February 23, 2022
Gender Dysphoria, the Latest Threat to Parental Rights
By Anna Pearson
When I was growing up, I knew I was a girl because I was born with XX chromosomes and female sex and reproductive organs. My parents didn’t have a lot of money, so they dressed me in gender neutral clothing to be able to pass down to my next sibling. I enjoyed playing cars with my brother and imaginary makeup games. I never had any interest in dolls, but I liked to wear dresses and appreciated pretty things. Does this mean I was meant to be a boy? Later I had four boys of my own. I dressed them in “boy colors,” but snuck in a few pink shirts (because I love the color). My boys were active and imaginative, and over the years each of them tried on my high heel shoes, got into my makeup, and put on one of my skirts. Does this mean they should have been girls?
Progressive culture has changed the term “sex” from being biologically male or female, to “assigned male or female at birth.” Planned Parenthood (PP) now teaches that being male or female is more than what a person’s sexual and reproductive anatomy is. PP and other mainstream organizations insist that choosing to be male or female is an expression of what you feel like, how you dress, and how you express yourself. Gender is a social and legal status; it is a choice.
Do we no longer have the right to raise our children by the biological sex they were born to? What is going on in the world and how do we protect our children and our rights as parents?
Hurting the Majority in the Name of the (Very Small) Minority
I’m sure we can agree that we should be kind to all people, but that does not mean we must change how we raise our children and what we teach them. The Equality Act and other mandates (see Executive Order on Preventing and Combating Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity or Sexual Orientation) will and are taking away our rights and making the majority more vulnerable. Biden gave a speech directed at LGBTQ youth, saying “your president has your back.” From a distance, this looks compassionate, but if you take a closer look, you realize what is being compromised and at risk. His administration promotes gender “affirmation”, which includes life-altering hormones and surgical treatments, even for our youth. Just look at Rachel Levine, Secretary of Health and Human Services, himself a transwoman, who has advocated sex-altering surgeries for children questioning their sexuality for almost a decade.
Biden’s administration also supports non-binary and trans bathrooms, which are dangerous. Recently a 15-year old girl was assaulted in the girl’s school bathroom by a young boy who identified as female. Men and women, boys and girls, have a right to single-sex spaces, where they can feel comfortable and secure (See the article A school horror story that didn’t fit the narrative, by Tony Perkins.)
Under this ideology men can also infiltrate women’s spaces such as women prisons, shelters, dressing rooms, locker rooms, and single sex-dorms. Earlier this year the Los Angeles Times covered a story on a transgender woman at a Spa, who exposed his penis in areas reserved for women. There is also the matter of males dominating female sports because they can now compete against women, which is not only unfair, but unsafe!
In the name of love and equality, our government is elevating the rights of the small minority, but in doing so the large majority are losing their rights and safety. It is discrimination against the most vulnerable. Women and children are put in situations that are not safe, and where they don’t feel comfortable. Biology teacher, Miriam Cates MP communicated that we are living in a society where believing in the science of biological sex is being taken from us.
There must be limits with what we accept and encourage, especially for our youth. An alternate reality should not be endorsed to those suffering with gender dysphoria, and it should certainly not be prompted or promoted with our children. Yet the mainstream voices of today are advocating name/pronoun changes, hormone therapy, even medical and surgical procedures (often without parents knowledge). The hormone therapy/surgery makes lifelong patients for the medical industry, which has been quick to hop on board the “affirmation” train. It is a sad reality that society is encouraging this, but shameful that the majority are expected to conform to it as well.
Is Government the Biggest Gender Threat to Our Children?
We live in a world of commotion, especially for our children, as they are forced to question their gender and sexual preference and are expected to affirm the gender dysphoria of others as well. Is government the biggest gender threat to our confused and afflicted children? You might be surprised that most of the threat to parental rights in regards to their children’s gender is currently coming from individual state policies.
Do you know what is going on in your state that threatens the safety of your children? Do you know who is safe to talk to if your child struggles with depression, suicidal thoughts, eating disorders, autism and other things? Only a few years ago the United States had three gender clinics, but as some states have begun to affirm gender transition in our youth, we now have over 50 gender clinics hoping for your child’s business. In an article for the Heritage Foundation, Emilie Kao disclosed that these gender clinics have reported a 400 percent increase in children identifying as trans. When an Ohio judge terminated one couple’s parental rights, he admitted it was “concerning” that Cincinnati Children’s Hospital’s Transgender Health Clinic “deemed 100 percent of the patients seeking care to be ‘appropriate’ candidates for continued gender treatment.”
A few states, such as Michigan and Arkansas, are protecting children from puberty blockers, hormones, and youth transition surgeries, and have made it illegal to treat children before the age of 18. Other states, however, encourage children and shut parents out, as Abigail Shrier explains in her article, When the State Comes for Your Kids. These states have also changed the definition of abuse and neglect. Now abuse means physical harm, and “not affirming a child’s newly proclaimed gender identity,” because it is putting their “mental health” at risk. Parents are expected to support and encourage their children’s gender dysphoria by allowing their children to begin hormone therapy and sex changes, now coined “gender affirming care”.
In Abigail’s article, she shared a story of parents in Washington who checked their conflicted son into a Seattle hospital for threats of suicide, and because of COVID, were not allowed to remain with their son. They thought they were helping their son by admitting him, but soon found out they might not be able to get him back. Their first updates from the hospital were through email, which referred to their “daughter” and the need to take “her” to a gender clinic to get her on puberty blockers. They had a son struggling because of the COVID lockdown and now, with the help of hospital “specialists,” ideas were being put into his head that his troubles were really due to gender dysphoria. Without the ability to contact their son, the parents felt helpless. What could they do? They got in touch with a lawyer and psychiatrist who counseled them to go along with everything that was being advised by the hospital and child services. Only after they agreed with the treatment did the hospital release their son to them. (In the state of Washington any child over the age of 13 does not need parental approval to move forward with gender transition, and the hospital emails were a mere courtesy.) The father quit his job and moved his family out of state. His son started therapy and has since worked through his depression and suicidal thoughts. He is now happy with who he is and in life.
Another story Abigail shared is about Nicole, the mother of a 16-year old daughter who had an eating disorder as well as depression. She took her daughter to the hospital because of suicidal threats. The daughter was so angry about being admitted that she refused to go home with her mom. The hospital then put the daughter in a shelter and began to coach her on transgenderism. Nicole was not allowed to speak to her daughter over the phone unless her daughter wanted to talk. Fortunately, she had access to her daughter’s texts and it became clear that the shelter was assisting her daughter in legal emancipation with the help of a lawyer provided by the shelter. If it had been successful, the shelter would have been her new legal guardian. In the end it took eight officers to remove Nicole’s daughter forcibly from the shelter. Nicole then moved from Washington to Arizona and checked her daughter into a treatment center for suicidality and depression.
These stories sound extreme, but it gets even worse. Recently an Ohio judge removed a child from her biological parents’ custody. The parents wanted to start with counseling for gender dysphoria before any other significant decisions were made. Because the parents would not help her “transition” to male with testosterone supplements, they lost custody. The county prosecutor then charged them with abuse and neglect.
Oregon passed a law allowing children aged 15 and up access to puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and transgender-sex surgeries, all at taxpayers’ expense and without parental consent. California has similar laws for 12 and up and is now trying to pass a law that prohibits health insurers from giving information to parents on their dependents, but they still must pay the bill! These and other states are implementing policies or legislations that limit parents’ rights and consequently hurt children.
In the article, Uninformed Consent: The Transgender Crisis, Paul McHugh and Gerard Bradley state, “Children cannot make these choices and should be protected from them.” They point out that studies have shown, given time, 85-90 percent of children abandon their gender dysphoria and live normal healthy lives if they are not treated with drugs and surgeries. “They outgrow their sense of being in the ‘wrong body‘ and come to live peacefully being the male or female they were found to be at birth.” Neither parent nor child can safely make such a momentous decision that will affect the rest of their child’s life.
What About the Equality Act?
In addition to all of these state threats is the federal Equality Act, which has passed in the House and is awaiting a vote in the Senate. The Equality Act is often misrepresented, and most Americans are misinformed on what it encompasses (see the article What do Americans Actually Think About the Equality Act and Religious Liberty? If the bill goes through, it will be alarming to discover that we signed up for destructive gender ideology in education, biological males participating in female sports, enforced LGBTQ curriculums, opening up girls’ private spaces for boys who “identify” as girls, a gender-identity agenda as potentially mandatory for medical professionals, radical gender ideology in civil rights law, and the overpowering of religious, speech, parental and associational freedoms. That’s a lot to be concerned about! If the Equality Act is voted in, all states will be forced to follow what some radical states have already begun implementing. There will be no safe place for parents to go.
The challenges facing our children are not going to be solved with a leader who says he’s “got your back” to our confused children while affirming dangerous and life-altering gender transitioning, in addition to many other harmful policies. Parents, we need to know what is going on where we live and have a plan for protecting our children and families.
Here are a few additional resources:
Lastly, if you live in a country or state that imposes upon parental rights and promotes autonomy for children, be very careful when selecting the professionals in which you place your trust.
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Anna Pearson, is a senior at Brigham Young University-Idaho and will graduate this year with her undergrad in Marriage and Families Studies. She has been married for eight years and is the mother of four boys. Anna is passionate in her advocacy for the Family!