My heart breaks for kids who, in addition to absorbing the indignities of irrational mask mandates, are used as pawns to justify and normalize adult... issues.
Way back in 2014 Dr. McHugh, former psychiatrist in chief at Johns Hopkins Hospital, wrote "At the heart of the problem is confusion over the nature of the transgendered. "Sex change" is biologically impossible. People who undergo sex-reassignment surgery do not change from men to women or vice versa. Rather, they become feminized men or masculinized women. Claiming that this is civil-rights matter and encouraging surgical intervention is in reality to collaborate with and promote a mental disorder."
Past a certain age society may "let it go" but we certainly should not be teaching an ideology of Gender to children at school and sending them down a path they might not otherwise take.
"Another subgroup consists of young men and women susceptible to suggestion from "everything is normal" sex education, amplified by Internet chat groups. These are the transgender subjects most like anorexia nervosa patients: They become persuaded that seeking a drastic physical change will banish their psycho-social problems. "Diversity" counselors in their schools, rather like cult leaders, may encourage these young people to distance themselves from their families and offer advice on rebutting arguments against having transgender surgery. Treatments here must begin with removing the young person from the suggestive environment and offering a counter-message in family therapy. "
You are very welcome. You might also appreciate this interview of Dr. Quentin Van Meter. He says the Endocrine Society researchers/doctors used to operate in the red and heads of departments found the revenue stream of "trans" irresistible & all the other medical institutions just pointed to them. Also, he has very good insights about the young people and families, and John Money (original pedophile quack).
What's sad is that the ACLU used to be fighting against tyranny. They had warned after 9/11 of the coming totalitarian system. Must be they were taken over. CointelPro operation maybe was at play.
Yes, there is a new group that is doing what the ACLU used to do but I can't think of the name right now... They've been thoroughly taken over/corrupted as many of our formerly trusted institutions have been (ie, medicine & education).
Yes, very true. Adults projecting their own insecurities and hangups onto children. I've seen how traumatized some of these kids are. Not everyone can afford to take their kids out of school and home-school them, unfortunately.
None of this is true, nor did BLM "get away with murder" as BLM didn't commit any murders. You're so brainwashed by your daddy Tucker Carlson and the fat son of a bitch that got impeached twice that you just shit out your regurgitated talking points like the good little fuckboi you are.
You aren't in the "parents movement" you're in the "christo-fascist hate mongering movement" hellbent on hating literally everyone who isn't a cis white male. Get fucked you pathetic sack of shit.
No one is advocating for grooming except you Christian fundamentalists, who, by the way, are responsible for far more child predation than any gay community ever has been. Your priests fuck little boys and you are there to defend them every step of the way.
You should be locked in a padded room so you can take out your anger on yourself and stop slandering gay people as pedofiles. Go cheat on your wife with your fourth child rape victim, you sick fuck.
Of course, it has to be a message that is imprinted in their heads at a young age that will negatively affect them for the rest of their lives. It breeds insecurity and shame on both sides. Why should a 3 year old feel that? Or an 8 year old, or even a 15 year old? It’s like giving them an introduction to porn at that age in order to permanently change their brain chemistry and circuitry. Emotional abuse. Setting the stage for hostility as adults. These people pushing their sick agenda must be stopped by any means necessary.
Did you hear about MAP (minor-attracted persons)? The same people who convert kids to gender cult are trying to normalize MAPs as sexual orientation that people are 'born with,' that is misunderstood and unfairly discriminated against. These people make children believe that they would feel better by cutting off body parts they don't like and they should enjoy having sex with whoever wants to have sex with them. "Setting the stage for hostility as adults" could be one of their goals. Preparing an easy prey for predatory obsessions of TQQIP2SAAMAPs is their mission.
Here's the argument I've heard re MAPs: The argument is that such people cannot control their *attractions*, just as most people can't, but that many (perhaps most, I think) do not act on them and want to stay that way. By calling them "pedophiles," they are stigmatized and less likely to seek help that can a) help them and b) reinforce that they must never, ever act on their attractions. I suspect it's true that they cannot control their attractions, but they can control their actions, and perhaps even be taught to do so.
I know this argument. The same argument can be used for serial killers and cannibals. The main problem with 'MAPs' is that the same teachers who explain to preschoolers that everybody can be everybody else also teach kids that everybody should enjoy having sex with everybody else. When a child 'enjoys' having sex with a 'gender-fluid' adult, there is 'no harm' done. So, why to teach minor-attracted 'persons' to control their actions if it's so much easier to teach children to enjoy what these 'persons' do to them?
Bullshit. Absolute pure unadulterated bullshit!! They’re freaking child molesters and you’re sugar coating it. No, I’m not hip or progressive or Wtf you want to call it. I’m an OG Dad and now a grandfather and I didn’t serve 8 years for people to protect child molesters feelings. What in Gods name is wrong with you people??
Yeah well, the porn does show up at ridiculously early ages. Barely disguised as a furious focus on sexuality at a time in kid's life when the "ewwww" creep factor is still well in place.
There are malign forces at work here and they originate outside of this country. Chinese money is involved. Follow the money! This is how they intend to destroy America and achieve their dream of hegemony. Sounds far fetched? Truth is stranger than fiction, always remember that.
You are right that CCP heavily invests in Western's "woke" ideology and specifically targets younger generations. Wokenization of Disney is the best proof. Yet, if American parents will stop buying woke movies, stop bringing their kids to drag queen story hours, and pull out kids from schools in which brainwashed by CCP's money gender-queer teachers convert kids to their cult, CCP wouldn't be able to do much.
I couldn’t agree more! Awareness is the first step. Some would say admitting there is a problem comes first, but one has to be aware they have a problem before they can admit it.
That's a real big leap there to pedophilia & incest there, kiddo.
Short-sighted, perhaps, are we?
I read your long reply and almost nothing in it is verifiable.
To anyone who has followed Abigail Shrier (with an open mind) for the past several years, your arguments are shrill, hysterical, bogus, and with no genuine factual merit.
Claiming that legions of parents are somehow on board with some kind of secret plan toward child abuse.
Tell you what. Because this reminds me of another time, almost 40 years ago, when America went batshit crazy sniffing its own asshole (so to speak) for a real good time, thrills, chills and top of the line entertainment, page-turners that can't be put down - go find yourself two or three of the better books published about the Day Care Satanic Witch Hunt. You won't believe it. You will hardly believe that so many adults at that time could be that gullible.
To the point that some of the children had more common sense (and these were largely daycare children. We're talking about kids too young for elementary school, here.)
But I don't want to give the plot away, or spoil the outcome. It's too rich and gooey with delicious dark ironies that explore that soft underbelly of societal stupidity.
Which means that when we encounter a brave explorer of human affairs willing to risk the fallout from telling us the truth about ourselves (in order to make us better) we would do well to take it seriously, and buck up.
You’re throwing handfuls of shit against a wall to see what sticks, it seems to me. Your lengthy screed was long on conjecture and hyperbole. Stop the word vomit and provide some factual evidence to support your allegations or find another substack page to troll. Govern yourself accordingly.
I've removed a few comments by someone who was openly insulting, harassing and name-calling the commenters here. I don't think I've ever removed a comment before, but these were really beyond the pale. xo
I really really wanted to put my kids in public school. I had a wonderful public school experience growing up and I wanted that for my kids too. Then, a few years ago, I learned about what is actually taught and promoted in the district we now live in (one of the"best" public school districts in the country) and I was shocked. I convinced my husband that Catholic school was the best option and now a few years in, as the public schools have gotten even worse in pushing their agendas in every possible way, we are very happy with our decision and would 100% make the same choice again...especially since the Catholic schools were the ones actually open during 2020 and 2021. And, you're right, Abigail, the parochial schools that I know of don't force their religion down students' throats in the same all-consuming way that certain ideologies do in the public schools.
The individuals pushing this agenda do behave as members of a toxic cult. If I were a parent, I would pull my kids out of school immediately and home-school, perhaps joining together with other parents to develop a private program. Loss of income/time be damned, the sacrifice is critical to the emotional and intellectual health of our children!
This is embarrassing but I’m confused. I thought queer was a somewhat derogatory term for gay? Having delusions about your body has nothing to do with sexual orientation. And a 3 year old with any sexual orientation is being criminally sexually abused. Same for 4,5,6,7,8,9,10 and potentially 11,12,13
I am gay and the word used to be what you say. But the word has been re-purposed and became a catch-all term, like "queer studies" or "queering theology". And I understand that now it's a kind of sans-culottism and straight people can identify as queer, and do.
And so this intense self-focus continues, macro and microscopically. When I was a kid, the sure best solution to childhood blues was to get out of yourself (which often helped in getting over yourself.) Like suddenly discovering tornados and wanting to know a gazzion times more. Or practicing some bit of a sports thing over and over ad nauseum until you got it right. Or the physicality of marathon bike rides. Or the sensuality of skinny dipping in some private bit of natural pool somewhere. Or spending an afternoon in the woods with field glasses learning how to be absolutely quiet and still and watching what showed up. Or any one of a thousand other things. I did all this while quietly going about my business learning how to be gender self-defining. This was all possible because I actually was a free agent kid. I was left alone. Nobody messed with me. I took this to mean that this was probably the actual Freedom that my forebears had fought and died for, in order that I could live a free life. I had no idea at the time how correct that gut-hunch actually was.
Which is why what "educators" do now is such a goddamn crime against humanity and against childhood. Kids don't stand a chance.
I agree with you. Part of the problem for kids is obsessing about it all which is encouraged with all the "use your pronouns" and let's "talk about gender". Advice for parents of kids caught up in this includes getting them doing things in the outdoors/nature/with animals and helping them find hobbies/work/volunteering that gets them outside of themselves as you say. The mother who founded 4thWaveNow - an early site about ROGD - sent her daughter to work on a horse farm for a year and she recovered.
Exactly. If your identity becomes nothing but what is between your legs, or the color of your skin, or some other incredibly narrowed down marker - there's no time left to expand your awareness exponentially. Which is a thing many kids will naturally do - when not messed with, but instead encouraged to do, and best of all, shown by example. A child can easily become mesmerized by a real-world encounter with something, and occasionally this is powerful enough to last a lifetime. But the best lesson is that your "identity" whatever the hell that is, does not dictate the rules of the game of life you play. That play should be a stage, with as diverse a collection of players upon it as possible.
Everything I describe here is still, thankfully, the way that most kids grow up. And they leave in their dust the ones that become obsessed with ever-narrowing confines. As if creating a self-designed prison. A Free society was created, fought for, and sustained for a reason. The most free rise to the top, and encourage others to follow. This is not about angels dancing on the head of a pin. Its about autonomy in one's own life. By that I mean real autonomy, control, and freedom from harmful indoctrination.
Agree 100%. Perfect. You nailed it. If every "educator" in America read your post the problem/contagion might dissolve.
Slightly to the side of this issue I want to add: the teen girls tend to obsess (with encouragement from GI and/or being icked out by porn type culture) about having breasts. They go for cross sex hormones and "chest affirming" surgery. Most of them don't think much about the "between the legs" issue. For one thing, they are YOUNG.
The people who talk about that are the middle aged fetished straight men who say they are female and lesbians and generally do not get castrated even if they get cosmetic play breasts and long hair (like so many people?). So, they say they are women and accuse other people of being rude & nosy about "what is between my legs" as if THEIR privacy were being intruded - as they enter female spaces.
I had a similar upbringing, though I was born in the 1980’s so not all my friends had the free range life I did. I thought until at least 9ish that I should have been a boy. The first week of school, my 1st grade teacher thought I was an actual boy. I did and do hate Barbie’s, dolls, pink, tea parties, sitting around inactive.
I am forever grateful the adults in my life said “you’re a kid. Just be a kid. Nobody fits a stereotype. If you still want to be a boy at 25 we’ll talk.”
By 20 I was a whitewater River guide proud of all my body had accomplished and totally boy crazy. By 25 I was crazy in love with my now husband. By 30 with my baby children who are my world. As I quickly approach 40 I shutter to think what would have happened to me had I been born 20 years later. Odds are I’d be dead by my own hand. I would have destroyed my body, and with it everything worth living for as an adult....... I could not have lived with myself for that, but as a kid I could not have resisted the gender ideology narrative.
Kids need to be kids, and taught to love the only body they will ever have.
Hi NCmom. Wow. I'm like 20 years older than you are. Imagine me learning my feminine daughter is getting called "he" in high school and learning I am the bad person because transexuality and pedophelia (Minor Attracted People = Maps) have been normalized. Huh? I remember being so proud when a boy on the playground told me in admiration that I "could run really fast for a girl in a skirt" :) My daughter and I both had a great range of interests. I gave her every kind of toy and she loved it all. I do think that by and large girls find more gentle ways to play with the trucks given to them than boys... but... Anyway, I did bristle at things myself at times. I am having a little bit of a hard time with this "free range" thing. I was looked after but not to a crazy extent and I took reasonable steps toward autonomy/independence/stepping out. I've never done a drug in my life - for instance.. I don't think that sort of thing is necessary for understanding the difference between boys and girls. It's not that hard. Sex is binary.
That experience with your daughter is devastating. I can only imagine, but it hurts my heart. How old is she now?
Sex, at least for all mammals, is clearly binary. We are all unique individuals and I can’t believe how many adults have pushed, and children have fallen victim to, gender theories that try to shove personalities into boxes, the mutilate the body to match the silly box. These are just theories, which are disproven by replicated outcomes.
I am not nearly the free range parent that mine were. It’s hard to be. In fairness my parents grew up in poverty. Mom left home at 16 never to return. Dad turned 18 in combat in Vietnam. He started working for pay at 5. Mom’s parents neglected her. Dad’s were abusive alcoholics. They were incredibly wonderful and loving parents to my brother and I, rules and visual supervision literally never really occurred to to them. They talked, advocated for me when appropriate, were never abusive, showed up when I asked, and were very loving.
Being free range let me focus on things other than my insecurities. I was always out in nature. It also helped me gain confidence and comfort in my own skin (as did athletics). I was completely wild in high school and college, but grounded in who I was, and that allowed me to be ok with not constantly doing what other people do. Peer pressure has never worked in me.
Our kids never went to public school because of our fears over crappy academics and outright indoctrination in these weird and destructive social theories. If my kids were a few years older I’m not sure I would have realized what’s going on in time, as I only really figured it out when my daughter was a toddler. We are grateful for having the time to notice...... we are seeing the consequence of this crap with friends and in our community and it’s heartbreaking.
It sounds like you grew up the way a great many children have in history. I am sorry that your parents had such a hard time but it sounds like they wound up with love and family. I think it was lucky for you that you grew up in nature and not a city where things might have gone differently. My daughter had the now classic ROGD sudden personality change during high school. She is at an age when she could legally hurt herself but does not seem to show interest in that. (Our medical system shouldn't be ok with self harm but it is.) She's much more herself these days and seems to be focused on real things. I don't think she has dropped all the toxic ideology though. I think the grooming came mostly at the hands of another kid and that the school endorsed it. I have hopes that we will all come through this with time and maturity. I am committed to ending the grip of GI on our institutions.
Straight men who get excited about the thought of themselves really being women (a fetish) call themselves lesbians now as they still want to "date" women. They are a category of "trans women". These fetished up straight men tend to be the main Trans Activists. They insist everyone go along with their fantasy/mental illness that they are female. They tend to be very aggressive and take advantage of other people's mistaken kindness to go along with them.
Gender Ideology has appropriated "queer". Now all the kids are encouraged to think of themselves as "queer" in some way with the gender unicorn and alot of pronouns.
So if you are a straight girl at school who is uncomfortable with puberty you might be encouraged to think you are a gay boy via step by step cult like grooming. No one speaks against it because it's all "kindness and understanding" and "affirmative approach".
If I could imagine for a moment life as a straight girl, say 10 or 11 years old, and coming face to face with online hard-core porn, I might be having serious thoughts about cancelling girlhood. Not necessarily to become a boy, but just to not have to submit to that shit. That's the thing that has become the new thing. A lot of transitioning girls don't necessarily want to become male at all. Male repulses them. They just don't want to be female. And we could hardly blame them, could we? When I was rattling around grade six and grade seven, the girls I went to school with were, of course, not remotedly subjected to such imagery as what is so easily encountered online today. We've given them the ways and means to blow up their own lives. All for fun and profit. It's disgusting.
Agree completely. It's as Abigail says, it's not so much that they want to be men but that they are fleeing womanhood "like a house on fire". When I asked my daughter a few years ago whether she would really want to be a man she said something to the effect of "It would be better than this!!".
This crap is why my young kids haven’t stepped foot in a public or woke school (private, conservative, Christian). Whatever happened to letting kids be kids and figure it out as they grow up? Now little girls have to deal with naked grown men in pool changing facilities and overnight camps. So sad.
There is biologically 1 human race, there are two immutable human genders………. there will always be some humans (and primates) who are homosexual, most will not, and that’s fine as consenting relationships of either form among post-puberty people.
Men can never be women (or vice versus) and sexualizing kids is always incredibly harmful.
We’ve known these things for thousands of years and they have been proven by modern science. It’s not that complicated.
The activists are sick exhibitionist. What I don’t understand is why the vast majority of parents keep handing their kids over to these lunatics.
I think it's all been creeping in on the "down low" for some time. Families tend not to be aware until they are bombed by it. Then, they find to their shock and grief that the education, medical, and legal systems have been quietly set up against them and toward hurting their child. (Like, did any of us vote to agree that Gender means something beyond sex which is binary? I don't remember a vote or some scientific discovery along these lines like that there are 66 sexes...) The #1 step of all groomers is to separate children from their parents mentally/emotionally. Most people just hear about "pronouns" and think it's a silly fad that will pass or that it somehow helps same sex attracted people who have had it hard in the past... sort of thing.
You hear about it more when one parent is a true believer in the Gender cult and the other is not. Guess who is winning right now? Once your kid is groomed they are in a cult and it is hard to get them out.
True. Such records as do exist of the lives of tribes, societies and cultures before European contact prove that their moral structures were set powerfully to protect their children. And not necessarily their innocence. Life was harsh. But to protect their children from exploitation or abuse. It was unheard of. I'm not saying this was a universal thing, but it was common enough to be considered an optimal norm.
These fetished up heterosexual trans activists have invented a "slur" for women who do not affirm that they are real "females". They actually call them radicals and exclusionary for saying they are men! You have probably heard the term TERF: Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist. You do not have to be a radical or a feminist to know the difference between a man and a woman. And -- this is "Exclusionary"! They are happy to see children and teen girls adopt a cult ideology because it means more people validating their fantasy and this makes it easier for them to enter women's spaces - even in prison. I like TERF = Tired of Explaining Reality to Fools. A problem is that there are very powerful - even billionaire - men like James Pritzker (Jennifer) and Richard (Rachael) Levine in both political parties who insist they are women so that even most Republicans go along with laws that hurt children and teen girls. If you look up Pritzer you find endless articles about how he's the best woman who has ever lived - or something. Others like George Soros pour money into this. I think he's a guy so I don't know what's up with that - disrupting society?
The more I think about it the more I think it is important to drop the activist term "trans women". Some other term that doesn't defy reality must be employed - like cosmetically feminized male (CFM) or "biophobe" (see https://pitt.substack.com/p/biophobia-a-progressive-manifesto?s=r) or anything at all that does not involve "trans" or "woman".
And someone like Chase Strangio of the now evil ACLU would be a "Cosmetically Masculinized Female" (CMF). The kids are another thing. They are called "victims".
I never hear about women transitioning to men, it appears that it's always about men to women. (except in that movie, name long forgotten). Any thoughts?
Most any high school I know of and most any parent of teens I know of is aware of girls who now suddenly think they are boys. The fetished straight men who want you to think they are female are one of the drivers of this but it is the girls who suffer in significant numbers. Big pharma, profiteering "gender" therapists, and unscrupulous doctors are making big $$. Laws work against parents. Where I live double mastectomies of teen girls is big business. They call it "chest affirming surgery." Normally, these girls take "T" first so that there voice will never be the same again. They rarely get "bottom" surgery unlike the boys who fall into this.
This promoter was previously part of the "Satanic Panic" in the 1990s:
You hear about the men "transitioning" to women because they are loud adult activist types or extremely rich, or powerful in government: Bruce Jenner, James Pritzker, Richard Levine, Veronica Ivy - formerly Rachel McKinnon - originally I think Richard McKinnon, etc.
The majority of transitions among youth are females who get convinced they are “really men”. It’s close to 2% of k-12 students in public schools in the US. Male to faux girl/ woman, while far more dangerous, is less common.
Both the numbers and makeup of transitioners has changed dramatically over the last decade.
Bill Gates, George Soros and other fans of big pharma subscription plans have turned a relatively small market for puberty blockers aimed at precocious puberty in girls, and cross-sex hormones for adults, into a multi-billion per year revenue stream for big pharma by treating “gender dysphoria” despite the known permanent effects like drops in IQ (puberty blockers), sterilization in kids/ teens (cross-sex hormones administered before natal puberty is complete) and serious life long health issues in everyone who uses these drugs.
Outcome = Pain, Pain, Pain; the huge scars from a double mastectomy are (often) painful for a lifetime - I suppose that outcome is not well understood yet. For M-to-F + so called bottom surgery, produces a lifetime in diapers and your urologist on the top of your Rolodex; a wound, and resultant low level infection, which is purposefully prevented from healing has got to be uncomfortable, again, for a lifetime. then there's the enhanced suicide risk (well documented) . And how dreadfully painful the soon arriving terrible isolation must be. A burst of attention, and "affirmation" followed by "on to the next sensation" (local or national) - how many of these people end up in stable, satisfying marriages (of whatever form)? - When is he last time you heard of Chelsea Manning? - Me? - It was the media reports of his hospitalization following an unsuccessful suicide attempt (associated, true, with his legal difficulties as well).
I think I can help. I'm a 69 year-old lesbian. I came out in 1971, when the term "queer" was the most common derogatory term for gays and lesbians. One was also likely to hear words like "pansy, fag, and faggot" to describe the men, and "bulldagger, bull dyke, dyke," and some overtly obscene terms to describe the women, which I'll omit out of kindness to myself. During the early years of the gay liberation and the radical lesbians movements, some of us reclaimed the term "queer," which we used ironically as a way of removing its sting. Then it was appropriated again, this time by trans activists. I no longer use the term or identify with it.
Thank you. That adds clarity. I’m only 39 and I used the term once as a little kid talking about a ball game (I had no idea what it meant). My mom’s eyes bugged out of her head and her face turned red and I swear it started to actually steam. 😂. Once she started breathing normally again, she explained in little kid terms what it actually meant and that it’s a really derogatory term. Aside from crazy woke activists that I tend to tune out, the only people I normally hear use it are the same people who use the word “fag” so my gut reaction is still it’s not nice, though I’ve been confused with hearing it so casually in media/ movies/ articles.
What I also don’t understand is how gender ideology gets treated like it’s “the same thing” as being gay, or the same cause.
My kids are little but I don’t care what their sexual orientation, or that of their future college roommate, turns out to be. I think that’s normal.
I do have a huge issue with the thought my daughter could be forced to room with a mentally-ill man or she’ll get thrown out of college. I don’t know any sane and non-sicko 18 years old young man comfortable with being forced to room with a clearly damaged young woman (and wouldn’t want my son in that position). I’m certainly not sterilizing my kids because they don’t fit in some stereotype box.
They aren’t the same. One has always been part of the humanity and the other is largely an ideological invention of the last century. I recognize gender bending and cross dressing has been around, but this idea of someone actually becoming another gender is new. Or inventing their own. To the extent it may have existed historically there is slight evidence that it was very very rare in natal males (like 1 in 100,000 to 1 million). Now 2% of the population in k-12 in the US identifies as some gender that’s not their sex and huge numbers are using puberty blockers and cross sex hormone big pharma subscription plans to the tune of billions a year? That’s ideology not innate anything.
Homosexuality has always been present in human sexuality. Even some other primates engage in homosexual expression.
While I don’t necessarily care how adults live or dress, it’s overtly misogynistic to me to reduce women to a dress up character for men. A man simply can’t ever be a “real” woman and real women deserve protected private spaces and fair competition.
It’s even more heartbreaking for girls. I was a huge Tom boy growing up. I’m an athlete. Lesbians have always been in my life. I talk to teenagers now and so many that I’m pretty sure are just gay in some cases, or depressed in others, have sterilized themselves and mutilated their genitals and take hormones because they are being told they are “really” men. No they aren’t!! There is no “right” way to be a girl or “right” way to be a boy. We are what we are. The issue has always been the stereotype boxes very few people really fit into.
Sorry for the rant. I see gender ideology destroying lots of young lives and it’s cruel.
That’s an interesting observation. I do know there’s a ton of b.s. virtue signaling on the part of so-called “allies” of designated victim groups. So straight woke people might use the term “queer” to show solidarity with trans people and maybe gays and lesbians who prefer the term queer because they’re also woke.
But I’m going to push back a bit and say that Queer Studies, one of the critical studies that promotes cultural Marxism in the academy, was at least in part influenced by gay men like Michel Foucault and fleshed out by lesbian academics like Judith Butler.
Yes, but at least Foucault was referring to males and females who are gay. Sexual orientation was the issue (who you're attracted to), not sexual identity or our current confusion about the body (who you are). The gender dysphoria confusion is pretty recent, last 10 or 15 years.
You're right that the epidemic-like explosion of trans identification, especially in adolescent girls and to a lesser extent in adolescent boys, has been building over the last 10-15 years.
But the growth of transgenderism through the work of John Money and academics associated with 'Queer Theory goes back a lot further than that. As I mention above, I came out in 1971. Trans-identified men, the masculine heterosexual types, were calling themselves lesbians and demanding admission to lesbian groups and events by the mid to late 1970s. By the late 1980s, butch lesbians were transitioning in earnest. Judith Butler's book "Gender Trouble" came out in 1990. In it she argues for separating "sex" and "gender." In 1993 I attended a talk by linguistics professor Julia Penelope, a lesbian theorist, reporting on a Queer Theory academic conference she had attended in Texas. I'll never forget her words: "Well, they're trying to disappear the lesbians." The theory was that butch lesbians were expressing an innate masculinity that defined them as men, and they should transition. I asked Julia, "why should we care what they're discussing in academia?" and she said, "because they're teaching this stuff to young lesbians, who are taking it seriously." Today you can barely find a butch lesbian. The bars are closed, the women's bookstores are gone, lesbian culture is a thing of the past.
Gender dysphoria has been correlated with transition for a lot longer than the past 15 years. For instance, trans man Buck Angel, who self-defines as "transsexual" rather than "transgender," started transitioning in 1990 at the age of 28. Angel describes having intractable gender dysphoria prior to transitioning and states that transitioning was the only thing that could cure it.
I had heard of some of these cases in the 1990s. But I thought the numbers were tiny. I do see even more clearly than before why so many lesbians are so strongly opposed to transgender men trying to be women.
BTW, transsexual and transgender are quite different. (I was set straight, so to speak, on this by a transsexual man.) Transsexual is a rare developmental occurrence of primary sexual characteristics at birth being one, and the opposite sexual characteristics kicking in at adolescence. From where I live, my guess is that rates are one in 30K to one in 100K. Overwhelmingly, transsexuals are born male. Transgender is a result of a strictly mental phenomenon, gender dysphoria, the persistent feeling of being born in the wrong body. Again, until recently, overwhelmingly a male demographic. Not sure about rates, but they were small until about 15 years ago. The last five to 10 years have seen an explosion of numbers, driven by social media mainly, or so it seems. Much Millennial depression and anxiety is feeding this, which is why you see (for the first time) significant numbers of women claiming gender dysphoria. By standard metrics and diagnostics, it doesn't make sense. But it's not a medical phenomenon, rather a social mania.
Unless we take the strongest stand now, this hideous situation will get exponentially worse in the future. I know of one twenty something young woman, with they/them pronouns, a testosterone fueled five o'clock shadow and a mastectomy flattened chest, who was recently hired to teach science at a private middle school. Just imagine forking over $50k per year and having a mentally disturbed woman like that instruct your preteen and teenage children.
If taught after being banned, these administrators and teachers need to be sued by parents and request criminal charges against them. Don’t tolerate this. Fight.
So what is the solution to this problem. I know school board members who have supported getting this out of schools but of the principals and teachers ignore the rules what is left today? Bring in the police? File complaints? What is the next best option at this time?
That may solve your personal problem but it doesn't address our collective problem that a foundational pillar of our society has been captured by people who hate us and who if left unchecked will harm our children and dissolve the fabric of our social order. Every subject including math, literature, history, and biology has been weaponized to disrupt our kid's cultural and moral universe. We simply cannot cede control of a fundamental institution to people who are determined eradicate our culture. This is civilizational and we have a moral duty to push back. If the Asian Tiger Moms can do it in San Francisco we all can. We all must.
Absolutely agree. But we also have to save our children one child at a time. We can save more right now through school choice initiatives.
US public schools have been going downhill longer than I’ve been alive. This activism within schools is systemic, though millions of great teachers don’t buy it. It will take decades and competition to actually fix the problem for as many kids as we can as soon as we can.
I’m all for helping take back lot so school boards, but the issue is much deeper. The schools must be motivated to fix themselves. School choice and alternatives saves kids now. We can’t sacrifice a generation of kids just fighting at school board meetings. We need a change to our entire approach to education which puts parents back in charge and gives good teachers more options.
We may need to think outside the box to genuinely rebuild these institutions. Screaming at ideologues to stop has never and will never work. We need the ideologies out of the classroom and that will be a long process in public schools.
Before Gender Ideology I didn't think about it much but I now agree that we need to break the public/government run school monopoly. More charter schools could mean two systems putting pressure on each other. It's an imperfect idea... in theory we have two political parties in this country but in effect we have been overtaken by Gender Ideology. But, we need to fight this on All fronts.
A problem is that with the NAIS private schools are equally bad regarding the Gender Religion Cult - and the majority of people are not going to be able to homeschool. Then, all it takes is for a homeschooler to meet other kids out there and get "infected" by a groomer in the cult. Other Social Contagions in the past have spread like wildfire. Then, you find that the medical community and the law works against the parent - even after you think you have taken care of the education part. Maybe the Amish are immune :-0
If people had stood up to Hitler and his Nazi stormtroopers, and Lenin and Stalin and their insanity, at least 100 million souls would have been spared grievous murder and hundreds of millions would have been spared a life of slavery. These insane grossly perverted people have got to be run out of time, imprisoned or executed. The world must bear their sodomy any longer.
I counseled some trans-gender teens during a psychiatry residency in Germany in the late 1980s. I don't understand the phenomenon, but accept it is real. It is also incredibly rare. A maximum of perhaps 1.3%, low estimates at 0.5% of population. Geographic clusters are inexplicable.
But it's no more possible for a person to change their sex than it is for them to change their species. And it's highly likely that most of these misguided gender benders will eventually regret their decision. Dr. "Renee" Richards the famous tennis player/ophthalmologist who "transitioned" in the mid 1970s as a ("male" to "female") said he wished for something that could have prevented his surgery. "Better to be an intact man functioning with 100 percent capacity for everything than to be a transsexual woman who is an imperfect woman."
You've constructed a straw man. Nowhere do I claim that it is possible for someone to change either sex or species. "Highly likely" isn't even as precise as fuzzy math. And to decide without ever meeting these people that they are misguided gender benders who will eventually regret their decision is projection and a genuine form of bigotry.
That does not mean that I am in favor of preaching race essentialism or molding our entire school curriculum around the potential needs of a microscopic slice of society involving an area as fluid as sexuality, sexual orientation, or gender identity. If my child (my youngest is 45) had wished to attend school in a dress or overalls or both, or to ask that people call her Squee/Squim, I'd simply laugh. The prefontal cortex does not mature enough in one's teens for there to be certainty about anything.
The origin of sexual orientations might be genetic or epigenetic; the latter has more likelihood than the former. An imbalance of estrogen and/or testosterone in the womb may be the determining factor, and there is no "gay gene." Similarly, epigenetics are a more inviting field of exploration for gender identity than anything else. Epigenetics can explain nearly everything except levitation.
Thank you for your thoughtful comment. I still stand by what I wrote. There are already thousands of desisters and detransitions who deeply regret the chemical poisoning and surgical mutilation they were subjected to as childen or young adults. And as the "transgender" madness continues, their numbers will surely grow.
As Jennifer Bilek's 11th Hour Blog points out, today's children and young adults are now being brainwashed to believe the impossible by an army of "transgender" activists. These activists are well funded by a pack of autogynephile, high tech billionaires who are determined to remake society in their own deranged image. These billionaires and their minions are out to deny human sexual dimorphism and destroy the sex based rights of girls and women. They need to be shut down before they ruin any more young lives.
I'm most certainly an outlier, being a person who has lived with awareness of his gender dysphoria for over seven decades without being driven to transition. I consider myself fortunate to be able to make the choice as to how I wish to live, and I empathize with those whose extreme mental anguish pushes them to "change" genders. My own experience, augmented by a quarter century of research, leaves me with no doubt that transgender feelings are not, as far too many people postulate, "mental illness". But they're an aberration, to be sure. I once sought counseling with a psychologist, and after giving me a battery of tests she commented that I was one of the most well-adjusted people she had encountered in her practice. Gender dysphoria hasn't prevented me from living a "normal" life. It's just an immutable part of who I am. Having said all that, I hasten to add that I'm just as appalled as anyone else by what's happening in our schools. I see no positive side to advocating that children question their gender identities.
I appreciate your post. I am sorry to hear about your struggle and I think you sound like a nice person. Certainly, there are a small number of people who have body dysmorphias including your kind of dysphoria and It does not mean they are all "bonkers". If one thinks a part of one's body is not "right" - like maybe an arm shouldn't be there - it is certainly a psychological issue - but that person can still be rational and lead a full life.
I appreciate you saying that you are appalled by what is happening in our schools.
Many people go through life with some sort of psychological problem/issue and maybe it is good if we have destigmatized this one. It does not make the tenents of Gender Ideology "true" or even mean that Gender can mean something other than "sex". And, the ideology certain should not be promoted in school. Most of these kids are simply uncomfortable in some other way and have been taught they have "dysphoria"- or now "euphoria".
Thank you for your kind comment. I would characterize my life with gender dysphoria as an experience rather than a struggle. It may be useful to point out that my advanced age means the onset of my awareness came in the 1940s, when there was literally no outside influence. Something or someone implanted the idea very early that I needed to keep it secret and feel ashamed, so whatever input I may have had was certainly not supportive.
You sound like you had/have actual dysphoria. It is sad that you were made to feel ashamed. There is generally an upside and a downside to things. The downside in the past was shame and the upside was that there were "guard rails" in the twentieth century to having destructive hormones and surgeries. Now, we have gone so far beyond removing shame/destimatizing a condition that we promote an ideology around it and have people making big money on it as speakers, surgeons, and in pharma.
Yes. I've never understood why activists would want to promote the transgender "cause". What's the appeal of "changing" gender? I wouldn't wish the gender dysphoria condition on anyone. I've often wondered what my life would have been like without it.
This curriculum sounds ludicrous and despicable. It’s okay to tell a 3 year about queer’s, but definitely not about Jesus or God. Are you kidding me????!!!!!!
My daughter was recruited by her algebra teacher. My daughter has a IEP which also says she has 1 breast because of Poland syndrome and is extremely emotional. This teacher convinced her she is transgender. She is 18 limited verbal skills. Wants to be called alex not Abbie. Help. I live in sc I know there is a lawsuit I've seen the commercials just not long enough to get the phone number.
"As a non-partisan, nonprofit public interest law firm, the Child & Parental Rights Campaign, Inc. was founded to respond to a radical new ideology overtaking families and threatening the well-being of children and the fundamental right of parents."
So is the only way through this to starve the beast? And just leave the rotting corpse of what used to be a decent education system behind?
The other thing that concerns me: when will it become too painfully obvious that too many American children of all stripes are ridiculously under-educated at all levels? How can kids get an actual education whilst wading through this sewage up to their eyeballs? It takes actual educated people to run our society, one that gets more technical and complex with each graduating class.
My heart breaks for kids who, in addition to absorbing the indignities of irrational mask mandates, are used as pawns to justify and normalize adult... issues.
Go to hell you transphobic sack of child raping shit
You sound stable.
Way back in 2014 Dr. McHugh, former psychiatrist in chief at Johns Hopkins Hospital, wrote "At the heart of the problem is confusion over the nature of the transgendered. "Sex change" is biologically impossible. People who undergo sex-reassignment surgery do not change from men to women or vice versa. Rather, they become feminized men or masculinized women. Claiming that this is civil-rights matter and encouraging surgical intervention is in reality to collaborate with and promote a mental disorder."
https://couragerc.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/TransgenderSurgery.pdf
Past a certain age society may "let it go" but we certainly should not be teaching an ideology of Gender to children at school and sending them down a path they might not otherwise take.
"Another subgroup consists of young men and women susceptible to suggestion from "everything is normal" sex education, amplified by Internet chat groups. These are the transgender subjects most like anorexia nervosa patients: They become persuaded that seeking a drastic physical change will banish their psycho-social problems. "Diversity" counselors in their schools, rather like cult leaders, may encourage these young people to distance themselves from their families and offer advice on rebutting arguments against having transgender surgery. Treatments here must begin with removing the young person from the suggestive environment and offering a counter-message in family therapy. "
This last bit is near impossible now.
Amazing find. Thank you.
You are welcome! It's good stuff.
Thank you so much for sharing the PDF and this intelligent insight.
You are very welcome. You might also appreciate this interview of Dr. Quentin Van Meter. He says the Endocrine Society researchers/doctors used to operate in the red and heads of departments found the revenue stream of "trans" irresistible & all the other medical institutions just pointed to them. Also, he has very good insights about the young people and families, and John Money (original pedophile quack).
https://thenewamerican.com/transgender-quackery-exposed-as-child-abuse-by-top-doctor/
:-) I wonder whether this is Chase Strange-io - a seriously demented FTM working for the corrupted ACLU.
What's sad is that the ACLU used to be fighting against tyranny. They had warned after 9/11 of the coming totalitarian system. Must be they were taken over. CointelPro operation maybe was at play.
Yes, there is a new group that is doing what the ACLU used to do but I can't think of the name right now... They've been thoroughly taken over/corrupted as many of our formerly trusted institutions have been (ie, medicine & education).
Yes, very true. Adults projecting their own insecurities and hangups onto children. I've seen how traumatized some of these kids are. Not everyone can afford to take their kids out of school and home-school them, unfortunately.
None of this is true, nor did BLM "get away with murder" as BLM didn't commit any murders. You're so brainwashed by your daddy Tucker Carlson and the fat son of a bitch that got impeached twice that you just shit out your regurgitated talking points like the good little fuckboi you are.
You aren't in the "parents movement" you're in the "christo-fascist hate mongering movement" hellbent on hating literally everyone who isn't a cis white male. Get fucked you pathetic sack of shit.
No one is advocating for grooming except you Christian fundamentalists, who, by the way, are responsible for far more child predation than any gay community ever has been. Your priests fuck little boys and you are there to defend them every step of the way.
You should be locked in a padded room so you can take out your anger on yourself and stop slandering gay people as pedofiles. Go cheat on your wife with your fourth child rape victim, you sick fuck.
Of course, it has to be a message that is imprinted in their heads at a young age that will negatively affect them for the rest of their lives. It breeds insecurity and shame on both sides. Why should a 3 year old feel that? Or an 8 year old, or even a 15 year old? It’s like giving them an introduction to porn at that age in order to permanently change their brain chemistry and circuitry. Emotional abuse. Setting the stage for hostility as adults. These people pushing their sick agenda must be stopped by any means necessary.
Did you hear about MAP (minor-attracted persons)? The same people who convert kids to gender cult are trying to normalize MAPs as sexual orientation that people are 'born with,' that is misunderstood and unfairly discriminated against. These people make children believe that they would feel better by cutting off body parts they don't like and they should enjoy having sex with whoever wants to have sex with them. "Setting the stage for hostility as adults" could be one of their goals. Preparing an easy prey for predatory obsessions of TQQIP2SAAMAPs is their mission.
Here's the argument I've heard re MAPs: The argument is that such people cannot control their *attractions*, just as most people can't, but that many (perhaps most, I think) do not act on them and want to stay that way. By calling them "pedophiles," they are stigmatized and less likely to seek help that can a) help them and b) reinforce that they must never, ever act on their attractions. I suspect it's true that they cannot control their attractions, but they can control their actions, and perhaps even be taught to do so.
I know this argument. The same argument can be used for serial killers and cannibals. The main problem with 'MAPs' is that the same teachers who explain to preschoolers that everybody can be everybody else also teach kids that everybody should enjoy having sex with everybody else. When a child 'enjoys' having sex with a 'gender-fluid' adult, there is 'no harm' done. So, why to teach minor-attracted 'persons' to control their actions if it's so much easier to teach children to enjoy what these 'persons' do to them?
Bullshit. Absolute pure unadulterated bullshit!! They’re freaking child molesters and you’re sugar coating it. No, I’m not hip or progressive or Wtf you want to call it. I’m an OG Dad and now a grandfather and I didn’t serve 8 years for people to protect child molesters feelings. What in Gods name is wrong with you people??
Yeah well, the porn does show up at ridiculously early ages. Barely disguised as a furious focus on sexuality at a time in kid's life when the "ewwww" creep factor is still well in place.
Yes, same idea--and not an accident.
There are malign forces at work here and they originate outside of this country. Chinese money is involved. Follow the money! This is how they intend to destroy America and achieve their dream of hegemony. Sounds far fetched? Truth is stranger than fiction, always remember that.
You are right that CCP heavily invests in Western's "woke" ideology and specifically targets younger generations. Wokenization of Disney is the best proof. Yet, if American parents will stop buying woke movies, stop bringing their kids to drag queen story hours, and pull out kids from schools in which brainwashed by CCP's money gender-queer teachers convert kids to their cult, CCP wouldn't be able to do much.
That’s a very limited list of how the CCP targets our society.
You are right again. But, no matter how CCP targets our society, our vulnerability to neo-Marxism brought to us by CCP is still our society's problem.
I couldn’t agree more! Awareness is the first step. Some would say admitting there is a problem comes first, but one has to be aware they have a problem before they can admit it.
IF……
That's a real big leap there to pedophilia & incest there, kiddo.
Short-sighted, perhaps, are we?
I read your long reply and almost nothing in it is verifiable.
To anyone who has followed Abigail Shrier (with an open mind) for the past several years, your arguments are shrill, hysterical, bogus, and with no genuine factual merit.
Claiming that legions of parents are somehow on board with some kind of secret plan toward child abuse.
Tell you what. Because this reminds me of another time, almost 40 years ago, when America went batshit crazy sniffing its own asshole (so to speak) for a real good time, thrills, chills and top of the line entertainment, page-turners that can't be put down - go find yourself two or three of the better books published about the Day Care Satanic Witch Hunt. You won't believe it. You will hardly believe that so many adults at that time could be that gullible.
To the point that some of the children had more common sense (and these were largely daycare children. We're talking about kids too young for elementary school, here.)
But I don't want to give the plot away, or spoil the outcome. It's too rich and gooey with delicious dark ironies that explore that soft underbelly of societal stupidity.
Which means that when we encounter a brave explorer of human affairs willing to risk the fallout from telling us the truth about ourselves (in order to make us better) we would do well to take it seriously, and buck up.
Your logic, or lack thereof, is quite amusing.
Parents have the right to not be subjected to CPS investigations based on false allegations by a vindictive ex.
How on Earth did you make that ridiculous leap.
I’ve lost the original source that sparked this discussion - do you have it please? From memory, this was not Abigail’s point at all.
Your punctuation and form leaves much to be desired.
You’re throwing handfuls of shit against a wall to see what sticks, it seems to me. Your lengthy screed was long on conjecture and hyperbole. Stop the word vomit and provide some factual evidence to support your allegations or find another substack page to troll. Govern yourself accordingly.
I've removed a few comments by someone who was openly insulting, harassing and name-calling the commenters here. I don't think I've ever removed a comment before, but these were really beyond the pale. xo
I really really wanted to put my kids in public school. I had a wonderful public school experience growing up and I wanted that for my kids too. Then, a few years ago, I learned about what is actually taught and promoted in the district we now live in (one of the"best" public school districts in the country) and I was shocked. I convinced my husband that Catholic school was the best option and now a few years in, as the public schools have gotten even worse in pushing their agendas in every possible way, we are very happy with our decision and would 100% make the same choice again...especially since the Catholic schools were the ones actually open during 2020 and 2021. And, you're right, Abigail, the parochial schools that I know of don't force their religion down students' throats in the same all-consuming way that certain ideologies do in the public schools.
The individuals pushing this agenda do behave as members of a toxic cult. If I were a parent, I would pull my kids out of school immediately and home-school, perhaps joining together with other parents to develop a private program. Loss of income/time be damned, the sacrifice is critical to the emotional and intellectual health of our children!
This is embarrassing but I’m confused. I thought queer was a somewhat derogatory term for gay? Having delusions about your body has nothing to do with sexual orientation. And a 3 year old with any sexual orientation is being criminally sexually abused. Same for 4,5,6,7,8,9,10 and potentially 11,12,13
I am gay and the word used to be what you say. But the word has been re-purposed and became a catch-all term, like "queer studies" or "queering theology". And I understand that now it's a kind of sans-culottism and straight people can identify as queer, and do.
So tired of all this crap.
And so this intense self-focus continues, macro and microscopically. When I was a kid, the sure best solution to childhood blues was to get out of yourself (which often helped in getting over yourself.) Like suddenly discovering tornados and wanting to know a gazzion times more. Or practicing some bit of a sports thing over and over ad nauseum until you got it right. Or the physicality of marathon bike rides. Or the sensuality of skinny dipping in some private bit of natural pool somewhere. Or spending an afternoon in the woods with field glasses learning how to be absolutely quiet and still and watching what showed up. Or any one of a thousand other things. I did all this while quietly going about my business learning how to be gender self-defining. This was all possible because I actually was a free agent kid. I was left alone. Nobody messed with me. I took this to mean that this was probably the actual Freedom that my forebears had fought and died for, in order that I could live a free life. I had no idea at the time how correct that gut-hunch actually was.
Which is why what "educators" do now is such a goddamn crime against humanity and against childhood. Kids don't stand a chance.
I agree with you. Part of the problem for kids is obsessing about it all which is encouraged with all the "use your pronouns" and let's "talk about gender". Advice for parents of kids caught up in this includes getting them doing things in the outdoors/nature/with animals and helping them find hobbies/work/volunteering that gets them outside of themselves as you say. The mother who founded 4thWaveNow - an early site about ROGD - sent her daughter to work on a horse farm for a year and she recovered.
Exactly. If your identity becomes nothing but what is between your legs, or the color of your skin, or some other incredibly narrowed down marker - there's no time left to expand your awareness exponentially. Which is a thing many kids will naturally do - when not messed with, but instead encouraged to do, and best of all, shown by example. A child can easily become mesmerized by a real-world encounter with something, and occasionally this is powerful enough to last a lifetime. But the best lesson is that your "identity" whatever the hell that is, does not dictate the rules of the game of life you play. That play should be a stage, with as diverse a collection of players upon it as possible.
Everything I describe here is still, thankfully, the way that most kids grow up. And they leave in their dust the ones that become obsessed with ever-narrowing confines. As if creating a self-designed prison. A Free society was created, fought for, and sustained for a reason. The most free rise to the top, and encourage others to follow. This is not about angels dancing on the head of a pin. Its about autonomy in one's own life. By that I mean real autonomy, control, and freedom from harmful indoctrination.
Agree 100%. Perfect. You nailed it. If every "educator" in America read your post the problem/contagion might dissolve.
Slightly to the side of this issue I want to add: the teen girls tend to obsess (with encouragement from GI and/or being icked out by porn type culture) about having breasts. They go for cross sex hormones and "chest affirming" surgery. Most of them don't think much about the "between the legs" issue. For one thing, they are YOUNG.
The people who talk about that are the middle aged fetished straight men who say they are female and lesbians and generally do not get castrated even if they get cosmetic play breasts and long hair (like so many people?). So, they say they are women and accuse other people of being rude & nosy about "what is between my legs" as if THEIR privacy were being intruded - as they enter female spaces.
I had a similar upbringing, though I was born in the 1980’s so not all my friends had the free range life I did. I thought until at least 9ish that I should have been a boy. The first week of school, my 1st grade teacher thought I was an actual boy. I did and do hate Barbie’s, dolls, pink, tea parties, sitting around inactive.
I am forever grateful the adults in my life said “you’re a kid. Just be a kid. Nobody fits a stereotype. If you still want to be a boy at 25 we’ll talk.”
By 20 I was a whitewater River guide proud of all my body had accomplished and totally boy crazy. By 25 I was crazy in love with my now husband. By 30 with my baby children who are my world. As I quickly approach 40 I shutter to think what would have happened to me had I been born 20 years later. Odds are I’d be dead by my own hand. I would have destroyed my body, and with it everything worth living for as an adult....... I could not have lived with myself for that, but as a kid I could not have resisted the gender ideology narrative.
Kids need to be kids, and taught to love the only body they will ever have.
Hi NCmom. Wow. I'm like 20 years older than you are. Imagine me learning my feminine daughter is getting called "he" in high school and learning I am the bad person because transexuality and pedophelia (Minor Attracted People = Maps) have been normalized. Huh? I remember being so proud when a boy on the playground told me in admiration that I "could run really fast for a girl in a skirt" :) My daughter and I both had a great range of interests. I gave her every kind of toy and she loved it all. I do think that by and large girls find more gentle ways to play with the trucks given to them than boys... but... Anyway, I did bristle at things myself at times. I am having a little bit of a hard time with this "free range" thing. I was looked after but not to a crazy extent and I took reasonable steps toward autonomy/independence/stepping out. I've never done a drug in my life - for instance.. I don't think that sort of thing is necessary for understanding the difference between boys and girls. It's not that hard. Sex is binary.
That experience with your daughter is devastating. I can only imagine, but it hurts my heart. How old is she now?
Sex, at least for all mammals, is clearly binary. We are all unique individuals and I can’t believe how many adults have pushed, and children have fallen victim to, gender theories that try to shove personalities into boxes, the mutilate the body to match the silly box. These are just theories, which are disproven by replicated outcomes.
I am not nearly the free range parent that mine were. It’s hard to be. In fairness my parents grew up in poverty. Mom left home at 16 never to return. Dad turned 18 in combat in Vietnam. He started working for pay at 5. Mom’s parents neglected her. Dad’s were abusive alcoholics. They were incredibly wonderful and loving parents to my brother and I, rules and visual supervision literally never really occurred to to them. They talked, advocated for me when appropriate, were never abusive, showed up when I asked, and were very loving.
Being free range let me focus on things other than my insecurities. I was always out in nature. It also helped me gain confidence and comfort in my own skin (as did athletics). I was completely wild in high school and college, but grounded in who I was, and that allowed me to be ok with not constantly doing what other people do. Peer pressure has never worked in me.
Our kids never went to public school because of our fears over crappy academics and outright indoctrination in these weird and destructive social theories. If my kids were a few years older I’m not sure I would have realized what’s going on in time, as I only really figured it out when my daughter was a toddler. We are grateful for having the time to notice...... we are seeing the consequence of this crap with friends and in our community and it’s heartbreaking.
It sounds like you grew up the way a great many children have in history. I am sorry that your parents had such a hard time but it sounds like they wound up with love and family. I think it was lucky for you that you grew up in nature and not a city where things might have gone differently. My daughter had the now classic ROGD sudden personality change during high school. She is at an age when she could legally hurt herself but does not seem to show interest in that. (Our medical system shouldn't be ok with self harm but it is.) She's much more herself these days and seems to be focused on real things. I don't think she has dropped all the toxic ideology though. I think the grooming came mostly at the hands of another kid and that the school endorsed it. I have hopes that we will all come through this with time and maturity. I am committed to ending the grip of GI on our institutions.
Now I’m more confused 🤦♀️
Straight men who get excited about the thought of themselves really being women (a fetish) call themselves lesbians now as they still want to "date" women. They are a category of "trans women". These fetished up straight men tend to be the main Trans Activists. They insist everyone go along with their fantasy/mental illness that they are female. They tend to be very aggressive and take advantage of other people's mistaken kindness to go along with them.
Gender Ideology has appropriated "queer". Now all the kids are encouraged to think of themselves as "queer" in some way with the gender unicorn and alot of pronouns.
So if you are a straight girl at school who is uncomfortable with puberty you might be encouraged to think you are a gay boy via step by step cult like grooming. No one speaks against it because it's all "kindness and understanding" and "affirmative approach".
If I could imagine for a moment life as a straight girl, say 10 or 11 years old, and coming face to face with online hard-core porn, I might be having serious thoughts about cancelling girlhood. Not necessarily to become a boy, but just to not have to submit to that shit. That's the thing that has become the new thing. A lot of transitioning girls don't necessarily want to become male at all. Male repulses them. They just don't want to be female. And we could hardly blame them, could we? When I was rattling around grade six and grade seven, the girls I went to school with were, of course, not remotedly subjected to such imagery as what is so easily encountered online today. We've given them the ways and means to blow up their own lives. All for fun and profit. It's disgusting.
We are letting this ideology eat our young. Parents need to unite across political lines on this.
Agree completely. It's as Abigail says, it's not so much that they want to be men but that they are fleeing womanhood "like a house on fire". When I asked my daughter a few years ago whether she would really want to be a man she said something to the effect of "It would be better than this!!".
This crap is why my young kids haven’t stepped foot in a public or woke school (private, conservative, Christian). Whatever happened to letting kids be kids and figure it out as they grow up? Now little girls have to deal with naked grown men in pool changing facilities and overnight camps. So sad.
There is biologically 1 human race, there are two immutable human genders………. there will always be some humans (and primates) who are homosexual, most will not, and that’s fine as consenting relationships of either form among post-puberty people.
Men can never be women (or vice versus) and sexualizing kids is always incredibly harmful.
We’ve known these things for thousands of years and they have been proven by modern science. It’s not that complicated.
The activists are sick exhibitionist. What I don’t understand is why the vast majority of parents keep handing their kids over to these lunatics.
I think it's all been creeping in on the "down low" for some time. Families tend not to be aware until they are bombed by it. Then, they find to their shock and grief that the education, medical, and legal systems have been quietly set up against them and toward hurting their child. (Like, did any of us vote to agree that Gender means something beyond sex which is binary? I don't remember a vote or some scientific discovery along these lines like that there are 66 sexes...) The #1 step of all groomers is to separate children from their parents mentally/emotionally. Most people just hear about "pronouns" and think it's a silly fad that will pass or that it somehow helps same sex attracted people who have had it hard in the past... sort of thing.
You hear about it more when one parent is a true believer in the Gender cult and the other is not. Guess who is winning right now? Once your kid is groomed they are in a cult and it is hard to get them out.
True. Such records as do exist of the lives of tribes, societies and cultures before European contact prove that their moral structures were set powerfully to protect their children. And not necessarily their innocence. Life was harsh. But to protect their children from exploitation or abuse. It was unheard of. I'm not saying this was a universal thing, but it was common enough to be considered an optimal norm.
It’s a mammalian instinct thing
X and Y chromosomes. Try and be a plumber and see how many trans connections there are to a fitting! There’s a male end and a female end.
These fetished up heterosexual trans activists have invented a "slur" for women who do not affirm that they are real "females". They actually call them radicals and exclusionary for saying they are men! You have probably heard the term TERF: Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist. You do not have to be a radical or a feminist to know the difference between a man and a woman. And -- this is "Exclusionary"! They are happy to see children and teen girls adopt a cult ideology because it means more people validating their fantasy and this makes it easier for them to enter women's spaces - even in prison. I like TERF = Tired of Explaining Reality to Fools. A problem is that there are very powerful - even billionaire - men like James Pritzker (Jennifer) and Richard (Rachael) Levine in both political parties who insist they are women so that even most Republicans go along with laws that hurt children and teen girls. If you look up Pritzer you find endless articles about how he's the best woman who has ever lived - or something. Others like George Soros pour money into this. I think he's a guy so I don't know what's up with that - disrupting society?
Soros crushed the British sterling impoverishing many Brit’s for decades.
He’s always enjoyed tearing societies down. And his life’s goal is to destroy the US
The more I think about it the more I think it is important to drop the activist term "trans women". Some other term that doesn't defy reality must be employed - like cosmetically feminized male (CFM) or "biophobe" (see https://pitt.substack.com/p/biophobia-a-progressive-manifesto?s=r) or anything at all that does not involve "trans" or "woman".
Cosmetically feminized male - accurate and easy!!!
And someone like Chase Strangio of the now evil ACLU would be a "Cosmetically Masculinized Female" (CMF). The kids are another thing. They are called "victims".
I never hear about women transitioning to men, it appears that it's always about men to women. (except in that movie, name long forgotten). Any thoughts?
Most any high school I know of and most any parent of teens I know of is aware of girls who now suddenly think they are boys. The fetished straight men who want you to think they are female are one of the drivers of this but it is the girls who suffer in significant numbers. Big pharma, profiteering "gender" therapists, and unscrupulous doctors are making big $$. Laws work against parents. Where I live double mastectomies of teen girls is big business. They call it "chest affirming surgery." Normally, these girls take "T" first so that there voice will never be the same again. They rarely get "bottom" surgery unlike the boys who fall into this.
This promoter was previously part of the "Satanic Panic" in the 1990s:
http://dianeehrensaft.com/
You hear about the men "transitioning" to women because they are loud adult activist types or extremely rich, or powerful in government: Bruce Jenner, James Pritzker, Richard Levine, Veronica Ivy - formerly Rachel McKinnon - originally I think Richard McKinnon, etc.
The majority of transitions among youth are females who get convinced they are “really men”. It’s close to 2% of k-12 students in public schools in the US. Male to faux girl/ woman, while far more dangerous, is less common.
Both the numbers and makeup of transitioners has changed dramatically over the last decade.
Bill Gates, George Soros and other fans of big pharma subscription plans have turned a relatively small market for puberty blockers aimed at precocious puberty in girls, and cross-sex hormones for adults, into a multi-billion per year revenue stream for big pharma by treating “gender dysphoria” despite the known permanent effects like drops in IQ (puberty blockers), sterilization in kids/ teens (cross-sex hormones administered before natal puberty is complete) and serious life long health issues in everyone who uses these drugs.
Outcome = Pain, Pain, Pain; the huge scars from a double mastectomy are (often) painful for a lifetime - I suppose that outcome is not well understood yet. For M-to-F + so called bottom surgery, produces a lifetime in diapers and your urologist on the top of your Rolodex; a wound, and resultant low level infection, which is purposefully prevented from healing has got to be uncomfortable, again, for a lifetime. then there's the enhanced suicide risk (well documented) . And how dreadfully painful the soon arriving terrible isolation must be. A burst of attention, and "affirmation" followed by "on to the next sensation" (local or national) - how many of these people end up in stable, satisfying marriages (of whatever form)? - When is he last time you heard of Chelsea Manning? - Me? - It was the media reports of his hospitalization following an unsuccessful suicide attempt (associated, true, with his legal difficulties as well).
Haven't you noticed "they" change words all of the time and expect everyone to follow along.
I think I can help. I'm a 69 year-old lesbian. I came out in 1971, when the term "queer" was the most common derogatory term for gays and lesbians. One was also likely to hear words like "pansy, fag, and faggot" to describe the men, and "bulldagger, bull dyke, dyke," and some overtly obscene terms to describe the women, which I'll omit out of kindness to myself. During the early years of the gay liberation and the radical lesbians movements, some of us reclaimed the term "queer," which we used ironically as a way of removing its sting. Then it was appropriated again, this time by trans activists. I no longer use the term or identify with it.
Thank you. That adds clarity. I’m only 39 and I used the term once as a little kid talking about a ball game (I had no idea what it meant). My mom’s eyes bugged out of her head and her face turned red and I swear it started to actually steam. 😂. Once she started breathing normally again, she explained in little kid terms what it actually meant and that it’s a really derogatory term. Aside from crazy woke activists that I tend to tune out, the only people I normally hear use it are the same people who use the word “fag” so my gut reaction is still it’s not nice, though I’ve been confused with hearing it so casually in media/ movies/ articles.
What I also don’t understand is how gender ideology gets treated like it’s “the same thing” as being gay, or the same cause.
My kids are little but I don’t care what their sexual orientation, or that of their future college roommate, turns out to be. I think that’s normal.
I do have a huge issue with the thought my daughter could be forced to room with a mentally-ill man or she’ll get thrown out of college. I don’t know any sane and non-sicko 18 years old young man comfortable with being forced to room with a clearly damaged young woman (and wouldn’t want my son in that position). I’m certainly not sterilizing my kids because they don’t fit in some stereotype box.
They aren’t the same. One has always been part of the humanity and the other is largely an ideological invention of the last century. I recognize gender bending and cross dressing has been around, but this idea of someone actually becoming another gender is new. Or inventing their own. To the extent it may have existed historically there is slight evidence that it was very very rare in natal males (like 1 in 100,000 to 1 million). Now 2% of the population in k-12 in the US identifies as some gender that’s not their sex and huge numbers are using puberty blockers and cross sex hormone big pharma subscription plans to the tune of billions a year? That’s ideology not innate anything.
Homosexuality has always been present in human sexuality. Even some other primates engage in homosexual expression.
While I don’t necessarily care how adults live or dress, it’s overtly misogynistic to me to reduce women to a dress up character for men. A man simply can’t ever be a “real” woman and real women deserve protected private spaces and fair competition.
It’s even more heartbreaking for girls. I was a huge Tom boy growing up. I’m an athlete. Lesbians have always been in my life. I talk to teenagers now and so many that I’m pretty sure are just gay in some cases, or depressed in others, have sterilized themselves and mutilated their genitals and take hormones because they are being told they are “really” men. No they aren’t!! There is no “right” way to be a girl or “right” way to be a boy. We are what we are. The issue has always been the stereotype boxes very few people really fit into.
Sorry for the rant. I see gender ideology destroying lots of young lives and it’s cruel.
Right on, NCMom! I appreciate the rant :) The Cult of Gender Ideology must be stamped out. It is cruel.
Yes!
You understand the issue perfectly. Thank you.
Why are you talking to lots of teens about their genitals? That’s really weird
People wanting to talk to kids about their genitals is school is really weird. Nice try though
Some gay friends have said the same thing. They said it's straight activists who have turned the term "queer" to other purposes.
That’s an interesting observation. I do know there’s a ton of b.s. virtue signaling on the part of so-called “allies” of designated victim groups. So straight woke people might use the term “queer” to show solidarity with trans people and maybe gays and lesbians who prefer the term queer because they’re also woke.
But I’m going to push back a bit and say that Queer Studies, one of the critical studies that promotes cultural Marxism in the academy, was at least in part influenced by gay men like Michel Foucault and fleshed out by lesbian academics like Judith Butler.
Yes, but at least Foucault was referring to males and females who are gay. Sexual orientation was the issue (who you're attracted to), not sexual identity or our current confusion about the body (who you are). The gender dysphoria confusion is pretty recent, last 10 or 15 years.
You're right that the epidemic-like explosion of trans identification, especially in adolescent girls and to a lesser extent in adolescent boys, has been building over the last 10-15 years.
But the growth of transgenderism through the work of John Money and academics associated with 'Queer Theory goes back a lot further than that. As I mention above, I came out in 1971. Trans-identified men, the masculine heterosexual types, were calling themselves lesbians and demanding admission to lesbian groups and events by the mid to late 1970s. By the late 1980s, butch lesbians were transitioning in earnest. Judith Butler's book "Gender Trouble" came out in 1990. In it she argues for separating "sex" and "gender." In 1993 I attended a talk by linguistics professor Julia Penelope, a lesbian theorist, reporting on a Queer Theory academic conference she had attended in Texas. I'll never forget her words: "Well, they're trying to disappear the lesbians." The theory was that butch lesbians were expressing an innate masculinity that defined them as men, and they should transition. I asked Julia, "why should we care what they're discussing in academia?" and she said, "because they're teaching this stuff to young lesbians, who are taking it seriously." Today you can barely find a butch lesbian. The bars are closed, the women's bookstores are gone, lesbian culture is a thing of the past.
Gender dysphoria has been correlated with transition for a lot longer than the past 15 years. For instance, trans man Buck Angel, who self-defines as "transsexual" rather than "transgender," started transitioning in 1990 at the age of 28. Angel describes having intractable gender dysphoria prior to transitioning and states that transitioning was the only thing that could cure it.
I had heard of some of these cases in the 1990s. But I thought the numbers were tiny. I do see even more clearly than before why so many lesbians are so strongly opposed to transgender men trying to be women.
BTW, transsexual and transgender are quite different. (I was set straight, so to speak, on this by a transsexual man.) Transsexual is a rare developmental occurrence of primary sexual characteristics at birth being one, and the opposite sexual characteristics kicking in at adolescence. From where I live, my guess is that rates are one in 30K to one in 100K. Overwhelmingly, transsexuals are born male. Transgender is a result of a strictly mental phenomenon, gender dysphoria, the persistent feeling of being born in the wrong body. Again, until recently, overwhelmingly a male demographic. Not sure about rates, but they were small until about 15 years ago. The last five to 10 years have seen an explosion of numbers, driven by social media mainly, or so it seems. Much Millennial depression and anxiety is feeding this, which is why you see (for the first time) significant numbers of women claiming gender dysphoria. By standard metrics and diagnostics, it doesn't make sense. But it's not a medical phenomenon, rather a social mania.
Unless we take the strongest stand now, this hideous situation will get exponentially worse in the future. I know of one twenty something young woman, with they/them pronouns, a testosterone fueled five o'clock shadow and a mastectomy flattened chest, who was recently hired to teach science at a private middle school. Just imagine forking over $50k per year and having a mentally disturbed woman like that instruct your preteen and teenage children.
Those people have microchips in their brains, which cause them to act that way.
If taught after being banned, these administrators and teachers need to be sued by parents and request criminal charges against them. Don’t tolerate this. Fight.
These bastards need to be jailed for child abuse. Tarring and feathering is also an option.
So what is the solution to this problem. I know school board members who have supported getting this out of schools but of the principals and teachers ignore the rules what is left today? Bring in the police? File complaints? What is the next best option at this time?
Get your kids out of public schools and woke schools. 🤷♀️
That may solve your personal problem but it doesn't address our collective problem that a foundational pillar of our society has been captured by people who hate us and who if left unchecked will harm our children and dissolve the fabric of our social order. Every subject including math, literature, history, and biology has been weaponized to disrupt our kid's cultural and moral universe. We simply cannot cede control of a fundamental institution to people who are determined eradicate our culture. This is civilizational and we have a moral duty to push back. If the Asian Tiger Moms can do it in San Francisco we all can. We all must.
Absolutely agree. But we also have to save our children one child at a time. We can save more right now through school choice initiatives.
US public schools have been going downhill longer than I’ve been alive. This activism within schools is systemic, though millions of great teachers don’t buy it. It will take decades and competition to actually fix the problem for as many kids as we can as soon as we can.
I’m all for helping take back lot so school boards, but the issue is much deeper. The schools must be motivated to fix themselves. School choice and alternatives saves kids now. We can’t sacrifice a generation of kids just fighting at school board meetings. We need a change to our entire approach to education which puts parents back in charge and gives good teachers more options.
We may need to think outside the box to genuinely rebuild these institutions. Screaming at ideologues to stop has never and will never work. We need the ideologies out of the classroom and that will be a long process in public schools.
Before Gender Ideology I didn't think about it much but I now agree that we need to break the public/government run school monopoly. More charter schools could mean two systems putting pressure on each other. It's an imperfect idea... in theory we have two political parties in this country but in effect we have been overtaken by Gender Ideology. But, we need to fight this on All fronts.
A problem is that with the NAIS private schools are equally bad regarding the Gender Religion Cult - and the majority of people are not going to be able to homeschool. Then, all it takes is for a homeschooler to meet other kids out there and get "infected" by a groomer in the cult. Other Social Contagions in the past have spread like wildfire. Then, you find that the medical community and the law works against the parent - even after you think you have taken care of the education part. Maybe the Amish are immune :-0
Amen
Yes, file complaints unmercifully until they know it won’t be tolerated. Parents need to fight for their children.
If people had stood up to Hitler and his Nazi stormtroopers, and Lenin and Stalin and their insanity, at least 100 million souls would have been spared grievous murder and hundreds of millions would have been spared a life of slavery. These insane grossly perverted people have got to be run out of time, imprisoned or executed. The world must bear their sodomy any longer.
This is as bad as I imagined and worse. I don’t know what to do about it????
I counseled some trans-gender teens during a psychiatry residency in Germany in the late 1980s. I don't understand the phenomenon, but accept it is real. It is also incredibly rare. A maximum of perhaps 1.3%, low estimates at 0.5% of population. Geographic clusters are inexplicable.
But it's no more possible for a person to change their sex than it is for them to change their species. And it's highly likely that most of these misguided gender benders will eventually regret their decision. Dr. "Renee" Richards the famous tennis player/ophthalmologist who "transitioned" in the mid 1970s as a ("male" to "female") said he wished for something that could have prevented his surgery. "Better to be an intact man functioning with 100 percent capacity for everything than to be a transsexual woman who is an imperfect woman."
https://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/01/garden/01renee.html
You've constructed a straw man. Nowhere do I claim that it is possible for someone to change either sex or species. "Highly likely" isn't even as precise as fuzzy math. And to decide without ever meeting these people that they are misguided gender benders who will eventually regret their decision is projection and a genuine form of bigotry.
That does not mean that I am in favor of preaching race essentialism or molding our entire school curriculum around the potential needs of a microscopic slice of society involving an area as fluid as sexuality, sexual orientation, or gender identity. If my child (my youngest is 45) had wished to attend school in a dress or overalls or both, or to ask that people call her Squee/Squim, I'd simply laugh. The prefontal cortex does not mature enough in one's teens for there to be certainty about anything.
The origin of sexual orientations might be genetic or epigenetic; the latter has more likelihood than the former. An imbalance of estrogen and/or testosterone in the womb may be the determining factor, and there is no "gay gene." Similarly, epigenetics are a more inviting field of exploration for gender identity than anything else. Epigenetics can explain nearly everything except levitation.
Thank you for your thoughtful comment. I still stand by what I wrote. There are already thousands of desisters and detransitions who deeply regret the chemical poisoning and surgical mutilation they were subjected to as childen or young adults. And as the "transgender" madness continues, their numbers will surely grow.
As Jennifer Bilek's 11th Hour Blog points out, today's children and young adults are now being brainwashed to believe the impossible by an army of "transgender" activists. These activists are well funded by a pack of autogynephile, high tech billionaires who are determined to remake society in their own deranged image. These billionaires and their minions are out to deny human sexual dimorphism and destroy the sex based rights of girls and women. They need to be shut down before they ruin any more young lives.
I'm most certainly an outlier, being a person who has lived with awareness of his gender dysphoria for over seven decades without being driven to transition. I consider myself fortunate to be able to make the choice as to how I wish to live, and I empathize with those whose extreme mental anguish pushes them to "change" genders. My own experience, augmented by a quarter century of research, leaves me with no doubt that transgender feelings are not, as far too many people postulate, "mental illness". But they're an aberration, to be sure. I once sought counseling with a psychologist, and after giving me a battery of tests she commented that I was one of the most well-adjusted people she had encountered in her practice. Gender dysphoria hasn't prevented me from living a "normal" life. It's just an immutable part of who I am. Having said all that, I hasten to add that I'm just as appalled as anyone else by what's happening in our schools. I see no positive side to advocating that children question their gender identities.
I appreciate your post. I am sorry to hear about your struggle and I think you sound like a nice person. Certainly, there are a small number of people who have body dysmorphias including your kind of dysphoria and It does not mean they are all "bonkers". If one thinks a part of one's body is not "right" - like maybe an arm shouldn't be there - it is certainly a psychological issue - but that person can still be rational and lead a full life.
I appreciate you saying that you are appalled by what is happening in our schools.
Many people go through life with some sort of psychological problem/issue and maybe it is good if we have destigmatized this one. It does not make the tenents of Gender Ideology "true" or even mean that Gender can mean something other than "sex". And, the ideology certain should not be promoted in school. Most of these kids are simply uncomfortable in some other way and have been taught they have "dysphoria"- or now "euphoria".
Thank you for your kind comment. I would characterize my life with gender dysphoria as an experience rather than a struggle. It may be useful to point out that my advanced age means the onset of my awareness came in the 1940s, when there was literally no outside influence. Something or someone implanted the idea very early that I needed to keep it secret and feel ashamed, so whatever input I may have had was certainly not supportive.
You sound like you had/have actual dysphoria. It is sad that you were made to feel ashamed. There is generally an upside and a downside to things. The downside in the past was shame and the upside was that there were "guard rails" in the twentieth century to having destructive hormones and surgeries. Now, we have gone so far beyond removing shame/destimatizing a condition that we promote an ideology around it and have people making big money on it as speakers, surgeons, and in pharma.
Lack of guard rails:
https://pitt.substack.com/p/the-abyss?utm_source=url
.
Yes. I've never understood why activists would want to promote the transgender "cause". What's the appeal of "changing" gender? I wouldn't wish the gender dysphoria condition on anyone. I've often wondered what my life would have been like without it.
Narcissism? That is an anti-social disorder.
This curriculum sounds ludicrous and despicable. It’s okay to tell a 3 year about queer’s, but definitely not about Jesus or God. Are you kidding me????!!!!!!
Get your kids OUT of the public schools.
Private is just as bad. Some Catholic schools are even losing it to Gender Ideology with "pronouns".
My daughter was recruited by her algebra teacher. My daughter has a IEP which also says she has 1 breast because of Poland syndrome and is extremely emotional. This teacher convinced her she is transgender. She is 18 limited verbal skills. Wants to be called alex not Abbie. Help. I live in sc I know there is a lawsuit I've seen the commercials just not long enough to get the phone number.
Maybe https://childparentrights.org/ can help?
"As a non-partisan, nonprofit public interest law firm, the Child & Parental Rights Campaign, Inc. was founded to respond to a radical new ideology overtaking families and threatening the well-being of children and the fundamental right of parents."
See also: https://pitt.substack.com/p/damaged-by-trans-the-lawsuits-are?utm_source=url
So is the only way through this to starve the beast? And just leave the rotting corpse of what used to be a decent education system behind?
The other thing that concerns me: when will it become too painfully obvious that too many American children of all stripes are ridiculously under-educated at all levels? How can kids get an actual education whilst wading through this sewage up to their eyeballs? It takes actual educated people to run our society, one that gets more technical and complex with each graduating class.