Will America's Public Grade Schools Become Transgender Mills?
Last month I wrote about the sudden phenomenon of transgender children. Sadly, this dangerous new trend is breathing down the necks of public grade school students across the country.
For example, a mom in California recently broke down at a school board meeting when describing how her five-year-old daughter was in a kindergarten classroom when a teacher read a book explaining how her classmate switched from a boy to a "girl."
"The elite charter school in a Sacramento suburb was subsequently engulfed in a bitter controversy when some outraged parents reported their five-year-olds came home that day traumatized, confused and fearful that they might turn into the opposite sex." According to the California Family Council, 90 children were pulled from the school by their parents as a result of the controversy.
Meanwhile, a policy proposal in Delaware states that "all students enrolled in a Delaware public school may self-identify gender or race." And this means "children as young as five would be permitted to choose their own race and gender-identity without approval from their parents."
This is not the case, however, in Kansas where an excellent resolution was passed recently. Kansas politicians who supported "God's Design for Gender" are standing up for children in order to protect their impressionable hearts. Children with gender confusion need wise counsel from their parents at home rather than transgender advertisements at school.
Michelle Cretella, M.D., is President of the American College of Pediatricians. She writes, "Even the American Psychological Association's Handbook of Sexuality and Psychology admits that prior to the widespread promotion of transition affirmation, 75 to 90 percent of prepubertal children who were distressed by their biological sex eventually outgrew that distress. The vast majority came to accept their biological sex by late adolescence after passing naturally through puberty." Many professionals believe the number is even higher at between 80 and 95 percent.
Let kids be kids. Puberty-suppressing hormones are a dangerous way to respond to a child's natural curiosity or gender confusion, and it makes "the risk of depression and suicide substantially higher." Children in public schools should not become anyone's transgender experiment. Thankfully, the alarm is being sounded by people like Ryan Anderson, who describes five reasons transgender policies are harmful.
The Heritage Foundation noted that "Biology Isn't Bigotry." And researchers last year at Israel's Weizmann Institute of Science discovered 6,500 genetic differences between men and women. Children deserve to know the truth about their genes and their gender. Transgender ideology is a clear and present danger to the mental health of children today. Simply put, it is child abuse.
Encouraging kids to impersonate the opposite sex is extremely unwise. The Wall Street Journal cited the largest study of its kind concerning those who have had sex-reassignment surgery, and found they are almost 20 times more likely to commit suicide than the rest of the population. (This 30-year study in Sweden involved 324 people.)
An expert in Australia counsels children who, in spite of the risks, think it is trendy and cool to be transgender. Stephen Stathis runs a gender clinic in Brisbane and says "many" youth are "trying out being transgender" in order to stand out. Some of them will most likely end up receiving "puberty blocking chemicals and/or sex-change hormone treatment" as part of a new, government-funded "gender service" in Australia.
A person's birth gender is not up for grabs. It was established by our Creator, regardless of any emotional struggles or gender confusion a child may experience. These individual struggles call for compassion and wisdom rather than puberty-blocking hormones and sex-change surgeries.
When a teenage girl suffers from anorexia nervosa, you don't treat her intense fear with liposuction. Likewise, gender dysphoria should not be treated with hormones and surgery. Just because a girl thinks she is overweight doesn't make it so, and just because you think you are the opposite sex doesn't make it so. The problem is psychological, and the "vast majority" of these youth will come to "accept their biological sex by late adolescence after passing naturally through puberty."
Wrong beliefs create wrong agendas. And those who believe that a person can magically transform into the opposite gender are sadly mistaken. The Washington Times published this article recently: "Growing Body of Research Rejects Transgender Movement." You see, it's possible to reject the movement while remaining sensitive and helpful toward those who experience gender dysphoria.
The transgender fad hurts children psychologically and physically, and it leaves many of those who dabble with it scarred for life. The fact that it's trendy doesn't make it less toxic. Telling the truth about gender is what will prevent America's public grade schools from becoming transgender mills. After all, parents do not send their children to school to get indoctrinated with gender myths that contradict biology and human anatomy.
Young people face enough fear and anxiety in our world today without their grade school teachers frightening them with stories of transgender experiments on children.
