I acknowledge the existence of transgenderism. I do not understand it, but I recognize it is real. I look at empirical data and find that gender identification and sexual orientation are often confused. I read imagery of the brain including functional MRI. There is little variation across gene pools or cultures. Some cultures are more accepting of "the other" than the average.
Best data available says 0.5% to 1.3% are transgender; geographic clusters might exist, but they appear to be a very recent phenomenon. I talked with LGBTQ-EIEIO teens occasionally. I also spoke with cross-dressers and female impersonators.
I counseled self-identified transgendered patients and offered reassurance that this was not typical, but also not abnormal. It's all part of the continuum of human sexuality. I helped them deal with the issue of being marginalized by people who think they have the moral high ground to make decisions about people they've never met.
Well, a tiny number of people have a mental illness that maybe means they have medical changes made to them but it does not alter their sex. It is the best of bad choices for them - maybe. This does not require that all of society be upended, reality denied, language messed with for everyone else, and children taught a whole Ideology around gender. Girls in particular are being destroyed in large numbers right now at a time when they are not capable of good judgement. First comes the psych destruction in school. That preps them for the medical. Politicians are either riding it for political gain or afraid to touch it. Have you looked at the different states under https://genspect.org/local ?
Very few have a problem with being kind to the tiny number who have a problem. Does "Proud Democrat" sound kind and understanding?
People can live productive lives with all manner of mental illnesses and destigmatizing mental illness is one thing but GI as taught in schools is a cult.
Oh, poor you! You might be asked to call someone them, seems like such a horrible thing to ask of one! /sarcasm. Girls are not being destroyed, you are insane and I am glad that your view is irrelevant.
But you know it has crossed over into the realm of a whole ideology when people are pushed to use words like "they" to refer to a singular person. It is madness that this cult religion is promoted in school systems and universities where it slides in under "diversity counseling". It's even a lucrative business to give lectures and have jobs just about telling everyone who to follow the religion with the right language. Then, there is the enormous amount of money being made by big pharma, bad therapists, and surgeons without scruples. Other religions are not promoted as fact/science in schools.
It sounds to me like PD and his father are both unhinged people. But, the issue is that society has allowed itself to be turned upside down but the likes of such folks. There is a certain amount of predation to the whole thing. "Lets have secret names and pronouns at school and then you must leave your family. They are bad people with WrongThink."
Another bad thing about it is the way in which kids are lead along a path with little steps - each one seeming like not such a big deal to them. Perfectly regular teen girls might take up "they" to be cool and have pals. They have dropped "she". After awhile it becomes less of a big step to go from "they" to "he". I've seen it plenty of times now.
Grooming the teens at an age when they are forming their identities involves a series of small steps over time, where each step in itself does not seem such a big deal to them. Then, they are at the point where they think GI non-believers are bad. And, you have all the online AGP predators suggesting "I'll be your mommie." There is a strong suggestion to grow away from/leave those who love you whether physically or even just mentally. Gender Identity Ideology as taught in the schools along with the secret pronoun use sets the kids on this path. Many are getting out of the cult all the time now. As those numbers grow and minds mature this issue will become impossible to ignore.
YOu may not like it but it is not madness. but you are a SELFISH person to ruin the lives of others simply due to the fact they are not what you want them to be.
Diversity, inclusion and non-discrimination are the way we operate a decent society. You want to control others to do your wishes, and whine to high heaven about having to say "them" vs "he or she. Oh the horror! GMAFB lady
And who is my father? He has been dead for a long time, but he too was a racist and a bigot. So I don't miss him much I'll admit.
That’s good. You’re following in his footsteps. Like father like son. You are racist bigot who hates women for extra women credit and will be missed by exactly no one. 😂😂😂😂
But you are fun to laugh at. Seriously, the level of entitlement and complete ignorance you embody is better satire than the fictional characters the best writers at the onion or babbalon bee could dream up.
I appreciate the good laugh - and your willingness to keep ranting for our amusement. 😂🤣😂🤣😂
I agree that it's not typical but "abnormal" is a loaded term... We ought certainly to help people with these issues live productive lives without agreeing to reshape society with some sort of unreality. The below might be helpful:
The first group is composed of ‘androphilic’ (sometimes termed ‘homosexual’) trans women, who are exclusively sexually attracted to men and are markedly feminine in behaviour and appearance from a young age. They typically begin the process of medical transition before the age of 30.
The second group are motivated to transition as a result of what Blanchard termed ‘autogynephilia’: a sexual orientation defined by sexual arousal at the thought or image of oneself as a woman. Autogynephiles are typically sexually attracted to women, although they may also identify as asexual or bisexual. They are more likely to transition later in life and to have been conventionally masculine in presentation up until that point.
There’s a critical difference between autogynephilia and most other sexual orientations: Most other orientations aren’t erotically disrupted simply by being labeled. When you call a typical gay man homosexual, you’re not disturbing his sexual hopes and desires. By contrast, autogynephilia is perhaps best understood as a love that would really rather we didn’t speak its name. The ultimate eroticism of autogynephilia lies in the idea of really becoming or being a woman, not in being a natal male who desires to be a woman.
Blanchard: "Modern trans activists reframed transsexualism/transgenderism as a political problem rather than a clinical problem. The flat denial that autogynephilia exists became a canon of modern trans activism, trans activism become a sub-department of the Social Justice Movement, and the Social Justice Movement became a primary combatant in the ongoing, pervasive Culture Wars."
As for the large number of trans identified teens, they are mostly caught up in an ideology being pushed online and in schools. They have no life experience with which to evaluate anything and it's very harmful when teachers gaslight them.
Agreed, but the problem is that teenagers are very susceptible to this narrative (it all sounds the same) and it is actively taught in schools and promoted in Gay-Straight "Alliance" groups for minors with little life experience.
I think the issue is not whether we have pity for the PDs (which I do) but that we have given the PDs access to the children & teens out of something like a lack of societal immune system or a desire to signal virtue. The AGPs can reconcile their universe with reality so they want to warp life for everyone else without concern for collateral damage.
Though the first guy to get "non-binary" on a driver's license (in FL) - Jamie S. has since regretted it.
Have you even read the articles? Your response is arrogant and specious. Children shouldn't be drugged, mutilated, or pressured. By people such as yourself.
It is child poisoners such as yourself who resort to ad hominem insults. Anyone pointing out your fetish to mutilate children needs "meds". Have you ever been convicted of molesting a child?
Children shouldn't be drugged, mutilated, or pressured. Neither should teens or young adults. Yet they are. We have to stop it!!
We need to end having mentally ill middle aged men who get excited about the thought of themselves as women (a fetish) stop influencing our education, medical, and legal systems/policies. Gender Ideology is promoted in schools. It is a total cult. We must recognize this as a mental illness for a tiny few (old guys like Bruce ("Caitlyn") Jenner, Richard ("Rachael" Levine and James ("Jennfier") Pritzker - not an "authentic" identity like they have an inner opposite sex-soul inside them or something. The kids get told it's science and that their non-progressive parents are bad. Once their minds are won over by groomers who separate them mentally from parents they are on a path and the legal and medical systems are on board with it. It's like the Chinese Cultural Revolution in the US. I am fighting very hard to save our daughter who is not physically harmed at this time. It is frustrating that until your family is hit with it people think it's a fringe issue/not a big deal. Ha ha about all the funny pronouns (language of a cult). There is no such thing as Gender outside of Sex which is Binary. Where are the doctors and politicians (beyond Tom Cotton) to shout about this?
Gender ID and sexual orientation are two different things. I do find many are ignorant of what people go through confuse them often, and many seem to really really hate the trans folks more than all and are actively working to make their lives as miserable as possible. Even preventing them from using a bathroom!
If you feel as you printed, why on earth are you supporting this bigoted woman?
I don’t hate trans people, I simply recognize no amount of drugs or gender mutilation will make someone a different gender/ sex than their chromosomes. I’m tired of misogynist trying to claim my immutable identity as a woman. No male can ever be a “real” girl or woman and telling them they can is delusional, not loving. It’s also cruel to actual women and girls who have a right to sex-specific sports and private places. To claim otherwise is misogynistic.
I won’t call a white woman a Black woman no matter how strongly a blue-eyed woman “feels” she’s Black. Likewise, I won’t call a human with Y chromosomes a “woman” no matter how much he wants me to because he is NOT a woman.
I was not talking to you lady. And I find your views bigoted and harmful to others and selfish! Why DO YOU GIVE A SHIT if a person born male feels they are a woman and transitions, what BUSINESS IS IT OF YOURS?
And your analogy with race only highlights your ignorance and bigotry.
You will never win your battle to stop others from being themselves, so give it up
Because she is not denying that transgenderism exists, merely pointing out that the current climate supports politicizing the issue and demands that all claims be unquestioned. When an individual's claim is held to be unassailable, and anyone who requests further examination is demonized, we've left the universe of cognition and entered the realm of cyberonanistic fantasy.
“Proud Democrat” is proud to erase women……….. should be more like “typical misogynistic Democrat.” The Democrat party hated women and minorities 100 years ago and they still hate them today. All that’s changed is they now hate children too!!!!!
Her rabid fans sure as hell are denying it exists, and want no questions, they want to never see or have to deal with trans individuals again and want to deny their existence, or at the very least make their lives miserable. And I have no idea what your made up word means, and do not really care.
My rules are to let people live their lives as they wish, and stop these religious moms, who homeschool or send their kids to religious schools that allow discrimination to stay the hell out of CA public schools and our policies.
The knee-jerk groupthink response to your reporting is so predictable.
If you disagree on a sensitive topic, you must of course be one of the Bad Guys, an enemy to poor struggling children everywhere. There can be “no debate” when it comes to the gender questioning kids (or even those who were just roped into the club).
But the point is, these teachers are trying to get kids to attend a club and hide the conversations from their parents. And the justification for this is an assumption that it needs to stay secret from the parents, because any parent who would object to teachers’ secret conversations with their kids about sexuality are Bad Guys too.
Either you agree with the current ideology 100% no questions asked, or you’re a bad person who’s up to no good.
You’d think the San Francisco Chronicle would be above such childish thinking but no. That why so many people are reading Substack.
The law in CA prohibits teachers from outing kids to anyone without their consent, PERIOD. No one is trying to make teens do anything or hiding things from parents. If you want to have a real debate, DO NOT LIE about what is actually the situation. If you do not like CA law, move or try to change it, but you will never do the latter, as bigotry against trans people is not acceptable in this state.
Yes - the same law that allows erect men to wonder around naked minor girls. The same law that let’s male rapist be housed with real women. CA is regressive, cruel, and crime ridden. Owning slaves was once legal too. That CA made child gender mutilation legal does not make it moral.
You don’t even have children! Who are you to have any day at all in this conversation?
Your like a drug addict making themselves feel better by getting other people addicted. You are damaged and damaging kids makes you feel better. Your miserable so your seeking company.
You know nothing about me, but I see you get wet in your pants when you insult others. I think you really do get off when you harm or anger others. Today's GOP is a cult and the only hope is our justice system stopping the traitors from doing any more damage
I see you for the moronic ranting loser you are. I’m treating you to the lightweight version of how you have treated others in every single ridiculous rant you’ve made you irrelevant little tiny pointless thing. 😂🤣🤣😂🤣
Are you too fragile and snowflake-like to take a lightweight version of the hate you spew? Are you really so dumb and delusional as to think you are “entitled” to fling ridiculous insults and rants at people you don’t agree with, but we won’t laugh you back into what ever bat poop stupid hole you crawled out of?
Keep it coming you sad little it. I find it amusing. And thus far, despite calling people “bitch” over and over, the agreement in the ratio is that you’re the little bitch. What’s your ratio looking like irrelevant Democrat? Done throwing temper tantrums over other people’s kids??? Done pointlessly demanding that which will NEVER be yours? Done making a complete and total fool of yourself?
If you lied then I apologize for taking you at your word. You said your mom kicked you out when she left the Dem party. You also claimed to be 60. That would make you almost 50 when she booted you. You CLEARLY have no children or friends or brain.
Please, keep commenting. But at least keep your story straight.
Goodness Proud Democrat, read - read - read. I am a northern Cal democrat and I read about the number of women being harmed and raped in California prisons by male pretending to be women. Wi Spa - a guy who is a convicted sex offender pranced around with his wee wee out in front of children. Read, think, follow science. What happened to our party? We believed in science - climate change etc. Remember that. Now, people with penises can be women because they think it. Nonsense utter nonsense. I voted for same sex marriage. I voted D my whole life not anymore. Let parents parent. Teachers teach math and reading. California sterilized mentally ill folks 30 years ago. It is doing it again. Sterilizing gender dysphoric kids and gay kids. Love thyself as one was born. It just isn't possible to be born in the wrong body. A fact is a fact is a fact is a fact.
Sexualizing 7 year olds is sick and damaging. I’m only 39, but ANY teacher talking about sex with my 7-year old will be going to jail and sued into poverty. I’m soooo glad my kids are not in public school. This is heartbreaking. A kid crush is just that - not something for some manipulative and abusive “teacher” to delve deeper into with a little kid!!!!! This is so destructive. I don’t know any parents who would care if their kid is gay. I also don’t know any parents that see anything positive in sexualizing little kids. These people are sick.
Gender Ideology is common in private schools as well these days. And, the laws in some states work against parents. That said, the California Teachers Association (CTA) ought to be disbanded.
It is, but not in academically elite conservative private Christian schools……. At least not the one mine go to.
A local Catholic school did let an 8th grader openly transition to a “they/ their” pre-pandemic. The sad thing about that was the parents never celebrated this great little girl for doing great in school, being a kind person, being a talented musician. But, once they convinced her to claim she was “not a gender” they ran to legally change her name, threw parties, celebrated her on Facebook. Cheered how this lost 8th grade girl “had found their true self.” 🙄.
It’s definitely in private schools, but our kids’ school openly rejects crt and gender ideology and rightly say they are racist, mysoginistic, run counter to our country’s history as a free democracy seeking opportunity for all, and crt and gender ideology violate the teachings of Jesus which is we are one body (one race) and TWO genders determined by God/ nature/ at the moment of conception/ in your DNA. They rightly point out there is no right way to be a girl or a boy, and no possible way to change your gender no matter how much you damage the one body you get in this life.
We picked the school for the academics. We are now almost more grateful for all the rest of it (no harmful destructive “theories,” open in-person school, mask optional and mostly not worn, no vaccine mandates, STEM that teaches elementary kids what ‘aerosol’ means).
Yeah, the attention they'd get from her being "trans" is much bigger amongst their social media NPCs. How sad for the girl that her parents care more about virtue signaling than her actual accomplishments and sad for society as a whole.
Her it’s bad, her 1st cousin, who was an extremely beautiful young lady, it’s devastating - they are mutilating the cousins body and with all the drugs I’m sure she’s sterile. I’m guessing this girl chose “they/ their” to avoid the medical interventions…………. The parents are doing this, and that’s in every case I’ve seen first hand (7 kids). The parents want attention.
My pediatrician actually thinks it is Munchausen………. And its what happens when social circles, like in a cult, condone or celebrate some type of child abuse the kid supposedly “enjoys” and “seeks out.” It’s just the newest form of parent initiated or supported child sex abuse.
I don’t care what you think. You’re a loser with extreme mental illness who adds nothing positive to society. You keep telling yourself your delusions. Bless your heart you are damaged
WOW, are you assbackwards in that thinking. Letting kids be themselves is racist, misogynistic and anti-democratic? You must have voted from Trump. I have never seen so many people ignorant of reality! You keep your Jesus OUT OF MY LIFE and LAWS and in your private school that gets to discriminate legally.
And a "Chrisitan" pushing no masks and vaccines is not a follower of Jesus.
Wow. You are irrelevant and dumb. You promote child gender mutilation. You’re sick!! Luckily people like you don’t pro-create (you just prey on other people’s kids). Poor you, I can afford to keep my kids from your sick ideology.
Dumb shit, being gay has nothing to do with being delusional. Stop insulting gay people who never asked to be included in your anti-woman anti-child madness.
And yet, you don’t seem to have kids in CA public schools…… why should I stay out of it when you don’t even have kids and insist on inserting yourself????? 😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣
LOL We in California likely pay enough taxes to save your state's ass, assuming you live in a red state that RELIES ON BLUE STATES LIKE CA to survive. Most Americans live in cities that are liberal, GET OVER IT
I DO NOT CARE, I will continue financially supporting and volunteering to help homeless LGBTQ teens who had parents like you and ended up homeless. And you cannot stop us, we will never stop fighting against your hate, EVER.
Kids like mine don’t end up homeless. Even after our deaths they will be well looked after by people who actually love them and don’t project their delusions onto them. 😘
You have a lot to say for someone who has clearly not paid any attention to what is being said by people. You have some stereotype stuck in your brain. Zero people here "hate" lgbtq people.
This site breaks down what some of the laws are by state: https://genspect.org/local/ like if there is mandated curriculum on gender and if the state pays for mastectomies.
Also, it lists colleges that pay for cross sex hormones and surgeries - by state
it's much more common that you would think - so not just California. State laws have been getting quietly changed and then Gender Ideology hits the unions and then the schools. If the Equality Act is passed at the Federal level we are sunk.
While I agree, it’s so opposed to, well, nature, it’s bound to fail. The quiet part is over and the backlash has begun. People realize it’s happening and see the consequences to actual girls everyday. Democrats have spent the last two years destroying kids at every opportunity. Lots of us have woken up. 75% of the country agrees there are only two genders and biology, not feelings, determine gender. The other 25% are literally delusional.
People are done letting George Soros and Bill Gates, the primary founders of this push to erase women, ruin society. If the Democrats try to die in this insane hill, the party will die……….
The public doesn’t “support” this insanity - they were unaware it was happening. The consequences are the cure (though an incredibly destructive cure). The goal is now to minimize the damage and keep opening eyes.
Some bad actors have surprised me. For instance, why do you suppose Bill Gates and Warren Buffet would want to erase women? And, I guess George Soros wants to destroy the country out of some extra-globalist agenda? It is hard to fathom. It seems like the Democrats have lost control of the train and will likely die on this hill (not that many Republicans beyond Tom Cotton have fought much.) Tulsi Gabbard has been good. I completely agree that the public has been unaware of what is happening thanks to legacy media. I still do not see the NYT and the WSJ doing any real reporting on the subject. This is why substack is such a thing. Maybe it is time to let some of these old papers go. Good journalists like Bari Weiss have left.
What they are doing to girls is cruel. 💓💓💓. Hang in there
I had gender dysphoria as a child. I am now a mom with an amazing husband and a life I simply never envisioned. I have grown to love my strong, but comically female body. I have also grown to realize I will always hate pink, Barbie; princesses, and tea parties.
Time is your friend. There is no “right” way to be a girl. There are no right clothes, no right personality traits, no right hobbies. I never played with dolls (stuffed animals were my thing). I’m as shocked as everyone else I chose such a traditional and normal life (it was never forced upon me).
We get this one body. Growing up being a girl doesn’t always feel like a gift. It feels like it invites judgement and silly expectations. But as an adult it is so powerful.
My 💔 for what you must be going through. Lead with real love. Make sure she’s knows she’s not alone. Time will heal her wounds and insecurities if she will be patient and let it. 💓💓💓
If men with pens is would just live their lives this wouldn’t be an issue. Instead they demand to destroy women. They demand female roommates. They demand to play on the girls team (oddly only after years of mediocre sports performance as boys).
Leave girls alone, let them live their lives and have their sports and private spaces and this wouldn’t be an issue.
Denying women sex based private spaces and sports is the opposite of letting others “live their lives.” It’s demanding men be allowed to destroy women because you think men matter more.
You can’t have both. They are mutually exclusive. Either you value protecting the private spaces and opportunities for women and girls, or your a misogynist that thinks coddling the delusions of men is more important than fairness and bodily safety for women and girls.
You can’t have both because there are innate and immutable biological differences between the two sexes.
Your delusions will never change that. Your ideology being scrapped to the dustbin of history is enviable because of that.
Males and females are biologically different. Period.
No amount of anti-science nonsense from gender ideology can or will change that.
I will not stop protecting my daughter from monsters like you who think her role in life is to coddle men with delusions. I will never think as little of actual females as you do.
Your ranting makes it clear this is all about YOU.
I am curious, are you either a gay women who destroyed your body to deny you sexual orientation, or a delusional man pretending to be a woman?
Very well stated, NCmom. Straight, Gay, and mentally ill people are all entitled to the same rights. In fact, the AGP category of Trans Identified people are actually straight. Many brave lesbians and some brave gay men are speaking out against the lunacy now :)
Dave Chappelle probably reached the widest audience though. He was kind and funny!
Log Cabin republicans is one of the fastest growing political groups in the country that’s held several events with Trump and other prominent Republicans. I welcome the group weigh open arms - they respect women, the constitution, and most especially children.
You guys really, really want to make trans people's lives even harder than they are as it is, and more miserable. Disgusting that you get off on those who use their fame to harm others.
My guess is he's a 50 something AGP guy. What is crazy is not the one off crazies like him but that so much of society could be hoodwinked and that politicians would ride the crazy for political gain. Somehow, our society has been weak and bought this bit about "we are just trying to live our lives". If that were true, nearly everyone would be on board. Instead, activists push to change all of our language ("1984") and our laws so that naive young people are permanently harmed and reality is upended.
I agree. 10 years ago I didn’t see the big deal. But I saw earlier than most because until I was 10ish I swore I should have been a boy. My heart shatters at how people are destroying little girls (Tom boys) like me today.
I’m 39 in a great marriage (to a man). We were both athletes growing up. We have two amazing kids. He finds my hatred of pink and dolls amusing. I look like a soccer mom and love it.
I love my strong and comically female body now. My life is better than I could have ever envisioned even as a teenager.
I saw early the danger in this ideology because I realized it could have been me. And I would have killed myself in my early 30’s CNE I realized all I had given up as a dumb kid who bought a lie that I was “born in the wrong body.” That isn’t a thing. We are born in the only body we get.
I’m out to save my own daughter from the destruction of erasing women, but also every little girl who is wrongly being told to turn her insecurities towards destroying the only body she will ever get.
The dysphoria and discomfort passes if you simply embrace the unique person you are and let time pass. Learning to live in the temporary discomfort s a great life lesson. It builds strength and patients.
Laws needed to be changed to stop bigots from discriminating and making the lives of LGBTQ people hell. You guys want control over all, well hon, too late, you lost and will never rid the world of trans or gay folks.
My daughter took my elementary age grandchildren to an Asian country for the duration of their k-12 educations for precisely this reason. She will not tolerate the sexual, racial and anti-knowledge sect destroy her kids.
I hope I don’t have to go to that extreme. We brought in the new year in the Caribbean. My kids go to an academically elite genuinely Christian private school that publicly rejects CRT and gender ideology. Still, being here with all the extra paperwork, my 10-year daughter looked at me the other day and said “it’s nice to see only male and female boxes again. I don’t think the Jamaicans even realize how much smarter than United States Americans they are.” 😂😂😂😂🤣
My grandkids have been overseas less than two months and they’re already flourishing. None of this lunacy is poisoning their childhoods.
I never in my life thought I’d be glad my grandchildren are out of the US. Only over the last five years have the dangers of a psychotic, child-endangering, truth averse pseudo-culture become so prevalent as to make a 29 hour one way trip to visit a reasonable idea.
Thank you. I appreciate that. When your family is bombed by this it's as if you are transported from your nice community where you were well liked to North Korea. Everyone competes to smile and clap hard with the occasional person looking over their shoulder whispering "some of us are not on board". If you do not smile you are suddenly a bad person. Teachers in their 20s (who are the age of people you might have diapered) beam and use crazy pronouns, patronize you, act like they know your child way better than you do, and do not heed what you say.
Teachers are not talking about "sex" with 7 year olds. Since your kids do not go to public school, STHU about what goes on there, and continue to raise good little bigots
Not where we are. Some are fine. Others condone and promote it. We’re Catholic, and our kids go to a Christian, but not Catholic, school for a reason. The Catholic schools we know about across several states are a mixed bag.
Exactly, not many schools are safe from this stuff anymore, including Catholic. Between the Trans agenda, CRT, and SEL, homeschooling is the best option. I just started homeschooling my son.
Homeschooling is a great option. Or university model. There are so many programs for homeschooling these days it’s a far reality from what so many envision.
We love our kid’s school, but they know very well if we move or things change there homeschool is our next option.
I agree. It’s weird - the Catholic Church has undoubtedly done some enormous good for humanity, but for a few decades, they’ve allowed themselves to be corrupted (and worse) which is very sad
my father’s family were catholic. after Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia my grandpa was hired as chief engineer in charge of constructing railroad lines throughout Ecuador. they travelled to remote villages where they firsthand bore witness to the victimization of the locals as perpetrated by church officials ... financial as well as sexual... it was not isolated incidents.
I saw that article, it was a complete disgrace and a blatant attempt to whitewash what you uncovered, presumably to please the twitter chorus that dictates the direction of legacy media newsrooms. I have been lazy about canceling my subscription (the cancel option on their website doesn't even work) but I will be sure and get to it now.
Even the aggressively moderated comments section there seems mostly to fall on the side of reason.
God are you people hateful assholes. It seems you GET OFF when you manage to ruin the life of a trans person. I bet you celebrate when one kills themselves
Am I the one fighting to keep trans kids from using a restroom, play sports and do all other things teens like and need to do? No, that would be you and the rest of the bigots here
You are absolutely fighting to ensure men have unfettered access to womens swimming and track records, little girls overnight cabins, little girls restrooms, convicted male rapist have a legal right to women’s prisons, and to erase women and girls.
How exactly is telling boys to pee in a separate bathroom and compete against other boys “excluding” them? Your definition of “excluding” is to exclude men from women’s track and swimming and dorm rooms. 😂😂😂. You seek to exclude women and girls from everything ;”(except maybe cheering on the boys from the sidelines).
"...with regard to matters of deeply-held values—sex, religion, gender and the like—how ought they to proceed with other people’s children? Humbly and with complete transparency."
EDIT: ...with regard to matters of deeply-held values—sex, religion, gender and the like—how ought they to proceed with other people’s children? NOT AT ALL -- this is 100% the parents' business, and unless they send their children to sex ed classes and/or religious schools these topics should always be outside the purview of schools.
The only way to fix this is to cut off all taxation to schools, and make it a pay as you go and your choice situation. Property taxes ensure no one truly owns their homes. It's a complex topic, but the taxation enables this outrageousness that has nothing to do with a meritocracy of educators, but enables a unionized gang of extortionists.
Education is not a right, it's a goods and service; as such, there must not be any should, as it is strictly up to the parents. Taxing property is literally unconstitutional. I am writing a big substack post on the nature of taxation and social engineering, etc. in the new year.
Agreed. I'm for abolishing the school systems. You might like a YouTube channel called "The Reason We Learn." She is a school abolitionist and for homeschooling. Also, the book "Dumbing Us Down" by John Taylor Gatto and the paper "The Comprachicos" by Ayn Rand. I got into them after that youtuber I mentioned did Read Alongs.
I wish you'd actually talk to teachers. You have a critical misperception about the structure of k-12 education that undercuts your entire thesis.
I'm a high school English teacher. You seem to imagine the school system is comprised of kookie teachers and 'the union' who have terrorized poor hapless bureaucrats, state reps, admin, and board into doing the opposite of what these poor souls really want, which is to educate the children. Under your set up, once we remove the nefarious rogue teachers and the evil 'union,' the kind admin, board, and state will naturally be able to educated students as they always have.
Here's the truth: This is all coming from the TOP DOWN. The 'union' is simply operating as the 'bad cop' to the state's 'good cop.' In fact, this entire movement comes from the state and university bureaucrats and connected corporations. They want to turn the money spigot and power spigot to go directly into their mouths. Teachers are nothing--sure there are some rogue teachers. But the majority of us are not like this. The key thing is that if you fired every single teacher in the country tomorrow, NONE of this would change. Actualy it would get worse, because teachers like me (20+ years of experience) would be gone and in our place would be compliant deranged 21 year olds who buy into the propaganda.
If districts were really being bullied by the union, then all you'd need to do is remove the union. This is why your focus is so dangerous. Removing the union will not only cure nothing; it would simply strength the powers of the state, central admin, and board so they can do their propaganda even more easily.
Right now, i can teach Romeo and Juliet just as I've been teaching it for two decades. If I'm told at a professional development meeting to 'be mindful' of CRT, I can ignore and simply teach R & J. Without the union, if the board and admin really wanted CRT in the schools, and knew I wasn't playing the game, I'd be fired.
Please understand the structure. Right now you are playing into their hands. A couple of teachers is nothing. Literally nothing. It's like if you were against the Iraq war and concentrated on four soldiers' misdeeds and trusted the generals and contractors. Foolish. I'm sorry to be so blunt, but it's super frustrating to see such critical misinterpretation from an otherwise important voice.
The target needs to be the leadership and structure of the system itself. Not a couple of young insane teachers out of millions.
I do agree that we have a top down problem at the state(s) and federal levels - ie, the threat of the "Equality Act" which would make "gender" a legal thing and have the effect of eliminating "women & girls" as a meaningful category. We have the white house declaring that Assistant Health Secretary Richard Levine is the "first female four star admiral". Lying to parents about changing a kid's name and pronouns at school is state law in CA and some other states I believe. This is supposedly "to protect" the child but has the opposite effect.
Abigail has spoken out against the Equality Act. We've allowed an ideology to take over at the state and federal level. We need to return to separation of church and state. And, I do think Gender Ideology is a cult level ideology.
LM, top down it is. Now, please take an hour out of your holiday weekend, and watch the video linked below. It skillfully dissects the dystopian "transgender" agenda created and outlined by multimillionaire ($300 million) autogynephile Martin (call me "Martine") Rothblatt in his 2011 manifesto, "From Transgender to Transhumanism." Rothblatt set the course for everything that is now coming to pass for the destruction of biological sex and also for the eventual elimination of biological human beings. Forewarned is forearmed.
I am at the point that I think the Department of Education needs to go. I believe Jimmy Carter invented it? And, here we are with the unintended consequences. Can we not ever remove anything in government after it not only fails but harms society?
Then start a campaign to throw out Randi Weingarten and her minions Weingarten who has no children has no empathy for parents or teachers and totally supports the woke agenda
Did I say the union was guiltless? Of course not. Please try to engage with my point and avoid jumping to where your brain has been trained to go. Weingarten has about as much string-pulling power as someone like BIden. That is, she's an eager puppet; she's gotten where she is through political manipulations, but getting rid of her is meaningless because the overall structure is the danger, not individual players.
I'm saying that the union is in fact playing bad cop to the state's good cop. They're in this together, along with a legion of bloated administrative bureaucrats and large corporate interests. Firing Randi Weingarten would do absolutely nothing to the overall structure of the complex.
Also, Weingarten has almost zero power in my day to day life as a teacher. The governor of my state has far far more power over my teaching , and federal and state law, and the board, and my admin-- and mostly, what Pearson or Bill Gates want.
The union and the radicals in your state’s government are an unholy alliance I think that public education nationwide is a complete disgrace but you sound like a very devoted teacher
I'm not in California (thankfully!). I have no problem disagreeing, but I do wish you'd see it is not just the union. I'm not saying it's not the union, at all. I'm saying the union is a side show, the 'bad cop' of a good cop/bad cop routine. As far as the radicals--maybe I'm saying the same thing, but to me they aren't radical. They're corrupt state players. Those in power are cynically using the radical delusions of a handful of people, and those poor fools believe in it. But the overall motives have very little to do with radicals, but rather with good old fashioned despots and tyrants.
Oh, thanks for the complement about my teaching :-) There are lunatics and incompetents, but I think many more dedicated teachers than people might think. But the system itself is a hot mess.
It sounds like your state education department is run by radicals with civil service protection who view the woke agenda as a substitute for a real education
I was really disappointed in Republican South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem when she vetoed the bill that would have kept boys who trans ID-ed out out of girls sports. And, lots of states failed to stop the medicalization of children.
It does. However... our daughter went to a high end private high school. The girl down the street went to public. Both bad.
And only a very few states have managed to pass laws against the medical/hormone/chopping up children part. Gas lighting at school sets them up nicely for the medical part and the age at which children can pursue it without even a (bad/misguided) parent on board gets lower and lower.
I am a one issue voter now after having been run over by the Trans Train. However, like in the Looney Tunes cartoons I am picking myself up, shaking myself off, and unflattening for the next round. Hell Hath no Fury like a Mama Bear Burned. :) Looney Tunes is an apt metaphore. A high school teacher in this comments section suggested that it is petty tyrants in government who are using the Woke Agenda/Mentally ill Activist Ideology for power and that some lame brained young teachers like the two in Abigail Shrier's reporting are hapless true believers. Whatever the mechanics the impact on this generation of young people is horrific.
Nancy Pelosi is likely the most powerful person in the world as Brandon does not know what is up - so I am not sure how little and petty all the tyrants really are... That said, most Republicans beyond Tom Cotton have been majorly Weak.
As far as education - maybe a number of teachers are feeling a need for validation - like we have not managed to make 100% of society into Einstein so we have more important things to do than teach them the "3 Rs" and help them be productive members of society - like teach them Woke Religion.
Those in power are also cynically using the deluded children. It is easy to delude children by nature of them being - children. Mine all believed in Santa Claus, too, but it wasn't a harmful belief.
DL, thank you for hammering home this point. Simply stewing about the union and a couple of rogue teachers will never overturn these policies, since they have been mandated by state legislatures with the full approval of the federal government through the ironically named Equality Act. Still, I am interested in your thoughts concerning the interplay of the unions and the schools.
As Shrier points out, both the CTA and the NEA have platforms that promote gender ideology in the schools. For instance, the NEA website has a large section entitled "Just and Equitable Schools," replete with social justice ideologies, courses, trainings and jargon. They work with partners like the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), also mentioned in Shrier's article, to fund LGBTQ programs in schools, with teachers as leaders. The point is, around the country the NEA is helping to fund trans activism with the participation of teachers and administrators.
The “insane teachers" you refer to made several missteps: they (a) violated students’ privacy; (b) circumvented parental authority; and (c) bragged about it openly. Going behind the backs of parents was bad enough, but with or without parental knowledge, this club should not have existed. Okay. Shrier’s investigation focused narrowly on two rogue teachers, and the majority of teachers don’t want gender clubs and classes in the schools. However, gender clubs and classes are nevertheless widespread in schools across the country. By employing the union’s woke jargon, perhaps seeking funding from the union, and being above board about their aims, these rogue teachers might still be in business. Or no?
You're correct. The “system” is a fundamental reality that we have to focus on. State legislatures' and the federal government’s endorsement of “gender” are to blame at the highest level. Shrier's shining a light on a microcosm of the problem, including the corruption of the unions, will not, in itself, bring down the whole ugly mess, but I see it is a wake-up call, not a dead end. Weingarten may not have power over your day to day life as a teacher, but her union funds this stuff and in a concrete sense is part of the cancer that spreads it. What Shrier has uncovered is incredibly important, and she’s not blind to the systemic big picture. We're playing catch-up regarding something that is already deeply entrenched. Sometimes the devil is in the details.
As with CRT, journalists like Shrier and parents who object are demonized and labeled bigots. Support from teachers who know better would be important. But that's unlikely to happen, because teachers are not in the business of getting involved in ideological controversies that could put their jobs at risk. In terms of a hypothetical mandate from your school administration to focus on gender theory in your Shakespeare course, given the unions’ active endorsement of trans ideology, are you sure they would protect you? Is my skepticism unwarranted?
The ideological corruption of schools needs to be confronted, from the universities to the state legislatures to the White House. How to do that successfully is the tricky part.
@Beeswax, thanks for your thoughtful response. Let me try to answer some of the questions--
A good way to understand power vectors is to remove them and see what happens. So, if you take a family--if you remove the mother, the entire family suffers greatly. So she's critical. If you remove the family goldfish, well, not as much. The goldfish is less critical to the family structure.
The overall bureaucratic/state structure of education has grown grotesquely over the decade, all stemming from the unholy alliance of state/corporate/professional bureaucratic powers. Once they grow large enough, bureaucratic hierarchies are concerned with themselves above what they represent--it's well documented.
My own thesis is that power and substance are inversely proportional: the higher up you go, the more the organization seeks to simply keep itself bloated, and the less it cares about its on the ground mission. CRT, as a cultural Marxism, is a great tool for tyrants, to sow fear and distrust and unquestioning obedience, to destroy family and community, to remove individualism, self determination and individual autonomy and replace with collectivism and groupthink.
In other words, once the structure becomes large enough and is pumped with enough shadow-money, as with school systems, it becomes vulnerable to infection from totalitarian forces because the top has so much power and is so disconnected from the bottom. Woke is a perfect tool for this and is being used accordingly. Focusing on this or that mid-tier player (some union) or, worse, irrelevant low level players (teachers) has good motives but is actually counterproductive because all it does is help further consolidate power.
Anyway, let's do a thought experiment:
Removing x aspect of the hierarchy--once removed, let's see its impact on teaching CRT and other deranged ideologies.
1. Removing teachers. There are millions of teachers, A minuscule proportion of teachers, usually through China's Tiktok, are deranged cult members. Sure fire them. But you could fire every teacher in the country and CRT would still be taught. That's because CRT doesn't come from teachers. The teachers on TIkTok (I am not convinced this isn't a form of psy-op--not saying there aren't teachers like this, although I've never met one, yet; I'm saying it seems very deliberate to me)--anyway, the TikTok teachers go on TikTok because their administration is ok with what they're saying.
In other words, if the district is not ok with teachers doing Deranged TikTok they just need to fire teachers who do Deranged TikToks. They're not doing that because the teachers are doing what their administration/board want. Many states don't have tenure and you can fire at any time--But even with tenure you can fire at will for the first 5 years, and even afterwards, your life can be made pretty miserable by admin. So to stop TIkTok, literally all the districts need to do is have the board policy be that teachers are not to use TikTok as employees and if they do, they can get fired. It's that simple. Why don't they? Ask yourself this.
They do this for other behaviors. For instance, I can't stand in my classroom sipping a beer. It's against policy. I can get fired. This is no matter how much tenure I have. So again, ask yourself why these teachers feel free to post on TikTok and aren't afraid of being fired.
2. The union. If you remove the union, sure you'll get rid of a lot of corrupt people, and a lot of noise. But nothing much would change on the ground, and CRT would get even worse because you've consolidated power in the hands of fewer people. The union has no say in what I teach inside my classroom. So removing them won't change what I teach--but it will embolden the board/admin/state to consolidate their powers even more.The union has major problems, definitely, but I'm pretty certain we've been deliberately manipulated to focus our ire purely on them.
3.Administration. Some admin, like the principal, are necessary. But you could remove at least half of central admin and nothing would change to impact the kids at all. Nothing would change in the classroom. And yet -- Impact on CRT would be huge. I wouldn't be forced to go to another Professional Development Meeting, the BOard wouldn't be buying CRT books, the central admin wouldn't be writing CRT curriculum, The DOE wouldn't be putting in CRT propaganda. Admin is the one that can fire me, or harass me, and come into my class and observe. They have the direct power.
4. State. Once we get to the ethers of the state, we're dealing with almost all power and no substance. These are the bureaucrats who move in the circles with high level university bureaucrats, private corporations like Gates and Pearson. It's just like the revolving door you see in media/university/Washington DC. This is where the real source of the power lies and this has the absolute least to do with the actual well being of the kids.
So based on this--
Proposals: Reduce the power of the state. Shrink the admin bloat. Hold admin/board accountable for things we value. I think we should abolish the DOE and return schools to highly local, nimble, horizontal structures with parents and the community in partnership with teachers and a teacher-leader (as principals used to be). A girl can dream.
Thanks for your reply. I agree with your observations regarding how bureaucracies marshal and maintain power. And I understand your point, which is that this is a top-down phenomenon. The administrators and legislators support each other; they're steeped in critical theory and share the cultural Marxist agenda that you describe well. The bottom layers are the teachers and the unions who carry out the policies mandated by the administrators, the state, and ultimately the corporations. I get it.
Your solutions are very ambitious and indeed, even “dreamy,” but they could happen over time if parents are fed up enough. Get rid of the DOE? I’m game; it's utterly corrupted. And it wouldn’t necessarily require abolishing the DOE. Because of CRT, the trans issue, and COVID policies, parents disillusioned with public education are walking away, home schooling and creating pods with other parents. Your vision to create “highly local, nimble, horizontal structures” is a tall order, but it really could work with sufficient involvement among people who share first principles regarding what an education should look like.
Still, for now, I’m going to continue to support the frame of Abigail Shrier's reporting. The progressive parents I know are afraid to criticize their kids’ “Rainbow Clubs." They have no idea what their kids are learning, how many of them are being groomed to transition behind the parents' backs, or being introduced to pornography. Hopefully, you’ve read the PITT Substack. If not, as a teacher, you really should.
Trans dogma is the most evil and destructive manifestation of critical theory there is. Its goal is to cause permanent alienation between parents and children and destroy the family. Based on what you’ve written, I think you know this is not hyperbole; it is literally the goal. In order to approach the kinds of changes you’d like to see, parents must first have their eyes opened to the magnitude of the problem, and that’s where Shrier’s reporting comes in. She’s the only journalist I know of who focuses exclusively on trans issues who has any kind of platform. She deserves all the gratitude and support we can muster. Her reporting is essential.
DL, you make some really good points here. The top down aspect is most disturbing of all, as it is often mis-guided and not at all well thought out. District level admin are not necessarily "bought in" but they are "bought for" meaning that the level of difficulty they experience each day due to bureaucratic/legislative/local political pressures are almost overwhelming... and then they have to do their day jobs. So, they comply obediantly with state dictates in order to leave time in a 90 hour work week to actually run the district and not have it fall apart under their watch. I agree that AS would do well to meet with rank and file teachers (although even that would be politically untenable since the unions are taking sides against her thanks to the "with us or against us" paradigm that afflicts pretty much all organizations on both sides of the aisle). The answers lay within the questions. For that very reason, it's a strategy of the status quo to avoid those questions and gas light us with "fake" questions and issues instead.
DL, Regarding how we have a top down problem, I found this information about the state of things in CA (not that all the other states listed are good): https://genspect.org/local/#USCA :
United States | California
Mandated curriculum on gender / gender identity
Criminal penalties relating to pronoun use
Some public colleges fund cross-sex hormones and surgeries (CA Institute of Technology, Stanford, UC Berkley, UC Davis, UC Hastings College of the Law, UC Irvine, UC Los Angeles, UC Merced, UC Riverside, UC San Diego, UC San Francisco, UC Santa Barbara, UC Santa Cruz, University of Southern California)
State pays for mastectomies
No proof of medical transition required to change sex on birth certificate
“Non-binary” / “Gender X” genders recognized on drivers’ licenses
Leftist perverts normalizing pedophilia and mutilation. This is not normal, folks and Abigail has the courage to tell the truth. Don't let the lunatics run the asylum. They seem crazy because they are.
And you would lose. Bottom line, LGBTQ people will continue to demand and get equal treatment and you will have a long life of sadness that you cannot discriminate freely anymore
Of course I can. If you have a penis and a Y chromosome you’re a man. Period. No law will change that. No anything will. I don’t have to accommodate your fanatical religious beliefs from your church of gender ideology any more than I can make you pray to Jesus.
There are fish that can change their gender, but not mammals. Simply can’t happen. Not within mammalian control.
Hate to point out the obvious but an ideology based in genital mutilation, sterilization, and opposed to immutable biological fact is a self-limiting problem.
It’s all those Christians (and Muslims, and Hindus, and Jews and people who understand mammalian biology) making and raising the babies. Wokeism requires telling kids to not procreate further. The gender ideology people self-sterilize and celebrate abortion. That’s what your people do to their kids.
Do you actually fail to see your ideology is self-limiting? It’ll die with all true believers of today. The religion of gender ideology is already past peak evangelizing.
40 years ago transgenderism was incredibly rare disorder effecting fewer than 1 in 100,000 grown men. In another 40 years it will again be a rare disorder effecting about 1 in 100,000 men. People will again acknowledge that confusion with one’s body is a common and normal part of human development - not a condition requiring mutilation and sterilization. Parents will once again remember there is no “right” way way to be a boy or “right” way to be a girl - we are all unique individuals with unique mixes of personality traits living in the one and only body we will ever get. I would say the religious converts over the last decade might make it last more than another 40 years, but the truth is, big pharma subscription plans tend to be directly linked to shorter lifespans, so 40 years is a generous time allotment.
Nope, by law in many places you are not allowed to discriminate against trans people, you must stay in a red state hell hole to keep that right, for a little longer anyway. You can think what you want, but you cannot do anything to harm others because you simply disagree with their decisions. The rest of this unhinged rant is not worth commenting on. Just know, you are in the wrong and will never get your way to control others. never
Hahahaha. Give it 5 years. 🤣😂😂😂. And I can assure you I can and will discriminate against men in womens sports and private places. I can afford to discriminate. Luckily the people you vote for are 100% rules for thee, but not for me. And sure as heck not for our kids.
My daughter has protected private spaces, and is valued for being a REAL girl whose body makes her powerful, amazing, and different from boys and men.
The public schools are crumbling. Your state is dirty, polluted, and becoming more like the 3rd world. You people lose power more than my Cuban in-laws. In Cuba!!!! 😂🤣😂😂😂. You hate children and procreation. You hate your own bodies. You believe in fantasies - that a magical doctor with magical (and expensive) potions can magically change your gender. You must think people “want” to live in CA because you failed Econ 101 and missed how taxes and regulations create false floors to drive up cost as they enrich political cronies but are not the result of true supply and demand pressures.
You are in the wrong. You are promoting something that will never be true. Will never be real. No man will EVER give birth. No man will EVER know what it is to be a woman. No man will ever be a real women. And no human law will ever change that. And I’m not concerned about temporary, changeable human laws - your “movement” is so opposed the the natural order of life for all mammals for all of time it’s destined to be irrelevant within a couple decades.
Your religion is based in some dystopian fantasy where Gavin is your “god” and chronic health problems your lifestyle.
Trans women hate women. Those of us with daughters we love will always fight for them….. as trans women will spend their lives fighting chronic health problems trying to be something those expensive drugs will never make them (and let’s face it, without the expensive drugs it’s really just playing dress up, there is no hope to “pass” at all for that which one simply isn’t without big pharma subscriptions to help with the illusion)
I once had no issue with trans women - Neil they started on their current trek to erase REAL women. No more. I’m done being “inclusive” of the delusions of men. So are millions of moms and dads and girls and women.
I’m sad no one ever told you that you were born just the way you are supposed to be. God made you, like all of us, as a unique individual with unique personality traits and unique strengths and weaknesses in your one body that is one of two immutable sexes (male or female).
No law, no man, no woman, no surgery, no amount of “belief,” no drugs will every really change your gender. The best one who rejects the body with which they were endowed by their creator can hope for in life is simply to “pass.” It is that life which is sad, incredibly superficial, and empty. I’m so sorry if you’ve chosen this destructive path; but I will not enable your delusions nor allow any man to steal mine, or my daughters’, immutable and amazing biological truth and identity.
All your ranting has shown me is that life without God and a true moral compass based in acknowledgment that there is much beyond our control is to lead an empty life of lies and virtue signaling.
Do you also wear a double mask outside and feel like a super smart super good person even though you apparently don’t know the definition of “aerosol” or notice that which has failed for 20 months won’t suddenly start to work?
Wow I had neglected the fact that this was a presentation at the state level. There shouldn't be so much scandal about Abigail revealing these things then. Incredible.
We have no right to criticize another person’s sexual preferences, but we have every right to object strongly and by whatever means necessary to their attempts to warp our kids’ minds with their dangerous proselytizing.
Agree. The prefix “trans” involves an actual change or crossing over. Transatlantic flight, transferring schools, organ transplant. All actual changes. No amount of drugs, big pharma hormone subscription plans, clothing choices, or genital mutilation surgery will ever actually change a person’s gender/ sex. Their chromosomes will remain their chromosomes. Period.
Their are factually gay people. People can actually have an intimate relationship with someone of the same gender.
However, there is no such thing as a “transgender” person, only faux “gender transition” is possible. Women and girls have every right to maintain their same sex sports and private places from men no matter how much it hurts the man’s feelings or delusional “beliefs.”
Sexualizing little kids, to any sexual orientation, is sick. Lying to little kids about their bodies is evil and cruel. Using those lies to promote gentile mutilation and child sterilization is pure evil. It’s not “different” this time - it’s just as evil and cruel as it was every other time societies destroyed the bodies and minds of kids.
In theory, I understand that some gay-questioning kids might need outside support if they come from families that, for whatever reason, pressure or even punish them for even having such thoughts. After all, we know there are many gay adults who recall the anxiety and fear they felt growing up in a house where to be "different" in that way was to make yourself a target of anger, possibly even abuse.
But what I really don't understand is the current obsession among the wokerati not just to be accepting of a gay or questioning kid, but to *celebrate* gay, lesbian, etc. students as having triumphed over the allegedly tainted state of heterosexuality.
In other words, among a certain kind of people, there is a *clear* idea that *anything* is superior to being (the horror, the horror) "straight."
That bizarre notion of celebration seems to underpin these crusading teachers' glee and zeal for finding and recruiting (remember when that was the most nefarious charge one could level at gay people?) kids for their club.
Agree. And then kids feel they are not ok unless they can belong to some supposedly victimized group that is somehow lacking in "rights" - like "trans".
It is not the job of the school teacher to be the outside support. And, the real issue here is not even homosexuality but the promotion of Gender Identity Ideology. Pretty much any naive kid of any orientation - without a ton of friends - can fall into the "gender" trap. There is no such thing as Gender (outside "sex") and it is pretty much a cult - not science. Changing a kid's name and pronouns at school is gas lighting them and is a serious psychological intervention that often steers them toward cross-sex hormones and surgery. And, doing so behind the backs of parents creates an unhealthy "my parents are the enemy" vibe - often at an age when kids naturally need to separate themselves out. All this is done under a "kindness and understanding" mantra with "Trans" Speaker Grifters hired to come talk to the kids at assemblies and often a DEI/DIE person hired full time at a school.
Activists have been quietly working to change the laws so that they work against parents and children.
Brilliant once again. The people labeling this a "conservative" issue apparently didn't get the message yet, but another few election cycles and I think they may.
As an aside, a first grade teacher should never assume her students to be sexual beings. If she does her job right, most of them will want to marry her by the year is over, and it has nothing to do with what's under her skirt. (My first grader is taken, though. He's marrying me.)
According to Wikipedia, "Stalking is unwanted and/or repeated surveillance by an individual or group toward another person." And those two rogue teachers freely admitted they "totally stalked what (their students) were doing on Google...."
"Totally stalked." Those were the teachers' very own words. These two rogue teachers "totally stalked" their students so they could recruit them into the teachers' secret clubhouse. And what took place during those ultra secret club meetings? The students were groomed and indoctrinated into embracing their "gender identity." You know. The preposterous nonsense that boys and girls can change their biological sex. And all this was kept from the parents. Top secret. Loose lips sink ships.
And now that the teachers' dirty little secret has been exposed, they want to point the finger at everyone else. But they have only themselves to blame for the mess they now find themselves in. And what a mess. They knew they were playing with fire. But they went ahead and did it anyway. And then, best of all, they were stupid enough to brag about it.
Yes. They bragged. They bragged about how smart they were to come up with all those clever, new ways to recruit children and deceive parents. They said the parents were too dumb, too stupid to ever figure out what was going on. And they bragged about it. Joyfully. Openly. They wanted to spread the word about their dirty little secret. And so they shouted it from the rooftops of Palm Springs. And then when all the stuff hit the fan, they stomped their little feet, cried like babies, and called the San Francisco Chronicle. The San Francisco Chronicle? I'm shocked it still exists.
But their wounds are purely self inflicted. These two feckless teachers shot themselves in the foot. They hung themselves with their own rope. And they were hoist by their own petard.
Yes, exactly. They openly admit "we started to try and identify kids." How damaging is that, for an adult to "identify" you, as an impressionable and malleable young kid who isn't able to properly reason yet? The kid just could have been curious about things they've heard so they searched something online or maybe even curious about themselves and then this adult goes and encourages and maybe even putting it into the kid's head and possibly confusing the hell out of them. Something that, in most cases (in the case of trans) would work itself out if left alone. It is horrific.
It's spreading like a cancer. My old friend's daughter, the one who takes testosterone and just had top surgery, now teaches at a middle school. Not a healthy role model for young teens.
unbelievable... parents can’t afford to be complacent... must actively screen / interview all their kids’ teachers as if they were making a six to seven figure+ investment... because they are💕
The teacher doesn't even have to do any out and out recruiting to be a danger. The kids can take one look and tell exactly what's going on. Five o'clock shadow, a creaking baritone voice, a flat chest, womanly hips, "they" and "he" pronouns, and the title "Mr" or is it "Mx?" And then any vulnerable child in that class can fall under the sway. And a few months later that child goes on puberty blockers and the die is cast.
The sad thing is this daughter is brilliant, and I'm sure she's a great science teacher. But it's not a good idea for her to be in a classroom with adolescents. Plus, she's openly admitted she hates anyone who isn't "trans." She's emotionally broken, damaged. I don't know what that school was thinking when they hired her.
Talk about perversion. Both of our most cherished things in this world 'Our Children' and of your reporting of it by them trying to make themselves into the victim. They need to go to prison for a long time! How dare they! How sick has the world become?
Probably far, far worse than we realize. Think how comfortable they were telling every teacher in the state. They believed what they did was completely acceptable in that audience. And they were evidently correct.
The left loves to quote the United Nations; so let's do it. Before it was run by a cabal of first world global world woke elites and second and third world dictators and torturers, the United Nations was rational and the home of Western values. Article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, approved at the General Assembly of the U.N. in December 1948, states that "parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children." The parents of every race with whom I've spoken (I'm a long time secondary school teacher), hate the new racism and reality of Critical Race Theory and Marxist revisionism. Their pride in America is palpible. Aren't we relieved that a sane Senate refused to consider Merrick Garland for the Supreme Court? I know that I am.
We need 10,000 more Abigail Shrier’s !
Retired shrink here Agree
I bet you did a lot of damage if you advised LGBTQ teens
I’ll bet you’re a very damaged person. Description of “Proud Democrat” Angry, gullible, racist, misogynistic, barely literate, and crazy
I acknowledge the existence of transgenderism. I do not understand it, but I recognize it is real. I look at empirical data and find that gender identification and sexual orientation are often confused. I read imagery of the brain including functional MRI. There is little variation across gene pools or cultures. Some cultures are more accepting of "the other" than the average.
Best data available says 0.5% to 1.3% are transgender; geographic clusters might exist, but they appear to be a very recent phenomenon. I talked with LGBTQ-EIEIO teens occasionally. I also spoke with cross-dressers and female impersonators.
I counseled self-identified transgendered patients and offered reassurance that this was not typical, but also not abnormal. It's all part of the continuum of human sexuality. I helped them deal with the issue of being marginalized by people who think they have the moral high ground to make decisions about people they've never met.
Such as you.
Well, a tiny number of people have a mental illness that maybe means they have medical changes made to them but it does not alter their sex. It is the best of bad choices for them - maybe. This does not require that all of society be upended, reality denied, language messed with for everyone else, and children taught a whole Ideology around gender. Girls in particular are being destroyed in large numbers right now at a time when they are not capable of good judgement. First comes the psych destruction in school. That preps them for the medical. Politicians are either riding it for political gain or afraid to touch it. Have you looked at the different states under https://genspect.org/local ?
Very few have a problem with being kind to the tiny number who have a problem. Does "Proud Democrat" sound kind and understanding?
People can live productive lives with all manner of mental illnesses and destigmatizing mental illness is one thing but GI as taught in schools is a cult.
and you guys are bigots
Does anyone have any idea how I may communicate directly with Ms. Schrier?
Oh, poor you! You might be asked to call someone them, seems like such a horrible thing to ask of one! /sarcasm. Girls are not being destroyed, you are insane and I am glad that your view is irrelevant.
I will not use incorrect grammar which requires me to call a blatant lie truth to satisfy someone’s delusion. Period.
Her view isn’t irrelevant, you are 😘
But you know it has crossed over into the realm of a whole ideology when people are pushed to use words like "they" to refer to a singular person. It is madness that this cult religion is promoted in school systems and universities where it slides in under "diversity counseling". It's even a lucrative business to give lectures and have jobs just about telling everyone who to follow the religion with the right language. Then, there is the enormous amount of money being made by big pharma, bad therapists, and surgeons without scruples. Other religions are not promoted as fact/science in schools.
It sounds to me like PD and his father are both unhinged people. But, the issue is that society has allowed itself to be turned upside down but the likes of such folks. There is a certain amount of predation to the whole thing. "Lets have secret names and pronouns at school and then you must leave your family. They are bad people with WrongThink."
Another bad thing about it is the way in which kids are lead along a path with little steps - each one seeming like not such a big deal to them. Perfectly regular teen girls might take up "they" to be cool and have pals. They have dropped "she". After awhile it becomes less of a big step to go from "they" to "he". I've seen it plenty of times now.
Grooming the teens at an age when they are forming their identities involves a series of small steps over time, where each step in itself does not seem such a big deal to them. Then, they are at the point where they think GI non-believers are bad. And, you have all the online AGP predators suggesting "I'll be your mommie." There is a strong suggestion to grow away from/leave those who love you whether physically or even just mentally. Gender Identity Ideology as taught in the schools along with the secret pronoun use sets the kids on this path. Many are getting out of the cult all the time now. As those numbers grow and minds mature this issue will become impossible to ignore.
YOu may not like it but it is not madness. but you are a SELFISH person to ruin the lives of others simply due to the fact they are not what you want them to be.
Diversity, inclusion and non-discrimination are the way we operate a decent society. You want to control others to do your wishes, and whine to high heaven about having to say "them" vs "he or she. Oh the horror! GMAFB lady
And who is my father? He has been dead for a long time, but he too was a racist and a bigot. So I don't miss him much I'll admit.
It’s madness. Like killing kids to not make it rain or burning teenage girls at the stake for not being witches.
That’s good. You’re following in his footsteps. Like father like son. You are racist bigot who hates women for extra women credit and will be missed by exactly no one. 😂😂😂😂
But you are fun to laugh at. Seriously, the level of entitlement and complete ignorance you embody is better satire than the fictional characters the best writers at the onion or babbalon bee could dream up.
I appreciate the good laugh - and your willingness to keep ranting for our amusement. 😂🤣😂🤣😂
I agree that it's not typical but "abnormal" is a loaded term... We ought certainly to help people with these issues live productive lives without agreeing to reshape society with some sort of unreality. The below might be helpful:
https://quillette.com/2019/11/06/what-is-autogynephilia-an-interview-with-dr-ray-blanchard/
The first group is composed of ‘androphilic’ (sometimes termed ‘homosexual’) trans women, who are exclusively sexually attracted to men and are markedly feminine in behaviour and appearance from a young age. They typically begin the process of medical transition before the age of 30.
The second group are motivated to transition as a result of what Blanchard termed ‘autogynephilia’: a sexual orientation defined by sexual arousal at the thought or image of oneself as a woman. Autogynephiles are typically sexually attracted to women, although they may also identify as asexual or bisexual. They are more likely to transition later in life and to have been conventionally masculine in presentation up until that point.
There’s a critical difference between autogynephilia and most other sexual orientations: Most other orientations aren’t erotically disrupted simply by being labeled. When you call a typical gay man homosexual, you’re not disturbing his sexual hopes and desires. By contrast, autogynephilia is perhaps best understood as a love that would really rather we didn’t speak its name. The ultimate eroticism of autogynephilia lies in the idea of really becoming or being a woman, not in being a natal male who desires to be a woman.
Blanchard: "Modern trans activists reframed transsexualism/transgenderism as a political problem rather than a clinical problem. The flat denial that autogynephilia exists became a canon of modern trans activism, trans activism become a sub-department of the Social Justice Movement, and the Social Justice Movement became a primary combatant in the ongoing, pervasive Culture Wars."
As for the large number of trans identified teens, they are mostly caught up in an ideology being pushed online and in schools. They have no life experience with which to evaluate anything and it's very harmful when teachers gaslight them.
PD is a child who cannot reconcile his universe, seemingly a junior high cafeteria, with reality. Look on him with pity
Agreed, but the problem is that teenagers are very susceptible to this narrative (it all sounds the same) and it is actively taught in schools and promoted in Gay-Straight "Alliance" groups for minors with little life experience.
I think the issue is not whether we have pity for the PDs (which I do) but that we have given the PDs access to the children & teens out of something like a lack of societal immune system or a desire to signal virtue. The AGPs can reconcile their universe with reality so they want to warp life for everyone else without concern for collateral damage.
Though the first guy to get "non-binary" on a driver's license (in FL) - Jamie S. has since regretted it.
Have you even read the articles? Your response is arrogant and specious. Children shouldn't be drugged, mutilated, or pressured. By people such as yourself.
You're parroting both the article and my post. May I suggest you go back on your meds.
It is child poisoners such as yourself who resort to ad hominem insults. Anyone pointing out your fetish to mutilate children needs "meds". Have you ever been convicted of molesting a child?
Children shouldn't be drugged, mutilated, or pressured. Neither should teens or young adults. Yet they are. We have to stop it!!
We need to end having mentally ill middle aged men who get excited about the thought of themselves as women (a fetish) stop influencing our education, medical, and legal systems/policies. Gender Ideology is promoted in schools. It is a total cult. We must recognize this as a mental illness for a tiny few (old guys like Bruce ("Caitlyn") Jenner, Richard ("Rachael" Levine and James ("Jennfier") Pritzker - not an "authentic" identity like they have an inner opposite sex-soul inside them or something. The kids get told it's science and that their non-progressive parents are bad. Once their minds are won over by groomers who separate them mentally from parents they are on a path and the legal and medical systems are on board with it. It's like the Chinese Cultural Revolution in the US. I am fighting very hard to save our daughter who is not physically harmed at this time. It is frustrating that until your family is hit with it people think it's a fringe issue/not a big deal. Ha ha about all the funny pronouns (language of a cult). There is no such thing as Gender outside of Sex which is Binary. Where are the doctors and politicians (beyond Tom Cotton) to shout about this?
Gender ID and sexual orientation are two different things. I do find many are ignorant of what people go through confuse them often, and many seem to really really hate the trans folks more than all and are actively working to make their lives as miserable as possible. Even preventing them from using a bathroom!
If you feel as you printed, why on earth are you supporting this bigoted woman?
I don’t hate trans people, I simply recognize no amount of drugs or gender mutilation will make someone a different gender/ sex than their chromosomes. I’m tired of misogynist trying to claim my immutable identity as a woman. No male can ever be a “real” girl or woman and telling them they can is delusional, not loving. It’s also cruel to actual women and girls who have a right to sex-specific sports and private places. To claim otherwise is misogynistic.
I won’t call a white woman a Black woman no matter how strongly a blue-eyed woman “feels” she’s Black. Likewise, I won’t call a human with Y chromosomes a “woman” no matter how much he wants me to because he is NOT a woman.
Get over it.
Absolutely well said. 👏🏻👏🏻
I was not talking to you lady. And I find your views bigoted and harmful to others and selfish! Why DO YOU GIVE A SHIT if a person born male feels they are a woman and transitions, what BUSINESS IS IT OF YOURS?
And your analogy with race only highlights your ignorance and bigotry.
You will never win your battle to stop others from being themselves, so give it up
Lol... Bigoted? Not everyone who disagrees with you is a bigot.
Those who make the lives of LGBTQ folks hell are bigots in my book
Because she is not denying that transgenderism exists, merely pointing out that the current climate supports politicizing the issue and demands that all claims be unquestioned. When an individual's claim is held to be unassailable, and anyone who requests further examination is demonized, we've left the universe of cognition and entered the realm of cyberonanistic fantasy.
Where you appear to be making the rules.
“Proud Democrat” is proud to erase women……….. should be more like “typical misogynistic Democrat.” The Democrat party hated women and minorities 100 years ago and they still hate them today. All that’s changed is they now hate children too!!!!!
Her rabid fans sure as hell are denying it exists, and want no questions, they want to never see or have to deal with trans individuals again and want to deny their existence, or at the very least make their lives miserable. And I have no idea what your made up word means, and do not really care.
My rules are to let people live their lives as they wish, and stop these religious moms, who homeschool or send their kids to religious schools that allow discrimination to stay the hell out of CA public schools and our policies.
The knee-jerk groupthink response to your reporting is so predictable.
If you disagree on a sensitive topic, you must of course be one of the Bad Guys, an enemy to poor struggling children everywhere. There can be “no debate” when it comes to the gender questioning kids (or even those who were just roped into the club).
But the point is, these teachers are trying to get kids to attend a club and hide the conversations from their parents. And the justification for this is an assumption that it needs to stay secret from the parents, because any parent who would object to teachers’ secret conversations with their kids about sexuality are Bad Guys too.
Either you agree with the current ideology 100% no questions asked, or you’re a bad person who’s up to no good.
You’d think the San Francisco Chronicle would be above such childish thinking but no. That why so many people are reading Substack.
(edited for typos)
Yes, you'd think. Unless you're oblivious to the ubiquity of group-think.
I knew a Jesse Porter once. You didn’t grow up in Cleveland did you?
No I didn't.
The law in CA prohibits teachers from outing kids to anyone without their consent, PERIOD. No one is trying to make teens do anything or hiding things from parents. If you want to have a real debate, DO NOT LIE about what is actually the situation. If you do not like CA law, move or try to change it, but you will never do the latter, as bigotry against trans people is not acceptable in this state.
Yes - the same law that allows erect men to wonder around naked minor girls. The same law that let’s male rapist be housed with real women. CA is regressive, cruel, and crime ridden. Owning slaves was once legal too. That CA made child gender mutilation legal does not make it moral.
OMG you are a nut case and a liar. I assume you live in North Carolina? Stay the hell out of CA and leave our schools alone.
And you are from the South and bring up slavery? GET BENT YOU RACIST POS
You don’t even have children! Who are you to have any day at all in this conversation?
Your like a drug addict making themselves feel better by getting other people addicted. You are damaged and damaging kids makes you feel better. Your miserable so your seeking company.
And you’re incredibly immature.
You know nothing about me, but I see you get wet in your pants when you insult others. I think you really do get off when you harm or anger others. Today's GOP is a cult and the only hope is our justice system stopping the traitors from doing any more damage
I see you for the moronic ranting loser you are. I’m treating you to the lightweight version of how you have treated others in every single ridiculous rant you’ve made you irrelevant little tiny pointless thing. 😂🤣🤣😂🤣
Are you too fragile and snowflake-like to take a lightweight version of the hate you spew? Are you really so dumb and delusional as to think you are “entitled” to fling ridiculous insults and rants at people you don’t agree with, but we won’t laugh you back into what ever bat poop stupid hole you crawled out of?
Keep it coming you sad little it. I find it amusing. And thus far, despite calling people “bitch” over and over, the agreement in the ratio is that you’re the little bitch. What’s your ratio looking like irrelevant Democrat? Done throwing temper tantrums over other people’s kids??? Done pointlessly demanding that which will NEVER be yours? Done making a complete and total fool of yourself?
😂🤣😂🤣😂☺️. You are too funny!!!!!!
If you lied then I apologize for taking you at your word. You said your mom kicked you out when she left the Dem party. You also claimed to be 60. That would make you almost 50 when she booted you. You CLEARLY have no children or friends or brain.
Please, keep commenting. But at least keep your story straight.
Goodness Proud Democrat, read - read - read. I am a northern Cal democrat and I read about the number of women being harmed and raped in California prisons by male pretending to be women. Wi Spa - a guy who is a convicted sex offender pranced around with his wee wee out in front of children. Read, think, follow science. What happened to our party? We believed in science - climate change etc. Remember that. Now, people with penises can be women because they think it. Nonsense utter nonsense. I voted for same sex marriage. I voted D my whole life not anymore. Let parents parent. Teachers teach math and reading. California sterilized mentally ill folks 30 years ago. It is doing it again. Sterilizing gender dysphoric kids and gay kids. Love thyself as one was born. It just isn't possible to be born in the wrong body. A fact is a fact is a fact is a fact.
Ad hominem attacking. You fascists often resort to it. State and debate facts? That wouldn't feed your child abusing agendas.
In these instances they are pressured into the "decision".
I bet you go to the website and try to 'own the libs' all the time, there are so many of you the place stinks
Sexualizing 7 year olds is sick and damaging. I’m only 39, but ANY teacher talking about sex with my 7-year old will be going to jail and sued into poverty. I’m soooo glad my kids are not in public school. This is heartbreaking. A kid crush is just that - not something for some manipulative and abusive “teacher” to delve deeper into with a little kid!!!!! This is so destructive. I don’t know any parents who would care if their kid is gay. I also don’t know any parents that see anything positive in sexualizing little kids. These people are sick.
Gender Ideology is common in private schools as well these days. And, the laws in some states work against parents. That said, the California Teachers Association (CTA) ought to be disbanded.
It is, but not in academically elite conservative private Christian schools……. At least not the one mine go to.
A local Catholic school did let an 8th grader openly transition to a “they/ their” pre-pandemic. The sad thing about that was the parents never celebrated this great little girl for doing great in school, being a kind person, being a talented musician. But, once they convinced her to claim she was “not a gender” they ran to legally change her name, threw parties, celebrated her on Facebook. Cheered how this lost 8th grade girl “had found their true self.” 🙄.
It’s definitely in private schools, but our kids’ school openly rejects crt and gender ideology and rightly say they are racist, mysoginistic, run counter to our country’s history as a free democracy seeking opportunity for all, and crt and gender ideology violate the teachings of Jesus which is we are one body (one race) and TWO genders determined by God/ nature/ at the moment of conception/ in your DNA. They rightly point out there is no right way to be a girl or a boy, and no possible way to change your gender no matter how much you damage the one body you get in this life.
We picked the school for the academics. We are now almost more grateful for all the rest of it (no harmful destructive “theories,” open in-person school, mask optional and mostly not worn, no vaccine mandates, STEM that teaches elementary kids what ‘aerosol’ means).
Yeah, the attention they'd get from her being "trans" is much bigger amongst their social media NPCs. How sad for the girl that her parents care more about virtue signaling than her actual accomplishments and sad for society as a whole.
Her it’s bad, her 1st cousin, who was an extremely beautiful young lady, it’s devastating - they are mutilating the cousins body and with all the drugs I’m sure she’s sterile. I’m guessing this girl chose “they/ their” to avoid the medical interventions…………. The parents are doing this, and that’s in every case I’ve seen first hand (7 kids). The parents want attention.
"The parents want attention" Exactly. Like Munchausen by proxy or whichever that is.
My pediatrician actually thinks it is Munchausen………. And its what happens when social circles, like in a cult, condone or celebrate some type of child abuse the kid supposedly “enjoys” and “seeks out.” It’s just the newest form of parent initiated or supported child sex abuse.
I THINK YOU ARE A LIAR
I don’t care what you think. You’re a loser with extreme mental illness who adds nothing positive to society. You keep telling yourself your delusions. Bless your heart you are damaged
WOW, are you assbackwards in that thinking. Letting kids be themselves is racist, misogynistic and anti-democratic? You must have voted from Trump. I have never seen so many people ignorant of reality! You keep your Jesus OUT OF MY LIFE and LAWS and in your private school that gets to discriminate legally.
And a "Chrisitan" pushing no masks and vaccines is not a follower of Jesus.
Wow. You are irrelevant and dumb. You promote child gender mutilation. You’re sick!! Luckily people like you don’t pro-create (you just prey on other people’s kids). Poor you, I can afford to keep my kids from your sick ideology.
Dumb shit, LGBT people have kids every day. GET USED TO US WE ARE NOT GOING AWAY
Dumb shit, being gay has nothing to do with being delusional. Stop insulting gay people who never asked to be included in your anti-woman anti-child madness.
Again, keep your religion out of CA public schools and MIND YOUR OWN FUCKING BUSINESS
And yet, you don’t seem to have kids in CA public schools…… why should I stay out of it when you don’t even have kids and insist on inserting yourself????? 😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣
Do you also “identify” as a parent? 😂🤣😂🤣😂
You don’t even have children. You are the one who needs to butt out. 😂
Oh, I’d never subject my kids to public school. No worries there. 😂
You don’t even have kids “proud Democrat.” 😂. Maybe you should get out of the way of actual parents.
The state of California ought to be banned from the United States. They hate the Constitution, as well as most Americans.
They mostly HATE children
I hear you... Sadly, crazy laws have been enacted in a number of states - under the radar of most. https://genspect.org/local/
LOL We in California likely pay enough taxes to save your state's ass, assuming you live in a red state that RELIES ON BLUE STATES LIKE CA to survive. Most Americans live in cities that are liberal, GET OVER IT
Nobody here agrees with you. No one likes you. Your rants only confirm your mental illness.
I DO NOT CARE, I will continue financially supporting and volunteering to help homeless LGBTQ teens who had parents like you and ended up homeless. And you cannot stop us, we will never stop fighting against your hate, EVER.
Kids like mine don’t end up homeless. Even after our deaths they will be well looked after by people who actually love them and don’t project their delusions onto them. 😘
You have a lot to say for someone who has clearly not paid any attention to what is being said by people. You have some stereotype stuck in your brain. Zero people here "hate" lgbtq people.
This site breaks down what some of the laws are by state: https://genspect.org/local/ like if there is mandated curriculum on gender and if the state pays for mastectomies.
Also, it lists colleges that pay for cross sex hormones and surgeries - by state
it's much more common that you would think - so not just California. State laws have been getting quietly changed and then Gender Ideology hits the unions and then the schools. If the Equality Act is passed at the Federal level we are sunk.
While I agree, it’s so opposed to, well, nature, it’s bound to fail. The quiet part is over and the backlash has begun. People realize it’s happening and see the consequences to actual girls everyday. Democrats have spent the last two years destroying kids at every opportunity. Lots of us have woken up. 75% of the country agrees there are only two genders and biology, not feelings, determine gender. The other 25% are literally delusional.
People are done letting George Soros and Bill Gates, the primary founders of this push to erase women, ruin society. If the Democrats try to die in this insane hill, the party will die……….
The public doesn’t “support” this insanity - they were unaware it was happening. The consequences are the cure (though an incredibly destructive cure). The goal is now to minimize the damage and keep opening eyes.
Some bad actors have surprised me. For instance, why do you suppose Bill Gates and Warren Buffet would want to erase women? And, I guess George Soros wants to destroy the country out of some extra-globalist agenda? It is hard to fathom. It seems like the Democrats have lost control of the train and will likely die on this hill (not that many Republicans beyond Tom Cotton have fought much.) Tulsi Gabbard has been good. I completely agree that the public has been unaware of what is happening thanks to legacy media. I still do not see the NYT and the WSJ doing any real reporting on the subject. This is why substack is such a thing. Maybe it is time to let some of these old papers go. Good journalists like Bari Weiss have left.
I agree with you 100%. I have a further goal of saving my own daughter who has not yet suffered physical harm. I am never going to forget this trauma.
What they are doing to girls is cruel. 💓💓💓. Hang in there
I had gender dysphoria as a child. I am now a mom with an amazing husband and a life I simply never envisioned. I have grown to love my strong, but comically female body. I have also grown to realize I will always hate pink, Barbie; princesses, and tea parties.
Time is your friend. There is no “right” way to be a girl. There are no right clothes, no right personality traits, no right hobbies. I never played with dolls (stuffed animals were my thing). I’m as shocked as everyone else I chose such a traditional and normal life (it was never forced upon me).
We get this one body. Growing up being a girl doesn’t always feel like a gift. It feels like it invites judgement and silly expectations. But as an adult it is so powerful.
My 💔 for what you must be going through. Lead with real love. Make sure she’s knows she’s not alone. Time will heal her wounds and insecurities if she will be patient and let it. 💓💓💓
Because it is ALL ABOUT YOU not others who are just trying to live their lives.
If men with pens is would just live their lives this wouldn’t be an issue. Instead they demand to destroy women. They demand female roommates. They demand to play on the girls team (oddly only after years of mediocre sports performance as boys).
Leave girls alone, let them live their lives and have their sports and private spaces and this wouldn’t be an issue.
Denying women sex based private spaces and sports is the opposite of letting others “live their lives.” It’s demanding men be allowed to destroy women because you think men matter more.
You can’t have both. They are mutually exclusive. Either you value protecting the private spaces and opportunities for women and girls, or your a misogynist that thinks coddling the delusions of men is more important than fairness and bodily safety for women and girls.
You can’t have both because there are innate and immutable biological differences between the two sexes.
Your delusions will never change that. Your ideology being scrapped to the dustbin of history is enviable because of that.
Males and females are biologically different. Period.
No amount of anti-science nonsense from gender ideology can or will change that.
I will not stop protecting my daughter from monsters like you who think her role in life is to coddle men with delusions. I will never think as little of actual females as you do.
Your ranting makes it clear this is all about YOU.
I am curious, are you either a gay women who destroyed your body to deny you sexual orientation, or a delusional man pretending to be a woman?
Very well stated, NCmom. Straight, Gay, and mentally ill people are all entitled to the same rights. In fact, the AGP category of Trans Identified people are actually straight. Many brave lesbians and some brave gay men are speaking out against the lunacy now :)
Dave Chappelle probably reached the widest audience though. He was kind and funny!
Log Cabin republicans is one of the fastest growing political groups in the country that’s held several events with Trump and other prominent Republicans. I welcome the group weigh open arms - they respect women, the constitution, and most especially children.
You guys really, really want to make trans people's lives even harder than they are as it is, and more miserable. Disgusting that you get off on those who use their fame to harm others.
My guess is he's a 50 something AGP guy. What is crazy is not the one off crazies like him but that so much of society could be hoodwinked and that politicians would ride the crazy for political gain. Somehow, our society has been weak and bought this bit about "we are just trying to live our lives". If that were true, nearly everyone would be on board. Instead, activists push to change all of our language ("1984") and our laws so that naive young people are permanently harmed and reality is upended.
I agree. 10 years ago I didn’t see the big deal. But I saw earlier than most because until I was 10ish I swore I should have been a boy. My heart shatters at how people are destroying little girls (Tom boys) like me today.
I’m 39 in a great marriage (to a man). We were both athletes growing up. We have two amazing kids. He finds my hatred of pink and dolls amusing. I look like a soccer mom and love it.
I love my strong and comically female body now. My life is better than I could have ever envisioned even as a teenager.
I saw early the danger in this ideology because I realized it could have been me. And I would have killed myself in my early 30’s CNE I realized all I had given up as a dumb kid who bought a lie that I was “born in the wrong body.” That isn’t a thing. We are born in the only body we get.
I’m out to save my own daughter from the destruction of erasing women, but also every little girl who is wrongly being told to turn her insecurities towards destroying the only body she will ever get.
The dysphoria and discomfort passes if you simply embrace the unique person you are and let time pass. Learning to live in the temporary discomfort s a great life lesson. It builds strength and patients.
Hang in there!!! 💓💓💓🙏🙏🙏
Laws needed to be changed to stop bigots from discriminating and making the lives of LGBTQ people hell. You guys want control over all, well hon, too late, you lost and will never rid the world of trans or gay folks.
SEEK HELP
The CTA did not make the laws you knucklehead
My daughter took my elementary age grandchildren to an Asian country for the duration of their k-12 educations for precisely this reason. She will not tolerate the sexual, racial and anti-knowledge sect destroy her kids.
I wish I could disagree with her but I don’t.
I hope I don’t have to go to that extreme. We brought in the new year in the Caribbean. My kids go to an academically elite genuinely Christian private school that publicly rejects CRT and gender ideology. Still, being here with all the extra paperwork, my 10-year daughter looked at me the other day and said “it’s nice to see only male and female boxes again. I don’t think the Jamaicans even realize how much smarter than United States Americans they are.” 😂😂😂😂🤣
My grandkids have been overseas less than two months and they’re already flourishing. None of this lunacy is poisoning their childhoods.
I never in my life thought I’d be glad my grandchildren are out of the US. Only over the last five years have the dangers of a psychotic, child-endangering, truth averse pseudo-culture become so prevalent as to make a 29 hour one way trip to visit a reasonable idea.
You are a very good mother. The maternal and paternal extinct has been lost by too many.
Thank you. I appreciate that. When your family is bombed by this it's as if you are transported from your nice community where you were well liked to North Korea. Everyone competes to smile and clap hard with the occasional person looking over their shoulder whispering "some of us are not on board". If you do not smile you are suddenly a bad person. Teachers in their 20s (who are the age of people you might have diapered) beam and use crazy pronouns, patronize you, act like they know your child way better than you do, and do not heed what you say.
Teachers are not talking about "sex" with 7 year olds. Since your kids do not go to public school, STHU about what goes on there, and continue to raise good little bigots
You don’t even have kids- how would you know what’s going on in schools?
Not where we are. Some are fine. Others condone and promote it. We’re Catholic, and our kids go to a Christian, but not Catholic, school for a reason. The Catholic schools we know about across several states are a mixed bag.
Exactly, not many schools are safe from this stuff anymore, including Catholic. Between the Trans agenda, CRT, and SEL, homeschooling is the best option. I just started homeschooling my son.
Homeschooling is a great option. Or university model. There are so many programs for homeschooling these days it’s a far reality from what so many envision.
We love our kid’s school, but they know very well if we move or things change there homeschool is our next option.
Yes, exactly. (That there are so many programs) From expensive, inexpensive, and even free.
think Catholic Church has been compromised for a long, long, long time.
I agree. It’s weird - the Catholic Church has undoubtedly done some enormous good for humanity, but for a few decades, they’ve allowed themselves to be corrupted (and worse) which is very sad
my father’s family were catholic. after Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia my grandpa was hired as chief engineer in charge of constructing railroad lines throughout Ecuador. they travelled to remote villages where they firsthand bore witness to the victimization of the locals as perpetrated by church officials ... financial as well as sexual... it was not isolated incidents.
That’s 💔
AS IF Protestant Christians are all so perfect and moral, while they spread hate and COVID across the USA.
Pedophile priests, for how many decades? And how many punished?
Not enough……. But it will pale in comparison to the victims of early child sexualization and gender ideology 💔💔💔
I saw that article, it was a complete disgrace and a blatant attempt to whitewash what you uncovered, presumably to please the twitter chorus that dictates the direction of legacy media newsrooms. I have been lazy about canceling my subscription (the cancel option on their website doesn't even work) but I will be sure and get to it now.
Even the aggressively moderated comments section there seems mostly to fall on the side of reason.
No, it was to please the trans lobby that controls the state of California.
I'll buy that.
God are you people hateful assholes. It seems you GET OFF when you manage to ruin the life of a trans person. I bet you celebrate when one kills themselves
Do you own a mirror? If so, go look in it.
Am I the one fighting to keep trans kids from using a restroom, play sports and do all other things teens like and need to do? No, that would be you and the rest of the bigots here
You are absolutely fighting to ensure men have unfettered access to womens swimming and track records, little girls overnight cabins, little girls restrooms, convicted male rapist have a legal right to women’s prisons, and to erase women and girls.
How exactly is telling boys to pee in a separate bathroom and compete against other boys “excluding” them? Your definition of “excluding” is to exclude men from women’s track and swimming and dorm rooms. 😂😂😂. You seek to exclude women and girls from everything ;”(except maybe cheering on the boys from the sidelines).
Well put
SEEK HELP
"...with regard to matters of deeply-held values—sex, religion, gender and the like—how ought they to proceed with other people’s children? Humbly and with complete transparency."
EDIT: ...with regard to matters of deeply-held values—sex, religion, gender and the like—how ought they to proceed with other people’s children? NOT AT ALL -- this is 100% the parents' business, and unless they send their children to sex ed classes and/or religious schools these topics should always be outside the purview of schools.
The only way to fix this is to cut off all taxation to schools, and make it a pay as you go and your choice situation. Property taxes ensure no one truly owns their homes. It's a complex topic, but the taxation enables this outrageousness that has nothing to do with a meritocracy of educators, but enables a unionized gang of extortionists.
The money should follow the kids not the schools.
Education is not a right, it's a goods and service; as such, there must not be any should, as it is strictly up to the parents. Taxing property is literally unconstitutional. I am writing a big substack post on the nature of taxation and social engineering, etc. in the new year.
Agreed. I'm for abolishing the school systems. You might like a YouTube channel called "The Reason We Learn." She is a school abolitionist and for homeschooling. Also, the book "Dumbing Us Down" by John Taylor Gatto and the paper "The Comprachicos" by Ayn Rand. I got into them after that youtuber I mentioned did Read Alongs.
We could at least abolish the teachers unions pronto. They are no longer about negotiating salary but have jumped the rails.
Exactly. That would be a win, for sure. They're more concerned about being activists and grooming children into activists than teaching.
Thank you for everything you do. Your Princeton speech was phenomenal. Happy New Year! The tide will turn in 22.
I wish you'd actually talk to teachers. You have a critical misperception about the structure of k-12 education that undercuts your entire thesis.
I'm a high school English teacher. You seem to imagine the school system is comprised of kookie teachers and 'the union' who have terrorized poor hapless bureaucrats, state reps, admin, and board into doing the opposite of what these poor souls really want, which is to educate the children. Under your set up, once we remove the nefarious rogue teachers and the evil 'union,' the kind admin, board, and state will naturally be able to educated students as they always have.
Here's the truth: This is all coming from the TOP DOWN. The 'union' is simply operating as the 'bad cop' to the state's 'good cop.' In fact, this entire movement comes from the state and university bureaucrats and connected corporations. They want to turn the money spigot and power spigot to go directly into their mouths. Teachers are nothing--sure there are some rogue teachers. But the majority of us are not like this. The key thing is that if you fired every single teacher in the country tomorrow, NONE of this would change. Actualy it would get worse, because teachers like me (20+ years of experience) would be gone and in our place would be compliant deranged 21 year olds who buy into the propaganda.
If districts were really being bullied by the union, then all you'd need to do is remove the union. This is why your focus is so dangerous. Removing the union will not only cure nothing; it would simply strength the powers of the state, central admin, and board so they can do their propaganda even more easily.
Right now, i can teach Romeo and Juliet just as I've been teaching it for two decades. If I'm told at a professional development meeting to 'be mindful' of CRT, I can ignore and simply teach R & J. Without the union, if the board and admin really wanted CRT in the schools, and knew I wasn't playing the game, I'd be fired.
Please understand the structure. Right now you are playing into their hands. A couple of teachers is nothing. Literally nothing. It's like if you were against the Iraq war and concentrated on four soldiers' misdeeds and trusted the generals and contractors. Foolish. I'm sorry to be so blunt, but it's super frustrating to see such critical misinterpretation from an otherwise important voice.
The target needs to be the leadership and structure of the system itself. Not a couple of young insane teachers out of millions.
I do agree that we have a top down problem at the state(s) and federal levels - ie, the threat of the "Equality Act" which would make "gender" a legal thing and have the effect of eliminating "women & girls" as a meaningful category. We have the white house declaring that Assistant Health Secretary Richard Levine is the "first female four star admiral". Lying to parents about changing a kid's name and pronouns at school is state law in CA and some other states I believe. This is supposedly "to protect" the child but has the opposite effect.
Abigail has spoken out against the Equality Act. We've allowed an ideology to take over at the state and federal level. We need to return to separation of church and state. And, I do think Gender Ideology is a cult level ideology.
Yes!
LM, top down it is. Now, please take an hour out of your holiday weekend, and watch the video linked below. It skillfully dissects the dystopian "transgender" agenda created and outlined by multimillionaire ($300 million) autogynephile Martin (call me "Martine") Rothblatt in his 2011 manifesto, "From Transgender to Transhumanism." Rothblatt set the course for everything that is now coming to pass for the destruction of biological sex and also for the eventual elimination of biological human beings. Forewarned is forearmed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdV73dWFmO8&t=135s
will do, thx
I am at the point that I think the Department of Education needs to go. I believe Jimmy Carter invented it? And, here we are with the unintended consequences. Can we not ever remove anything in government after it not only fails but harms society?
Then start a campaign to throw out Randi Weingarten and her minions Weingarten who has no children has no empathy for parents or teachers and totally supports the woke agenda
Did I say the union was guiltless? Of course not. Please try to engage with my point and avoid jumping to where your brain has been trained to go. Weingarten has about as much string-pulling power as someone like BIden. That is, she's an eager puppet; she's gotten where she is through political manipulations, but getting rid of her is meaningless because the overall structure is the danger, not individual players.
I'm saying that the union is in fact playing bad cop to the state's good cop. They're in this together, along with a legion of bloated administrative bureaucrats and large corporate interests. Firing Randi Weingarten would do absolutely nothing to the overall structure of the complex.
Also, Weingarten has almost zero power in my day to day life as a teacher. The governor of my state has far far more power over my teaching , and federal and state law, and the board, and my admin-- and mostly, what Pearson or Bill Gates want.
The union and the radicals in your state’s government are an unholy alliance I think that public education nationwide is a complete disgrace but you sound like a very devoted teacher
I'm not in California (thankfully!). I have no problem disagreeing, but I do wish you'd see it is not just the union. I'm not saying it's not the union, at all. I'm saying the union is a side show, the 'bad cop' of a good cop/bad cop routine. As far as the radicals--maybe I'm saying the same thing, but to me they aren't radical. They're corrupt state players. Those in power are cynically using the radical delusions of a handful of people, and those poor fools believe in it. But the overall motives have very little to do with radicals, but rather with good old fashioned despots and tyrants.
Oh, thanks for the complement about my teaching :-) There are lunatics and incompetents, but I think many more dedicated teachers than people might think. But the system itself is a hot mess.
It sounds like your state education department is run by radicals with civil service protection who view the woke agenda as a substitute for a real education
I was really disappointed in Republican South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem when she vetoed the bill that would have kept boys who trans ID-ed out out of girls sports. And, lots of states failed to stop the medicalization of children.
It does. However... our daughter went to a high end private high school. The girl down the street went to public. Both bad.
And only a very few states have managed to pass laws against the medical/hormone/chopping up children part. Gas lighting at school sets them up nicely for the medical part and the age at which children can pursue it without even a (bad/misguided) parent on board gets lower and lower.
I am a one issue voter now after having been run over by the Trans Train. However, like in the Looney Tunes cartoons I am picking myself up, shaking myself off, and unflattening for the next round. Hell Hath no Fury like a Mama Bear Burned. :) Looney Tunes is an apt metaphore. A high school teacher in this comments section suggested that it is petty tyrants in government who are using the Woke Agenda/Mentally ill Activist Ideology for power and that some lame brained young teachers like the two in Abigail Shrier's reporting are hapless true believers. Whatever the mechanics the impact on this generation of young people is horrific.
Nancy Pelosi is likely the most powerful person in the world as Brandon does not know what is up - so I am not sure how little and petty all the tyrants really are... That said, most Republicans beyond Tom Cotton have been majorly Weak.
As far as education - maybe a number of teachers are feeling a need for validation - like we have not managed to make 100% of society into Einstein so we have more important things to do than teach them the "3 Rs" and help them be productive members of society - like teach them Woke Religion.
Yeah, I can see that: "Those in power are cynically using the radical delusions of a handful of people, and those poor fools believe in it. "
Those in power are also cynically using the deluded children. It is easy to delude children by nature of them being - children. Mine all believed in Santa Claus, too, but it wasn't a harmful belief.
DL, thank you for hammering home this point. Simply stewing about the union and a couple of rogue teachers will never overturn these policies, since they have been mandated by state legislatures with the full approval of the federal government through the ironically named Equality Act. Still, I am interested in your thoughts concerning the interplay of the unions and the schools.
As Shrier points out, both the CTA and the NEA have platforms that promote gender ideology in the schools. For instance, the NEA website has a large section entitled "Just and Equitable Schools," replete with social justice ideologies, courses, trainings and jargon. They work with partners like the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), also mentioned in Shrier's article, to fund LGBTQ programs in schools, with teachers as leaders. The point is, around the country the NEA is helping to fund trans activism with the participation of teachers and administrators.
The “insane teachers" you refer to made several missteps: they (a) violated students’ privacy; (b) circumvented parental authority; and (c) bragged about it openly. Going behind the backs of parents was bad enough, but with or without parental knowledge, this club should not have existed. Okay. Shrier’s investigation focused narrowly on two rogue teachers, and the majority of teachers don’t want gender clubs and classes in the schools. However, gender clubs and classes are nevertheless widespread in schools across the country. By employing the union’s woke jargon, perhaps seeking funding from the union, and being above board about their aims, these rogue teachers might still be in business. Or no?
You're correct. The “system” is a fundamental reality that we have to focus on. State legislatures' and the federal government’s endorsement of “gender” are to blame at the highest level. Shrier's shining a light on a microcosm of the problem, including the corruption of the unions, will not, in itself, bring down the whole ugly mess, but I see it is a wake-up call, not a dead end. Weingarten may not have power over your day to day life as a teacher, but her union funds this stuff and in a concrete sense is part of the cancer that spreads it. What Shrier has uncovered is incredibly important, and she’s not blind to the systemic big picture. We're playing catch-up regarding something that is already deeply entrenched. Sometimes the devil is in the details.
As with CRT, journalists like Shrier and parents who object are demonized and labeled bigots. Support from teachers who know better would be important. But that's unlikely to happen, because teachers are not in the business of getting involved in ideological controversies that could put their jobs at risk. In terms of a hypothetical mandate from your school administration to focus on gender theory in your Shakespeare course, given the unions’ active endorsement of trans ideology, are you sure they would protect you? Is my skepticism unwarranted?
The ideological corruption of schools needs to be confronted, from the universities to the state legislatures to the White House. How to do that successfully is the tricky part.
@Beeswax, thanks for your thoughtful response. Let me try to answer some of the questions--
A good way to understand power vectors is to remove them and see what happens. So, if you take a family--if you remove the mother, the entire family suffers greatly. So she's critical. If you remove the family goldfish, well, not as much. The goldfish is less critical to the family structure.
The overall bureaucratic/state structure of education has grown grotesquely over the decade, all stemming from the unholy alliance of state/corporate/professional bureaucratic powers. Once they grow large enough, bureaucratic hierarchies are concerned with themselves above what they represent--it's well documented.
My own thesis is that power and substance are inversely proportional: the higher up you go, the more the organization seeks to simply keep itself bloated, and the less it cares about its on the ground mission. CRT, as a cultural Marxism, is a great tool for tyrants, to sow fear and distrust and unquestioning obedience, to destroy family and community, to remove individualism, self determination and individual autonomy and replace with collectivism and groupthink.
In other words, once the structure becomes large enough and is pumped with enough shadow-money, as with school systems, it becomes vulnerable to infection from totalitarian forces because the top has so much power and is so disconnected from the bottom. Woke is a perfect tool for this and is being used accordingly. Focusing on this or that mid-tier player (some union) or, worse, irrelevant low level players (teachers) has good motives but is actually counterproductive because all it does is help further consolidate power.
Anyway, let's do a thought experiment:
Removing x aspect of the hierarchy--once removed, let's see its impact on teaching CRT and other deranged ideologies.
1. Removing teachers. There are millions of teachers, A minuscule proportion of teachers, usually through China's Tiktok, are deranged cult members. Sure fire them. But you could fire every teacher in the country and CRT would still be taught. That's because CRT doesn't come from teachers. The teachers on TIkTok (I am not convinced this isn't a form of psy-op--not saying there aren't teachers like this, although I've never met one, yet; I'm saying it seems very deliberate to me)--anyway, the TikTok teachers go on TikTok because their administration is ok with what they're saying.
In other words, if the district is not ok with teachers doing Deranged TikTok they just need to fire teachers who do Deranged TikToks. They're not doing that because the teachers are doing what their administration/board want. Many states don't have tenure and you can fire at any time--But even with tenure you can fire at will for the first 5 years, and even afterwards, your life can be made pretty miserable by admin. So to stop TIkTok, literally all the districts need to do is have the board policy be that teachers are not to use TikTok as employees and if they do, they can get fired. It's that simple. Why don't they? Ask yourself this.
They do this for other behaviors. For instance, I can't stand in my classroom sipping a beer. It's against policy. I can get fired. This is no matter how much tenure I have. So again, ask yourself why these teachers feel free to post on TikTok and aren't afraid of being fired.
2. The union. If you remove the union, sure you'll get rid of a lot of corrupt people, and a lot of noise. But nothing much would change on the ground, and CRT would get even worse because you've consolidated power in the hands of fewer people. The union has no say in what I teach inside my classroom. So removing them won't change what I teach--but it will embolden the board/admin/state to consolidate their powers even more.The union has major problems, definitely, but I'm pretty certain we've been deliberately manipulated to focus our ire purely on them.
3.Administration. Some admin, like the principal, are necessary. But you could remove at least half of central admin and nothing would change to impact the kids at all. Nothing would change in the classroom. And yet -- Impact on CRT would be huge. I wouldn't be forced to go to another Professional Development Meeting, the BOard wouldn't be buying CRT books, the central admin wouldn't be writing CRT curriculum, The DOE wouldn't be putting in CRT propaganda. Admin is the one that can fire me, or harass me, and come into my class and observe. They have the direct power.
4. State. Once we get to the ethers of the state, we're dealing with almost all power and no substance. These are the bureaucrats who move in the circles with high level university bureaucrats, private corporations like Gates and Pearson. It's just like the revolving door you see in media/university/Washington DC. This is where the real source of the power lies and this has the absolute least to do with the actual well being of the kids.
So based on this--
Proposals: Reduce the power of the state. Shrink the admin bloat. Hold admin/board accountable for things we value. I think we should abolish the DOE and return schools to highly local, nimble, horizontal structures with parents and the community in partnership with teachers and a teacher-leader (as principals used to be). A girl can dream.
Thanks for your reply. I agree with your observations regarding how bureaucracies marshal and maintain power. And I understand your point, which is that this is a top-down phenomenon. The administrators and legislators support each other; they're steeped in critical theory and share the cultural Marxist agenda that you describe well. The bottom layers are the teachers and the unions who carry out the policies mandated by the administrators, the state, and ultimately the corporations. I get it.
Your solutions are very ambitious and indeed, even “dreamy,” but they could happen over time if parents are fed up enough. Get rid of the DOE? I’m game; it's utterly corrupted. And it wouldn’t necessarily require abolishing the DOE. Because of CRT, the trans issue, and COVID policies, parents disillusioned with public education are walking away, home schooling and creating pods with other parents. Your vision to create “highly local, nimble, horizontal structures” is a tall order, but it really could work with sufficient involvement among people who share first principles regarding what an education should look like.
Still, for now, I’m going to continue to support the frame of Abigail Shrier's reporting. The progressive parents I know are afraid to criticize their kids’ “Rainbow Clubs." They have no idea what their kids are learning, how many of them are being groomed to transition behind the parents' backs, or being introduced to pornography. Hopefully, you’ve read the PITT Substack. If not, as a teacher, you really should.
Trans dogma is the most evil and destructive manifestation of critical theory there is. Its goal is to cause permanent alienation between parents and children and destroy the family. Based on what you’ve written, I think you know this is not hyperbole; it is literally the goal. In order to approach the kinds of changes you’d like to see, parents must first have their eyes opened to the magnitude of the problem, and that’s where Shrier’s reporting comes in. She’s the only journalist I know of who focuses exclusively on trans issues who has any kind of platform. She deserves all the gratitude and support we can muster. Her reporting is essential.
You are correct...which is why the entire compulsory schooling system needs abolished.
DL, you make some really good points here. The top down aspect is most disturbing of all, as it is often mis-guided and not at all well thought out. District level admin are not necessarily "bought in" but they are "bought for" meaning that the level of difficulty they experience each day due to bureaucratic/legislative/local political pressures are almost overwhelming... and then they have to do their day jobs. So, they comply obediantly with state dictates in order to leave time in a 90 hour work week to actually run the district and not have it fall apart under their watch. I agree that AS would do well to meet with rank and file teachers (although even that would be politically untenable since the unions are taking sides against her thanks to the "with us or against us" paradigm that afflicts pretty much all organizations on both sides of the aisle). The answers lay within the questions. For that very reason, it's a strategy of the status quo to avoid those questions and gas light us with "fake" questions and issues instead.
Thank you for explaining the good cop/bad cop aspect.
How would such important and necessary change be effectuated in what is a one party very blue and woke state?
As long as Randi Weingarten Is the czar of the teachers union don’t bet on that happening
Thank you. Destroying the public schools: the elitists' wet dream.
DL, Regarding how we have a top down problem, I found this information about the state of things in CA (not that all the other states listed are good): https://genspect.org/local/#USCA :
United States | California
Mandated curriculum on gender / gender identity
Criminal penalties relating to pronoun use
Some public colleges fund cross-sex hormones and surgeries (CA Institute of Technology, Stanford, UC Berkley, UC Davis, UC Hastings College of the Law, UC Irvine, UC Los Angeles, UC Merced, UC Riverside, UC San Diego, UC San Francisco, UC Santa Barbara, UC Santa Cruz, University of Southern California)
State pays for mastectomies
No proof of medical transition required to change sex on birth certificate
“Non-binary” / “Gender X” genders recognized on drivers’ licenses
Leftist perverts normalizing pedophilia and mutilation. This is not normal, folks and Abigail has the courage to tell the truth. Don't let the lunatics run the asylum. They seem crazy because they are.
We ARE and you are part of tiny minority who wants to keep straight white men in charge and force all the LGBTQ folks back into the closet.
TOO LATE< WE ARE HERE AND YOU LOST. The laws will not let you treat us like shit anymore, get the hell over it
You are bragging about promoting child gender mutilation and sexualization? I bet $50 you ARE white 😂
And you would lose. Bottom line, LGBTQ people will continue to demand and get equal treatment and you will have a long life of sadness that you cannot discriminate freely anymore
Of course I can. If you have a penis and a Y chromosome you’re a man. Period. No law will change that. No anything will. I don’t have to accommodate your fanatical religious beliefs from your church of gender ideology any more than I can make you pray to Jesus.
There are fish that can change their gender, but not mammals. Simply can’t happen. Not within mammalian control.
Hate to point out the obvious but an ideology based in genital mutilation, sterilization, and opposed to immutable biological fact is a self-limiting problem.
It’s all those Christians (and Muslims, and Hindus, and Jews and people who understand mammalian biology) making and raising the babies. Wokeism requires telling kids to not procreate further. The gender ideology people self-sterilize and celebrate abortion. That’s what your people do to their kids.
Do you actually fail to see your ideology is self-limiting? It’ll die with all true believers of today. The religion of gender ideology is already past peak evangelizing.
40 years ago transgenderism was incredibly rare disorder effecting fewer than 1 in 100,000 grown men. In another 40 years it will again be a rare disorder effecting about 1 in 100,000 men. People will again acknowledge that confusion with one’s body is a common and normal part of human development - not a condition requiring mutilation and sterilization. Parents will once again remember there is no “right” way way to be a boy or “right” way to be a girl - we are all unique individuals with unique mixes of personality traits living in the one and only body we will ever get. I would say the religious converts over the last decade might make it last more than another 40 years, but the truth is, big pharma subscription plans tend to be directly linked to shorter lifespans, so 40 years is a generous time allotment.
Nope, by law in many places you are not allowed to discriminate against trans people, you must stay in a red state hell hole to keep that right, for a little longer anyway. You can think what you want, but you cannot do anything to harm others because you simply disagree with their decisions. The rest of this unhinged rant is not worth commenting on. Just know, you are in the wrong and will never get your way to control others. never
Hahahaha. Give it 5 years. 🤣😂😂😂. And I can assure you I can and will discriminate against men in womens sports and private places. I can afford to discriminate. Luckily the people you vote for are 100% rules for thee, but not for me. And sure as heck not for our kids.
My daughter has protected private spaces, and is valued for being a REAL girl whose body makes her powerful, amazing, and different from boys and men.
The public schools are crumbling. Your state is dirty, polluted, and becoming more like the 3rd world. You people lose power more than my Cuban in-laws. In Cuba!!!! 😂🤣😂😂😂. You hate children and procreation. You hate your own bodies. You believe in fantasies - that a magical doctor with magical (and expensive) potions can magically change your gender. You must think people “want” to live in CA because you failed Econ 101 and missed how taxes and regulations create false floors to drive up cost as they enrich political cronies but are not the result of true supply and demand pressures.
You are in the wrong. You are promoting something that will never be true. Will never be real. No man will EVER give birth. No man will EVER know what it is to be a woman. No man will ever be a real women. And no human law will ever change that. And I’m not concerned about temporary, changeable human laws - your “movement” is so opposed the the natural order of life for all mammals for all of time it’s destined to be irrelevant within a couple decades.
Your religion is based in some dystopian fantasy where Gavin is your “god” and chronic health problems your lifestyle.
Trans women hate women. Those of us with daughters we love will always fight for them….. as trans women will spend their lives fighting chronic health problems trying to be something those expensive drugs will never make them (and let’s face it, without the expensive drugs it’s really just playing dress up, there is no hope to “pass” at all for that which one simply isn’t without big pharma subscriptions to help with the illusion)
I once had no issue with trans women - Neil they started on their current trek to erase REAL women. No more. I’m done being “inclusive” of the delusions of men. So are millions of moms and dads and girls and women.
I’m sad no one ever told you that you were born just the way you are supposed to be. God made you, like all of us, as a unique individual with unique personality traits and unique strengths and weaknesses in your one body that is one of two immutable sexes (male or female).
No law, no man, no woman, no surgery, no amount of “belief,” no drugs will every really change your gender. The best one who rejects the body with which they were endowed by their creator can hope for in life is simply to “pass.” It is that life which is sad, incredibly superficial, and empty. I’m so sorry if you’ve chosen this destructive path; but I will not enable your delusions nor allow any man to steal mine, or my daughters’, immutable and amazing biological truth and identity.
All your ranting has shown me is that life without God and a true moral compass based in acknowledgment that there is much beyond our control is to lead an empty life of lies and virtue signaling.
Do you also wear a double mask outside and feel like a super smart super good person even though you apparently don’t know the definition of “aerosol” or notice that which has failed for 20 months won’t suddenly start to work?
Wow I had neglected the fact that this was a presentation at the state level. There shouldn't be so much scandal about Abigail revealing these things then. Incredible.
Thanks for outstanding reporting. Happy New Year!!
We have no right to criticize another person’s sexual preferences, but we have every right to object strongly and by whatever means necessary to their attempts to warp our kids’ minds with their dangerous proselytizing.
Agree. The prefix “trans” involves an actual change or crossing over. Transatlantic flight, transferring schools, organ transplant. All actual changes. No amount of drugs, big pharma hormone subscription plans, clothing choices, or genital mutilation surgery will ever actually change a person’s gender/ sex. Their chromosomes will remain their chromosomes. Period.
Their are factually gay people. People can actually have an intimate relationship with someone of the same gender.
However, there is no such thing as a “transgender” person, only faux “gender transition” is possible. Women and girls have every right to maintain their same sex sports and private places from men no matter how much it hurts the man’s feelings or delusional “beliefs.”
Sexualizing little kids, to any sexual orientation, is sick. Lying to little kids about their bodies is evil and cruel. Using those lies to promote gentile mutilation and child sterilization is pure evil. It’s not “different” this time - it’s just as evil and cruel as it was every other time societies destroyed the bodies and minds of kids.
All this is actually leading to legalizing having sex with children.
Sadly that seems to be the goal……. The same people who hate children are the ones sexualizing them.
WHAT A BUNCH OF BULLSHIT. But if that happened, your side would be first to get caught as usual.
I disagree. We have every right to criticize antisocial behaviors like pedophilia, beastiality, necrophilia, etc.
The idea that all behaviors involving genitals are somehow sacrosanct is I think a dangerous one.
Those behaviors aren’t under discussion here and now but the blanket statement bothers me.
In theory, I understand that some gay-questioning kids might need outside support if they come from families that, for whatever reason, pressure or even punish them for even having such thoughts. After all, we know there are many gay adults who recall the anxiety and fear they felt growing up in a house where to be "different" in that way was to make yourself a target of anger, possibly even abuse.
But what I really don't understand is the current obsession among the wokerati not just to be accepting of a gay or questioning kid, but to *celebrate* gay, lesbian, etc. students as having triumphed over the allegedly tainted state of heterosexuality.
In other words, among a certain kind of people, there is a *clear* idea that *anything* is superior to being (the horror, the horror) "straight."
That bizarre notion of celebration seems to underpin these crusading teachers' glee and zeal for finding and recruiting (remember when that was the most nefarious charge one could level at gay people?) kids for their club.
Agree. And then kids feel they are not ok unless they can belong to some supposedly victimized group that is somehow lacking in "rights" - like "trans".
It is not the job of the school teacher to be the outside support. And, the real issue here is not even homosexuality but the promotion of Gender Identity Ideology. Pretty much any naive kid of any orientation - without a ton of friends - can fall into the "gender" trap. There is no such thing as Gender (outside "sex") and it is pretty much a cult - not science. Changing a kid's name and pronouns at school is gas lighting them and is a serious psychological intervention that often steers them toward cross-sex hormones and surgery. And, doing so behind the backs of parents creates an unhealthy "my parents are the enemy" vibe - often at an age when kids naturally need to separate themselves out. All this is done under a "kindness and understanding" mantra with "Trans" Speaker Grifters hired to come talk to the kids at assemblies and often a DEI/DIE person hired full time at a school.
Activists have been quietly working to change the laws so that they work against parents and children.
Ryan Grim: Trans Rights Memo: https://youtu.be/lxR78esqpEQ
Spot on!!! The culture amongst kids being groomed by adults
Brilliant once again. The people labeling this a "conservative" issue apparently didn't get the message yet, but another few election cycles and I think they may.
As an aside, a first grade teacher should never assume her students to be sexual beings. If she does her job right, most of them will want to marry her by the year is over, and it has nothing to do with what's under her skirt. (My first grader is taken, though. He's marrying me.)
What a great way to ring the new year, Abigail!
According to Wikipedia, "Stalking is unwanted and/or repeated surveillance by an individual or group toward another person." And those two rogue teachers freely admitted they "totally stalked what (their students) were doing on Google...."
"Totally stalked." Those were the teachers' very own words. These two rogue teachers "totally stalked" their students so they could recruit them into the teachers' secret clubhouse. And what took place during those ultra secret club meetings? The students were groomed and indoctrinated into embracing their "gender identity." You know. The preposterous nonsense that boys and girls can change their biological sex. And all this was kept from the parents. Top secret. Loose lips sink ships.
And now that the teachers' dirty little secret has been exposed, they want to point the finger at everyone else. But they have only themselves to blame for the mess they now find themselves in. And what a mess. They knew they were playing with fire. But they went ahead and did it anyway. And then, best of all, they were stupid enough to brag about it.
Yes. They bragged. They bragged about how smart they were to come up with all those clever, new ways to recruit children and deceive parents. They said the parents were too dumb, too stupid to ever figure out what was going on. And they bragged about it. Joyfully. Openly. They wanted to spread the word about their dirty little secret. And so they shouted it from the rooftops of Palm Springs. And then when all the stuff hit the fan, they stomped their little feet, cried like babies, and called the San Francisco Chronicle. The San Francisco Chronicle? I'm shocked it still exists.
But their wounds are purely self inflicted. These two feckless teachers shot themselves in the foot. They hung themselves with their own rope. And they were hoist by their own petard.
Yes, exactly. They openly admit "we started to try and identify kids." How damaging is that, for an adult to "identify" you, as an impressionable and malleable young kid who isn't able to properly reason yet? The kid just could have been curious about things they've heard so they searched something online or maybe even curious about themselves and then this adult goes and encourages and maybe even putting it into the kid's head and possibly confusing the hell out of them. Something that, in most cases (in the case of trans) would work itself out if left alone. It is horrific.
The Madness, Exhibit A: that Abigail had a enough material to write a book about this...
If only it were limited to two teachers at one school. That would be bad enough.
It's spreading like a cancer. My old friend's daughter, the one who takes testosterone and just had top surgery, now teaches at a middle school. Not a healthy role model for young teens.
unbelievable... parents can’t afford to be complacent... must actively screen / interview all their kids’ teachers as if they were making a six to seven figure+ investment... because they are💕
The teacher doesn't even have to do any out and out recruiting to be a danger. The kids can take one look and tell exactly what's going on. Five o'clock shadow, a creaking baritone voice, a flat chest, womanly hips, "they" and "he" pronouns, and the title "Mr" or is it "Mx?" And then any vulnerable child in that class can fall under the sway. And a few months later that child goes on puberty blockers and the die is cast.
The sad thing is this daughter is brilliant, and I'm sure she's a great science teacher. But it's not a good idea for her to be in a classroom with adolescents. Plus, she's openly admitted she hates anyone who isn't "trans." She's emotionally broken, damaged. I don't know what that school was thinking when they hired her.
Lots of schools seek to hire them as part of DEI. Trans identified (unwell) people work in county health departments as well.
...whew... don’t think i would survive nowadays... also the union needs dismantling... they’re driving the agenda.
They were thinking, “it’s against the law to NOT hire this person.”
Wow, you're right.
Talk about perversion. Both of our most cherished things in this world 'Our Children' and of your reporting of it by them trying to make themselves into the victim. They need to go to prison for a long time! How dare they! How sick has the world become?
Probably far, far worse than we realize. Think how comfortable they were telling every teacher in the state. They believed what they did was completely acceptable in that audience. And they were evidently correct.
You don't realize how bad it is until it hits someone in your family.
The left loves to quote the United Nations; so let's do it. Before it was run by a cabal of first world global world woke elites and second and third world dictators and torturers, the United Nations was rational and the home of Western values. Article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, approved at the General Assembly of the U.N. in December 1948, states that "parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children." The parents of every race with whom I've spoken (I'm a long time secondary school teacher), hate the new racism and reality of Critical Race Theory and Marxist revisionism. Their pride in America is palpible. Aren't we relieved that a sane Senate refused to consider Merrick Garland for the Supreme Court? I know that I am.
OMG yes
VERY much so.