Though you’d never know it from the incessant, daily onslaught of “Hey, look mom, I’m trans!” stories in the media, is it possible the garden variety tales of 3-year-old trans children could be starting to get a bit…old hat?
How does a magazine or newspaper editor get out ahead of this and keep the trans angle fresh and new?
Well, we did recently have the 52-year-old father of 7 who has come out as a 6-year-old girl, featured on a Canadian documentary about transgender heroes and lauded by a Canadian politician as instrumental in passing a gender ID law in Canada. That story is still making the rounds, with several permutations that include “Stefonknee’s” sex life with his adoptive “parents” and his propensity for “play therapy” with other young children.
But all these stories about trans kids (of all ages!)–honestly, how many more do we need? It’s time to move on to something new–like multiple members of the same family coming out as trans.
So far, I’ve learned of three such families. Undoubtedly, there are more out there to be discovered.
Cincinnati family transplanted to the UK : Brother and sister swap sexes
First, let’s have a look at the McGarritys, whose teen son and daughter declared themselves trans within a month of each other. Good Housekeeping (which broke the story) is as mainstream American as you can get. It’s the housewive’s mag that has been on grocery store checkout racks since I was a wee lass myself, the go-to publication for recipes, home entertainment tips, and wholesome parenting advice
Housekeeping isn’t typically known for sizzling news scoops, but they hit it out of the park this time, with the heartwarming tale of internalized homophobia not one, but two trans kids in the same fam! The story of the McGarrity family was subsequently picked up by the UK Sun, Huffington Post, and Metro.
As always, it’s a tale of “gender nonconforming kids” who found it easier to “transition” than to live as non-stereotypical members of their own sex. As a younger child, “Russie” (who now identifies as female and goes by “Rai”), didn’t like football. He preferred pink chiffon, makeup, and playing dress up.
On an “easy” day, Russ would be greeted at school by a football player’s taunt: “Hey, fag, you’re gay.” On bad days, there were interactions with school administrators who didn’t seem equipped to understand or support a student who didn’t fit expected gender norms.
And teen daughter Aly (now Gavin) was conversely not attracted to typical girl stuff:
Low-key Aly seemed to be thriving as a junior high tomboy who loved sports, baggy jeans, and T-shirts. She had good friends and earned good grades. But for years, she had been quietly struggling, desperate to spare her parents any additional worries as they worked to support her brother.
It was Russ who finally got her to talk about it. “I heard you like girls,” he said one evening when their parents were out with friends. “Is that true?”
“Well, it’s deeper than that,” Aly replied. Quiet and studious, she had been researching gender identity online. Now, just a few weeks shy of her 15th birthday, she sat down with Russ to describe some things she had learned, including the term other teens were using on YouTube for feelings that sounded a lot like hers: transgender — experiencing psychological gender differently from the gender observed at birth.
Ah yes, the University of YouTube—where teenage experts convince a girl who likes girls and who eschews stereotypically female clothes and hairstyles that she’s actually a boy.
The kids come out as trans, one at a time, a month apart. The rest of the article is “reported” as you’d expect. The 41% stat is trotted out (as seems to be obligatory in all these stories), in the usual inaccurate way, with the usual implicit assumption that “transition” will be the cure for thoughts of self harm. (I’ve come to see that this scare tactic is what allows journalists to feel they are excused from raising even the mildest skeptical questions when “reporting” these stories.)
Both teens have begun medical transition, and via social media, Rai is helping other kids to realize that deciding they’re trans is a way out of gender nonconformity :
…60,000 YouTube channel subscribers. Vlogging as Raiden Quinn, she had logged more than 6.5 million views with her edgy humor and genuine commentary on life as a transgender woman. (Part of that process was undergoing a painful facial feminization surgery.)
The Owens family: Dad is a trans woman, 9 and 10-year-old siblings also trans
In Marionville, Missouri, Heidi Owens is on a mission to secure bathroom rights for her two young (9 and 10-year-old) trans kids, Karri and DeeDee. The unisex bathroom provided by the children’s elementary school wasn’t enough (as it never seems to be in these cases). Karri and DeeDee’s father is also trans-identified, going by the name Krystel Rose. The couple have 5 children.
Heidi Owens says in the linked article that she intends to take her case to the Supreme Court, if that’s what it will take to win. The ACLU has taken an interest in the case, with Sarah Rossi, the director of policy and advocacy for the ACLU of Missouri, quoted multiple times in this article, as well as this one, calling the school’s policy of providing only a unisex bathroom “blatant discrimination.” The school’s attorney, Tom Mickes, is not in agreement, appearing to come down on the side of girls’ rights to privacy:
According to Mickes, MCE [Missouri Consultants for Education] created its policy model to counter recommendations from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights that include allowing transgender students who identify as being female to shower with biologically-born females.
“Female students have a well-developed legal right to be secure in their body integrity. They have the right not to be naked in front of a male,” Mickes said. “We are going to provide alternatives, but showering with them is not one of the options.”
Though multiple news accounts about the plight of the Owens family don’t tell us this, a quick Google search reveals that Mrs. Owens was fundraising online for Karri’s medical treatments related to autism a few years ago (prior to the child being referred to as “transgender” male), both in a gofundme-like page and in Twitter appeals. (Heidi Owens’ Twitter feed, evidently unused since 2011, contains some other concerning information which I won’t go into here.) As I wrote about recently, a diagnosis of autism seems to be no barrier to people declaring children to be transgender.
Pennsylvania trans siblings inspired by Caitlyn Jenner
A brother and sister in their early 20s made the news in Erie, PA last June, making their joint public announcement just a few days after Bruce “Caitlyn” Jenner became a media sensation.
The siblings, who both ID as transgender, tell their story with an odd mix of pronouns:
One huge motivator for Corey to stop hiding is his younger sister, who is also transgender. She came out first, about five years ago.
Stephanie Hepler, a 23-year-old Guys Mills resident, now goes by Stephan and prefers male pronoun.
“It’s not any different than if two siblings said they were gay. To me, it’s just one of those weird anomalies that happen every so often,” Stephan said in a phone interview. “With moral support yes, we’re there for each other,” he said.
“She’s what ultimately helped me come out. Because of her courage, and her will to do what she believed was right and be the true her,” Corey said.
Corey, who identifies as a trans woman (“Janelle”) but still goes by male pronouns, clearly wanted the siblings’ story to be better known: he posted it to the Today Show’s Facebook page the same day it appeared on the Erie News Now site.
What inspired Corey to go public about himself and his sister?
Another story that helped Corey make the decision is Bruce Jenner’s transformation.
“That was one of the biggest parts for me coming out. He’s a former Olympian, he’s been on a reality show. Why can’t I?” Corey said.
Why, indeed?
But until Corey gets that reality show?
As far as other future goals, Corey also plans to run for the mayor of Girard.
Reblogged this on Stop Trans Chauvinism.
😱
“Krystel Rose”. Could it get more strippery? Or really, AGP. Where do you find this hideous stuff? And imagine what real investigative reporters could do on this. I haven’t seen it yet but it makes me think of that movie Spotlight. Once somebody, the Boston Globe, put a real team of investigative reporters on the pedophile priest scandal it finally broke open. We wait and hope.
Read an article from the summer that quoted a Vice article on trans that spoke in unvarnished language about the types of surgical complications in ‘down there’ surgery.
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/samantha-rea/give-julie-bindel-a-loud-hailer_b_6799566.html
And is good in general.
Thank you for linking that article! I didn’t know the Huffington Post ever published anything trans-critical. Good to see it out there.
Thank you for naming this as homophobia. Transgenderism is the new “cure” for being gay.
I think so too. It is conversion therapy with drugs and surgery. The doctors don’t come right out and say they cure the gay and lesbians but that is the sub text of every consultation.
I subscribed to Raiden’s channel awhile ago, though I don’t watch many videos. There’s just something that strikes me as off about that person, beyond the obvious issue of transgenderism, as well as too many clickbait headlines and thumbnail images. I’ve seen pictures of him from before I began watching, and it’s obvious someone botched that facial feminization surgery. Raiden looked so much better before the surgery.
Raiden proudly posted the video a local news source did about her family, and “corrected” someone in the comments by saying “Gavin” is a “brother,” not a sister. How do so many people immediately begin using the opposite pronouns and words, and a new name, as though they don’t have years of history with that person as someone else? It’s also so typical this person adopted a name that just got trendy/popular in very recent years. Raiden only entered the U.S. Top 1000 in 2007, and it’s a strictly masculine name besides, which I assume isn’t what he was going for. So many of these transtrenders, just like their hero Bruce, give themselves such anachronistic names I can only picture on a young child!
I feel old for remembering the days when transgenderism was considered a medical/psychological condition taken very seriously and treated accordingly, with years of counseling and therapy instead of just taking a person’s word for it and immediately starting the hormones and greenlighting irreversible surgeries. Now all these people in their teens and early twenties are already well into “transition” and acting like it’s a done deal, and how dare anyone slow down going on “T” by demanding more than just one doctor’s note.
Raiden only entered the U.S. Top 1000 in 2007, and it’s a strictly masculine name besides, which I assume isn’t what he was going for.
Good grief. I remember the name “Raiden” from my early-’90s adolescence as a character from the Mortal Kombat video games, but googling the name turns up a more recent fictional “Raiden,” from another popular video game series, which is almost certainly the relevant reference here. Apparently he’s an “emo” antihero character, “very inquisitive and emotional,” “disliked by many fans of the series due largely to his apparently ‘whiny’ personality and effeminate appearance,” who nevertheless saves the world in the end.
In other words, exactly the sort of fictional role model who might appeal to a “sissy” teenage boy working through his anxiety over being “not like the other boys.”
But instead of using a glamorous fantasy persona as a tool to sort through identity issues on the way to a stable adult identity (in this case, pretty obviously, as a gay man), this poor kid is being egged on by “progressive” adults and social media to pretend that the fantasy is real.
I immediately thought of the Mortal Kombat character Raiden too!
Speaking as someone who has been involved in nerdy things, I can say that there is a huge overlap between the magical thinking of trans and not having a life outside of socially isolating hobbies. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with liking video games and anime and stuff like that because I like those things and enjoy going to the conventions, but the fact is that those conventions always have some number of people who can’t separate reality from fantasy and there is an increasing number of transtrenders showing up who will bite your head off if you don’t think their favorite character is secretly trans.
This whole thing is cantagious and I am increasingly disturbed how so many mainstream publications are starting to resemble the Jerry Springer show. Though, at least on his show the audience was allowed to point out the weirdos there were in fact weirdos. Now, we can’t question anything or be opposed to children and other young people dosing themselves with dangerous drugs to conform to the stereotypes associated with the opposite sex. It is also lesbian and gay conversion therapy. Aly/Gavin is yet another sad case of a girl who could have accepted herself as a lesbian but instead has feel for the con that she’s really a man on the inside. Proud, gender-nonconforming lesbians are not trendy and even really basic feminist concepts like gender equality are not trendy either.
This just goes to show how “contagious” the trans mindset is. It only takes a handful of supporters to back up that thought in your mind, to quell all the doubts. I can’t imagine having a sibling right there at home reaffirming it, no less a transgender parent. We sometimes need “reality checks” from those close to us, or at least some friction to keep us in a holding pattern, keep us questioning what’s to gain and what might be lost. Time for analytical thinking, for letting obsessions run their course.
My brother is a conservative pastor, and knowing my coming out as trans might affect my relationship with his entire family (including the kids) kept me sitting on things for months. Sure, his beliefs have been harmful to me my whole life and definitely one of the things that pushed me into identifying as trans in the first place, but at the same time, I’m grateful now for that bulwark that kept me thinking it all over until I could think it through.
It is interesting to hear your perspective and it supports us parents for not backing up our children who think they are trans. Having that opposition does make them think and slow things down. This is inspiring me to push back even more, little by little, though it’s tricky. I think I accepted too much in the very beginning, but have been more and more firm with my instincts and feel that this is what I need to show her.
I agree, Dorothy. I torture myself sometimes about, what if I had been more resistant but then, mine called CPS on me because I wouldn’t use the preferred pronouns…and that was right after she told us. No, I won’t use the pronouns.
I find myself resisting more and just reinforcing that she is my independent, creative daughter. At least she found out she doesn’t want CPS involved. She didn’t like that much when they referred her to the mental hospital.
It is a tricky thing, Dorothy. I often think of what someone might have said which would have stopped my mind from the constant roll towards self-affirming my trans identity, and what I usually come back to is that endless question “Why?” I had friends say “I don’t understand why you are doing this” but never a direct questioning of my own logic, some compassionate prodding at the underlying pain. Maybe not so much a “push back” as a “push forward and into.” When you hate yourself, true human concern, a listening ear, and stalwart attention can be a lifeline. I wish you all the best with your situation.
I’ve been telling conservative people I see blaming feminism for the advent of the trans cult that nope, it’s THEIR fault we have this mess, because they forced all people into those restrictive little gender boxes in the first place. There are about umpty billion ways to “do” male and “do” female on this planet and right-wing ideology only allows one way for guys and one way for women. It was inevitable something would go wrong, and the only reason it didn’t happen sooner was there used to be a far greater likelihood of gender-nonconforming people being killed. They still existed, they were just closeted. Now they’re going into a different sort of closet, of course.
I loved your title,”All in a transfamily” I have a feeling that I would have agreed with Archie Bunker on his assessment of this trans trending society.
I wonder. Are Good Housekeeping magazine sales tanking and this story just an attempt to jump start some profits? Are they trying to Jerry Springer-ize their content, make it sensational and over-the-top? (As a side note, I just looked up Jerry Springer and he actually used to be the mayor of Cincinnati. Seriously!)
I do hope all of this media coverage will backfire for the trans activists. That it will jar people into doing much needed critical thinking. I will continue to hope that more and more people will open their eyes and see how much damage this “movement” is causing.
I’m hoping eventually they’ll be an Ed Murrow and Joe McCarthy moment on this. When some TV news magazine will finally do a proper in-depth exposé on the whole trans thing. And be unintimidated by the trans activists. They’ll explain that this was invented by doctors in the 50s. That virtually everyone seeking the sex change hormones and surgery is either an autogynephile, a sexual fetishist. Or a self hating or confused gay person. This show I’m imagining will explain what regular gay conversion therapy is, the psychological pressure kind. And then will explain how sex changes are that too. Including if this is true, that the docs in Sweden who invented it in the 50s meant to use it to “cure” gay people. Gay men really. The exposé will continue with the bizarre threatening behavior online of trans activists. Then cut to an interview of some mainstream activist excusing and justifying the online craziness. The crimes by trans women and their efforts to change their ID after they’ve committed crimes will be covered too. I have a very clear idea in my head of what the exposé will be like. And it’s fantastic! After it the public discourse on this including among the legislators and school principals is totally different. 😊 Fingers crossed.
Russ was a gorgeous young man. Gorgeous. He’s ruined his face now.