An autobiographical essay by Steven A Richards, a “male-to-female” trans person who regretted his decision, and has “detransitioned” after having done a deep dive to purify himself.
It didn’t work.
You will read about what drove him to reject his manhood.
“The Great Castration” by Jeheme is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
Here are a few graphs.
I was terrified of what testosterone was doing to me. I didn't want to be a man. I didn't want to be big and hairy. Men scared me. I’d seen my mom assaulted when I was young, and I didn’t want to be like the man who’d done that to her. The idea of testosterone poisoning made sense to me because maleness itself terrified me. I'd been bullied a lot in school by other boys, and a lot of that bullying involved sexual abuse–groping, inappropriate touching, striking my butt and genitals, and verbal harassment (wolf-whistling amd yelling sexual comments at me). These, I felt, weren’t the sorts of things that happened to men. My suffering was only legible if I was a woman.
This background made me vulnerable to the ideology of transgenderism. I had no friends in high school and spent a lot of time online, and I was exposed to the burgeoning social justice/woke movement before it entered the mainstream. When I connected to the internet, I was inundated with messages about the violence of maleness. This wasn't just "toxic masculinity"--I saw feminists saying all masculinity was toxic, that all men were rapists, all men were oppressors, all men should be killed. As a white man, I was directly responsible for all of the oppression experienced by women and people of color. I was fourteen years old and had never been in a fight in my life or said a racist or misogynistic word to anyone, but I believed that the circumstances of my birth made me a monster. I wasn't mentally mature enough to think critically about these ideas, or to take them as anything but literal fact. (Literal thinking is common among autistic people, and I would be diagnosed with autism a few years later.) I believed, all the way down to my core, that all men were evil and all women were unimpeachably virtuous. This was black-and-white thinking; it’s one of the reasons why so many autistic people are transitioning. I believed that my very existence was sinful.
Wink Wink Boutique in Bellingham, Washington says:
“We believe that normalizing, accepting, and affirming all bodies, identities, and gender experiences is an inherently political act. Pleasure is our revolution,” reads Wink Wink’s website.
Mason also sells breast binders for girls and ‘penis packers‘ for teens — silicone members intended for adolescent girls — and provides in-store fittings. In addition, she sells ‘transmasc pumps‘ designed to extend female anatomy by means of suction; included with the product is a ruler to measure size.
Full story here, including descriptions of some of the sex-education books on display for children.
You know, running for the School Board in your area is one response to all of this. Just one.
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Is this the world we want to live in?
I’m a Classic Christian and regard Gender Ideology as anti-creational to the core. This blog is about “God’s Good Creation.” That’s why I’m writing about Gender Ideology. And “speaking up” as I’m confident Jesus would.
"Have you not read that the one who made them at the beginning 'made them male and female.'" [Matt 19:4]
If you would like more detail on how my Christian worldview informs my understanding of Sex and today’s Gender Ideology please read the following posts.
All over the country in the last 9 months, parents and politicians are calling on School Boards to remove objectionable material from their schools. For example, Gov Greg Abbott of Texas sent a letter to the state’s school board association saying public schools shouldn’t distribute “pornographic or obscene material.”
School Districts all around the country are removing objectionable material from their school libraries. Some call this “book banning.”
You are not banning a book by restricting the distribution of the book to minors. Is Playboy, or Penthouse, or Hustler, etc., being BANNED because you have to be 18 to purchase/view those publications?
No.
Two books in particular are being taken off school library shelves. Gender Queer, A Memoir by Maia Kebabe & Lawn Boy by Jonathan Evison.
Kobabe and Evison noted during recent interviews an irony of their books being targeted: Neither set out to write a story for young people. But they gained a following among students with the help of the American Library Association, which has given each book an Alex Award for works "written for adults that have special appeal to young adults, ages 12 through 18." - USA Today
OK put on your parent’s “hat” and ask yourself, is this appropriate material for ages 12-18? We’ll just look at the first one. Kebabe was born female. But identifies as Non-Binary.
Yes, I know, 12-18 year olds access material far more graphic than this on their Smartphones.
Still, to have an institution of learning, our public school libraries, institutions put in place by our tax dollars, to have them supporting the distribution of material like this gives that material our tacit approval.
Some parents may approve. But the majority will not. And the rights of those parents deserve to be respected.
One parent at a Chicago School Board meeting said: “It’s not your right to decide if our minor children should have access to pornography.”
You could argue about the “pornography” bit, but most would agree this is inappropriate material for TWELVE YEAR OLDS!
When one school board member in Spotsylvania County Virginia suggested “those books” should be tossed in a fire, NPR finished their article about this with the words: “Book Burning was a practice perpetuated in Nazi Germany in order to oppress authors and ideas that were in opposition to Nazi ideology.”
Things are heating up.
Almost everyone would be opposed to book burning. That’s not what this is about. Book banning, either. Again…
You are not banning a book by restricting the distribution of the book to minors. Is Playboy, or Penthouse, or Hustler, etc., being BANNED because you have to be 18 to view those publications? No.
Parents. Get to know what is going on in your schools. And exercise your civic rights on behalf of your children.
It’s time to bring School Choice back into our political discussions.
Many today call for public education reform so that the money “follows the student” instead of going to designated school districts, some of which are failing academically, as well as failing to live up to the historic in loco parentis1in place of the parent expectation. These reformers insist the 1964 Civil Right’s Act anti-discrimination guidelines will still be followed, guidelines which specifically reference “race, color, religion, national origin” and “sex” discrimination. Nobody wants to “turn back the clock” on those advances. Practical matters like transportation issues can be worked out. These reformers say, let the parents pick the schools on a rational geographic basis. If your local school is “preaching” a gender ideology that you as a parent disagree with, then you should have the flexibility to send your child elsewhere. Just like in Sweden, where the money follows the child. You are not locked into a particular school simply because of where you live. We need to allow parents creative choice solutions to a very real and for them disturbing trend in education.
I would personally support something like the Swedish education model without disregarding the religious “free exercise” clause in our Constitution. A clause which supports freedom of religion, not freedom from religion. Otherwise, we would veer off into anti-religious bigotry. A very real concern these days.
Here is an interesting link about the Swedish Culture and Economy. We have been told that Swedish society is based on a socialist model. Well, that was then. 30 years ago. This is now. At around 33:43 into the video, they start talking about how the Swedes do public education. But you might want to watch the whole thing.
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Some think this too extreme, which given the current state of public education in America, I don’t know why you wouldn’t want to experiment with different solutions.
I know many public school educators. I have great respect for most of them. But, I’ve personally witnessed more than a few inadequate teachers, administrators and failing schools. So if you think American parents will accept this new understanding of in loco parentis2In Place of the Parent and simply roll with gender ideology, you might be mistaken. After the remote learning experience of the last 2 years & the unwillingness of schools to reopen, many parents are deciding to pull the plug on the current local school option, if at all possible.
Obviously for most parents this is not feasible. But if the money followed the student they just might vote with their feet. And I wouldn’t blame them.
