When TikTok encourages genital mutilation of children

The title of this article is not meant to be sensationalistic, nor is it designed as salacious clickbait. Instead, it is a fair and accurate description of a growing (and sickening) phenomenon on TikTok: trans-identified adults telling children about sex-change surgery or simply encouraging these little ones to go fully trans. How can this be legal?

A couple of weeks ago, a colleague sent me a link to a video on Townhall carrying this caption: “Children are being exposed to sex change explainer videos on TikTok from woke trans activists. They claim these surgeries aren't harmful — and are completely fine to show to children. What is going on?!”

This video, in turn, plays clips from some of these TikTok videos, and the contents are beyond disgusting.

The first clip features a man, dressed up like a little girl, holding a banana split (meaning, the dessert), stating, “I am finally getting my banana split later this year” — as in “split” by a surgeon who is going to operate on this man’s genitals.

He then proceeds to explain the procedure, beginning with “splitting the banana in half,” which he then does on camera.

It only gets worse from there, as he grabs two cherries which are submerged in the ice cream, saying the next step is to get rid of the cherries, which he then eats. (He does note that his “cherries” were removed last year, otherwise he’d be doing that now.)

Did I already call this video sickening and disgusting? How about adding in “perverse” as well, especially when you think of the intended audience: impressionable children.

“Hey young boys! Do you sometimes feel like a girl? Well, here’s something really cool you can do. I’m about to do it too! It’s called a vaginoplasty, but since that’s a really long, scary word, I’ll make it fun for you. We’ll call it a banana split! Maybe you, too, want to get your banana split in two!”

This really is perverse.

Two years ago, I posted an article titled, “Is China Using TikTok to Control the Minds of Our Children?”

I wrote, “To give a shocking case in point, according to a recent video by Matt Walsh, ‘TikTok Is Making Mental Illness Trendy.’”

Now, TikTok is making irreversible genital mutilation trendy.

Should we be surprised?

I wrote that Walsh “noted how destructive ideas and behavior and concepts ‘can go from fringe to trendy to mainstream quite literally overnight.’ He added, ‘What was unusual one moment might be ubiquitous the next, and people, especially young people, can get caught in the current and drowned before they even notice that their shoes are wet.’

“He pointed to the latest TikTok fascination with what is called Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD), as a result of which large numbers of young people are wrongly diagnosing themselves with this unusual condition ...

“Walsh then explained that the young person who self-diagnoses with MPD refers to himself or herself as ‘the system,’ with each personality within ‘the system’ being called an ‘alter.’ And what effect does this have on young people?”

I then explained that “It was a concerned mother who sent me the Walsh video, wanting to tell me about the latest developments with her 18-year-old daughter, who now identifies as a male. (We’ll call the daughter Rachel to hide her identity.)

She wrote, “Do you know anything about this??? I'm literally livid. This is how it started with us. Rachel went on some social media site, convinced herself she was a system with lots of personalities, like 100. And did this exact same thing!! When I spoke to the psychiatrists about this, they had no clue what I was talking about. No one has been helpful with this. Why is no one talking about this?!?! I'm so angry right now. Part of what the issue is with Rachel, she thinks she has several alters with all different genders. Why would any doctor give her testosterone acting like this???”

It's hard not to feel outrage just reading these words, especially if you can relate firsthand to what this mother has experienced, and especially when you realize that some of the effects of these hormone treatments may be irreversible.

But to think that children are being encouraged to get sex-change surgery and that a boy might actually think that removing his testicles is no different than eating two cherries takes things even further.

I ask again: how can this be legal?

In May 2019, the Wall Street Journal carried an op-ed by Abigail Shrier, the courageous author of the important book Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters.

It was titled “Standing Against Psychiatry’s Crazes” and it focused on the work of Dr. Paul McHugh. (The subtitle stated, “In 1979 Dr. Paul McHugh closed the sex-change clinic at Johns Hopkins. In the ’80s he testified against phony ‘recovered memories.’ He hasn’t given up the fight.”)

In a private email sent to me by Dr. McHugh on November 18, 2009, he stated, “I hold that interfering medically or surgically with the natural development of young people claiming to be ‘transgendered’ is a form of child abuse.”

But what if Dr. McHugh is wrong? What if he is opposing something that can truly help both young people and adults?

Shrier addressed this head-on, writing, “The possibility that Dr. McHugh is wrong doesn’t trouble him. ‘Either the plastic surgeons and the transgender psychiatrists are right and I’m wrong — and if that’s the case, they will have done a lot of good by opposing me, and I will have been a drag on the system — or the opposite. Suppose they’re wrong and I’m right? They will have mutilated thousands of children, and I will look good. Who do you think is sleeping better at night?’”

Dr. McHugh’s same question can now be posed to those who run and oversee TikTok: What if you’re contributing directly to the irreversible mutilation of thousands of children? How will you sleep at night?

I would hate to be in their shoes of these social media influencers and their enablers on Judgment Day. God takes it personally when people hurt the children.

But until that Day, let us do what we can to protect our youngsters from these destructive influences while pushing back against the distribution of such videos to minors however we can.

We might just save some lives.