A Centrist Perspective On Transgenderism

Once again, the inmates are running the asylum. The world is on eggshells as roughly 15% of opposite extremes continue to fight tooth and nail to control the narratives of the lives of the 85% of rational people in the middle. Let’s start with facts, which remain factual regardless of which side you’re viewing them from or how they affect your opinions.

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Even ultra-religious folks who believe it’s some sort of sin must acknowledge that gender dysphoria is a real condition. Most of us can’t imagine the challenges, and likely despair, of feeling as though we were born as the wrong gender. Think of it as you are now if you feel your gender is correct, but looked down to see the opposite genitalia - not a comforting discovery. This applies to any condition which is experienced by a significant minority - the feelings of ostracization, ridicule, and loathing from those people who are incapable of empathy toward anything they can’t understand. Sorry to break it to everyone, but this small percentage of people have always existed, and they always will.

Reuters points out that about ½ of 1% of adults identify as transgender, while 1.4% of youths aged 13-17 do as well. This raises many questions, none of which seek to promote denial or rejection of any kind.

One question is, why should 99.5% of the population be expected to bend over backward to accommodate such a significant minority (beyond equal opportunity and protection from harm, obviously)? Equal rights in education, employment, and civil liberties are already assured by law. Most folks wish no ill will toward trans people, but prefer to be left out of it as it simply doesn’t apply to their lives. At what point does “live and let live” apply to both sides?

Another question steers us toward issues with adolescent transitioning. If studies show that teenagers are almost three times as likely to identify as trans (1.4% - .5%), shouldn’t we conclude that not all teens are reading their body signals correctly? Would that really be a surprise?

If nearly two out of three no longer identify in adulthood, doesn’t that support the notion that outside factors sometimes - and perhaps even often - affect the perceptions of changing bodies and their places in the world? Peer pressure, drastic hormone changes, feelings of inadequacy, desire for acceptance, and depression are all common teenage obstacles that can (though not always) confuse young minds into all sorts of misunderstandings that they eventually outgrow. This is not a denial of gender dysphoria, but a recognition of the trials of every human being in their youth.

We can acknowledge that there are transphobic haters out there, and some who resort to violent, reprehensible actions. Fuck them, and anyone else who chooses hateful ignorance towards any innocent person, regardless of the reason. But extreme trans activism, with its bully pulpits and bullhorns, tries to paint everyone this way to promote their agenda.

We can also acknowledge that some truly gender dysphoric children, who will carry that identity into adulthood, live in unaccepting family situations which have occasionally led to suicide. This is horrifying and heartbreaking - parental education is surely needed, as well as adept outside recognition and available counseling to help those affected kids. But we must also recognize that it’s quite rare, and that even though one instance is too many, decisions about parenting should remain the purview of parents.

Society is compelled to intervene in cases of abuse or neglect, and that surely extends to trans children as well. What it is not compelled to do, however, is force its views on families or make unilateral medical choices on their behalf. Which is greater - the number of kids who have killed themselves over parental mishandling of their trans identities, or the number of kids who identify as trans but later reconsider it? Neither are common, but both exist. Actively promoting these alternatives to developing minds in schools - and offering physical assistance to achieving these outcomes without parental awareness or involvement - crosses every line of propriety.

Kids do, in fact, think they identify as trans but later discover they were mistaken - not always, but sometimes. Some continue to experience gender dysphoria into adulthood, but regret having medically transitioned - again not always, but sometimes. Outside medical intervention without parental consent dismisses these individuals and denies their experiences, relegating them to cannon fodder in the war of inclusion when their bodies have been irreversibly altered by drugs or surgeries in ways they might eventually regret. That, too, has led to suicidal intentions. Do those not count?

Science has determined that our minds are still developing well into our twenties. We follow those criteria when determining things as varied as criminal culpability, responsible smoking and drinking, and sexual consent. We set eighteen as the general age of legal adult decision-making, as it would be functionally untenable to try to prevent young adults from seeking their independence much later than that.

So there is certainly an argument for permitting high school seniors to begin exploring gender transitioning and medical reassignment since the odds of a change of heart are greatly reduced by that point. Additionally, bodies at that age have mostly reached physical maturity, and personal decisions will no longer legally require parental involvement soon thereafter anyway. But again, the benefits or ramifications of such measures are for those individuals and their families to decide at that age; not the rest of us, and certainly not our education system.

Also significant is the role for which schools exist and were initially created. Whether you personally have a problem with schools teaching their interpretations of sex and gender fluidity or not, the overwhelming majority of surveyed parents feel that it should be their job when they feel the time is right for their individual children, who mature at vastly different rates. Agree with their timing or not, it’s not up to anyone else to decide this. Teachers can protect marginalized children by simply teaching the universal concept that there are many people who are different from us in one way or another, and that we need to treat them all with respect and acceptance. There, it’s that easy.

Most parents also feel it is yet another distraction, in both time and focus, from the educational curricula for which they send their kids to school in the first place. That fact is mathematically unavoidable since nothing exists in a vacuum - any time spent on something else cannot, by definition, be spent on actual school work.

If you reject the sexualized book content or side presentations sometimes associated with “Drag Story Hour”, it does not mean that you are transphobic or oppose a person who happens to be transgender reading appropriately to kids. Nor are you automatically transphobic if you question the fairness of biological males competing in female sports, using female restrooms, or being jailed in female prisons.

Surely, education is key to prevention, but it is up to individuals to decide what and where. Seeking control over what our kids are exposed to - and when - is not hate or denial, it’s the definition of parenting.

Zephareth Ledbetter is the author of “A White Man’s Perspectives on Race and Racism”, available as an ebook at smashwords.com/books/view/1184004, and can be reached on Facebook and Twitter