been waiting to spay our pup until she had her first heat, to be certain she has achieved maximum bone development, among other body system development (her breed is susceptible to fractures). She is now in her first heat. It came to me, as I was dialing the vet to schedule her procedure, how can we be so careful of our dog, and yet our society has become so careless of our children that we are spaying and neutering (chemical or surgical) before they have reached the same level of physical development as my puppy?
My question is Just who will this be Toxic to? I've never seen/heard Anything that s so Toxic you can't Talk about it. IF I were a suspicious person I might suspect something is being hidden.
What's so insane about this is the harm it does is OBVIOUS, yet most nice white liberals have their minds so open they've fallen out.
All it takes is a 15 min segment by John Oliver based on a couple shoddy studies (seriously, read Jesse Singal on them) and their minds are made up and arguing against this becomes not only difficult but borderline impossible. When acceptance of youth transition becomes coded strongly blue no one in the progressive tribe wants to step away from the give mind.
Thanks for sharing the personal experience here, I hope it makes an impact
In 2016 two moms of teenage girls introduced me to the concept of binders. Down the rabbit hole I went. On one hand, watching a social contagion unfold in real time has been fascinating. On the other hand, I´ll never understand how people can think that castrating more boys/sending girls into premature menopause is progressive.
The earlier social contagion was mothers of young children, often preschool age, declaring their child "trans" if (usually) he put a toe outside the strictest of gender stereotypes. "Just like the kid I saw on 'Oprah'!"
Speaking as the mother of six sons and four daughters, I can say with confidence that very young children often do not know what sex they are, believe they can change from a boy to a girl to a truck to a dinosaur, and haven't assimilated the full set of "gender" markers for their society. Because they are little children!
The idea that a child who cannot use the toilet unaided has mystical insight into his or her "gender identity" is insane.
Yeah, Oprah...her feels good "progressivism" explains a lot about how things have gone off the track in the last 30 years...all those white women in her audience are now largely in control of our culture and taking us all off a cliff.
Not sure the boys aided this process so much as they went along with it...too afraid to contradict what was happening for fear being name called....sigh...the state of American "manhood," circa 21st century.
My son wanted to be a dolphin when he grew up. I could see why this would be rather nice, but I didn't arrange for him to be grafted with a tail and fins.
The idea of "progressives" who force children into strict gender roles is sickening. Didn't we fight to get out of strict gender segregation? Remember, a woman's place... A boy who likes to cook doesn't have to be tagged a girl. A girl who likes to work on car engines is not necessarily a boy at heart. Exploring non traditional roles for your birth gender doesn't mean your birth gender is wrong. I know whereof
I speak, as this is coming from a female orthopaedic surgeon married to a retired male nurse who is a stay at home dad to our dogs.
I find this bizarre, too. In the 70s and 80s, they didn't tell us, "Here are your miniscule 'gender' boxes, and if you don't fit into them perfectly, you have to change sex."
Progressive? It’s anything but that! I find myself really disgusted with the left, even though I had considered myself to be liberal. It is only the Republicans who are saying anything against this idiocy.
The concepts of liberal and conservative have lost their meaning (Dem vs Republican) I think we have to change the categories. Maybe "sees the crazy and doesn't see it"? or "wants what really is good for humans not just the claiming to be good."? or "harmfully delusional vs. Trying not to be"? I don't know.
Right? In 2016 I found like-minded people who confirmed it wasn't just me saying this. My go-to question for advocates is "do you really think society would be better if we castrate more boys? send more girls into menopause at 16?"
I'll tell you something, I haven't even been in favor of circumcision for infants in the US, the way it's done so automatically & justified with statistics about cancer etc. that aren't entirely true. That was back in the 90s, flash forward to the whole FGM thing, which I first found out about in around 2010 & which sent me right off the deep end, & I wondered, where the heck are the feminists & why aren't they shrieking from the rooftops about this practice, & then I realized, Ah. I know where they are. They are captivated by hijab chic & hiring Linda Sarsour to be the spoxhole for the Women's March, that's where.
Don't be such an opportunistic pos. Stick with my comment & your "compassion" & "kindness" & don't be so intellectually dishonest. if you want to talk about how people who oppose abortion are focusing on facilitating adoption, or on the many programs available, or on birth control, make your own comment after doing your own research. But don't hop on my comment with your lefty talking points & start fucking it in the ass. Even if you don't care about anything any more. In the few miserable years you've got left, try hard for the honesty you say is one of your last values.
Newly ex-Dem because of this issue after 40+ years. Many of us with kids stuck in this are liberals and are fighting behind the scenes, shoulder-to-shoulder with conservatives. We’d hoped John Oliver would blow this wide open — it’s so obviously wrong and anti-science. That betrayal showed us how in trouble we are. And yes, his support and Job Stewart’s support IS all it takes. Liberals believe themselves so much more intelligent and ethical than conservatives, but I’ve seen the ugly, ignorant, torches-and-pitchforks side and I am disgusted. There is NOTHING, even a tsunami of post-transition suicides and distress, that will get a huge population of liberal Dems to see this as the tremendous medical scandal it is.
John Oliver?!? The man is an Idiot (capital i). Clueless, bombastic, never saw an issue that doesn't require massive regulation. Truly an abominable man.
You are more than welcome to that opinion. The important thing is that liberals listen to the man. If we want this to end, we need to hit it from whichever direction works. Plenty of us despise what Matt Walsh stands for and think Tucker Carlson is an annoying moron, but this is irrelevant when we’re dealing with a horrific medical scandal and we are thankful for their work fighting it. Tribalism is dangerous from any side.
Tucker Carlson is on the right side of history on this! I never thought I’d say that, but I thank him for speaking up on this issue. I also thank Matt Walsh for his work! My liberal friends would forsake me, but I am for truth above all!
I still mostly like John Oliver, but he has become more stridently "woke" in recent years. He does still bring attention to a lot of important issues. I'll never forget how he got a bunch of urban progressives to push for reforms to benefit small chicken farmers after he ran an informative segment about their plight : )
How can former Democrats get together and start a campaign to get some Democrat congresspeople to stand up and tell the truth, for God’s sake?! Are there no Democratic congressmen that will do that?
I wouldn't say that "open minds" are the problem. I've watched a lot of liberals become more and more like the religious right looked three decades ago - willing to believe anything as long as it came from the "right people" and willing to invent demonization on the fly for anything that conflicts or comes from the "wrong people".
I do think there is a small minority of Democrats , like me , and a few others that see through this tissue of lies, and more important, realize that this is a dangerous authoritarian agenda? If we can get some Democrats to show some balls , maybe we can stop this insanity from taking over completely!
I don't think that many on the "left" even knew there was a "religious right" three decades ago. But now that you have turned your church into a political party, they all know.
LOL. The term "religious right" has been around at least 40 years. Plenty of boogeyman coverage in the media, then and now. They invented the term, after all.
I stopped watching John Oliver because of his deep dive segments on issues he knows very little about. But he has an immense audience who love him only for his snark.
Mathew A, it must be noted that we now know, thanks to the revelations of the Twitter files that the FBI and Big Tech conspired to control the flow of information in the 2020 election, most notoriously by labeling the 100% real Hunter Biden laptop story as "Russian disinformation." That is a fact that is not subject to partisan debate. Sorry to be the one to have to break this news to you, but that election was indeed rigged.
And Hillary and the FBI tried to rig the 2016 election with the Russian Collusion "scandal," which we now know was also a hoax. Facts do matter, and when we get them, we need to change our opinions as to what did or did not occur.
I have friends who say the same things you are saying, but when I ask them where they got the info, the conversation ends. Where do you guys find these crazy radio stations? (No defense of the liberals who have also sold the truth for money.)
Every time I see or hear “the science” I can’t help but think we have ourselves a new secular religion. It has its high priests and rituals, but lacks anything transcendent and hopeful. It just destroys.
Not quite, because most lobotomized people did not choose their lobotomy. Nor was the larger society pressured into celebrating their decision and their newly-lobotomized status.
Isn’t the author a progressive who is risking her career and family finances to take this issue to the AG? Not all progressives are part of this!! Some of the staunchest advocates for sanity are progressives.
How about this? Treat allies like allies - at least until this madness is quashed.
Thank you. We are all allies in fight against harming our country and our children. We need to do better than name-calling. Rise above. We can argue about govt debt and programs later.
There also isn’t an argument about the government programs. They are all psychotic and unsustainable. I’m not arguing with you about those either. I’m right and you’re wrong.
It’s the same lunatic shit from the same lunatic people.
“We can all retire at 65 with free food and choose our own genders because God was wrong to create rules!!!”
Nobody has to respect you and unite with you when you are proven to be evil and also dumb.
*You* have to submit to reality, Julia.
I’m not trying to dominate you and make you submit. Reality is dominating you.
Whoosh. I don't know if you meant it this way but That feels awfully aggressive! Especially directed to a person who essentially agrees with you. I'm arguing that you (we) can do better in our fight against the crazy. You (We) be less crazy. You be more noble, be More Full of integrity, Be More Kind, Be More full of truth. Defend Honor with Honor. Don't stoop to the level of idiocy and clownishness that they would have you be. The angry, Rash, untethered (not that you are at all) is EXACTLY the reaction that is expected. It becomes the weapon used against you. BE BETTER. BE KINDER. Be more heroic. Be the noble hero we all need you to be. (And we will follow your lead and do the same.)
I don’t think all Democrats, particularly the voters, are in lockstep with their leadership. But what I’ve observed is that the Democrats who are funded by Soros, are not acting in the best interests of American citizens—whether it’s drugs, crime, gender dysphoria… I invite anyone who has common sense to detach from CORRUPT Democrats.
Well I said “Democrats” and I understand that sounds like a term that includes everyone who votes for or has voted for a Democrat.
When I say “Democrats” I am mainly referring to the despicable perverts in Washington DC.
As an ‘LGBT’ woman, the author has been terrorized unremittingly by the most aggressive, widespread, and sophisticated propaganda campaign in the history of earth. Complete with the most underhanded and disgusting psychological manipulation and emotional exploitation tactics ever devised. As such I can easily forgive her for supporting the totalitarian fascist Democrat regime to one extent or another.
Straight white men who vote for Democrats, on the other hand, have no excuse because they have not been targets of the aforementioned psychological warfare, so they can all go straight to hell.
Kevin, that is the first thing that came to mind after reading this article. IF we survive (Democrat leadership), history will look at this party of what I call asymmetric warfare criminals, murderers, child-abusers, war-mongers for the purpose of money laundering, election cheats, free-speech opponents, propaganda experts...as the same as the Nazis in Germany. And people will still wonder how supposedly ‘decent people’ allowed this to happen. The only way I see out of this is for the USA to break up into different countries. I would like to be free of the Democrat criminality.
I continue to believe we're beyond parties and labels.
This isn't politics it is pathology. Utopian ideologues funded and manipulated by megalomaniacal narcissism. (The "woke" push for the butchery of children [white children] and the hubris displayed by the monster's at Davos should serve to illustrate.) American tax dollar's and WEF/IMF grants fund the insanity. In short: International criminal finance with the help of our compromised and corrupt elected political leadership, is funding the social/cultural/economic collapse and looting of western culture. Over 10,000 Canadian's were euthanized last year by the State. Nearly 4,000 arrest's and prosecution's in the EU last year for thought and speech crime's. America is being looted. Free citizen's of our Constitutional Republic, and our Constitution are the last obstacles's to world domination and the reduction of human being's to serfdom. This is a class war run by racist's. We're not lost but we are under direct assault. Admitting to ourselves that it's happening is the first step forward. International totalitarian criminal finance doesn't like Nation States. It want's one world governance and "..absolute control over every living Soul..." Toxic Marxist feminism, now disguised as the D.E.I. (commissariat) in service to totalitarian criminal finance is the machine behind the anti-human insanity and butchery described in this article. All thing's human are the enemy of fascist's. All thing's human must be reduced to "thingdom" for the fascist's to succeed (Auschwitz). Mother, father, brother, sister, man, woman, community, all human love and connection must be severed for the monster's to win and install the totalitarianism they desire.
Hope? Yep. Without subscription journalism the recent Twitter/surveillance state revelations would not have happened. (Congress heard and had hearing's.) We are slowly recapturing the American national dialogue. Pelosi is gone and the new House seems to be willing and open to rational voice's. These times call for American unity. Fight the psyop or perish.
(An interesting comment here on Substack: The purpose of propaganda is not to convince you to believe it but to make you believe everyone else believe's it.)
That is not the purpose - which is much larger, and about power - but it *is* a tactic.
“Political correctness is communist propaganda writ small. In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, not to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is in some small way to become evil oneself. One's standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control. I think if you examine political correctness, it has the same effect and is intended to." --Theodore Dalrymple
There are not, nor were there, any witches, not in the sense of how and for what they were accused. These were not Wiccans. They were accused of having absurd, supernatural powers. It was a mass delusion, initiated by teenage girls who had been indoctrinated by religious fanatics (Puritans) with superstitions about witches and the devil since birth. They are also suspected of being manipulated by their parents to accuse other colonists, for revenge.
That is the problem with hysterical group think. It makes a determination, decides the parameters and definitions and rolls with it consequences be damned. IOW no room for eeason.
Kevin, Technically Catholic has a point..Not all Dems are grotesque and bloodthirsty (interesting descriptors..I'm surprised you didn't use Satanic..)
The end, and there will be one, of this dystopian madness of gender swapping amongst confused kids who can't even spell properly will come about when sane people from all points of the political spectrum come together. This is getting so ugly there'll be no choice.
If people of a particular political orientation don’t recognize that their political orientation is designed to produce hideous atrocities (they won’t) then the holding hands will just be a ceremonial interlude as we wait for their next atrocity.
The only thing that fixes this is when the non-political folks feel such extraordinary agony that the necessity of dealing with the aforementioned ‘political orientation’ is apparent.
I wonder if there’ll be any ‘non political folks’ left..In the end.
At some point, maybe when you and I are dead and buried, our twi divided political tribes will have to work together. To be ignorant of the other is, when all is said and done, ignorant.
Are you lonely? Do you have any friends? Have you ever had a civil, non-ad hominem conversation with anyone? Have you really come across so few good people? Does being right to the point of bitterness serve your life?
It's another example of what David Burge has pointed out: the Left trashing a respected institution, and then trying to use the institution's reputation and symbolism to disguise its totalitarian impulses. Here, we have "science = muh authoriee-tay!"
Shitty religion, 100%. And, it expands into every area taught in schools. Sure, permanent mutilation of children packs a gut visceral punch that is quite unique, but is it that much worse than the rest of the "education" inflicted on kids?
Is there an area of education that is NOT abusive? Let's see...
* being taught to feel guilty for things that happened centuries before you were born
* being taught you're a plague upon poor mother earth
* being taught that the very air your breathe will kill grandma
* being taught that regular mood swings are "syndromes", and being medicated for them with drugs --- (drugs that don't even pretend to knowing the mechanism whereby could result in any sort of "improvement")
medicalization of kids + constant brainwashing + total absence of useful learning. our school system is an abomination, "trans" is one very terrible aspect of it but perhaps not even the most abusive / worst one.
As a former teacher, I agree that the current educational system is dysfunctional, though I didn't know any teachers with the malicious intent you ascribe to them. For me, the problem is more one of bored, underpaid teachers turning out uneducated children who become dullard adults. But though I want change, it's hard for me to see how the burning of books (literally or figuratively) and the threatening of teachers takes us in the right direction.
The term "the science" has been hijacked by social movements, starting with climate science and progressively getting more and more invasive up to and including the pandemic. Science used to be about hypotheses, experimentation, study and repeat, now it is about models, which are not science.
There was an interview, I think it was Jordan Peterson, where regarding men being born in women’s bodies and vice versa, he asked, “What is it, exactly, that’s in the wrong body?” It’s a great question, which is not asked much. The obvious answer is that we’re talking about something like a soul. And, if we are, that makes gender ideology a religion--not science.
"Given the secrecy and lack of rigorous standards that characterize youth gender transition across the country, I believe that to ensure the safety of American children, we need a moratorium on the hormonal and surgical treatment of young people with gender dysphoria. "
Yes, yes, YES.
I don't even understand how this became an issue. Seriously.
I totally believe that there ARE people who are affected by gender dysmorphia, but this number is very small, and I am convinced that the majority of people who _think_ they're affected by gender dysmorphia are, in fact, infected by a mimetic illness, a kind of mass hysteria—because what does it MEAN to feel like you're in the wrong body? How would a male "trapped" in a female body or a female "trapped" in a male body _know_? Since so many of the things that characterize and differentiate men and women—outside of anatomical and physiological differences—are cultural tropes.
I was a total tomboy when I was a kid. And around the age of nine or so, I _did_ go through a period when I insisted I was a boy. Looking back on that time, it seems clear in retrospect that I was chafing at all the restrictions I saw embedded in the feminine role.
It's scary to think what might have happened to me had I been born 50 years later.
You vote for Biden and support him appointing Rachel Levine to power, you think he's doing a great job, and then you can't understand how this became an issue?
You, the people you vote for, and the causes you support are how it became an issue. "Progressives" glorifying false ego identity over reality, assaulting anybody who oppose them, are how it became an issue. Toxic femininity and the worship of feelings are the core issue.
And yes, if you were a teenager today, the people you support would have destroyed your life. You would be a slave of the pharmaceutical companies like so many young people today. This is why it sickens me to hear Biden scream his lies, "we beat Pharma and it mattered!!"
You know it's a lie. Every Democrat does. You live in a world of lies. You glorify them to such a degree that the professionals in this article will passionately destroy the bodies of young people purely to continue the lie. While the Grammy feature Satan reveling in his glorious rule, celebrating the kind of sexual perversity that leads to confused, abused teenagers with health conditions.
Trust me. There have been plenty of angry women shouting on top of their throats about this monstrosity. They got deplatformed, banned, and shut down by Reddit, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, Pinterest, etc etc. They got rape threats and death threats. They lost jobs and got doxxed. They got dragged through the town square. They only thing let is they haven't been burned...yet. Exhibit No.1: JK Rowling.
Bari ought to find someone to do a deep dive investigation into the cesspool that is Reddit that has been fostering this train wreck and also vilifying anyone who voices disagreement, plus the trans mod and admins super takeover of every women's sub to groom kids especially teen girls into this sinister mass hysteria.
Well maybe there a few "angry white women" protesting this, but in 2023, I'm guessing the majority of white women are still listening to NPR and hating on Republicans, white men, and anything else they are being told to hate. And feeling very smug and self-righteous in doing so. But maybe this will change.
I know you replied to vent about "angry white women" but I'm answer in a more truthful and substantive way assuming you mean well rather than letting this battle of sexes derail the subject. Yes a majority of white women on the left are still listening to NPR, hating on Republicans, men, and anything else they're being told to hate. Yes many, especially those who are paid professional activists and liberal talking heads are feeling very smug and self-righteous in doing so. But there is in fact more than "a few" women on the left, white or otherwise, who are keeping their heads down and being stifled by silence because they cost of speaking up in so so high. If they dare to go against the grain, they will lost friends, families, and very likely their livelihood as well. And yes many of them can be describe as cowards, especially if what they've got to lose is their social circle of friends, But it becomes murkier to condemn their inability to speak up when the stakes get higher when they may lose family members or children. Or if it means costing their job and they have children or dependents. Or if it means their children would get ostracized and made pariahs at school. They can't even find out who among them think like they do to ban together, because the left has made it threatening if they dare to out themselves.
I won't dispute you if you have other criticisms I may agree or disagree with. The only thing I want to point out is that these women exist and it's not just "A few".
And yes, many continue to follow other left-wing narratives and still voting left. But it is also true that the more moderate ones are moving to the center and even voting conservative because of this. The one single reason why you didn't see the cross over is because of the overturn of Roe v. Wade. A sizable number of women would have and likely will going forward silently vote conservative as a silent rebellion against this. Much like the silent rebellion of voters voting Trump in 2016 even if they wouldn't admit to having done so.
Another reason some of these women didn't vote conservative is because our two-party system has made it so that in the very blue and very red voting districts, the non-dominant candidates are clowns and unelectable. All the gerrymandering by both parties had made it so that the opposition parties no longer even bother to offer up any credible candidates in those places, let alone fund them. In this respect, the problem can't be faulted on women alone. It's a problem with the system.
There are definitely women vote open for Republicans to grab as the Democrats and liberals continue down the Road of Deranged. But it is also true that the Republicans have made no efforts in the least to appeal to those votes. Rather, they double-down on the issue of abortion. Without going into whether abortion is right or wrong, we can acknowledge that this one issue will always stop a lot of women from voting conservative.
So while a lot of what your said is legitimate, the problem goes both ways. Some people (men or women) will never vote Republican. But at the moment there are many women who feel stifled and wronged by this and they want an alternative. There's a lot of ineptitude on the part of Republicans to not even make any sincere attempt to take these votes the Democrats have left hung out to dry. But maybe like the Dems it's just easier to keep singing the same song.
QX, thank you for your very detailed and thoughtful response...a lot to process. A couple of comments:
You are so so right about the fear so many of us face--both men and women--in contradicting what I term the new dominant ideology. On a personal note, I have paid a deep price for doing so, the consequences of which I deal with everyday. It is, in part, what motivates me to be so active on Substack et al comment threads--the last best hope of free expression. But you well describe the totalitarian nature of the consequences that many pay for speaking out. It truly is the US version of the Chinese Cultural Revolution--break out the dunce caps and re-education camps! And I don't necessarily hold it against people for remaining quiet. But, for now at least, voting is still a (mostly) private act...maybe the rebellion can happen in the voting booth.
My own politics are not so much pro-Right as they are anti-Left. Politics for me has long been not so much about who I am "for," but rather what it is that I am most against, i.e., most fear. For decades, the was the Right/Republican side, now it's the Dem/Left side. Institutionalized Pediatric Gender Mutilation surgery is but one of the things that have caused that shift in my perspective. I'm guessing that is true for you as well.
You are so right about how the Dobbs decision has considerably muddied the waters of all this...I'm thinking of a woman who was/is(?) a good friend and formerly sympatico philosophically who has shifted back dramatically as a result of the decision because it "took rights away from women." I couldn't bring myself to suggest to her that, actually, Dobbs did not "take away" the right to an abortion, it just left it up to the states. And some states are restricting it, and others, like CA where I live, have expanded legal abortion right up to the minute of birth. So the Dobbs decision actually expanded the range of possibilities for unrestricted abortion far beyond the first trimester, as was the case with Roe. But again, you are not hearing that on NPR, NYT, et al. Hard to know where that discussion is going to go from here.
But cheers, I am hoping that you are right about there being more than "a few" women who are seeing the light.
Gotta go now, but maybe we can continue this dialogue at a later time.
I'm truly sorry to hear you've also been on the receiving end of left-wing speech suppression and suffered consequences for it. Yes I totally agree with you. It's like we have the Mao Red Guards in the US these days. I keep reminding myself we lived through the McCarthy era (the one in the 50s not this current new one), and there is hope that this too shall pass. But sometimes it's hard to keep faith. It's so wrong how so many people are absolutely terrified to say anything, especially on the trans issue. But a lot of debates are now coming into the open in Europe especially England. And with the internet it's hard to keep everything under cover and it'll be inevitable for the US to come to some kind of reckoning too.
Politics wise I'll say we're pretty much on the same page then. It drives me crazy sometimes when I have to keep my mouth shut just to keep the peace when my liberal family members who are not online so to speak are still talking trash about Republicans while being totally clueless how off the rail the left has become. They just read NYT and listen to NPR and have no clue. And don't even get me started on the abortion debate. Neither party represents the majority on this. And the most radical advocates on both sides are IMO not allowing any honest talk about how much things have changed since the 1950s or even the 1970s, and there are some realistic ways forward but nothing productive can ever even be brought to the table.
Cheers to you too and yeah I too hope the wall of silence will continue to erode as more and more of this horror comes to light.
So mutilating an unborn baby (including up until the moment of birth or beyond, for the really sadistic) is cool, but it's different for the 12 yo? One who can't see the difference between mutilation of the unborn AND the born is where the slope gets slippery fast. No need to try to explain, express, convince or cajole. It's all wrong. It's all unjust. It's all evil.
Reddit admins banning r/gendercritical overnight, the instant extinguishing of THE key international forum of over 60,000 members who saw through and critiqued gender identity (mostly women, of course)... Unbelievable.
Yet the bans you mention have gone unexamined, right? Meanwhile Reddit's favored pushing of sissy fetish and all things trans carries on, grooming from the shadows.
Reddit really does need serious investigating. Here's hoping Bari / Free Press might have contacts who would take it on, pull back the curtain, even a little.
Oh don’t worry. They’ve regrouped outside of Reddit. Reddit can’t control every conversation everywhere all the time, banning reasonable speech from their platform just sends it where they can’t see. It can encourage extremism but in this case it just sends ppl with commons sense away from Reddit.
Hey! I'm interested in looking into Reddit -- I'm not a reporter, just a grad student looking for something interesting to write about. Could you give some examples of women's subs that have been taken over?
That one's a little different, but still worth looking at if you're going to fall down that hole of differential treatment and protected categories versus vulnerable ones
Adjacent - from friend - "also re: "are we wrong about the rate of problems/are we entering into our own echo chambers?" is a good question to periodically ask so that we DON'T fall into those kind of traps
that said, speaking of the detransitioner rate (as a specific example), i think our current issue is less the rate itself and more the fact that we can't even ask questions to determine a more accurate rate because doing so is hailed as transphobic. and people are knee-jerking against the knee-jerk censorship
take, for instance, the Harry Potter subreddit, that I recently discovered has "*Discussion of JKR's personal opinions is banned, defense of her words and actions will lead to a ban. This includes supporting her right to a platform to spread hate.*" as one of its main rules. not just "discussion of JKR's personal opinions is banned" but specifically "discussion is banned AND defense of her 'hate' will lead to a ban"; i.e. judgement has been pre-decided, if you are to question it, you are just as guilty (https://www.reddit.com/r/harrypotter/wiki/oursub/)
note that flatearthers are not getting banned. evidence that the earth is round is abundant and can be worked through logically with plenty of examples and practical exercises
also, part of that big lead in was to link you guys a fun HP subreddit thread in which someone asked what JK Rowling said that was so bad and everyone collectively shrugged, so the mods nuked it for violating the "no discussing or defending rowling rule":
Oh gosh it's really hard to even know where to begin... but r/gendercritical, r/femaledatingstrategies, r/truelesbians (a female exclusive lesbian subreddit), etc. Pretty much any 'female centered' subreddit is now trans-centered, see TwoXChromosomes, Actuallesbians, pretty much any woman-centered sub is now trans-dominated. Hell, even TallGirls is pretty much all males and a ton of 6'5"+ "women"
Oh definitely. There are women on all political spectrums and races who are fed up with this. Liberal MSM are just putting a media black out on the whole shit show. And they are pushing the misinformation narrative that this is some kind of conservative bigotry (it is not for most people) so they can just demonize anyone still in the blind who asks questions.
It seems to be a law right now among my fellow mom friends - both conservative and liberal - that if you let any conversation go on longer than 10 minutes it will turn into letting out steam about "this gender bullsh*t."
Add in some wine and it takes more like 5 minutes.
I find there are a LOT of women my age with kids who seem to feel the need to get some pent up anger about this off their chest right now.
You still believe polls? I think they are just to guage how many ballots will need to be harvested. Or to justify the election results because because folks will expect the outcome because the polls predicted it.
Republicans swept the last school board election in our town, and I live in a not particularly conservative part of New England. Our Democratic congresswoman came within something like 1000 votes of getting unseated. So the ground def feels like it is moving in that direction.
And our local parish Catholic school has a waiting list.
All the GOP has to do is be *not crazy* to win over these voters.
I will never vote for a democratic who supports this crap, and I know others who won’t! I don’t care for DeSantis on most issues( don’t like guns for all) but on this is the is absolutely correct!
They don't like "anger" all that much, either. Always try portraying it (and lots of other stuff) as "fear." Sometimes through the "-phobe" labels & sometimes just flat out "you're afraid of this that & the other thing. Which makes me laugh, in a pissed-off sort of way. I always think You know, you are so emotionally illiterate, you can't even distinguish among emotions, everything--anger, betrayal, resentment, whatever--is reduced to "fear." They're like people who are colorblind & sees all colors as orangey-brown.
My Gen Z daughter, 22, recently described her 'red-pill' journey.
She described the barrage of tiktok posts by 'trans' women complaining about the difficulties of being a woman (including periods, if you can believe it!). As she put it "you (males) have no lines in this play".
She was previously very trans-friendly but, now that she sees the male-weirdo side, she is NOT onboard.
I reminded her that she might be considered a TERF. She is fine with that.
That tirade only gets 4.3 on the 10-point Rant Scale, sorry.
For one thing, I'm not a Democrat. For another, I wouldn't watch the Grammys unless someone (a) pointed a gun at my head, (b) offered me a million bucks, or (c) did both simultaneously. I had no idea that Satan had made an appearance at the Grammys. What designer did he wear?
The Rachel Levine appointment _is_ a bit squirmy, I will concede, given that she may have a problem differentiating politics from public health, _may_ being the operative word there.
But what's up with this "angry white men" thing? If I had to speculate, I'd guess that "angry old men" captures the spirit of your Zeitgeist so much more succinctly.
I thought the attack on you was a bit unfair and off the mark but the description of today's "progressive Democrats" was spot on and incisive Savagely so. Needs to be said again and again. These people are lunatics. And should be treated accordingly.
I am sorry for the personal tone of my rant. I've read many of your comments and appreciate your thoughts and perspective.
So allow me to clarify some things.
I don't care if you identify as a Democrat or not because I've seen you support their rhetoric, values and elected representatives in almost all the content you post here. Insofar as they are a religion, you seem like a believer. It's incredible, unbelievable to me that anyone can think Biden is doing a good job.
On that note, Rachel Levine is a man and always will be. He is a man given inordinate power and influence to validate his delusions and spread his pathology to children, which he does by lying about science. If you continue to honor his presentation as a woman and his position as a healthcare administrator, you cannot understand "how we got here."
The Grammys represent the cultural influence of the rich and fashionable. I'm not under the impression that Satan is a person who was on the stage, because I'm not an idiot. I believe symbolism matters and has spiritual import, and when our cultural leaders dress as demons singing a song about adultery, that matters whether or not you personally are watching. It should disgust everybody with a moral conscience, and it demonstrates how "inclusive" those people actually are.
"Angry white men" has been a popular rhetorical phrase on the left for many years now, that's why I make the reference. I've been personally told that I'm upset by our culture because I'm "afraid of losing power and privilege." In truth, I also hate identity politics and I don't view myself as a color.
I appreciate you for reaching out to me in this way, Anthony. Thank you.
We _do_ disagree about many things, but I also appreciate your thoughts and perspective. Otherwise, I wouldn't be reading "The Free Press" or posting in this forum.
Just as a point of clarification—I think the "Republican"/"Democratic" distinction is about as meaningful as the distinction between Pepsi and Coke. There _are_ many hot-wire issues where I agree with the Democratic line, but there are also many hot-wire issues where I agree with the Republican line.
Trust me—as many times as I've been piled on in this forum for having "progressive" opinions, I've been piled on in real life for having "conservative" opinions.
For me, what's important is keeping the dialogue open.
Part of my participation here is also an ongoing self-therapy of trying to tone down my negativity, because I've felt increasingly targeted by the cultural left every year of my life and finally broke into a perpetual rage several years ago. I have a lot of anger to deal with and this forum helps to vent that and to find supportive voices. But I hope to eventually craft a more reasonable and moderate voice. In Seattle I was told, "you have great things to say but you need to find a better way to say them."
So thank you for helping with that, and I appreciate you as well.
THIS! Few people, unless they have joined the DEM or REP cult, genuinely believe in everything their tribe subscribes to. My beliefs don't fit into either party, yet are considered common sense in many parts of the world. some examples:
1. Climate change is real. I don't think we need to destroy to oil industry immediately either. We can work on gradual changes to energy use and transition energy, and work on carbon capture technologies which are being developed.
2. COVID is real. The vaccines and early lockdowns saved lives - anyone with basic first year university statistics could see that. We also no longer need to keep demanding boosters, masks don't add much value at all now, and the new versions of Covid are relatively mild and no longer novel.
3. Illegal immigration is a huge problem, but selective legal immigration has benefits.
Not sure any of the above reasonable beliefs, held firmly by many intelligent people, can be openly espoused in either party without being booed out.
There are many 'normal' people that find Biden to be doing a decent enough job - but you can find common cause with them on many issues (transgender issues, the border, etc). You act little different than the woke - you demand purity for your cause - and lose people that you can work with on important issues. Too many Republican activists do - and as a result, they didn't dominate the midterms the way they should have. Your criticisms of the woke are accurate. However, look into yourself to see how you act so much like them. I've read your posts - your extremism and intolerance is very similar to the Squad and their believers.
PS...i saw some of your later posts - and see you are trying to moderate. I'll keep the above post up - but appreciate your later explanations.
I much appreciate your reply, especially your doubt about how anyone can "know" what it means to "feel" like the opposite sex. That's the crux of the whole issue. The glaring question.
However...while Rachel Levine may have changed his name from Richard, he's a not a "she." Buying into this gaslighting by using incorrect pronouns in the cause of "being respectful," of not "being offensive," isn't helping society to reassert sanity.
If there is one reasonable caveat, I'd say it's this: if the trans person is a Blair White or Buck Angel type, who not only unequivocally "passes" as the other sex and—very importantly—does not claim they actually "are" the opposite sex, AND also uses their trans profile to speak out against the targeting of children—then I can see "respecting" incorrect pronouns. Because at least such trans people are willing to acknowledge reality and protect the innocent.
But people like Rachel Levine, a delusional man on estrogen who wears a dress and uses his trans profile to celebrate, defend, and advance the harms and upheaval brought on by this lunacy, should not be given the courtesy of "respecting pronouns." I think people need to get much tougher on this point if we want this madness to end sooner rather than later.
I know it's supposed to be "not nice" to laugh at the pretend Admiral, but, seriously? Everyone - or at least the sane among us - are secretly doing so. Why not do it openly and end this sham? Where is the old National Lampoon when we most need them?????
On the one hand it’s certainly good to keep a sense of humor in the face of a crazy world. OTOH men in dresses being accepted and promoted as women feels more terrifying than funny. There’s a lot at stake. 🙁
Walking in a park a few summers ago in Dumbo, Brooklyn - ground zero for woke culture - I came upon a couple walking and holding hands. The one in the yellow sundress had a full beard and looked like Popeye's Bluto. Didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
There is need for a lot of anger about this issue, but not voting for Trump was not an endorsement of gender reassignment. The person who wrote this article indicated that she was progressive and inferred an acceptance of trans since her spouse was, but she is appalled by the current process targeting minors.
Every thinking person should be appalled by the current process. Patients have a right to demand that most surgeries meet a standard and sue when parts are not rebuilt or replaced according to the standards of care. Currently, many of these gender assignment surgeries (despite the number performed) are qualified as experimental which means that the patient has no legal recourse when the surgeries and treatments fail. The surgeons can act with impunity at no risk to their finances.
How do these surgeries and treatment burden the future of the healthcare system? Woman were warned against high estrogen pills causing cancer and now even higher levels of hormones are being prescribed to 11 year old children for the rest of their lives as if moderation and caution are inappropriate courses of action?
As for Rachel Levine, she is an absolute disgrace. Any caring person and a professional with vision would recognize that sterilizing children, especially those that are mentally fragile or vulnerable, is one of the most horrific acts ever.
I was with you until the last paragraph. Rachel Levine is a man. HE is a disgrace.
If people are genuinely appalled by this gender confusion being perpetrated upon kids, then maybe the very first step should be to reinforce for children that *sex differences exist and are IMMUTABLE.*
Maybe it's time to stop gaslighting children by kowtowing to the new vogue of using the wrong pronouns.
Do people honestly believe it does not add to—even cement—confusion in the psyches of children to hear adults around them refer to a male as "she" and a female as "he"? That it does not confirm for children that they shouldn't believe the truth of their own eyes or trust their own sense of reality?
If we're serious about not harming kids then we need to stop playing along with the pretense. Too many adults in our society would rather give up reality than their "good" manners. We reap what we sow.
Thank you for your very polite reply and thought provoking. There is this idea that an adult can do what they want with their body i.e. if Richard wants to transition to Rachel, it is an adult controlling their body and their destiny. But as you point out and as healthcare becomes everyone's burden, every individual is part of a society.
If transition surgeries are self diagnosis and reported as almost screen free, can and should an adult in deep depression or suffering trauma be signed up for transition surgery? Is being a chronological age enough or does one need to be mentally healthy? If one has dysmorphia where one is rejecting their body's sex is that mentally healthy? Can surgery offer peace since the origin of the discontent is mental. Thinking of Chelsea Manning (Bradley Manning) who tried suicide after transition. Every life has value, but what method truly validates, saves, and enriches a life needs to be carefully considered. Just as every fix doesn't require a hammer, every dysmorphia doesn't require a scalpel.
And please allow this edit:
Rachel Levine is an absolute disgrace. Any caring person and a professional with vision would recognize that sterilizing children, especially those that are mentally fragile or vulnerable, is one of the most horrific acts ever.
Now I'm with you 100%. Thank you for your gracious reply. Your questions all hit the nail squarely on the head.
Unfortunately, under the corporatist paradigm dysmorphia provides a new consumer group, whether it's in surgeries, drugs, clothing, makeup, music, movies, you name it. The only silver lining I see is that more and more people are waking up to the recognition that as our system currently functions, health and wellness have vanishingly little to do with the practice of medicine. Profits steer the ship. And our children—and theirs—will pay the price.
While I think Rachel is a male - I would respect the grown adult and refer to them as a she. That's being polite. But the transition was made as an adult. The issue at play here is children. And that is a winning point. If you start attacking adult trans people - many people that support you in protecting children from radical extremists will be turned off.
"If there is one reasonable caveat [to refusing to use wrong pronouns], I'd say it's this: if the trans person is a Blair White or Buck Angel type, who not only unequivocally "passes" as the other sex and—very importantly—does not claim they actually "are" the opposite sex, AND also uses their trans profile to speak out against the targeting of children—then I can see "respecting" incorrect pronouns. Because at least such trans people are willing to acknowledge reality and protect the innocent."
So for the record, I'm not talking about "attacking" trans adults. At all.
I'm talking about declining to participate in a polite fiction that subverts the development of children, who are wired to absorb the norms of the adult world as they mature. Because adults normalizing the misuse of pronouns in their noble effort to be kind and polite will convey to children the profoundly destabilizing message that their perceptions are unreliable, that reality is not tethered to our material world, that they shouldn't trust their lying eyes. Pretending humans aren't sexually dimorphic just isn't something society can safely engage in with adults instructing children to "do as I say not as I do."
Bottomline is that protecting the feelings of adults should not be prioritized above protecting the developmental needs of children; there is no such thing as a successful society that sacrifices its children to the "needs" of the adults.
"there is no such thing as a successful society that sacrifices its children to the "needs" of the adults." - we just proved that with the response to COVID.
Agree with your point that the article was about minors and this should remain the focus. Strongly agree with a mortarium called for minors.
It also seems important to establish parameters for best medical care for adults transitioning which is not an attack or a denial of services. An adult should not be given life altering meds or treatment without a very clear understanding of what can and cannot be achieved through medical intervention along with all the implications of the treatment. There should also be continuing care that is more comprehensive than handing a patient a prescription every month. Many serious interventions for cancer or heart care have parameters and regimes of care not to prevent the intervention but to support the patient through out the treatment & improve successful results. Maybe due to the profitability of trans surgery vs. the reimbursement rate for some cancer and heart treatments, there is a motive for trans care to become more "cowboy" than evaluative of the patient's needs.
I agree with you broadly - though I should note that research in adults transitioning is much more robust and has been around for many decades. 'Sex changes' as they used to be called are not new in the adult population. Some countries, (including surprising ones like Iran), are quite advanced in trans surgery techniques. On a side note, I'm a Canadian physician - and there is really no profit in trans surgery here - yet the push for children getting the procedure exists here too. So I'm not sure economics is the main factor either. I really feel there is a religious cult component to this movement.
"I don't even understand how this became an issue. Seriously."
Allow me to help you understand this, Patrizia. It became "an issue" when the common sense and consensus position that gender dysphoria is a rare condition that should be treated with compassion morphed into trans-mania once Leftists got control of the institutional apparatus...kind of like what happened with race and any number of other "issues." All in he name of "the Revolution."
It was/is the lack of intellectual pushback that put us in this place. But that may be changing. This comment thread is an indicator of that.
Patrizia - The 'mass hysteria', yes, aided and abetted by hyper speed social media. Looking at the curve of the increase in gender dysmorphia amongst teens in the last fifteen years pretty well matches the introduction of social media platforms and smart phones and the steep usage curve of that.
You may have thought you were a boy at nine years old, but you thought your way through it on your own. The power of the self. The social media to dissuade you and tell you that you were indeed a boy wasn't there. And that, to me at least, is the difference. Without the reinforcement of the immediacy of social media to buttress and support whatever emotions kids are experiencing, we wouldn't be seeing this dramatic and tragic trend in jump on the band wagon of gender transference.
"I don't even understand how this became an issue. Seriously."
It became an issue because the powers that be chose to use it to further their own agenda. Sadly, large numbers of people are willing to participate. With their votes as well as their cultural submission.
I'm a member of Gen Z and I see the contagion rapidly spreading among my generation. It's common for people who display autistic traits to end up thinking they're trans. To some degree it makes sense: teens who are confused about social norms that other teens just seem to grasp easily (especially autistic girls, who feel much more of a pressure to present as neurotypical) will end up thinking that the reason for their problems is being the wrong gender, when the actual issue goes far deeper.
So now we have a generation of kids that are autistic, ADHD, BPD, etc. all end up getting hormones and surgeries to transition, when the real issue is their underlying health conditions. It's sad to see.
Not only are kids being taught they are trans, they are being convinced on chat rooms they have mental disorders like autism. Why do kids even feel it is necessary to have some disorder? To fit in? To be special? That is tragic. Being special used to mean you excelled at something like sports or piano.
Because we've popularized the oppression Olympics. Having disorders gets them love and attention. Being normal or God forbid, being excellent, get them told to check their "privilege".
I've read many articles lately about how mental illnesses are now glamorized on social media, especially on Tik Tok. Teens are self-diagnosing themselves with tourettes, dissociative identity disorder, and bipolar. They wield these illnesses as “identities”.
This is so strange, yet so true. My Gen Z daughter keeps coming to me with a possible new diagnosis, asking if she needs medication. As both her parents are doctors (not psychiatrists) the answer is a flat NO.
However her brother (older by 4 years and Millennial- adjacent) has actual Aspergers. He never uses the term, and denies he is anything other than normal. He says it's all us that have a problem.
I've heard this story from many parents lately. For some reason, it’s usually daughters, too. Social media is the vehicle driving this glamorization but other factors, unknown to me at the moment, no doubt play a part. Unhelpful, too, is doctors are so quick to diagnose and prescribe. They are busy, too busy to take time to listen to a person, to speak to us like humans, and the quicker they shuffle you out the door, the quicker they can pad their retirement fund, buy stocks and vacation homes, and more possessions to fill the ineffable emptiness of which they’re consciously unaware. Disgusted looks wear them because years of condescending to patients have frozen their faces in a sad clown frown with unseeing eyes cushioned by purple bags.
What the hell am I talking about? I've had few good experiences with doctors. I get carried away.
For those who are willing to listen to Jordan Peterson, I would recommend his conversation last week with Joe Rogan. He outlined how these contagions happen and outlines a few of them --one being the child care scare several years ago which landed more than a few people in jail. He gives a very convincing explanation of what is happening and why.
Jordan Peterson is absolutely brilliant. Had I been listening at home, I would have taken notes. Joe Rogan was an interested listener and asked good questions, but it's tough to keep up with Peterson. His mind is incredible.
He also has an outstanding interview with Helen Joyce about her research on the topic. Highly recommend it--he goes deeper than he did with Joe, I think.
If you have mental illnesses and you’re a victim of something or a member of a marginalized group, that gives you real privilege these days, and the kids subconsciously realize that. Disempowering yourself is the best way to wield influence and avoid taking any kind of personal responsibility for literally anything. ADHD means you don’t have to turn in your homework on time and you get extra time on tests. Anxiety gets you out of EVERYTHING. Being trans, gay, poor…ANYTHING is better than being a healthy functional person who has to work hard prove themselves and make an actual contribution to the world.
Where the heck are the parents? When discussing social media with 4th & 5th graders, it was truly shocking how many had accounts that legally they were not to have by tech rules, but the parents allowed their minor child to join. Many children have access and are accessible 24/7 to every kind of troll and filth imaginable with the phone and computer in their bedrooms.
When young children on the playground act out and reference mature rated tv shows and games who has failed to act as a guardian to a 6 year old? When parents can't accept that their child is shy or (worse yet) average and start to shop for remedies in the medical field, they are able to locate the charlatans that write prescriptions.
A child being special and being appreciated for who they are as a child and nurturing their abilities is, very unfortunately, quaint and old fashion.
Parents also often feel it necessary to have their kids be "special" - and that "specialness" gets lots of likes and sympathy if it is medical or psychological.
And when I say "parents," I mean "mothers." It's almost always mothers pushing this stuff.
I think many kids today are simply miserable. The reasons for this are probably myriad and complex.
Our tendency as humans is to reduce all that ails us down to a simple, singular cause. We like to "scapegoat." A self-diagnosis of autism, BPD, et al is the perfect scapegoat for one's personal misery.
In my view, it's perfectly understandable that teens are turning to Dr. Google in order to self-soothe.
What is outrageous and unacceptable is that our institutions of mental health seem to uncritically *validate* these self-diagnoses. (My issue here isn't so much with practitioners as with the DSM and similar institutional "sources of truth.")
But then again, what can be done? Should we perhaps attempt to address negative thought patterns, physiological concerns (diet, sleep, exercise,) loneliness, etc. *prior to* even considering something like an autism diagnosis...?
You GenZers need to start speaking up much louder and pushing back against this. Lot of older folks are being told we are just ancient who don't know how to get with the times and are dismissed when we raise concerns. And at the end of the day, fact is this has become your generational problem because it's mainly afflicting you.
I thought of our conversation when I saw this today. I'm not trying to start a discussion, just wanted you to see it. And yes, it's a tabloid that features sensational stories, but that doesn't mean it's not true.
Interesting but as you might suspect.not anything I found compelling. Extremists of all types gather online. Some of the most vitriolic I personally observed were in Democrat and Democrat related sites in the lead-up to the 2016 election but I would not linger anywhere advocating actual violence against anyone. And rejecting really emotional and angry people by pushing them further underground is , predictably, going to escalate the rage. Now here is one for you: www.dictionary.com/e/slang/incel/ BTW I do not think we disagree that a group of angry young men who view their position as hopeless can be dangerous. We just disagree on how to respond to it.
Can someone explain to me the overwhelming number of children who are autistic, or on the autism spectrum? I am a Gen X with children Gen Z and Millenial. I had never met or gone to school with someone with autism..... my children also experienced little to none. Why, all of the sudden, do we have such a large number of autistic children? Vaccines? Genetics? We can most likely trace this gender dysphoria and autism along the same pathway... right?
Perhaps because the diagnostic criteria are being applied with the same reckless abandon as those for gender dysphoria are. As with ADD in young male children, it's altogether possible that at least some normal behavior is being pathologized.
Daughter was diagnosed with severe autism at 3. Began 'intense' therapy as prescribed. Disagreed with diagnosis, but the therapy was play therapy and speech (late talker). Skip a couple years, was told she "outgrew" autism and is just super bright. Outgrew must be the new euphemism for "misdiagnosed" (ie, over-diagnosed) and the same exact phenomenon is occurring with a trans dx. Thank God autism isn't treated with permanently disabling drugs.
Daughter was diagnosed with autism at 3, given tons of therapy, then it turns out she was just bright and a late bloomer socially.
We are pathologizing and *medicalizing* the normal variations of human development.
I honestly think the root cause of this is the professionalization of *everything* in modern society.
So many people in the professional and upper middle class just can't handle ambiguity. They can't handle what they cannot control or neatly catalogue. So normal human problems get put into a little professionalized boxes where every problem is a "diagnosis" that needs an "expert" who is a "professional" who uses "metrics" and "criteria" and then often some technological solution - like a pill. Children aren't allowed to have just normal childhood problems anymore and deal with them organically, slowly, and messily on their own; children have "diagnoses" that need to be "treated" by adults.
We have no time for the messiness of normal humanity anymore, and especially not the messiness of childhood, real childhood. We want to technologically control *everything.*
It's honestly horrific.
I had a lot of traits of ADHD when I was in grade school. Luckily I went to a backwater rural school district in the 80s that had a single traveling psychologist. I was just allowed to deal with and grow out of my issues on my own. Did I get a lot of bad grades in elementary school? Yeah. Did I struggle on the playground? Yeah. Did I draw ponies and unicorns all over my math tests while daydreaming out the window. Oh. Yeah. Did I make my parents and teachers crazy? Absolutely.
Does any of that matter now that I am an adult?
No.
What matters is that I was never medicated and I spent my childhood figuring out how to deal with my issues myself. And this made me a stronger, more successful, and happier person than I ever would have been if I had been drugged at seven years old so I could get straight As and not be a pain in the ass to adults.
I'm sure there are some children who actually need medication and therapy. I don't want to discount all use of it. But we way overdo it today. And there is a lot of value in letting most kids work their stuff out on their own.
Childhood is messy. We need to embrace that.
But it's not profitable to "professionals" to let children be messy and "grow out of it," so here we are.
Yes, yes, yes to this. Note that the DSM grows thicker and thicker with each edition, as psychologists pathologize more and more totally normal human conditions. It's like there's this super narrow range of acceptable existence and anyone who varies even slightly from that range is deemed "mentally il" or "disabled."
I agree that much of it is the professionalization of everything. I also think it has a lot to do with people having fewer children and at older ages. When you have many children, and especially when you live in a society of many children, you can't help but notice lots of little differences among little kids...and then you watch them grow up to be JUST FINE. When people have children at older ages, I feel like they view them as their next big ambitious project, which they micromanage from the day of conception, intervening at the first hint of any sort of difference. I live in Manhattan among these parents and i watch it every day. They don't parent from joy or peace--they parent from FEAR. They're afraid of everything, so they pay for diagnoses and professional interventions and medications and whatever else it takes to feel like they're "doing something" to help their kids achieve. It's painful to watch.
Older parent here who raised our children from love and that's because I have a deep Christian faith. I agree that many parent from fear but I believe that's because they don't have a faith....and in my world....a faith in God who made us, loves us, gives us grace and mercy.
Both of my children went to the NICU (daughter with cord around her neck) and son with a stroke the day after birth. Son has ADHD....legit ADHD. Not sure if that is due to the neurological interference at less than 24 hours old or not. Regardless, I don't parent him out of fear because I know what God and my son are capable of.
Thanks,, Adrienne. I fear that your slightly sci-fi version of contemporary Manhattan society is all too true..."parenting from fear"--good book title.
Also: so on point re: the older parent of one child phenomenon...imagine the burden of expectations placed on both parents and child...and you experience it inNY up close and personal..I've been around that slice of life just enough to have some idea as to how nighmarish it can/must be...sigh...
I would add that in addition to parenting from fear, a lot of professional class woman are just so used to being "successful" through their own merits and work and learned techniques that they have a really hard time adapting to motherhood, which is ambiguous, doesn't have concrete "benchmarks" or forms of advancement and recognition, requires love rather than learned "skills", and is more about stewarding the needs of another little person than it is "success." It doesn't produce a "product," but rather a person.
I think a lot of women who are used to the professional world have a very hard time making this transition, and I wonder if a lot of them project their energies into the management of their "special needs kid" because it returns them to frequent contact with professionals and the professional mindset, and it gives them something - the child's "condition" - to professionally manage with charts and assessments and all that stuff. It's a way to manage the uncomfortable ambiguities of motherhood.
Also, I think professionalism and submitting to the management of priestly "experts" functions as a replacement for religious ritual and practice among a lot of secular college educated women.
Both my husband and I come from more working class communities - mine rural Midwest, his urban immigrants - and the range of personal quirks and personality traits that were allowed in the communities we grew up in was so, so much broader than it is among the "well educated" professional class.
I think there is a lot of truth to smaller families contributing to it, too. When my husband and I had our first daughter, I was so much more obsessed with her being perfect and getting into the "right" preschool yada yada.
By the time we were on daughter number three I had become a lot more easygoing, and now I think I'm pretty accepting of all their quirks and petty failures and faults as just natural parts of growing up and being human.
They're afraid of everything, but mostly they're afraid of their own children. I think late parenthood (late by historical norms, anyway) contributes hugely to this phenomenon. Younger parents are much less affected than older parents.
They need to dispense with ambiguity not only for psychological reasons, but because I'm sure funding & insurance reimbursement is attached to "a diagnosis."
Every child is different. But I think the biggest thing is just remember that you are the parent, you know your child better than any "expert", and "experts" - even the nice, well intended ones! - always have their own biases and incentives that might be at odds with the well being of your child or family.
I am not opposed to all diagnoses, interventions, and accommodations, but I am just extremely discerning about them. I do not take "expert" advice at face value; I sift through it to make sure it aligns with what I know about my children and think is best for them.
I have a daughter who has been diagnosed as on the autism spectrum, and I agree with this 100%.
30 years ago my daughter would have just been described as "bright and quirky."
For the first few years we bought into the idea that she needed an entire team and special services at school. But then the real issues in the IEP kept getting solved and they kept coming up with new ones that sounded less and less like an actual disorder and more just like challenges. But the time COVID happened, her IEP was basically "Is stubborn and struggles with being flexible."
Ummm.... that's a personality flaw common to children. Not a "disability."
Anyway, I pulled the kids out of public school to homeschool during COVID, and now they are in Catholic school. My daughter has *no* services, though she does still have an IEP with some suggestions for the teacher of how to effectively deal with her "stubbornness."
She has thrived.
She doesn't need a label. Labels so easily become crutches or, even worse, "identities" that get used for "intersectionality" points or attention - which is why I think there is such an increase in young women self diagnosing as "autistic," just like they are self diagnosing as "trans."
Yes to this. My children are now in their 20s. During the grade school years, there was an epidemic of children being diagnosed as on the spectrum - fully 50% of the boys in their elementary school were on Ritalin, et al. I suspect this corresponds with much later parental age, only children, and fertility medicine - all of which engender an unnaturally high focus on individual children and their sometimes-quirky behavior. It is also correlated with wealth and the ability to seek treatment. I would like to see the educational, economic, political, and racial statistics of gender-affirming families with teen children. There is an apparent cultural component. I personally know of two families with boys and girls whose 2 boys have identified as one gay and one trans (one is a set of fraternal twins - an interesting study there). Common sense says this is a social contagion, but it seems the medical industry is promoting it.
I do always find it a little entertaining when these kids accuse the rest of us being blind to our privilege. What is more privileged than having the time and luxury to obsess over your mental health and gender identity? Haha. Do you think the kids in migrant camps are fixating on this nonsense? How are there so many more trans kids in privileged countries and communities than in developing countries and low-income neighborhoods? It's because they don't have any real problems, so they have to make some up. That's the height of privilege.
As a stereotype, the angst drama teen with their BMW and iPhone are hard to shed tears over. But to see a child manipulated into sterilization, incredibly painful and unsuccessful surgeries (like the surgery that reality star Jazz had that was not in the spotlight!) and other injuries…hard to smirk and feel they deserved this torture.
It is known that the female East German swimmers that were given male hormones achieved Olympic medals, but at the cost of their health. They had cancers that shortened their lives and were not able to have children. This is known and yet it is now approved to hastily prescribed to preteens without the necessary caution. The people that deserve derision are not the mice caught in this crazy trap but the surgeons, influencers, etc. that crafted this trap.
Abigail Shrier wrote that the transitioning teens were mostly from a background of college educated parents and upper middle class. In her book, Irreversible Damage, she does write about trans as cultural influenced.
I think you would enjoy Abigail Shriver's book if you haven't already read it. She addresses these cultural components as JoAnne points out in her comments. Friends of ours (heterosexual couple) are very Progressive, both Harvard educated, white, wealthy. They have 2 kids: both who identify as nonbinary. Coincidence?
My oldest son has ADHD (and is probably high-functioning on the autism spectrum, although that was never diagnosed). The summer before he started middle school, we moved to another state that makes much of its so-called educational excellence.
The middle school had NO services for my son. He could either try to cope in a regular classroom (which was too confusing for him to focus in) or be stuck in the class for mentally retarded students (which was a very poor fit for his high intelligence).
The only thing that school district had going for it was a Homeschool Assistance Program. I homeschooled him for three years (and his younger brother for two).
Learning how to learn in a teaching setting where he wasn't constantly having to try to keep up with teachers who had no sympathy for his loss of concentration made a huge difference for him. He went to high school as a freshman and was able to hold his own there--something he probably would not have been able to do if he had been subjected to the "education" the state had offered him in middle school.
Thank heavens that you were brave and interfering! The system does not work for all students all the time even if it should! May your child continue to thrive and grow.
My son never wanted a 'diagnosis', and his parents were just looking for explanations.
He is on the spectrum, but we just say he is "a bit spesh" Haha, who isn't? He also has dyslexia, which he never admitted during his job applications (wanted to 'own' his employment). However he acknowledged this to his boss when his reports were showing a few spelling and grammatical errors.
He is very determined to NOT have a disability (even though he does, by common standards). He parents are extraordinarily proud of him.
A lot has to do with changes in the way people live. In a more rural society, a boy who had trouble meeting people's eyes and overfocusing on things could be sent out to tend the sheep--a job that suited his strengths and weaknesses.
Back in the day, people might be considered a little quirky or even a little crazy, but it wasn't pathologized, because usually their family and community would find some way for them to get by. They were not being forced to sit still in a classroom or expected to go to college.
This is a really good insight. My husband has a couple younger brothers who really struggled in school and would probably be diagnosed with all sorts of issues today. They are both very successful business owners in the trades (one owns an HVAC business and one owns a plumbing business). Our obsession with one straight and narrow education/career path is certainly a part of these issues.
Doctors don’t treat people anymore. They diagnose and perform surgeries. Or they disbelieve you and shuffle you along, but apparently not in transitioning cases.
Pfizer had its best year ever because of the jab--which was taxpayer funded. Who knew US taxpayers were providing capital for an invention whose profits they themselves would never realize or have refunded? In the case of puberty blockers, those companies are going to start thinking of them as "puberty blockbusters."
Part of the problem.with that is that medical doctors know very little about pharmacology so are easily exploited by thd Pharma reps. A relationship with a good independent pharmacist is of vital importance these days.
How about the woman, a nurse, who killed her own children after being put on 12 medications for depression? The articles didn't say whether she was actually taking all 12 at the same time or how many doctors did the prescribing, but holy crap.
I think I have a unique perspective on this, I grew up with two brothers with autism.
Firstly, there is no link between autism and vaccines. That was originally published in a paper (I forget the specifics), but it was quickly disproven and the author admitted to fabricating his evidence. Vaccines may cause nerve damage that, in rare cases, may resemble certain traits of autism, but not autism itself.
Autism is difficult to define because it varies widely. Think of it like this: human beings are analog creatures. We process information through input from the world around us. People with autism process that information differently (hence, some kids with autism being sensitive to loud noises, wanting to wear soft clothing, etc.). No one case of autism is the same as another because all people are different; the autism spectrum happens to share many similarities/traits, but there's no "one size fits all" list of symptoms. Some people on the spectrum are "high-functioning" (also called Asperger's) in that they aren't obviously autistic (like hand flapping, making noises, potential intellectual deficiencies, etc.). I think the data says that approximately 1 in 50 to 1 in 60 people have autism.
That sounds like a lot, but keep in mind that we have only recently started documenting and medicalizing these things. That's why you may see statistics claiming that rates of autism are "increasing". Perhaps so, but that only means that diagnoses are up. You probably have met lots of people with autism. Every so often, in my day-to-day life I'll run into people who I think may be on the spectrum because I recognize certain traits (especially young kids walking on their toes, that's a pretty big indicator).
With all that in mind, however, I think that our medical establishment probably does over-diagnose autism because it seems that they over-diagnose everything. A young boy who doesn't want to sit still in class isn't just an active kid, no no, he has ADD/ADHD. A socially awkward person isn't just a bit odd, no no, they must have autism. I don't think it does any good to over-medicalize our society because we then take the actual, serious cases of ADD, autism, and the like less seriously.
"I don't think it does any good to over-medicalize our society because we then take the actual, serious cases of ADD, autism, and the like less seriously."
Yes. This.
Autism is real, and when autism is real it can be incredibly challenging. When people diagnose it left and right for normal variations in behavior it diminishes the needs of those who have serious issues, and leads to people saying stuff like "oh, everyone is a little bit autistic."
Um, no. Everyone is not. Actual autism is not a joke or excuse for awkward social skills.
I agree. While rare, real autism is unmistakable. My wife had a one year job shepherding a profoundly autistic boy in a private school classroom, about sixth grade if I remember correctly. His parents had "Microsoft money" and paid a great deal of it trying to "mainstream" him in a regular classroom. My wife wife ended up thinking it was profoundly a mistake. She spent most of her time trying to keep him from banging his head against walls, and from taking his pants off and screaming. The one benefit I see in it is that all the regular kids who witnessed this year will have an indelible idea about true autism and the misdiagnosed kind which is now epidemic it seems.
I have a friend who is a public special ed teacher who is in a similar situation. She has been moved from teaching her own class of special ed students to 100% monitoring a student who must be kept in his own classroom because he is violent on a regular basis and unable to learn (he is in seventh grade and cannot write his name nor recite the alphabet). He assaulted her two weeks ago and made her face bleed and tore out her hair. These children's situations are to be pitied, but this is not "school."
" I think the data says that approximately 1 in 50 to 1 in 60 people have autism."
I have NOT looked into this, but I question those numbers. IF those numbers were real autistic people would be Everywhere.
"I don't think it does any good to over-medicalize our society because we then take the actual, serious cases of ADD, autism, and the like less seriously."
It is hard to quantify, but I wouldn't be surprised.
Again, autism can vary widely. It's really just a set of behavioral characteristics that share certain features. Until about 20-30 years ago, people with autism would have just been lumped into a different category or been considered a little different without a diagnosis (before every aberration in human behavior had to be labeled or medicalized).
For example: someone like Mozart possibly could have been on the spectrum, but the entire concept of medicalizing/scientific analysis of psychology didn't even exist in his time. He was just considered kind of strange (along with having God-like musical abilities).
It wasn't until our education system began demanding children to be cookie-cutter copies in every way that all those minor neurodiversities became considered a pathological problem.
Well, 1 in 50 is 2% of the population. so I can believe it. About 7% of the population has a mental disorder of some sort. But "disorder" doesn't mean they can't function. Many get by without any treatment, or maybe they undergo talk therapy for a while and that's the end of it. I can't find a number at the moment for the percentage of the population that takes drugs for a mental disorder, but I'll SWAG it's 4%.
We parents of genuinely neurodiverse children simply cannot win. Either we are bad parents because we "can't make the kids behave," or we're accused of jumping on a bandwagon.
My oldest son was very clearly "not normal" from birth, but until his younger brother was born, I had nothing but *instinct* to judge that by. Watching his younger brother grow and develop made it crystal clear just how different his older brother was.
Hi Ben, there is a pretty strong indication of a genetic component. Specifically, families rich in scientists, engineers, doctors and the like are more likely to have autistic members also. My family has both.
You might like the book Neurotribes by Steve Silberman. I found it to be quite good.
Based on what I've read, I guess there could be somewhat of a genetic link, but we really can't say for certain because we can't identify a specific gene as the "autism" gene; all we can do is look at correlation (which may be close but not quite the same thing). It does seem to be more prevalent in certain families, but I don't think there's a 100% link to it.
I'll look into that book. Some of the best literature I've read on autism has been from Temple Grandin or books that she has helped to co-author.
Who knows? We really have no idea. So far, I don't think there's been any link to genetics, environment, or any other variable that has proven to be statistically significant.
I think that autism is just a variation of the human genome. Some people just act differently.
I saw in passing earlier this week a provocative headline suggesting that Tylenol taken in pregnancy might be implicated in the explosion of autism diagnoses. I didn’t read any further, but it made me wonder if we would ever know if that was the case. My (childless) sister has wondered if the use of microwave ovens or ultrasound in recent decades could play a part.
British physician Andrew Wakefield was the author of the vaccine hoax who is now mostly disgraced, but he still has adherents. Dr. Paul Offit refuted Wakefield pretty definitively.
It’s the age of the mother (her eggs) that may be to blame for autism. We’re having children older and statistics shows a definite correlation between age of the mother and rates of autism — with 25 year old moms and younger having the lowest rates.
So, safest age to get pregnant is actually in your 20s.
Unpopular opinion....I know several autistic children, some of young and some of older parents. Most of the affected children have fathers who smoked a lot of pot prior to conception. We know now that THC can be detected in sperm. Something to think about.
Thanks for that info. I had heard that age of father contributed to schizophrenia, but did not know about autism.
Yep, basically humans should breed in their twenties and postpone pot use. (There is so little info about the downside of “cannabis”, as there is also little info about the true female fertility span).
If that's true, there should be a noticeable pattern in the data. Tylenol and most other brands of acetaminophen were taken off the market in 1982 after the Chicago Tylenol murders. They didn't become available again until about 1990.
This is not the case. Tylenol was reintroduced in new packaging by November of 1982. Within a few years it was again the highest selling OTC analgesic.
Rats. So it’s less likely we’d be know. It would take a study combing through medical records to see if Tylenol was noted, which seems unlikely to me since it’s OTC.
I had a flashback to a summer internship I had in the late 70s. I got to comb through a small hospital’s medical records to count how many tonsillectomies were deemed unnecessary. It seems that the Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Hospitals or some other entity had determined that a certain percentage of unnecessary tonsillectomies was necessary to prove doctors were on the ball, or some such rationale. As a college student majoring in English, I loved reading through all the histories. It was unpaid so nobody questioned how long it took to complete!
Thanks. As I understand it, a diagnosis requires the display of several of many characteristics, and they show up when a child is quite young and hasn’t had the opportunity to learn to mimic them to get attention.
It’s become cool, special to be able to proclaim you have a mental disorder.
Real autism reveals inself in early childhood. Yet grown kids are now finding a quack who will tell them they are autistic. Chat rooms will teach them how to behave to be convincing. Families get turned upside down adjusting to this charade. Parents are made to feel guilty for “missing it”. In the end it’s all just an excuse to be an adult child, deferred to, accommodated. Real autistics can lead productive lives with jobs that use their skills. But the phonies live in their parents’ basements.
And I think that among moms of grade school kids, there is a subset among whom it is cool and special to have a "special needs" kid.
When my daughter was diagnosed and treated for autism, I had several parents - and by parents I mean mothers who were social media drama queens - ask me how I "got" a diagnosis for my kid, because they kept trying to "get" one and would get turned away or told their kid was completely normal.
But they would insist that doctors were just "missing" the real problem.
Now, I know that doctors are not gods, and often miss real problems.
But when the Venn Diagram of "mothers who can't get an autism diagnosis for their kid" is a perfect circle with "mothers who overdramatize their personal issues on Facebook for sympathy all day" I'm going to say that maybe there is something else going on here.
Social media - and "wokeness", or the need for a special identity to get ahead - has created a whole new incentive for Munchausen by proxy.
Thinking of this in relation to "trans kids" is truly terrifying.
We just went to school with kids who were a "little different", "awkward" or "slow". I went to school with a couple of kids who would probably be considered "on the spectrum" now. They were never given a diagnostic label. They were treated the same as everyone else and now are middle-aged people living their lives like the rest of us.
I have a friend with a daughter who does poorly in school, so she had her evaluated for adhd. Yet even the professionals said they weren't sure that she had adhd. I've observed this child to be indulged and coddled - she spends excessive time on tiktok, rarely exercises, doesn't go to bed on time. This friend wanted to know what we thought about medication for her daughter. I said I think you need to ensure she goes to bed at a reasonable hour, that she gets some fresh air, maybe check for food allergies and diet (red dye can cause issues for some kids) and limit her screen time before anything else. The answer was "oh but I can't take her phone away!" No? But she's fine putting her on, well, speed. Hm. My other friend argued that it was perfectly reasonable to put her on adhd meds - so many other people are on it! Hm again. Long story short, she's on the meds now. Having worked for a company that did unbranded campaigns on how people might have adhd to drive requests for evaluation, I can tell you the science is weak on this "disorder" and a lot of it was hyperbolized. Am I saying no one has it and meds are never warranted? No. I'm saying people are diagnosed and treated for it when they shouldn't be.
Criteria for diagnosing autism have been loosened significantly in the past 30 years. "Rain Man" autism is just as rare as it's always been, but most kids diagnosed simply have difficulty communicating. Also, autism has become a catch-all term for what we used to call mental retardation.
We have been doing pre-natal screening for Down Syndrome and other chromosomal abnormalities for over 30 years. Those babies are no longer being born, so the mental disorders that cannot be detected in pregnancy have become more visible.
The specialists also have decided that if you are gifted in one area yet average or less than average in another, you must be autistic as well. I agree, a good number of those diagnosed today wouldn’t have been in previous generations. However, I wouldn’t be so quick to attribute the rise solely to increased diagnosis. The increase in chemicals in our daily lives, some of which we are only beginning to understand inhibits hormones and increase cancer risk, may also be contributing to the rise. The rate of autism diagnoses from what I understand, is lower in Europe where many of these chemicals have been outlawed. We need more research and analysis into the sources in order to fully explain the huge increase seen in recent decades.
I’ve seen studies that correlate increased rates of autism to anti depressants in utero, which makes sense. A friend who didn’t consider ceasing when pregnant (and who seems not to need anti depressants, had a male with an inverted penis. It’s also the “hysteria” of our day, with many likely causes, such as an ironic lack of compassion for difference. I was one such kid. Didn’t conform, a bit masculine for a girl and not inclined to say the “right things” -- socially clumsy, better off alone -- now that’s “autistic” ---- overdiagnosing abounds, to the point of absurd destruction.
Considering that Tylenol was promoted as a "safe" painkiller for use in pregnancy as far back as the 90s, when I was pregnant with my kids, it wouldn't take much of an increased risk of autism to create an uptick in autism.
Although the guy whose study linking vaccination with autism was discredited, I personally know people who had children who developed autism *immediately* after a vaccination.
I have long theorized that a genetic predisposition for autism may be triggered by various causes that are harmless to those without that predisposition. I know for a fact that it has been determined that the genetic predisposition for type 1 diabetes (which I developed at age 19) is often triggered by exposure to some immune challenge (perhaps as minor as a common cold).
In other words, DNA is massively complicated. We are only just beginning to understand *how* complicated.
And possibly because the current education system favors girls (girls are better at school than boys, graduate more, more have degrees, etc). And the boys need a diagnosis from the grownups to fit a system that is just less suitable for them on average
I agree about kids on the spectrum. One thing that has not changed since my youth is that the pre-teen and adolescent years are hard. Especially for kids with social disabilities. So I see it as sort of grasping at straws - if I just maim myself I will be happy. Plus cosmetic surgery is widely accepted by both sexes so going under the knife has been normalized.
I am more than sure that the author and I would have widely disparate views on many issues but I admire her courage and her character. She is exactly the kind of person that I like to work with.
And, I understand about the need to hold off to preserve a paycheck. Not sure that many people could sacrifice their living for their values. That is a horrible and frightening choice to have to make.
This woman deserves a lot of kudos.
In my humble opinion this abomination of a circumstance is what happens when progressive politics meets greed. These children are a cause de jur, another collection of puppies to save that allow the elite progressive left to virtue signal and challenge traditional ways of life and is a cash cow for doctors and therapists, mentally ill children are just the meat to feed into the machine.
I agree. There is a video on You Tube that someone took on their phone while in a meeting at Vanderbilt Mental Center in Nashville. The clinic administrators all talked about how much money (profit) each type of treatment/surgery would bring into the hospital. The Tennessee governor’s office is investigating.
I see it more the result of progressive politics, period. I think the bulk pf progressives really think they're doing the right thing. Nothing is ever evil or wrong, it's just misunderstood by the masses and then justified - usually by taking other peoples money (taxes) to fund the entire academic, medical and surgical process. It is a contagion.
As a developmental psychologist and also a child psychotherapist -- Thank you, thank you, thank you!! The politicization of medical practice is a crime; and in the case of gender issues, a crime against children.
So glad to hear this from someone working in the field. My friend, who is an associate professor of psychology, has to be so very careful in her lectures because of the politics in her department, and to this day, is in a constant balancing act to address this topic in her classes without getting sacrificed on the altar of politics.
These doctors are no better than Mengele. They need to be thrown in jail. You can’t imagine how furious this crap makes me. Good on you for blowing the whistle. Your whistle needs to turn into a hell fire of fury aimed at them.
But beyond the abuses inflicted on children in these clinics, we as a society need a deep examination and reckoning with how we got here. Let’s start with: there ARE absolute truths. There is a right and a wrong. Parents determine what is OK for their kids. Kids should not have to invent psychological problems to be treated as special and accepted in peer groups. Chat rooms that teach kids how to be screwed up should be treated as child abusers. The few actual cases of gender dysphoria are mental problems (like anorexia) and need counseling, not drugs and mutilating surgery. (Have you seen what these monsters do to the forearms of their victims in an attempt to build a “penis”? ).
We don’t agree with anorectics that they are obese and encourage them to starve themselves more, do we?
In my darker moments I often muse that the only way to stop is nonsense is a termination program for those in charge of it. I do know that if I were caught in the web that some fathers are in seeing their children forcibly transformed into freaks I would be deadly serious about the vengeance I would exact.
A few years ago a young preacher I knew was working as a roofer to make a few extra bucks. One of the other workers was constantly dogging and bullyragging him with profanities, aspersions about his faith, his spouse, etc.. One day the preacher, perhaps under the influence of the blazing sun upon his skull on that hot roof, just lost it and nearly murdered the guy with his roofing axe. If he'd caught him, it would have been over, but fate intervened.
His only comment upon resuming his roofing was that, "Sometimes the Lord's burden is more than a man can bear."
I experienced a tiny fraction of this kind of stress when my first wife took up with a new boyfriend, who was sleeping in the same house as my two sons. I don't know that a single untoward thing ever happened, but to this day I wonder .......
I worked as a roofer's helper once. It was the worst job I ever did. Carrying heavy loads of shingles up a ladder and then working on a fiercely hot roof. Totally understandable that the young preacher "lost it."
I discovered yesterday that if I view my comment from an email notification about a response to it, I was then able to edit it. A software glitch that the Substack platform needs to fix.
Harsh, Bruce. She's looking at it and calling it for the insanity it clearly is. Being on the other side of the political spectrum is not monolithic. Give credit where credit is due.
The psychologist Diane Ehrenseft, who is one of the biggest promoters of the "trans kids will kill themselves" myth also had a history promoting the "Satanic Panic Hoax."
Someone at the APA should have to explain to a judge why she headed up the APA committee that deals with LGBT issues.
And someone at the AAP needs to explain to a judge why they changed their rules to avoid debating pediatric gender issues at their own annual conference.
Go right to the professional organizations.
They are increasingly nothing but cartels for profit and ideology.
There needs to be a medical standard of care before one can sue for malpractice. Not all transitioning surgeries have a standard. Many trans surgeries are experimental and the fine print defines why suing is almost impossible.
The people who are going to pay for Biden's so called "right to transition" are going to be the taxpayers and it may seriously harm healthcare budgets. Skeptical belief that massive amounts of hormones taken for decades are going to create major health care problems.
Last year I visited a shuttered "Lunatic Asylum" where a tour guide described in detail all of the "treatments" given to the supposedly insane.
They pointed out that many of those admitted were just uppity women. The audience chuckled at how backward and stupid those early-20th century people must have been.
Then they went over frontal lobotomies - top of the line science in their day, fit to cure all sorts of disorders. We were horrified, then chuckled at how backward and stupid those early-20th century people must have been.
Unfortunately, people have done a lot of very bad things because they misunderstood biology. Consider the history of lobotomies, or the career of John Money (who popularized the term “gender identity”).
The current (generally misinformed) national conversation about gender identity is being driven — to a great extent — by people who have a naïve and childish understanding of biology, and a zealous belief that they know just how to manipulate it in order to permanently ‘fix’ what they think is a unitary psychological phenomenon. However, because both biology and psychology are complex, and people are remarkably diverse, the same ‘fix’ will never work for everyone… just like the same antidepressant or blood pressure medicine doesn’t work for everyone.
Diversity, including neuro-diversity, should be recognized and valued. Every individual should be respected, accepted, included, and have the opportunity to live the best life that they can. For some very small percentage of people, pharmacological or surgical intervention may be a reasonable option (after an extended period of therapy and careful evaluation). However, by definition, that singular solution is not appropriate for everyone. Unfortunately, the most zealous proponents of that singular solution are doing a tremendous amount of irreversible damage to the young, the vulnerable, families, women, and many of our institutions. I think that’s misguided and unacceptable. (Actually, I think it's worse than that. I'm just trying to be temperate in my language.)
A deep understanding of the evolutionary, genetic, and developmental forces that make us human should prevent us from making foolish mistakes, like thinking that we can surgically alter a few external body parts and change a person into something they’re not. Biology is more complicated than that:
However, all of this notwithstanding, compassion and humility should be our guiding lights. Clearly, they are not. My heart breaks for every child who has been (or will be) permanently harmed by this zealotry.
Also, for great work on where this insanity came from, the harm (to more than just kids) of this ideology, Eliza Mondegreen is another brilliant resource!
Thank you for speaking out. I personally have some beliefs that are different than the author's. I have met some transgender people (men to women). I am adamantly against anything being done with children, meaning surgery or drugs, other than mental health services. I think if someone is serious about going through with such a life altering situation it should be done as an adult after several years of therapy. I personally think over 25 years old. I think there are probably several trans people who would agree. We could be doing grave harm to countless numbers of children and young adults. Heck teenagers have enough to deal with just trying to figure life out.
And for people who truly are trans, that wait until they are 25 for medical transition I think would be made much easier if we as a society could just accept a greater degree of gender noncomformity among people who can't necessarily "pass" as the other sex but wish they could.
Obviously in some areas - like locker rooms or sports - the boundaries around biological sex can't be transgressed without harm to others. But in areas like how we dress and do our hair and refer to each other, perhaps being more open and compassionate to those who cross dress or present in a "queer" way could go a long way. And offering more gender "neutral" spaces as a third option for people who are gender non-conforming, so they can have spaces that feel safe for them without compromising the modesty and safety of others who prefer single sex.
Make it more socially acceptable to be "queer" when it comes to sex and gender, but respect women's spaces and keep medicalization away from children.
I feel like that sort of middle ground would be so healthy. It would help most people with gender dysphoria find a place in society, but without mutiliating them as children or violating women's spaces.
This is my favorite comment. I think a lot of this could be avoided by teaching kids that there are infinite ways to express your personality and none of them are specific to your biological sex.
The group “gays against groomers” speaks to this idea a lot. It really resonates with me.
Growing up in the 80s is seemed like there was so much latitude when it came to how you could dress and express yourself as a boy or a girl. This was especially true for girls - I spent my entire childhood with what would be considered a "boy" bowl cut today and in blue jeans and unisex T-shirts. And while boys have always had less latitude, think of how many male celebrities and music artists wore makeup and had long hair. No one questioned that I was a real girl and they were real men. Even intentionally androgynous artists like David Bowie or Prince or Annie Lennox were never mistaken for anything as men and women expressing their gender creatively.
Why can't we get back to that mentality and expand it? How is mutilating children in the name of "gender" expression progress?
Just maybe it's not many with cognitive dissonance. Maybe they were confused and insecure still trying to discover themselves. Not everyone fits into a neat bubble. I struggled all through my teen years with feeling awkward and different, not sexually, but in other ways leading to some insecurities.
I'm suggesting that many who transitioned and then struggle with their same problems which transitioning didnt fix and infact added a host of new ones, cant quite bring themselves to recognize they made a mistake in doing so - which is cognitive dissonance. I'm not suggesting cognitive dissonance led them to transition. Sorry if I was unclear.
Thanks for writing this, Jamie. I, too, felt complicit for several years because of how I was reporting on the subject. I hope this powerful piece will inspire more people to speak up.
I watched Jamie last night in the interview. She struck me as someone who is knowledgeable, grounded (but angry and frustrated), compassionate towards kids, and trans folks. She has a resume one cannot look away from (knowledgeable about research; social worker-case management work with a variety of populations, including youth who were HIV+, her own family life (married to transman; foster kids they are trying to adopt)).
She walks the walk on so many things. She tried to enact change from within and was hitting big walls - she tried to get the physicians to reflect on what they were doing, pump breaks. They instead admonished and ordered allegiance.
I've heard from many wise people on this topic -- her voice will be a hard one to discount when people start hearing her testimony live.
Jordan Peterson interviewed Chloe Cole, a detransitioning person who is speaking out about the horrors of this industry. What was stunning was the ease with which these doctors determined she was trans and initiated drugs. She even had a double mastectomy at 15. They threatened her parents that it was better to have a trans boy than a suicide daughter. How did these doctors come to practice like this?? The AAP supports this?? How? A total rejection of objective truths. A rejection of right from wrong. And money. I want to heap acrimony and parental fury on them. I want them in jail for hurting children.
It was Ilhan Omar who said accurately but in a different context “It’s all about the Benjamins.”
If a society is not willing to protect its most vulnerable, its children, then it is doomed. From abortion in the final trimester, to gender affirming care, to indoctrination in the schools, it seems as if we hate our children.
I fear for my grandsons growing up in a world where they are a ideological tool to be used to further an agenda.
You wrote, "Today I am speaking out. I am doing so knowing how toxic the public conversation is around this highly contentious issue—and the ways that my testimony might be misused. I am doing so knowing that I am putting myself at serious personal and professional risk."
From the bottom of our hearts, thank you. Thank you for taking the risk to write this. What's happening now is insane and surely one of the lowest points our culture has ever stooped to.
I think that what you've just said will make a difference.
Maybe my grandchildren will move back to the US before they graduate high school.
My daughter and SIL are currently raising them in Asia to keep them away from this lunacy.
I don't see good trends in many areas in the US, be it DIE (yes I reversed two letters because it's more consistent with the outcome of putting demographic status over merit), ESG (a push based on bad science), surrendering self determination to international organizations (loss of self determination), "education", "science", and censorship. I looked at relocating, but the insanity is still spreading and other places have their own issues. If I had school age children, I would educate at home, or pool resources with like-minded people to develop a (monitored) tutor system. Opting out of many areas seems to be the only option left.
DIE is the right term! It’s the authoritarian way to make people comply...much like the Chinese Cultural Revolution!
BOOM! You got that right. The CCP is NOT doing this to their population, however. Wonder why?
At least relocate to the most conservative state that is practical for you to move to. "Circle the wagons" with people who share your values.
The lies of the woke tyrants cannot be made more clear than this brave author made clear. And the woke's lies pervade every aspect of our lives.
Will Bari Weiss and the other partially red-pilled "liberals" finally support leaders who understand this and have the courage to fight with those of us who see no alternative but to fight in every sane and practical way to save our once great nation. Will they support Ron DeSantis, Sen Josh Hawley? Or will they equivocate?
No. Progressives here and elsewhere will not deviate from the ingrained voting patterns that lead to such disasters. Otherwise, it would've happened long ago. Suicidal self-hatred is the very core of their raison d'ètre. I have no doubt whatsoever that the author of this piece will never support any candidate that is not explicitly vetted by the Democratic Party, and their record of catastrophic social policies.
These pieces always remind of the old B-movie trope "Stop me before I kill again!" LOL
I told
My daughter that I would pay for private schools no way my grandkids are being indoctrinated while I’m still living
Even the best private schools in the country have been infiltrated, along with the religious school. This Critical Pedagogy stuff began being taught in the Education Colleges in the '90s. It's soaked through the entire pedagogy of thought in education. Wanna have your head explode? Go research 'whole word theory"...They've stopped teaching phonics as an act of 'restorative justice'. They are okay with failing to serve all but the 'under-privileged' - who they fail as well of course. Kids are learning phonics outside of school now, smart parents make sure they do. They don't really 'learn' anything anymore the way my generation thinks about learning. Rather, they are given things 'to know' and ways to navigate knowing. Imbued with hard core Marcusian Crit Theory madness.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but this stuff is everywhere.
D.I.E. (commissariat)
We moved to Costa Rica to protect my daughters, aged 12 and 15 from this bullshit. Their private school in Colorado, Colorado Academy, had several girls convinced they were boys.
Funny, I was looking around purple states for a non-woke high school and actually looked (on-line) at Colorado Academy. We left the hot bed of Manhattan and yep, this stuff is being introduced at child’s new (non-NYC) independent K-8 school.
Where's the new school? Colorado Academy teaches gender ideology as early as Kindergarten. We are in the process of undoing all the ideological training. We paid a ton of money to have our kids' minds totally poisoned.
Same here - our daughter's mind was poisoned at an Independent high school in another state. We paid a ton for it as well.
Have you taken the phone away? Or at the very least, put monitors on it? Ditto on their computers? Ensured they aren't on harmful Social media apps, like Tiktok?
If you're not using one, it doesn't matter what school your kid goes to, they will get indoctrinated.
I'd ensure they go nowhere near TikTok or Discord.
Here's a link to some parental control apps: https://www.tomsguide.com/us/best-parental-control-apps,review-2258.html
I use this: https://www.mcafee.com/en-us/parental-controls/mcafee-safe-family.html
Shuts the phones down at bedtime, and lets me know what they're using, and also has a phone tracker, so I know where they are as well.
It's horrifying, isn't it? I actually had to write everything down because it was so surreal that I would doubt my recollection for the rest of my life if I hadn't.
A friend of mine that pulled her kids out of private school said the funniest, albeit tragic, statement: "Well, you can get it for free or you can pay for it."
It’s frightening!
Here's how it is working between the "health professionals," schools, legislators and your children in many states. We are from Colorado so here's the CO example:
1. Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment ("CDPHE") contracts with The University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Center (“Anschutz”) to survey kids about their mental health issues.
2. In 2021, Healthy Kids Colorado Survey was given to more than 106,000 students, in grades 6-12 attending 340 schools in 51 different counties in Colorado. www.coloradokids.org
3. Question #3 of the Survey asks kids to state their gender identity. Questions 4 and 5 ask questions specifically about transgenderism.
4. Questions are "aggregated and anonymized" by Anschutz to populate CDPHE's public data dashboard. In other words, CDPHE can't tell me which schools were surveyed. Schools have no duty to tell parents any information about kids social transitioning in school.
5. CRS 12-245-2035, codified in 2019, allows "youth who are 12 and over to have legal access to outpatient psychotherapy services that might otherwise be unavailable without the consent of or notification to the youth's parent or legal guardian."
https://casetext.com/statute/colorado-revised-statutes/title-12-professions-and-occupations/health-care-professions-and-occupations/article-245-mental-health/part-2-general-provisions/section-12-245-2035-minors-consent-for-outpatient-psychotherapy-services-immunity-definition
6. HB 23-1003, currently about to become law, creates a Mental Health Assessment program, administered by CDPHE that specifies that "students 12 and over may consent to participate in a mental health questionnaire (presumably the same one as above), administered by a Qualified Provider who can direct additional treatment of the student without the parent's consent. Presumably all the referrals are for “specialists” at Anschutz.
https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/hb23-1003
7. Under the American Academy of Pediatrics (“AAP”), gender-affirming care for adolescents is medically necessary and appropriate. The AAP isn’t saying that it might be medically necessary and appropriate. AAP providers do not need to make a finding of medical necessity. https://www.aap.org/en/news-room/aap-voices/why-we-stand-up-for-transgender-children-and-teens/
8. Anshutz has a huge educational program aimed at "convey[ing] the core concepts of gender-affirming care to prescribing primary care providers interested in improving care for transgender and gender non-binary patients." https://medschool.cuanschutz.edu/docs/librariesprovider323/default-document-library/transgender-health---core-concepts-for-primary-care.pdf?sfvrsn=b5e4f2ba_2
9. Anschutz will happily provide any and all gender-affirming related services as part of its Transgender Program.
https://www.uchealth.org/services/diabetes-endocrinology-care/uchealth-integrated-transgender-program/
10. Anshutz has 29 different providers that can help your minor with his/her "transgender journey."
https://www.uchealth.org/provider/
11. Sex-reassignment surgery was valued at $1.9B for 2021 and “and is expected to expand at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 11.23% from 2022 to 2030.”
https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/us-sex-reassignment-surgery-market
Sorry for the long post!
OMG. Thank you for the detailed post.
"Anshutz" even sounds like "Auschwitz".
Both involve eugenics movements.
"Echoes of Eugenics: What the Doctors Trial at Nuremberg Means for Us in the US" https://pitt.substack.com/p/echoes-of-eugenics-what-the-doctors
Insane!
I totally support what you are doing. You are only a very small minority of people with the ability to do such a radical move. What's more, it will lead to people like yourself being the leaders of what is left after these feral monsters get done torching the world with their sickness of mind. It seems the two ends of the economic spectrum, those who can escape entirely such as you, and those far below me on the spectrum, too rooted in reality to be indocrinated, will be those left standing. Praise God. It now just all depends on how much damage the Wokies can do in the meantime.
I’ve considered leaving again. I can hardly believe I’m saying that. But In truth the remedy is to stand up and fight this. Truth wins it’s just taking more time than it should.
We have to commit to the fight if Truth has to win!!
Grappling with what this looks like every day.
Making me sick every day Mc and to think this gets Federal $$$$ we are in the twilight zone, it can’t last forever. Travistock in England has already closed down. We got to hammer away at this mad administration to stop this and stop it now!!
It looks like this: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gBQBxsdUznKcmP9R5whj0VNkJTEPqGHtloU7i6khEJQ/edit?usp=sharing
Kind of a boring letter, but skipping ahead to the parent testimonials will give you a very good sense of what is being done in expensive private schools. I have several pages full of horror stories told to me by parents.
Wish I knew how to fight this ! Especially living in a blue state!
Please, please, please check out these websites for information on who to send letters to:
https://feministstruggle.org/tag/erin-friday/
https://ourduty.group/2022/10/08/we-need-to-stop-transing-kids-now/
It is going to take every single one of us to stop this madness. As I type this, Colorado (D) legislators are trying to codify 12 year-olds access to mental health counseling (i.e., gender confusion and ideology) in schools, over the parents' objections. The school then refers the child to a gender-affirming specialist/counselor. Because it's gender affirming and not gender-critical or gender-questioning, it's a one-way ticket to puberty blockers and "top surgery" (the current euphemism for traumatic, elective radical mastectomies in minors.)
Speak the truth out loud.
EXACTLY THIS. Many times with this madness (Ukraine comes to mind) we are unable to do much as oftentimes these politicians say they will bring change but then they don't. In this case though speaking out can change things. This took hold by means of social contagion, and it will be the only way out.
That’s quite a sacrifice, but I’m sure it’s worth it!
It is worth it, there a lot of people out there that know this is all wrong, we just have to find our own way forward collectively, we can vote this nonsense out of power and we must!!!
It was really hard pulling two very happy kids out of a school with their friends that they had known for years. My husband and I fought about it daily for about a year. But, believing the transgender craze to be a contagion based on Abigail Shiver's book, we figured we had to get out. He was so pissed that the school was turning our beautiful young students/girls into anxious wanna-be boys. Here's the letter that I wrote to the Board begging them to calm the hell down with gender ideology. The school was hiring gender ideology experts to teach kids about how many different genders there were to choose from. I told the Principal at a meeting that it was emotionally inappropriate for elementary and middle-school kids and he disagreed, saying it was appropriate as early as Kindergarten. I have so many horror stories. Still trying to sort it all out and live a calm life in Costa Rica.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gBQBxsdUznKcmP9R5whj0VNkJTEPqGHtloU7i6khEJQ/edit?usp=sharing
I applaud your and your husbands decision please God wherever you are you manage to grow your beautiful children into adulthood in peace take care!
Thank you for your sweet comment.
When did they move?
Before my eldest grandchild started elementary school.
What year?
TMI. Sorry.
Lol. TMI. Yeah....because they moved way before all this trans/kids trans reeassignment stuff all started being discussed last year.
This may be the absolute lowest point our cutlure has ever reached...lynching, gay-bashing, immigrant-bashing, slavery, et al--despicable all, but none of them seem quite as despicable as the institutionalized gender mutilation of children. Literally doing Satan's work. And our current president is applauding it.
Worse than slavery and lynching? Girl, you be tripping.
Yes, I think the argument can be made that the institutionalized gender mutilation of children, supported at the highest levels, politically and culturally, is the single most despicable thing that has ever happened in US history. At least in the cases of slavery and lynching, you had broad opposition to what was occurring. Try wrapping your mind around that idea. It might be it is you who is the one who is "tripping."
And this is the scariest part, seemingly kind people cannot grasp how dystopian this all is. They just can’t see the consequences of this. Like it’s no big deal. It’s actually societal collapse level stuff when you drill down and we are being prevented from speaking about it by the ruling class and the mainstream.
Guys, guys! No it's not. Society is not collapsing. I promise.
Um, slavery wasn't supported at the highest levels of government? Um, police in the South didn't look away when black people got lynched - much less picnic beneath their bodies? Um, we didn't have to fight a long and bloody civil war to end slavery? How broad was that opposition again?
And, um, there isn't broad opposition to medical intervention for trans kids? When's the last time you watched the most popular news station in America?
Yes, I think you're tripping. This bugs you in some... what? religious way? It's just icky? I dunno. Yes, some kids are getting medical interventions they shouldn't be and that's tragic. And the current system of care is bad and certainly not suited to the numbers of trans-presenting youth and needs to be changed, but it ain't the horrifying crisis you think it is. Check out my post on top if you want news about real crises.
Whatever. I just want you to feel better! Come on down and meet my kid. He's great! He's doing hella better than my evangelical cousin's kids - lol. (Btw, she got a boob job - so much for loving the body God gave you.)
It bugs me in an anti gay, anti woman anti mental health and anti human flourishing kind of way. It would take ages to dissect all those angles. Simply put, the exponential degree to which kids are seeking medical transition is being co-opted by an activist class that has zero interest for their long term well-being but are very willing to make them patients of a capitalist medical system that makes them patients for life.
Yes, we did have a "long and bloody civil war" to end slavery...that's kind of my point. The opposition to slavery began during the time of the Revolution and gained strength more or less continually until a war was fought to end it, and in the face the fact that slavery was enormously profitable. I'm just hoping we can go through a similar process with pediatric gender mutilation surgery,but that it won't take nearly as long to be successful. Never forget: their were far more "white people" who, to varying degrees, opposed slavery as compared to the relatively few in the Southern states who could afford to own one.
As for lynching: true, the Southern sheriff often looked the other way when a lynching occurred, if he wasn't involved himself. But that was not always the case--lyniching was still a crime, even if often unpunished. Can't say that about the fad for Pediatric Gender Mutilation surgery--its'fully legal, and you risk your career to speak out about it. You see my point.
And by the way: figures on the NAACP homepage suggest that roughly 4,800 people (of all races) were lynched between 1882-1968....figures from 2020 alone show that nearly 10,000 African Americans were murdered, in the vast majority of cases, by other blacks. That concerns me far far more than does lynching, which has largely been ended. How about you?
So, the craze for Pediatric Gender Mutilation surgery "ain't the horrifying crisis" that Jamie Reed and I think it is...guess we'll just have to agree to disagree on that. History will judge us both on that.
I will choose ignore the rude and insulting tone of your remarks. It does not speak well, either of you or your positions.
Per your short bio on your profile......you might be a "liberal living in a liberal bubble", but you have an odd way of "engaging with other viewpoints". Smug to the core.
If thinking that equating a small number of teens getting medical interventions to which they've consented - rightly or wrongly, and however damaging to them - to slavery (rape, beatings, murder, selling children away from their parents, etc), Jim Crow, lynching, and Nazi experimentation on Jews (and anyone else they thought inferior) is abhorrent and ignorant or, charitably, just bats*** crazy, yes, I'm smug. I'm sorry my tone rubbed you the wrong way, but I really find this view - and the doubling down on it - shocking and disgusting.
And, dude, I just came on here to agree with the author! With the caveat that I didn't think passing laws banning the procedure across the board is the right way to go. I thought there might be discussion of different ways to ensure all kids' safety and well-being. Given The Free Press says it's *about* debate, I didn't expect this to be 100% unified chorus of hysteria and hyperbole and disrespect for the one mother of a trans kid who bothered to show up. But y'all - not me - have made it perfectly clear other people's stories and experiences and opinions are not welcome. This obviously isn't the type of place I thought it was, with a mix of opinions. Sorry I interrupted the circle jerk.
Yes, because slave owners and lynchers are not seen as paragons of society and upheld as those who should be listened to and heeded, such as doctors. That’s what makes this so heinous, even among the most heinous of evils.
Right. No slave-owning president was ever seen as a paragon of society. No wealthy plantation owner ever enjoyed the respect of his community. No paragons of Southern society ever picnicked under the charred body of a lynched man. I'm sorry, but you are in a state of hysteria. It's messing with your judgement. I really believe that.
Oh come on now, “hysteria”, such hyperbole is uncalled for, but carry on since you “really believe” it. Have a good day.
Lynching wasn't state action if nothing else
The runaway slave dangling from the lynching tree would question your assertion of which evil is greater. But he can't because he's, well, dead.
I am by no means minimizing the horrors of lynching, just pointing out that both slavery and lynching were actively opposed by large segments of society...not encouraged and celebrated as a Good Thing, as is pediatric genital mutilation.
By the way: few captured runaway slaves would be lynched. They were valuable property and usually were hunted down for a reward.
C'mon Shane, you're better then that!
"C'mon Shane, you're better then that!"
Naw. Some days this is as good as I get, I swear :-)
To this point, though, pediatric mutilation is not universally celebrated. It's actively opposed by large segments of society, not just by conservatives, but by liberals like myself. Given the evidence I've seen so far, I would ban surgical reassignments and puberty blockers for anyone under 18. Adults can decide for themselves to go under the knife; children aren't mature enough to understand the finality of those decisions.
I see only a small---though noisy---segment of society celebrating reassignment surgery and puberty blockers as a Good Thing. Fortunately.
I do understand that captured runaways would mostly not be lynched, though a few were by racist mobs. Mostly they'd be whipped and starved half to death after return by slave catchers. But you do understand my point--lynched black people are dead and cannot be changed back from that particular "reassignment," so I'd argue that chattel slavery and lynching are indeed worse horrors than gender reassignment surgery.
Though we have an easy way out of that terrible comparison--block reassignment surgery and drugs for anyone under 18.
I do hear your points, Shane, and mostly agree, though I'm inclined to push the age of consent for "gender reassignment surgery" (not the term I would use) to age 25. Scientists seem to think that is only about then that the brain is fully developed and thus capable of making an "adult"decision on such a momentous question, i.e., "what gender am I?"
Again, not minimizing the horrors of lynching, and your point re: the fact that it results in death does carry a lot of weight. But as I noted in another comment, to me, there are multiople levels of evil in the world, and to me the one marked "crimes against chidlren" is the worst. At least the suffering of the poor lynched slave ended quickly. The gender mutilated child may be facing decades of pain and suffering. We shall see how this plays out in time, I suppose.
Sorry for the "you're better than that" jibe. It's an old Obama favorite line that has long bugged me. But it's snide, and I'm going to stop using it.
No worries on "you're better than that." I was a too clever by half with my reply to you, for which I apologize, and I appreciate your graciousness here.
We agree completely that crimes against children are among the most repellent. Kids cannot consent to anything and they can't generally fight back against bigger and stronger targets. Adults who target children should slide themselves into vats of boiling sewage and spare us their pathologies. Crimes against the defenseless--whether slaves or children--are the mark of cowards and should be fought by normal people at every turn.
Have a good weekend, Pacificus!
Your history is skewed.
"Your history is skewed."
Steve, if you really understood the practice of history, you would know that it is always "skewed," in one way or another.
We should’ve picked our own damn cotton
We surely should have, yes. Or offered the job to everyone, including black people, for pay, just like any other "career" back then.
But that would cost plantation owners money . . .
Deciding which horror is the most horrible is fallacy. Can't we just be principled and abhor all these evils?
I do abhor all those evils, and said so. But maybe "evil" is like Dante's notion of Hell, there are multiple "circles," or levels, of it...and for me, the one marked "crimes against children" is the worst. How about you?
You certainly did, and recognizing these evils is vital. Of our current crop of evils, totally agree with the transgenderization of children being the worst. Weighed against historical evils, I think we will have to see how quickly we end this particular circle to judge. Slavery continues today around the world and includes crimes against children. This is in our own country as well, courtesy of our southern "border". For those caught in any evil against children, speaking out continues to be the only way to fight it.
I just had a thought. We have been waiting to spay our pup until she had her first heat, to be certain she has achieved maximum bone development, among other body system development (her breed is susceptible to fractures). She is now in her first heat. It came to me, as I was dialing the vet to schedule her procedure, how can we be so careful of our dog, and yet our society has become so careless of our children that we are spaying and neutering (chemical or surgical) before they have reached the same level of physical development as my puppy?
I hope so ! This is one of the lowest points in medical history.. a giant medical malpractice case!
Our children as Guinea pigs! And caring adults accused of “ transphobes “or worse!
My question is Just who will this be Toxic to? I've never seen/heard Anything that s so Toxic you can't Talk about it. IF I were a suspicious person I might suspect something is being hidden.
Let's all rational people from all sides come together to fix one thing: The corruption in our systems.
It is by far our biggest problem, and it is the one they don't want us to solve so they keep us divided.
Decentralize Everything. Demand Transparency. Like this:
https://joshketry.substack.com/p/worried-about-voter-fraud-lets-build
Please God!!
❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
Illegally posting PHI is a crime.
What's so insane about this is the harm it does is OBVIOUS, yet most nice white liberals have their minds so open they've fallen out.
All it takes is a 15 min segment by John Oliver based on a couple shoddy studies (seriously, read Jesse Singal on them) and their minds are made up and arguing against this becomes not only difficult but borderline impossible. When acceptance of youth transition becomes coded strongly blue no one in the progressive tribe wants to step away from the give mind.
Thanks for sharing the personal experience here, I hope it makes an impact
In 2016 two moms of teenage girls introduced me to the concept of binders. Down the rabbit hole I went. On one hand, watching a social contagion unfold in real time has been fascinating. On the other hand, I´ll never understand how people can think that castrating more boys/sending girls into premature menopause is progressive.
The earlier social contagion was mothers of young children, often preschool age, declaring their child "trans" if (usually) he put a toe outside the strictest of gender stereotypes. "Just like the kid I saw on 'Oprah'!"
Speaking as the mother of six sons and four daughters, I can say with confidence that very young children often do not know what sex they are, believe they can change from a boy to a girl to a truck to a dinosaur, and haven't assimilated the full set of "gender" markers for their society. Because they are little children!
The idea that a child who cannot use the toilet unaided has mystical insight into his or her "gender identity" is insane.
Not to mention that playing with certain toys doesn't change your sex.
My daughter will play dinosaurs with her brother. And my son will play barbies with his sister. That doesn't mean they are a different sex.
For that matter my wife does all the construction and car fixing. That doesn't make her a man.
Normal people understand this.
Yeah, we do. My husband was a nurse. I was a welder.
Yeah, Oprah...her feels good "progressivism" explains a lot about how things have gone off the track in the last 30 years...all those white women in her audience are now largely in control of our culture and taking us all off a cliff.
Fully aided by a lot of the boys. Otherwise it would not work.
Not sure the boys aided this process so much as they went along with it...too afraid to contradict what was happening for fear being name called....sigh...the state of American "manhood," circa 21st century.
Going along is going along. Being afraid does not excuse it.
One of my kids, when he was four, was sure he was going to be a bumble bee when he grew up. Good thing I didn't believe him.
When I was that age, I told my parents I was Christopher Robin.
When I was little, I wanted to be a cat. It's a good thing my parents didn't take me seriously.
My son wanted to be a dolphin when he grew up. I could see why this would be rather nice, but I didn't arrange for him to be grafted with a tail and fins.
The idea of "progressives" who force children into strict gender roles is sickening. Didn't we fight to get out of strict gender segregation? Remember, a woman's place... A boy who likes to cook doesn't have to be tagged a girl. A girl who likes to work on car engines is not necessarily a boy at heart. Exploring non traditional roles for your birth gender doesn't mean your birth gender is wrong. I know whereof
I speak, as this is coming from a female orthopaedic surgeon married to a retired male nurse who is a stay at home dad to our dogs.
I find this bizarre, too. In the 70s and 80s, they didn't tell us, "Here are your miniscule 'gender' boxes, and if you don't fit into them perfectly, you have to change sex."
I'd be super messed up today if they had!
A lot of young people are being super messed up now.
Progressive? It’s anything but that! I find myself really disgusted with the left, even though I had considered myself to be liberal. It is only the Republicans who are saying anything against this idiocy.
The concepts of liberal and conservative have lost their meaning (Dem vs Republican) I think we have to change the categories. Maybe "sees the crazy and doesn't see it"? or "wants what really is good for humans not just the claiming to be good."? or "harmfully delusional vs. Trying not to be"? I don't know.
You can be liberal and not be a leftist or Progressive. You are what we want - people capable of reason in the middle.
I’ve yet to find someone or something labeled Progressive that is anything but Regressive.
Well, it certainly seems that way now!
This is just so insane that I have no words! Binders are self mutilation and should be taken off the market!
Right? In 2016 I found like-minded people who confirmed it wasn't just me saying this. My go-to question for advocates is "do you really think society would be better if we castrate more boys? send more girls into menopause at 16?"
I'll tell you something, I haven't even been in favor of circumcision for infants in the US, the way it's done so automatically & justified with statistics about cancer etc. that aren't entirely true. That was back in the 90s, flash forward to the whole FGM thing, which I first found out about in around 2010 & which sent me right off the deep end, & I wondered, where the heck are the feminists & why aren't they shrieking from the rooftops about this practice, & then I realized, Ah. I know where they are. They are captivated by hijab chic & hiring Linda Sarsour to be the spoxhole for the Women's March, that's where.
Yeah, it's kind of like "where are the women screaming about abortion when the child is born and needs help?"
Don't be such an opportunistic pos. Stick with my comment & your "compassion" & "kindness" & don't be so intellectually dishonest. if you want to talk about how people who oppose abortion are focusing on facilitating adoption, or on the many programs available, or on birth control, make your own comment after doing your own research. But don't hop on my comment with your lefty talking points & start fucking it in the ass. Even if you don't care about anything any more. In the few miserable years you've got left, try hard for the honesty you say is one of your last values.
Yes. They reinforce shame about one's natural body.
Newly ex-Dem because of this issue after 40+ years. Many of us with kids stuck in this are liberals and are fighting behind the scenes, shoulder-to-shoulder with conservatives. We’d hoped John Oliver would blow this wide open — it’s so obviously wrong and anti-science. That betrayal showed us how in trouble we are. And yes, his support and Job Stewart’s support IS all it takes. Liberals believe themselves so much more intelligent and ethical than conservatives, but I’ve seen the ugly, ignorant, torches-and-pitchforks side and I am disgusted. There is NOTHING, even a tsunami of post-transition suicides and distress, that will get a huge population of liberal Dems to see this as the tremendous medical scandal it is.
John Oliver?!? The man is an Idiot (capital i). Clueless, bombastic, never saw an issue that doesn't require massive regulation. Truly an abominable man.
You are more than welcome to that opinion. The important thing is that liberals listen to the man. If we want this to end, we need to hit it from whichever direction works. Plenty of us despise what Matt Walsh stands for and think Tucker Carlson is an annoying moron, but this is irrelevant when we’re dealing with a horrific medical scandal and we are thankful for their work fighting it. Tribalism is dangerous from any side.
Tucker Carlson is on the right side of history on this! I never thought I’d say that, but I thank him for speaking up on this issue. I also thank Matt Walsh for his work! My liberal friends would forsake me, but I am for truth above all!
Tucker Carlson is not an idiot! On this issue he is totally correct!
I still mostly like John Oliver, but he has become more stridently "woke" in recent years. He does still bring attention to a lot of important issues. I'll never forget how he got a bunch of urban progressives to push for reforms to benefit small chicken farmers after he ran an informative segment about their plight : )
The first time I heard him it was in some older youtube videos & I thought he was hilarious. Then he went waywoke & I just quit listening.
Reflective of your open mind.
Yes, and the worst thing about John Oliver--strident and un-funny.
Also: foreign. ; )
Wut?
British is now foreign? He is an American citizen everyone comes from somewhere else, what is you point?
; )
; )
; )
How can former Democrats get together and start a campaign to get some Democrat congresspeople to stand up and tell the truth, for God’s sake?! Are there no Democratic congressmen that will do that?
Ask Brandon Straka of #WalkAway
Keep it up. Refuse to be labeled.
I wouldn't say that "open minds" are the problem. I've watched a lot of liberals become more and more like the religious right looked three decades ago - willing to believe anything as long as it came from the "right people" and willing to invent demonization on the fly for anything that conflicts or comes from the "wrong people".
I do think there is a small minority of Democrats , like me , and a few others that see through this tissue of lies, and more important, realize that this is a dangerous authoritarian agenda? If we can get some Democrats to show some balls , maybe we can stop this insanity from taking over completely!
I would amend that to say "more and more like the left's caricature of the religious right three decades ago."
I don't think that many on the "left" even knew there was a "religious right" three decades ago. But now that you have turned your church into a political party, they all know.
LOL. The term "religious right" has been around at least 40 years. Plenty of boogeyman coverage in the media, then and now. They invented the term, after all.
Whatever it's called, you people created it. And the question is how you reconcile your use of politics with Jesus' example?
I recognize the attempt to change the subject. Your statement about the left and the "religious right" is still incorrect.
"Three decades ago???"
‘Their minds so open they’ve fallen out’ — amazing image and perfectly explains what has happened to so many people I once believed to be intelligent
I stopped watching John Oliver because of his deep dive segments on issues he knows very little about. But he has an immense audience who love him only for his snark.
Agreed. Though sadly we see the same blind partisanship in far too many Republicans though obviously about different stuff (stolen elections etc)
Mathew A, it must be noted that we now know, thanks to the revelations of the Twitter files that the FBI and Big Tech conspired to control the flow of information in the 2020 election, most notoriously by labeling the 100% real Hunter Biden laptop story as "Russian disinformation." That is a fact that is not subject to partisan debate. Sorry to be the one to have to break this news to you, but that election was indeed rigged.
And Hillary and the FBI tried to rig the 2016 election with the Russian Collusion "scandal," which we now know was also a hoax. Facts do matter, and when we get them, we need to change our opinions as to what did or did not occur.
I have friends who say the same things you are saying, but when I ask them where they got the info, the conversation ends. Where do you guys find these crazy radio stations? (No defense of the liberals who have also sold the truth for money.)
You have no idea who you are dealing with or where my ideas come from. Buzz off.
The ole right-wing ad hominem.
No one has any idea where your facts come. Actual sources would and to your credibility.
I think you meant "hive" mind. Buzzing, circling bees.
Every time I see or hear “the science” I can’t help but think we have ourselves a new secular religion. It has its high priests and rituals, but lacks anything transcendent and hopeful. It just destroys.
It's literally just a shitty religion. Future generations will look back at what we're doing the same way we look back on the Salem witch trials
Or lobotomies
Bingo.
An absolutely PERFECT analogy. Stealing.
The analogy between lobotomy and 'gender care' was also made in detail in 'Lobotomy: the Rise and Fall of a Miracle Cure' in early 2017:
https://4thwavenow.com/2017/02/10/lobotomy-the-rise-and-fall-of-a-miracle-cure/
Six years ago. But not in the NYT or other MSM, who relentlessly cheered on the newer medical atrocity, and still do.
Amazing. Thanks for the link
You're very welcome.
The more people who recognize the parallels, the better.
Or 1970s cults, requiring “re-programming” to be able to break free.
Not quite, because most lobotomized people did not choose their lobotomy. Nor was the larger society pressured into celebrating their decision and their newly-lobotomized status.
The witches were mostly adults. This is way worse.
For my whole life I’ve been saying that Democrats are grotesque, bloodthirsty, pagan atrocities and this has really never been received well.
Now that Democrats are doing Josef Mengele out in the open, I am looking forward to hearing a lot of
“Yeah but you didn’t know they were going to do this.”
Tapping the brakes for a second....
Isn’t the author a progressive who is risking her career and family finances to take this issue to the AG? Not all progressives are part of this!! Some of the staunchest advocates for sanity are progressives.
How about this? Treat allies like allies - at least until this madness is quashed.
Thank you. We are all allies in fight against harming our country and our children. We need to do better than name-calling. Rise above. We can argue about govt debt and programs later.
There is no “we”. We aren’t allies.
There also isn’t an argument about the government programs. They are all psychotic and unsustainable. I’m not arguing with you about those either. I’m right and you’re wrong.
It’s the same lunatic shit from the same lunatic people.
“We can all retire at 65 with free food and choose our own genders because God was wrong to create rules!!!”
Nobody has to respect you and unite with you when you are proven to be evil and also dumb.
*You* have to submit to reality, Julia.
I’m not trying to dominate you and make you submit. Reality is dominating you.
Whoosh. I don't know if you meant it this way but That feels awfully aggressive! Especially directed to a person who essentially agrees with you. I'm arguing that you (we) can do better in our fight against the crazy. You (We) be less crazy. You be more noble, be More Full of integrity, Be More Kind, Be More full of truth. Defend Honor with Honor. Don't stoop to the level of idiocy and clownishness that they would have you be. The angry, Rash, untethered (not that you are at all) is EXACTLY the reaction that is expected. It becomes the weapon used against you. BE BETTER. BE KINDER. Be more heroic. Be the noble hero we all need you to be. (And we will follow your lead and do the same.)
I don’t think all Democrats, particularly the voters, are in lockstep with their leadership. But what I’ve observed is that the Democrats who are funded by Soros, are not acting in the best interests of American citizens—whether it’s drugs, crime, gender dysphoria… I invite anyone who has common sense to detach from CORRUPT Democrats.
Well I said “Democrats” and I understand that sounds like a term that includes everyone who votes for or has voted for a Democrat.
When I say “Democrats” I am mainly referring to the despicable perverts in Washington DC.
As an ‘LGBT’ woman, the author has been terrorized unremittingly by the most aggressive, widespread, and sophisticated propaganda campaign in the history of earth. Complete with the most underhanded and disgusting psychological manipulation and emotional exploitation tactics ever devised. As such I can easily forgive her for supporting the totalitarian fascist Democrat regime to one extent or another.
Straight white men who vote for Democrats, on the other hand, have no excuse because they have not been targets of the aforementioned psychological warfare, so they can all go straight to hell.
😂😂
Kevin, that is the first thing that came to mind after reading this article. IF we survive (Democrat leadership), history will look at this party of what I call asymmetric warfare criminals, murderers, child-abusers, war-mongers for the purpose of money laundering, election cheats, free-speech opponents, propaganda experts...as the same as the Nazis in Germany. And people will still wonder how supposedly ‘decent people’ allowed this to happen. The only way I see out of this is for the USA to break up into different countries. I would like to be free of the Democrat criminality.
I continue to believe we're beyond parties and labels.
This isn't politics it is pathology. Utopian ideologues funded and manipulated by megalomaniacal narcissism. (The "woke" push for the butchery of children [white children] and the hubris displayed by the monster's at Davos should serve to illustrate.) American tax dollar's and WEF/IMF grants fund the insanity. In short: International criminal finance with the help of our compromised and corrupt elected political leadership, is funding the social/cultural/economic collapse and looting of western culture. Over 10,000 Canadian's were euthanized last year by the State. Nearly 4,000 arrest's and prosecution's in the EU last year for thought and speech crime's. America is being looted. Free citizen's of our Constitutional Republic, and our Constitution are the last obstacles's to world domination and the reduction of human being's to serfdom. This is a class war run by racist's. We're not lost but we are under direct assault. Admitting to ourselves that it's happening is the first step forward. International totalitarian criminal finance doesn't like Nation States. It want's one world governance and "..absolute control over every living Soul..." Toxic Marxist feminism, now disguised as the D.E.I. (commissariat) in service to totalitarian criminal finance is the machine behind the anti-human insanity and butchery described in this article. All thing's human are the enemy of fascist's. All thing's human must be reduced to "thingdom" for the fascist's to succeed (Auschwitz). Mother, father, brother, sister, man, woman, community, all human love and connection must be severed for the monster's to win and install the totalitarianism they desire.
Hope? Yep. Without subscription journalism the recent Twitter/surveillance state revelations would not have happened. (Congress heard and had hearing's.) We are slowly recapturing the American national dialogue. Pelosi is gone and the new House seems to be willing and open to rational voice's. These times call for American unity. Fight the psyop or perish.
(An interesting comment here on Substack: The purpose of propaganda is not to convince you to believe it but to make you believe everyone else believe's it.)
That is not the purpose - which is much larger, and about power - but it *is* a tactic.
“Political correctness is communist propaganda writ small. In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, not to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is in some small way to become evil oneself. One's standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control. I think if you examine political correctness, it has the same effect and is intended to." --Theodore Dalrymple
I want to go with Daddy. 😉
Meanwhile, it is your Republican Jesus who is on the way to jail.
There are not, nor were there, any witches, not in the sense of how and for what they were accused. These were not Wiccans. They were accused of having absurd, supernatural powers. It was a mass delusion, initiated by teenage girls who had been indoctrinated by religious fanatics (Puritans) with superstitions about witches and the devil since birth. They are also suspected of being manipulated by their parents to accuse other colonists, for revenge.
https://historyofmassachusetts.org/the-salem-witch-trials/
That is the problem with hysterical group think. It makes a determination, decides the parameters and definitions and rolls with it consequences be damned. IOW no room for eeason.
Hey! Don’t lump pagans in with democrats. Lol.
Kevin, Technically Catholic has a point..Not all Dems are grotesque and bloodthirsty (interesting descriptors..I'm surprised you didn't use Satanic..)
The end, and there will be one, of this dystopian madness of gender swapping amongst confused kids who can't even spell properly will come about when sane people from all points of the political spectrum come together. This is getting so ugly there'll be no choice.
Good luck holding hands.
If people of a particular political orientation don’t recognize that their political orientation is designed to produce hideous atrocities (they won’t) then the holding hands will just be a ceremonial interlude as we wait for their next atrocity.
The only thing that fixes this is when the non-political folks feel such extraordinary agony that the necessity of dealing with the aforementioned ‘political orientation’ is apparent.
I wonder if there’ll be any ‘non political folks’ left..In the end.
At some point, maybe when you and I are dead and buried, our twi divided political tribes will have to work together. To be ignorant of the other is, when all is said and done, ignorant.
Are you lonely? Do you have any friends? Have you ever had a civil, non-ad hominem conversation with anyone? Have you really come across so few good people? Does being right to the point of bitterness serve your life?
And in the same way we view the doctors who performed lobotomies on vulnerable people suffering from mental illness.
The perfect analogy.
It's another example of what David Burge has pointed out: the Left trashing a respected institution, and then trying to use the institution's reputation and symbolism to disguise its totalitarian impulses. Here, we have "science = muh authoriee-tay!"
Shitty religion, 100%. And, it expands into every area taught in schools. Sure, permanent mutilation of children packs a gut visceral punch that is quite unique, but is it that much worse than the rest of the "education" inflicted on kids?
Is there an area of education that is NOT abusive? Let's see...
* being taught to feel guilty for things that happened centuries before you were born
* being taught you're a plague upon poor mother earth
* being taught that the very air your breathe will kill grandma
* being taught that regular mood swings are "syndromes", and being medicated for them with drugs --- (drugs that don't even pretend to knowing the mechanism whereby could result in any sort of "improvement")
medicalization of kids + constant brainwashing + total absence of useful learning. our school system is an abomination, "trans" is one very terrible aspect of it but perhaps not even the most abusive / worst one.
As a former teacher, I agree that the current educational system is dysfunctional, though I didn't know any teachers with the malicious intent you ascribe to them. For me, the problem is more one of bored, underpaid teachers turning out uneducated children who become dullard adults. But though I want change, it's hard for me to see how the burning of books (literally or figuratively) and the threatening of teachers takes us in the right direction.
I travel with and support neither "wing".
The term "the science" has been hijacked by social movements, starting with climate science and progressively getting more and more invasive up to and including the pandemic. Science used to be about hypotheses, experimentation, study and repeat, now it is about models, which are not science.
It IS a new religion.
And especially concerning, it's a state sponsored one.
Big Pharma sponsored one
You're both right.
Same thing.
big pharma in our 800+ year old common law system can only do so much damage before being sued straight. The state has no such deterrent.
I beg to differ. Tort reform will be expanded to Pharma soon.
I still hope this is true, but I'm losing confidence daily.
But it’s trying to convert the rest of us by intimidation and treats even of violence!
There was an interview, I think it was Jordan Peterson, where regarding men being born in women’s bodies and vice versa, he asked, “What is it, exactly, that’s in the wrong body?” It’s a great question, which is not asked much. The obvious answer is that we’re talking about something like a soul. And, if we are, that makes gender ideology a religion--not science.
Seen elsewhere: "If your brain says one thing and your body says another, how do you know it's your body that is wrong?"
When I see someone Push this (Materialist) idea, I like to ask What Is The Atomic Weight of Beauty? Where is it fit on The Periodic Table?
So well said, BL.
"Given the secrecy and lack of rigorous standards that characterize youth gender transition across the country, I believe that to ensure the safety of American children, we need a moratorium on the hormonal and surgical treatment of young people with gender dysphoria. "
Yes, yes, YES.
I don't even understand how this became an issue. Seriously.
I totally believe that there ARE people who are affected by gender dysmorphia, but this number is very small, and I am convinced that the majority of people who _think_ they're affected by gender dysmorphia are, in fact, infected by a mimetic illness, a kind of mass hysteria—because what does it MEAN to feel like you're in the wrong body? How would a male "trapped" in a female body or a female "trapped" in a male body _know_? Since so many of the things that characterize and differentiate men and women—outside of anatomical and physiological differences—are cultural tropes.
I was a total tomboy when I was a kid. And around the age of nine or so, I _did_ go through a period when I insisted I was a boy. Looking back on that time, it seems clear in retrospect that I was chafing at all the restrictions I saw embedded in the feminine role.
It's scary to think what might have happened to me had I been born 50 years later.
You vote for Biden and support him appointing Rachel Levine to power, you think he's doing a great job, and then you can't understand how this became an issue?
You, the people you vote for, and the causes you support are how it became an issue. "Progressives" glorifying false ego identity over reality, assaulting anybody who oppose them, are how it became an issue. Toxic femininity and the worship of feelings are the core issue.
And yes, if you were a teenager today, the people you support would have destroyed your life. You would be a slave of the pharmaceutical companies like so many young people today. This is why it sickens me to hear Biden scream his lies, "we beat Pharma and it mattered!!"
You know it's a lie. Every Democrat does. You live in a world of lies. You glorify them to such a degree that the professionals in this article will passionately destroy the bodies of young people purely to continue the lie. While the Grammy feature Satan reveling in his glorious rule, celebrating the kind of sexual perversity that leads to confused, abused teenagers with health conditions.
And then you call it progress.
This is why angry white men are angry.
Trust me. There have been plenty of angry women shouting on top of their throats about this monstrosity. They got deplatformed, banned, and shut down by Reddit, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, Pinterest, etc etc. They got rape threats and death threats. They lost jobs and got doxxed. They got dragged through the town square. They only thing let is they haven't been burned...yet. Exhibit No.1: JK Rowling.
Bari ought to find someone to do a deep dive investigation into the cesspool that is Reddit that has been fostering this train wreck and also vilifying anyone who voices disagreement, plus the trans mod and admins super takeover of every women's sub to groom kids especially teen girls into this sinister mass hysteria.
Well maybe there a few "angry white women" protesting this, but in 2023, I'm guessing the majority of white women are still listening to NPR and hating on Republicans, white men, and anything else they are being told to hate. And feeling very smug and self-righteous in doing so. But maybe this will change.
I know you replied to vent about "angry white women" but I'm answer in a more truthful and substantive way assuming you mean well rather than letting this battle of sexes derail the subject. Yes a majority of white women on the left are still listening to NPR, hating on Republicans, men, and anything else they're being told to hate. Yes many, especially those who are paid professional activists and liberal talking heads are feeling very smug and self-righteous in doing so. But there is in fact more than "a few" women on the left, white or otherwise, who are keeping their heads down and being stifled by silence because they cost of speaking up in so so high. If they dare to go against the grain, they will lost friends, families, and very likely their livelihood as well. And yes many of them can be describe as cowards, especially if what they've got to lose is their social circle of friends, But it becomes murkier to condemn their inability to speak up when the stakes get higher when they may lose family members or children. Or if it means costing their job and they have children or dependents. Or if it means their children would get ostracized and made pariahs at school. They can't even find out who among them think like they do to ban together, because the left has made it threatening if they dare to out themselves.
I won't dispute you if you have other criticisms I may agree or disagree with. The only thing I want to point out is that these women exist and it's not just "A few".
And yes, many continue to follow other left-wing narratives and still voting left. But it is also true that the more moderate ones are moving to the center and even voting conservative because of this. The one single reason why you didn't see the cross over is because of the overturn of Roe v. Wade. A sizable number of women would have and likely will going forward silently vote conservative as a silent rebellion against this. Much like the silent rebellion of voters voting Trump in 2016 even if they wouldn't admit to having done so.
Another reason some of these women didn't vote conservative is because our two-party system has made it so that in the very blue and very red voting districts, the non-dominant candidates are clowns and unelectable. All the gerrymandering by both parties had made it so that the opposition parties no longer even bother to offer up any credible candidates in those places, let alone fund them. In this respect, the problem can't be faulted on women alone. It's a problem with the system.
There are definitely women vote open for Republicans to grab as the Democrats and liberals continue down the Road of Deranged. But it is also true that the Republicans have made no efforts in the least to appeal to those votes. Rather, they double-down on the issue of abortion. Without going into whether abortion is right or wrong, we can acknowledge that this one issue will always stop a lot of women from voting conservative.
So while a lot of what your said is legitimate, the problem goes both ways. Some people (men or women) will never vote Republican. But at the moment there are many women who feel stifled and wronged by this and they want an alternative. There's a lot of ineptitude on the part of Republicans to not even make any sincere attempt to take these votes the Democrats have left hung out to dry. But maybe like the Dems it's just easier to keep singing the same song.
QX, thank you for your very detailed and thoughtful response...a lot to process. A couple of comments:
You are so so right about the fear so many of us face--both men and women--in contradicting what I term the new dominant ideology. On a personal note, I have paid a deep price for doing so, the consequences of which I deal with everyday. It is, in part, what motivates me to be so active on Substack et al comment threads--the last best hope of free expression. But you well describe the totalitarian nature of the consequences that many pay for speaking out. It truly is the US version of the Chinese Cultural Revolution--break out the dunce caps and re-education camps! And I don't necessarily hold it against people for remaining quiet. But, for now at least, voting is still a (mostly) private act...maybe the rebellion can happen in the voting booth.
My own politics are not so much pro-Right as they are anti-Left. Politics for me has long been not so much about who I am "for," but rather what it is that I am most against, i.e., most fear. For decades, the was the Right/Republican side, now it's the Dem/Left side. Institutionalized Pediatric Gender Mutilation surgery is but one of the things that have caused that shift in my perspective. I'm guessing that is true for you as well.
You are so right about how the Dobbs decision has considerably muddied the waters of all this...I'm thinking of a woman who was/is(?) a good friend and formerly sympatico philosophically who has shifted back dramatically as a result of the decision because it "took rights away from women." I couldn't bring myself to suggest to her that, actually, Dobbs did not "take away" the right to an abortion, it just left it up to the states. And some states are restricting it, and others, like CA where I live, have expanded legal abortion right up to the minute of birth. So the Dobbs decision actually expanded the range of possibilities for unrestricted abortion far beyond the first trimester, as was the case with Roe. But again, you are not hearing that on NPR, NYT, et al. Hard to know where that discussion is going to go from here.
But cheers, I am hoping that you are right about there being more than "a few" women who are seeing the light.
Gotta go now, but maybe we can continue this dialogue at a later time.
I'm truly sorry to hear you've also been on the receiving end of left-wing speech suppression and suffered consequences for it. Yes I totally agree with you. It's like we have the Mao Red Guards in the US these days. I keep reminding myself we lived through the McCarthy era (the one in the 50s not this current new one), and there is hope that this too shall pass. But sometimes it's hard to keep faith. It's so wrong how so many people are absolutely terrified to say anything, especially on the trans issue. But a lot of debates are now coming into the open in Europe especially England. And with the internet it's hard to keep everything under cover and it'll be inevitable for the US to come to some kind of reckoning too.
Politics wise I'll say we're pretty much on the same page then. It drives me crazy sometimes when I have to keep my mouth shut just to keep the peace when my liberal family members who are not online so to speak are still talking trash about Republicans while being totally clueless how off the rail the left has become. They just read NYT and listen to NPR and have no clue. And don't even get me started on the abortion debate. Neither party represents the majority on this. And the most radical advocates on both sides are IMO not allowing any honest talk about how much things have changed since the 1950s or even the 1970s, and there are some realistic ways forward but nothing productive can ever even be brought to the table.
Cheers to you too and yeah I too hope the wall of silence will continue to erode as more and more of this horror comes to light.
So mutilating an unborn baby (including up until the moment of birth or beyond, for the really sadistic) is cool, but it's different for the 12 yo? One who can't see the difference between mutilation of the unborn AND the born is where the slope gets slippery fast. No need to try to explain, express, convince or cajole. It's all wrong. It's all unjust. It's all evil.
I vote for this - though it comes both from the communities as well as the administration.
No one made r/makeupaddiction mods become a safe haven for sissy fetishists - see - https://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/ev5in3/rmakeupaddiction_gives_man_a_shiner_after_he/
But it was administrators that banned truelesbians, female dating strategy, gender critical, super sexuality, etc.
They also banned r/gendercritical but left r/hermancainaward, a sub where ppl celebrate the deaths of unvaccinated people
Reddit admins banning r/gendercritical overnight, the instant extinguishing of THE key international forum of over 60,000 members who saw through and critiqued gender identity (mostly women, of course)... Unbelievable.
Yet the bans you mention have gone unexamined, right? Meanwhile Reddit's favored pushing of sissy fetish and all things trans carries on, grooming from the shadows.
Reddit really does need serious investigating. Here's hoping Bari / Free Press might have contacts who would take it on, pull back the curtain, even a little.
Oh don’t worry. They’ve regrouped outside of Reddit. Reddit can’t control every conversation everywhere all the time, banning reasonable speech from their platform just sends it where they can’t see. It can encourage extremism but in this case it just sends ppl with commons sense away from Reddit.
Hey! I'm interested in looking into Reddit -- I'm not a reporter, just a grad student looking for something interesting to write about. Could you give some examples of women's subs that have been taken over?
https://www.womenarehuman.com/reddit-group-run-by-trans-community-is-normalizing-assault-of-lesbians/
That one's a little different, but still worth looking at if you're going to fall down that hole of differential treatment and protected categories versus vulnerable ones
Adjacent - from friend - "also re: "are we wrong about the rate of problems/are we entering into our own echo chambers?" is a good question to periodically ask so that we DON'T fall into those kind of traps
that said, speaking of the detransitioner rate (as a specific example), i think our current issue is less the rate itself and more the fact that we can't even ask questions to determine a more accurate rate because doing so is hailed as transphobic. and people are knee-jerking against the knee-jerk censorship
take, for instance, the Harry Potter subreddit, that I recently discovered has "*Discussion of JKR's personal opinions is banned, defense of her words and actions will lead to a ban. This includes supporting her right to a platform to spread hate.*" as one of its main rules. not just "discussion of JKR's personal opinions is banned" but specifically "discussion is banned AND defense of her 'hate' will lead to a ban"; i.e. judgement has been pre-decided, if you are to question it, you are just as guilty (https://www.reddit.com/r/harrypotter/wiki/oursub/)
note that flatearthers are not getting banned. evidence that the earth is round is abundant and can be worked through logically with plenty of examples and practical exercises
also, part of that big lead in was to link you guys a fun HP subreddit thread in which someone asked what JK Rowling said that was so bad and everyone collectively shrugged, so the mods nuked it for violating the "no discussing or defending rowling rule":
https://archive.ph/8xQ9g
https://www.reveddit.com/v/harrypotter/comments/110cf4c/jk_rowling/"
Oh gosh it's really hard to even know where to begin... but r/gendercritical, r/femaledatingstrategies, r/truelesbians (a female exclusive lesbian subreddit), etc. Pretty much any 'female centered' subreddit is now trans-centered, see TwoXChromosomes, Actuallesbians, pretty much any woman-centered sub is now trans-dominated. Hell, even TallGirls is pretty much all males and a ton of 6'5"+ "women"
Thank you!
https://4w.pub/reddit-is-banning-womens-health-support-groups/
He did not not say otherwise.
Angry conservative white women are pretty pissed off, too.
Oh definitely. There are women on all political spectrums and races who are fed up with this. Liberal MSM are just putting a media black out on the whole shit show. And they are pushing the misinformation narrative that this is some kind of conservative bigotry (it is not for most people) so they can just demonize anyone still in the blind who asks questions.
It seems to be a law right now among my fellow mom friends - both conservative and liberal - that if you let any conversation go on longer than 10 minutes it will turn into letting out steam about "this gender bullsh*t."
Add in some wine and it takes more like 5 minutes.
I find there are a LOT of women my age with kids who seem to feel the need to get some pent up anger about this off their chest right now.
Yeah, but how many of them will still go out and vote Democrat? Most of them, according to the polls.
You still believe polls? I think they are just to guage how many ballots will need to be harvested. Or to justify the election results because because folks will expect the outcome because the polls predicted it.
Republicans swept the last school board election in our town, and I live in a not particularly conservative part of New England. Our Democratic congresswoman came within something like 1000 votes of getting unseated. So the ground def feels like it is moving in that direction.
And our local parish Catholic school has a waiting list.
All the GOP has to do is be *not crazy* to win over these voters.
I will never vote for a democratic who supports this crap, and I know others who won’t! I don’t care for DeSantis on most issues( don’t like guns for all) but on this is the is absolutely correct!
Progressives would have you believe that "angry white women" are simply "angry trans white men" who haven't accepted they're trans yet.
They don't like "anger" all that much, either. Always try portraying it (and lots of other stuff) as "fear." Sometimes through the "-phobe" labels & sometimes just flat out "you're afraid of this that & the other thing. Which makes me laugh, in a pissed-off sort of way. I always think You know, you are so emotionally illiterate, you can't even distinguish among emotions, everything--anger, betrayal, resentment, whatever--is reduced to "fear." They're like people who are colorblind & sees all colors as orangey-brown.
My Gen Z daughter, 22, recently described her 'red-pill' journey.
She described the barrage of tiktok posts by 'trans' women complaining about the difficulties of being a woman (including periods, if you can believe it!). As she put it "you (males) have no lines in this play".
She was previously very trans-friendly but, now that she sees the male-weirdo side, she is NOT onboard.
I reminded her that she might be considered a TERF. She is fine with that.
Ummmmm...
That tirade only gets 4.3 on the 10-point Rant Scale, sorry.
For one thing, I'm not a Democrat. For another, I wouldn't watch the Grammys unless someone (a) pointed a gun at my head, (b) offered me a million bucks, or (c) did both simultaneously. I had no idea that Satan had made an appearance at the Grammys. What designer did he wear?
The Rachel Levine appointment _is_ a bit squirmy, I will concede, given that she may have a problem differentiating politics from public health, _may_ being the operative word there.
But what's up with this "angry white men" thing? If I had to speculate, I'd guess that "angry old men" captures the spirit of your Zeitgeist so much more succinctly.
I thought the attack on you was a bit unfair and off the mark but the description of today's "progressive Democrats" was spot on and incisive Savagely so. Needs to be said again and again. These people are lunatics. And should be treated accordingly.
Agree completely. Only the remark about Rachel Levine - an obvious activist who shouldn’t be anywhere near any levers of power - was disappointing.
I don't disagree. Personally, I loathe identity politics.
But I do feel compelled to add here that "angry white men" is also a form of identity politics.
Is it? I am not so sure.
Serious question: Why do you think it might not be?
I am sorry for the personal tone of my rant. I've read many of your comments and appreciate your thoughts and perspective.
So allow me to clarify some things.
I don't care if you identify as a Democrat or not because I've seen you support their rhetoric, values and elected representatives in almost all the content you post here. Insofar as they are a religion, you seem like a believer. It's incredible, unbelievable to me that anyone can think Biden is doing a good job.
On that note, Rachel Levine is a man and always will be. He is a man given inordinate power and influence to validate his delusions and spread his pathology to children, which he does by lying about science. If you continue to honor his presentation as a woman and his position as a healthcare administrator, you cannot understand "how we got here."
The Grammys represent the cultural influence of the rich and fashionable. I'm not under the impression that Satan is a person who was on the stage, because I'm not an idiot. I believe symbolism matters and has spiritual import, and when our cultural leaders dress as demons singing a song about adultery, that matters whether or not you personally are watching. It should disgust everybody with a moral conscience, and it demonstrates how "inclusive" those people actually are.
"Angry white men" has been a popular rhetorical phrase on the left for many years now, that's why I make the reference. I've been personally told that I'm upset by our culture because I'm "afraid of losing power and privilege." In truth, I also hate identity politics and I don't view myself as a color.
I appreciate you for reaching out to me in this way, Anthony. Thank you.
We _do_ disagree about many things, but I also appreciate your thoughts and perspective. Otherwise, I wouldn't be reading "The Free Press" or posting in this forum.
Just as a point of clarification—I think the "Republican"/"Democratic" distinction is about as meaningful as the distinction between Pepsi and Coke. There _are_ many hot-wire issues where I agree with the Democratic line, but there are also many hot-wire issues where I agree with the Republican line.
Trust me—as many times as I've been piled on in this forum for having "progressive" opinions, I've been piled on in real life for having "conservative" opinions.
For me, what's important is keeping the dialogue open.
Part of my participation here is also an ongoing self-therapy of trying to tone down my negativity, because I've felt increasingly targeted by the cultural left every year of my life and finally broke into a perpetual rage several years ago. I have a lot of anger to deal with and this forum helps to vent that and to find supportive voices. But I hope to eventually craft a more reasonable and moderate voice. In Seattle I was told, "you have great things to say but you need to find a better way to say them."
So thank you for helping with that, and I appreciate you as well.
Group hug!!!! 😀
I always appreciate your commentary Anthony and would not have guessed you had anger issues. So good job. Keep it up!
THIS! Few people, unless they have joined the DEM or REP cult, genuinely believe in everything their tribe subscribes to. My beliefs don't fit into either party, yet are considered common sense in many parts of the world. some examples:
1. Climate change is real. I don't think we need to destroy to oil industry immediately either. We can work on gradual changes to energy use and transition energy, and work on carbon capture technologies which are being developed.
2. COVID is real. The vaccines and early lockdowns saved lives - anyone with basic first year university statistics could see that. We also no longer need to keep demanding boosters, masks don't add much value at all now, and the new versions of Covid are relatively mild and no longer novel.
3. Illegal immigration is a huge problem, but selective legal immigration has benefits.
Not sure any of the above reasonable beliefs, held firmly by many intelligent people, can be openly espoused in either party without being booed out.
There are many 'normal' people that find Biden to be doing a decent enough job - but you can find common cause with them on many issues (transgender issues, the border, etc). You act little different than the woke - you demand purity for your cause - and lose people that you can work with on important issues. Too many Republican activists do - and as a result, they didn't dominate the midterms the way they should have. Your criticisms of the woke are accurate. However, look into yourself to see how you act so much like them. I've read your posts - your extremism and intolerance is very similar to the Squad and their believers.
PS...i saw some of your later posts - and see you are trying to moderate. I'll keep the above post up - but appreciate your later explanations.
I much appreciate your reply, especially your doubt about how anyone can "know" what it means to "feel" like the opposite sex. That's the crux of the whole issue. The glaring question.
However...while Rachel Levine may have changed his name from Richard, he's a not a "she." Buying into this gaslighting by using incorrect pronouns in the cause of "being respectful," of not "being offensive," isn't helping society to reassert sanity.
If there is one reasonable caveat, I'd say it's this: if the trans person is a Blair White or Buck Angel type, who not only unequivocally "passes" as the other sex and—very importantly—does not claim they actually "are" the opposite sex, AND also uses their trans profile to speak out against the targeting of children—then I can see "respecting" incorrect pronouns. Because at least such trans people are willing to acknowledge reality and protect the innocent.
But people like Rachel Levine, a delusional man on estrogen who wears a dress and uses his trans profile to celebrate, defend, and advance the harms and upheaval brought on by this lunacy, should not be given the courtesy of "respecting pronouns." I think people need to get much tougher on this point if we want this madness to end sooner rather than later.
I know it's supposed to be "not nice" to laugh at the pretend Admiral, but, seriously? Everyone - or at least the sane among us - are secretly doing so. Why not do it openly and end this sham? Where is the old National Lampoon when we most need them?????
On the one hand it’s certainly good to keep a sense of humor in the face of a crazy world. OTOH men in dresses being accepted and promoted as women feels more terrifying than funny. There’s a lot at stake. 🙁
Walking in a park a few summers ago in Dumbo, Brooklyn - ground zero for woke culture - I came upon a couple walking and holding hands. The one in the yellow sundress had a full beard and looked like Popeye's Bluto. Didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
Some “performer” named Sam Smith had a pretty convincing Satan costume according to the photo I saw.
Levine "may" have a problem differentiating???
All I need to hear. 1.1 on the response to 4.3 rant.
And women too.
There is need for a lot of anger about this issue, but not voting for Trump was not an endorsement of gender reassignment. The person who wrote this article indicated that she was progressive and inferred an acceptance of trans since her spouse was, but she is appalled by the current process targeting minors.
Every thinking person should be appalled by the current process. Patients have a right to demand that most surgeries meet a standard and sue when parts are not rebuilt or replaced according to the standards of care. Currently, many of these gender assignment surgeries (despite the number performed) are qualified as experimental which means that the patient has no legal recourse when the surgeries and treatments fail. The surgeons can act with impunity at no risk to their finances.
How do these surgeries and treatment burden the future of the healthcare system? Woman were warned against high estrogen pills causing cancer and now even higher levels of hormones are being prescribed to 11 year old children for the rest of their lives as if moderation and caution are inappropriate courses of action?
As for Rachel Levine, she is an absolute disgrace. Any caring person and a professional with vision would recognize that sterilizing children, especially those that are mentally fragile or vulnerable, is one of the most horrific acts ever.
I was with you until the last paragraph. Rachel Levine is a man. HE is a disgrace.
If people are genuinely appalled by this gender confusion being perpetrated upon kids, then maybe the very first step should be to reinforce for children that *sex differences exist and are IMMUTABLE.*
Maybe it's time to stop gaslighting children by kowtowing to the new vogue of using the wrong pronouns.
Do people honestly believe it does not add to—even cement—confusion in the psyches of children to hear adults around them refer to a male as "she" and a female as "he"? That it does not confirm for children that they shouldn't believe the truth of their own eyes or trust their own sense of reality?
If we're serious about not harming kids then we need to stop playing along with the pretense. Too many adults in our society would rather give up reality than their "good" manners. We reap what we sow.
Thank you for your very polite reply and thought provoking. There is this idea that an adult can do what they want with their body i.e. if Richard wants to transition to Rachel, it is an adult controlling their body and their destiny. But as you point out and as healthcare becomes everyone's burden, every individual is part of a society.
If transition surgeries are self diagnosis and reported as almost screen free, can and should an adult in deep depression or suffering trauma be signed up for transition surgery? Is being a chronological age enough or does one need to be mentally healthy? If one has dysmorphia where one is rejecting their body's sex is that mentally healthy? Can surgery offer peace since the origin of the discontent is mental. Thinking of Chelsea Manning (Bradley Manning) who tried suicide after transition. Every life has value, but what method truly validates, saves, and enriches a life needs to be carefully considered. Just as every fix doesn't require a hammer, every dysmorphia doesn't require a scalpel.
And please allow this edit:
Rachel Levine is an absolute disgrace. Any caring person and a professional with vision would recognize that sterilizing children, especially those that are mentally fragile or vulnerable, is one of the most horrific acts ever.
Now I'm with you 100%. Thank you for your gracious reply. Your questions all hit the nail squarely on the head.
Unfortunately, under the corporatist paradigm dysmorphia provides a new consumer group, whether it's in surgeries, drugs, clothing, makeup, music, movies, you name it. The only silver lining I see is that more and more people are waking up to the recognition that as our system currently functions, health and wellness have vanishingly little to do with the practice of medicine. Profits steer the ship. And our children—and theirs—will pay the price.
Spot on!
While I think Rachel is a male - I would respect the grown adult and refer to them as a she. That's being polite. But the transition was made as an adult. The issue at play here is children. And that is a winning point. If you start attacking adult trans people - many people that support you in protecting children from radical extremists will be turned off.
In a different comment above I said this:
"If there is one reasonable caveat [to refusing to use wrong pronouns], I'd say it's this: if the trans person is a Blair White or Buck Angel type, who not only unequivocally "passes" as the other sex and—very importantly—does not claim they actually "are" the opposite sex, AND also uses their trans profile to speak out against the targeting of children—then I can see "respecting" incorrect pronouns. Because at least such trans people are willing to acknowledge reality and protect the innocent."
So for the record, I'm not talking about "attacking" trans adults. At all.
I'm talking about declining to participate in a polite fiction that subverts the development of children, who are wired to absorb the norms of the adult world as they mature. Because adults normalizing the misuse of pronouns in their noble effort to be kind and polite will convey to children the profoundly destabilizing message that their perceptions are unreliable, that reality is not tethered to our material world, that they shouldn't trust their lying eyes. Pretending humans aren't sexually dimorphic just isn't something society can safely engage in with adults instructing children to "do as I say not as I do."
Bottomline is that protecting the feelings of adults should not be prioritized above protecting the developmental needs of children; there is no such thing as a successful society that sacrifices its children to the "needs" of the adults.
"there is no such thing as a successful society that sacrifices its children to the "needs" of the adults." - we just proved that with the response to COVID.
Agree with your point that the article was about minors and this should remain the focus. Strongly agree with a mortarium called for minors.
It also seems important to establish parameters for best medical care for adults transitioning which is not an attack or a denial of services. An adult should not be given life altering meds or treatment without a very clear understanding of what can and cannot be achieved through medical intervention along with all the implications of the treatment. There should also be continuing care that is more comprehensive than handing a patient a prescription every month. Many serious interventions for cancer or heart care have parameters and regimes of care not to prevent the intervention but to support the patient through out the treatment & improve successful results. Maybe due to the profitability of trans surgery vs. the reimbursement rate for some cancer and heart treatments, there is a motive for trans care to become more "cowboy" than evaluative of the patient's needs.
I agree with you broadly - though I should note that research in adults transitioning is much more robust and has been around for many decades. 'Sex changes' as they used to be called are not new in the adult population. Some countries, (including surprising ones like Iran), are quite advanced in trans surgery techniques. On a side note, I'm a Canadian physician - and there is really no profit in trans surgery here - yet the push for children getting the procedure exists here too. So I'm not sure economics is the main factor either. I really feel there is a religious cult component to this movement.
*He* is a disgrace.
"I don't even understand how this became an issue. Seriously."
Allow me to help you understand this, Patrizia. It became "an issue" when the common sense and consensus position that gender dysphoria is a rare condition that should be treated with compassion morphed into trans-mania once Leftists got control of the institutional apparatus...kind of like what happened with race and any number of other "issues." All in he name of "the Revolution."
It was/is the lack of intellectual pushback that put us in this place. But that may be changing. This comment thread is an indicator of that.
Patrizia - The 'mass hysteria', yes, aided and abetted by hyper speed social media. Looking at the curve of the increase in gender dysmorphia amongst teens in the last fifteen years pretty well matches the introduction of social media platforms and smart phones and the steep usage curve of that.
You may have thought you were a boy at nine years old, but you thought your way through it on your own. The power of the self. The social media to dissuade you and tell you that you were indeed a boy wasn't there. And that, to me at least, is the difference. Without the reinforcement of the immediacy of social media to buttress and support whatever emotions kids are experiencing, we wouldn't be seeing this dramatic and tragic trend in jump on the band wagon of gender transference.
"I don't even understand how this became an issue. Seriously."
It became an issue because the powers that be chose to use it to further their own agenda. Sadly, large numbers of people are willing to participate. With their votes as well as their cultural submission.
I'm a member of Gen Z and I see the contagion rapidly spreading among my generation. It's common for people who display autistic traits to end up thinking they're trans. To some degree it makes sense: teens who are confused about social norms that other teens just seem to grasp easily (especially autistic girls, who feel much more of a pressure to present as neurotypical) will end up thinking that the reason for their problems is being the wrong gender, when the actual issue goes far deeper.
So now we have a generation of kids that are autistic, ADHD, BPD, etc. all end up getting hormones and surgeries to transition, when the real issue is their underlying health conditions. It's sad to see.
Not only are kids being taught they are trans, they are being convinced on chat rooms they have mental disorders like autism. Why do kids even feel it is necessary to have some disorder? To fit in? To be special? That is tragic. Being special used to mean you excelled at something like sports or piano.
Because we've popularized the oppression Olympics. Having disorders gets them love and attention. Being normal or God forbid, being excellent, get them told to check their "privilege".
I've read many articles lately about how mental illnesses are now glamorized on social media, especially on Tik Tok. Teens are self-diagnosing themselves with tourettes, dissociative identity disorder, and bipolar. They wield these illnesses as “identities”.
This is so strange, yet so true. My Gen Z daughter keeps coming to me with a possible new diagnosis, asking if she needs medication. As both her parents are doctors (not psychiatrists) the answer is a flat NO.
However her brother (older by 4 years and Millennial- adjacent) has actual Aspergers. He never uses the term, and denies he is anything other than normal. He says it's all us that have a problem.
Social media truly is evil.
Social media is evil, but it is only enabling and exacerbating impulses that predate it.
I've heard this story from many parents lately. For some reason, it’s usually daughters, too. Social media is the vehicle driving this glamorization but other factors, unknown to me at the moment, no doubt play a part. Unhelpful, too, is doctors are so quick to diagnose and prescribe. They are busy, too busy to take time to listen to a person, to speak to us like humans, and the quicker they shuffle you out the door, the quicker they can pad their retirement fund, buy stocks and vacation homes, and more possessions to fill the ineffable emptiness of which they’re consciously unaware. Disgusted looks wear them because years of condescending to patients have frozen their faces in a sad clown frown with unseeing eyes cushioned by purple bags.
What the hell am I talking about? I've had few good experiences with doctors. I get carried away.
Bingo. How tragic.
For those who are willing to listen to Jordan Peterson, I would recommend his conversation last week with Joe Rogan. He outlined how these contagions happen and outlines a few of them --one being the child care scare several years ago which landed more than a few people in jail. He gives a very convincing explanation of what is happening and why.
Indeed. The Devouring Mother bit struck a chord.
Do you mean the McMartin preschool "satanic" nonsense?
Jordan Peterson is absolutely brilliant. Had I been listening at home, I would have taken notes. Joe Rogan was an interested listener and asked good questions, but it's tough to keep up with Peterson. His mind is incredible.
He also has an outstanding interview with Helen Joyce about her research on the topic. Highly recommend it--he goes deeper than he did with Joe, I think.
Is this on a podcast? YouTube? Thanks!
Don't know if YouTube would even allow this conversation, lol. You can watch it here: https://rumble.com/v1o0pcw-trans-when-ideology-meets-reality-helen-joyce-podcast-287.html
Great! Thanks!
If you have mental illnesses and you’re a victim of something or a member of a marginalized group, that gives you real privilege these days, and the kids subconsciously realize that. Disempowering yourself is the best way to wield influence and avoid taking any kind of personal responsibility for literally anything. ADHD means you don’t have to turn in your homework on time and you get extra time on tests. Anxiety gets you out of EVERYTHING. Being trans, gay, poor…ANYTHING is better than being a healthy functional person who has to work hard prove themselves and make an actual contribution to the world.
Where the heck are the parents? When discussing social media with 4th & 5th graders, it was truly shocking how many had accounts that legally they were not to have by tech rules, but the parents allowed their minor child to join. Many children have access and are accessible 24/7 to every kind of troll and filth imaginable with the phone and computer in their bedrooms.
When young children on the playground act out and reference mature rated tv shows and games who has failed to act as a guardian to a 6 year old? When parents can't accept that their child is shy or (worse yet) average and start to shop for remedies in the medical field, they are able to locate the charlatans that write prescriptions.
A child being special and being appreciated for who they are as a child and nurturing their abilities is, very unfortunately, quaint and old fashion.
Parents also often feel it necessary to have their kids be "special" - and that "specialness" gets lots of likes and sympathy if it is medical or psychological.
And when I say "parents," I mean "mothers." It's almost always mothers pushing this stuff.
I think many kids today are simply miserable. The reasons for this are probably myriad and complex.
Our tendency as humans is to reduce all that ails us down to a simple, singular cause. We like to "scapegoat." A self-diagnosis of autism, BPD, et al is the perfect scapegoat for one's personal misery.
In my view, it's perfectly understandable that teens are turning to Dr. Google in order to self-soothe.
What is outrageous and unacceptable is that our institutions of mental health seem to uncritically *validate* these self-diagnoses. (My issue here isn't so much with practitioners as with the DSM and similar institutional "sources of truth.")
But then again, what can be done? Should we perhaps attempt to address negative thought patterns, physiological concerns (diet, sleep, exercise,) loneliness, etc. *prior to* even considering something like an autism diagnosis...?
Spot on. I’m a Gen-Zer, and I feel like I’m a minority because I’m not medicalized or diagnosed with something.
You GenZers need to start speaking up much louder and pushing back against this. Lot of older folks are being told we are just ancient who don't know how to get with the times and are dismissed when we raise concerns. And at the end of the day, fact is this has become your generational problem because it's mainly afflicting you.
You have to realize that the illusion that "nobody is speaking up" is an illusion.
Hang in there, Ben. Being normal will soon become a trend again..
Hold tight, you will be in a position to assume leadership when this all crashes.
I thought of our conversation when I saw this today. I'm not trying to start a discussion, just wanted you to see it. And yes, it's a tabloid that features sensational stories, but that doesn't mean it's not true.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-11736885/Incels-extreme-online-study-finds.html
Interesting but as you might suspect.not anything I found compelling. Extremists of all types gather online. Some of the most vitriolic I personally observed were in Democrat and Democrat related sites in the lead-up to the 2016 election but I would not linger anywhere advocating actual violence against anyone. And rejecting really emotional and angry people by pushing them further underground is , predictably, going to escalate the rage. Now here is one for you: www.dictionary.com/e/slang/incel/ BTW I do not think we disagree that a group of angry young men who view their position as hopeless can be dangerous. We just disagree on how to respond to it.
Can someone explain to me the overwhelming number of children who are autistic, or on the autism spectrum? I am a Gen X with children Gen Z and Millenial. I had never met or gone to school with someone with autism..... my children also experienced little to none. Why, all of the sudden, do we have such a large number of autistic children? Vaccines? Genetics? We can most likely trace this gender dysphoria and autism along the same pathway... right?
Perhaps because the diagnostic criteria are being applied with the same reckless abandon as those for gender dysphoria are. As with ADD in young male children, it's altogether possible that at least some normal behavior is being pathologized.
Daughter was diagnosed with severe autism at 3. Began 'intense' therapy as prescribed. Disagreed with diagnosis, but the therapy was play therapy and speech (late talker). Skip a couple years, was told she "outgrew" autism and is just super bright. Outgrew must be the new euphemism for "misdiagnosed" (ie, over-diagnosed) and the same exact phenomenon is occurring with a trans dx. Thank God autism isn't treated with permanently disabling drugs.
THE EXACT SAME THING HAPPENED WITH US.
Daughter was diagnosed with autism at 3, given tons of therapy, then it turns out she was just bright and a late bloomer socially.
We are pathologizing and *medicalizing* the normal variations of human development.
I honestly think the root cause of this is the professionalization of *everything* in modern society.
So many people in the professional and upper middle class just can't handle ambiguity. They can't handle what they cannot control or neatly catalogue. So normal human problems get put into a little professionalized boxes where every problem is a "diagnosis" that needs an "expert" who is a "professional" who uses "metrics" and "criteria" and then often some technological solution - like a pill. Children aren't allowed to have just normal childhood problems anymore and deal with them organically, slowly, and messily on their own; children have "diagnoses" that need to be "treated" by adults.
We have no time for the messiness of normal humanity anymore, and especially not the messiness of childhood, real childhood. We want to technologically control *everything.*
It's honestly horrific.
I had a lot of traits of ADHD when I was in grade school. Luckily I went to a backwater rural school district in the 80s that had a single traveling psychologist. I was just allowed to deal with and grow out of my issues on my own. Did I get a lot of bad grades in elementary school? Yeah. Did I struggle on the playground? Yeah. Did I draw ponies and unicorns all over my math tests while daydreaming out the window. Oh. Yeah. Did I make my parents and teachers crazy? Absolutely.
Does any of that matter now that I am an adult?
No.
What matters is that I was never medicated and I spent my childhood figuring out how to deal with my issues myself. And this made me a stronger, more successful, and happier person than I ever would have been if I had been drugged at seven years old so I could get straight As and not be a pain in the ass to adults.
I'm sure there are some children who actually need medication and therapy. I don't want to discount all use of it. But we way overdo it today. And there is a lot of value in letting most kids work their stuff out on their own.
Childhood is messy. We need to embrace that.
But it's not profitable to "professionals" to let children be messy and "grow out of it," so here we are.
Yes, yes, yes to this. Note that the DSM grows thicker and thicker with each edition, as psychologists pathologize more and more totally normal human conditions. It's like there's this super narrow range of acceptable existence and anyone who varies even slightly from that range is deemed "mentally il" or "disabled."
I agree that much of it is the professionalization of everything. I also think it has a lot to do with people having fewer children and at older ages. When you have many children, and especially when you live in a society of many children, you can't help but notice lots of little differences among little kids...and then you watch them grow up to be JUST FINE. When people have children at older ages, I feel like they view them as their next big ambitious project, which they micromanage from the day of conception, intervening at the first hint of any sort of difference. I live in Manhattan among these parents and i watch it every day. They don't parent from joy or peace--they parent from FEAR. They're afraid of everything, so they pay for diagnoses and professional interventions and medications and whatever else it takes to feel like they're "doing something" to help their kids achieve. It's painful to watch.
Older parent here who raised our children from love and that's because I have a deep Christian faith. I agree that many parent from fear but I believe that's because they don't have a faith....and in my world....a faith in God who made us, loves us, gives us grace and mercy.
Both of my children went to the NICU (daughter with cord around her neck) and son with a stroke the day after birth. Son has ADHD....legit ADHD. Not sure if that is due to the neurological interference at less than 24 hours old or not. Regardless, I don't parent him out of fear because I know what God and my son are capable of.
Thanks,, Adrienne. I fear that your slightly sci-fi version of contemporary Manhattan society is all too true..."parenting from fear"--good book title.
Also: so on point re: the older parent of one child phenomenon...imagine the burden of expectations placed on both parents and child...and you experience it inNY up close and personal..I've been around that slice of life just enough to have some idea as to how nighmarish it can/must be...sigh...
I would add that in addition to parenting from fear, a lot of professional class woman are just so used to being "successful" through their own merits and work and learned techniques that they have a really hard time adapting to motherhood, which is ambiguous, doesn't have concrete "benchmarks" or forms of advancement and recognition, requires love rather than learned "skills", and is more about stewarding the needs of another little person than it is "success." It doesn't produce a "product," but rather a person.
I think a lot of women who are used to the professional world have a very hard time making this transition, and I wonder if a lot of them project their energies into the management of their "special needs kid" because it returns them to frequent contact with professionals and the professional mindset, and it gives them something - the child's "condition" - to professionally manage with charts and assessments and all that stuff. It's a way to manage the uncomfortable ambiguities of motherhood.
Also, I think professionalism and submitting to the management of priestly "experts" functions as a replacement for religious ritual and practice among a lot of secular college educated women.
Yes! Everything here.
Both my husband and I come from more working class communities - mine rural Midwest, his urban immigrants - and the range of personal quirks and personality traits that were allowed in the communities we grew up in was so, so much broader than it is among the "well educated" professional class.
I think there is a lot of truth to smaller families contributing to it, too. When my husband and I had our first daughter, I was so much more obsessed with her being perfect and getting into the "right" preschool yada yada.
By the time we were on daughter number three I had become a lot more easygoing, and now I think I'm pretty accepting of all their quirks and petty failures and faults as just natural parts of growing up and being human.
They're afraid of everything, but mostly they're afraid of their own children. I think late parenthood (late by historical norms, anyway) contributes hugely to this phenomenon. Younger parents are much less affected than older parents.
They need to dispense with ambiguity not only for psychological reasons, but because I'm sure funding & insurance reimbursement is attached to "a diagnosis."
Now do the Covid diagnosis.
Yep. It is.
Thanks for sharing your story, AF. It helps point to where we should go from here.
Every child is different. But I think the biggest thing is just remember that you are the parent, you know your child better than any "expert", and "experts" - even the nice, well intended ones! - always have their own biases and incentives that might be at odds with the well being of your child or family.
I am not opposed to all diagnoses, interventions, and accommodations, but I am just extremely discerning about them. I do not take "expert" advice at face value; I sift through it to make sure it aligns with what I know about my children and think is best for them.
Best of luck!
I have a daughter who has been diagnosed as on the autism spectrum, and I agree with this 100%.
30 years ago my daughter would have just been described as "bright and quirky."
For the first few years we bought into the idea that she needed an entire team and special services at school. But then the real issues in the IEP kept getting solved and they kept coming up with new ones that sounded less and less like an actual disorder and more just like challenges. But the time COVID happened, her IEP was basically "Is stubborn and struggles with being flexible."
Ummm.... that's a personality flaw common to children. Not a "disability."
Anyway, I pulled the kids out of public school to homeschool during COVID, and now they are in Catholic school. My daughter has *no* services, though she does still have an IEP with some suggestions for the teacher of how to effectively deal with her "stubbornness."
She has thrived.
She doesn't need a label. Labels so easily become crutches or, even worse, "identities" that get used for "intersectionality" points or attention - which is why I think there is such an increase in young women self diagnosing as "autistic," just like they are self diagnosing as "trans."
The only label my kid needs is to be herself.
Yes to this. My children are now in their 20s. During the grade school years, there was an epidemic of children being diagnosed as on the spectrum - fully 50% of the boys in their elementary school were on Ritalin, et al. I suspect this corresponds with much later parental age, only children, and fertility medicine - all of which engender an unnaturally high focus on individual children and their sometimes-quirky behavior. It is also correlated with wealth and the ability to seek treatment. I would like to see the educational, economic, political, and racial statistics of gender-affirming families with teen children. There is an apparent cultural component. I personally know of two families with boys and girls whose 2 boys have identified as one gay and one trans (one is a set of fraternal twins - an interesting study there). Common sense says this is a social contagion, but it seems the medical industry is promoting it.
I do always find it a little entertaining when these kids accuse the rest of us being blind to our privilege. What is more privileged than having the time and luxury to obsess over your mental health and gender identity? Haha. Do you think the kids in migrant camps are fixating on this nonsense? How are there so many more trans kids in privileged countries and communities than in developing countries and low-income neighborhoods? It's because they don't have any real problems, so they have to make some up. That's the height of privilege.
As a stereotype, the angst drama teen with their BMW and iPhone are hard to shed tears over. But to see a child manipulated into sterilization, incredibly painful and unsuccessful surgeries (like the surgery that reality star Jazz had that was not in the spotlight!) and other injuries…hard to smirk and feel they deserved this torture.
It is known that the female East German swimmers that were given male hormones achieved Olympic medals, but at the cost of their health. They had cancers that shortened their lives and were not able to have children. This is known and yet it is now approved to hastily prescribed to preteens without the necessary caution. The people that deserve derision are not the mice caught in this crazy trap but the surgeons, influencers, etc. that crafted this trap.
This is spot on!
Abigail Shrier wrote that the transitioning teens were mostly from a background of college educated parents and upper middle class. In her book, Irreversible Damage, she does write about trans as cultural influenced.
That’s been my observation. But good to know the research. Thank you!
I think you would enjoy Abigail Shriver's book if you haven't already read it. She addresses these cultural components as JoAnne points out in her comments. Friends of ours (heterosexual couple) are very Progressive, both Harvard educated, white, wealthy. They have 2 kids: both who identify as nonbinary. Coincidence?
My oldest son has ADHD (and is probably high-functioning on the autism spectrum, although that was never diagnosed). The summer before he started middle school, we moved to another state that makes much of its so-called educational excellence.
The middle school had NO services for my son. He could either try to cope in a regular classroom (which was too confusing for him to focus in) or be stuck in the class for mentally retarded students (which was a very poor fit for his high intelligence).
The only thing that school district had going for it was a Homeschool Assistance Program. I homeschooled him for three years (and his younger brother for two).
Learning how to learn in a teaching setting where he wasn't constantly having to try to keep up with teachers who had no sympathy for his loss of concentration made a huge difference for him. He went to high school as a freshman and was able to hold his own there--something he probably would not have been able to do if he had been subjected to the "education" the state had offered him in middle school.
Thank heavens that you were brave and interfering! The system does not work for all students all the time even if it should! May your child continue to thrive and grow.
Labels also justify the funding for those mainstream school services, would be my guess.
Ding ding! We have a winner. :)
The professional, institutional, and economic incentives in both medicine and education are utterly messed up.
Yep, those sweet, sweet federal dollars.
Yep to this, too.
My son never wanted a 'diagnosis', and his parents were just looking for explanations.
He is on the spectrum, but we just say he is "a bit spesh" Haha, who isn't? He also has dyslexia, which he never admitted during his job applications (wanted to 'own' his employment). However he acknowledged this to his boss when his reports were showing a few spelling and grammatical errors.
He is very determined to NOT have a disability (even though he does, by common standards). He parents are extraordinarily proud of him.
A lot has to do with changes in the way people live. In a more rural society, a boy who had trouble meeting people's eyes and overfocusing on things could be sent out to tend the sheep--a job that suited his strengths and weaknesses.
Back in the day, people might be considered a little quirky or even a little crazy, but it wasn't pathologized, because usually their family and community would find some way for them to get by. They were not being forced to sit still in a classroom or expected to go to college.
This is a really good insight. My husband has a couple younger brothers who really struggled in school and would probably be diagnosed with all sorts of issues today. They are both very successful business owners in the trades (one owns an HVAC business and one owns a plumbing business). Our obsession with one straight and narrow education/career path is certainly a part of these issues.
Doctors don’t treat people anymore. They diagnose and perform surgeries. Or they disbelieve you and shuffle you along, but apparently not in transitioning cases.
Or mask symptoms with chemicals pushed by Pfizer or others and happily ignore the causes of disease.
Yup. I forgot about that aspect. Then because the drugs have so many side effects, a doctor prescribes more drugs to offset the unpleasantness.
Pfizer had its best year ever because of the jab--which was taxpayer funded. Who knew US taxpayers were providing capital for an invention whose profits they themselves would never realize or have refunded? In the case of puberty blockers, those companies are going to start thinking of them as "puberty blockbusters."
Part of the problem.with that is that medical doctors know very little about pharmacology so are easily exploited by thd Pharma reps. A relationship with a good independent pharmacist is of vital importance these days.
How about the woman, a nurse, who killed her own children after being put on 12 medications for depression? The articles didn't say whether she was actually taking all 12 at the same time or how many doctors did the prescribing, but holy crap.
https://nypost.com/2023/02/03/lindsay-clancy-was-overmedicated-before-killing-kids/
I think that's certainly part of it.
It's more than possible. It's 100% happening on a huge scale.
I think I have a unique perspective on this, I grew up with two brothers with autism.
Firstly, there is no link between autism and vaccines. That was originally published in a paper (I forget the specifics), but it was quickly disproven and the author admitted to fabricating his evidence. Vaccines may cause nerve damage that, in rare cases, may resemble certain traits of autism, but not autism itself.
Autism is difficult to define because it varies widely. Think of it like this: human beings are analog creatures. We process information through input from the world around us. People with autism process that information differently (hence, some kids with autism being sensitive to loud noises, wanting to wear soft clothing, etc.). No one case of autism is the same as another because all people are different; the autism spectrum happens to share many similarities/traits, but there's no "one size fits all" list of symptoms. Some people on the spectrum are "high-functioning" (also called Asperger's) in that they aren't obviously autistic (like hand flapping, making noises, potential intellectual deficiencies, etc.). I think the data says that approximately 1 in 50 to 1 in 60 people have autism.
That sounds like a lot, but keep in mind that we have only recently started documenting and medicalizing these things. That's why you may see statistics claiming that rates of autism are "increasing". Perhaps so, but that only means that diagnoses are up. You probably have met lots of people with autism. Every so often, in my day-to-day life I'll run into people who I think may be on the spectrum because I recognize certain traits (especially young kids walking on their toes, that's a pretty big indicator).
With all that in mind, however, I think that our medical establishment probably does over-diagnose autism because it seems that they over-diagnose everything. A young boy who doesn't want to sit still in class isn't just an active kid, no no, he has ADD/ADHD. A socially awkward person isn't just a bit odd, no no, they must have autism. I don't think it does any good to over-medicalize our society because we then take the actual, serious cases of ADD, autism, and the like less seriously.
"I don't think it does any good to over-medicalize our society because we then take the actual, serious cases of ADD, autism, and the like less seriously."
Yes. This.
Autism is real, and when autism is real it can be incredibly challenging. When people diagnose it left and right for normal variations in behavior it diminishes the needs of those who have serious issues, and leads to people saying stuff like "oh, everyone is a little bit autistic."
Um, no. Everyone is not. Actual autism is not a joke or excuse for awkward social skills.
I agree. While rare, real autism is unmistakable. My wife had a one year job shepherding a profoundly autistic boy in a private school classroom, about sixth grade if I remember correctly. His parents had "Microsoft money" and paid a great deal of it trying to "mainstream" him in a regular classroom. My wife wife ended up thinking it was profoundly a mistake. She spent most of her time trying to keep him from banging his head against walls, and from taking his pants off and screaming. The one benefit I see in it is that all the regular kids who witnessed this year will have an indelible idea about true autism and the misdiagnosed kind which is now epidemic it seems.
I have a friend who is a public special ed teacher who is in a similar situation. She has been moved from teaching her own class of special ed students to 100% monitoring a student who must be kept in his own classroom because he is violent on a regular basis and unable to learn (he is in seventh grade and cannot write his name nor recite the alphabet). He assaulted her two weeks ago and made her face bleed and tore out her hair. These children's situations are to be pitied, but this is not "school."
" I think the data says that approximately 1 in 50 to 1 in 60 people have autism."
I have NOT looked into this, but I question those numbers. IF those numbers were real autistic people would be Everywhere.
"I don't think it does any good to over-medicalize our society because we then take the actual, serious cases of ADD, autism, and the like less seriously."
It seems this happens to young boys.
(As Always I..Could..Be..Wrong)
It is hard to quantify, but I wouldn't be surprised.
Again, autism can vary widely. It's really just a set of behavioral characteristics that share certain features. Until about 20-30 years ago, people with autism would have just been lumped into a different category or been considered a little different without a diagnosis (before every aberration in human behavior had to be labeled or medicalized).
For example: someone like Mozart possibly could have been on the spectrum, but the entire concept of medicalizing/scientific analysis of psychology didn't even exist in his time. He was just considered kind of strange (along with having God-like musical abilities).
It wasn't until our education system began demanding children to be cookie-cutter copies in every way that all those minor neurodiversities became considered a pathological problem.
Well, 1 in 50 is 2% of the population. so I can believe it. About 7% of the population has a mental disorder of some sort. But "disorder" doesn't mean they can't function. Many get by without any treatment, or maybe they undergo talk therapy for a while and that's the end of it. I can't find a number at the moment for the percentage of the population that takes drugs for a mental disorder, but I'll SWAG it's 4%.
We parents of genuinely neurodiverse children simply cannot win. Either we are bad parents because we "can't make the kids behave," or we're accused of jumping on a bandwagon.
My oldest son was very clearly "not normal" from birth, but until his younger brother was born, I had nothing but *instinct* to judge that by. Watching his younger brother grow and develop made it crystal clear just how different his older brother was.
Also, there's no link between genetics and autism. I forgot to mention that in my first post.
Hi Ben, there is a pretty strong indication of a genetic component. Specifically, families rich in scientists, engineers, doctors and the like are more likely to have autistic members also. My family has both.
You might like the book Neurotribes by Steve Silberman. I found it to be quite good.
Interesting. I'll look into that.
Based on what I've read, I guess there could be somewhat of a genetic link, but we really can't say for certain because we can't identify a specific gene as the "autism" gene; all we can do is look at correlation (which may be close but not quite the same thing). It does seem to be more prevalent in certain families, but I don't think there's a 100% link to it.
I'll look into that book. Some of the best literature I've read on autism has been from Temple Grandin or books that she has helped to co-author.
What do you think causes it? I’m not up on the current theories.
Definite association with older fathers (>40yo, I believe). As that is increasingly common, it may be one explanation.
Who knows? We really have no idea. So far, I don't think there's been any link to genetics, environment, or any other variable that has proven to be statistically significant.
I think that autism is just a variation of the human genome. Some people just act differently.
I saw in passing earlier this week a provocative headline suggesting that Tylenol taken in pregnancy might be implicated in the explosion of autism diagnoses. I didn’t read any further, but it made me wonder if we would ever know if that was the case. My (childless) sister has wondered if the use of microwave ovens or ultrasound in recent decades could play a part.
British physician Andrew Wakefield was the author of the vaccine hoax who is now mostly disgraced, but he still has adherents. Dr. Paul Offit refuted Wakefield pretty definitively.
It’s the age of the mother (her eggs) that may be to blame for autism. We’re having children older and statistics shows a definite correlation between age of the mother and rates of autism — with 25 year old moms and younger having the lowest rates.
So, safest age to get pregnant is actually in your 20s.
Age of father may contribute, too.
Unpopular opinion....I know several autistic children, some of young and some of older parents. Most of the affected children have fathers who smoked a lot of pot prior to conception. We know now that THC can be detected in sperm. Something to think about.
Thanks for that info. I had heard that age of father contributed to schizophrenia, but did not know about autism.
Yep, basically humans should breed in their twenties and postpone pot use. (There is so little info about the downside of “cannabis”, as there is also little info about the true female fertility span).
If that's true, there should be a noticeable pattern in the data. Tylenol and most other brands of acetaminophen were taken off the market in 1982 after the Chicago Tylenol murders. They didn't become available again until about 1990.
Tylenol was never off the market. They stopped making capsules but continued with other types of pills throughout the 80s.
This is not the case. Tylenol was reintroduced in new packaging by November of 1982. Within a few years it was again the highest selling OTC analgesic.
Rats. So it’s less likely we’d be know. It would take a study combing through medical records to see if Tylenol was noted, which seems unlikely to me since it’s OTC.
I had a flashback to a summer internship I had in the late 70s. I got to comb through a small hospital’s medical records to count how many tonsillectomies were deemed unnecessary. It seems that the Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Hospitals or some other entity had determined that a certain percentage of unnecessary tonsillectomies was necessary to prove doctors were on the ball, or some such rationale. As a college student majoring in English, I loved reading through all the histories. It was unpaid so nobody questioned how long it took to complete!
Now that is interesting! There might BE a way to know!!
" My (childless) sister has wondered if the use of microwave ovens or ultrasound in recent decades could play a part."
Maybe, thing is I don't know how it could be proved or disproved.
Thanks for your very helpful comment, Ben S.
Thanks. As I understand it, a diagnosis requires the display of several of many characteristics, and they show up when a child is quite young and hasn’t had the opportunity to learn to mimic them to get attention.
It’s become cool, special to be able to proclaim you have a mental disorder.
Real autism reveals inself in early childhood. Yet grown kids are now finding a quack who will tell them they are autistic. Chat rooms will teach them how to behave to be convincing. Families get turned upside down adjusting to this charade. Parents are made to feel guilty for “missing it”. In the end it’s all just an excuse to be an adult child, deferred to, accommodated. Real autistics can lead productive lives with jobs that use their skills. But the phonies live in their parents’ basements.
Bingo.
And I think that among moms of grade school kids, there is a subset among whom it is cool and special to have a "special needs" kid.
When my daughter was diagnosed and treated for autism, I had several parents - and by parents I mean mothers who were social media drama queens - ask me how I "got" a diagnosis for my kid, because they kept trying to "get" one and would get turned away or told their kid was completely normal.
But they would insist that doctors were just "missing" the real problem.
Now, I know that doctors are not gods, and often miss real problems.
But when the Venn Diagram of "mothers who can't get an autism diagnosis for their kid" is a perfect circle with "mothers who overdramatize their personal issues on Facebook for sympathy all day" I'm going to say that maybe there is something else going on here.
Social media - and "wokeness", or the need for a special identity to get ahead - has created a whole new incentive for Munchausen by proxy.
Thinking of this in relation to "trans kids" is truly terrifying.
Munchausens by proxy.
There are parents today who are using their own children to virtue signal how caring and compassionate they are.
Scary. In your estimation what is the socioeconomic status of these moms?
In my observation, upper SES.
We just went to school with kids who were a "little different", "awkward" or "slow". I went to school with a couple of kids who would probably be considered "on the spectrum" now. They were never given a diagnostic label. They were treated the same as everyone else and now are middle-aged people living their lives like the rest of us.
I have a friend with a daughter who does poorly in school, so she had her evaluated for adhd. Yet even the professionals said they weren't sure that she had adhd. I've observed this child to be indulged and coddled - she spends excessive time on tiktok, rarely exercises, doesn't go to bed on time. This friend wanted to know what we thought about medication for her daughter. I said I think you need to ensure she goes to bed at a reasonable hour, that she gets some fresh air, maybe check for food allergies and diet (red dye can cause issues for some kids) and limit her screen time before anything else. The answer was "oh but I can't take her phone away!" No? But she's fine putting her on, well, speed. Hm. My other friend argued that it was perfectly reasonable to put her on adhd meds - so many other people are on it! Hm again. Long story short, she's on the meds now. Having worked for a company that did unbranded campaigns on how people might have adhd to drive requests for evaluation, I can tell you the science is weak on this "disorder" and a lot of it was hyperbolized. Am I saying no one has it and meds are never warranted? No. I'm saying people are diagnosed and treated for it when they shouldn't be.
Criteria for diagnosing autism have been loosened significantly in the past 30 years. "Rain Man" autism is just as rare as it's always been, but most kids diagnosed simply have difficulty communicating. Also, autism has become a catch-all term for what we used to call mental retardation.
We have been doing pre-natal screening for Down Syndrome and other chromosomal abnormalities for over 30 years. Those babies are no longer being born, so the mental disorders that cannot be detected in pregnancy have become more visible.
The specialists also have decided that if you are gifted in one area yet average or less than average in another, you must be autistic as well. I agree, a good number of those diagnosed today wouldn’t have been in previous generations. However, I wouldn’t be so quick to attribute the rise solely to increased diagnosis. The increase in chemicals in our daily lives, some of which we are only beginning to understand inhibits hormones and increase cancer risk, may also be contributing to the rise. The rate of autism diagnoses from what I understand, is lower in Europe where many of these chemicals have been outlawed. We need more research and analysis into the sources in order to fully explain the huge increase seen in recent decades.
I’ve seen studies that correlate increased rates of autism to anti depressants in utero, which makes sense. A friend who didn’t consider ceasing when pregnant (and who seems not to need anti depressants, had a male with an inverted penis. It’s also the “hysteria” of our day, with many likely causes, such as an ironic lack of compassion for difference. I was one such kid. Didn’t conform, a bit masculine for a girl and not inclined to say the “right things” -- socially clumsy, better off alone -- now that’s “autistic” ---- overdiagnosing abounds, to the point of absurd destruction.
I recently saw that there is a class action lawsuit based on a study ( https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/nih-funded-study-suggests-acetaminophen-exposure-pregnancy-linked-higher-risk-adhd-autism ) that suggests that taking Tylenol while pregnant may cause autism to develop in the child.
Considering that Tylenol was promoted as a "safe" painkiller for use in pregnancy as far back as the 90s, when I was pregnant with my kids, it wouldn't take much of an increased risk of autism to create an uptick in autism.
Although the guy whose study linking vaccination with autism was discredited, I personally know people who had children who developed autism *immediately* after a vaccination.
I have long theorized that a genetic predisposition for autism may be triggered by various causes that are harmless to those without that predisposition. I know for a fact that it has been determined that the genetic predisposition for type 1 diabetes (which I developed at age 19) is often triggered by exposure to some immune challenge (perhaps as minor as a common cold).
In other words, DNA is massively complicated. We are only just beginning to understand *how* complicated.
And possibly because the current education system favors girls (girls are better at school than boys, graduate more, more have degrees, etc). And the boys need a diagnosis from the grownups to fit a system that is just less suitable for them on average
This is a huge issue. Boys are expected to behave like girls in school, and when they don't, they are considered to have something wrong with them.
The Sound of Music comes to mind:
Kurt: "I'm Kurt, I'm 11, I'm incorrigible."
Maria: "Congratulations."
Kurt: "What's incorrigible?"
Maria: "I think it means you want to be treated like a boy."
If only there was a word for sterilizing people with certain psychological co-morbidities...
that is what gender reassignment is doing & why it is unethical.
I agree about kids on the spectrum. One thing that has not changed since my youth is that the pre-teen and adolescent years are hard. Especially for kids with social disabilities. So I see it as sort of grasping at straws - if I just maim myself I will be happy. Plus cosmetic surgery is widely accepted by both sexes so going under the knife has been normalized.
I am more than sure that the author and I would have widely disparate views on many issues but I admire her courage and her character. She is exactly the kind of person that I like to work with.
And, I understand about the need to hold off to preserve a paycheck. Not sure that many people could sacrifice their living for their values. That is a horrible and frightening choice to have to make.
This woman deserves a lot of kudos.
In my humble opinion this abomination of a circumstance is what happens when progressive politics meets greed. These children are a cause de jur, another collection of puppies to save that allow the elite progressive left to virtue signal and challenge traditional ways of life and is a cash cow for doctors and therapists, mentally ill children are just the meat to feed into the machine.
I agree. There is a video on You Tube that someone took on their phone while in a meeting at Vanderbilt Mental Center in Nashville. The clinic administrators all talked about how much money (profit) each type of treatment/surgery would bring into the hospital. The Tennessee governor’s office is investigating.
I see it more the result of progressive politics, period. I think the bulk pf progressives really think they're doing the right thing. Nothing is ever evil or wrong, it's just misunderstood by the masses and then justified - usually by taking other peoples money (taxes) to fund the entire academic, medical and surgical process. It is a contagion.
Progressive politics meets greed. Excellent diagnosis
As a developmental psychologist and also a child psychotherapist -- Thank you, thank you, thank you!! The politicization of medical practice is a crime; and in the case of gender issues, a crime against children.
So glad to hear this from someone working in the field. My friend, who is an associate professor of psychology, has to be so very careful in her lectures because of the politics in her department, and to this day, is in a constant balancing act to address this topic in her classes without getting sacrificed on the altar of politics.
RG, you have just well described the death of free expression in the university...self-censorship these days is rampant.
Help me understand something: is there an evidence-based clinical protocol to diagnose gender dysphoria?
These doctors are no better than Mengele. They need to be thrown in jail. You can’t imagine how furious this crap makes me. Good on you for blowing the whistle. Your whistle needs to turn into a hell fire of fury aimed at them.
But beyond the abuses inflicted on children in these clinics, we as a society need a deep examination and reckoning with how we got here. Let’s start with: there ARE absolute truths. There is a right and a wrong. Parents determine what is OK for their kids. Kids should not have to invent psychological problems to be treated as special and accepted in peer groups. Chat rooms that teach kids how to be screwed up should be treated as child abusers. The few actual cases of gender dysphoria are mental problems (like anorexia) and need counseling, not drugs and mutilating surgery. (Have you seen what these monsters do to the forearms of their victims in an attempt to build a “penis”? ).
We don’t agree with anorectics that they are obese and encourage them to starve themselves more, do we?
In my darker moments I often muse that the only way to stop is nonsense is a termination program for those in charge of it. I do know that if I were caught in the web that some fathers are in seeing their children forcibly transformed into freaks I would be deadly serious about the vengeance I would exact.
I personally favor handing over the surgeons to the fathers, along with a saw and instructions on how to amputate hands.
A few years ago a young preacher I knew was working as a roofer to make a few extra bucks. One of the other workers was constantly dogging and bullyragging him with profanities, aspersions about his faith, his spouse, etc.. One day the preacher, perhaps under the influence of the blazing sun upon his skull on that hot roof, just lost it and nearly murdered the guy with his roofing axe. If he'd caught him, it would have been over, but fate intervened.
His only comment upon resuming his roofing was that, "Sometimes the Lord's burden is more than a man can bear."
I experienced a tiny fraction of this kind of stress when my first wife took up with a new boyfriend, who was sleeping in the same house as my two sons. I don't know that a single untoward thing ever happened, but to this day I wonder .......
I worked as a roofer's helper once. It was the worst job I ever did. Carrying heavy loads of shingles up a ladder and then working on a fiercely hot roof. Totally understandable that the young preacher "lost it."
Sorry, should have been, We don’t agree with anorectics that they are obese....
Wish there was a correct option
I discovered yesterday that if I view my comment from an email notification about a response to it, I was then able to edit it. A software glitch that the Substack platform needs to fix.
thanks! done.
Hey…is that a Zéphirine Drouhin in your profile pic?
Blaze of Glory
Gorgeous! I’ll have to look for that one.
There is. The three dots open "edit comment."
Jamie Reed you are truly courageous to tell this heartbreaking story.
Jamie Reed, these abused innocents are, unfortunately, the victims of the very progressive insanity you embrace.
Harsh, Bruce. She's looking at it and calling it for the insanity it clearly is. Being on the other side of the political spectrum is not monolithic. Give credit where credit is due.
You're probably right Lee.
I conceded that I can be a jerk, at times. You might have caught me again.
You have an open mind. And you’ve opened mine as well, sir..
Or, more accurately, the REgressive insanity. It’s time we stopped using the term “progressive” to describe these extremists.
Lawyers, where are you?
This ends with lawsuits. Lots and lots of lawsuits.
Every medical professional who is party to this deserves it.
Sue the AAP and the APA.
The psychologist Diane Ehrenseft, who is one of the biggest promoters of the "trans kids will kill themselves" myth also had a history promoting the "Satanic Panic Hoax."
Someone at the APA should have to explain to a judge why she headed up the APA committee that deals with LGBT issues.
And someone at the AAP needs to explain to a judge why they changed their rules to avoid debating pediatric gender issues at their own annual conference.
Go right to the professional organizations.
They are increasingly nothing but cartels for profit and ideology.
Diane Ehrenseft! Very interesting thank you. Look at all this.
There needs to be a medical standard of care before one can sue for malpractice. Not all transitioning surgeries have a standard. Many trans surgeries are experimental and the fine print defines why suing is almost impossible.
The people who are going to pay for Biden's so called "right to transition" are going to be the taxpayers and it may seriously harm healthcare budgets. Skeptical belief that massive amounts of hormones taken for decades are going to create major health care problems.
Unfortunately most of those who are in a position to sue are too brainwashed to realize it.
Last year I visited a shuttered "Lunatic Asylum" where a tour guide described in detail all of the "treatments" given to the supposedly insane.
They pointed out that many of those admitted were just uppity women. The audience chuckled at how backward and stupid those early-20th century people must have been.
Then they went over frontal lobotomies - top of the line science in their day, fit to cure all sorts of disorders. We were horrified, then chuckled at how backward and stupid those early-20th century people must have been.
We're pretty fucking stupid.
This is a wonderful essay. Bravo...
Unfortunately, people have done a lot of very bad things because they misunderstood biology. Consider the history of lobotomies, or the career of John Money (who popularized the term “gender identity”).
The current (generally misinformed) national conversation about gender identity is being driven — to a great extent — by people who have a naïve and childish understanding of biology, and a zealous belief that they know just how to manipulate it in order to permanently ‘fix’ what they think is a unitary psychological phenomenon. However, because both biology and psychology are complex, and people are remarkably diverse, the same ‘fix’ will never work for everyone… just like the same antidepressant or blood pressure medicine doesn’t work for everyone.
Diversity, including neuro-diversity, should be recognized and valued. Every individual should be respected, accepted, included, and have the opportunity to live the best life that they can. For some very small percentage of people, pharmacological or surgical intervention may be a reasonable option (after an extended period of therapy and careful evaluation). However, by definition, that singular solution is not appropriate for everyone. Unfortunately, the most zealous proponents of that singular solution are doing a tremendous amount of irreversible damage to the young, the vulnerable, families, women, and many of our institutions. I think that’s misguided and unacceptable. (Actually, I think it's worse than that. I'm just trying to be temperate in my language.)
A deep understanding of the evolutionary, genetic, and developmental forces that make us human should prevent us from making foolish mistakes, like thinking that we can surgically alter a few external body parts and change a person into something they’re not. Biology is more complicated than that:
https://everythingisbiology.substack.com/p/there-is-biological-evidence-for
However, all of this notwithstanding, compassion and humility should be our guiding lights. Clearly, they are not. My heart breaks for every child who has been (or will be) permanently harmed by this zealotry.
Sincerely, Frederick
Everything Is Biology is SUCH a great resource on this issue. Highly recommend everyone follow your Substack!
Also, for great work on where this insanity came from, the harm (to more than just kids) of this ideology, Eliza Mondegreen is another brilliant resource!
https://substack.com/profile/47620-eliza-mondegreen
Beautifully written deep thoughts.
Thank you for speaking out. I personally have some beliefs that are different than the author's. I have met some transgender people (men to women). I am adamantly against anything being done with children, meaning surgery or drugs, other than mental health services. I think if someone is serious about going through with such a life altering situation it should be done as an adult after several years of therapy. I personally think over 25 years old. I think there are probably several trans people who would agree. We could be doing grave harm to countless numbers of children and young adults. Heck teenagers have enough to deal with just trying to figure life out.
And for people who truly are trans, that wait until they are 25 for medical transition I think would be made much easier if we as a society could just accept a greater degree of gender noncomformity among people who can't necessarily "pass" as the other sex but wish they could.
Obviously in some areas - like locker rooms or sports - the boundaries around biological sex can't be transgressed without harm to others. But in areas like how we dress and do our hair and refer to each other, perhaps being more open and compassionate to those who cross dress or present in a "queer" way could go a long way. And offering more gender "neutral" spaces as a third option for people who are gender non-conforming, so they can have spaces that feel safe for them without compromising the modesty and safety of others who prefer single sex.
Make it more socially acceptable to be "queer" when it comes to sex and gender, but respect women's spaces and keep medicalization away from children.
I feel like that sort of middle ground would be so healthy. It would help most people with gender dysphoria find a place in society, but without mutiliating them as children or violating women's spaces.
This is my favorite comment. I think a lot of this could be avoided by teaching kids that there are infinite ways to express your personality and none of them are specific to your biological sex.
The group “gays against groomers” speaks to this idea a lot. It really resonates with me.
Yes. This 100%.
Growing up in the 80s is seemed like there was so much latitude when it came to how you could dress and express yourself as a boy or a girl. This was especially true for girls - I spent my entire childhood with what would be considered a "boy" bowl cut today and in blue jeans and unisex T-shirts. And while boys have always had less latitude, think of how many male celebrities and music artists wore makeup and had long hair. No one questioned that I was a real girl and they were real men. Even intentionally androgynous artists like David Bowie or Prince or Annie Lennox were never mistaken for anything as men and women expressing their gender creatively.
Why can't we get back to that mentality and expand it? How is mutilating children in the name of "gender" expression progress?
I can agree but I do think it is very important to wait. There are some examples of people who went trans and later realized they made a huge mistake.
I think many who do not publically wish they hadn't transitioned are grappling with cognitive dissonance.
Just maybe it's not many with cognitive dissonance. Maybe they were confused and insecure still trying to discover themselves. Not everyone fits into a neat bubble. I struggled all through my teen years with feeling awkward and different, not sexually, but in other ways leading to some insecurities.
I'm suggesting that many who transitioned and then struggle with their same problems which transitioning didnt fix and infact added a host of new ones, cant quite bring themselves to recognize they made a mistake in doing so - which is cognitive dissonance. I'm not suggesting cognitive dissonance led them to transition. Sorry if I was unclear.
Thank you for clarifying. I agree with you.
I met such a person back in the mid-90s. He was very honest about his experience. It made a huge impression on me.
A middle ground is impossible. Everything that is tolerated in adults gets pushed down to children eventually.
Thanks for writing this, Jamie. I, too, felt complicit for several years because of how I was reporting on the subject. I hope this powerful piece will inspire more people to speak up.
BROADVIEW is also another really great resource on this topic!
https://lisaselindavis.substack.com/p/on-jamie-reeds-extraordinary-testimony?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
Greatly respect your work on this, Lisa.
I watched Jamie last night in the interview. She struck me as someone who is knowledgeable, grounded (but angry and frustrated), compassionate towards kids, and trans folks. She has a resume one cannot look away from (knowledgeable about research; social worker-case management work with a variety of populations, including youth who were HIV+, her own family life (married to transman; foster kids they are trying to adopt)).
She walks the walk on so many things. She tried to enact change from within and was hitting big walls - she tried to get the physicians to reflect on what they were doing, pump breaks. They instead admonished and ordered allegiance.
I've heard from many wise people on this topic -- her voice will be a hard one to discount when people start hearing her testimony live.
Jordan Peterson interviewed Chloe Cole, a detransitioning person who is speaking out about the horrors of this industry. What was stunning was the ease with which these doctors determined she was trans and initiated drugs. She even had a double mastectomy at 15. They threatened her parents that it was better to have a trans boy than a suicide daughter. How did these doctors come to practice like this?? The AAP supports this?? How? A total rejection of objective truths. A rejection of right from wrong. And money. I want to heap acrimony and parental fury on them. I want them in jail for hurting children.
But what happens is the parents are paralyzed by guilt for being so stupid.
I just finished watching this also and found it to be profoundly disturbing and also informative. It's an excellent interview. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6O3MzPeomqs
It was Ilhan Omar who said accurately but in a different context “It’s all about the Benjamins.”
If a society is not willing to protect its most vulnerable, its children, then it is doomed. From abortion in the final trimester, to gender affirming care, to indoctrination in the schools, it seems as if we hate our children.
I fear for my grandsons growing up in a world where they are a ideological tool to be used to further an agenda.