This guest post is courtesy of Joseph A. Kohm, III, Regent Law 2016 Alumni:
Abigail Schrier, Wall Street Journal
writer and lawyer from Yale Law School, has stepped courageously into the
transgender debate with her new book Irreversible Damage, which made
waves when Amazon.com refused
to allow advertising for it on their site claiming it contained “objectionable content
about sexual orientation.” Ironically, Schrier acknowledges and supports the
scientifically proven helpfulness of social and/or medical transitioning for
some transgender individuals. With all the gentle sensitivity of a concerned
parent, Schrier highlights the contagion-like spread of sudden transgender
identification of teen and preteen girls in Generation Z friend groups who,
prior to their trans identification announcements, showed absolutely no history
of the psychological condition called gender dysphoria (defined as severe
discomfort in one’s biological sex).
Schrier’s book draws primarily on the
research of Dr. Lisa Littman, an Ob-Gyn and public health researcher associated
with Brown University. Littman’s research revealed a sudden spike in what she termed
“rapid-onset gender dysphoria” (“ROGD”) in teen and preteen girls in the U.S.
and UK, the latter of which saw a
4,400 percent increase in teenage girls seeking gender treatments in 2018.
Her analysis of this identification
craze is multifaceted and diverse, but the most relevant avenue for this forum
is her evidence of familial division this craze is bringing about. Schrier profiles
many trans individuals and their families throughout the book, all of whom were
politically progressive and supportive of gay and transgender rights. These
parents have watched their daughters deliberately sever all connection with
them at the slightest hint of skepticism to their newfound transgender
identity, often even after their parents supported their social and medical
transitions and paid for their attendance to high profile universities. The
children are encouraged to do this at the behest of transgender “influencers”
and activists on social media (few if any of whom are scientists or doctors),
who insist that sacraments like this must be completed to validate their
announcement of their newfound trans identity.
Families are being unnecessarily and
often irreversibly demolished by this craze.
Reading some of their stories is truly heartbreaking. Schrier reveals
that these young girls often don’t seek to be the opposite sex as much as they
seek to truly rebel, find social acceptance, and reject their female birth sex.
Gen Z has been conditioned to hate traditional femininity and to rightly be
terrified of the sexual intercourse portrayed by pornography (which
virtually all of them have seen by age 11). They spend less time in
physical company with their friends than any prior generation and have almost
no actual romantic experiences. Their whole world is online; thus, their social
wellbeing hinges entirely on their acceptance by these online communities. In
our identity politics-driven culture, a trans identity is the only minority
victim status a young white girl can choose and through which she can gain
social acceptance.
Most importantly, Schrier closes her
book with a chapter on how parents can help protect their children from this
dangerous social pressure, and help them through their gender dysphoria, while also
keeping their families intact and supporting transgender rights. Beautifully
written and thoroughly researched, for anyone concerned with the health of
daughters, and the preservation of the nuclear family, this is surely the most
important book you could read this year.
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