It’s Mother’s Day in the United States, and trans activist Rachel McKinnon, PhD in philosophy and lecturer at Charleston college, has a YouTube message for all you cisnormative, unsupportive moms out there: Get with the trans-activist program, or risk losing your kids to the “glitter-queer” family of adult trans waiting with open arms.
McKinnon, who is childless, spends just under 3 minutes lecturing moms on how to parent kids who might believe they’re trans, then speaks directly to the children (as the YouTube written description puts it, “offer support for trans kids whose parents may not be supportive”):
I want you to know that’s it’s ok to walk away from unsupportive or disrespectful or even abusive parents. And I want to give you hope that you can find what we call your glitter family. Your queer family. We are out there.
You sure are: on Reddit, YouTube, Tumblr, and other online fora, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, tweens and teens will find plenty of trans adults like McKinnon, eager to take them under their wing.
And the relationships we make in our glitter families are just as real, just as meaningful as our blood families.
It’s Mother’s Day, but you trans-identified youngsters shouldn’t be thinking about breakfast in bed or a nice card for mom. No, you need to know it’s perfectly ok to abandon your mother, if she’s not onboard with your sudden mission to change sex. Not to worry: adult trans activist “glitter” families are “just as real, just as meaningful” as the people who have known and loved you all your life.
At 4:18, McKinnon, the childless parenting expert, generously offers to be a safe harbor:
Also, you can reach out to me. You can email me. You can call me. We can Skype. I’m happy to talk if you need someone to talk to.
UPDATE 5/15/17: In the YouTube comments last night, McKinnon confirmed that parental refusal to use pronouns or a new name was tantamount to abuse and a good reason to “walk away” to the queer “glitter family.” The comments were altered this morning, but are archived here.
But enough heartfelt cooing from the surrogate trans parent. As important as this message is, trans kids, the bulk of this video isn’t really about you. Nor is Mother’s Day about you, you cissexist mom. Once the online support-group advertisement is out of the way in the first 5 minutes, the real meat of the infomercial is this: Daddy, once he “transitions,” has just as much right to be celebrated as a mom as you do:
Is it ok for trans women to be a mommy? Is it ok for trans women to take on the mantle of motherhood? I talk to a lot of trans women who had children before they transitioned. There’s this idea that going from being dad…to being mom…is somehow taking away from their wife or partner or their children’s mother. It’s somehow “usurping” [air quotes] something that belongs to the original mother. And I wanna suggest that this thought that “mother” and therefore “Mother’s Day” belongs to the cis mother in the partnership, is BOTH cissexist and heteronormative.
McKinnon goes on for several minutes, attempting to justify the idea that someone who fathered the children should get to be called “Mom” because, after all, there are lesbian families with two moms—so what’s the prob? A cis mom and a trans mom are exactly the same as two lesbian women! McKinnon goes further: if the “original father” who is ostensibly now a woman doesn’t get to be called “mom” too, this “erases lesbian mothers.”
For good measure, McKinnon adds adoptive parents into this “argument” too, drawing a false equivalence between adoptive mothers and men who fathered children and now want to be called “mom” because mothering isn’t just about biology.
And it’s cissexist to say a trans woman can’t be a mother…because it seems to suggest she’s not really a woman. The language we usually use for a woman parent is “mother.” So to deny that to trans women is to suggest that cis women own motherhood. And that’s a problem.
Once McKinnon finishes schooling viewers in the proper language to be used, we get a lesson in all the ways families can celebrate Mother’s Day with their newfound enlightened thinking:
You could both celebrate on Sunday, or –and this is what a friend of mine does – one of the mothers is celebrated on the Saturday, and the other mother on the Sunday, and every year they swap who gets Sunday. …so that way, both moms get equal treatment …they both get to feel special.
We wouldn’t want the former dad to feel diminished or snubbed on that special day, now would we?
Another issue is that trans women sometimes don’t feel comfortable being called “mommy” or “mom.” …What are some alternatives? One common way is for the trans mom to be referred to as “Maddy” or “Mada” …
Then there’s Didi and Dommy, but as McKinnon helpfully points out,
…although for the BDSM people, that last one might have a completely different meaning.
Then you can always
…encourage the children to produce their own affectionate nickname for the trans mother. I know trans women early in the transition are uncomfortable being called “mommy” but that may change over time. So be open to your preferences shifting. Also it’s important that it’s about your preferences and people respect your preferences.
I know we have a tendency to worry about the children but I think if we communicate to the children that this is important to you and that it makes you feel bad if they call you daddy, if you would prefer mommy, that they will come around to it, they will respect it.
Don’t worry about “people” like your kids (or the “original” mom)—they’ll come around. Because it’s all about what you, you, you (me, me, me!) —YOU, the trans woman want and feel.
So, yay! Happy Mother’s Day!
If you, as a trans woman, want to take on the mantle of mother, awesome! I think you have permission to do that.
On Twitter, McKinnon is miffed that (so far) the video has gotten a thumbs down: WTF is wrong with them?
According to McKinnon, only a transphobe would find anything peculiar about an adult trans activist inviting “trans kids” (again, McKinnon’s term, generally understood to mean transgender people under the age of 18) for direct contact via Skype.
This morning, McKinnon added a new comment to the YouTube video, claiming that the repeated use of “trans kids” in the video/video title is only in reference to “teens and adults” (even if true, teens under 18 are still minors).
Like the “teen or adult” in the video at timestamp 3:16, presumably?
If–despite all evidence to the contrary–McKinnon really wasn’t targeting the “call me, Skype me, email me” invitation at minors, one simple sentence in the video itself would have sufficed to make that clear, like: “Now, of course I would never interfere in a relationship between parents and their minor children, but if you are a legal adult in need of support, contact me!” McKinnon did add a disclaimer to the description text below the video days after the YouTube was originally posted; no such caveat existed until we blogged about it.
Better late than never?
Yes– Happy Mom’s Day to all of you. We didn’t deserve this and I am sure we all did our best. I would love for this post to be on the front page of the New York Times. And how about dropping the T & Q from LGB? Is that up for a vote?
Seriously, I wish you all the best–no matter where you are in this or where in the world.
My gay friends are very unhappy about the “T” riding their coat tails. It was the gay men in the 1980s organizing about AIDS and the lesbians who became part of the movement and nursed dying gay me who got gay acceptance into the mainstream. They demonstrated that what they wanted was fairness, to be able to live and love as they chose, and not have the larger society criminalize what they did in the privacy of their homes.
Meanwhile, the trans activists didn’t look to gay activism as a model and form their own organizations, they bullied their way into the gay rights movement and set about making it all about T.
Where the gay/lesbian struggle was basically “let us be”, the trans activist struggle is “let us tell you what to say and what to do.”
Just to be clear, I am talking about the adult trans activists. In the case of kids, I think it’s a different situation.
The “glitter” stuff smells suspiciously like paedo grooming to me.
Hope you don’t mind, but I took your comment and posted it on the YouTube video. It was to, straight to the point and exactly how it looks, for me not to
Your comment is not visible. Which is not surprising, I would have expected him to block it.
And yeah, older MToF preying on younger people is nothing new. In fact, 4thwavenow published a story from a year ago in which a former trans man described how she and other women were sexually abused by some MToF that they left home to co-habit with…the MtoF would demand sex, stating that they were ‘oppressed’ and thus entitled to it…
Disgusting creep.
This guy is super creepy and his monotonous way of speaking must put his students to sleep.
That “blood family” bit was used on me already by my daughter. Her “chosen family” is more important than blood family (who helps her to move to her new apartment, pay her bills, etc.?). She spent Mother’s Day with her “chosen family” this year. They accept her “transboyfriend” and allowed her to start hormones last summer. I just won’t do because she feels “unsafe” since I don’t accept or support the hormones. Who will be there to pick up the pieces if the two ever break up and she doesn’t have a chosen family anymore?
Sorry for sounding so bitter, but seriously, this is what happens and I see where she gets these ideas from.
Anyway, Happy Mother’s Day to all of you real mothers out there! Hang in there, we will see the light soon!
It’s a cult, I’m sorry your child got sucked in to it. The argument being used in the video to socially isolate vulnerable people from their families is exactly the same argument every cult uses.
This guy is not just attempting to socially isolate vulnerable people from their families, he is attempting to socially isolate MINOR CHILDREN from their parents, calling upon the children to run away from home. He is disgusting and definitely grooming children for the pedotrans cult.
So sorry, Same situation here. She left all of her family behind for this cult.
This has me in tears as my formerly beautiful and loving daughter has swallowed this whole. I met she talked with this creep online.
I decided to risk getting some bad recommendations from Youtube and clicked on the link just so I could downvote it. So far it’s 3 positive votes to 14 negative votes.
I reported the video for promoting abuse.
As of right now, there are 75 downvotes to 23 upvotes. So ridiculously ironic how one of comments claims “The TERFs that are clicking on the thumbs down on this video are anti-scientific, irrational, and not true feminists.” Transgenderism is what’s anti-scientific, irrational, and anti-feminist!
My fave is the guy who made the video saying that people who are downvoting it are monsters. That’s not hyperbole at all. Nope. People downvoting ANYTHING is exactly the same as being a mass murderer or rapist or genocidal dictator. Exactly the same.
https://twitter.com/IBJIYONGI/status/863950584239370240
Being a woman-of-a-certain age, I have never voted on a posting on YouTube. I will.
It was 127 down vs 27 ups when I saw. Now it appears that the voting has been turned off. There’s the up/down icons but no numbers next to them, and when you click on one, nothing registers. The number of downs must have been too embarrassing.
Attention is going to someone other than ME and it is unacceptable. I get ALL the attention and ALL the praise and MY feelings are the most important, did you forget? Who cares if you’re thankful for your mother? Who cares if you love her or feel confused or sad or like mommy’s feelings might be hurt? I sure as shit don’t so you just put that nonsense right out of your head. My being TRANS should be Front and Center of every situation. You may now validate my identity.
Where does this person’s transition end and their narcissism begin? It is impossible to tell.
After I slept on it a bit I thought about the other side of this and it made me really sad for these families – yes even the transwomen who feel that they must fit themselves into the female gender mold or their existence is not real. If they’re declaring themselves to now be ‘also mom’ that negates the existence of their child’s father. That’s something that’s too valuable to just erase, not just for their kids but for themselves too. Wrong body or not, whatever your ideology, XX + XY chromosomes make it possible for a new human life to begin. It can’t happen any other way. I wouldn’t want to give that up ever. I posted a reply saying as much on the vid but I’m sure I’ll get called a hater.
So, as predicted I was called out for being cissexist and heteronormative. I was admonished for ‘demanding’ that transwomen should work on changing their definitions of fatherhood but ALL of society should change theirs because children with two lesbian parents have no father. (In related news, the price of Tea in China is about $1.75 a pound.)
And the truth is, what I wrote I meant sincerely. Just because you transition doesn’t mean you should have to give up being a mom or dad. I’m not against trans people, I’m against this cancerous ideology that tells people they should hate themselves and everyone else should encourage it.
But that isn’t the INTERESTING part.
I replied to her reply, thoughtfully and respectfully but I did point out that, isn’t it also cissexist to think that a person can no longer be a mom or dad after their transition?…. and how ’bout that, it was shadow banned. It looks like I was thoroughly schooled by her superior Doctorly Knowlege and ran away, ashamed, for not checking my Cis-privilege.
But looky look down at the bottom, some troll has posted a vitriolic, expletive laden rant. Dr. M states that she’s allowed THIS comment to remain visible so that people could see how it’s only pathetic mouth breathers (and never anyone interested in intelligent dialogue) that are disagreeing with her.
Unbelievable. I never actually thought people did that as a calculated move.
It’s disturbing the way he talks “to” his mother. On Mother’s Day most people think about what’s special about their mom. What’s interesting about her, heroic. Why they are glad she’s their mom. For him it stops and starts with “Mom I love you. You’ve always been there for me. I know it hasn’t always been easy. But I’ve certainly appreciated that you’ve been there for me.”
ME ME ME.
What a creep.
In other words, this activist is telling teenagers to run away from home. If they’re lucky, a trans runaway might find a shelter or some nice foster parents to take them in (an option for those kids whose families really are abusive). But the rest of them will end up selling themselves on the streets, putting themselves at an extremely high risk for everything you can think of, including homicide.
Thank you for writing this. Totally agree.
It’s amazing to me how trans are forever blaming “transphobia” and “transphobes” for the murders, suicides, and prostitution of trans-identified people, but never take responsibility for creating those same people’s dysphoria, and cleaving them from society, loved ones, and from building financially stable lives in their transition to adulthood, rendering them far more vulnerable to homelessness, prostitution, drug addiction, murder, and suicide.
This might help explain why my 20YO daughter didn’t contact me today, when we’ve always been very close. The biggest reason, though, is probably the very direct conversation that my husband and I had with her a few days ago, in which she was stunned when we said that we wouldn’t pay for her to start on testosterone.
In walking the knife edge that so many of us have been on, when she first raised the transgender thing with us only two or three months ago, we took the approach of saying that if she would engage in some serious counseling with someone objective, and if at the end of that process she still wanted to go forward, we would support her decision. Obviously, we were playing for time and hoping that a good therapist (and we actually know of one who will see her, but she has declined) would help her through this maze of insanity.
She’s bipolar but sees no connection at all between the two — after all, who knows her better than herself, as she keeps telling us. She did pick her own therapist, one whom we can tell clearly has an agenda simply by looking at his website and twitter feed. After two (!) sessions, he’s all on board with her decision, naturally. I don’t know if we made a mistake in our recent conversation with our daughter, but we promised her that we would go with her to her next therapy session so that he could “answer our questions.” (At the end of it, we plan to make clear that it’s the last one we’ll be paying for.)
So I have some questions for this community. I know that we won’t change this therapist’s mind about anything, but would like to use the session as an opportunity — futile though it might be — to MAYBE have our daughter begin to think a little more rationally. Here’s some of what we’ve come up with to ask him, in her presence:
1. Why do you think the gatekeeper approach is inappropriate for someone with a preexisting mental illness?
2. If someone is feeling a mismatch between their internal self-image and their (healthy) body, why shouldn’t the first-line approach be to try to align the (malleable) mind with the body, rather than jumping to life-altering, permanent hormone therapy to make the body fit the (ever-changing) mind?
3. If you have a patient who is already under a psychiatrist’s care, wouldn’t you want to confer with that psychiatrist before affirming the decision of a patient you’ve seen a grand total of two hours, to avoid possible malpractice lawsuits if nothing else? (We believe, or at least hope, that her psychiatrist doesn’t think hormones are a good idea in her situation.)
4. Have you ever had a patient come to you for whom you HAVEN’T affirmed hormone therapy? If so, what caused you to reach that conclusion?
5. Given that the frontal lobe doesn’t fully develop until around age 25, why wouldn’t you encourage your patients to perhaps live as the opposite gender until that age, and then make a more mature decision before beginning hormones?
6. Were you the same person at 30 as you were at 20?
I know, I know — these questions make ultimate sense to me, and to most rational people, but i want our daughter to hear them asked of someone who supposedly has her best interest in mind (ha).
I would very much appreciate wisdom from anyone who has found themselves in a therapy session with someone who is encouraging their child to take this step. Thank you, and happy mother’s day to all of us who are suffering so.
Define gender identity meaningfully. If it’s biology, well, you can’t actually change your sex so it does not fix the problem. If it’s identifying w stereotypes, that’s a poor reason to get on drugs. Find out exactly what about being a man shes identifying with and ask why women cannot be those things. I have never seen a good explanation of gender identity, and you are owed that if you are expected to bankroll testosterone in the name of it.
Excellent point. I expect to be met with jargon but will persist until I hear something in plain English. Thank you for the response.
@worriedmomtoo
I haven’t been in your situation, but like Euponia, have experience of being on the other side of it as a patient (severe OCD, chronic depression), and I’ve had my mum come to therapy sessions with various professionals. I’d expect the therapist ought to be willing to talk to you and to take your (excellent) questions seriously, and would be concerned if not. My first therapist really wasn’t very good, and my mum’s willingness to ask probing questions confidently and not let them brush her off really helped show that up clearly (due to my depression, I still had doubts as to if it was my fault somehow and as though I should trust the therapist), so I hope it may do that for your daughter even if she seems on the surface so sure about the situation right now. He should certainly at least have touched on her bipolar, I think I’d ask directly what experience he has with it (which he should have mentioned, if he hasn’t. My current therapist, who is good, has been super-careful to emphasise she has only limited experience with OCD, and to check when she’s unsure about it – a professional should discuss their experience), and if he’s considered specific aspects and whether they could be behind this – you know your daughter’s situation best, whether she can be impulsive due to her bipolar, have grandiose thoughts that might make the idea of changing sex seem less impossible, or whether she dissociates during depressive episodes (I do, very badly, and there’s a great sense of disconnect to the body, and experimenting with this I’ve found it’s not actually at all difficult to generate phantom sensations. Have experienced various other dysphoria-ish stuff. The idea of ‘killing off’ an old identity is really something I can strongly relate to with depression, as well).
To me that’s one of the most baffling aspects about this. These professionals surely see people with mental illness, and I would say if anything, they tend to err more on the side of sometimes wrongly discounting genuine views/feelings of patients’ as being down to their mental illness (particularly to patients who are simply unconventional people), rather than taking patient’s distorted thoughts as genuine. To me the thinking of dysphoric individuals looks *extremely* similar to other mental illness. Yet suddenly it’s just affirm this as all real? I suppose it’s not completely dissimilar as an approach, odd though that is – the professionals only appear to listen to patients and pay real attention to what’s going on with them when they want to, sometimes. Engaged parents there to fight a patient’s corner (even if the patient may not always see it that way at the time) can be vital.
Best wishes to you and your daughter, and your husband as well. I really hope you’re able to reach your daughter this way, you’re clearly doing your best for her.
Worrriedmomtoo, I’m sorry to hear what’s going on with your daughter. I think a very strong piece of art to print out and show the therapist (and your daughter as well) is “Four Words: a compilation of things I wish my therapist had said to me while I was pursuing medical transition,” by detransitioner Cari Stella. You can find it here: https://youthtranscriticalprofessionals.org/2016/07/07/four-words-sheryl-never-said/ It is also posted on Cari’s tumblr here: http://guideonragingstars.tumblr.com/post/145647372750/4-words-2016-a-compilation-of-things-i-wish-my
Best wishes.
Those posters made me want to weep for Cari, and for all who are being maimed in both body and spirit. I will definitely print them out, and very much appreciate your response and the links.
You sound like a good mum who really loves her daughter. It can be hard in this individualistic culture to understand that our perception is not reality, especially for those who have mental illnesses. Neuroscience says even our memories are not objective. Distorted thought is part of all mental illnesses. I was diagnosed with OCD and depression when I was 14 and was terrified of talking to a counselor and especially getting on meds but now I am 22 and have experience of what it’s like both on and off meds, never having talked to a counselor and talking to one once a week. It makes a big difference. I can’t even function without psychiatric medication.
Thank you, and I hope that you continue to thrive and deal successfully with your illness. And you can’t imagine how much I love my daughter…
It’s important to note that the effects of testosterone on female bodied people are not well understood and have not been extensively studied. I am aware of cases where young women on T began to behave erratically with violent outbursts after beginning hormones. I have heard detransitioners describe “euphoria” after starting T, and have seen it referred to as an “anti-depressant.” Any responsible therapist and psychiatrist ought to be very cautious about how testosterone may affect someone with bipolar disorder, including how T may interact with any psychiatric medication.
Thank you so much for your reply, especially since you come from a Jungian perspective. That’s an approach that’s sadly underutilized these days, I think. (My own mother was a psychologist; she ended up as a Glasser devotee. I can only imagine what she’d say about all this if she were still alive.) I agree that the medical effects are unknowable and continue to be baffled that hormones are the default “solution” to a very complex problem. I’m reminded of that old Talking Heads song, “Road to Nowhere” — let’s all just come along for the ride, the destination be damned.
Some years ago, I had what turned out to be a pituitary problem caused by an anti-nausea medication I was taking (I have GI birth defects that cause me chronic pain & nausea). Anyway, the pituitary levels being out of whack left me with a testosterone level of zero (even women have some T and men produce some estrogen.) So I was put on testosterone. One thing I can report is that the package insert didn’t inform me that I might really really feel like a man.
T made me really really angry. (I got off it in a short time. I decided I would rather be low energy and weak than so ready to rage. Luckily within weeks, the true cause of my problem was discovered) Btw, never felt like a man, just a pissed off woman who couldn’t sleep.
I bet that girls who go on T and claim to be euphoric are having euphoria more to do with getting their way than from testosterone itself. Think of ‘roid rage – the steroids that body builders use are forms of testosterone, and in high doses, these steroids can make men get angry, too.
Maybe part of why the trans activists push the young girls to take T asap is to fuel anger to get the girls to separate from family and attach to the trans cult.
Dear Worried Mom-
I don’t meet your criteria of having found myself in your situation but I will offer my thoughts for what they are worth.
1. Skipping the obligatory Mother’s Day call is just rude, immature and passive aggressive. Also while twenty is young, it’s still well into adulthood. It doesn’t sound like your daughter has even flown from the nest. For some reason she is still dependent on you financially and otherwise. I can’t imagine a twenty year old caring what her parents think about her questionable decisions- it is a time of profound independence, a time to flail about and make bad choices and reap the consequences. Maybe she is using transtrending as a way to assert her independence, since she has failed to do so by other means. If this is so, it might be worth considering how to break the childish bonds in ways unrelated to the transtrending. Supporting her independence should be the highest priority.
2. You were right to tell her you won’t pay for cosmetic hormone treatments that you don’t believe will be therapeutic. As an adult, it is an absurd request for your daughter to make. Tell her to get a job like everyone else! Grow up! She has much bigger problems than a neck beard and “muh pronouns!” Like needing to learn how to support herself, start a career, date a string of losers, etc. If she wants to throw testosterone into the mix, or get some knuckle tattoos, or fuck up her credit rating, or get a DWI or whatever else tomfoolery: that’s too bad, but young adults fuck up and do stupid things. Her problem. Not yours. Her life. Her consequences that she will have to live with.
3. Maturity of the sexual variety: Is your daughter sexually active? Is she dating? Is she a lesbian? Over 20% of adult transtrenders are social misfits who begin hormone therapy before they have their first sexual partner. If she has not launched her romantic life she should be encouraged to do so. Many young people find their dysphoria resolves after sexual maturity and the experience of a loving relationship. This can be difficult for lesbians because we are such a small population. Thank god for Uhauls! 😉
4. As for the therapist: Two sessions?! He is not going to help you. It would be very amusing to hold his feet to the fire and spout his jender jerney gibberish in response to your queries. Maybe you can take notes and publish his answers here, and tell him you are going to sue him if your daughter decompensates as a result of his intervention. Or you could shock them all and state “I want to get to the gender conversation but my primary concern is that my daughter successfully complete her “transition” into adulthood and meet the developmental task of carving out an independent life where she has created a career, a romantic life, and financial stability for herself. This has been especially difficult because of her bipolar diagnosis. I’m concerned that the trans trending may be a symptom of avoidance or a failure to meet this challenge. I’ve read some of the transgender blogs and seen the YouTube videos produced by young women my daughter’s age and I’m struck by the overriding narrative of “seeing changes” and “making progress” and “moving forward”. In some cases the transition process appears to be a placebo – an internalized feeling of control and transformation for young women who feel otherwise stuck and disempowered by their inability to transform their external circumstances. I’d like to see my daughter create a sustainable, rewarding, and stable adult life for herself before she even considers something as radical as throwing cross-sex hormones into the mix. Every source of medical guidelines warns that testosterone causes destabilization and even suicidality in bipolar women. Every single one. So your determination that my daughter should be thrown onto testosterone after only two sessions seems outrageous to me. I certainly won’t pay for it and I will hold you personally responsible for the outcome if she chooses to proceed. You’ve clearly done nothing to even get to know her much less delve into any underlying issues. I am writing a letter to your licensing board outlining my objection. I do thank [daughter] for inviting me to speak to you. I appreciate that she respects my perspective enough to allow me to share it.”
BOOM.
Okay, sorry I rambled on a bit there. Not sure if anything I said is helpful in any way – random internet thoughts from a stranger- either way I wish you and your daughter the very best. Your close and loving bond will sustain you both through whatever life brings. Of that I am certain. Take good care. And Happy Mother’s Day.
GallusMag, your “U-Haul” comment made me laugh — my oldest daughter is a lesbian and can’t seem to make it work. 🙂
The daughter in question has been sexually active in the past (mostly with guys), not so much these days, I don’t think. I mentioned to her a couple of weeks ago that I thought that appearing masculine (and she’s barely over 5 feet tall and quite petite, so not sure how that’s going to work in any event) would be the equivalent of false advertising, and that surely lesbians wouldn’t be interested because they’re into girls, and gay guys wouldn’t be interested because of the converse, and straight guys — well, we can just imagine. She said that not everyone cares about the equipment down there and that there are other ways of expressing sexual feelings. So she’s basically consigning herself to a teeny tiny pool of available partners, and they’re likely to be just as psychically messed up as she currently is. Blech.
I love your suggestion in point 4. I’m not usually very confrontational, but it sounds like great fun to go that route! I’ll definitely be taking notes about what the “therapist” says.
Hi worriedmomtoo, just a heads up on what I have been seeing about the potential for partners, viewed thru the lens of the trans activists. There’s a You Tuber named Riley Dennis (formerly Justin) whose transition appears to be limited to eyeliner and shirts from the girls’ dept. Anyway, Riley made a video about this business of people’s genitals not being a make-or-break in relationships, to the point where those of us who do have a “preference” (as Riley put it) are bigots. Like it’s ok for lesbians to not like men, but it’s wrong for a lesbian to reject a woman with a penis. If someone has been raped, that person should take the time to get over it, and …apparently there’s a time limit even for those who are traumatized by sexual assault to get with the program and be ready for an underpants surprise from anyone they might be attracted to.
I so couldn’t believe this video! It’s not enough to want to legislate changes in our language, demand access to spaces where women are uniquely vulnerable (half dressed, naked or asleep, in rest rooms, locker rooms and shelters for women or domestic violence victims), now loving who you love as an act akin to racism?! That the rest of the public can/should be bullied into being “open” to people we aren’t attracted to?
Most of the people I know are not unaccepting of people being gay, or different. In fact, I wonder how much of youth trans is so ridiculous BECAUSE we have such an accepting culture that it takes a lot to look like a rebel – all that shaving and dying and applying layers of makeup and posting videos about how the cishetwhitestraight world is so not to their liking
(I’m not posting the link to Riley’s video because I don’t want to give it the “views” on which You Tubers’ pay is based. I recommend watching Andy Warski’s response to it)
Retired child and family therapist here. It sounds like you are handling the situation as well as anyone could. That does not mean, however, that the outcome here will be what you want. There are really no individual solutions to what is a systemic problem. People with serious mental illnesses like bipolar disorder mature emotionally at a slower rate, so remaining involved in your daughter’s life as much as she will allow is a good idea, even if you can’t in good conscience pay for her to continue with her current therapist. Take good notes on what this therapist prescribes: when the tide changes there will be lawsuits against these quacks, and that may potentially be a source of funds for therapy to undo the damage.
I do predict a wave of litigation, hopefully sooner rather than later so that this madness can be stopped. Many have noticed the comparison to the recovered-memory craze of the 90s, and even to the earlier fondness for lobotomies. Nothing without sound science behind it, deliberately studied over time, turns out well…thank you for taking the time to respond.
Don’t be surprised if all of your well reasoned questions are slapped down with the accusation of Transphobia! and CisPrivilege! I think that Gallus’ suggestion that you talk about the very negative effects of testosterone on bipolar patients (and the unfortunate possibility of a malpractice suit) is a good one. As is redefining support to your daughter as emotional but not financial. She’s an adult making this adult decision, if she wants to poison herself you legally can’t stop it but you will not pay for it or help her to do it.
JParle, I do expect the “J’accuse” retorts–somewhere, George Orwell is shaking his head at his prescience about the distortion of words’ meaning. If anyone knows of an objective study about the effects of T on bipolar patients, I’d love to see it. As everyone here knows, though, it’s awfully hard to find anything objective on this subject.
Incidentally, is it my imagination, or does this whole trend seem to be largely the domain of middle-to-upper-middle-class young white women? Why would that be?? It’s so much easier now to succeed in life as a woman, so it can’t possibly be a reaction to oppression, rightly understood. Could it be a retreat from the hypersexualization of society that bombards us on all sides? Flight versus fight?
Here’s my opinions on why this trend is mostly the young/white/middle class/female, based on my personal experiences (I know this is not super relevant to the topic, so @moderator feel free not to post it).
1. This demographic group performs femininity generally to a high degree. Teenage girls are supposed to like makeup and tight clothes and heels, and if you don’t, what does that make you?
2. Your parents are sufficiently liberal that you know the consequences are going to be limited, but conservative enough it’s still sort of a ‘f*** you mom!! i do what i want!’
3. Being trans means, in a way, a ready-made friend group, which I think appeals to the socially awkward. Awkward white middle class teenage boys have various extremely nerdy hobbies to fulfill this.
4. Being trans also means you’re part of a culture that isn’t bland, whitebread suburbia. You belong to a /community/, which ties into point #3.
Lilly
You make really great points. I have been thinking for a while that the youth trans movement is about rebellion. We have a culture that is so accepting of people who are different that for someone who is determined to be a rebel, it takes a lot of ridiculous to get any attention.
I also think that, especially for the girls, it’s not so much about wanting to be a man as it is about not wanting to grow up. I look at the transtrender videos on you tube and they all dress like members of a boy band.
I also feel tremendously sad for the young ones, especially if they haven’t had the opportunity yet to see what a bond sex can create in a loving relationship. Not just the in-the-moment orgasmic capability that is not guaranteed to survive “transition”, especially surgery, but the deep emotional connection, the trust in your partner, that come with a long-standing loving relationship.
I also have to say, as an aside, I am sooooo sick of this “community” bs, the gay community, the trans community, the left-handed sci fi readrs community. What happened to ALL of us being a community that has members who are young, old, straight, gay, bi, white, black, asian, native, etc.?
I watched this YouTube video where two ftm “boys” talked about their sex life. They were very open and and least one of them had had a very adventurous sexlife. The video had hardly any dislikes and all comments were positive, funny or admiratonal. I couldn’t help to think what the reactions would have been if they both still had identified as girls. Also maybe a bit of topic, but I do think that there for many individuals is a lot to gain from this transidentity. Not having to be shamed for having sexual desires being just one reason, but not a small one for a young person today.
Lilly, your ‘Twitter is where shit goes down’ post was hilarious. 🙂 I have a question for you as our in-house teenage social media expert. What proportion of trans teens are not just rebelling, but consider themselves to be revolutionaries who are part of something that will significantly change the world?
Trish, your question of what happened to all of us being a community? The 1980s happened. “You’re on your own, there’s no such thing as society, buy things to be happy”. And it’s not like anyone in power has refuted that ideology since.
Lena, I’d not thought of this aspect before. Women have always (or nearly always) paid a price for sexual freedom, but now they can PAY A PRICE for sexual freedom. Another artificially created demand, another product for sale. Repression and commercialisation working hand in hand.
“Incidentally, is it my imagination, or does this whole trend seem to be largely the domain of middle-to-upper-middle-class young white women?……..Could it be a retreat from the hypersexualization of society that bombards us on all sides?”
This got me to thinking, you know what else is largely the domain of middle/upper class white women? Anorexia. Even more interesting is that there is a strong correlation between anorexia and female autism. https://spectrumnews.org/features/deep-dive/the-invisible-link-between-autism-and-anorexia/ here’s just one article but I found others. I also tried to determine, has the rate of anorexic girls gone down as the rate of transboys has skyrocketed? But I couldn’t find yearly stats on anorexia so idk.
Because one of the common themes of anorexia is not wanting to grow up and an aversion to changes from puberty. Makes me wonder.
That video is so disgusting, narcissistic, ridiculous, offensive, and creepy. It’s not shocking to see one of the thumbnails here features an illustration from the horrid Assigned Male webcomic. McKinnon is a man, and thus can never be a mother.
I’ve pointed this out before, but McKinnon (hopefully no relation to Catherine) is radically departing from the approach previously taken by gay and lesbian activists towards youth. In the past, sensitive and defensive about potential exposure to claims of “recruitment,” adult gays and lesbians were leery about being seen as encouraging minors to break with their families. Say, 10-15 years ago, none of the pride centers or gay orgs were running support groups for minors, or activities to which minors were even invited. When I was a PFLAG leader I was asked for referrals, all the time, to support groups “by gays, for gays,” and they were impossible to find (at least for teenagers). It was too bad, but I certainly didn’t blame the adults for steering clear of that population. The legal exposure alone, especially in a context that necessarily would have involved issues of sexuality and sex, was enough to scare off most responsible adults, who had reputations and assets to lose. In fact, anybody who has worked with youth in any context knows that you err on the side of conservatism and safety where “other people’s kids” are concerned. It doesn’t matter how strongly you believe in your particular mission.
I continue extremely puzzled at the outsize appetite for risk displayed by the “transgender activist” community. Whether it is taking untested drugs, undergoing bizarre surgeries, experimenting on themselves, experimenting on babies and toddlers, encouraging teens to run away from home (?!?), I do wonder whether there even ARE any adults in that room!
My local LGBT center did (and I believe still does) have a support group for teens and another one for college-age people. My friend’s sister went there for awhile, but this was 20 years ago. The group had some kind of counselor/youth leader, but otherwise adults were not allowed to mix with the kids.
Dear God wh y must the man talllllkkkkkkk in this wayyyyyy.
Oh won’t some one fix the ti ming belt on his sperg mo tor ?
Orrrrrrr does he be li eve he must speak slow ly be cau se ev er y one is tooo stu pid to keep up with his gen i usssss ? Can y ou i mag ine be in g one of his stu dent sss ??? Ha v ing to li st en to this man sp eak in th is wa y ???
Do ees he ac tu a l ly speakkkk to his po or moth er that way ???? He sp eakkkk s to tal ly nor mal in his oth er vi de ossss.
T he pun ch li ne issss thaaaaat he cl aim s to be a lan gu age sp ec ial istttttt. Haaa haaa hha!
You don’t think you’re over-reacting somewhat? As a parent you need to love your child unconditionally (whether you agree with all their choices or not). I think the video is a bit tedious and long-winded, she explains some concepts badly (she doesn’t seem to fully understand heteronormativity for example), and I found her matter-of-fact and rambling approach to discussing (emotional) issues somewhat annoying. I guess she spoke emotionlessly for a reason though. I can’t really agree with all the comments here. I would however be concerned if a child turned to this woman for empathy over-and-above his/her own parents. Presumably they would need to be getting “negative empathy” from their parents to be attracted by this dry, boring and emotionless presentation.
John, can you explain why “lov[ing] your child unconditionally” would not include pointing out that they are making dangerous or misbegotten choices? What part of parenting, as you understand it, entails providing unqualified financial and emotional support for any notion held by your child, no matter how destructive and incorrect for that child?
It’s also a bit sneaky and rotten to imply that if a child is attracted by people such as Prof. McKinnon, he or she must be getting “negative empathy” from parents. Do you really feel that every time a child or teenager makes the wrong choices, or is lured by someone holding out false promises of independence and fun, that should be chalked up to parents’ lack of empathy and support? Hasn’t it happened, pretty frequently, that people with an agenda to push have targeted children and exploited their natural inclination to disengage from their families?
In any other context – say, if Prof. McKinnon were recruiting teenagers to break with their families, cut off their parents, leave home and join the Christian religion – folks on the left would be screaming to high heaven, so to speak.
She was saying that people with abusive parents should not feel guilty cutting those parents out of their lives. You are describing something else: a loving parent, who still loves their child unconditionally, but who disagrees with their child’s choices. Hence you are over-reacting (to a somewhat boring video) because you are inferring things that are not there.
Your second paragraph is pure logical fallacy. I am saying you need to ensure your child knows you love them unconditionally, whatever they do. That should be your concern, not that they will run away to join “join a cult” with some wet fish.
Your last paragraph, about “Christian cults” is more logical fallacy. In this case it’s a strawman.
I get that you are upset, but you are really over-reacting, and not responding to what she said in the video.
Words, what do they mean?
McKinnon started out talking about “unaccepting,” not “abusive” parents, then back-tracked when McKinnon saw that urging kids to ditch “unaccepting” parents was about 10 bridges too far. Given the level of backtracking and post-hoc revision in which McKinnon is currently engaging, I’d guess we’re not the only folks to have a strong reaction. We’ll have to agree to disagree as to whether it’s “over” reacting. I just have this sense that Charleston and Canada are probably very different environments, and I do wonder how it’s all going down for McKinnon right about now.
It’s not a “logical fallacy” to point out the implication that if kids are drawn to McKinnon and McKinnon’s brigade, this is at the parents’ feet. A parent can love his/her children and still have a concern that the child will be sucked into the trans cult. The two things can exist simultaneously. Parents are not required to “rank order” their priorities.
The comparison between the trans-cult and a Christian cult is an analogy. A straw-man argument is something altogether, it’s putting words in the other person’s mouth that they didn’t say, and then arguing against them. Many folks have noticed the strong similarities between the trans movement and other cults.
This wouldn’t be the first time that a trans-activist stepped over the line. My sense is that McKinnon may well not have thought too too carefully about the appeal to kids to “call, email, SKYPE me” and that McKinnon would “be there” for kids. For an awful lot of people, though, once somebody starts directly soliciting their kids, all sorts of alarm bells start going off. McKinnon’s environment may have led McKinnon to believe that these sorts of comments are helpful and motivating but many parents, including myself, hear them in an entirely different and fairly threatening way (particularly when we are already hearing, for instance, that the “professionals” allied with USPATH are currently advocating that CPS should be called on “unsupportive” parents who refuse to permit their children to enter the transgender process.)
John, if you think that McKinnon or any other activist believes that we parents here (who yes, do love and support our kids) are NOT abusive, you haven’t seen how these people actually view us.
I find that people who paint us as over-reacting aren’t aware that people like McKinnon are seeking to discredit EVERY parent who doesn’t immediately transition a child or teen and suppresses their own knowledge and intuition about how something is very, very wrong when their child starts going down this path.
And, people who think that parents must be terrible and anti-empathetic to have their child respond to this nonsense is also par for the course. It’s ALWAYS the parents’ fault, am I right? If your child falls for bullshit, it’s because of a parenting flaw. Children aren’t ever immature or susceptible to influence, or have any kind of agency. They never have mental illnesses or neurological disorders or have suffered trauma. The transactivists could NEVER be wrong and twisted and have utterior motives.
Blame the parents. How novel and insightful. How EMPATHETIC of you.
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It sounds like he’s trying to get people to join a cult!
Reblogged this on GenderTrender.
Because this guy was brought up as a privileged male he displays no empathy towards the biological families of the children he wishes to join his “glitter” family.
If this video had been put out by a biologically female lesbian she would have been subsumed in a tidal wave of Internet derision. But it wasn’t. It was produced by a man. A man who wants to erase real mothers and put himself in their place.
I want to leave a decent comment. But I can’t find the words to describe my rage, my anger. I waited to write just so I could do so respectfully. This sounds like he is trying to get kids to join a cult–of glitter. This sounds like the natal female mothers of children do not count at all. This is patriarchy at its most vile and damaging. I think,since there are those in Congress trying to pass a bill to prevent conversion therapy (where LGB people get tossed under the bus because of trans people), that members of Congress ought to see this–sort of thing. These people do not care about families at all–nor do they _really_ care about the kids. How is it that these souls have gotten such power? How is it that there aren’t more people who love their children shouting and fighting this sort of nastiness? What do we need to do so that our elected legislator do not willy-nilly give trans the equivalency to sexual orientation? Help. Please.
Write to McKinnon’s bosses:
Todd Grantham, Chair
Department of Philosophy
College of Charleston
granthamt@cofc.edu
Jerold L. Hale, Dean
School of Humanities and Social Sciences
College of Charleston
halejl@cofc.edu
Brian R. McGee
Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs
College of Charleston
mcgeeB@cofc.edu
Glenn McConnell
President
College of Charleston
president@cofc.edu
At first when you posted this I thought maybe you were crossing a line interfering in this this person’s livelyhood for being a bit creepy. Maybe she had not realized how her words might’ve sounded after all, she did go back and clarify….
BUT then I read some of her work. Her branch of philosophy deals with hermeneutics, the philosophy of language interpretatation. Her main focus is on ‘norms of assertion’ which is a pretentious way of saying she studies how actions speak louder than words. She challenged, “I do this for a living, I wrote a book*, come at me!” on Twitter. I am sorely tempted to ask College of Charleston if they’re cool with this. And if you already have, not judging.
*So did E.L. James, big f’ing deal.
Totally unacceptable behaviour from a ‘public intellectual’ and professional academic. Whatever the intention here, the culmination in vanity and bad sense was a colossal failure here.
The safety and vulnerability of trans youth, and the general increase in how ‘rainbowfam’ conduits (like support groups — see the sexual assault in Lynchburg) exploit at-risk kids, is a serious but disregarded issue.
As the ‘PWR BTTM’ news should remind us, it’s that trans-femme identities and genderqueer glitterati do not preclude male sexual violence.
Just my comments and will add no further except to say ‘Thanks’.
-Aoife
the part that offers a little sample lecture to children about how they should accommodate parental transition — use whatever forms of address the parent wants, if they don’t want to be called dad anymore but mom instead even if that makes you uncomfortable you don’t want to hurt the person formerly known as dad’s feelings, right?
The lack of genuine empathy for the ostensible child audience: hooo boy.
Indeed. Everyone: mom, the kids, co-workers, parents, – everyone – is supposed to suck it up and deny, or at least not express, their feelings, in order to protect dad’s feelings on hus “transition” journey to female sex stereotypes. Only the “transitioner’s” feelings matter, and should be prioritized over everyone else’s, according to trans ideology.
Doesn’t this fly in the face of family systems theory?
Isn’t this yet another area in which transactivists have so aggressively demanded to get their way (by calling those who disagree “bigots, “transphobic,” and “TERFs,”) that trans are granted special exceptions to the principles that apply to all other people?
Is there no end to trans’ special snowflake-ness?
**
This video reeks of yet another MtT looking to all things female to find yet another way in which MtTs are victimized and oppressed, and therefore must be overhauled…in their image.
Lurking in the trees…symbol that looks like tentacles…takes children away… Rachel McKinnon is Slenderman. :O
This is creepy. I understand why kids who’s parents have disowned them for being transgender or gay, etc, as a lot of homeless youth fit into these categories. But pronouns be damned! I’ve told my daughter that it’ll be easier for me to see her as a he and that’s not going to happen until she’s a grown adult and can pay for a gender change. As far as I’m concerned once she does that she’s earned it. But I have gotten her to understand the problem that I have with the underage transitioning by framing it as a medical uncertainty, which it is. Luckily, that makes sense to her. And since she knows I’m not going to do it she doesn’t try to make everyone act like she’s a guy. She still presents as a male, in public, and I don’t correct people who assume she’s a guy anymore but she doesn’t want to do the whole bathroom locker room changes at school so she’s staying she for now. Her choice. If she still feels like she’s a man 5 years from now it’s out of my control. But I’m not signing on and paying for something that doesn’t seem right to me. I told her that she’s either going to hate me for making her wait or hate me for messing up her body, if she’s going to hate me at all. Or she can see that I’m trying to do what I think is the safest thing given the situation. I honestly don’t have much of a problem with grown adults making their own choices, but I don’t think it’s fair to put parents in this position. It’s our signatures that they need after all.
Dang, “the other mother”, sounds like the villain in Coraline.
Why would anyone bring up bdsm in a video about childhood/motherhood, something this foo’ seems to have forgotten seeing he thinks it’s a “privilege” to grow a human SOOO Easy. Targeting teens, and mentioning bdsm is wildly inappropriate. BDSM, is really not something to be pandering about, people in that scene are acting out trauma after all, regardless of it being consensual.
I think for trans activists they would rather people’s bedroom activities re-enact trauma than be loving, comforting and enjoyable.
Maybe instead of calling that person the “other mother” how about the “mother f-er”?
Parents donor fund to Charleston College:
https://giving.cofc.edu/about/staff?chid=19
M. Seaton Brown ‘09
Assistant Director, Parent Giving Programs
Email: brownms@cofc.edu
Phone: 843.953.3667
About Seaton
Seaton coordinates the development of the Parents’ Fund, advocating for the support of student scholarships, faculty engagement opportunities, and student programming. He works to encourage relationships between parent constituents and campus partners, ensuring the unique experience offered by a College of Charleston education. Seaton also guides the efforts of the Parent Advisory Council and Parent Leadership Drive as its Director.
Of course adult trans activists want to separate the kids – kids who may be confused, or who may on some level want to hear a parent say to stop the madness – from the rest of the family.
The trans activist narrative is that trans activists need the power to make unheard-of demands on all non-trans members of society because “not getting supported” = “high trans suicide rates”.
Problem is, there were those 4 trans teens who killed themselves in LA who had supportive families, and trans activist groups at school – basically all the support the trans activists say are lacking and leading to suicides – and those kids killed themselves anyway.
If the kids are separated from family, and pre-trans friends, it’s a lot easier to sell to the kids and to society at large, the narrative that we non trans are being suicide-generating levels of unsupportive so add pronouns to English, let the trans activists decide who gets to use which toilets, locker rooms, shelter beds – and draconian punishments for the slightest resistance.
I know the pronoun thing sounds like a small thing, but when I look at the punishments in NYC (up to $250,000 fine for businesses and for individuals, eviction), it made me think about what historic group could get an ordinary person harshly punished for not addressing group members as they wish and all I could think of was aristocracies. One group controlling how others speak is anti-American.
Re: the “Queer Family” — What about the Trans activism that is eliminating present lesbian/gay/bi youth and future queer adults to emerge in our communities? In what ways may that actually be destroying the future of queer families?
This morning I was in the dentist office waiting room, and the woman next to me was reading a magazine cover story on “Gender.” I mentioned that we have a close family member who when a number of teen friends came out as Trans followed suit. The woman shared that she works at a local school and observed, “We don’t get gay teens anymore. Teens don’t have the option of being gay. That’s all over now. Our last gay teen was years ago. They’re just gone.” She explained that for male children that experience themselves as effeminate and girls who are more “butchy” or Tomboyish, the first go-to now is “Trans.” It’s become the accepted “Occam’s Razor,” in her words — the most logical and obvious diagnosis for what used to be the beginnings of gay identity realization. She said there is no telling how many of these Trans kids would have been healthy, happy gay adults without medical interventions, health problems, and surgeries. Nor how many of them would have truly fulfilling sex lives with sex organs functioning well and intact, let alone loving families of their own with a gay mate. I asked her if she thought that this might be an inadvertent “genocide” of gay/lesbian/bisexual youth and she said she had not thought of it that way, only that it was very creepy and chilling to have this ominous absence now of gay youth where once her school had a fair-sized vibrant group. As she put it, it’s like “crickets” where the gay teens used to be, and this disappearance has disturbed her. She remarked that teens often “self-diagnose,” most often based on descriptions online, and then the gender specialist confirms this diagnosis using the new “Occam’s Razor” standard for gender nonconformity — that the most logical conclusion is “Trans” not G/L/B. I wondered aloud why G/L/B orgs are not more worried about this, concerned about Trans activism and the Trans medical industry instead of being “a common cause,” actually eliminating gay/lesbian/bi youth in a manner similar to ethnic cleansing. She threw up her hands, saying that when you try to open this conversation, you are branded a bigot. You’re uneducated. You don’t understand the ‘science.’ And you are seen as unsympathetic. But then she asked what about sympathy toward potential gay and lesbian kids who will never get to live healthy lives in their own unadulterated bodies and get to be their own “true selves” because they have been confirmed and stamped as Trans. This is so disturbing. Are GLB youth now the victims of a kind of “ethnic cleansing” for gender non-conforming kids? Will there even be GLB community in the future at this rate?
It’s like the “T” that added itself to the LGB groups is a parasite that has eaten out the brain and is driving the body like a meat vehicle.
So in a generation there will be no more gay people. LGBT orgs have managed to do what homophobes never managed.
Your post is pretty chilling. While I was slightly gender non-conforming as a boy, it was not all that much, so I probably would have not gotten in the trans pipeline, if such a thing had existed back then. However, there was no talk of being gay at the Catholic schools I went to (except as a joke), so I had to figure things out for myself in college.
Really, no gay teens at all? I have to admit I’m shocked. I can’t imagine what kind of school that is. I graduated from high school in 2016, and there were PLENTY of gay, lesbian, and bisexual teenagers, if that makes anyone feel better. There were certainly a sizeable number of trans people–but nearly all of them were non-binary. Which generally means ‘uses given name, doesn’t want hormones, maybe still identifies with birth gender to some degree’. It makes me wonder if this trans thing is significantly bigger in some areas than others.
Im in the Boston area and I believe most kids identifying as trans. Probably catholic school GSAs (yes some have them) have gay boys.
Wow! I live in the Boston area too, which make me even more surprised. I completely believe you, but it’s really hard for me to wrap my head around. I wonder if this is a bigger thing in the more white and middle class suburbs? The school I went to was about half non-white and about a quarter economically disadvantaged. Now that I’m in college I’ve met gay/lesbian/bi people from various white suburban towns, but obviously the sample size is small.
Is it possible that LGB teens in some schools are simply not joining the “official” LGBT group, because they see an overemphasis on “T” issues?
I would like to point out two things that McKinnon is doing currently. On Twitter, all his postings are an appeal to his authority as a professor and knowledge of propaganda. And, when he is upset with someone’s response, he posts a meme. Because that’s the adult thing to do — act like a tween. That’s incredibly professorial. I’m sure that’s exactly the type of person parents want to pay to educate their children. McKinnon is aware that PARENTS are paying the tuition of Charleston students, right?
Also, he goes on and on about how he’s winning over people, yet he’s conveniently hidden the number of up/down votes on the Youtube video. Far be it from me to equate positive/negative votes on Youtube as the end-all value of an argument. However, if the person saying they’re way more popular than the side who disagrees is hiding the popularity count? Who is spreading propaganda now?
I notice the “trans community” has dropped him like a hot potato.
Where is the evidence that the trans community has dropped him?
I would love to see proof of that. Is it that his tweets are only garnering a couple of likes or hiding his vote count on Youtube or discussions on reddit subs?
By the way, breaking up families is a standard cult tactic. Just saying…
It is a cult. There is no question in my mind. This movement is a cult.
They added a disclaimer in the description about how this totally isn’t referring to minors, and doesn’t encourage running away. I wonder if any one of us emailed them posing as a minor, would they say “I can’t talk to you, you’re too young”? If you said you had parents that wouldn’t accept you, would they tell you “whatever you do don’t run away”? I doubt it very much. Anyone interested could do this with very little risk and the potential to help expose someone trying to groom young people.
That disclaimer did not exist when this post was written.
No caveat in the description on March 15, the day after McKinnon posted the video… better late than never?
I sent an email to the college. Why would anyone want to send their child to this place and have this person as a influence or mentor?
I wrote to the president of the college and the dean of students. I got a note back from the dean of students this morning acknowledging the receipt of my email. I don’t know if the disclaimer is a result of complaints, but it really isn’t good enough to alleviate worries that a parent might have about letting their kids go to a school with this kind of person seeking them out.
Many colleges have “this type of person seeking them out” –as we found with our daughter.
Does anyone have links they can share to objective scientific studies correlating bipolar women on testosterone as having increased suicide risk? I would like to go into this Friday’s session with my daughter’s “therapist” armed with a much data as I can gather. Not that I expect much from it, but at least I’ll know that my husband and I are doing everything we can to come to this not as perceived transphobes but as parents concerned about the physical and psychological dangers.
And thanks to this site for being a rare voice of courageous sanity.
Did a quick search and found these:
http://www.journalofpsychiatricresearch.com/article/S0022-3956(12)00208-7/fulltext?cc=y=
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165032714002626
I only read the abstracts, but these studies do show a link between testosterone levels and suicidal behavior in females with bipolar disorder. (Speaking as the close friend of someone who has struggled with bipolar disorder for over 30 years, you are VERY right to be concerned about suicide rates. None of my friend’s attempts succeeded, thank God. And it’s been decades since the last time she tried. But she had some rough years in her late teens and early 20s– and this was without testosterone or gender identity issues. If your daughter’s therapist does not specialize in bipolar disorder, I strongly urge you to do whatever it takes to get her to a doctor who knows what they’re doing.)
I think that the trans didn’t have kids is a bad argument against a trans persons parenting advice. I think that because I’m autistic and don’t have kids, but regardless of having kids or not I understand more about parenting autistic kids than their neurotypical parents because I have a first person perspective of autism. If your abnormal it’s more likely that your parents are your first oppressors than that they are advocates or allies.
If you are autistic, that means that you have your own personal experience with this condition. It does not mean you are an authority who has studied all the research and has long term experience with helping many autistic children with the full range of symptoms through which that autism manifests itself. I’m sure the parents that you here identify as your oppressors would have their own personal accounts of the experience of raising you, their autistic child. Their account would probably be very different than yours and we would need to speak with other family members, doctors, teachers, therapists etc. to get a fuller understanding of the situation that you grew up in to make a judgement about your case.
The comparison you make here is a false one. McKinnon is not a parent at all but your point seems to be because he claims to be a transwoman and is abnormal like you claim you are, that would automatically make him a better parent to any other abnormal person who believes themselves to be transgender. You claim that the biological parents of someone who “identifies” as trans is automatically going to be a worse parent than McKinnon if the real parents do not give in immediately to anything their child believes or wants. You have an extremely limited knowledge of what it means to takes to be a good parent.
Obviously I’m talking about autism and trans specific issues. Of course I can’t tell you when your kid is ready to date or what chores they should be responsible for, but an autsitic person is the clear choice over someone who’s never hand one for how to handle a meltdown.
How can we get a better understanding of an autistic person’s first hand experience from asking their parents and teachers? My mom STILL thinks i don’t like to be touched. She had dry skin and wears wool. I have spoken up and told her I have no problem being touched, but she hears my clearly stated reason of sensory deregulation and STILL thinks i don’t like to be touched because she’s heard other people say autistic people don’t like to be touched and she doesn’t understand that touching her is like touching electrified sandpaper. In my autism groups for autistic allies parents regularly solve specific problems with the help of input from autistic people. And they listen to what the autsitic people have been subjected to that they describe as torture to save the next generation and they implement their strategies and they get results. The thing is the result their after is to have well adjust kids, so if this is an analogy for trans those parents would be part of the trans parent cult. There are other groups for parents who want to normalize their autistic and trans kids and other groups where people want to throw a pity party for their autistic and trans kids and those kinds of places are pretty toxic for trans and autistic people.
I’m not trying to appropriate autistic issues for trans people, I think it’s a legitimate analogy when so many people are both autistic and nonbinary. Nonbinary people are unusually autistic and autistic people are unusually nonbinary so issues that affect one affect a lot of the other.
Everyone is “nonbinary.” No one except literal Barbie and Ken dolls conform to rigid gender stereotypes. There is nothing new or revolutionary about all of these new gender terms. It’s likely true that autistic people are less beholden to such stereotypes. It doesn’t then follow that they need surgeries and hormones. And with all due respect, parents do tend to know their children better than anyone else. Trans activist propaganda to the contrary.
The existence of children who have two lesbian mothers and/or children who have an adoptive mother (or mothers) doesn’t mean that dudes can be women and mothers. Seriously, that’s a huge leap in logic. “Mother” just means a female parent, regardless of whether the child(ren) she’s taking care of are related to her genetically, or adopted, or step-children. The whole video is basically, “but why isn’t it about meeee!!!!”
I wonder if I could try to make Mother’s Day all about me, even though I don’t have children or want them…naw I’m just a normal female so I probably can’t.
Unlike this guy, I spent Mother’s Day hanging out with my mom.
As for the minor children, again I have to observe how most LGB adults avoid minor children (even older teenagers) to avoid accusations of recruiting and pedophilia. For that matter, I’ve noticed that after most adults have put a few years between them and high school, they typically aren’t associating with teenagers who aren’t related to them in some way.
This man trivializes child abuse too. There’s a big difference between abuse and parents not being on board with paying for the expensive medical treatments their new internet cult says they need…opps I mean their “innate gender identity” that coincidentally they discovered after hanging out on tumblr and youtube.
I don’t know how common this is. I left the trans community years ago because of how crazy it was and haven’t looked back, but I had kids seeking me out for advice.
I started transitioning over 10 years ago. About the same time I discovered YouTube and started uploading videos about my transition (and other things). I had people contacting me privately asking me how I knew I was trans among other more intimate questions that were not on my videos.
I stated my age in the videos so it was clear I was well into adulthood and older than the average transgender YouTuber of that time. I asked every person who contacted me how old they were and if they were under 18 I politely told them that I could not discuss anything with them one on one and that anything I had to say about the matter was on my public videos.
It became so unnerving that these kids were watching my videos that I ended up deleting my entire channel and stopped discussing my gender or my transition with anyone except those I needed to (medical providers mostly).
I felt better about being more private about it also because it seemed the entire public discussion about transgender people was really getting nuts (proved true) and I honestly just want to live my life and not have that being a central focus of it.
Unfortunately a local person who knows about it told her son, who was a young 20s gay male at the time he contacted me (now a transwoman). Again, he was someone who wanted to know how I knew, among other things. I did discuss some things with him but I had to explain to him that I didn’t understand “questioning” people since I knew from a young age, did not desist in it and never questioned it. So how am I supposed to help someone who says they aren’t really sure??
As far as I’m concerned if you’re not __really__ sure, you’re not really trans! You will know if you are because you won’t need to question it. The acceptance of the “questioning” thing as just another aspect of transgender is a disturbing trend. This whole thing is a disturbing trend. I find it’s an embarrassment to be known as transgender anymore because it’s become something it’s not. You can’t have endless definitions of something that’s more specific.
I think at least some of the adults trying to be supportive of kids have their hearts in the right place, but it’s highly unwise in my opinion. God I knew that before all this blew up. It’s just not smart to discuss anything even remotely sexual with a minor. Heck even the mother of that gay guy, now transwoman, got mad at me for supposedly influencing him … which I did nothing of the sort and she was the one who pushed me into unsolicited, unwanted contact with him!! At least he was an adult at the time.
Sorry for length, will stop now.
Hi.
I haven’t really been on this site in a while, so I may be a little late in replying to your comment.
Nowadays “trans” is a trend which wouldn’t be a big deal except that there’s all these “progressive” adults falling over themselves to validate it. I think normally it would have been something that most people gave up in their mid-20s, like being super emo. But now young people are being pushed into taking cross-sex hormones that will permanently damage their endocrine system when maybe all they need is to do is learn not to obsess over sexist stereotypes so much.
As for minors, I think you did the right thing. Unfortunately, even if you only made videos about yourself, minors are going to emulate you and if/when they realize they made a mistake, mostly everyone is pretty hostile to anyone who detransitions. As for me, the only minors I see in real life are related to me, and only on holidays. I don’t talk to minors on the internet on purpose.
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This reminds me so much of Stefan Molyneux “de-fooing” that he tells his cult followers to do.
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Called it! http://www.cnn.com/2017/11/29/health/glitter-environment-hazard-microbead-ban-trnd/index.html
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