Phase? What phase? Kid trans specialist dishes up the usual gender gruel

What would we do without the crop of gender therapists who seem to have sprung up like mushrooms after a rainstorm in the last few years? How did we raise our tomboys and “effeminate” sons before these specialists arrived on the scene to tell us naïve parents what to think and do?

windycity-times

This little tidbit in the Chicago Windy City Times is emblematic of the same sort of breezy, reassuring advice dispensed by the therapists I consulted when my own daughter was insisting she was trans. We hear similar gender-therapist stories every day from the parents who blow into 4thWaveNow like so many shipwrecked sailors.

Ariel Groner, the author of  this piece entitled “Transgender kids: Is my child just going through a phase?” is a gender identity therapist (specializing in kids 6 and up) at Chicago’s Juniper Center. The Center has a lot of predictable gender identity ideology on its website. The Windy City Time (“the voice of Chicago’s gay, lesbian, bi, trans and queer community since 1985″) seems to have simply picked up Groner’s piece from the Juniper Center’s own website—sort of like free advertising.

Besides promoting its therapy services, the Juniper Center also instructs parents on how to transition their children in the school system, including a quick mention of Title IX as a way to strong-arm balking school staff; as if President Obama did not singlehandedly reinterpret that statute to redefine sex as “gender identity” (a redefinition that is now wending its way through the US court system).

juniper-school-dos

But now to a quick review of Groner’s advice column.

Many parents come into my office asking if their child is identifying as transgender because it seems to be a popular trend.

Groner mentions Jazz Jennings, Caitlyn Jenner, the media attention given to trans issues, but instead of delving into whether there’s any truth to these worried parents’ concerns, she simply provides a crash course in Gender Identity Politics 101.

If a person tells you she identifies as a woman and is only sexually interested in women, many people would label her with the identity of being a lesbian.

She may fit the criteria for one’s definition of the term, but she never identified herself as a lesbian. Perhaps she identifies herself as queer. Instead of getting caught up in the terminology, make sure to ask what that person’s identity, or label/term that they are using, means to them.

Who you gonna believe—me or your lying eyes? A woman only interested in women=lesbian? No, don’t get “caught up in terminology” (more like, caught up in reality). Self-defined labels, identities, terms—that’s the ticket.

Just follow your offspring (or anyone else, for that matter) down whatever identity rabbit hole they are currently burrowing into. Whatever you do, don’t attempt to use your own brain to figure things out.

If your child is telling you that they are transgender or that they are struggling with their gender identity, do not dismiss it as a phase; get educated! There are great resources out there to help answer your questions.

But what if it is a phase? Shouldn’t this specialist with “advanced training” in LGBTQ++++++ youth entertain that possibility? Nope. Don’t use your critical thinking skills,  or any past or present knowledge of your own child. Get educated! Consult the great resources out there, including

a support group and/or in the form of a trans aware therapist.

Not just any therapist, mind.

Is the incidence of transgender increasing?

The truth is that trans people have been around forever. There is no evidence that there are more trans people today then there were 50 years ago. People do however, feel freer to explore their gender identity than they did in the past, thanks to a more public dialogue and acceptance, and they are doing so at a younger age. As a result, people are discovering themselves and being given a platform to do so that never existed in past generations. As our society becomes more accepting, people feel more comfortable being themselves.

It’s all so revolutionary! Forget the second wave of feminism, when women abandoned their skirts and makeup in droves and came to the realization that they could be or do anything they set their minds to. Those past generations of trouser-wearing dinosaurs? The tomboys who hung out in treehouses and played with gender-neutral toys instead of color-coded Legos? What did we from “past generations” know about how to “discover ourselves” without the “platform” of gender identity politics built and maintained by fawning therapists and sycophantic journalists?

But hang on. The gender identity specialist tells us it’s NOT about toys or even how the kids act!

Sometimes when children play with toys not associated with their birth gender, parents are concerned that they might be gay or transgender. Sometimes they are and sometimes they are not. Sometimes they are trans and still play with toys that are associated with their birth gender. Sometimes they are cis and only play with toys that are not associated with their given gender. The bottom line is, try not to focus on what they are playing with and how they are acting, and spend some time listening to them. Give them that space to explore without judgement or shame.

Good advice, overall—except for the “cis” and “trans” stuff.  So what makes a kid trans then? This is a trained therapist dispensing advice. There must be some diagnostic criteria.

For children, it is important to listen and validate what they are feeling. Some may know for sure, but others may still be exploring feelings of being different.

Right. So the key diagnostic criterion for a kid to be trans is that they “know for sure.” Turning the old parenting saw on its head, it’s because they said so.

Parents, listen up. Unlike all the generations before you, it’s not your job to guide your offspring based on your own accumulated wisdom or life experience,  nor your knowledge of your own children. You must never contradict your child.  It’s only and always about validating, listening, getting educated, and above all—never seeing your kid’s trans identity as a “phase” (even when it is).

Given that this therapist specializes in kids as young as 6 and has “advanced training in working with LGBTQ-identified youth,” it’d be nice to see some acknowledgment/knowledge about developmental psychology – stuff like magical thinking, obsessive interests, rigid ideas about gender and just about everything else, and, especially for tweens and teens—social contagion.

As someone whose daughter did experience a trans identity as a year-long phase, the pap spooned up by this gender specialist tastes all too familiar in its bland superficiality and circular reasoning: they’re trans if they say they are. PERIOD.

I encourage any parent reading this post to do two things:

26 thoughts on “Phase? What phase? Kid trans specialist dishes up the usual gender gruel

  1. There are only a handful of “gender therapists” in my area, and all of them are males who are transgender, presenting themselves as women. I am very skeptical that any of them could be impartial or neutral. I fear they are all too eager to hand out transgender diagnoses to kids as a means of validating their own situations.

    Unfortunately, as I understand it, PFLAG chapters, which like therapists should be sources of impartiality, have been hijacked by the trans movement, and kids and their parents who attend PFLAG meetings are guided down the trans path by transgender meeting leaders, even when kids originally come in saying they are gay.

    It is a scary time to be a kid, or to have kids. All a child has to do is say they are trans, and that’s that, the issue is settled. And if a kid isn’t quite sure, there are plenty of adults eager to step in and convince the child they surely are trans simply because they are wondering about it, or because the child likes toys and clothes typically associated with the opposite sex. Yes, it is a scary time to be a kid.

  2. A few years back my so decided he wanted to be Mario (from the Super Mario Bros video games.) He even started to “present” as Mario – wore overalls, a red shirt, occasionally going all out with a red hat and white gloves. A couple of times he even said he wanted to change his name to Mario.

    According to the logic of these trans “specialists” I should have put him on testosterone to start early puberty so he could grow a mustache, and let him go inside sewer pipes to fight turtles with fireballs so he could be his “true self.”

    Unfortunate he has “desisted” and “doesn’t like Mario anymore.”

  3. If a person tells you she identifies as a woman and is only sexually interested in women, many people would label her with the identity of being a lesbian.

    She may fit the criteria for one’s definition of the term, but she never identified herself as a lesbian. Perhaps she identifies herself as queer. Instead of getting caught up in the terminology, make sure to ask what that person’s identity, or label/term that they are using, means to them.

    This makes it really obvious that this is gay conversion therapy. A woman who is attracted to women is a lesbian, period. The idea that she is a man trapped in a woman’s body or that she is some other thing other than a woman is homophobia. Making her artificially resemble a man so that she won’t look like a lesbian is homophobic. A young woman might not know for sure what her orientation is yet, especially if she’s never been in a relationship, and so she might not use the label “lesbian” yet. That doesn’t mean she’s not one, it just means she needs time to come to understand her feelings. Just because she doesn’t use the label doesn’t means she should be talked into believing she’s not one.

    • Yes. The idea that everyone–parents, friends, therapists–should simply ignore what is right before their eyes and only “make sure to ask what that person’s identity or label/term they are using means to them” is frankly insane. Not so long ago, a therapist presented with obvious evidence that someone was lesbian or gay (via self report or simply by observing the client’s life experiences) would have tried to help the person come to terms with who they were; in other words, to help them come out. Therapists used to be in the business of helping their clients accept and deal with what is real, however difficult that reality might be. But now, therapists like Groner are instead telling the whole world to “affirm” the “identity” claimed by the person–whether it comports with objective reality or not. There is no digging for underlying causes–that’s now eschewed as “transphobic.” Therapists are instructed to coddle and cater and yes–when it comes to self-hating lesbians, they offer up the Rx for testosterone rather than probe for internalized homophobia.

      It’s the gaslighting of an entire society. And while it’s easy to make fun of this stuff because it seems so preposterous, it is deadly serious. In the latest victory for identity politics, we have the President of the United States telling the US yesterday via edict that–despite any evidence to the contrary–any man entering a women’s homeless shelter may not ever be questioned as long as he claims the “identity” of a woman.

      Purplesagefem, isn’t it interesting that the example the therapist uses is a “lesbian who is not really a lesbian”? It’s never a gay man. It’s always girls or women who aren’t really what they seem. Your recent post on the subject of internalized homophobia in FtM women is excellent –everyone should read it.

    • YES to everything you said, purplesagefem! I find it really interesting that lesbians are so very strongly encouraged to transition so they won’t be considered lesbians anymore, but straight women who transition and become “gay boys” are celebrated. Why ISN’T it okay in our society to be a lesbian woman or a straight woman who doesn’t fit neatly into the female gender box?

      I also think it’s sickening to put these labels on children. We need to let kids be kids, and stop putting ideas in their heads. Parents of young children really need to pay attention to this and keep these people out of their kids’ lives. Maybe little Johnny wants a doll because he wants to model his own daddy who nurtures and cares for him. Maybe little Susie wants to play baseball because her mommy plays catch with her at the park. And maybe, just maybe, we as a society should stop analyzing every move our children make.

  4. Two reactions here.

    First of course is to note, as if it needed noting, the incredibly patronizing nature of this article – which as 4thWave points out, is how these mass-media “welcome to trans” articles always seem to go. This piece, as do virtually all others of its kind, conspicuously avoids mentioning any of the serious medical consequences that ensue from trans hormones and surgery. In fact, parents are actively discouraged from focusing on those inconvenient truths. I am also becoming heartily sick of being told to “educate myself.” “Educate” has lost its meaning – it’s a stand-in for, go to the store, buy our Kool-Aid, and drink it down.

    In fact, the last thing the trans lobby wants is for anybody to actually get educated. That’s why they attempt to de-legitimize research to get at some of the real issues involved and even advocate “spamming” efforts to gather information. Doesn’t sound like truth-seeking to me.

    I was also struck by how profoundly anti-female the trans movement actually is. I remembered a conversation I had with my daughter about a year ago… she has been a national class athlete in her sport (at a D-3 college, but even that really takes some doing). She’s been competing in her sport for over 8 years, and I asked her what she thought about biological males competing as women. (Her sport is one in which being a biological male confers an enormous advantage.)

    She responded, well, I wouldn’t care. I asked – even if someone beats you, or takes a spot that you could have had? and the answer was, no, they are women and they deserve to compete. She said that she had been beaten by transwomen before and it doesn’t bother her.

    And I just thought, this is really something. The situation, objectively speaking, is completely unfair. If some random guy just walked in and claimed a spot on the team, or if a woman took performance-enhancing drugs, the unfairness would be clear to all. But the “genius” so to speak of the trans lobby is that they’ve gotten women to buy into their own oppression. Not only not to object to what is undeniably an unjust and wrong situation, but even to reinforce and support it! It never goes the opposite direction because a biological woman would be at a huge disadvantage competing head to head with biological men.

    It also demonstrates to me how important it is as parents that we do speak up for our girls, athletes or not. They need us to protect and stand strong for them!

    • The MTTs claim that they “always” felt like females, yet most females don’t spend their early years at odds with their biological sex. That’s not to say there aren’t women who are at odds with certain activities, garments and attitudes about females within their culture, but that’s a separate issue from being at odds with one’s biological sex – and it’s the very activities and garments that the MTTs find most attractive.

      Is there a MTT out there who makes the kinds of complaints about our culture one finds in Feminist Frequency videos? I haven’t seen any.

      Besides, how would someone born into a male body even know that what he feels is “female” feelings and not “male feelings”? It’s so unfalsifiable!

  5. “Perhaps she identifies herself as queer. Instead of getting caught up in the terminology, make sure to ask what that person’s identity” Groner and her ilk are so hypocritical. They don’t want you to label your daughter as lesbian because they want to label her as queer. This is about sidelining parents so Groner’s “education” can take root without any opposing viewpoints. And since when are the genderists not “caught up in terminology”?

    • Words having definitions is not important. All that’s important is how you feel. What does “woman” mean? Anyone who feels like a woman. What does “trans” mean? Anyone who feels trans. What does “lesbian” mean? Well, that’s transphobic. Stop asking questions, soldier.

  6. It seems like every single day, I reach peak trans all over again, at least once! That “get educated!” bit is also yet another parallel to the anti-vaxxer cult. Those people like to squawk “Do your research!” too, though they obviously only mean one-sided, confirmation-bias YouTube videos, “mama blogs,” notorious pseudoscience websites, and deliberately cherry-picked articles. They don’t accept legitimate scientific sources and unskewed conclusions of peer-reviewed papers as genuine research.

    As others have said, it’s quite telling how much of the focus of that article was on girls, and erasing lesbians. Not all that long ago, being a so-called “tomboy” was very matter-of-fact, just the way some girls are, instead of cause to question one’s biological sex. Just tonight, I watched the first few minutes of a “How I Knew I Was Trans” video, and the young woman named possibly the most ridiculous “reason” I’ve heard yet. She liked carrying her three-ring binder under her arm instead of over her chest, though none of the other girls carried theirs under their arms like the boys. I pretty much had to stop watching at that point!

    When exactly did “queer” replace the words “gay” and “lesbian”? It’s become such a meaningless, open-ended term.

    • Carrie-Anne, it is strange what kind of reasons people give for knowing they’re trans. I hadn’t heard of the 3-ring binder thing before, but I have read instances where “playing a masculine instrument” or “not liking gossip or shoe shopping” were used as justification by natal females that they were actually male.

      It is so disheartening to see kids fall for this. They are literally being conned into believing that if they don’t fit sex role stereotypes, they must be the opposite sex. I really wish they could see how they’re being manipulated.

      Rebellion is so natural for teens, but it is strange that they are rebelling to conform to a stereotypes, rather than to break out of the box.

  7. So heartening to hear people questioning, and thinking critically about what is going on with our young people. My child self/internet diagnosed as transgender and came out at 18. While I 100 percent accept and love ‘him’ if it turns out that way, i am sooooo sceptical that an adolescent suffering ADD, anxiety, depression, and downright confusion can make life changing decisions at this time. We are still trying figure out which came first! At 18 he can make his own choices, but when we discuss gender and sexuality, he describes himself as a very effeminate gay boy (is currrently attracted to a boy). His dad and i look at each and say, what? like “a girl”? (He was born female). We love this child so much, and are terrified of him being coerced into irreversible changes. Trying to find scholarly articles about late and rapid onset transgenderism is so hard, instead, all we are fed here in Australia is shallow ‘pap’ on the mainstream media about what toys they played with as a kid, and what they like to wear, gimme a break!

    Also as an aside, I’m curious to know how many people know of any links between Japanese manga, anime, etc and transgenderism. I am hearing (anecdotally) of a link there. Thoughts?

    • Hugs to you, Maria! I suggest that you look through 4th Wave’s posts here, as she has discussed and linked to scholarly articles. My understanding is that there is not a lot of research. It seems that rapid onset transgenderism is relatively new, and many trans activists are not willing to look into whether or not it even exists. From what I have read, it is also extremely difficult to follow transgender people over the long term. They drop out of studies, move, etc. I have also found that there is very little information about FTM transitioners that is unbiased and reliable. Until maybe 5 years ago, it seems that the vast majority of trans people were MTF. Now that has flipped, and the majority of young trans people are FTM.

      I too have heard anecdotally about the link between anime, manga, cosplay, etc. and transgenderism. Many of these kids are into pop punk/punk bands as well. My observations and what I hear from other parents is that many of these girls are artistic, musically inclined, and really smart. I think there are many of these girls who are looking for a way to be edgy and cool, and this is what they have found. To me they would have been the emo kids if they were teens in the early 2000s. I would gladly supply my daughter with all of the black eyeliner and black clothes she wants as long as it means no hormones or surgery!

  8. “‘For children, it is important to listen and validate what they are feeling. Some may know for sure, but others may still be exploring feelings of being different.'”

    So, in other words, parents should be their child’s “yes-men” first, friends second, and a parents last. What could possibly go wrong?

  9. I think that “validate” is one of these words that sounds great in principle but in practice, maybe not so much. Every single one of us who has ever had a son or daughter knows that children say and do many, many things that do not necessarily come from a good or certainly an educated place. I am not arguing that all children are sinners from birth, but simply that, there is a reason we have socialization. I have not observed very many children, especially young ones, who instinctively know not to be selfish or self-centered or even kind a lot of the time. It isn’t to say that children can’t, also, be remarkably wonderful in their innocence and lack of stereotypes and judgment.

    As parents, we all know that if we raise our children in a “state of nature,” both they and the folks around them will wind up very unhappy. We can acknowledge and cherish the sweetness of children, while still helping them, for instance, to understand the difference between reality and fantasy, the fact that other people exist in the world who also have thoughts and feelings, and that, to put it bluntly, not everything that enters their little heads to do, is what they should do.

    This is why I have a problem with “validate their feelings.” We don’t choose (most of us) to validate the feelings that our children have of never wanting to do any chores, or of wanting to skip school, or fight with their siblings, or of hundreds of other feelings they may or may not have. Telling us that we need to “validate” our children’s “feelings” around gender elevates those feelings above others, it puts those feelings in a special category that is for some reason more important than any other feelings. And it also tells parents that, in this instance, they need to abandon their duty to their children, which actually is NOT to “validate” every single feeling, no matter how anti-social or just plain wrong.

    • As a therapeutic term, validate has a very specific meaning — which is, to essentially listen and acknowledge that you heard what the person said. It isn’t meant to be approval. Sometimes, it doesn’t invite opposition, though. We all do this in certain instances — “I know you feel x.” Period. It’s particularly good in relation to emotions because emotions aren’t permanent. Listening to the other person regarding their emotions and inner experience can, over time, allow them to name and then let go of feelings. A positive coping strategy!

      So, I have listened to my daughter say some stuff that I do not and will not, ever agree with. It was a struggle to resist turning every statement she made into a teaching opportunity. But, over time, I’ve learned to let her have her say and to show her I heard and understand her, without disagreeing OR agreeing with the content of what she said. Often, wonderfully, this allows her to HEAR HERSELF because I’m not disagreeing with her, say, and then she’ll start to self-correct.

      I agree with both of you about parents being a barrier and teachers to their children. There is, however, a place for simply listening to your kid. Yes, she might say some out-there stuff. That’s OK. She’s JUST TALKING.

      Also, over time, you might find it makes a change in the way your child listens to YOU. I found that, even though it’s not a huge change, my daughter has started to LISTEN to me instead of hearing a few words and then start cobbling together a rebuttal in her head.

      • Thank you for the explanation! I was not aware that there was a specific name for this and you are right, it seems like it could be a very helpful technique in this situation.

    • I wish I had the option to thumb down this comment. Whatever. Let’s just say I disagree. Feelings matter. Feelings are real. They stem from having a brain. Psychology is a field where they study feelings. Unfortunately, psychology is often used to abuse folks and the mental health field as a whole tends to use value judgments rather than actual science, but that’s beside the point. Feelings are scientifically valid. Whatever you think about trans, feelings aren’t the problem. This website is mostly referring to influences and social contagion, right? Not just pure feelings. The point being made is that there is some sort of manipulation and reinforcement of gender roles. Validation of feelings is a good thing, but the claims of this website is that there’s more going on than just feelings.

  10. There whole thing is very lesbian-hating and misogynistic. There are plenty of reasons why a lesbian would call herself queer, and one is peer pressure. Being a lesbian means your transphobic for only loving other females, but queer is ambiguous and implies that you’re open to men. So, it’s a good word, while lesbian isn’t. I’ve been called old-fashioned and conservative for calling myself a lesbian instead of “queer”, because that’s reality and refusing to be peer-pressured into sexually servicing men, including men who call themselves women. If anyone is old-fashioned, it’s them for prioritizing men over women.

    I’m far from being the only lesbian with these experiences. My girlfriend, who just moved here from out-of-state is a lot more social than me and has told me that I’m one of the few lesbians she knows who thinks that “queer” is an insult and a less lesbian word for lesbian.

    I do think a lot of it is anti-lesbian conversion therapy and sometimes anti-gay too. Most MTTs hate lesbians, since we refuse them sexually for obvious reasons, and a common insult directed towards lesbians, especially butches who are against the trans cult is that we should just take testosterone because we are basically men anyway. MTTs think that they are more womanly than us because they try to obey men’s rules for how women should act and dress. But, all they are doing is attempting to follow male-identified femininity. Their behavior really indicates they have zero clue about the reality of being a female or being a female who is a lesbian.

    With the exception of some of the worst trans cult handmaidens, I’ve never had a woman threaten me with violence over a disagreement, no matter how strong it is. However, so far none of them have threatened to rape me. Yet, look at how the trans cult is free to spew it’s misogynistic garbage, including rape and death threats, while using their real names while the majority of folks on this website and others like it need to be anonymous if they don’t want to be fired from their job and have their family members, including minor children in many cases stalked and harassed.

    As for heterosexual women who transition to pull a mindfuck on gay men, it is still fulfilling the misogynistic agenda of getting women to destroy their bodies and health. Not to mention, these women, like MTTs, create divisions and harm within the gay male community.

    For anyone who is interested more on the motivations of het women who transition, this thread on gendertrender is very informative:

    https://gendertrender.wordpress.com/2015/07/03/trtv-real-talk-with-joel-nowak-of-retransition-org/

    (See the conversation between Mochi and KgSch.)

    I also think that hetero women who transition in an attempt to be gay men might also be trying to avoid female oppression in some way and may view a relationship between two men as being more equal than a heterosexual relationship. That said, there is sometimes a fetishism element going on too.

    As for concluding remarks, yes it is very true that back in the day therapists who weren’t anti-lesbian lived in reality and realized that a woman who only loves other woman is lesbian, but might not be ready to admit it due to internalized lesbophobia. Ditto for gay men. But now you can’t question whether or not the desire to be the opposite sex is a result of internalized homophobia or misogyny. In fact, many detransitioned women have said that their therapists never questioned whether internalized misogyny and/or internalized lesbophobia might have something to do with it. It’s totally bizarre. If I went to therapy and claimed to be a different race than what I was, the therapist would think I was delusional or racist or both. Yet, if I told them I was only into other women and wanted to be a hetero dude to be normal, they most likely wouldn’t try to help work through my homophobia, but would say, “here’s your testosterone”.

    • Thank you for sharing your experiences, k.jane. As a hetero woman, I have to admit that I never gave much thought to the experiences of lesbian women beyond those women in my circle of friends. This experience as a parent has opened my eyes to the misogyny that happens all over to all women.

      Trans women think they know what it’s like to be a woman. Trans men think they know what it’s like to be a man. Neither are true. They have this magical view that the grass is greener on the other side, and they will find their place in life if they transition.

      I can tell you that every lesbian woman I know is a huge supporter of transition. I have to wonder why that is. Why are these women willing to tell young girls that being a non-conforming woman is bad, and they are better off pretending to be men?

      • I don’t know for sure, but I think for a lot of the mainstream-politically involved lesbians supporting this, it has to do with following along with the crowd. Also, the framing of the trans issue is that it’s about rights and fairness and therefore if you don’t support it, you’re with the right-wing. The reality is, group-think can happen now matter what sort of politics you believe in and in my experience, both conservatives and liberals have a woman and lesbian-hating problem. This is why I consider my political alliance to be with lesbian radical feminism these days.

        If you’ve been around this site and other like it for long enough, you’re aware of the ever changing “doubleplusgood” language that the trans cult uses to manipulate and confuse people. Some people, including lesbians, get a smug, self-righteous feeling for being in the know about all these elitist new terms. Not to mention, they get to say, “Go educate yourself.” (By which I mean go drink the Kool-Aid and avoid independent thoughts.) And other people fall for it, because they figure, “Well, I don’t have enough information because I don’t know what these words mean, but since it’s framed as a rights issue and will LITTERALLY MURDER people if I don’t support it, I guess as a good liberal/progressive I support it.”
        I also think that some of them are afraid to lose any potential support groups:

        https://purplesagefem.wordpress.com/2016/09/21/video-gender-identity-in-student-spaces/

        This lesbian got kicked out of her local feminist group and LGBTWTF group for violating “safe space” policies by pointing out biology exists. She never personally attacked or harassed anyone. There were several other gays and lesbians who got kicked out of groups allegedly made to support them, by people who call themselves “queer” or “trans”. So, I think that can motivate some of them to not question it, at least not in public. I used to think that trans was only for a tiny handful of adults and for quite a while believed that they had intersex medical conditions. This is probably because trans has co-opted organizations for intersex people too.

        When I was an undergrad, I went to one of these organizations. I started off lesbian-majority with gay men in second place. By the time I left, there was a huge trans/queer presence, including a lot of pervert het men pretending to be lesbians. I go to grad school right now, and they have a LGBTWTF office, but I think the only club they have going on to my knowledge is the “Gender Diversity” club. I know they had a “Queer-Straight Alliance” but I am not sure if that is still a thing. I know the feminist group on campus is hugely pro-trans and considers Janet Mock to be a great feminist icon. Because, you know, there’s nothing more feminist than thinking child prostitution is empowering, calling women popular misogynistic gay male slurs like “fish”, and promoting the idea that being raped as a child validates your girlhood, along with following male-identified femininity.
        Oh, and the health center on campus declares October to be OUTober. They offer free HIV testing, which I support but it actually has almost zero to do with lesbians since we are one of the lowest risk groups for HIV and other STDs. They also have a bunch of drag queen and trans stuff, including Tangerine, the delightful movie about a MtF prostitute kidnapping and beating up a female prostitute who is much smaller than him because he was jealous that their pimp liked her more than him. This is all portrayed as a-okay because that “cis” female deserved it. Also contains a side of Stockholm Syndrome.

        Another thing is trans movement argues “born this way”. Just like lesbians and gays, trans children are born this way, so you can’t possibly question it. Here’s the thing that makes no sense. Being a lesbian does not require becoming a life-long medical patient. Neither does being heterosexual, or bisexual, or a gay man. It does not make sense to lump who you love in romantic and/or sexual relationships in with people who want to attempt to be a facsimile of the opposite sex. There is a thing known as going through a phase. When I was in high school, being bisexual was trending and I knew so many people who considered themselves bi. Now, there’s only a handful of people I went to school with who are bi. However, none of that was a big deal since being bisexual doesn’t mean trying to block puberty in children with dangerous drugs that will destroy their endocrine system.

        Related to that, nowadays you can never suggest that “it’s a phase”. At all. You have to except everything someone says as truth even when it’s obvious bs. For example, if a woman calls herself a lesbian but is still having sex with men, you’re supposed to accept it as her therapist even though that’s not what that word means. Therapists aren’t allowed to question whether homophobia and misogyny plays a role in their patient’s desire to transition either. It’s a completely illogical, “what I say is reality”.

        It also continues to amaze me that a lesbian, gay, or bisexual insisting that a toddler would grow up to not be heterosexual would be flagged as a pedophile, but trans people and their enablers saying, “the male toddler is a girl because he attempted to make a dress by removing his clothing” are taken seriously and allowed to make public policy decisions. It’s also important to note that countries like South African (past) and Iran (currently) have forced lesbians and gays to get “sex change” operations to become the “correct” orientation and dear old US of A has its history of torturing gay and lesbian patients and forced sterilization. Sound familiar?

        It is bizarrely homophobic that lesbians of all people would take not wanting to wear dresses and being romantically and sexually interested in only other women as a sign that she’s (I mean “he’s”) “really a boy.”

        So, that long ass comment is my idea why lesbians continue to support this. As for me, once I realized how it had gone beyond a few adults just wanting to attempt to pass as the opposite sex and live in peace, I stopped supporting it.

        You are also right. A man is never going to have any idea of what it is like to be a woman, or the other way around. I also believe that if MtTs were really sympathetic towards women, they would stop with all their rapey boundary violations and understand why female-only space is necessary, but they don’t, thus proving that they are really just men.

        I suppose it might be nice to be treated as a man, aka a PERSON, but I really would never want to be one. I have found the majority of them to be dis-trustworthy people and they commit the most violent crimes too. I was bullied by boys when I hit puberty and then two years later once they caught up, they wanted to have sex with me and got mad when I said no. I have never met a woman who has not experienced at least a low-level form of harassment from men and that’s not even getting into how common rape is. So despite male privilege being a benefit, I would never want to join that group of people. And really, I literally can’t become a man and neither can any other woman because sexual dimorphism is a thing.

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