by worriedmom
As 2017 rolls along, the pro-pediatric and teen transition movements only appear to be growing stronger. In the United States, we now have some 50+ transition clinics, up from one such clinic in 2007. School curricula are revised daily to educate our youngest students about their fluid gender identities, Jazz Jennings is now an authoritative source for kindergartners, and children are fully apprised of their opportunities to choose a different sex from the one with which they were born. State after state has passed legislation providing that the “full affirmation” approach is now the only legally permissible therapeutic modality for people under the age of 18. And, of course, the barrage of “transgender” “sparkle princess fairy boy” and mastectomy-receiving, happy at last, teen girl stories continues, with nary a skeptical word, much less analysis. It’s overwhelming at times, and (despite these smiling faces) horribly sad.
http://www.etonline.com/news/163373_9_inspirational_stories_of_transgender_kids_their_supportive_parents/
It also seems as if most respected forces in our culture are lined up behind the pro-transition juggernaut. The major professional medical associations, such as the American Medical Association and the American Psychological Association, are strongly pro-transgender. Educators at all levels, many faith communities, major corporations and needless to say what remains of the “mainstream media” could not be more uncritical and supportive of the notion of child and teen transgenderism. Social service agencies, public and private, adopt affirmative regulations and policies in areas such as adoption and foster care; organizations that previously focused on women’s health and issues, such as Planned Parenthood and even my beloved La Leche League, rush to serve transgender people, whether this service correlates with their mission or not. Politicians and law-makers, particularly on the liberal side of the aisle (where many of us 4thWaveNow parents previously would have located ourselves without a qualm), bend over backwards to signal their support for this newest of civil rights causes, the transgendered.
In short, all the best, seemingly most educated, and sophisticated, people and institutions in our culture are fervent–if not vociferous–supporters of the transgender lobby. Some days, it seems as if the pro-transgender outcome is entirely foreordained.
It may well be. By the time some of today’s children are tomorrow’s exhausted parents, gender change may be the equivalent of getting braces, or a learners driving permit. Changing one’s gender through surgery and hormones may be as unremarkable as having tonsils or adenoids out, getting ear tubes, or an asthma inhaler. The distinction between “boy” and “girl” may have ceased, for all intents and purposes, to be relevant to any human activity. Certainly this seems to be the Brave New Future envisioned for us by the transgender lobby.
And yet.
Perhaps at this juncture we might recall that there was a time, really not so very long ago, that the most esteemed thinkers in this country, and around the world, believed, and more importantly acted, on an extreme philosophy about human beings and their relationship to society. This belief system was, in its shaky philosophic underpinnings and its questionable science, extraordinarily similar to the transgender movement. I speak, of course, of modern-day eugenics.
There is a meticulously detailed record of the eugenic philosophy and its impacts, and no blog piece can adequately convey more than a sliver of this incredible story. (There is a short list of excellent books about eugenics appended to the end of this blog post, for those who are curious and would like to learn more.)
To put it very simply, modern eugenics was a scientific philosophy and eventually a social movement that derived, in large part, from the evolutionary theories of Charles Darwin. Although ideas of eugenics date back to Plato, modern eugenics emerged in the mid-1800s with Sir Francis Galton, a statistician, scientist, and cousin of Charles Darwin. Once concepts of Mendelian genetics were discovered (seemingly bolstering Galton’s theory), eugenics, literally translated as “good birth,” became an intellectual craze that by the early 1900’s had swept the United States and which endured, in some forms, right up until the 1960’s.
Using the same logic that underlies modern animal-breeding practices, eugenic theory held that societies would do best to encourage their most capable, energetic and “fit” members to reproduce, and should discourage their less-capable members from reproducing. The concern was that the mechanism of natural selection (“survival of the fittest”) would not operate, in a modern world, to keep the weakest members from reproducing, “polluting the gene pool,” and would result in an inevitable deterioration and decline of that society.
Eugenicists supported both “positive eugenics” (educating and encouraging “fit” people to reproduce, which would theoretically improve the gene pool) and “negative eugenics” (sterilizing or institutionalizing the unfit or otherwise barring them from reproducing, to remove their undesirable characteristics from a society’s “breeding stock” ). With the hope of proving that undesirable social traits were heritable, the eugenics movement also collected massive amounts of data, documenting “family lines” and “inherited characteristics,” although it did not necessarily heed what much of that data suggested.
Eugenics did not originate, or take hold, in a vacuum. Three underlying social forces were racism (and the ingrained belief that “the races” could be rank-ordered by desirability); persistent anxiety about the impact of immigration on the United States, including fast-paced demographic change created by large numbers of African-American people leaving the South; and, especially in the decade of the 1930’s, worry about the financial and social costs of subsidizing members of society who could not “pull their weight.” As I believe will ultimately be shown with transgenderism, there were larger and stronger currents that caused eugenics to become wildly popular at the time and place that it did.
From today’s perspective, of course, we understand that genetics simply does not work in the way in which the eugenicists hypothesized. Gene pools are way too large and variegated. Subjective negative social traits such as criminality, “feeble-mindedness,” and laziness cannot be inherited (at one time people believed that humans could acquire characteristics during their lifetimes, and these traits could then be inherited). Despite the collection of massive amounts of data, and laws giving state actors tremendous leeway in determining who was and was not “unfit,” it proved to be extraordinarily difficult, if not impossible, to measure undesirability and to eliminate or decrease it in a population.
Finally, of course, sterilizing people who are incapable of giving informed consent or who obj
ect to it eventually came to be considered to be a human rights violation (except in the current pediatric transition context of course). The death knell for the eugenics movement came during the post-World War II Nazi war crimes trials at Nuremburg, during which it was revealed that American eugenics theory provided much of the rationale for the Final Solution. As noted above, however, it took decades longer before mandatory sterilization and sequestration laws were entirely removed from the books.
For a movement that ended in widespread censure, if not to say collective amnesia, eugenics sure was popular while it lasted. And part of the reason for this popularity was that it received the intellectual imprimatur and endorsement of the finest minds and most elite and revered institutions both in the United States and abroad. Consider some of the most prominent supporters of the eugenics movement:
- President Teddy Roosevelt;
- Helen Keller;
- G. Wells;
- Winston Churchill;
- Alexander Graham Bell;
- John Maynard Keynes;
- Victoria Woodhull;
- Luther Burbank; and
- E.B. duBois.
Source , source, source, source
Funding for the eugenics movement came from distinguished organizations, such as the Carnegie Foundation and the WK Kellogg Foundation, as well as influential leaders of the oil, railroad, and steel industries (the Harrimans, the Rockefellers, and others). Eugenics ideas were ratified and endorsed by virtually every powerful institution in society, from the United States Supreme Court on down. In the notorious Buck v. Bell case (which incidentally has never been overturned), pre-eminent jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. ruled that “It is better for all the world if, instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind.”
The elite educational establishment (the best and the brightest, if you will) was fully on board – at one point over 375 American colleges offered eugenics courses, including Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Cornell. According to a 2016 article in Harvard Magazine,
Harvard’s role in the [eugenics] movement was in many ways not surprising. Eugenics attracted considerable support from progressives, reformers, and educated elites as a way of using science to make a better world. Harvard was hardly the only university that was home to prominent eugenicists. Stanford’s first president, David Starr Jordan, and Yale’s most acclaimed economist, Irving Fisher, were leaders in the movement. The University of Virginia was a center of scientific racism, with professors like Robert Bennett Bean, author of such works of pseudo-science as the 1906 American Journal of Anatomy article, ‘Some Racial Peculiarities of the Negro Brain.’
Sadly, many religious leaders, particularly mainline Protestants supportive of the “Social Gospel” movement, became strong proponents of eugenics ideology:
Many Social Gospel adherents viewed eugenics as God’s plan to reconcile the truths of science with the Bible. Toward this end, Bible verses were reinterpreted and found to contain what had theretofore been secret eugenics messages. Thus, in one minister’s sermon, Noah’s flood was God’s own eugenics policy for eliminating a human race that had degraded and become inferior. Others insisted that Christ’s Parable of the Talents was actually about improving the population: In eugenics exegeses, ‘Whoever has will be given more; whoever does not have, even what he thinks he has will be taken from him,’ took on a whole new meaning.
Early feminists, such as the National Federation of Women’s Clubs and the National League of Women Voters, as well as pioneering birth control activists, such as Margaret Sanger, were strong eugenics backers. The cultural and academic current was irresistible: receiving support from virtually all elite sectors of society, by 1910, there was an extensive and vibrant network of pro-eugenics research institutes and conferences, as well as lobbying groups and professional associations.
Was there any pushback against the eugenics movement before its Nazi-engendered demise? As Andrea DenHoed put it in the New Yorker last year, “there was widespread skepticism about eugenics among those whom Oliver Wendell Holmes once referred to as ‘the thick-fingered clowns we call the people,’ but the opposition wasn’t large or organized enough to effectively counter the influential network behind the movement.” The Catholic Church and its lay members also mounted opposition to the eugenics philosophy, but were far less effective in thwarting eugenics legislation in the United States, than in Europe. Even as early as 1910, some scientists began to discover that the field of genetics did not work the way eugenics thought it did (these scientific caveats were mostly ignored or explained away). Generally speaking, then, eugenics ideas were considered entirely self-evident and socially beneficial, and opponents were consigned to the ranks of “fundamentalist fanatics” and backwoods retrogrades. Concerns or skepticism were simply dismissed or ignored as ignorant, backwards, and out of step with “modern” realities. Even as scientific knowledge advanced, and eugenics’ principles no longer appeared factually certain, the “true believers” in eugenics persisted and continued to harm the most vulnerable members of society.
Future blog posts will explore the similarities between the foundational understandings and aims of the eugenics movement and modern-day transition theory. For now, however, the parallel is simply that eugenics, like pediatric transgender philosophy, was a theory that was whole-heartedly embraced and promoted by the social, intellectual, cultural and scientific elites of its day – until it wasn’t. It is indeed frightening to contemplate whether eugenics would ever have been discredited, had it not been for the fact that the Germans took it to its logical conclusion. But is this what comes of letting “all the best people” make life and death decisions for the rest of us? What happens when they’re wrong?
Interested in learning more? Check out these sources:
War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America’s Campaign to Create a Master Race, by Edwin Black
Imbeciles: The Supreme Court, American Eugenics, and the Sterilization of Carrie Buck, by Adam Cohen
The Nazi Connection, by Stefan Kuhl
In 1984, the New Yorker ran a four-part series entitled The Annals of Eugenics (reproduced here) (paywall) which is also very much worth the reader’s time.
The parallels are indeed striking and I look forward to your next post.
This is an amazing article! I really do appreciate your work in trying to unveil the truth.
Great article! Yes, there is a strong parallel to the eugenics movement of the past. When will people wake up? Or be brave enough to speak up?
Pingback: The eugenics craze: All the BEST people… – 'Gender' hides the problem
Transhumanism/posthumanism is the latest flavor of these ideas — again, the effort to create ‘superior’ beings. Preferably a whole new sort of humanity. Changing your actual sex (not just gender) dovetails nicely with all the other choices that could be made to create the ideal posthuman organism. Heck, if we’re all going to become some kind of robot/humans, sex will be pretty immaterial anyhow.
Transwoman Martine Rothblatt, head of United Therapeutics, is an ardent transhumanist.
Great history, worriedmom. Especially the reminder that just because “all the best people” are pushing/endorsing something, does not mean it is a de facto good thing. Thank you.
It is clear to me where this movement comes from. Its profound homophobia (and biphobia as well) gives the main clue. Pull the thread and it is, I think, a backlash against the rise of gay and lesbian rights in the Western world. They couldn’t suppress gays any more, so they try to transition them now.
The core belief that guides them is genderism: that people’s behavior must be dictated by their biological sex. Now that traditional genderism is failing, they’re promoting a new one, similar to the ways capitalism and anti-black racism have transformed themselves throughout the eras in order to survive.
I absolutely agree that the transgender movement is anti-homosexual. It is also a backlash against the women’s movement.
In the case of transgenderism, I think the parallels to eugenics are even worse. I say this because with transgenderism, the patients themselves have become convinced by the eugenicists that sterilization is exactly what they need as part of their cure. The trans patients believe this because the eugenicists at organizations like WPATH have convinced them with their medical ideologies that they were born defective. The Germans weren’t able to convince the Jews that they should march off to the gas chambers on their own, but the gender and surgery clinics have accomplished that exact thing. It doesn’t get any uglier than that.
No actually, although there will be some right-wing religious families that feel better about transitioning their kids than having little pre-gay kids. This is all coming from within the LGBT community. It’s being pushed by the trans-movement. It’s supported by LGBT organizations. The gay men and lesbians who run these organizations and make six figures a year are promoting it. They need things to do now that gay marriage has past. It’s supported by left-wing social justice warrior sociologists, psychologists, and doctors, many of whom actively obscure the risks because they are so extreme they feel not to do so would be transphobic. Some of these professionals who call themselves queer and haven’t actually transitioned are starting to adopt they/them pronouns but they really just look like every other woman and they’re doing this even though they’re over the age of 30. No this is coming from within the queer community. The left side of it and the het left. It’s the pro woman radfem lesbians/(and a few bisexuals), more rational liberals, and moderate/conservative LGB people that are freaking out about this. And the liberal establishment is doing nothing but going along with all of it and asking zero hard questions and intentionally no-platforming people who raise reasonable concerns. It’s not mostly homophobia, this is left-wing open-mindedness and progress. And your five-year-old is going to have to respect using an unlimited amount of pronouns in school now or they’re going to be punished. Young children are going to be taught that there are multiple genders and they can choose to be anyone that they want to with a medical regimen catered to how butch or fem they want to be. When they start to feel distressed they will be medicalized right away and everybody will support it and you’ll be at risk for losing your child if you don’t go along with it. The school systems are going to be a hotbed of language and thought policing. If the public starts to hear stories about young people being harmed by transition or starts to push back on the dozens of pronouns and gender identity confusion it’ll be the gay and lesbian community and allowing gay marriage to happen that will be blamed for all of this in the end.
But they’re organizing for this world hard. I listen to their talks and their seminars. And it’s going to start in kindergarten on up through the rest of society. It’s happening as of yesterday actually.
Although I may not share the apocalyptic prediction, I think you have a great point. As I read comments above and on this site about how the transgender push is from a homophobic base, I keep asking, ‘but is there really a cohesive homophobic base that has the money to fund this, is organized, has the political and media connections, and the power to make it happen? And most importantly, what’s their unifying motivation?’ The right-wing groups wouldn’t be tacking their directives onto a left-wing LGB platform and don’t seem to tick all the boxes. The LGB seem to tick all the boxes. I’ve always be very pro-LG and accepting of B.
As astonishing as it is to us parents who’ve seen the pain and anguish of a child who falsely (and often suddenly and under manipulation of friends and/or media) believes that their true self is trapped in the wrong body, I actually think these activists think they are doing something good for all of humanity.
This also fits the LGB base because they are organized to fight for acceptance, respect and love people like themselves. They feel they have a moral obligation to this cause of equality, justice, and acceptance.
I am normally on-board with all of that. If I hadn’t seen how this mostly well-intentioned (but not where financial interests eclipse it) transgender activism can completely and utterly destroy a person’s entire psyche – before my very own eyes in my very own house – I’m not sure I would’ve ever questioned it.
(FYI: I have previously posted as RGutsRloudandclear. After registering at WordPress, I am now going by thinkandblinkparents – I am NOT having not an identity crisis, I swear! I’m still the same gender – female 🙂 I am often reflecting my husbands points of views as well as my own, so I used plural “parents”.)
This is all coming from within the LGBT community.
Let’s look at some of the people who have been pushing the transactivist agenda in Britain recently.
1. Maria Miller, MP, Chair of the House of Commons Women and Equalities Committee. Married, heterosexual.
2. Bernard and Terry Reed of GIRES. Heterosexual couple, zealous evangelists for ‘trans rights’ for many years. GIRES was cited eight times in the Women and Equalities Committee Report on Transgender Equality.
3. Susie Green of Mermaids. Heterosexual woman, believer in early social transition for ‘gender nonconforming’ children, campaigner for lowering the age at which the NHS prescribes cross-sex hormones to children. (It is currently 16.) Mermaids was cited nine times in the Women and Equalities Committee Report, several times at some length.
4.Jay Stewart of Gendered Intelligence. Transman. Cited four times in the text of the Women and Equalities Committee Report, referenced several more times in the notes.
5. Stephen Whittle, Professor of Equalities Law at Manchester Metropolitan University. Transman. Co-founder of Press for Change, the oldest trans campaigning organisation in Britain. Former president of WPATH. Specialist Advisor to the Women and Equalities Committee for the Transgender Equality inquiry.
6. Helen Belcher of Transmedia Watch. Transwoman. Liberal Democrat candidate for Chippenham in the last election. Cited ten times in the Women and Equalities Committee Report. Zealous promoter of ‘press regulation’. Have you ever wondered why the Guardian and some other UK news organs toe the transactivist line so relentlessly? Look into the activities of Transmedia Watch.
7. And yes, there is Stonewall, headed by lesbian Ruth Hunt. Stonewall jumped on the transactivist bandwagon only very recently. Let’s see what they have to say for themselves about that:
‘Stonewall was set up in 1989 as a charity to campaign for sexual orientation equality. In February 2015, after an extensive consultation with over 700 trans people Stonewall extended its remit and became a charity which campaigns for lesbian, gay, bi and trans equality.’
So LGB people didn’t get a say. But that is usual for Stonewall, which is not a membership organisation but a pressure group run by and for a self-appointed crew of metropolitan elitists. What they chiefly want from LGB people is money and uncritical approval. But definitely no policy input.
*
The ‘LGBT community’, by the way, is a useful political fiction: nothing more.
Thanks for providing this list. It’s good info for me. However, I have to add a few things to it. I’ve sent out literally hundreds of emails to all the LGBT orgs, including to the individual gay men and lesbians who run them. I’ve also reached out to them on social media and I’ve seen many other gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and concerned straight people do the same thing and provide links to information that demonstrates that youth transitions could potentially over medicalize gnc kids or cases of ACTUAL harm. Is that stopping Chad Griffin from the HRC with his bloated salary from hauling out Jazz Jennings at their functions or from any of these LGBT websites from omitting information about risks of this and the connection between childhood dysphoria and adult homosexuality in their source material to the public? Are the gay men who edit Huffpost queer going to print any actual balanced articles? You think Kate Kendall who runs the National Center for Lesbian Rights isn’t getting forwarded all the information that’s shared around here? And these trans conferences, a bunch of the social workers and therapists who attend ID genderfluid even though they’re just regular lesbians and bisexuals who aren’t even transitioning medically. Whoever runs Diva magazine’s Twitter account called the website transgendertrend.com and this one “bigotry masked as concern” even though whatever lesbian is running that has no idea about what they’re even talking about with this whole topic. Heather Hogan, the lesbian who runs the most popular queer women’s online magazine called this website a hate site and oppressive to trans people and likens lesbians who aren’t happy with current trans identity politics to Nazis. Zack Ford, a gay man and a writer, will attack even completely reasonable articles about risks of youth transitions. And it’s not everybody but in general there’s no community that’s more of a hard core supporter of all aspects of the trans agenda than the bisexual community. I could go on. I don’t exactly agree with you that LGB aren’t participating in all of this. They are, and they’re all the leftists which isn’t representative of the entire LGB community but a good portion of it. And they’re acting the same way the whole left wing is acting in the West right now.
I agree that LGBT organizations are pushing the trans movement, but I’ve never met a lesbian who liked that the “T”s were tacked on (not to mention the rest of the alphabet that eventually followed the “T”). So there are activists who are supporting it, but based on my personal experience, I don’t believe the average person is. Your average lesbian loves being a woman and in no way identifies with people who want to change their gender. Of course, I’m middle aged now, and things were never like they are now, with potential lesbians being convinced by other that they’re actually men.
Technically, even the “L” and “G” don’t belong together, other than they are both attracted to people of their own gender. It’s not like lesbians are like gay men – we’re waaaay more like straight women than we are like gay men.
Trust me when I say most lesbians shudder that activists are speaking for us when their opinions do not represent our opinions at all!
Thank you for this excellent post, worriedmom. I’m convinced that the transgender craze is the bastard child of the eugenics and the lobotomy movements. This post and the prior one regarding the history of lobotomy should be on the front page of the New York Times, but alas, that’s not happening.
On a personal level, I most appreciated your description of how all the “best” people — politicians, academics, journalists — were all enthusiastically on board with the eugenics movement. Until they suddenly were not. It helps to make me feel just a bit less crazy out here in the wild as one of the “transphobic bigot” parents who can’t bear to see their children slowly destroy their physical and mental health.
Thank you Concerned for your good words and I’m glad you enjoyed the article (also thanks to the other positive commenters above!)
I think this is one of the most excruciating things about watching this craze unfold in real time. There are a lot of things out there that are upsetting and terrible, and we all pretty much agree that they are upsetting and terrible. But I feel that as to pediatric and teen transition, we are voices “crying in the wilderness” and not only ignored, but actively shunned and stigmatized as bigots and know-nothings – even when we raise entirely valid concerns, in a mild and respectful tone. Particularly for those of us (at least in the past) on the liberal side of politics, it’s a place of tremendous cognitive dissonance.
It’s so ghastly, isn’t it, to see this train wreck happening, and feel so powerless to do anything about it. I mean we all do what we can, in our own families or timidly speaking up in our communities, and this site and a few others provide a good platform, but in the end it’s like standing on the shore watching the tsunami come rolling in. And everybody else is throwing a cocktail party and saying, how wonderful it all is!
Yes, it is ghastly. A parent whose child has trans-derailed understands that this is such an unimaginable outcome for our child that it seems impossible to wrap one’s brain around it. Other people not directly affected, either don’t care, or they are so influenced by the mindlessness of the other side that they have become converts, sometimes reactive converts.
It is possible to give someone another perspective. I did that yesterday. Oh, the dread of running in to someone you know or knew way back when. A friendly parent asked me about my daughter. She had heard stuff from various people. I didn’t mind. Most people now pretend that she doesn’t even exist. Well, our daughter has always been very much a part of our family and I still have hope that she will come back. This parent peppered me with some of the talking points that she had learned in her updated teacher training. The friendly parent told me in a tense voice that the person we knew was gone and would never really exist again and basically, we should just get over it. I was able to share with her many of the things I have learned on this terrible transgender spiral. I shared with her the online influences. I shared some of the culture of trans, as in, the erasure of history and deadnaming. I let her know about social influences and mental health issues.
I told her that I knew that my daughter’s essential self was still there and that gives me hope.
To all concerned- please read Third Way Trans newest post!!! Apparently dertransitioners were no platformed in a Philadelphia conference for transgender health. It i is INFURIATIING that these people’s voices and valid concerns are being silenced and dismissed! The trans message is support support support. Where the hell is the support for this group of people?? If the trans train eventually crashes and burns it will. E their own damn fault for not being willing to even consider other options or opinions on treatment for gender dysphoria. They are more invested in being right then in actual concern for all suffering from dysphoria. If you ask me I say they get what they deserve if lawsuits start rolling in!!!
I really truly want to believe that gender clinics and therapists aren’t motivated by money but when I see how only one treatment pathway for trans people is pushed well… it really makes me have some serious doubts if their intentions aren’t at least somewhat motivated by money😡
If eugenics was only ended by the nazis taking it to the logical conclusion … then what will end transgenderism? Homosexual people are already being forced to “transition” (i.e. get sterilized) in Iran, and clearly, that did not result in people being more sceptical of the transing of children.
Genderists already claim that it is people with common sense who “force” trans to “get sterilized” when actually, this is just a requirement of having their sex legally changed, something that has absolutely zero impact on life quality in civilised countries because being a gay man is perfectly legal. (A woman might potentially profit from being officially male when it comes to applying to jobs, but that is something better adressed by anti-discrimination laws)
And it is the genderists who exert pressure on children to get sterilized, and on parents to allow this.
Basically, they complain when people think that someone should at least get surgery before everyone is required to play pretend that they are the sex they aren’t, but also complain when someone objects to their sterilization of children.
I don’t think it’s going to end until/unless the lawsuits alleging bodily/psych harm from medical treatments start flying. And until/unless courts start ruling in the favor of plaintiffs in such cases, and making big awards.
Those “blockers” are bad drugs and I think it’s only a matter of time.
Natal males seem to do OK on estrogen (not all though), but I think it’s also only a matter of time before the lawsuits regarding damage from testosterone in natal females start arising.
Only big suits/awards are going to get the media’s attention, I fear. Otherwise they are all too busy being justice warriors and virtue signallers.
I sense that you may be right. It’s so alarming how rapidly this trend, this rush to transition, has been validated by all facets of society – but maybe this incredible “overnight” switch in society will hasten its demise. Unfortunately, there will still be many child victims and parents in anguish left in its wake before sanity is restored….
Numerous studies show that many, if not most human traits, are heritable to some degree. In no way does this support forced sterilization or the Nazi’s “Final Solution,” however. Do you think we are all blank slates not impacted by our genes? That’s simply not true. Hundreds of studies refute that idea.
All human behavioral traits are heritable. See this review of the evidence:
https://jaymans.wordpress.com/2012/12/31/all-human-behavioral-traits-are-heritable/
I had not seen this article before and it obviously needs time and attention, which I will give it. A quick skim reveals that the authors conclude that all human traits are to some degree heritable, and probably more than we generally think. If you accept that, how would you use this knowledge to make social policy? I’m curious about how accepting that behavior is significantly genetic and heritable affects how we should think about the latest eugenics movement.
There is ZERO scientific evidence that this is the case. Until there is actual proof of a behavior being genetic, we have to reject your claim.
worriedmom – I’m late to this article, but I signed into wordpress because I am so impressed with your writing and I wanted to mention that. I have found this whole website, the usual writer, and the commenters very impressive. But your writing jumped out even more to me. You pack a lot of information in this essay, and yet it is very easy reading – actually, it’s even enjoyable reading. And your progression through the essay made things very understandable. So, besides the excellent content of your essay, your presentation is remarkable!
My goodness, thank you so very much for the kind words Lorac! As you probably know, all of the writing and work on this site is purely a labor of … well, not “love” for the issue and the trans-activists, that’s for sure, but love for our kids, the kids of other families and their parents, and the other innocent bystander communities, like lesbians, who are so badly affected by this craze.
I actually find researching and writing on these topics extremely therapeutic. It is like there is “somewhere to go” with some of the frustration and outrage I feel on a daily basis (I haven’t written about it here, but I am especially appalled at what the activist community is doing to girls’ and women’s sports, and I feel like I’m yelling into a black hole the vast majority of the time). So, it is really REALLY nice to feel like I’m being heard by someone like yourself!
Welcome to the site and maybe one of these days you will write an article yourself!