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My daughter told me that the school social worker was advising her about halfway houses because he thought we did not support her. The social worker confirmed this when I scheduled a meeting with him to discuss it. This felt like a horrifying attempt to encourage our daughter to run away from home.
We had our daughter evaluated by a psychologist approved by the school district. He told us that it was very clear that our daughter’s sudden transgender identity was driven by her underlying mental health conditions, but would only share his thoughts off the record because he feared the potential backlash he would receive. In the report he submitted to us and the school, he did not include these concerns that he would only share in person."
I pleaded that my daughter's school call her by her legal name, use female pronouns. By refusing, they prevented her from getting the help she needs.
www.usatoday.com
Washington state now appears to allow minors to undergo life-changing gender reassignment surgery without parental consent.
mynorthwest.com
" A 2011 study spanning three decades by the respected Karolinska Institute in Sweden found that people who underwent sex reassignment were
19 times more likely to die by suicide than the general population. In the US,
a yearlong survey by the National Center for Transgender Equality concluded that those who had transitioned were more likely to have attempted suicide than trans people who had not had medical or surgical treatments."
The new documentary matters explored in the newly released film “Trans Mission: What’s the Rush To Reassign Gender?” explores the widely promoted notion that gender reassignment can prevent e…
nypost.com
A California mother filed a suit against two teachers and the school district for a policy did not tell parents if their child decided to change their gender identities.
nypost.com
It's all over the place...While my hypothetical is a logical progression of these "Parental secrecy" policies, you libs think that nothing is being reported on this.
Thank you for admitting that your “hypothetical “ was just that. Made up histrionics intended to push buttons in the hope that you would not be called on it. Speaking of histrionics, there is way too much of it coming out of the conservative camp and it is not constructive.
The transgender issue is complicated to say the least. It is a real phenomenon that effects the lives of kids. We can speculate as to why it is happening but the fact is that it is happening. My problem with conservatives is the fact that you misrepresent and vilify us, and educators with nonsense about 1) “grooming” and 2) claims that we want to allow very young children young children to undergo life altering, irreversible medical procedures. More on # 2 later
Grooming has long been understood the act of gaining the trust of children in order to manipulate them into engaging in some sexual act for the gratification of the groomer. More recently, it has come to mean the manipulating children into questioning their gender identity or sexual orientation. Let’s think about that. The first question is, why they hell would anyone want to convince a child, or even plant the sed of thinking that they were trans or gay when that child has not expressed any such inclination? It defies logic. Yet this grooming mantra is rampant and detracts from the reality that there are real groomers out there who seek to take advantage of kids . Think about the boy who cried wolf.
So, I think that we have to come to an understanding of how the term “grooming is not being applied and recognize the harm that it is doing, both to the ability of those with differing views to communicate with each other and to the children. For starters, I believe that it would be useful for conservatives/traditionalists to get in touch with the source of there angst over people who defy traditional gender roles and definitions, and the fact that not everyone fits neatly into the male / female binary. The sky is not falling.
The next step is to recognize the fact that-to put it bluntly, these kids are not making this shit up. They have very real and intense feeling about who they are in terms of gender. Sure, kids are impressionable and can do things just because it seems fashionable and cool, but if that is the case, they will eventually move past it. The fact is that there is much that we do not understand about gender identity. However, there is growing evidence that there are genetic and other biological reasons for gender dysphoria ( and homosexuality) Some transsexuals –maybe a lot of them-may well have been misgendered at birth.
The fact that transsexuality has only recently come to the forefront of the culture wars does not mean that people have not been experiencing gender dysphoria all along. Rather, like gay people, they kept it a secrete and suffered in silence.
So, the fact that the trans issue is real and not going away means that these kids need support, acceptance and validation which is exactly what conservatives are erroneously calling grooming. There is a difference between give someone permission to explore who they are as opposed to manipulating them into being who you –the adult-wants them to be The alternative to support and acceptance is ridicule, and rejection which is destructive and cruel. Anyone who I really concerned about the well being of children should seriously consider this.
Now for the issue of medical intervention. To be clear, I am opposed to , and I believe most liberals are opposed to any irreversible surgical transition until at least late teens and then only after extensive psychological evaluation and only after the young person has lived as their chosen gender for several years
Non surgical transition, also known as gender affirming care which primarily consists of drug that delay puberty is a bit more complicated.
The idea behind the practice Is to give a prepubescent teen more time to decide who they are before developing into the physical body of someone who, psychologically they are not. I have been of the belief that such intervention is reversible in the event that the teen has a change of heart, but I have also learned that it’s more complicated than that. Consideration must be given to the age that the therapy begins and when it is terminated, as well as then length of time that it is administered.
Perhaps the most complicated and emotional issue is that of parental involvement and notification by the schools
. My feeling is- parents have rights but like all rights they are not absolute. Paramount is the best interest of the child. While I oppose any medical intervention without parental involvement, I can understand school policies that do not require, or even allow school personnel to actively “out” a student to the parents. Some parents will react badly. The has the right to decide how and when they will come out and to who they will come out to.They also have the right to use the pronoun of their choice at school and for that to be respected
We are so divided on the issue that it is to the point of insanity. We have states passing laws that say such care is child abuse, and other states that are saying that withholding such care is child abuse. Both are wrong but I will admit that my bias is that withholding care is most often the real child abuse. At the same time, reckless and careless medical proceedures for young kids can also constitute abuse .
Generally, such decisions should be left to medical professionals,. Yes parents should be involved but must be held accountable and act in the child’s best interest .
If medical or mental health intervention is indicated, they should be required to cooperate, just as they would be required to allow care for any other condition where withholding that care might be harmful and constitute medical neglect
The issue of suicide frequently comes up. I keep seeing statistics that show that people who have transitioned surgically kill themselves more frequently than others. Then there are the stats that show that Transpeople in general kill themselves at higher rates
. While there is truth to those numbers, the question is why. The implication is that they are killing themselves because they surgically transitioned , or simply because they are transexual, but is it that simple? Consider, how does the suicide rate of those who have had surgery compare with the suicide rate among those who were denied surgery or pre-surgical gender affirming care? We might also want to look at the suicide rate (as well as the rate of substance abuse and other mental health issues ) among trans-people as compared to that of other marginalized and vilified populations. We need to stop blaming the victims.
A final note.
Those anecdotal, tabloid style accounts of individual cases are, for the most part worthless. They do not contain enough information to make a judgement as to the extent to which they were handled appropriately. They are one sided and biased, often written by an ill informed and partisan individual, often an overwrought parent. Try thinking with your head and your heart instead of having google do the heavy lifting for you, while giving little thought to what those articles really mean
Thank you for inspiring me to organize my thoughts on the topic. Peace !
The Progressive Patriot