Parents Stymied by Trans Hysteria

We live in a moment of time when the supposedly science-based mental health and medical establishments have been wooed, bullied, and/or buffaloed into slavish acceptance of any and all claims by troubled teenagers and even children that they have been mistakenly born into bodies of the wrong sex; girls born into the body of a boy and boys born into the body of a girl.

The Public Discourse has just published the anguished and heartbreaking stories of five mothers horrified as they watch their daughters (at least one as young as the age of 12) begin the process of transitioning to become boys.

These are not the sentiments of ultraconservative and uninformed Neanderthals. One of the mothers is a self-described lesbian and long-term, committed Democrat married to another woman; she states wisely, but with tragic irony that “We may be lesbians, but we are not confused about biology.”

Some of the common themes in the testimonies are:

  • some, but not all of the children clearly suffer from significant mental health challenges and have found comfort in discovering the “true cause” of their distress: that they are transgender;
  • all have spent significant time on the Internet or in support groups in their schools or community where “self-discovery” as a transgendered person is presented as a solution to life’s problems;
  • all have been touched by the reality of “social contagion,” the social pressure to accept the current mindset that being trans is cool, the new normal, and somehow scientifically proven;
  • all are threatened by the possibility being reported to their state’s Child Protective Services if they object to or are unsupportive of their child’s decision to transition to the other sex, which could possibly even the child being taken from their custody;
  • their befuddlement at the rush of medical and mental health professionals to accept transitioning as the solution to all distress; and
  • amazed to find, despite the reassurances of many medical “authorities,” that there is inadequate evidence about the safety and long-term benefits of puberty blocking medications or of the transitioning process itself; in other words, doctors and counselors are not on rock-solid foundations in making these treatment recommendations.

In our new book revisions, we discuss (primarily in How and When, our parent’s manual, but also in Facing the Facts) the troubling and incomplete scientific evidence on the “transgender phenomenon.” We also examine the biblical foundations for thinking through this issue. If you are not aware, there are increasing accounts of individuals who are “de-transitioning,”trying to un-do what they now understand to have been horrible decisions to change sex as a young person; see for eample this recent account in the papes of USA Today. Stay tuned.