Trans Youth Equality Foundation: Free binders, bathroom advocacy, podcasts, and more for the transgender child “movement”

Did you know that the transgendering of children is more than a medical treatment for distressed kids? Of course, we savvy parents realize there are trans activists keen to justify the notion that kids as young as 3 or 4 can be certain, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that they were born in the wrong bodies. But did you know that some of these activists openly refer to what they’re doing as a  “transgender child movement?”

TYEF education

The Trans Youth Equality Foundation in Portland, Maine has a slick website and a well thought out agenda for this self-proclaimed movement for kids ages 2 to 18.

TYEF mission statement

They’ve got it all: education programs, kid camps, bathroom advocacy, their own trans-youth podcast network, and…..free binders for ages 9-18!

TYEF binder drive

Just like TransActive in Portland, Oregon on the opposite coast (what’s the deal with these Portland towns?), TYEF is more than happy to mail a free binder to a girl as young as 9 years old  to “an address other than your home.” Why on earth would a 3rd or 4th grader want something sent somewhere other than their house? Oh we know why.

TYEF more on binding

It’s those pesky, gosh-darned unsupportive parents again, wanting to have their transphobic say about what their 9-year-old is doing. But have no fear! The “kid-approved” video above will teach your grade-school beginner how to bind their prepubescent-tender, hated breast tissue safely. The trendy YouTube trans boy (289,763 views as of this writing) and the friendly folks at TYEF have got this covered. And wow:  theRealAlexBertie makes the whole binding thing sound…almost cool!

But admittedly, no one really likes to bind.

Most of our guys like to bind… more correctly put, they want to and need to bind. Who really likes it! It’s satisfying in some ways but it can be tight, and restricting and make you sweat! But here are a few tips since many of you have to wear one for now!

For now? Maybe you’ll get over your hatred of your body some day, is that what they mean? Nah. Eventually you’ll totes get rid of those gross chest blobs, and then you can feel good about being a charitable dude yourself:

Having surgery? Send TYEF those used binders, we are running low!

But enough about binding. What could be cooler than a trans-kid-run podcast network? At the beginning of each episode, the TransWaves introductory jingle tells us they’re all about educating us on the “rights” of trans kids.  Episode 11 takes on the subject of “our parents.” As you might expect, it’s all about finding the right gender specialist and getting on board to follow your kid’s lead.  Sure, you’re scared, mom, but you “need to learn to accept” that “if they have body dysphoria” you should “not deny them the care they’re entitled to.” Because “doing nothing will be much more harmful to their health.”  Puberty blockers have no side effects, you can “stop the Lupron at any time.” Trust your doctors! Trust the Standards of Care!  It’s all good.

Because, as this post on the TYEF Facebook page reminds us, it’s never about what YOU think, doubtful mom or dad. It’s what your kid actually IS:

TYEF facebook

Bathroom-access advocacy is the cutting edge for the transgender children’s “movement,” so of course TYEF is right there in the fight for your kid to use any bathroom they damn well decide they’re “comfortable” in (never mind the comfort of anyone else’s kids):

TYEF bathrooms

And skeptical parents, lest you think that the Trans Youth Equality Foundation is nothing more than a group run by adult trans lawyers and activists, pushing some agenda, rest assured there is a medical adviser on board–one of THE top pediatric specialists in the field.

TYEF spack

Your 2-year-old is in good hands.

41 thoughts on “Trans Youth Equality Foundation: Free binders, bathroom advocacy, podcasts, and more for the transgender child “movement”

  1. Truly horrifying. Are there not laws about communicating with minor children, tender age children, for purposes of I don’t know medical mayhem without their parents knowledge? Did you see that photo of binder damaged breasts on Gender Trender last week? I get why this is happening. These people are fanatics. What I don’t get is why there aren’t legal protections for children. The binder thing is profoundly disturbing. Those are a thing so completely outside of what any competent medical person would ever recommend. Cutting off the circulation, thus having little strokes in your tissue isn’t good for you. If you have dead tissue from those little strokes it could actually turn into gangrene. Frankly, this makes bulimia look mild.

    • And a **9-year-old** CHILD would have very new, developing breast tissue. What damage would be done to her? I agree. How is it even legal for stranger-adults to deliberately set themselves up to deceive the parents of a grade school child? I thought TransActive’s “In a Bind” was bad. But the wording on this site is worse. I am frankly shocked (and I don’t shock easily) that they are so blatant about this stuff.

      • My view has changed. All of the doctors involved in ‘transitioning’ children should simply be put in jail. This needs to be ended now.

  2. I forgot to mention: based on one of the commenters here describing her daughter and the binder, they sound like flippin corsets! You can’t move around very well in them, you can’t breath. WTF?!

      • And look. The whole deal here is to make it easier and easier to “trans” as young as possible. With NO “gatekeeping.” Only enabling. Listen to the podcast. Its one and only purpose is to shame parents into trusting the activists and doctors.

        A 9-year-old child should still be playing and exploring the world. It’s an age when kids should be care-free. Instead, they are being encouraged to bind their young bodies in an uncomfortable vise in the name of their “gender identity.” It makes me really sad. If my daughter had secretly received one of these things when she was a little girl, against my express wishes as her mother, I would have raised a huge stink. I certainly wouldn’t just accept it. No matter what “authority figure” was telling me I ought to. These organizations are actively advertising and marketing these devices. It goes way beyond being “supportive.” It’s a movement, alright.

      • I listened to some of the podcast. It sounds VERY professional. This and website itself are not some grassroots effort on a shoe-string budget. There must be some serious money going into this “movement.”

        The podcast gives off a creepy, calm, “there, there, everything is going to be alright” vibe. They also throw in some breathily sung songs in between talking points. Totally aimed at tamping down parent’s instinctual anxiety while convincing them to get with the program. Just makes me sick!

  3. Pingback: Trans Youth Equality Foundation: Free binders, bathroom advocacy, podcasts, and more for the transgender child “movement” | Butch in "The County" Maine

  4. We need to follow the money on this. Who funds these organisations? I’m sure the answer would be enlightening. We need to expose that this “movement” is being funded by self interested adults who show a willful disregard for children’s health and safety in their pursuit to prove their ladybrain theory that hides the murky truth about their “transition”.
    I’m in the UK and I’m not aware *as yet* of organisations offering free binders to children (though there are plenty who will “help” parents get their kids on the trans track asap) but if I knew of one I would be contacting MPs and causing a massive stink anywhere I could. If “transition” is deemed “medically necessary” then aren’t binders a form of medical prosthesis? Aren’t there laws regarding the distribution of medical supplies to children? Are there any lawyers reading this? What will it take to get us off the internet and into the courts? Fuck it. I am poor but I’d gladly contribute what I can to a legal fund to have these dangerous assholes shut down. The general public are blind to the reality of the trans rhetoric and I am sick to the back teeth of seeing this agenda pushed everywhere to the applause and stupid mewing of the masses who fall for this bullshit. Fantastic parenting MY ARSE.

    • One of the things this underlines is how many resources – ie how much privilege these men have.

      This is how oppression and patriarchal hierarchies operate. It is not measured by hurt feelings but by asking: who has the time, the status, the media contacts, the government support, the IT access, the control of blogs and social media and universities, the support of big business and industry, the links into medical institutions, the fundraisers, the TV programmes, the films, and yes lots and lots of $$$ ?

      These men are in a position of massive privilege, just like so many men are, and in very stark contrast to the resources available to women who are in the position of dealing with the fallout of yet more male abuses. Whether it is women’s refuges or parents standing against the trans cult or anything else that is something other than “dicks first at any cost”.

  5. How is any of this legal? If our society recognizes that a minor cannot developmentally and legally make any kind of other contractual decisions (can’t buy property, or enter into employment or any other kind of contract, can’t vote, or can’t even travel on a school field trip without parental permission, etc.) then how is this “movement” getting away with promoting the concept that in this one context a minor is somehow perfectly capable of making this kind of irrevocable medical decision – something we all seem to agree that minors are not capable of making, in any other context? Seriously, this is mind boggling.

    • Because there is no government oversight. There needs to be a concerted effort to get the federal government to have the FDA exercise regulatory oversight. We need some detransitioned women to tell politicians what this is like. Politicians need to see photos that that one on GT of the damaged breasts. Once these things are declared medical devices, they are subject to rules and specifications regarding manufacture and distribution.

      Of course, the best side effect from that is to push the issue into the mainstream media. Suburban Dad is gonna have a cow at the idea of some middle-aged guys sending their little tomboy something for her breasts to another address.

      • What dsgr554 said. Tn the book about John Money’s creepy experiment on David Reimer, called The Boy Who Was Raised As a Girl, the doctors all think that being put on hormone he was like 13 or 14 would keep his voice from getting deeper as he went through puberty. But it didn’t and they were all surprised. And I’m sitting here reading the book thinking WTF?! Doctors even in the 70s didn’t know that the DNA in your cells in your throat once puberty kicks in make you grow thicker vocal chords and so you have a lower voice? Estrogen itself does not make a woman a woman. Not only is the whole trans cult full of internal contradictions and changing their mind. But their understanding of biology is simply inaccurate. And these of the people who want to do major surgery on kids. What the fuck.

      • They didn’t have them back then. But David Reimer was castrated when he was about two years old. So that should’ve done for that. And lo and behold it didn’t. He grew up to look male. Because estrogen and testosterone are not the magic things that the transgender folks and other people imagine them to be. 😕

        For anyone who doesn’t know the Reimer story his penis was destroyed in an incompetent circumcision when he was four months old. In 1968 I think. All the doctors were freaked out and kind of abandoned the family. And the only person who claimed to know what to do and that everything could be fine was John Money. A nonmedical psychologist who for some weird reason was in charge of, I forget the clinics name, something like Hormone and Behavior Clinic, at Johns Hopkins. And he was the main guy deciding that intersex babies, including ones who have a condition called micropenis and are unambiguously male, should be castrated and raised us girls. It was also common until very recently with girl intersex babies who had large clitorises to have them either removed or surgically made smaller which of course damages them. And Money’s clinic was the entry point for sex change operations into the United States. They were invented in Scandinavia.

        What happened to David Reimer is that he never felt like a girl and everyone was constantly telling him he was a girl. He never behaved remotely like a girl in school either. And when he was 14 they finally told him the truth. In other words he did not know that he had been born a boy. But he felt himself to be one. Because he was. Which raises the question are the young people and grown-ups as well who decide to have a sex change operation during the era we are in now with the “no gatekeepers” craziness going on not going to once the novelty wears off feel like David Reimer did? He was absolutely miserable. And even after having a mastectomy to remove the estrogen induced breasts and phalloplasty and living as a male for maybe 15 years, he killed himself. Now he had suffered from depression for a long time. But there’s no way that depression can be separated from the crazy shit he was put through from the time he was child.

        Also, John Money knowingly lied for years in published scientific papers about David Reimer’s successful change into a female. John Money firmly believed that what sex you feel yourself to be was completely malleable at least during the first two years of life. The whole idea that people can successfully change sex that we see all around us now derives from John Money’s failed hypothesis. I know some might say yeah but there’s these other transsexuals and they’re OK. But as everyone keeps pointing out on this blog there are no long-term studies. Where very large numbers of people were followed for a very long time after having a sex change. Are they really all like David Reimer? Or not suicidal but not at all happy. Are they in a large numbers bearing their sex change operation the way I bear my disability? We don’t know.

        The Boy Who Was Raised As a Girl, it’s a fantastic book. Not at all technical. I found it in my public library.

      • I just read through the Wikipedia entry on David Reimer. As part of his “therapy”, the doctor made him and his twin brother engage in sex play. That is some sick, twisted sht right there. The twin brother eventually developed schizophrenia and died from overdosing on antidepressants.

      • Yep. He also promoted the pedophilia apologist line of it’s about loooove. That NAMBLA uses too. Everything about John Money is skevey is hell. But he is still considered a respectable guy in the “sexology” field.

    • Here’s the reasoning behind it. Please note that I’m not endorsing it in any way, shape, or form.

      If the kid doesn’t start transition early, he or she will go through the “wrong” puberty, with devastating consequences. First, they’ll never pass as well they could have,* and their whole lives will be blighted by it. They’ll always look like transsexuals, rather than born men and women. Also, the distress of going through the “wrong” puberty will greatly increase their risk for suicide.

      Therefore (according to trans activists), their situation is more like that of a pregnant 14-year-old. Normally, 14-year-olds can’t legally, make irrevocable medical decisions, but they can decide to have an abortion without parental consent, because if they don’t do anything, they will have a baby, which is also irrevocable and life-changing. (In a perfect world, no 14-year-olds would ever get pregnant, but since it happens, there needs to be a clear legal policy. Personally, I can’t decide which would be more horrifying: parents forcing their young teenaged daughter to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term, or forcing the same daughter who wanted to have the baby to have an abortion instead. There are a few things things no one, not even a parent, has a right to decide for someone else, no matter how young that person is. Whether or not to give birth is one of them — probably the biggest one.)

      Another analogy a trans activist might use is that of the parent who withholds a life-saving blood transfusion from a child who needs one, or the parent who refuses to let their child have their cleft palate corrected. In cases like this, the courts usually intervene, and the public approves of this.

      So I think the argument that “minors are considered legally incompetent to make decisions for themselves”** is a stop-gap at best, because the activists will counter with, “It’s a life-saving procedure.” It would be more effective to point out that 1) the suicide rates have been misrepresented (and provide the evidence, which appears to be mounting), and 2) the practice of transitioning even healthy adults still resembles nothing so much as an uncontrolled experiment on human subjects. Minor girls have the right to bypass their parents in order to have an abortion, and children in general can sometimes legally bypass their parents to obtain necessary care, but one thing minors can NOT do without their parents’ permission is volunteer for an experimental procedure or become test subjects.

      *Supposedly. Jazz Jennings is already starting to look more and more like a young teenaged boy, despite his not having gone through a normal male puberty due to the blockers.

      ** Regarding the competence of teenagers, I am more or less in the Robert Epstein camp, which makes me a minority on this site. However, I would not go nearly as far as he proposes when it comes to ending some of the legal restrictions on minors. Society would have to change a hell of a lot first before some of the reforms he proposes would work.

      • Oh, and just to clarify — that comment about no one being able to decide for a minor girl whether or not she should give birth refers only to pregnancies that have already happened. I hope that’s clear. Someone raised the example on another thread of whether it would be okay for someone to take their 14 year old daughter to the sperm bank because she thought it would be cool to have a baby. Obviously, anyone who did that should be locked up.

      • Jazz looks more like his brothers and will continue to change. Autistic children that were given lupron need heart transplants in their 20s. The men that transition don’t look very female after 25. Paris Lees does not take photos’ with actual women, even old ones. When he does, you can see he doesn’t pass very well anymore, even if he did a few years ago and was able to make a more live appearance. He now looks like a tall college guy with long hair during pledge week. His shoulders will continue to grow as he reaches 30, and he will have a male upper body that will continue to get larger at he hits 35, no matter how much HRT he is taken. His liver will give out, before it blocks this change in his body. It is clear that children are being lied to, You still have male brow ridges and large shoulders encoded in your Xy DNA. Switching fat reserves on an immature skeletal system does little to make a permanent change. 12 years goes by fast. You guys rarely pass after 30. Best to treat the psychological problems, then abuse the children in medical experiments.

      • Until now, I hadn’t heard about docs giving Lupron to autistic kids, so I looked it up. Here’s an article from 2009 that made my blood boil: https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/chemical-castration-for-autism-after-three-years-the-mainstream-media-finally-notices/

        So many parallels between what happened to those autistic kids and what docs are doing now with trans kids. Interestingly, the article doesn’t mention using Lupron on trans kids. The drug’s only use for children back then was for precocious puberty, which was age eight for girls and nine for boys. And we’re not talking about an article from the 1980s or 1990s here. This is fairly recent.

        I wonder how those autistic kids are doing now?

      • There is a boy named Nicole he was a patient of Gender Dr. Norman Spack. He got puberty blockers and hormones…and now looks like a guy with long hair and similar to bis twin brother. Look it up. Thats the result oft all the drugs plus the devastating consequences for health. Trans actvists and make false promises. It seems like males will continue to masculinize so Jazz Jennings might have the same fate.

      • I’d agree: a better long-term path might be to point out 1) people don’t have long-term psychological improvement after transition and 2) puberty blockers don’t block a lot of the development of secondary sex characteristics – they mostly affect primary sex characteristics.

  6. Another dumb thing the second therapist said to me. She told me I should stop looking at the Internet when I told her about some of what I saw going on. She said that’s like looking up some symptoms and determining that you’ll be dead in a day. Fair enough. Except during another session she told me about one of her young trans clients (ftm) getting so much support on the Internet. Ok, so what are you saying lady? The Internet is bad for me, but great for a teen?

    Parenting is complicated enough without people going out of their way to undermine you every step of the way.

    I would never engage in any sort of conversion therapy. I would never tell my kid to pray their feelings away or call their confusion sinful or stupid. But the extreme opposite end of this is I’m supposed to allow my kid to engage in behaviors that are detrimental to his health and well being in the name of being supportive? So what exactly is my role in this parenting gig? Shut up and pay the bills I guess.

    • The people supposedly helping our kids are discouraged from thinking critically. Yes, you should avoid looking for facts on the Internet, but your kid is more than capable of finding correct information there?
      Something is seriously wrong and now some people are noticing because it is impacting us where we live, in the lives of our children. People just aren’t that smart , or well, some aren’t as cunning and that’s why we had values and rules and norms and mores in society … To protect those more vulnerable by those with more power (in whatever form). This is where we’ve gotten snagged, I think, because we want to “empower” everyone to go it alone, to divest themselves of their mindlessness submission to values deemed out-date, but what has happened is we made it more likely our less cunning members would be extorted and abused. We wanted everyone to have total freedom, which is a fine ideal, but it just doesn’t play out when others who have more power believe they have the personal right to take advantage of others (though they avoid cognitive dissonance by believing they are participating in the liberation of others).

      Remember the hippies? One thing they had right was understanding how medicine could be used to corrupt and coop personal freedom. They were skeptical of external interventions that would alter the body from its natural form. What the hell happened? This was like basic hippy truth. Our kids should understand this. How did we go from being skeptical of the medical industrial complex to this??? How did the I need to be free to be me, get into bed with I need your pills and knife to find my true self? We need to document this exodus, show people how we went from freedom to enslavement (isn’t being on drugs your whole life, having your person owned by the medical establishment a form of servitude?).

  7. There are twelve TransWave podcasts. I made the mistake of listening to #8, the interview with Jenn Burleton. He talks about his “In a Bind Program” in a very positive light (no concern about possible health consequences to these girls). If you aren’t familiar with this program, 4thWaveNow has some great posts:
    http://4thwavenow.com/2015/05/09/breast-binders-and-the-helpful-strangers-pushing-them-on-your-son/
    http://4thwavenow.com/2015/05/13/more-about-breast-binders-for-minors/

    He mentions that the WPATH and DSM guidelines are good only when they match up with the patient’s comfort–they are ONLY guidelines, not rules, after all. He feels comfortable with cross-sex hormones being given at 12/13 and surgery being OK at 14/15. Later he talks like he is a feminist (seriously). Of course, the interview gushes over him being a “superhero” at the end.

    Totally need to take a shower now.

  8. For a frame of reference, here is what kids have to go through to get their ears pierced:
    http://www.claires.com/us/content/ear-piercing

    In case you missed it, here is a VERY relevant quote: “Minors will need a parent or legal guardian present to sign the Claire’s Ear Piercing Registry and to show a government issued ID before getting started.”

    A 9-year-old can’t walk into Claire’s and get her ears pierced unless a card-carrying parent comes with her and signs their book. This 9-year-old– or even her 17-year-old sister– is supposedly not old enough to decide if she wants two little holes punched into her ears, or else she’s not considered responsible enough to take care of her ears, prevent infections, etc. (Wasn’t there an episode of “Full House” about this?) And yet, this same 9-year-old can order a chest binder without her parents’ knowledge or consent, health consequences be damned.

    A thought… Have any of the parents here ever consulted a therapist who treats teens with eating disorders? This whole business with binders made me think of that certain subgroup of anorexic girls who starve themselves because they don’t want to grow up. They want a little girl body, not a woman’s body that grows boobs and menstruates. Of course, this isn’t exactly the same as a transkid who wants a male body rather than a female body. But a doctor who has seen a lot of patients with eating disorders might be able to help transkids address some of their dysphoria and body image issues.

  9. Give me strength.

    “Help your kid and forget the science.”

    That’s the advice I was given. If someone tells me the treatment is drugs and surgery, it seems reasonable to want to know if there is any science behind that. When I start asking the uncomfortable questions, that is what people start saying to me.

    • But without the science, how can you or any professional possibly know that your child is truly being helped? These treatments are invasive and permanent and these docs make it sound like you’re just buying your kid a pair of eyeglasses.

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