Child Care - God’s Good Creation

July 17, 2022July 24, 2022

We’re In Danger of Losing Our Way

“GeekGirlCon pronoun pins” by GeekGirlCon is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

Opinion: When it comes to trans youth, we’re in danger of losing our way

Erica E. Anderson, Ph.D. is the former president of the United States Professional Association for Transgender Health, former board member of WPATH and is writing a book on the evolution of the science, practice and culture dealing with transgender healthcare; she is based in Berkeley.

Erica is also a Trans-woman.

Although I would not as a Christian affirm the idea that you can be born in the wrong body, I acknowledge that some adults like Anderson may choose Transition as an option to alleviate their discomfort with the body God gave them (and their earthly father as well) ¹.

I would hope they would not ask me to pay for that option which includes expensive surgeries and cross-hormone therapy for the rest of their life.

Anderson, a former president of the top transgender health organization in the U.S. is highly critical of today’s trans-lobby. Anderson has written an important opinion piece in the San Francisco Examiner.

[Standard link disclaimer²]

Some grab graphs

As a trans woman and therapist to trans and gender creative people, I’ve worked hard to advance acceptance of trans identities, including those of trans youth. But increasingly I’m worried that in our zeal to identify and protect these special children and adolescents, we may have strayed from some core principles and we are in danger of losing our way.

In this extraordinary time during a global pandemic, we have all been subject to extra stress to stay vigilant and avoid COVID and all its variants. Young people have pivoted to remote learning and stayed at home for in many cases more than an entire academic year, depriving them of ordinary social experiences. As a result, most adolescents have also depended upon social media and the internet to an extent never before seen.

We are learning some worrisome things about this massive, unplanned social experiment. Even the tech giants have conceded in their own research that there is a new kind of addiction/attraction to certain content and a kind of contagion among select groups, especially adolescent girls. Increased rates of depression and suicide, declines in dating and sexual activity, more reported loneliness and feelings of being left out, lower rates of involvement in extracurricular activities and surprisingly less sleep all characterize the current generation of adolescents. These trends seem to be accelerating in the era of the smartphone.

There is little question that reliance on screens and devices has isolated adolescents who may be most vulnerable and susceptible to peer and other influences, intensifying their usage of and reliance on whatever messages and images they see. I am concerned that our computer-mediated, always online environment is creating isolated echo chambers that can work on adolescents in an insidious way. And I believe that it’s been worse during COVID.

For example, some content on YouTube and TikTok includes “influencers,” who themselves are barely out of puberty. They dispense advice to other young people, specifically encouraging them to explore their gender identity freely.

On the one hand, I’m glad our society has evolved toward greater acceptance of all LGBTQ identities. On the other hand, some of the messaging has landed on vulnerable youth searching not just for keys to their own identity but solutions to other psychological and emotional problems, including serious psychiatric problems.

Here is where things may have gone wrong.

I wouldn’t use the word “may” but read the whole thing.

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Love Cannot Affirm Confusion, But It Can Embrace

July 15, 2022July 15, 2022

California Weighs Gender-Transition Bill for Youths Beyond Its Borders

I’ve highlighted Erin Brewer before. If you haven’t heard her story it’s really worth the time. Then come back and get informed about what some California legislators are hoping to do by listening to the 30 minute podcast below.

Always Erin

“Surgery Image 2” by UCDMedicine is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

California is moving ahead with a bill that would offer gender-transition medical treatment not just to in-state children, but also to kids across America.

Here is Erin Brewer on the conservative podcast, the Daily Signal. She is a great advocate for protecting children. Her personal experience as a former trans-kid is riveting.

You can find the transcript here if you want to read along.

[Standard link disclaimer¹]

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July 10, 2022July 9, 2022

Creating Fragile Children

Lisa Selin Davis in her recent article continues an ongoing theme of this blog; Coddling Generation Safety Blankey.

Coddling Generation Safety Blankey? Or Affirming Shared Truths?

College Students Demand Protection From Words and Ideas

Young Woman in Profile by Odilon Redon – 1910
National Gallery of Art

Davis, a parent of a gender non-conforming girl, who was frequently mistaken for a boy, has some astute recommendations for “snowplow parents” and the fragile kids they create.

Here are a few graphs.

While some advocates of gender-affirming medicine and gender-identity ideology insist they are saving the lives of vulnerable children, in practice much of what’s taught to kids today about gender—especially the conflation of gender nonconformity with gender dysphoria—suggests to masculine girls and feminine boys that they need to “fix” themselves through medical or psychological interventions that have some irreversible effects, without guaranteed benefits.

There are many possible reasons why this is happening, including the lobbying efforts of transgender and civil rights groups, and the institutional incentives created by federal laws like the recent White House executive order on “affirming care.” But I believe another reason is our national zeitgeist shift toward snowplow parenting, in which parents believe their job is to clear obstacles out of their children’s way rather than to equip them with the skills to navigate those obstacles. We are terrified of our children’s suffering and teach them to be terrified of it, too.

The lessons children are learning about gender in schools, from our culture and on social media, may leave them fragile and thin-skinned, unprepared to withstand pain and conflict and confusion. Take, for instance, misgendering—in the alterworld of Twitter, it’s a worse crime than, say, libeling someone, which is the lifeblood that powers the platform. Children are being taught that misgendering is violence, that every person must be treated exactly as he or she (or they) wishes to be by others or else they’ve experienced discrimination, and that people who violate these rules must be punished, whatever their intent. Children are being taught that feelings are facts. That figurative violence is literal violence.

Most of the time, misgendering means “correctly sexing”—identifying someone by their biological sex, not their gender identity. This can cause a very small percentage of people with intense gender dysphoria deep distress, but doesn’t mean children should learn that they’ve hurt—no, harmed—someone if they misgender them. I don’t want children to be disrespectful, but if they’re disrespected, I don’t want them to melt into a puddle and demand vengeance. I don’t want them to learn that they need to weaken others to feel strong.

Children are learning that sex and sex stereotypes are interchangeable, that rejecting stereotypes means rejecting your body. Or they are not learning about sex stereotypes; the popular gender teaching tool, the Genderbread Person, makes no mention of them. They’re learning that puberty is an aesthetic choice they can make based on their level of discomfort; they are learning that discomfort cannot be withstood.

[emphasis added]

Read the whole thing: The Real Risks of Gender Education

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