Ben Appel is gay. He’s also fearful of what he calls:
a frightening new version of homophobia pervading the U.S., disguised as, of all things, “LGBTQ” activism.
He just wrote an important opinion piece in Newsweek.
Appel enrolled in Columbia University and started an internship with two advocacy campaigns in Maryland promoting marriage equality & transgender rights legislation. He aspired to become a social justice writer and activist. But this didn’t quite work out:
My excitement about the internship quickly gave way to a nauseating mixture of fear and shame. I was, I quickly learned, not the right kind of "queer." I was just another "cis" (short for "cisgender," a word I had never even heard until it was assigned to me, typically as a slur) gay male—in other words, a privileged and unevolved relic of the past. After all, I had my rights—the right to marry, the right to serve openly in the military, the right to assimilate into this oppressive, "cisheteronormative," patriarchal society. It was time to make way for a new generation of "queer," one that had very little to do with sex-based rights and more to do with abolishing the concepts of sex and sexuality altogether.
Continuing his studies at Columbia he was introduced to Queer Theory.
... I learned about queer theory, an obscure academic discipline based largely on the writing of the late French intellectual Michel Foucault, who believed that society categorizes people—male or female, heterosexual or homosexual—in order to oppress them. The solution is to intentionally blur—or "queer"—the boundaries of these categories. Soon this "queering" became the predominant method of discussing and analyzing gender and sexuality in universities.
Queer theorists insist that subverting the categorizations which have been imposed upon young people—for example, the sex they were "assigned" at birth—is the ultimate expression of autonomy, and further, the key to liberating society from a system devised largely, so they claim, by cisgender white men. (Never mind the scientific and cultural achievements of women and racial minorities.)
Are you seeing any connection to the things I’ve been writing on this blog? I hope so. I’m occasionally asked, why are you so concerned about this issue? Because there are deep cultural currents at work here, about which most are completely unaware. Anti-creational currents. (Writing as a Christian, of course.)
Here’s the article in Newsweek. [Standard link disclaimer1Links from this blog to online resources don’t necessarily mean I support everything found there. But as adults we should embrace viewpoint diversity. And make alliances where we can.].
It is not enough to want to help “marginalized” folk. As he did. We must also tell them the truth. And point out radical untruths. As he did.
From a Christian worldview, the radical autonomy promoted by Gender Ideologues and Queer Theorists is, to use a very old word, idolatry, pure and simple.
It is the worship of the Autonomous Self.
But the Truth is we had nothing to do with being created male or female. A loving community brought us into being. And it cannot be undone.
We must help confused people accept who they were created to be. And tell them a great story about who they could become.
Individuals with a Gender Identity Disorder (Gender-Dysphoria) need Truth-filled Love. Please read this post for more details.
For anyone interested in an extended review of the Gender-Critical Pro-Creation argument presented on this blog, but without having to scroll through every post, please visit the Menu at the top of each page and click on the Top Posts link.
Helena was introduced to Gender Ideology on the social media platform, Tumblr. As a self-described “fifteen-year-old kid playing with pronouns on Tumblr,” her life went seriously off the rails.
…what leads a girl with no history of discomfort with stereotypical “girl” toys and clothes, or even the slightest desire to be a boy in childhood, to want to be a “man” through hormonal injections as she approached adulthood? In a vacuum, such a profound confusion leading to such drastic measures sounds like it should be rare and a sign of some sort of severe mental disturbance. Was I a fluke? Was I some kind of idiot who mistakenly believed I was trans because I’m crazy or just downright irresponsible?
Helena
You can read about her journey in the link below. As you read her story notice all the co-morbitities she suffered from: e.g. eating disorder, early trauma (age 7), etc….
Yet today these issues get swept under the rug by clinicians and gender clinics (Planned Parenthood in this case) in the rush to Transition patients to their ”authentic selves.”
You might be surprised to know that according to Helena, many of today’s Social Justice Warriors who use words like “oppression” “marginalization” “equity” and “inclusion” are very much wedded in their overall objectives. Proponents of Critical Race Theory and Queer Theory, something I wrote about in a previous post, are joined at the hip with many Gender Ideologues. Here’s what Helena had to say about that:
A major aspect of Tumblr culture has always been social justice ideology. Things that are now being played out and witnessed by the general public on platforms like Twitter and TikTok, like dissociative identity disorder LARPers, demisexuals, neopronouns, otherkin, and everything you see on @LibsOfTikTok, have long existed in an uncannily identical form on tumblr.com. The oppression hierarchy of racial and gender identities now being written into law in many of our once serious nations was the state religion of the People’s Republic of Tumblr long before your political junkie uncle knew the term “CRT”. As cultish religions tend to operate, open devotion to the religion is mandatory. Perhaps the outsiders most likely to understand the way social dynamics worked on that website would be survivors of Scientology or the Jehovah’s Witnesses. On Tumblr, the situation was such that any claim to being “oppressed” would accumulate social credibility, while any unfortunate “privileged” status was justification for verbal abuse. As a “privileged” person, you were expected to constantly grovel and apologize, you had no right to speak on any issue involving the group you were “oppressing”, and you could not object in any way to any mistreatment hurled against you because of your race, gender, or sexuality.
I found myself in a bit of a double bind. On one hand, I had found what felt like the perfect group of friends who understood me on an intuitive level, who I was able to talk to openly about the things I liked and made me “weird” in real life, but on the other hand I was a “cishet white girl” in an environment where that was one of the worst things to be. Since Tumblr users are mostly biological females, the “cishet white girl” holds the position of most privileged and therefore most inherently bad group. In this climate, you are made to feel guilty and responsible for all the horrors and atrocities in the world. No hardship you could possibly go through could ever be as bad as the prejudice and genocide POC and LGBT people face every. Single. Day. Insert clap emoji. LGBT people and POC can’t even walk out of their houses without being murdered by cishet white people just like you!
So what does a disillusioned, confused privileged white girl do to become accepted in that environment?
Its understandable that any young person exposed to this kind of belief system would grow to deeply resent being white, “cis”, straight, or (biologically) male. The beauty of gender ideology is it provides a way to game this system, so that you can get some of those targets off your back and enjoy the camaraderie of like-minded youths. You can’t change your race, pretending to have a different sexuality would be very uncomfortable in practice, but you can absolutely change your gender, and it’s as easy as putting a “she/they” in your bio. Instantly you are transformed from an oppressing, entitled, evil, bigoted, selfish, disgusting cishet white scum into a valid trans person who deserves celebration and special coddling to make up for the marginalization and oppression you supposedly now face. Now not expected to do as much groveling and reaffirming to everyone how much you love checking your privilege, you can relax a little and talk about your life without wondering if you are distracting from the struggles of or speaking over marginalized groups, because you are marginalized too. With the new pronouns often comes a wave of positive affirmation from friends and followers, and the subconscious picks up quickly that there’s a way to make the deal of being on Tumblr even sweeter.
Online she could be a “fictional character in a fictional universe.” And take the target of “white privilege” off her back by “changing” who she was.
Adolescent girls are uniquely susceptible to this kind of social contagion blackmail. [See this post and this one for details.]
The adolescent brain is in a developmental stage primed to incorporate experiences into the process of identity formation, and spending so much time in fantasy without building much of an identity through real social and life experiences can lead to the identity and fantasy elements becoming indistinguishable.
Living in the Tumblr virtual universe Helena was insulated ”from experiences and perspectives that might have challenged the views I was developing about myself and the world.”
A message to all parents. Monitor your child’s social media usage. You paid for it. Also, should your child get swept into this social contagion, Embrace, Don’t Affirm. As you’ll read her mother could have handled things better, but one thing she refused to do was “affirm.” Helena’s mother is a doctor.
Helena confirms the fact about School Secrets in her article. And the ever growing Detrans community.
I remember finding the reddit r/detrans forum, which at the time had only around 100 subscribers, if memory serves me (it now has tens of thousands). This clued me in to the fact that at least a handful of people out there were feeling regret too.
This is a very in-depth article about Helena’s journey. If you want to know why there has been a huge spike in the Western world of white adolescent girls identifying as Trans, and you want to hear it from someone “on the inside” this is a must read.
She ends it by saying:
My story is not a fluke, and I am not uniquely troubled or irresponsible. What I am though, is fortunate, because there are others for whom the harm has been exponentially worse. Though there is much strength to be found in overcoming, the fact is that today, any young person who remotely struggles with self-esteem, making friends, fitting in to common gender roles, or body image is now vulnerable to being subjected to what amount to medical experiments that may permanently destroy the prior functioning of their bodies before they have had the chance to build identity and strength through the normal means of overcoming life’s challenges. I have seen firsthand that for some people, the medical and psychological damage is far beyond what could be considered a healthy amount of adversity.
If you care about this issue, please read the whole thing. Helena is a ”rose”…
For anyone interested in an extended review of the Gender-Critical Pro-Creation argument presented on this blog, but without having to scroll through every post, please visit the Menu at the top of each page and click on the Top Posts link.
In previous posts I mentioned the lack of interest in viewpoint diversity and the effort to stifle debate by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). Abigail Shrier’s recent Wall Street Journal Article provides more detail. (Somehow I avoided the paywall, so I have a few more quotes for you below).
Many of our cultural institutions are in the process of being captured by Gender Ideology. It has been a well-funded, walk through those institutions that lately became a sprint! Our school board members and many school administrators, leaders of our Academic institutions, leaders of our professional associations, business leaders, even some of our Church leaders have been won over. One need not ascribe bad motives to the “captured” leaders of these institutions. The debate has been cleverly framed to be about “civil rights” and “health care.” Certainly unobjectionable goals. But when you silo yourself off from those who have a different way of viewing the world, and reaching unobjectionable goals, it is very easy to develop social myopia. Often you find the rank and file membership does not support what the leaders are doing, but if licensing, professional credentials, employment or reputation are on the line many remain silent.
Unfortunately when it comes to the issue of Gender Ideology, and the Medicalization of Identity, our silence is harming our children.
Also recent polling shows that support for LGBTQ+ is dipping. I strongly suspect this is due to the TQ+ side of the spectrum. And the outrageous “queer theory” inspired “gender-fluid” claims being made, not to mention the uncivil actions & rhetoric exercised on behalf of those claims. Some on the LGB side acknowledge a classic case of having “overplayed our hand.”
Mostly people are waking up to the absurdity of the claim that there are more than two sexes. Or more than two genders. People are willing to accept diversity of expression and folk who do not conform to rigid stereotypes. But they insist our sexuality is not a social construct from top to bottom. There are real differences between male and female that must be recognized and celebrated. People increasingly refuse to be intimidated into accepting the absurd proposition that a man can become a woman or a woman can become a man. When I use the word “radical” this is why. I can’t think of anything more radical than the desire to dissolve the female – male sex binary, or to treat it as less than normal. Without that binary and its proper ordering we cease to exist as a species.
Those who believe they are born in the wrong body have a mental disorder. We must lovingly care for them but we can’t affirm their confusion. I encourage all of us to Embrace, Don’t Affirm.
***
Ironically, after having ridden in on the coattails of viewpoint diversity, continued diversity no longer interest Gender Ideologues. Any student of political history recognizes the pattern. Having gained power via a “free and fair election” those elected effectively abolish any future elections. The objective was power. And they intend to keep it. Although concerns about the use of violence to acquire & retain power are minimal in the Western world (notwithstanding the year of organized violence by Antifa and Black Lives Matter in some of our major cities, or the QAnon inspired radicals that stormed the Capital) other tactics, like shaming, silencing, cancelling, deplatforming, and shutting down debate have become commonplace throughout our institutional and online life. Even professional associations which support free and open inquiry based on the scientific method are shutting down debate. Why? Is the science settled?
I’m documenting some of these non-violent “shutdown” tactics on this blog as it relates to questions about Sex, Gender and Identity. As you will read below some medical professionals fear losing their jobs for speaking up. These uncivil, unprofessional capturing tactics matter.
For with the medicalization of Identity we are engaged in an outrageous experiment on our children. Many leaders in Europe are finally waking up & speaking out about this childhood experimentation. Will the leaders of North American cultural institutions listen?
***
From Shrier’s Wall Street Journal Article:
Clinicians across the West are acknowledging that the evidentiary basis supporting medical transition for kids is shaky and that hormone treatments on adolescents don’t produce significant mental-health benefits. Yet “there’s no home for that message inside U.S. medical societies,” as endocrinologist and SEGM co-founder Will Malone said.
The so-called Dutch protocol, a widely adopted standard of care that has been used to justify starting gender-dysphoric minors as young as 8 on puberty blockers, is based on a study of a narrow population: children with severe gender dysphoria since early childhood and no other mental-health comorbidities. The protocol is now being applied to a wildly different demographic—teenage girls who seem to have had no prior history of dysphoria, and who have high rates of anxiety and depression. Many young women who underwent hormone treatments and surgeries over the past decade now regret having done so; they call themselves “detransitioners.”
The AAP is “working very hard to give an appearance that everything’s been decided and there’s no debate. The growing numbers of detransitioners suggests that [pediatricians] don’t really know what we’re doing in this case,” said Julia Mason, a pediatrician, SEGM adviser and AAP fellow.
The National Peanut Board, Gideon International (bible distributors), and Infinity Massage Chairs were able to secure booths to present their “point of view.” But not the Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine. [See my next post for more details about their work]
“We show up with a valid argument, we’re not politically or ideologically driven,” Dr. Malone said. “Other countries, more liberal countries, have already come to the conclusion that we should have come to as a country years ago. And yet, because we can’t open this debate in any form . . . the debate is not occurring and kids are being harmed.”
Many of the pediatricians I spoke to for this article say they fear professional retribution because of their viewsand asked not to be identified. In March, one of them submitted a proposed resolution, seconded by an AAP leader, asking that the AAP re-evaluate its commitment to affirmative care in light of the growing international skepticism about this treatment protocol for children and adolescents. Among the group’s membership, the resolution received wide approval: 80% of responding pediatricians indicated that they supported it, according to Dr. Mason. “What we’re dealing with is institutional capture,” she said. “The leadership is not in the same place as the membership.”
Dr. Malone, the endocrinologist, points out that they didn’t even apply for the opportunity to debate current protocols. They simply wanted to staff a booth: “This is baby stuff. Set up a booth and hand out some information? No, we can’t even do that.”Source: Abigail Shrier, Wall Street Journal, Aug 9, 2021 [emphasis mine]
In Europe a major shift away from body altering treatments and surgeries for those under 18 couldn’t come soon enough for those of us convinced these alterations subvert God’s creational design.
Will American medicine follow that most welcomed development?
***
If you’ve just found my blog and are intrigued about this issue, and want to learn more, I highly recommend the book by Abigail Shrier.
Shrier is a graduate of Columbia College who went on to earn a bachelor of philosophy degree from the University of Oxford and a JD from Yale Law School. Her book Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughterswas named a “best book” by The Economist and The Times of London. [2020, 2021]
